I Grew a Pair

   I am awkward, shy and sensitive by nature, I'm told. The way that I walk, talk, pretty much everything about me is in some way awkward. Now that is not exactly a downfall, I definitely see it that way anyway. But it can, however make interacting with others difficult at times. 

   Recently a switch turned in my life, I went from having a back off energy to an inviting one. Especially towards co-eds. I have always been comfortable around boys, I actually prefer them to girls. They are simple, again not a downfall, but their simple nature makes thing easier I find. Anyway, I'm good with boys that I do not like, but when it comes to the romantic interests its like my clumsiness and tendency to stutter is heightened. I become a walking fool. Haha! A trait I'm working on.

   I have this fear of rejection, like I'm sure many people have. This fear causes to take the safe road when it comes to crushes, not putting myself out there. Since I am trying this new thing, not regretting my decisions, I decided to face this this fear head on and smack it to the curb. I, for the first time let my crush, who is a friend, know that I liked him. Not in person, I'm not that brave. :) I wrote this big Facebook message explaining to him that I like him but didn't want to ruin our friendship. I did this because our friendship nearly ended in April, and even though we went with our other friends a little while ago, I don't really see that our friendship can in fact be saved from that. Maybe we will see each other here and there but not like before. So I felt that I had nothing to loose, I was rejected in a way, it wasn't that he said that he didn't feel the same about me, because he is the type of person that may not say it first but he is honest, but he did say that he wasn't ready for a relationship, which is understandable considering that he just got out of a relationship a little while ago. 

   I wasn't expecting anything from this declaration, I just wanted to know, there are just somethings that you need to know. The aftermath is what shocked me. Instead of mourning and being really upset, I felt lighter, like I was free to move on. I want a boyfriend, a boyfriend that is available and willing to start something with me. And now that I know I feel like I can do that without wondering about the what ifs. 

   Rejection isn't a total bad thing, it isn't something to be feared, it's just part of life. 

   "When you're following your inner voice, doors tend to eventually open for you, even if they mostly slam at first" - Kelly Cutrone, If You Have to Cry, Go Outside: And Other Things Your Mother Never Told You

                        

       

Families and the Stuff That Come With Them

   Families can be difficult. What makes them more difficult is the guilt and obligation that come with them. A family unit there is made up of many opinions and values, and at times, these opinions clash. Sometimes the individual wants to choke their family members out and other times they laugh and have fun. 

   My sister and I's relationship has been rocky as of late. For teenage sisters close to the same age we have a pretty strong relationship but ever since she got a boyfriend things have changed, as I knew it would. She does not have time for me anymore... She is either out with him or talking on the phone with him. Her world is him right now. Yes I admit it...I'm jealous. I mean, as nice as he is, he took my sister away from me. It seems that our once constant bonding has all but parished. She does not want to waste her time with me. We barely even talk anymore. And she always comments on my attire in a negative way... which one likes I'm sure. She always has some kind of remark about how I look. 

   Over the last week, we have been at my grandmas lake and now she is just getting on my nerves. She spits despite the fact that I ask her not to in front of me. Nods when answering questions while I am not facing her and hogs my baby cousin. One day I feel like turning over to her and decking her in the face and the next we are laughing and playing. It is a rocky ride and at times i want to give up and just give her away. But that is impossible so I need to suck it up and not show the stiff that is bothering me. She is only hurting me, this doesn't bother her... She might even enjoy it at times. This is the life that my soul chose and I need to deal with it. But that doesn't mean that I have to enjoy and like it all the time. 

   People say all the time that you can't pick your family. But I believe that I not true, we do actually pick our family... our souls do anyway. Because like it or not we learn something from each other. 

   "Families are messy. Immortal families are eternaly messy. Sometimes the best we can do we can do is remind each other that we're related for better or for worse... and try to keep the maiming and killing to a minium."- Rick Riordan, The Sea of Monsters 

Out With the Old and In With the New

   Friends come and go. Some last... the true friends, but lots just pass by. Yes the time spent with them could be fun, and they may have a significant Impact on that person's life but as people change and grow these relationships may fade. 

   

   This unfortunately happened to me. I have always had trouble making friends. I'm a bit of a loner, and shy, these traits may come across as standoffish and snobby. Over the years of high school and junior high I have made few friends and most of these friends did not last. Only for a year or so. Every year I hung out with different people and in grade 10 I only had two friends. This was not what I was not expecting or even wanted. My one friend was a pessimist and it was hard to be around her and the other was just a person that I hung around so that I would not be alone. 

   In grade 11, I made a true friend, she is great, supportive, funny and always there. We first became friends when we hung with the same group. Her "best friend" was a mutual friend of mine but we never really talked for a while, as we grew close, our other friend became jealous. She was not used to not having control over her and it was not something that she liked. It only took a couple months for her to completely cut us out of her life... Good riddings. She brought my friend down. 

   The two of us were almost attached by the hip, inseparable. We still are very close, we even have more things to talk about now that we go to separate schools, it is hard however to hang out lately. This is only due to diplomas though, and things will change. 

   I can't say the same about my other friends. The gap made between us due to one of their girlfriends and my injury did not bring us closer like it did with my true friend but it tore us apart. Our once fun encounters and plans became tainted with awkwardness. We had nothing to talk about, it seemed to me at this moment that our entire friendship was wrapped around our school life. And now that I am away from that environment we had nothing in common. This realization hurt. So I embraced this and went along with it. 

  All is wel, though. I needed this space to make new friends. When I cut them out and stopped hanging on, a girl that I met started to come to school more, this is how our friendship launched. 

  Sometimes things need to end before other things start. The statement "for every door that closes a window opens" is so true. 

   "Remember you don't need a certain number of friends, Just a number of friends you can be certain of"-Merko Kabod quotes 

  

It's Just a Part of Life

   There are always things that are beyond a person's control, they might drive them crazy, or even get mad at them. In an ideal world those aspects could be changed, those people could be changed, but in reality they can't so the best and hardest approach to these issues is acceptance.

   I am having those issues at the moment. Control freak... I know! Haha. I have learnt to not fret over the little things, the things that cannot be changed or controlled. There is no point in worrying and stressing over these things. It only hurts that particular person... no one else. But it is part of human nature to be greedy... to want more and be in absolute control. its just not how it works, unfortunately. lately, the inconsistency and un predictable nature of my father's work is driving me up the wall. I want something that I have never had... a consistent and predictable job for him, where I can see him all the time and not have to worry about changing plans due to his work. I know its selfish, I know that the person benefitting from that would be me, and not him, but I can't help what I want.  It is not a bad thing, wanting my dad to be a consistent person in my life... is it?

   He loves what he does, and I love when he's happy, like I'm sure most people are like with their parents.  I just can't help sometimes thinking about how different my life would be if his work was different. Would I be happy? Would this change our relationship in a bad way or a good way?

   With all that aside, this is good year for me. I know some parts of my life purpose and decided that I am going to go for it. I am going to be a lawyer, another 8 years of school and I won't be done until I'm 27 because I do not finish my high school courses until January of next year, but I am still motivated.

   On top of that, I decided that I am going to be an egg donor, though the sites I looked at said that I had to be at least 21. I do not want to do it for the money, there are just a lot of individuals that want a baby but cannot reproduce, for whatever reason. Because I witnessed first hand what it is like to wait for an organ that is needed to heal someone, I decided that if I die young and healthy I will give up my organs for those in need. Something good will come out of my existence, I know it, if I can help just one person than my life in this time period will have meaning to it. And I can die with the memory of being a part of the bettering oneself movement.

   "I am only one; but still I am one. I cannot do everything; but I can do something; I will not refuse to do something I can do." -Helen Keller

A New Beginning and A Fresh Start

   There are many life changing events and situations that a person goes through that can either break them down or build them back up. I went through one of those at a young age, the last time I wrote I was enduring am injury that changed everything for me. As I mentioned it is my last year of high school and I turning 18 on Friday. For those who do not know, I experienced an injury that in all senses immobilised me, I could not move my leg due to a herniated disk that was pinching my nerve.
  
   During this time I did an extensive amount of soul searching, I questioned everything, even the things that I never thought I would. For example my faith... its difficult going through a period where you loose your faith, the very thing that people are taught to have non questionable and loyal thoughts about. I looked deep within and found that I was empty, and that I was for a long time... I just never admitted it. through this journey, I started to realise fully that I am in control of myself, I started to look for the things that make sense to me instead of having others push their beliefs on me. This started before I got injured, but it wasn't until then that I really started to search. That was all I could do... I had lots of time to sit and reflect, maybe a little too much but now I know who I truly am. Looking back now through the last 7 months, I am grateful that I went through this, there are many people who do not experience what I have, at 17, until they are much older and I am sure that some do not even get the opportunity to while they are alive in this life time.

   In this past year I have switched schools, switched mind sets and made and lost friends. Such is life. Now I am graduating, which I did not think I would this year, I am ecstatic because this is something that I looked forward to for years and thought that it was taken away with my mobility. I learnt how to cut the cord and not take others shit as my own, my true worth, my limits and flaws, I learnt, most importantly that every one is not perfect, that we should not feel ashamed to admit that we need to work at bettering ourselves. It is easy to take the convenient road rather then their own, but the trick is simple, be self and selfless at the same time, say no and yes and always, always remember that no matter who you pray to, you are never alone.

  I no longer waste my time in the past or in my state of delusion of the future because eventually we all realise that if we spend to much time looking backwards or ten blocks ahead of us, we miss the things that are happening in the now. I am overall happy, truly blissful, for the first time in years and that emptiness... its starting to disappear.

  Always remember... Stay Strong!!

   "And that is how change happens. One gesture. One person. One moment at a time."- Libba Bray (The sweet far thing)

The Lame and the Restless

For the last week I have been living on my couch, last Sunday I woke I so much pain that I could not even move, I couldn’t lay on my back, stand up, walk and sit up straight. I felt so helpless because I couldn’t do anything and to top it off I had to miss the first days of school. On the Tuesday after this started, September 4, I went to my doctor’s office and I am going to honest going from my house to the doctor’s office was one of the hardest things that I have ever done. My mom even went and got me a wheelchair but since I couldn’t sit down I used it as a walker. At the same time, using that wheelchair when I could sit down was a really cool experience for me and not the lazy ones where all ya do is use a little stick thing to control it, the one where ya actually have to work to get places. After wasting a good hour of blood tests and going to see the doctor who didn’t know what was going on with me and not being able to sit down I got some strong pain killers that I didn’t want to take but I did and it was definitely a great friend to me.

 Through this week my couch has become my best friend in the world. Like when I get up my motivation is that couch will be there for me to rest afterwards, my victory sit as I call it.

I have gone to the chiropractor three times this week and hey think that there is a problem with a disk in my back that is hitting a nerve causing pain in my leg.

But I am a lot better, it sucks that I have to go through this and it’s hard to stay positive. I should be starting my last year of high school and hanging out with my friends but there is nothing I can do but breathe and fight through this. One thing that I learned through this experience is not to take things for granted for example: having the ability to get your own food or walk to the bathroom, sleeping in my bed.

 It sucks but I will make it through this even stronger than before.

 "Physical Strength is measured by what we can carry; spiritual by what we can bear."-Unknown

Bonds

Today I am going to write about spiritual connections with other human beings. The only reason is because, like the last two posts, I have been thinking about this topic. Recently I have noticed that or feel as if one of my friends and I have a spiritual bond. Not like any other friend that I have had, this one felt different. I met him officially in the beginning of this year, my grade 11 year of high school, I can’t really explain it. I first saw him the first day of school and I was drawn to him. It’s kind of weird, for lack of a better explanation.  I now I think that is why I wanted to get to know him in grade 10.

            This feeling of being connected in a way confused me. Now if he was a girl it wouldn’t because I’m straight, but for a while I took this feeling as a crush.  In a way he is like my comfort zone, I feel safe with him. And I don’t think I mean in a lovey dovey way. Maybe he is my soul mate…maybe he is just meant to be my friend. I don’t know. All I know is that he is going to be in my life for a very long time.

            And it has come to my attention that is why I can’t stand his girlfriend, I really don’t know why he is interested in her. But as Barb said she is in his life for a reason, he needed to learn something. I don’t know, but I know that things happen for a reason.

            I decided that I was going to investigate this topic because it has been on my mind for a while. It’s weird to think that one of my best friends in high school may be the person that I am meant to be with, but he might not. Time will only tell.

            My friend Kendra also said that it was like his girlfriend had a competition going with me and I think it’s because I am his closest friend girl. Haha. I thought that she just didn’t like me and that’s why she said mean things in nice ways. It just turns out that, in my opinion, she is threatened by our relationship. Oh well.

I found this site and it said something that made sense to me about spiritual connections; “This means that both people are compatible, and that their inner spirits are harmonious with each other. Because of this, a kinship is started first, followed by deep inner emotional feelings for each other, all because the spirits are harmonious.” (http://www.awakening-intuition.com/SpiritualBonding.html)

“A friend is someone who knows all about you and still loves you.”- Elbert Hubbard