A New Year...

It’s been a while since I’ve updated my blog. But what better day to come back and write a new post than January 1^st? (Alright, so it’s technically the 2^nd since it’s past midnight…but I’m gonna go ahead and give myself that today is 1/1/11!) I’ve been home for a little over two weeks now. Boy, has this been a weird winter break. A weird holiday season. A weird version of being home. Without going into any details, let’s just say my family is about as messy and broken as I’ve ever seen it. As a result, I haven’t in the least bit felt at home. Didn’t really feel too much of the Christmas spirit. The stress of the whole situation has caused me to develop quite a bit of anxiety. Meaning, it hasn’t really felt like a vacation at all. I’ve been traveling through a gigantic range of emotions in the past two weeks. I’ve gone back and forth between feeling angry, guilty, sad, uncomfortable, pissed off, and claustrophobic. I’m used to dysfunction in my family. But it was recently taken to a whole new level of devastation and destruction. The kind you never think of touching or even coming close to your family. Sure, you’re family is a little messed up (they all are), but the bad stuff only happens to other families…Or so you think.

Anyway, this is not about the shit that’s going on with my family right now. It’s about what it has allowed me to realize. You see, the older we get, the more we see that we, and our families, are not as untouchable as our childhood naivety allowed us to think. Our parents are not superheroes. They are not infallible. They are not immune to making mistakes. We aren’t living in a fairytale world, and our actions and the actions of others do have consequences. We can’t control the people around us or the ones we love. If we want to change the way things are, or the way people act, the only way we can even get close is to start with ourselves. And then we can hope to have some sort of ripple effect on others.

So, one huge change I would like to make in myself as a result of all this mess unfolding around me? I would like to be more positively-selfish. Probably not what you were thinking, I know. But it’s a term my counselor used one day that I have come to love, appreciate, and believe in. It’s not the same as being selfish. No, selfish has a very negative connotation, and is associated with qualities like being greedy and egocentric. Rather, it’s about making decisions that put your own health and happiness first, without negatively harming or affecting those around you.

Why do I want to be more positively selfish this year?  I am, and have always been, what most people would call a pushover. I’m not a fan of conflict. Truthfully, I hate it. And so, for my whole life I have tended to consider the needs and desires of others prior to my own. This isn’t to say I’ve been a selfless angel serving the needs of those around me. That’s not the way I mean by putting others before myself. I mean, for the sake of avoiding argument, conflict, or tension I tend to allow others to make decisions for me. On a small scale, that might mean responding, “I don’t care, whatever you want,” when asked where I would like to eat or what I would like to do today. On the more serious end of the spectrum, it has translated into remaining in unhealthy and even damaging relationships for far too long, letting people I am close to hurt me over and over again, and failing to stand up for myself when my lifestyle and values are mocked or condemned by family.

So my first and most important of my many resolutions for this New Year is to be more positively selfish. To stand up for myself, my values, my beliefs, my way of life. To only enter new relationships that are truly healthy for me, and to only remain in ones that are helping me rather than hurting me. To tell someone if I feel they are treating me unfairly, abusing our relationship, using me, hurting me, not listening to me, or even just not appreciating me enough. To value myself enough to believe that I deserve healthy and happy relationships, and to fight to make that happen. Even if it means entering conflict, enduring tension, experiencing awkwardness. To stop settling. For anything less than what I deserve. If it’s not right, its not worth settling for. To do what makes me happy. What makes me truly, undeniably happy. Whether it be taking an hour to read a good book, baking cupcakes, going for a run, ordering  take-out for dinner, blogging, whatever. To stop the rushing and the racing, and make time for the little things that make me happy. That bring joy to my soul. That fuel my passions, brighten my day, and make me feel alive. That’s what keeps us going. That’s what allows us to truly live and never feel regret.

As you are thinking about your resolutions for the New Year, think about what it would mean for you to be positively selfish. How would it change your life? What would it give you the power to do, feel, and experience? How would it change your relationships, effect your happiness, bring vibrancy and joy into your life? It’s not a crime to do something for yourself. It doesn’t make you a bad person to stand by your morals when no one else believes in them. To fight for more in your life rather than settling. To make sure that your relationships are healthy for you and that those around you appreciate you. To do something that makes you truly happy. It’s not a crime. It’s not motivated by selfish desires. It’s not egotistical, self-centered, or greedy. It’s what you deserve. And if you don’t recognize your own self-worth, how do you expect those around you to know what you are worth and to treat you as well as you deserve?

 Just for the sake of having them written down…here are the rest of my new years resolutions!

2) Show love, compassion, and kindness to everyone always.

3) Find perspective and patience in times of stress.

4) Express myself through blogging regularly.

5) Eat healthy and exercise, because I know it makes me happier.

6) Read more (for fun, not school!)

7) Live a life of balance.

Would love to hear your resolutions if you’d like to share! Or about any experiences you have with positive selfishness if you take on my challenge J I know resolutions are cheesy, but there is just something so beautiful about a new year. There is hope and opportunity. As much as there ever could be. There’s no reason not to change things you want to change, not to do the things you’ve always wanted to do. It’s a new year. A fresh start. A new story…and YOU get to write it. So, why not write the best story ever heard? And then go and live it…

Airplane Clarity

As I write this post, I’m currently on a plane headed home to for winter break. The end of the college semester craziness—final exams, research papers, group projects, and the obscene amount of stress that accompanies them—prevented me from blogging, but the plane is finally providing me with some peace of mind. And so…I’m writing.

I love flying. Don’t get me wrong, the hectic holiday crowds at the airport, waiting in long lines to check your bags only to be told that they are immensely overweight, the hassle of removing your shoes and belt and placing your laptop in a bin on its own to get through security, the lack of legroom on the flight…not the finest aspects traveling. But planes, for some reason, provide me with a unique freedom to think. Sure its noisy, and my current location in the last row of the plane right next to the “lavatories”—do they think they sound less gross when they use that name?—does not smell pleasant. But, when flying alone I find an unusual amount of clarity. Maybe it has to do with being far enough away from my problems to literally rise above them. Or maybe it’s the white noise. It could even be the view of the midnight sky from the window. Regardless, I have found throughout my twenty years of life that I do my best thinking on airplanes.

So what remarkable conclusions has my airplane clarity brought me today? Well to give you a better understanding, you should know that I haven’t been home in over four months. May not sound like a huge chunk of time, but considering I’ve lived in the same house, in the same city my entire life, and that before this, the longest I had been away was eight weeks…it’s been a while. People who know me, however, would probably be surprised to learn that I have in fact missed home and am beyond ready to get there.

You see, I’ve always had a sort of adventurous spirit. I love to travel. I love venturing off to new places, meeting new people, and living new experiences. I get bored easily and am always craving new and exciting change. [During my junior and senior year of high school, for example, my idea of constantly changing things up was dying my hair a different color or drastically changing the length or style about every six weeks] That’s one of the main reasons I decided to head to New England for college. I was ready for a change…I always am, really. I wanted new weather, new friends, a new culture, a whole new life. I found it, and I absolutely fell in love with it. Clark University, Worcester, Massachusetts even, quickly and easily became my new home. I soon found myself referring to college as home and Dallas as  “Dallas”.

Another factor contributing to this easy transition was that I had always considered my close friends to be my chosen family. Don’t get me wrong, I love my family and wouldn’t change them for the world. But I grew up with a bit of a dysfunctional family—we all do these days—and found myself more attached to whoever my best friends were at the time than my parents and siblings. With one exception really: the older I got, the closer I grew to my mom. Until she pretty much became my best friend. She’s still my mom, but I really consider her more of a friend than a parent. She was never too good at the whole discipline thing. The word “no” is really just not in her vocabulary when it comes to conversing with her children. We have so much fun together, and we talk about everything. So, I really group her more with the close friends than biological family.

Anyway, my friends had always been my family. Traveling alone without my parents and siblings at a young age didn’t bother me at all. The idea of moving too far away to come home anytime other than holidays didn’t faze me either. I can honestly say that until the end of this semester, I had never been “homesick” in my entire life. BUT…things recently changed. In the past month or so I’ve learned that when shit hits the fan. When you learn that things aren’t quite what you thought they were. When life throws you a huge curveball and you are entirely unprepared for it. Well, you realize that your friends are really just friends, and your family…is what you need to carry on. It’s everything. And it’s utterly irreplaceable.

They might be crazy. They might disagree with your values or disapprove of the path you’ve taken in life. They might have spent a massive amount of effort trying to change who you are. They might live their life in ways you drastically disapprove of. They might not have always been there. For sports games, dance recitals, what have you. Or even for the big moments when you really needed them to be there. They might have torturously made fun of you during your childhood or even your teenage years. Maybe it was your braceface, your baby fat that stuck around way longer than it should have, your tendency to be an overachieving nerd, your lack of athletic ability, your awkward phase, whatever. They might have even forced you into therapy to figure out how much psychological damage they caused you and how to deal with it.

Doesn’t matter. When the very ground you’re standing on begins to shake uncontrollably, and when everything around you seems to be crashing down because of it. They. Will. Be. There. And even more importantly, YOU will find yourself in desperate need for them to be there. You’ll realize how much you truly love them despite the all the dysfunctional shit they put you through. You’ll realize that you need them. You’ll want to be with them. No matter how supportive the friends surrounding you are or what an amazing home you’ve made for yourself elsewhere. You’ll want to be home spending time with your family. And you’ll finally cherish them for the blessing that they are. The crazy, weird, dysfunctional gift that you wouldn’t trade for anything. It might take a turbulent disaster, or what only seems be at the time, but it will teach you to love your family for every bit of who they are. And I’m pretty sure that’s a lesson worth learning.

Maybe you can’t relate because you have a great relationship with your family and always have. Or maybe you don’t and can’t see a time in your future when you will get there. Or maybe you know exactly what I’m talking about, because you’ve lived it, too. Doesn’t matter really. This is what I’ve learned, and I think it’s worth passing on. Take it for what you will. But take my word for it…family is everything. Even when you think you’re independent enough for them not to be. They are.

So maybe as a little homework assignment you could thank your family for simply being your family…by baking them some cupcakes! Nothing says thank you better than red velvet cupcakes with cream cheese frosting, in my opinion :)

Finding My Invincible Summer

“In the depths of winter, I finally learned there was in me an invincible summer...”

I love this quote by Albert Camus. A good friend once shared it with me during a difficult time. Today it popped into my head as I was contemplating some recent events in my life, and immediately I found some inner peace. I think the beauty of this statement is in the realization that an immense amount of strength lies within us. That during the hardest struggles of our lives, when we are stuck in “the depths of winter,” there is still a fighting strength within ourselves. The “invincible summer” within us takes a different form in each and every one of our souls. For some of us it is a fiery passion. For others it’s a tremendous goal that keeps us pushing. And for others it’s a memory or experience that motivates us to carry on.

Regardless, we all have a burning light inside of us that no one can turn off: our inner strength. It doesn’t matter how shitty life gets. How many people turn their back on you, betray your trust, or break your heart. How much others reject you. How many times society says you are failing or living your life in the wrong way. How emotionally draining, psychologically challenging, or physically exhausting life can be. None of our struggles can destroy or surmount our inner strength.

I’m sure you’re thinking, “yeah you make it sound so easy, but life doesn’t work that way. Shit happens. And it’s hard.” I’m not arguing with you there. We’ve all been through our fair share of pain and suffering. Life is full of it, and we can’t change that. But I think we have a tendency as human beings to forget how strong we are as individuals when difficult times present themselves. We surrender far too quickly to the pain, suffering, and sadness. We let the negativity come in and blow out our fire. We let it control us and determine our mood. We let it dictate how we deal, cope, and heal. 

There is immense power in the strength that lies within us. The problem is, WE have to realize that strength and how mighty it is. I might be ranting to all of you about this, but that doesn’t mean I’m good at it. In actuality, I suck at it. I prefer to sink into the pile of crap when it presents itself rather than overcome it. I overanalyze, cry, dwell, and ask a long list of “what if’s”. Not that those are all necessarily bad coping mechanisms, but I never look the situation in the eye and say “I’m stronger than this.” I let it tell me I am weak and won’t be able to overcome it.

So, I’m writing this blog as some sort of cliché journey to self-discovery. This entry is about my recent realization that I am strong. I, just like all of you, have an unbreakable, unquantifiable amount of strength within me. And nobody can ever take that away. Rather than relying on the strength of others, I can rely on my own. Because it does exist. And it is powerful.

It might be the depths of winter for you right now, but you can rise above the chilly darkness. Because there is an invincible summer in you. It’s all yours and it's mesmerizingly powerful. Find it. Acknowledge it. Rely on it. And let it change your life.

And if you haven’t done so in a while…eat a cupcake! I guarantee you, it will brighten your day J

And so the journey begins...

“Keep calm, and have a cupcake!” It’s a phrase that brings a smile to my face, produces a small chuckle under my breath, and soothes me with peace. It is most obviously high jacked from the better-known “Keep calm and carry on” posters that encouraged British citizens to stay calm, strong, and positive in spite of the threat of invasion at the beginning WWII. I was first acquainted with the phrase when a close friend and role model of mine delivered a sermon titled “Keep calm and carry on”. It gave me great perspective, and in the following few weeks I’d whisper it under my breath as a friendly reminder in the presence of struggle. Quickly, however, the phrase drifted from my mind. That is, until a dear friend of mine gave me a most special birthday present: a journal that says “Keep Calm and Have a Cupcake” on the cover. In order to understand why this present was so cherished, you must know a few basic facts about me:

1)    I love cupcakes. I love to bake them. I love to eat them. I love everything about them. I love that they come in every flavor imaginable, each with its own unique personality. I love the endless possibilities in decorating them. Vibrant colors, beautiful piping designs, fancy sprinkles. I love the creativity I feel in designing them, the peace of mind that comes with baking them, and the comfort I get in eating them.

2)    I love to journal. More accurately, I love to write. It’s an amazing way to express your emotions, and a healthy therapy that can be administered on your own. I love writing down my thoughts, because I have so many that sometimes I honestly believe my head will explode if I don’t. I write down my many thoughts, because I also don’t enjoy keeping them to myself. Ask anyone who knows me and they’ll tell you they know exactly what I’m thinking 99.9% of the time. Why? Because I share it with them. I like to express my emotions. I have to. It’s who I am. But, I know my friends and therapist need to breath every once in a while. So I write.

3)    I’m a bit of a control freak. Okay…I’m a control freak. I like making plans, and I like putting those plans into action. I know, I know. You are thinking well duh, who the hell doesn’t? But I think I hold onto those plans a little less loosely than most. Honestly, I grasp them with both hands clinging on for dear life and refuse to let go. I plan everything. Every detail. Ever second. Of my life. I spend more time making to do lists than doing what is actually on them. The point is, when things don’t exactly go according to my plans, I freak out a little bit.

That’s why I need a friendly reminder to keep calm and carry on. To appreciate my struggles and hardships as opportunities for growth. To live in the present. To take a deep breath. To do something I enjoy (like eating a cupcake). And to carry on.

I’ve recently enjoyed writing down my thoughts in my “Keep Calm and Have a Cupcake” journal. But I feel like others could benefit from reading them, too. Perhaps. Not everyone. Just like everyone likes some flavors of cupcakes better than others, some people will enjoy this blog and others will not. The point is, we’re all human, and at some level we experience the same emotions. Expressing mine might help someone recognize his or hers. Sharing my experiences might influence or inspire someone else. Maybe not, but its worth a shot.

So, what is this blog going to be about? Good question! I’m not quite ready to define it yet. I don’t know if I ever will. At the present, however, it is a verbal expression of my quest for self-discovery, peace, happiness, and fulfillment. I’m sure you’re thinking, “oh no, another young person writing a blog full of teenage angst.” Don’t worry. I recently turned twenty, and thus have no excuse to rant endlessly about my miniscule problems in life! I think of this blog as the exact opposite, actually. An opportunity to learn about myself. To live in the present and write it down so it always exists. To find out what makes me truly happy. To explore my passion. To discover who I am and who I desire to be. I’m sorry, but I can’t help the cheesiness right now. I just watched Eat Pray Love and was left utterly inspired by her international journey of self-discovery. Since I’m currently a college student, however, I can’t stop everything and travel the world for a year like she did. So, this is my alternative. Rather than traveling to discover myself, I will blog.

I hope in reading my blog you learn something more about yourself. If not, it’s okay. At the very least, though, I hope the next time you’re having a bad day or going through Hell, the words “Keep Calm and Have a Cupcake” gracefully enter your mind and bring you both a smile and a temporary sense of peace.