Don't It Make You Feel Good?

23:

Life has its bittersweet moments, does it not? I’ve taken some radical turns to letting go of “Arizona” because obviously I fooled myself into thinking everything I thought and I feel so stupid for doing that. Seriously, I make snarky, mean comments to myself when I go back and read over our first blog posts. Gosh, I’m so sick of having to crawl after people, practically begging for their attention. Well, I’m no longer letting that happen. When I was in Phoenix, I drove along the 202 loop. When I was driving on 202 through Mesa, I seized the mental photos of him and imaginarily threw them out the car window…only because legitimately throwing pictures out the window is littering, and littering is illegal. Anyhow, I then took all my mental love notes and threw those out the window. Along with that, when I got back to the hotel I took my gold locket with the word “Love” written in it and hung it on the Joshua tree over the patio. When I left Phoenix on that airplane, I thought to myself, “Wow. That felt good as ever.” THEN when I was up in the North Cascades with Rose this weekend, and we wrote the names of the guys we liked on rocks and chucked them into the river. It was a beautiful moment. It was like Love’s Nyquil.  

Who’s ready for the bitter side of the story? Good, ‘cause here it is: I wanted a fairytale ending but I got the end of lie. My head was stuck in the clouds of young love and imagination. I saw good guy and I figured, “Hey, I kind of like this person. Maybe it’s possible.” But as time went on, I got worse and worse and worse. I get it now that love is a terminal disease and it is much more miserable than a cold. It just drags on and on and on with no let up. Girls, let me tell you something. You’ll find someone you like. Not just like, but would freaking die for. Everything about them will be perfect. They will be everything you want. Well, in the light they may be dripping honey, but they’ll sting you like a bee. And when they do, it hurts like hell. But the guy won’t always be the bee. Sometimes, you yourself will be the bee. But when you encounter someone like this and find any source of doubt, back away. You don’t know where he’s been. Heed my warning and you’ll save yourself a lot of time and heartache.  Take what happened to me as an example. At that very first moment, I told myself “don’t fall, don’t fall, don’t fall.” We all know now that that didn’t work out very well. I wish I could undo it. But in the end, I only have myself to blame for playing all those stupid mind tricks. I stole my happy. I made me cry. I made me angry. I made me frustrated. I left my heart out at the shooting range called high school.  It was all my fault that all this heart ache happened to me. Well, now it’s my turn to be happy and free again. His memory is drowning at the bottom of a very cold river right now. I said to myself as I walked away, “If I change my mind, I’m going into that river and getting that rock back.” Well, that river is freezing cold and running high and fast. It would be dangerous to go back and get it out. So all in all, there is no turning back. Next time my friends ask me, “Hey, do you still like that guy?” I won’t say yes. I won’t say sure. I won’t say I guess so. I will say no. I will say no, I do not like him anymore. That’s what I’ll say. I was SO blind. I was so, so, so, so, so blind that’s it’s not even funny. My rose colored glasses steamed up along the trip through love and I guess I lost my way at certain points. Well, reality tore those glasses off my face and smashed them on the ground. Funny thing is, after I got a good look at the way things really were, I started to help smash those glasses into more of where he came from- and I’m NOT saying that I’m not looking for that type of guy anymore. Because that’s still the type of guy I want- but I’m tired of letting someone drag my heart around. I don’t need that kind of happy anymore. It’s the kind of sunshine that always shows up with a cloud. I hate that roller coaster type of love, where it one second you’re up and the next second your down and screaming loud as hell because you’re so scared you could pee yourself right then and there. Now those butterflies just make my stomach ache and that flutter in my chest is nothing but hurt. There was a time, when love swept me off my feet. I never thought I’d have to take reality into account. Though it’s still the sweet sort of thing to do, I’ll have a parachute next time I take such a leap. Hey, they can’t call it falling if you’re on your knees and crawling. 

13:

As I sit here eating cake on a stick (like the ones from Starbucks, but homemade!), drinking lots and lots of water to stay healthy and letting a facial cream “illuminate” my face, I wonder sometimes why I’m doing this. I am trying my best to look good but enjoy life too. Is it supposed to be hard? Are we supposed to slave at the balance between obsessing and neglecting? And we don’t even have to focus JUST on our bodies. I absolutely hate, sometimes, my creative mind that buys an outfit that requires a lot of attention before I go to school. Call me lazy, but sometimes I could just throw on a t-shirt and forget my pants but then feel too tired to go back upstairs to get them! I am so exasperated by the illusion and standard that is set for girls that are not just inconvenient on the lazy days, but absolutely ridiculous to keep up all the time. I, personally, get very frustrated. And I know it’s not everyone’s situation; not everyone is focused on trying to live up to a visual standard, but I think we catch ourselves doing that every once in a while. I look at the others who don’t catch themselves for a long time or ever so I do get a little fired up ;) Anyways, guys always think we’re naturally flawless and our rolls have magically disappeared (those sweet things) on the day we wore a hip-hugging dress, but in reality, we pulled up those respiratory strangling spanx and created a perfect technique to adding smudgeless mascara. It’s like taking care of a frickin’ baby! I want to relax before that comes my way. And at any rate, by the time I have a baby I’ll be so focused on my child that all I’ll be able to do is make a reminder to at least add cover up. “Wamp wamp wamp wamp wamp” it probably sounds like. “She’s so complaining” you could think, but can I have a revolution?! A revolution, not just individually, but socially too, that says more than the natural look is in, but the actually PRACTICAL look. Because I don’t want to have to deal with checking my basis for getting dressed today because there’s pressure to look special or sexy for an OUTSIDE reason. That’s how a lot of girls get their false expectations and offset standards and I don’t want to be one of those. Society I tell you! It isn’t the culprit, but it’s a pretty big bowl for it. It is pretty screwed up if you ask me, looking at the teen section in that one store with those push up bikini’s for 10 YEAR OLDS!!.......Ok, so my tirade is pretty much calming down. But, I think you are latest on board with the exasperation of kids around us and even our age believing we have to look just so or we’re not attractive, right? I have one question to ask now that will maybe turn us away from this “unreachable goal” that slips through our down to earth views. Are we setting these standards for our looks out of narcissism? Is that how the unrealistic updates to our goals happen? Maybe our goals should be to be healthy, not skinny. Cared for, not perfect. Be satisfied with how we look by our eyes, not by who pays attention to us. I am tired of trying to play their game. I want to set MY life upon something that matters. There is a point to having good hygiene and paying attention to looking presentable, but, I.....don’t want to be a real eye catching cup but then the inside is dirty so you can’t pour something into it. Both religiously and relationship sounding right? (The two big R’s!). In a basic sense, I am realizing how better we all look when we’re happy. The worst thing to see is an unhappy face on a pretty girl. Or, an edited version made up by a guy friend who had just broken up with a girl; a demon in a beautiful nesting doll. Truth so blunt, right? Obsessing over what I look like at all angles like I’m trying to hide something sounds so tiring, and mixes up my priorities. Now, I won’t kiss my spanx goodbye (because they are nice to have when wearing a hip hugging dress), but I won’t keep them because I think I’m fat. I won’t down glasses of water so guys think my face looks pretty. I’ll drink it because I know I’ll feel better in the brain and I’ll have a healthy body (and won’t have to spend lots of time in the bathroom doing makeup ;) My lazy self!). That’s my opinion, and I am sticking to it. I won’t become a shallow person, and I’ll remember keeping an image up only lasts so long, so why not work on something that isn’t temporary? As I finish my cake shaped like a chick (in celebration of Easter), I raise my glass of water proclaiming a new standard; “Up with the middle finger to society, and down with the water for self-happiness!” God, Fe, and this blog will keep me accountable to that toast.tiny little pieces. But now everything is alright and I’m okay. There’s no