Puzzle

For so many years (too many), I let people walk all over me. I spent so long trying to make other people happy, and by other, I mean everyone. It was all that encapsulated my mind. If someone around me wasn't happy, that was my responsibility to make them happy, to put the pieces back together. Every time I put someone else's pieces back together, one of my mine would fall off. Eventually, my pieces were scattered all over the place. 

It has taken me two years to put those pieces back together, but these two years have been two of the best years with some of the hardest moments in my life so far. 

Why am I telling you this? Certain things have presented themselves to me once again, but this time, I'm not letting my pieces be scattered everywhere. Two years ago, it would be a different story. I am so much stronger than I was then. Now, I know to take care of myself first and let go of things I can't change and to rid my life of toxic people. I know not to let little things get out of control. I know now to take care of a situation and actually confront it. I'm not here for everyone else. I'm here for me.

I'm not saying I won't be there for others or put other people's happiness first. I just won't put others first all the time anymore. I need to put myself first sometimes in order to stay whole, just like everyone else. 

Go ahead and pick up your pieces, put them back together with glue stronger than ever before.

Love and Be loved

"We gotta find a way to love again, while the words are still there ringing in our heads."

When I was a freshman in college (I think it was that year), I came across a band called Satellite. One song that always made me think and continues to make me think now, is the song "Say the Words". Maybe this song always stuck with me because I knew I wanted to say the words I could never say, but I never found the courage to say them. 
The line above repeats in the song multiple times. It is important. We out trust in other people when we start to love someone. It's not even that we love a person. It's so much more. In order to love a person, you open up a vulnerability. You break the walls you spent so long carefully and tediously building. When you love someone, you are putting yourself at risk of getting hurt. You trust that person not to hurt you.

Unfortunately, we don't live in a utopia where you love one person and only one person. The thing is, this applies in so many more aspects than just romantic relationships. It can happen in friendships and familial relationships. People hurt you throughout your life, and it does suck. You can't let them dictate the rest of your life and how you live it. Maybe, you'll learn to not wear your heart on your sleeve. Or maybe you'll learn to not build the walls so strong. Maybe, you'll learn the good about letting people in, or, perhaps, the bad. There's two sides to everything. There will always be a good and a bad. One day, you'll meet the people who make the good outweigh the bad in every possible way. These are the people worth sticking around and trusting. These are the people who will be there for you no matter what, no matter how far apart you are or what is going on that day. It won't matter if you just talked five minutes ago or five weeks ago or even longer. It will feel like you picked up where you left off. It will feel like you could talk hours on end with this person. You can sit comfortably in silence. You can be the craziest version of yourself. You can be the most disgusting version of yourself. You can be the dumbest version of yourself. You can be any and every version of yourself, and these people will still be by your side to love you unconditionally.

Those are the people who are worth making you love again. Those are the people who will help you to heal all those wounds from before. Those are the people who will make life worth it. 

I'm not saying you won't get hurt. I'm just saying, love is strange. When you love someone and get hurt, that guard naturally goes back up. It's our body's defense mechanism. There will come a day when you will never have to put that guard back up. There will come a time when you build a wall around your heart but without the moat, the drawbridge, and the crocodiles around that wall. Eventually, you will learn to love again.

As one of my favorite authors says, "A purpose of a human life, no matter who is controlling it, is to love whoever is around to be loved." Love others, love yourself, and let others love you.

Just thought I'd put those words out there.

peace.love.happiness.

2015.

This is where I stand.

I stand up for myself.
For being myself.
For going after what I deserve.
And not accepting anything less.

This is where I stand.

To becoming an adult.
To finding a job in my field.
To doing what is best for me.
To being healthy.
To being responsible.

This is where I stand.

I'm 22.
I pay bills.
I pay loans.
I buy my own food.
I buy my own clothes.
I am growing up.

This is where I stand.

I'm becoming who I am.