Pages Turned, Lessons Learned.

The past is annoying; it always shows up. In everybody’s words, in every song you hear, in the moments your weakest.  I think the important thing to remember is that people are not mirrors, they see you entirely different than you see yourself.  They don't know motives and good intentions.   They don't live with your choices either, so worry less about who is pointing fingers and think more about your happiness.   People will rub you the wrong way.  We spend an awful lot of tie separating someone based on similarities and differences.  I have great friends--unique friends.  Each one of them adds something to my life--and that might sound selfish but why have friends if they don't help you enhance and improve yourself?   I hope I do the same for them.   At the end  of the day, I am golden if I can spend some time with people who make me laugh and show me a new perspective.  I won't always understand their needs, voids, mistakes, and triumphs, but I am trying a lot harder these days to find the good in things, the individuality in ones decisions.    I think I've been letting people chip away at me, taking little pieces of me all the time.  Here's what I've discovered so far...

I've spent a lot of time blaming and harboring these ill feelings toward things and people--and it's exhausting.  The truth is we're all a wreck at one time or another.  It's what you do in those moments that decides your life--I really mean that.  Sometimes it takes a triggering life event (loss of a loved one, near death experience, break up, rock bottom etc) to change your way of thinking--that's human.   Having said that, I understand that the past is annoying, but necessary.  Each event no matter how unpleasant and traumatizing or uplifting and euphoric is there to teach us something.   They're necessary steps in a journey.  When you’re at that point when you feel at your lowest, that it’s all pointless…it’s not. The trick is to just keep doing it, and that’s how you succeed in the end. It’s the secret to life, do anything often enough, and for long enough, and until you get good at it. The exhausting part is the repetition, the keeping on when you want to quit--but if it was easy everyone would have it. I know how much it sucks to be the footnote in everyones love story. I know there are days I a wrecked with loneliness.  Don't let those moments of weakness sell you short of the things you know you deserve and so desperately keep waiting on.  So keep on. Keep writing. Keep painting. Keep singing. Keep dancing. Keep fighting. Keep believing.

If there's and discrepancies about who I appear to be, let me set the record straight.  The person I try to be is the girl who is know for smiling, for laughter, even when anyone would give me permission not to.   The person I intend to be is the girl who says sorry when it's not even my fault and even when I feel like the scum of the earth, I try to hide it behind a veil of optimism.    I am in this moment a girl who is afraid of love, afraid of trust because I've  given and lost so much already.  I am mouthy but compassionate.  Sarcastic but I have a heart of gold.    I'm not a back up plan, or a second choice.   I will try desperately to remember that you can judge a book by the cover, but there's a ton of pages inside that make them appear the way they do.   I need to remember that while some people successfully take short cuts, being genuine will pay off--and that usually what I find a tragedy usually turns out to be what saved me.   Truth and honesty always pay off if you're patient enough to wait for the payout.

I write because it saves me, and I write because it empowers me.  If you're reading, I hope you read because it enlightens you, enchants you, and reminds you that you're beautiful in this moment.  If you spend your life thinking otherwise, you're missing a lot of beautiful moments.