4/29/13

This is A Problem

What are you most insecure about? I bet you could rattle of multiple things without thinking twice. Now what are you most confident about? What do you just love about yourself?

 It’s normal to hear a girl of any age (even young kids now) make a negative comment on her thighs, butt, face, stomach… the list is infinite. These comments are brushed off, because that’s what girls do. We complain about what we hate, and talk about how lucky Jane is to have such perfect skin or how Maddy walks so fearlessly in a bikini. Girls are taught to never be satisfied until our bodies are cardboard thin, our skin is photoshop-flawless, and our faces are perfectly symmetrical and attractive.

Society acknowledges that eating disorders are a problem, but what about negative thought processes? What about crash dieting? What about never feeling “enough” in aspects of ourselves? These are all very much factors of the bigger problem (eating disorders don’t start for the hell of it).  

I went through high school seeing and hearing these things from each of my friends, each of my classmates, and joining right in. I looked in the mirror and analyzed my stomach, my thighs, my upper-arms, and determined that things needed to be fixed. Was I addressing my unhealthy eating habits, how I treated myself, and how I treated my body? No, I was making it clear that the girl standing before me, my reflection was not skinny enough to be happy. It didn’t matter how I treated myself, because I didn’t see that as the issue. This is a problem.

Maybe I wasn’t a classified “anorexic”, and maybe I didn’t force myself to throw up after eating, but thought processes like that are a disorder, and crippling, and need to be addressed.

Upon confronting a good friend of mine on how she treats herself (crash dieting, negative comments, restricting) she said, “That’s just who I am.” That is not who you are; that is how you are taught to think.  

If someone can’t be classified as having an eating disorder, they are determined to be “fine.” It’s something we all do, that we all go through; it’s just a part of growing up. I’ve heard plenty claim these excuses. This way of treating and thinking about ourselves is thought of as a phase, but that’s BS. Do you know how many middle-age women are looking in the mirror with the same thoughts? Putting their bodies under the same cycle of dieting? Telling themselves if they can just get to this number, if they could just have that nose, then they would be happy?

This is not a phase; this is not normal; this is a serious problem.

When does the fifteen, twelve, or eight-year-old girl start looking in the mirror and finding what she likes most about herself? Call herself beautiful? Form a deep, loving connection with her soul and body? When do we start teaching her these so important parts of life?

Growing up should be about finding who you are, what you love, and loving it! Not finding your faults and hating them.

Though I still struggle, I got lucky with finding Mara and Kate and learning what it really means to be healthy and happy. Not many girls figure it out this early.

And this is a problem. 

4/28/13

My Weekend Through Instagram

One of my favorite weekends is sliding through the finish line tonight. The weather was gorgeous, and we spent most of it outside which was WONDERFUL. I thought I would share through Instagram pictures with you.

Saturday I treated Katelin and I to a local coffeehouse for, what else, COFFEE and BROWNIES out in the sunshine. I just love places with outside seating! Unfortunately, a bee chased us away.



 The evening was spent down at the lake with a 15 minute canoe session. Katelin had never canoed! It might have been short, but we had the lake to ourselves, and it was so fun.

Sunday: Teased by the fifteen-minute session the night before we rushed back down to the lake at two and... had to wait about an hour before we got a canoe. Worth it! Not only did we canoe, but we kayaked (yes, Eve got into a kayak!!) which was even more fun. The water was freezing, but I was in a t-shirt and shorts, happy as ever! We definitely soaked up the sun and warmth since the weather predicts a week of rain and 40-degree days...








Also, my cat Saturday morning, livin it up--



Another week befalls us, and I am putting my tools to use to manage stress, because the next three weeks are serving up stress as the main dish. I am filled with thanks for the last two days, the last week, and the moments that made them up; I hope yours was just as beautiful.

Here's to a new week!

4/26/13

A Happy Moment

I work today which means Katelin and I have been on campus since 9am. Thankfully it's GORGEOUS out, so we weren't forced to lounge in the dorm or car but enjoyed the day outside!

I share with you my happy moment of the day: 

picture via my instagram

After lunch Katelin (pictured here in her nyan cat t-shirt) got frozen yogurt with peppermint sprinkles, and I grabbed us two fortune cookies. Fortune cookie #1 (mine) had a lovely quote, while fortune cookie #2 (Katelin's) was an advertisement to buy more fortune cookies... Sometimes you win, sometimes you lose. :) 

The wind was giving us shampoo-commercial hair (I like to think anyway), and the end-of-semester faces paired with hunched over backs were replaced by wide smiles and cheerful gaits. Minnesota is relishing in this weather! 

And let's not forget it's Friday. Two brilliant days of freedom lay ahead! By freedom I mean more homework, but at least I get to sleep in. 

Counting down the days and weeks to summer, but enjoy every day and week until we're there. 

Have a weekend full of fresh air, carefree and a light heart. <3 

4/24/13

The Flaming Homo


This semester I’ve come across some challenges with a professor. I’m trying not to let his rudeness deter me from learning in his class (because I learn a lot) but am instead trying be grateful for the knowledge and insights I have gained from him.

I have enjoyed taking two courses with him and felt comfortable talking about my sexual-orientation and religion with him in class. In a time where I was just beginning to speak up about having a girlfriend, it was relieving when a professor grandly supported it. He has portrayed himself as a supporter of the LGBT community and a feminist, so what he has been spouting in lectures the past few weeks has been frustrating, offensive and contradictory to his support.

Thursday’s lecture was spent listening to and discussing Allen Ginsberg’s music and poetry (that is some weird stuff). My professor likes to give us background on all the authors we read, which I enjoy a lot, but he described openly-gay Ginsberg as “flaming gay” and “gay as a three dollar bill.”

My reaction had to be obvious! My eyes popped, my mouth fell open… My whole expression exuded holy crap.

These phrases are all too common in our culture, I mean “queer as a three dollar bill” was how Patrick (a gay character from The Perks of Being a Wallflower movie/book) described his boyfriend, Brad.

This does not make them acceptable.

As a girl who is dating a girl I find these phrases incredibly offensive and unnecessary. They are not loving descriptions of the LGBT community, because they further ostracize us and scream DIFFERENT in our faces.

The terms flaming homo or gay as a three dollar bill come off as humorous, but this laughable quality only masks the social inequalities reinforced within them.

I googled both, and here are the urban dictionary descriptions:
-          Flaming Homo – “A type of homosexual that is easily detected by a person with little to moderate "gay-dar". The male form is typically extroverted and has an obsession with fashion. The female form it typically stoic and has an obsession with physical prominence.

-          Gay as a Three Dollar Bill – “A euphenism for homosexual, generally a male homosexual. Compare to "Light in the Loafers", Limp Wristed", "Panty Waist", or "Candy Ass"

Also: “Alternative term for a flaming homosexual; something or someone who shouldn't exist.” 

None of those descriptions are very laughable to me or ideal descriptions of a homosexual.

Let’s talk about the flaming homo. This is a person who anyone can tell is gay! What does this suggest? That certain attributes only exist within gays and lesbians: a certain walk, a certain fashion sense, a certain way of talking. When my professor said this description he did a dance that looked like an angry monkey. I can personally tell you that isn’t a dance of the gays. I walk no different than anyone else you’ve passed on the street. I switch between dressing in floral tank tops and skinny jeans and hoodies and shorts. I’ve had a pixie cut and I’ve had hair down to my butt. I used to do hard workouts and now I do yoga. My voice is not deep, my shoulders are not broad. I am not the social description of masculine or butch nor feminine or girly. Not all masculine and butch women are lesbians. Not all fashionable and limber men are gay. Not all gay men like cardigans, bow ties and Prada. Not all lesbians like plaid and short hair.

Homosexuals and heterosexuals are not born with different attributes.

Individuals have different attributes, but race, gender, and sexuality do not determine your personality, likes/dislikes or behavior.

There is no such thing as your flaming homo!

By declaring someone as a flaming homo you are telling them that they are so obviously different that it’s comedic. Not comedic as in they are trying to entertain you, but that their being is so ridiculous to you that it’s laughable.

Queer as a three dollar bill is just another way to label us as “different” and “wrong.” There is no such thing as a three dollar bill, so this (just as urban dictionary says) proclaims that we have no place in this society. We are not the ever present one dollar bill, the handy five dollar bill, the normal ten dollar bill, the old-age twenty dollar bill, or the bountiful fifty dollar bill! We are the dollar bill that doesn’t exist. You’re telling us we don’t fit in and we don’t exist.  

Patrick using this expression in Perks of Being a Wallflower is not a way of reclaiming the phrase. It is a way for society to make this phrase seem harmless and entertaining through media. If a gay person says it, then it’s okay to say it, right?

Wrong.

I’ve heard plenty of gay people replace the word “stupid” with the word “gay.” That is not reclaiming the word and remaking the definition, but further masking the effect and power it has over our culture.

The fact that a professor used these descriptions in a class of young adults is disgusting, but no more disgusting that it being said in a popular movie.

I used to use these terms with as much laughter as the next, so I know how innocent they seem. They’re not innocent.

Throwing around flaming homo, gay as a three dollar bill, gay, fag, etc. only reinforces the balance that society currently holds.

An unequal balance, a heteronormative balance, a patriarchal balance.


You may say I have no place in society with these words, but these phrases should have no place in society (especially the classroom!) anymore. 






   




4/23/13

What I'm Working On: Stress


I have not only caught END-OF-SEMESTER SYNDROME but END-OF-SCHOOL-YEAR SYNDROME. Those of you not yet in college will one day know what I am talking about, and those of you in or out of college know exactly what I’m talking about. I don’t want to wake up, I’m over my classes, I don’t want to do homework let alone study for finals, I don’t want to get dressed—I’m just done.

This only adds to how straight-up stressful the past few weeks have been. As Sunday night faded into Monday morning my girlfriend and I lay in bed absolutely dreading another week. I honestly didn’t think I could go through another five days of commuting, homework, and exhaustion. I just wanted to stay home, sleep and watch Dance Moms.

I did not want a repeat of last week--it could have easily turned into one--so I've put a few things into action:

  •  Listening to the “I Wanna’s”: Sunday I read the post What my Fear block needed me to say (which I encourage you to read after this), and it was like looking in a mirror. Jenn writes The thought of having to go to work, interact with people, smile, talk – it did absolutely nothing for me. Well, that’s not true, it made the anxiety and irritation blow up ever bigger inside of me.” This is exactly how I woke up yesterday (Monday) morning: nothing seemed more terrible than pulling my head off the pillow and sitting in classes for three hours. The little kid in my head screamed to stay home where it’s warm and safe! Jenn says to listen to this voice, go deeper than the initial “I wants” and find what you need in the moment, the day, or the week. This post turned my week around. I looked into why I wanted to stay home: to be somewhere I feel comfortable, relaxed and unrushed (essentially). I feel settled at home, like I’m in my space, like time is slower here. Monday I decided to make everywhere I went like home, and I did it in myself. My girlfriend drives with me to campus, and she is my home, so I remembered that: I’m home no matter where I am with her. I focused my mind on where I was in the moment—the hallway, the car, the desk—and on what I was doing instead of where I was going. This kept me from feeling rushed and feeling here. I walked slower and took deeper breaths to keep a clear mind and calm being to keep my “rushing” at bay. Just by reconstructing how I live within my “self” and my “body” I reconstructed how I felt in the various environments I moved through in the day. You can’t always be in your windows and doors “home,” but if you make home in you, you take it everywhere, and that’s just what I’ve needed. What are your fears and wants telling you? Are you listening to them?


  • Praying: Kristen texted me over the weekend “The Lord loves me!” When I asked why she explained that a few days back she had prayed for relief from financial anxieties and went into how He had answered them. This sparked jealousy in me. How was it that easy for her? Why did God listen to her while I’ve been having such a crummy week? Underneath jealousy was shame, because I don’t pray like I used to. Even knowing this, I closed out of the text and went on without sending a Hello to my Creator. Only yesterday morning did I really think about Kristen and her text and that I could pray anytime of any day. I stopped and said a quick prayer to God/The Divine, telling Him what I needed that minute, that day, and this week. I even added a request to find an easy parking spot… Forgetting the prayer after I said it, I was oblivious to the ways the Lord answered it. The problem is never Him not listening to me, but me not listening to or seeing Him. He is with me at all times, but since I can’t visually see Him, it’s easy to forget. Yesterday afternoon it hit me in the car just how much He listened even when I didn’t talk to Him. Everything I was praying for was being heard and responded to without my knowing, even the parking spot! He didn’t answer in the ways I expected, because He never does. Just as Jenn reminds herself that she is in the palm of the Universe’s hand, I have to remind myself that my Lord, my Creator, the Divine, or whomever you send your prayers and praises to, is inside of me. He is in my beating heart, my typing fingers, and my soul. He never leaves me, is always guiding me—I am always in the palm of his hand. It’s easiest to forget this during a bad week, because our minds are so easily distracted and our time is so effortlessly put elsewhere, but I challenge you to change this as I am challenging myself. This week I pray for patience, peace of mind, and the strength and energy to walk my path.


  • Be Present: Just as I’ve said in this post and past, don’t just get through your day to be over it. LIVE THIS DAY! THIS WEEK! Even if it is horrible, live it and be in it! Even when you’ve had a screaming fight with someone you love or somehow screwed everything up (which I bet you haven’t), don’t throw that away! There’s something in those times for you: it didn’t just happen to happen. Trying to get through a period of time means you miss something beautiful. It’s inevitable. You miss a smile from a stranger, the wonderful life and sounds going on around you, the feel of rain drops on your bare skin, and ultimately the moment you are in. It’s like you aren’t even there. I don’t know about you, but I want to be right here, right now, but it’s so hard. My mind is constantly racing from next week’s exam, to how I did on my last one, to plans for the summer, and back to my homework I should be doing right now. Rarely are my thoughts and energies centered solely on where I am, but I want to experience and live my life, because it’s mine. The good, the bad, and the stuff I want to forget, it’s all mine—why would I want to miss that? Being present keeps my anxiety under control and my focus stronger; I become more aware and make clearer decisions. How do you remain present (if you try at all)? I use my breath, slowing down, and focusing on one thing at a time. Yoga helps me with all three!


Some weeks are going to be awful and stressful and make you cry with frustration. When you find something that works for you, you aren’t going to do it just right every day, but not every day has to be like this. I transformed my week, and you can change yours. The best part is, it’s only two days into the school week and I’ve already forgotten to put some of my new favorite tools into practice, tried to get over the day, and found myself right back in the cycle. That’s okay, because I took a breath and restarted. That’s the relieving piece: you can restart as many times as you need. 

4/20/13

A Little Pinch


Yesterday I exited the music shop with my guitar and a new lesson book excited to learn something fun and new. In the car I went to zip up my polka-dot wallet, but a quarter had wedged itself perfectly enough for the zipper to catch and do that back-wards unzip thing (there has to be a definition that is lacking in my brain) which basically means it’s broken.

At first I was angry. Like, really angry and frustrated at the thing! How could it do this? It holds my money; it knows how much I lack in that department! That emotion quickly bled into me sitting and holding my useless wallet, crying.

Swooping in to calm me down, my girlfriend repeatedly told me that I could use her pretty, sparkly wallet until I got a new one, but I puffed out my lip and whined, “No, I want mine!”

“Well you can’t have yours.”

On top of being mad at this piece of leather breaking, I was upset with myself for being this upset! I mean, how materialistic is that? I try my best to live life in finding happiness from spontaneous road trips downtown with my girlfriend, drinking coffee while doing homework in bed, or the springtime sounds of birds echoing outside at this time.  So how could I be as shallow to cry over a $15 Target wallet? Let alone refuse a FREE wallet.

The issue wasn’t the wallet. Well, okay, I am still bummed that it broke, because it was super cute, and I just got it last month, but there are many cute wallets (including my girlfriend’s) out there!

Some weeks are spent trying to get over with and make it to the weekend where we’ll be able to breathe. Coming up on Wednesday and Thursday this week I knew that if I just made it to Friday I would be relaxed and carefree again. Then the wallet incident happened, and I still had to get home and do homework, and I hadn’t done yoga since Monday, and… overwhelm.

Many times I think that if I ignore the stress it will dissipate on its own, but that doesn’t happen. We have to acknowledge the stress; we have to break stressors down into manageable steps; and sometimes we just have to sit in the car and cry over a broken wallet.

I’m not ashamed (anymore) of getting upset over that, materialistic or not, because I needed the release so I could move on and into my Friday. I had been trying to get over everything I didn’t want to do instead of moving through it and living it, and the universe gave me a little pinch to remind me that this doesn’t work.

We are humans who get overwhelmed, and like I said in my post last night, it’s okay if we have weeks where we cry every night. Crying isn’t a sin and crying isn’t weak: crying is healing.
Until this past year I rarely cried. Maybe a few times a year I would have a break down. Now my body is so used to emitting the water works I cry on a regular basis. It was annoying at first, because I felt that I had lost my strength, my stoic character. But more and more I’m accepting it and being grateful for my weekly (and often daily) crying sessions, because I feel cleaned out and whole at the end of them.

There is a refreshing, purifying experience in letting everything go and just crying it all out. When we come out it’s a little scary, and we’re a little tenderer, but it’s like a restart button. We can more easily see how we got to this point, we can communicate with our emotions more clearly, and we can communicate our emotions to others more clearly. And sometimes we just need the final straw, a little pinch, to finally do it and cry.  

4/15/13

Cause No One Needs to Hear It


I want to talk about something here that my friend texted me.

Me and this girl—I’ll call her Kristen—went to school together from K-10th grade and became attached at the hip in 7th grade. Sometimes I think we know each other better than we know ourselves, including crap we’ve been through.

Kristen comes from a… not a bad family, that’s so ambiguous, but a myriad of tough situations involving family. Only parcels of (not too happy) memories of a mother that gave her away, an alcoholic father, a jealous step-mother that easily disowned her, and the list could go on. These situations never ended and, in fact, still haven’t upon her moving six hours away for college.

I receive texts almost daily and at least weekly of new happenings involving her parents and occasionally the extended family, but this wasn’t always the case. Though I have known her since playground days and shared secrets with her since the awkward years, Kristen rarely shared what happened behind closed doors with me until the last few years of high school. And even then, it was fragments. Not until last summer have I really understood the extent of her emotional abuse, and not until this year has she been telling me what’s really going on as it’s happening.

For many years this frustrated me to no ends. I was her best friend; why wasn’t I the one she was going to first?! Eventually, I accepted this as part of who she is: private, strong, embarrassed.

These descriptions are all true, but they only circle the main idea. The text I want to bring up is the bulls-eye of the circling darts.  

Kristen and I were having a casual texting conversation when she sent, “I miss you so much!” I was flattered, but surprised, because she is not one to express emotions so easily and dismissively.

 “Aww, I miss you too!” I sent back with a sad face.

Then the cracking wall crumbled away and her words broke down into how she has been hiding everything, she can’t take it anymore, and she doesn’t know what to do. It is always terrible and terrifying to watch someone you love breakdown into your arms (literally or figuratively), because what do you do? How do you fix them? Well, you can’t. All you can do is be there for them, whether you’re actually looking them in the eye, talking to them over a phone, or texting them from six hours away.

I sent her back, “Why are you hiding it?” and finally the one truth of years and years of “hiding” and “blocking” and “buffering” came out:

“Cause no one needs to hear it.”

My best friend, so damaged and so strong, has isolated herself with her own strength. She has been told that no one will or can love her, that she is not deserving of anyone’s love, and that no one will care. So, just like with everything in her life, she finds ways to do things on her own, because who would help someone like her?

(photo found on Pinterest)


Kristen has come a long way since moving out, and she has confidence I’ve never seen in her, but still these times appear where she’s still the little girl crying in her closet.

“They may not NEED to hear it,” I texted back, “but you need to talk about it, and those who love you will WANT to hear it.”

Some happenings in life we can wrap up in our arms and put together on our own, and sometimes this might be the best way. But more often than not we all need someone to wrap us up and rock us while we cry, we all need someone to just “hear it” and hold our hand, to tell us that it really is okay, and that we don’t have to be the strong one in this moment.

You are worthy of being listened to, no matter what you have gone through or what you have done. You are worthy of having an army behind you, even if that’s just one person hearing you out silently and lovingly. You are worthy of breaking down without judgment, and you are worthy to be surrounded by people that love you enough to hear it even when they don’t need to.

Now let me say this. We often expect someone to know how we’re feeling and call us out, to force us to explain ourselves, so we don’t have to take the first step. This is an unfair expectation, because said-person may have no idea to even think of saying, “You seem really down; talk to me!”

I want you to know that you can give yourself the okay to breakdown. If you need someone to listen, then you find someone, and if you don’t know anyone who will listen… then you may want to reassess who it is you have set-up in your life.

Kristen is one of the strongest women I know, but she still needs to have her times of breakdown, her times of being vulnerable. She is not what her parents have told her she is. She is worthy, she is not alone, and she is very much loved, and so are you.

Asking for help, crying in front of someone—none of this is being weak.
It’s the strongest I’ve ever seen people. 

4/12/13

I'm an Advice Giver


“[Deliverance] came to you from your own seeking, on your own path, through thinking, through meditation, through knowledge, through illumination… no one is granted deliverance through a teaching!” Herman Hesse, Siddhartha

I am an advice giver.

I want to fix everyone’s problems, and when I can’t, I want to give them the tools to do it themselves.

Often these tools are smiled at and shoved under the bed while my advisee plunges straight back into the eye of the problem. I’m left hitting the End button on my phone asking the nearest person, “Why do they do that? Why don’t they listen? I’ve been there! I’ve done that! If they would just LISTEN!

This happens over and over again, especially with a good of friend of mine in 11th grade.

I’ve done the high school thing: I get it. It was only a few years ago that I was drudging through the high school slough, wondering why I wasn’t popular, why I couldn’t be more like my flamboyant, seemingly “perfect” best friend. It’s tough!

Nothing seemed to go right in high school. I never enjoyed it, and I ended up transferring to online school my junior year. But on the other side I have all the advice in the world to give about it, because I’ve stepped into the light of graduation and honestly realized IT GETS BETTER!

Oh my goodness, the cliché, but it does! It really does.

I’ve been through the body hate, the personality hate, the overall hate for myself. I’ve been through losing my closest and dearest friends, wondering why boys don’t like me, accepting that I’m gay. I’ve been through depression, watching my friends abuse themselves and be abused.

On top of all of this, I’ve come out of it. I’ve lived it; I’ve been it; I’m past it. Yet no matter how many times I repeat my wisdom of surviving it all to my friend, she merely says “Yeah, I know” and flutters back to the same thoughts, to the same tear-inducing patterns, and I’m left pulling at my face yelling, “WHY DON’T YOU LISTEN?!”

Siddhartha lays it straight for me: Buddha reached “nirvana” by walking the path, falling a lot, questioning the hope, and only because of this, found peace.

I want to help because I’ve been there and don’t want my friend to feel the pain I went through, but she has to in order to learn. My knowledge on body issues, girl drama or family issues “did not come through a teaching!”

Advice doesn’t make a learning experience, living it does.

My dear friend in high school can only reach peace by discovering it herself, and each person’s peace is different.

We can only reach our nirvana by walking our paths, even the painful ones, to the ends and finding the light on our own. Some good intentioned people may offer us a map now-and-again, but we aren’t entitled to use it, and sometimes it’s beneficial to learn the hard way.  

I will keep living it, being it, and moving past it in every aspect of my life.
It’s the only way I will learn and know.

Can teachings help us: Yes!
Will I keep giving advice? Duh. 

4/11/13

Birthday Pinata Cake: Bam!

I am OFFICIALLY nineteen on this very rainy, cold April day!

My one of many Pinterest perusals led to a discovery of the Pinata Cake, so Katelin agreed to make it, pleasantly surprising me with the super cute (and delicious) results.


I would just like it known that I handled the icing. Gotta get credit where I can. 






And yes, these are from my instagram. 
I thought I was going to be photo-savvy with my barely used Pentax k1000 today, but I ruined the first roll of film I tried, so back to the trusty iPhone. 

4/10/13

Here Goes Nothing


            “Oh, God. I made another blog.”

That was my first thought upon titling this page and quickly exiting the tab.

I've wanted to start a blog for a while—years—and even created a couple that never saw entries. This page was easily becoming like the others hosting a title, basic layout, and… an empty slot where entries should be. Excuses were (ugh, ARE) bountiful: “I’m a college student, there’s no time!” “I’m so tired.” “I’m boring!” “There’s SO MANY (!) blogs; mine will evaporate in the mist.” But the excuse that it primarily comes down to is I’m scared.

The prospect of being churned up by the abyss of technology and labeled stupid, boring, or worse not seen at all sends me packing as soon as a new blog is created. I’m scared I’m too young and have nothing worthwhile to say, or that I’ll write in this little place of my own for weeks, months or years and no one will ever read it except maybe my girlfriend. Excusing the fact that I’m too scared to tell my girlfriend that I made a blog!

Next to the fear is the horrible (I hate this thought!)  I’m not good enough.

I have been a faithful blog reader the last year, following large and powerful women at Mara Glatzel, RootsofShe, and EattheDamnCake just to name a few of my favorites. They empower and inspire me every single day, and I question if I could ever write as they do; if I could ever establish connections and a community like they have; if I can write pieces that come from my heart, speak my voice, and expose my life pure and beautifully (even the hard parts) as they do.

Between these thoughts there’s no room for me to create, for ideas to spin in my mind, or for me to sit down and type up a thought. There’s only room to say I can’t do it, and then I don’t.

No, I will never be them. But I will be me, and I guess if no one but me (and maybe my girlfriend) reads this, I will survive. At least I can say I DID IT.

Maybe I will end up deserting this blog like the others, still wishing I could figure out how to do this damn blogging thing (why isn’t it as easy as twitter?!), but maybe I will love it. Maybe someone will find me and gain something from my rants, stories, and random thoughts. I hope so.

But if I’m just talking to myself for a few years, that can’t hurt either. I’ll learn that it’s not as scary to be rejected as I think, and I know I at least have a lot to offer to myself, and that’s pretty important.

So here I am, turning 19 tomorrow and starting a blog!