What if we stopped waiting to get happy and just started being happy? Is that an “easier said than done” kind of scenario? I tend to take a “happiness is a choice” stance, but is it really? Seems hard to stand by when each day, lately, has felt like pulling teeth just to get through.

One day last week, I literally didn’t leave my bed and just cried off and on from 10AM until 7PM, with fifteen minute breaks here and there to regulate my breathing before another sad song popped up on the iPod and I was in hysterics again. I keep being told that this is a “grieving process” and that I could feel this way for months, but it almost seems unacceptable.

I went through so much and was forced through so much in the last year. I dated someone who wasn’t right for me, and wasn’t good to me. I held out, in hopes that eventually he’d come around and be what I needed him to be, and that was unfair, on my part. I knew he was wrong, I knew what I wanted was elsewhere, and still, I stayed. I never saw my friends, the one and only time I did in the course of one year, was guilt-tripped into staying home so “she wouldn’t have to be alone with the kids.” I missed my dad, I was angry at my mom. I was trying to figure things out with school. My business keeled over. I had no money. I sold my most meaningful possessions. I bit my tongue in the times when I should have spoken up and kept holding out for better days or hoping someone would come to my aide and help me take on the situations I was being put in, and that was probably my biggest mistake. I was so angry no one was there. I was waiting on a hero instead of being my own savior. I should have stood up for myself, and I should have done it sooner rather than later. I should have been more cautious about the people I was opening up to and trusted. There were individuals who shouldn’t even have been given the time of day.

It makes sense that I would be feeling all of these different emotions, and it’s a day-by-day ordeal, but I wish I could just move on and let go. I think the hardest part about that, is that my heart wasn’t broken by some dumb guy that didn’t treat me well, but that it was family who felt that they could take advantage of me like that; that it was family whose priorities were — and are — askew. I am literally heartbroken in ways I’ve never experienced before. This will scar. And I can promise you, that relationship is done for in its entirety.

The day I left, my brother said verbatim, “You are dead to me.” He said that five years ago, and I was naive enough to put it behind me. I was forgiving, I was trusting. Never again. For the first time in my life, I felt absolutely nothing for him. I’ve never been more content with someone else’s decision for me. I’m dead to you? That’s okay. That’s perfectly fine, actually. So long as your children are not being prioritized in your life, I want nothing to do with you anyway.

What’s not okay is the loss I feel in terms of those kids. It pains me that they have been abandoned by every leading female figure in their lives. That the “mother” currently running the show is not a mother but a dictator, and an abusive one at that. It hurts me to know that they aren’t getting what they absolutely deserve — a sense of safety, a sense of individuality, a childhood. They are being robbed of what should have been their God-given right — their ability to dream, to think for themselves, to be exactly who they are at any given moment of any given day. That, my friends, is such a shame.

I hope, with absolutely everything in me, that when they turn eighteen, there’ll be a knock on my door, so I can welcome them with open arms. They will never be knocked to their knees by their heads for not being able to answer a homework question. There will never be welts on their hips for not putting their glasses away. There will never, ever be a time where they will ever be called dumb, or stupid, or retarded, or fat, or told that they are not good enough. Because the only truth in that, is that people telling them that, are not good enough and not deserving enough to know otherwise. They are beautiful, intelligent, creative, funny, and loving. They deserve so much more than the bullshit cards they’ve been dealt, and it is a terrible indecency that’s been done to them and it is tragic that no one, no matter how many files are reported, has stepped in. And it is a travesty that one single individual could pull the wool over everyone else’s eyes so easily. But I have something others don’t have — testimony, and proof. Physical evidence. And I will never let her live it down, and the best part, is that I don’t have to do a thing — she’ll forever be a miserable, lying, cheating hag. She’ll forever know, in the back of her mind, that someone knows a truth that others don’t. It will eat her alive. She will go to her grave never once being contented by the life she lived.

If that’s not justice, I don’t know what is.

What I know is that I don’t want to be that person. I don’t want to be miserable any moment longer than is necessary. I don’t want to make excuses for why I’m not happy. I don’t ever want to be that person bringing others down because I’m not right with myself.

I’ve always been okay on my own. I’ve always known how to be alone. I need to get back to that. This town is lonely, I’m learning. You know, “People are strange when you’re a stranger.” But it doesn’t have to be. I need to find a way back to myself so that I can start accepting the weird inadequacies I feel here by not knowing a soul. When I’m right with me, I’m right with the world and friendships can be built on a smile.

So, instead of dwelling on what’s said and done, and done and gone, instead of working myself into a crying frenzy with an abundance of different emotions, I’ll recognize and pinpoint what I’m feeling, allow myself five minutes to sit in those emotions, and then I’ll put it to rest. When I’m sad, when I’m frustrated, when I’m angry, when I’m bored.. I’m challenging myself — right here, right now — to find a way to change that. To stop waiting to be happy, and just be. A run down by the river. A bike ride through town. A library card. A thrift store. A music shop. A photo tour. A house party. An unfamiliar face. All of that and more — that’s what’s going to fill the void.

I’m in repair and in for the long haul.

PS, I walked five miles to take that picture. :)

Care to know a secret about me? No? Well, I’m going to share one (or two) anyway, and you might not believe it, but it’s true, and I only just now have the courage to talk about it. My new situation has made me a lot more brave in some ways than I used to be — probably because I’m surrounded by encouraging, uplifting people, which is certainly an incredible change from where I came from.

I did not graduate from high school. Your eyes are not deceiving you. Yes, you read that correctly. I am, in fact, a high school dropout.

Without getting into the gritty details of why, I’ll tell you why not. I’ll let it be known that I didn’t leave because I couldn’t do the work. Quite the opposite. I excel at most things, but I also don’t really stand out at any one particular thing. I also didn’t leave because I was bullied. I mean, I was, but I’d never quit at something I believe in just because of outside factors making my journey more difficult than it probably should have been. That, to me, wasn’t a reason to quit. That, and I also had a really great, close-knit group of friends that still, to this day, make life just that much more worthwhile.

Don’t get me wrong, I definitely believe in the importance of education. But if something’s not working for a child, then I also believe that it’s important to explore as many options as necessary (and available) to ensure the continuance of that education. Here’s the thing: Traditional means of school is not for everyone. I attended two public high schools throughout my high school career. Sophomore year, I took online courses — that actually was a bad alternative, I didn’t have the attention span for it. I finished up my sophomore year at night school and decided to continue the night classes my junior year of high school.

I left before my senior year of high school, with plans to obtain my GED instead. My teacher told me when I put all my cards on the table, that most teens that drop out of high school, never go back and never further their education. She wished me luck, with what I believe was a genuine sadness, and I never thought twice about it. I was bound and determined. I have half a mind to seek her out at some point and show her what a statistic I’m not, haha!

I think, partially, I was so anxious to just get it over with and move on with my life (maybe mostly to move on from Yakima and my home life) that I wanted to take what I thought would be a faster route.

But then I never did. The first year, I took to helping out my brother, who was separated from his wife after she cheated on him with his “best friend.” She took all of the kids’ things. She got pregnant by the friend. She depleted my brother’s bank account entirely at Christmas and he had no means to provide one for them, so one of his friends and I pulled one out of nowhere, along with Christmas dinner, too! I watched his kids for seven months while I took on a paid internship under the drafting team at a home builder’s association. He and I had a falling out when he reconciled with his wife and he had hurt me so badly in the process, that we ceased to have a relationship in the years prior to it.

It seemed like all the bad things started happening back-to-back. A few months later, the economy took a turn for the worse, houses weren’t selling, and I got laid off and had to move back home. Which was okay, because we found out shortly after that my dad had cancer and I wanted to be there for him through that. He overcame it, and maybe it was a wakeup call, I don’t know, but then he “came out” and left my mother. I was angry at him for a long while and couldn’t understand the way in which it all happened. I wasn’t mad that he was gay, I was mad at the circumstances. I was mad that my mother outright blamed me for it. I was mad that he left me alone with her, selfishly, as though his sexual preference and lack of want to be with my mom anymore was a hindrance to me, being that, damn, I had to move back home with the woman and be alone with her! (That’s another story in itself.) And in the confusion of emotions, I felt sad for her, too. They say it takes half the time of the length of the relationship to get over it — my parents are in their sixties and seventies and they were married forty years. You do the math.

I spent years in denial of it. It wasn’t until he almost died, laying in a hospital bed, unable to breathe on his own, and holding his pale, swollen hand between my own, that all the anger and confusion dissipated and I realized that regardless of the way our relationship suffered, that regardless of the burdens he left me with after he’d gone, that I absolutely, one-hundred-percent needed my dad to be in my life and on good terms. If you’re incredibly, incredibly lucky, like I’ve been, then every man you’ll ever meet in the entirety of your life, will pale in comparison to your dad. I’ve been so blessed to know that such man, and even more blessed that he chose me. I wasn’t born to my parents, but they gave me life. How cool is that?

Anyway, in the few months I was out of work, I wracked up a bit of debt and found an alternative to finding another job — the internet. Yes, that’s when I started blogging for a living. I used the money I made from that to pay off my debts and to jump start my career as a freelance makeup artist.

Makeup was something I loved, it was something I was good at. It made me feel good. Maybe, at times, it also made me feel important. I built my kit, I started my portfolio, I advertised my services and gave free, private makeup lessons. By word of mouth, my business started to grow. I took on weddings, I took on proms and homecomings, I took on Halloween, full-force.

My biggest opportunity, and also one of my biggest regrets, to date, was when I was given the chance to do makeup at the CMT Music Awards. I knew a woman who owned her own salon that she had built from the ground up. She had seen some of my work and enthusiasm for what I did and told me that every year, she had a contact that flew her out for the CMT Music Awards to do hair and makeup, and would I be interested in going with her?

I mulled it over for a long time,and in the end, I lacked the confidence to take her up on it. I still kick myself in the ass for it. Not because I have any inclination that it would have been any kind of break for me (I’ll never know, anyway), but just because the experience would have been one that I could never have replicated, yet my fear and insecurities took hold of my decisions. I’ll probably never have another opportunity like that again, most especially because I have a strong feeling I’ll never feel as passionately for the makeup business as I did at that particular time in my life.

I was young, I was very naive, but at twenty years old, I had started my own business and it was becoming quite lucrative. But let’s not forget the facts: Though I loved it, I had to start my own business, because nobody would hire me without a diploma. I had to get my foot in the door somewhere, somehow, if I ever wanted to make something out of myself and of my life, and get the heck out of dodge!

Last year, it all went to crap. I made a single wrong move that ended up turning my entire life upside down. If you’ve followed any bit of my blog in the last year, you probably have some kind of inkling as to what that was, but long story short: I reconciled with the same brother that screwed me over the first time, and let the very same thing happen to me again. Only, this time my heart was in a different place, because I saw a bunch of children being hurt, both physically and emotionally, by a set of parents who, quite honestly, don’t deserve the title. He’s my brother, yes. I love him regardless, yes. But the kids will always, always come first to me. That’s just the way it goes. Be an asshole to me all you want, but take it out on your children in unforgivable ways, and you won’t know who you’ve crossed until I’ve made your life a living hell. Not okay. Don’t you ever doubt that I wouldn’t do absolutely anything to protect a child put in harm’s way, even (especially) those of family.

I still have the video and picture evidence of the welts that woman left on these kids, of the bruises, of the scratches, the hair-pulling. But what’s more, is the emotional damage this woman has inflicted on them. That’s the most heartbreaking. Because these kids are at ages where these things are going to be their sole memories of their childhood, and that is just terrible.

Anyway, in the process of trying to be a help (and that was all lost on me, you can’t help someone that doesn’t want it or is in denial of needing it), I expended all my assets and most of my kit expired, and having no means of compensation, could not afford to replace them. Thus, bye bye makeup business.

When I got the opportunity to leave last month, I did just that. I packed my things in the night and left the next day. Not without a lot of drama and fallout, but all of that is so far behind me, at this point, that it doesn’t even matter.

But in the month leading up to that fateful day, I was in the process of getting my GED squared away, once and for all. My wonderful, wonderful sister (the same one that helped me pack my junk and moved down to Oregon with me on this big ol’ adventure) sent me a card with the money I needed to pay for the test. I left Washington with two more tests to take, scheduled on the same day one week later. Yes, I drove back bright and early in the morning so that I could be there at 8:30AM to take them. Yes, I passed them all. Yes, I received my certificate in the mail.

And yes, I am now a registered college student in the state of Oregon.

My only regret through all of this, was that it took me so darn long. Probably another example of letting fear get in the way of what I want. Now I can look back and literally laugh at how silly it was that I let nerves get in the way of something as important as this flimsy slip of paper. I wish that getting my GED had been made an option to me at the first sign of trouble. That was not an acceptable route to my parents and I disappointed them immensely when I left school. But had they supported that decision when I needed them to, I would have completed it then and most likely would have enrolled in college shortly thereafter, and would have had two additional years of school under my belt by the time my class was graduated.

Judge me. Please, if it makes you feel better, go right on ahead. I’ve been used as an example of what what not to do; as someone you shouldn’t look up to, based solely on my educational missteps. But this is all I have to say to that: Never let anyone use my decisions and my circumstances to fuel your decisions. My path was solely my own, and my mistakes were mine to make, and even still, I’ve overcome them.

I’ve done a lot of good in this world, and I love myself. If that’s not something to aspire to — to become someone you can be proud of, then I’m sorry you feel that way.

The best part is that I’ve managed to overcome all the obstacles that have been thrown in my way, with a manner of love and compassion. People like me. They like me because I’m not ashamed. They like me because I put in the work and the effort. They like me because they know I’m not one to judge. They like me because they can confide in me. They like me, most of all, because I manage to do it with a smile on my face and a kind word on the tip of my tongue.

I really could be a modern-day superwoman if I wanted, haha.

If you want to be ugly, be ugly; share your hate and discontent with the world, and that’s all you’re going to get back. And when you’re wondering why life is always a constant uphill battle; constantly pouring on you, maybe someday you’ll take it upon yourself to realize that it’s because that’s the path you’ve chosen. Instead of finding rainbows, you’re only trudging through puddles, and tracking mud along with you.

While you do that, I’m going to have a damn good, happy life. Just ‘cause I said so. Just ‘cause I feel like it.

I’ve known struggle. I’ve been poor. I’ve sold my car, my guitar and my pride (some of which I’ve shared with you). I’ve known hunger pains that put PMS to shame. I’ve known what it’s like to have no home. I’ve severed ties with most of my family and as sad and heartbreaking as that is, was and is necessary for the time being.

But I’m still standing. I get paid Friday and tomorrow I start a new job. In a few months time, I’ll have a career again. I still have the greatest, most supportive and loving friends (of ten and sixteen years) on the planet — the family I’ve chosen. I can guarantee I’ll have a new car and motorcycle by the end of summer. I get to spend my birthday in Seattle with friends and my dad, all of which I haven’t seen in a year!

I know that even though it gets lonely sometimes, I’m going to be alright. I thank God every day for the people I’ve been privileged enough to still have standing by my side. That says something right there. I know that even on the days I’m feeling insecure about a boy, or a job interview, or whatever it may be, that if I can just continue to find even thirty seconds of courage, that I’m always going to be okay. And I know, without a shadow of doubt, that even though this journey has been hard, and scary, and sometimes downright impossible, that I am right where I’m supposed to be. That even though lately, while my emotions have been haywire and running all over the place (I think I’m going through a grieving process), that even though I’ve walked into a much tougher situation than the one I came from (in an entirely different way), I belong here. For how long, I don’t know, but I’ve got my work cut out for me.

I fully intend to leave more smiles in my wake than the ones I’ve been graced with (or deprived of).

I need to be around people that make me laugh more often. Last night was a lot of fun, but I was sad it had to end. I think it’s probably possible to have fun all the time if you really wanted to make it happen. I used to be able to mix business and pleasure. Not an easy task sometimes, but I made it work. I need to find a way back to that.

Haha, corny title, I know.

Yesterday I went grocery shopping, and made the connection that I definitely buy and eat healthier when I’m by myself. Basically, I let my eating habits suffer at the hands of the kids. They have been introduced to new things over the course of the last eight months — they like curry, I make an orange sauce that they go back for thirds on (and believe me, I wish I had their metabolisms sometimes, ha), they tried the green bean casserole and candied yams I made at Thanksgiving. But even still, on countless occasions, the frozen burritos, chicken nuggets, and top ramen win out above all. Not to mention how atrocious snack time is!

So, let’s just say that I thoroughly enjoy not having to cook for anyone but myself. Because, honestly, sometimes I’d rather just throw together a salad and call it good.

I bought spinach, snap peas, broccoli, carrots, pomegranate and pecans for a salad. Oh, and a lemon instead of salad dressing, haha! Sounds like a lot, and possibly strange concoction, but whatevs. I know what I like. For the record, the pecans hold the most calories of everything else listed here, so instead of using a serving size (1/4 cup at 200 calories, about 20 halves), I just threw five or six on top at 10 calories per.



3 cups spinach and arugula mix — 20 calories


1/4 cups snap peas — 10 calories
1 cup chopped broccoli — 30 calories


1/4 cup carrots — 13 calories


1/4 cup pomegranate seeds — 40 calories


Rinse


6 pecans — 60 calories
1 Tbsp lemon juice — 4 calories

So I liked this guy last year. Harbored a slight crush on him. (Why yes, I am twelve years old when it comes to guys… Awesome, right? No.) But I was shy and I had a pretty negative mentality about it.

He’d talk to me, and I’d get butterflies, and on a few occasions (out of politeness, I’m sure) he’d invite me out, and I’d think, “What if he could like me too?” But it’d be a thought that was instantly squashed by, “There are so many pretty girls here, why in the heck would he bother with me?” And that was that, I’d never pursue it farther than small talk, even though it drove me crazy not to really, truly get to know him like I would have liked.

This continued on for the entirety of his stay here — me liking him, and never having the courage to say so, or at least to initiate anything beyond, “I’m good, how are you?” I went and stayed a couple months in Seattle, and he went back to school, and I figured that would be the end of it.

And it was.

But I saw him a couple months ago, and that nervousness came back. I’ve been working on being more outgoing; trying not to let past failed relationships work their way into the back of my mind, trying to remember that I’m not who I was, and that I can be whoever I choose. So, I was working up the nerve to talk to him. You know, like a normal person would. Only, I never got the opportunity to because I never saw him again.

My sister said she saw him yesterday, talked to him for a few minutes, that he was leaving this week, and my heart sank. I had been there only a few hours before, and if I’d stayed only a few hours more, maybe, just maybe.

But, it wasn’t so. So maybe that means it’s just not right. And maybe it’s a good thing. Maybe I would have talked to him, and stumbled over all my words, and turned into a big, blabbering idiot. Maybe I would have tried to put myself out there, and then I would have been rejected.. But in a nice way, like I’m sure people like him try to do. You know, soften the blow by turning it around to make the issue about him. That’s an unfair statement to make, though. I’m sorry.

Mostly, I’ve been wondering, since yesterday, how many opportunities have been laid before me that I’ve failed to take? And why am I consciously putting myself in positions that I’ll always wonder, “what if” about? What if I’d gone out those few times he asked, what if I’d been more social and confident and secure? Because how differently could this have turned out if I’d just said what I wanted to say to someone who may have been everything I’ve ever hoped for?

Who knows? I sure don’t. I never even gave myself the opportunity to know. And what a shame that is. I’m sure I’m missing out.

Back in January, I started talking to this guy. It wasn’t serious, but I developed feelings for him, more-so toward the end of that whole ordeal. During that time, some friends wanted to set me up with this other guy, but I didn’t want to meet him. I didn’t want to waste anyone’s time, and I didn’t feel the need to meet him, because I was already invested elsewhere.

Well, I ended up meeting him anyway, and it only confirmed what I felt I already knew — I liked someone else. But, hey, I’d humored everyone, right? Wrong. Everyone was so adamant that this guy was “perfect” for me, and the pressure really put me off. So, I tried to distance myself emotionally from anyone connected to the situation, including the guy I was being set up with. I couldn’t talk to him without it being misconstrued and I didn’t know how to approach any of the issues I felt were popping up.

Things ended with that first guy, and it hurt. I hadn’t liked anyone, not genuinely, in so long and he was so different from anyone I’d ever met before. Maybe not so different, after all. But it still hurts. It’s going to bother me for a long time, the “what ifs” that creep up when little things remind me of him (like when someone called a girl “sweet cheeks” in front of me the other day — a long, stupid inside joke — or I hear a song by Tool or APC, or someone mentions Montana — where he originates from — which happens more frequently than you’d think). But I will get over it in time, and soon enough, it’ll be just another smudge on my timeline; something that was important to me at one point, but less so later down the line.

So I’ve been hanging out with the guy I was being set up with more. Not on anything more than friendly terms. I don’t jump into relationships with people I don’t know, and I don’t hook up. So I’ve been very clear, in my opinion, about who I am and where I’m coming from. I thought, if anything, this guy and I could become really great friends as we continued to get to know each other.

A few weeks ago, he bought me flowers. It was one of the sweetest gestures. He said to me, “I don’t think there ever needs to be a reason to buy someone flowers.” That’s way cool. So, I softened my position a little bit. I started asking him to hang out with me more often, because I thought, this is a guy that I want to know, regardless of how our relationship develops.

But it’s been a slow process. I don’t open up to people very often, and he just so happened to enter my life as I was recovering from the emotional beat down I’d just taken from someone else, which has made getting to know him a much slower process than ever before. I can’t talk to men like I used to, because it seems like every time I let my guard down, every time I let someone in, they leave. I don’t know how many more people I can handle walking out of my life. By choice.

We hung out a couple weeks ago. We watched a movie, he took me home. He told me afterward — he told everyone afterward — that he wanted to kiss me. I told him he wasn’t allowed to. I told him I wasn’t 100% sure how I felt. I told him that I’d never kissed anyone that wasn’t my boyfriend, and that we weren’t on a level at which I could feel comfortable referring to him as, and vice versa.

I was honest. He respected my decision.

We hung out a couple days ago. We laid in bed listening to music. Opposite sides of the bed, mind you. He got up and left rather abruptly that night, which threw me off. I had been told that if I didn’t sleep with him, he was going to “move on and get it elsewhere.” That he only liked me right now, because he couldn’t have me. Honestly, that doesn’t bother me. I’m not going to sleep with him, I haven’t even kissed the dude. So if he was so offended by my stance on sex and hooking up, then so be it. I’m not going to bend in those ways and I’m pretty adamant about it, to anyone that asks. If he had such a problem with it, I’d tell him to kiss my ass; on to the next one.

But he didn’t have a problem with it, and that wasn’t why he left, and we talked it through the next day, and all was well. Or so I thought.

Someone felt the need to take my words and twist them to others. They said that he had forced himself on me, that I was uncomfortable, blah, blah, blah. Long story short, that didn’t happen. I never said anything close to that. But the fact that that was being said, offended mutual friends, who’ve had long-standing drama with others that I know. So, I’m pissed off. I’m angry that now I’m being dragged into something that I’ve spent a long while doing everything in my power to avoid. I basically don’t talk to anyone for that reason alone. I cry a lot because I’m bottling tons of emotions just to avoid being grouped in with all that unnecessary BS. But I apparently don’t have that right.

For the record, I don’t have one bad thing to say about this guy. He’s great. I’m glad to have met him. If anything, I’ve only tried to remind people that I’m not dating him, nor kissing him; that he’s not my boyfriend, nor close to being such. And only because I feel like I have to be very blunt about it, because we’re constantly surrounded by kids. Kids who don’t really know what actually constitutes dating and boyfriends and whatnot. And also so as not to confuse anyone about what’s actually happening. All this is, is me getting to know someone new. And if others could just take it as such, there’d be a lot less animosity.

So I’ll just go back to not talking. To anyone. I’ll just continue crying every night because my stress level is through the roof and I have no other outlets. I’ll just leave it here on this stupid blog, as a reminder to everyone that, HEY, I don’t have a damn thing to hide. I know who I am. I’ve always known that, even when I didn’t know that, ha. And I don’t have any problems saying so. And anyone who doesn’t realize that, can fuck off.

I’m nice and sweet and timid to a point. But don’t you dare tell me who I am, or what I’m all about. Because nobody on this earth knows better than I do.

Blocked his Facebook. I’m a little bitter, but it’s not out of anger or spite or anything. It’s not because he’s flooding my inbox with junk. Wish I didn’t have to, but every time I go to answer a message from someone else, I have to see the dude’s picture and it gives me this slight, temporary twinge of nausea. I’ve waited long enough. I don’t want to see it. I don’t want to think about it. I don’t want to wonder. It’s time to move on.

I feel like things will start looking up if I allow myself to revel in all the good around me. So, I’m going to try to remember what it was like before. I’ll get that feeling back eventually. But first, some much-needed sleep.