The Sun Will Rise

I've looked over this past week and a half of events and my heart goes out to so many people and then honestly it laughs at others. My girlfriend's grandmother died, my aunt's boyfriend/fiance died, and so many other smaller things happened. I have never been good with death. I guess I look at it differently than most people and a lot of people think that I am cold hearted or arrogant, but I'm not. Like with my girlfriend's grandmother, I feel so bad for the family. I cannot even imagine what Kristen's mom is going through. However, the side that people really look at me and go "you're such a bad person" for is her grandmother had problems and didn't want to take care of herself. The same goes for my aunt's boyfriend. He had so many problems and so many opportunities to take care of himself and he didn't. How can i feel sympathy for a person who literally says to the universe "take me away, life isn't worth living,"?

It's sad that there are so many people in this world that just give up. They don't see the beauty in merely breathing. I know life gets hard and I know that there are times when we all want to give up. I was there, many times before. My father was very abusive and he did things to me that I refuse to tell anyone because I don't want to be that victim. I've dealt with it - 20 years later - but there was a point where i hadn't dealt with it. My teen years were so full of malice, hate, disgust and uncertainty. I remember a friend of mine sold Vicodin at school and she'd give them to me if I did her homework. I'm not proud of my past, but there's a reason it's called "past". I was always looking for ways to dull the pain, to hide the pain, and to be in control of the pain. I started cutting at a young age, but i never cut where people could see. I knew that if it was obvious I would get questioned and I didn't want to be question since it was a form of dealing with what was going on and not a cry for help. Eventually, I was able to suppress that need to control the pain and get on living my life.

However what I just realized as I am writing this is that I had a "medium" that helped me suppress that pain. The week I stopped cutting was the week my first girlfriend kissed me. It's odd how you come to realizations as you type. Things you didn't think about before are suddenly so clear. However, after we broke up, I went back to that place of needing to control the pain, needing to escape the pain and needing to feel something...anything. This time, as I came out of it, I came out of by myself. I didn't have something to hold onto. I realized that cutting, cocaine, alcohol and meaningless sex were worthless to my cause. They quickly became replaced with tears.

Here I am, a 25 year old college "kid" for lack of a better term and I have gathered that life can never throw you something so horrific that you give up on yourself. I look and I see people over 40 who give up daily. I can understand younger people feeling so down and so low that they don't know which way is up. That's all a part of life, growing and learning. I don't understand why people my generation looks up to is setting such a bad example. It's not just about the "not caring if you live or die" part, it's about my generation's parents not caring about themselves in general. They (not all but a lot of them) have set such bad examples for my generation in general. There are so many women who are stuck in a loveless relationship or marriage simply because they are afraid. My mother was one of these people.

For as long as I can remember my father was abusive in some way, shape or form. He would use verbal threats, physical intimidation, emotional pulls, mind-games..etc. I saw my mother - who everyone said was this spitfire of a woman who didn't take shit from anyone - be totally submissive to this domineering man. He had such power over her. He controlled her every move; He controlled my every move. That is until one I had had enough. One day he pushed me just far enough that I snapped. I'll never forget it. He got up in my face about something - a job i think - and I was done. I reached behind me and grabbed the knife that was on the kitchen counter and I pushed him in between the counter and the fridge and I held the knife to his throat and told him that he needed to get the fuck out of my house otherwise I would kill him. I have never felt as much rage in my life as I did that one afternoon. It kind of feels like that one afternoon was about survival instead of just being pissed off.

 I can't change what happened to me as a child. I can't change the role models I had growing up. Since my father and my mom split apart, my mom has worked to become this strong, independent, self sufficient, magnificent woman that I look up to. I can't blame her for being oblivious during my childhood. So many women do the exact same thing. However, I refuse to be that woman. Whether my girlfriend and I make it together in this life or not, one thing still stands true...I have a daughter. I am going to be an example to her. No one knows whether love will last - it is a choice. However, being a parent is gift...one that should be held precious and parents should make the most of their lives so their children can see an example.

No one knows what their life is going to entail. No one knows what lies ahead on their journey. It's not a matter of the obstacles that we each face every day. What counts is that we go through them and we learn from them. We are all going to feel incompetent at times. We are all going to feel like we can't go on. However there is nothing worth your life. Your life is precious and many people are affected by just your breathing. Take care of yourself. Do what you are told to do.  Love and Love Hard. Never look back. Press on.

"When you feel like the day won't break a sunless night...the sun will rise"


-All my love

The Definition of the Phrase "I'm Behind You"

To Be Behind You Means:
                            
~I can cheer you on                                                              

~I can push you at something I know you want and need to go for
                                                                              
~I can catch you when you lose your balance and begin to fall                                                                  

~It means I can kick you in the butt or slap you upside the back of your head when you've done something really stupid                                              

~I can catch things that you didn't see coming                                    

~I can help guide you when you are lost                                               

~I can keep you balanced when you are unsteady                                  

~and anytime you need a shoulder to cry on, all you have to do is turn  around.

The Heartbreak of 4 seconds....

Yesterday was the game of all games. It was the first time I went to college football game...my college's football game.  I have always wanted to be a part of something so grand, so magnificent as the whole university-team oriented idea and then the first time I was able to be a part of the university-spirit "game-day" experience, I think I went through so many emotions in a four hour period than most people have in a month's time. Even though we lost, by literally a touchdown that we almost made - don't get me started on the rant - it was still a very enlightening and enjoyable experience. I had more fun at that one game than I have had in  a long time. It shocked me a little because I was with my co-workers and so I tried to reserve myself until I heard one of the girls say "fuck" during one play and "pussy" at the end of the next play. So, I eventually let my walls down and joined into the occasional (well more like frequent) "What the fuck are you doing????" screams from the stands.

After the game, I went down an exit that I shouldn't have - just needed to get out of the stadium because I was so pissed off at how horrible we played, I mean it was JUST U of A - and I wound up at the other side of the stadium which happened to place me almost three miles from my car. After adjusting to my surroundings, I finally figured out where I was and which direction I needed to head in, however due to the mountain that was placed directly in my "shortest distance between two points" thought, I had to take a detour. As I passed by most of the college-town bars, I heard a group of college guys screaming and hollering obscene and vulgar phrases towards a U of A cheerleader who was trying to do the same thing I was....get to her car.  When I noticed that they were going to start to follow her, I quickened my pace, dug deep inside myself and created a magickal barrier between the two of us and the "horn brigade" .  I followed her at a safe distance throughout the rest of the streets until I saw that she had reached her small economy sized car unharmed and was quickly driving out of the parking lot. I then noticed that I was not too far from my own and I continued on my path to my vehicle.

Some would ask "why did you follow her? Aren't you a sun devil?" Well, regardless that I am a Sun Devil - please make sure it is capitalized - as a strong, protective woman I feel it is my duty to make sure she was unharmed. I followed her at a safe distance because I did not want to alarm the poor girl at what I had witnessed.  I take my duties as a Sun Devil to heart, but just because I am completely school spirited does not mean that I would ignore the possible harm towards a girl who simply goes to a different school than I.

Has our world become so egotistical that we are all only one-sided? I would have thought as humans we are four dimensional people and that we take on the responsibility to look out for and protect one another but I guess in a world filled with bias and hate, we cling to those who are like-minded and fuck the rest of society because they do not believe how we believe or behave how we behave. I've noticed this act of inhumanity to be mostly the Christians or other highly religious people for those are the ones asking me the questions. For a group of people who believe God put us on this earth for a purpose, the group as a whole is very...well...mean.

I have met more people who are kind, compassionate and over all enjoy helping society as a whole and they consider themselves to be Satanists! Having been brought up in the "church" I learned many things but the one thing that sticks out in my head is the complete legalism and smug attitudes that the church as a whole has. "Come as you are, we will accept you. But if in a couple months you don't change, then we want our NIV Bible back". Come on! Seriously? Who the fuck do you think you are and how dare you tell me that I need to change when you sit in your pew every Sunday morning, Sunday night and Wednesday night but yet on those other days you sit and gossip about what Kathy G did on Saturday night with another single man (or woman for that matter) and then on Monday morning you give your assistant those "goo goo" eyes and undress her with your mind even though your wife is sitting at home taking care of your kids and your house!

So what is the heartbreak of four seconds? Its that pivotal moment when everyone is watching you. Everyone is staring at you hoping that you will catch that ball and land in the endzone and make them proud. Its that point in your life where you can do what everyone else is begging you to do. Do what everyone else is telling you to do. Its that point where you have done everything you are supposed to and now...at this point...you are caught in a mix of confusion between who you want to be and who you are. Its the first time you pick up a Wiccan book and start at the cover as you cling to the cross that hangs lightly on your neck. Its the first time a girl leans in towards your cherry glossed lips and you know you should back away but you find yourself leaning closer towards her.  In that moment your mind does two things. You either become scared and bolt in the other direction or you give into your emotions and allow yourself to be freed of the constraints that bound you so tightly.

In that moment when you decide to follow your own mind and you feel her lips against yours, you read about the power energy, or you proceed in any act of which you only thought about, your heart breaks if just only for a second. The heartbreak of the four second contemplation tears a person's inner being between following the critera for the  box they have been closed into and being an individual free to do their own will without the repercussions of hatred. However, I am sorry to be the messenger on this - regardless of what you do, you will always be the subject of some type of hatred. You are not perfect and therefore because you will never be this ideal image of what someone has created you out to be, you will never live up to everyone else's expectations for you. Be happy in your decisions, even if they lead you away from things you have previously known. It is hard and it is daunting. You will cry and you will scream, but in the end you must be happy with yourself. Don't let fear paralyze you. Embrace the change and cradle the new. Eventually you will learn to create yourself.

There always has to be a first post....

A first post is almost more nerve racking than a blind date. You're not sure if the readers will be interested, not sure if they will even like what you have to say and you're never sure exactly how to start. You want to tell a bit about yourself...you know...introduce yourself, but yet you don't want to divulge all the mystery behind the layers of the years that have covered you. Each day we are inspired by so many objects, people, places, words, conformity...non conformity and just the individual details that life throws at us on a daily basis. Lately I have been incredibly inspired by the beautiful and talented Amber Benson. I have always been a fan of her work and yes I can tell the difference between reality and fiction, unlike most people who box her into her character, Tara, from Buffy the Vampire Slayer. She does not know it, but I have followed her work for years and she has always inspired me to just...be me.

I know that I am only one voice. I am not famous, I am still working through college and I have barely any foothold in this vast world that I live in. However, I have much to say. There are many passions that ignite my being and this is a safe place where I am able to share those thoughts and opinions and possibly help those who cannot help themselves or who do not know how to help themselves. As we grow older we face so many different questions and different situations all piling down and condensing together to form one major idea that we must embrace..."Who am I?" 

I have spent years which seem like lifetimes trying to answer this question. I always saw myself as some major contradiction, however, recently I have been told that I am not a contradiction. Instead, I am eclectic. I like that terminology....eclectic. I can be many things at one time even though in some people's narrow minds those things cannot coexist, however, I  am living proof that they most certainly can and do exist in a single living soul. I can be many things wrapped up into one, even if they do raise an eyebrow or two.

My life is a mix of colors...a mix of roles that I play. I have repressed parts of myself up until now because I felt that I had to chose one belief or the other in order to be an actual person instead of a contradiction. However, I have learned most recently that not being 100% honest with myself is the same as lying to myself and after almost 26 years of only being a half-me, I'm tired of lying.

I am a mother. I am a daughter. I am a sister. I am a wife. I am a lover. I am a fighter. I am a writer. I am an analyst. I am a student. I am a teacher. I am pre-med. I am a Christian. I am a Wiccan. I am a lesbian. I am activist. I am an advocate. I am a helper. I am a haven. I am shelter.  I am life. I am power. I am knowledge.  I am wisdom. I am from my past. I am from my present. I am from my future. Most importantly, I am myself. For now, forever, and for always. No going back. No regrets. No lying. No deceiving. Just me. Plain. Simple. Magnificent. Extraordinary. I have something to give. I have something to say. I have a way to change the life that we know. I will change the life that we know. In my own time.