25 Things I learned in my first 25 years

On the eve of the last night of the first quarter of my life I feel like it should be more extravagant. I feel like there should be this fire inside of me to reflect on what it means to be getting ready to enter the next quarter century of my life. But the fact of the matter is, there is nothing special about it, tomorrow will still be another day, the sun will rise (maybe the clouds will part to show us it), and I will still be me. 

The main difference? How incredibly happy I am. 

Not that the first quarter century of my life has been bad by any means, but lessons learned have shown me that influence took a lot out of me, and that the next 25 years are going to be even better. No quarter life crisis here, except for the ongoing one we battle everyday as humans. Just lessons that I carry with me, and that I will share with you.

These lessons, just words on a piece of paper, give meaning to wisdom and progress our character.

Lesson 1) You want to eat that piece of pizza? Go for it! You want to have that piece of cake? Eat it already! Life is too short to have salad for every meal. Let your sweet tooth savor in the finer things in life, but take care of your body. It is the only one you are given, and at the end of the day, it won't matter how much success you have if your body cannot keep up with it.

Lesson 2) When your mom calls, pick up the phone. Better yet, call your mom, EVERYDAY. You may think she nags you a lot, and tells you things you already know. and all of that may be true. Here's a secret, no matter whether you are an only child or the youngest of 7 children, your mom winged it with you! She did things the best way she knew how, and you wouldn't be who you are without her. Forgive her for not reading your mind.

Lesson 3) When opportunity comes knocking, answer. There is nothing worse than wondering "what if".  Do not open yourself up to the possibility of regret, and even if you do, don't regret a thing in your life, your choices make you, no matter how good or bad they are. Do yourself a favor and immerse your character in the opportunities presented to you, no matter how scary they may seem at first glance, you may surprise yourself.

Lesson 4) When it comes to your schoolwork, or your career, work your ASS off. Study for tests, turn in your homework completed, finish projects on time, and be teachable. No matter what. If that means that you study at the bar on quarter beer night, or you stay up all night and fall asleep on your pizza box before running to class with pizza sauce still on your face, do it. Education is the greatest gift, and a good career is nonexchangeable.

Lesson 5)  Travel. Seriously!! Whenever possible, travel. It is so easy to get comfortable in our lives, superficially happy, but in reality it is easy to slip into just going through the motions. Expand your mind and understand people outside your community. There is no greater teacher than culture itself.

Lesson 6)  Sing. Loudly. In the shower, in the car, in your room. Even if you sing badly, sing your heart out. Music is based in perception. Give yourself the opportunity to stand out. Your showerhead won't judge you, and we all know the guy in the car next to us with a "you're crazy" look on his face, has done the same. exact. thing.

Lesson 7) Don't be embarrassed to be quirky. We are all weird. In one way or another, each one of us does something weird on a daily basis. Embrace your quirk, define yourself by your weirdness, and let everyone know that you find comfort in being eccentric, because normal is just boring.

Lesson 8)  Even if he says he loves you, it doesn't mean that he does. It just means he knows what to say. Words are meaningless if they are not accompanied by the right behaviors, and the right actions. Don't let yourself be fooled by manipulation, and cut it off before you fall. There is nothing harder than climbing out of a hole you have dug yourself. (except for maybe an hour on the arc trainer at the gym)

Lesson 9) Be a total cliche sometimes. "Dance as if no one is watching" "Love teen dramas" because you are a 20 something girl and you can. No one has the right to judge a cliche when they alone, in some way, are a statistic as well. Which brings me to my next one,

Lesson 10) You are a statistic. Just get over it already! At any given point in our lives, we all have a number attached to us. A percentage of how we make up the world. There is absolutely NOTHING you can do about it. Let it ride, and embrace the small piece of this world that you make up.

Lesson 11) Learn to have faith. No one got very far in this world without realizing that there is, at least, some power pushing us forward. The laws of physics, scientifically, will not allow it. For me? It was realizing a divine power, for you, it may be purely scientific. But, from what I learned, is that there are God moments. Everyday there is a way that God shows us that we are not alone, and that we do not have control over everything and we just have to deal with it, and find peace in it rather than fight it

Lesson 12) Date. Date lots of men/women. I don't mean SLEEP with a lot of men/women. But date, a lot. There are millions of people in this world, before you settle down, learn what you like in a mate, what you don't, and whatever you do...do not IGNORE red flags, those little bastards will get you every time.

Lesson 13) Accept support from the people that love you. Your family, friends, significant other, whomever they might be in your life. They are all you have to keep your world from falling apart sometimes. Don't push them away, but rather, keep them close. You may be your own worst enemy sometimes, and they might be the only thing that can save you from yourself.

Lesson 14)  Clean your room/dorm/apartment. The more organized your life is, the better you will feel about things if they get out of control. However, do not, I repeat, do not, be afraid to make a mess sometimes. A mess shows that life continues to impact spaces and rooms and nooks, not just people.

Lesson 15) Explore. Music, Food, Hobbies. How would you even know what you like/don't like if you have never experienced it all? Comfort does us a great disservice when it keeps us from aspects of life that we might enjoy were we to give ourselves the chance to try it.

Lesson 16) Believe in the power of optimism. Negativity will kill you. No, of course not physically (unless you own a light saber and/or know the dark lord). What you put out into the universe, is what you will get back.

Lesson 17) Help others, seek out the less fortunate. Especially when you feel extra bad that you didn't get an A on your last test, or hit goal at work last month. Every single person in this world has more than another in some way shape or form. Use the gifts you have been given no matter how big, or how small, to make a difference. The joy you will see transpire is irreplaceable.

Lesson 18) Spend money on memories, not on objects. Worldly artifacts depreciate. They become rusty with age, and unusable to a certain extent (except for wine, that always gets better with age). Memories are permanently engraved, ripened by experience, and understood with time as opposed to depreciated.

Lesson 19) Get drunk. Or at least go out and pretend you are. I am sure there will be backlash on this one. But I am serious. The best stories come from a night when you go out and you just do whatever you want, whenever you want to do it. Just don't get arrested.

Lesson 20) Drink really good wine. Learn the extent to which your tastebuds can reach. And in the meantime, you can let that pinky flip up with your fanciness.

Lesson 21) Treat yourself. Play hookie, go MIA, get a massage, a facial, a pedicure (yes, even you men out there). Mental health days are imperative to productivity. This is not a scientific fact, but I am pretty sure it is accurate

Lesson 22) Cry. Ain't nothing wrong with a few tears. Feeling overwhelmed? Frustrated? Like the world is against you? There is nothing better than having a good old cry. But when you are done, and there is no more water in your head, drink a bottle of water to rehydrate, wash the tears, and remember that you are amazing, and can take on anything.

Lesson 23) Laugh. Especially at yourself. Because you are funny (looking). No I am kidding, you actually do have a sense of humor, I don't care how serious you come across. You fell up the stairs? Ha, that's life. Oh, and don't worry about that snort at the end of your laugh, no one noticed.

Lesson 24) Love. Everything. Forgive those that made you forget to love them. And love them anyways. Look for the best in people, but don't forget about the worst. Love your life because you don't get another one. If you cannot fall completely in love with your life, how can you fall in love and complete someone else?

Lesson 25) Make mistakes. Your years are nothing without failures, your success is nothing without a few mistakes. Don't be afraid of imperfection. Imperfection is the key ingredient to beauty, defined by our uniqueness. Our individuality defines our outlook on the world, our outlook on ourselves, and the way we deal with our mistakes. Our mistakes do not define us, but they push us, everyday, to be better.

I wish I could say these lessons were easy to learn, but that would be a lie. I have always had to learn things the hard way. But I wouldn't trade a single day in for another. And whether you learn these lessons now, or it takes you a few years, don't believe for a second that anything was not meant to happen...

At the end of the day the biggest risk you take, is not taking risks at all. 

A Beautiful Symphony

Music is the gateway into our past, it is the element of our present, and it is the promise of our future.

I have come to know something I don't know that I have had in a long time. A fraction of my life that I completely looked past, a note within a symphony so overpowered it was lost in the orchestra of different tunes. It is a beautiful symphony though, this symphony of my life. Who knew that one note could change the entire arrangement, the entire sound, the entire impact.

Much like a band of instruments, a song strings together notes. Notes, or brief pitches of noise, some heightened, some deep, some lengthened, and some just around long enough to say they were there for the show. Our songbook is drawn from a string of realities which we create within our own minds. Chapters where our songs sing of happiness, some where they sing of sorrow, some where they are just enough sound to give life to a blank page.

My symphony has formed a good book, its like reading without seeing. It's a replica of my trials, my success' and my small moments of clarity. Heard only by my ears, the music plays over and over, page by page I recognize the instruments, the individuality of every beating drum, of every piano key stroke, of every violin glide, of every breath in and out of the flutes and trumpets that are blaring reminiscence of pride. 

Every once in a while my ears catch it though, That faint clap, that beautiful climax, the sound I long to hear in every page, so silent in the past, but so overpowering now. Its the sound of hope. The thing about this unique sound, is that it can be in the form of whatever instrument you choose. It can be heard by as many ears as you wish, it can be subtle in the background, or it can be the main event. 

The point is, we are the conductors of our own orchestra. Gliding our hands with the changing times, the transition of seasons, the reminders, and the memories. And with the flick of our wrist, we have the power to change it all. The voice that each sound carries louder than the time before, that hope the loudest of them all.

Hope once heard from our basement corners, now fill the halls of our own personal Carnegie, A sound so familiar and so comforting, the world wonders why we kept it hidden for so long.
We replay the noise in our head.

These strokes, which create noise, placed in sequence as notes, as moments on parchment of music teach us how to love. They teach us how to keep memories alive. They teach us how to hope.

But, perhaps most of all, they teach us that we can never learn if we don't listen.

A Woman on the Verge

A year in review. What does that mean to you? Do you look at simple experiences or do you integrate emotion into those experiences? Do you feel the intricacies of how every significant situation made you feel, what you learned from it, what hurt you, what became a blessing from the hurt?

Some years I go into this time of reflection with fear. Truly. Fear for what I have experienced, and not wanting to relive those experiences. Afraid that I wont know what I learned from them, or worse, that I hadn't learned anything. You get over that fear though. A walk down memory lane becomes less dark, but rather a path lit with realities you created along the way.

In years past  I see that there have been struggles along the way, and the path lit was straight and narrow. Taking all the right steps, making all the right turns, where bumps flattened out, where trees fallen had been lifted. Its a path fulfilled, its a path clean, its a path fresh and ready to transition me into a new year.

This year it's different. This year has been the hardest year of my life. Not only in experiences, but in true self discovery. Watching old family home videos the other night made me realize how quiet of a person I am. Maybe not always in the way it seems, but I catch myself in my own head. My words are the most powerful thing I have, Scribbled, and strung along lines of paper, waiting for someone to come along and understand them. I use this as a motto for my life, a channel for my creativity, and a token of my hope for every uncertainty my life holds.

I learned not only what it meant to hold onto someone, but I learned what it meant to let go. I learned that those we want to hold onto the most, are the hardest to keep a strong grasp on, they are the ones we fight the hardest for, at whatever expense {physically, mentally, emotionally, spiritually}. I learned that holding on only brings tears. It's an inevitable abandonment. It's your worst fears come true, it's everything you wish so hard you could push away, without the strength to do it. I still don't know where that very thin line is. The one where you lose strength in holding on, where your emotions cause that vigor in which you retain a grasp to be translated into weakness, and where the right kind of strength takes over. But it happens, undeniably. Sometimes it takes days, other times, months, and in my case, years. Being caught up in your own head is a channel for flaws to arise, and instability to result. A clear mind, and a heavy heart cause that burden to finally lift, and you can let go. Sometimes I still wish I knew exactly how it happened. I wish I could diagram the process, but the inconsistency of the mixture is a disheartening recipe.

This year, I learned what it meant to love, but not be in love. I also learned what it meant to be truly angry. Anger so intense that it clouded everything, it stopped my feet, it sank me like quicksand. The only anger that has ever caused me to wonder if I could ever forgive. An anger that broke me, for however short a time, that fueled me in all the wrong ways.

And these are just the small lights along the way, the flickers on my path leading to catastrophe, to complete darkness, blackness that sank me into its depths and in its refusal pushed me to fight the hardest I have ever fought for anything.

The most important lesson I learned this year, has to do with what it means to exist in a world I don't control . I found success this year, a success that I have wished for so long I could experience. A life of mediocrity evaporated into my life where invincibility was a norm, and where the light that led my way was bright, far from a cry of perfection, but I didn't realize that brightness was blinding me.

Its like a train you ride for a while, vision clear, but the speed you take blurs the imperfections in the world around you. Your vision, so unfailing during that time doesn't see that, it sees the colors that come together. But that train never stays above ground for long, and at the blink of an eye you enter a tunnel. Dark and cold, your vision is no longer your own but put into someone else's hands.

You lose control.

This is the year that I found my faith. In the midst of threatening circumstances, in the midst of fear so blinding it takes your sight and extinguishes it, in the midst of a locked door with no key you find a way to move through it. God is the only way. He is the way I have moved mountains of fear this year, he is the only way I have taken back the right kind of control, and let him light my way.

Lessons within lessons within lessons.

Family and Friends are the glue that hold me together, the strength when I am weak and the light when everything around me goes dark. They are the support I need when my knees give out, they are the channel of understanding that keeps me sane, they are the truth in a world of lies.

I have learned a lot in the last year, but as I look back, I don't see that clear and finely lit path, but rather a collection of obstacles moved barely inches for me to pass. A messy stream of realizations that, rather than a light on the path my realizations form a star pattern in the sky which leads me to here. It's never going to be easy, a single blink can be the difference between light and dark.

I am a woman on the verge of something great. Something life changing, and yet uncertainty is the only thing that is certain. I live my life faithfully and without burden, but with a beautiful blindness that proves one lesson to remain true:

I would rather follow a collection of stars leading me  through a messy and beaten path, than to hold onto darkness.

Chasing Ghosts

Why do we feel the need to constantly chase after things that don't exist?
Maybe they never did. 

We lead ourselves into fantasies believing with everything that something, or someone, exists. Emotion leading us blindly to a faction of truth where lies exist. A lie within a truth which exists so scarcely that it masks nonexistence, creating a ghost.

You saw him there though. You remember his eyes, the way he smiled at you, the cadence of his voice and the tiptoeing of his feet as he climbed next to you. You can feel his arms around you, his words move through you, your heart both heavy and lifted at the same time. Most importantly you remember the care he took in every conversation, trying so hard to help you see his perspective. Those words that meant so much to you. 

And then it was if a claw came down and took him. Or the existence of him. And as the loneliness sets in you begin to wonder if there was something could have done differently, if there was some grave miscalculation that brought you here. Then you remember there can only be one, there was only meant to ever be one.And anyone who stands in between was meant to become a ghost, passing in the night. We learn not to chase the ghosts because of the fragmented reality it creates.

We move forward and hope that, that which we let slip into darkness was never meant to be our light.

A Powerful Downfall

Anger. 

Betrayal. 

Destruction of Trust.

I don't think I ever really understood the power of anger until just recently. I am not an angry person. I love even when it's difficult, give even when it is undeserved. Vulnerability in its most passive state. 

I've never thought twice about trusting those who I care about. I believe in honesty as if an innate characteristic of humanity. I observe the world through innocent eyes despite the true and undeniable pain I have felt so as to not become bitter. I have refused to believe in evil as primal and betrayal as a societal norm.

Anger. 

It's probably one of the most life threatening emotions. It has the ability to turn your life upside down; to tear your perspective into unrecognizable pieces; to disfigure rationale and question conviction. Anger is a betrayal of your mindfulness and a conquest of your innocence. 

The world, though observed through the same eyes, yields a very different spectacle. Resentful epiphany soaks your vessels by channel of an excessive heartbeat, weary concern, and disingenuous regard. Thoughtfulness becomes an inconvenience and the willful ability to defer any fragment of obstinance simply fades into oblivion.

You betray the perceptions that create you, you destroy that argument which supports humanity.

The destruction of trust, leads you blindly through pain. 

It leaves no allowance for gain, no hope for retrieval, and no truth where the lies have invaded.

Epiphainein

I have been feeling inspired lately. I have been feeling inspired by something I don't know that I have ever relied on too much before now. Mostly I find my inspiration in the world that surrounds me. I find it in nature, the way that the land has its own language,  how it speaks to me in therapy, as if it is the only energy that really fills me. I find it in the closest people to me, the ones that never leave my side, who never give up on me, and who remind me that hope is better than living in darkness. I find it in my faith, in the belief of a being so powerful that it guides me without a concrete presence, an idea crafted by the most divine nature, a concept of life that carries me.

But this time, it's so different. This time, I am inspired by myself. I spend so much time burdened by who I am. And so often has it led to me searching for confirmation from others. Validation that I am a good person, with a good heart, and a beautiful presence. A burden that has led me to the wrong relationships. A burden that has kept me from pursing the right ones. It is a burden that has forced me to look for someone or something that sees me, but yet who i truly am felt invisible,  even to myself.

The last two years of my life has been nothing short of being stuck on a plane constantly rocked by turbulence. Pain that knocked the wind out of me, and me trying to catch my breath with the air of yet another saturated situation. I have had a lot of time to think about where I have been, and the things I have seen. The mirrors that hold up in my memory reflect confusion,  they reflect a lost soul, they reflect weakness.  I have felt betrayed, by others in my life, by circumstances both within and beyond my control, by my emotions, and most of all by myself. Each reflection a stigma of sadness. Each eye sparkling with a fear of defeat.

I keep thinking that I should feel bitter, or resentful, about these things. That I should be jaded by the pain, blinded by the defeat, paralyzed with fear. But rather than a feeling of debilitating weakness, the muscles contract and with every pump is a stream of hope continuously flowing through me. Failures becoming my opportunuties, and my success' building a staircase of baselines that never seem to summit. My biggest fear being that with every passing situation that the reflection will start to read nothing, as opposed to emotion,  regardless of its positive or negative charge.

Yet I continue to glimpse back,  and retrospectively find a twinkle of hope in every sparkle of fear. Hope that something more is meant from me, hope that one day I will feel the cleansing release of love. Love from another person, love for something I do, and love for myself. I am inspired by my courage, designed to prove that optimism is stronger than pain and fear, designed to lift me above the failure, and plummet me into opportunity. I am inspired by my perseverance,  not just to continue moving forward,  but to continue to hope.  Hope that the future is brighter than anything defining my past. Hope that one day I will find someone who sees me, not only for all the best parts of me, but for all the worst.

Your beauty is defined by who you see when you look in the mirror, not by who people tell you to see. Your strength is defined by your failures, and your courage to rise above to opportunity. Hope can be disguised in fear, it can be limited by pain, it can be stripped away by distrust. When you let go of the resent you hold for yourself, you will begin to hope for the future. You are your own worst enemy,  isn't that what they say?

Finding an alli in yourself is more than a reliability, it is a validation.  Proving your courage is more than a declaration,  it is a staple of your self worth. Seeing yourself, is what brings the world to their feet.

Four White Walls

White.

Multiple meanings strung together

Incomplete, forgotten, uncertain

Mind voided, voice unheard, stories not yet begun

White. 

Formerly a color of comfort, now the color of fear.

Surrounded with no escape.

Meaningless panic 

Bound by circumstances.

Limited power.

I sat on the inside.

I forgot to look up.

Frantic. Motionless. 

I contemplate my next steps

No movement comes.

Not to my lips, nor to my feet.

Thoughts still racing.

Heart still pounding.

Does an answer exist?

Suddenly you're there

Vague and blurred, yet unmistakeable

You look up, fear keeps my eyes on you.

Gesturing up, calmness in each motion

My head tilts, light catches my iris

A circle of warmth draws closer

Pulls me, lifts me, breaks me free

I stand on a meadow of opportunity

My feet with adrenaline 

I see a horizon.

Beauty, Strength, Opportunity

All was lost and now I see

Life worth living

Love lasting

Hope fueling.

Faith worth keeping me here.