summer flings. summer romances. summer whatever!
Upon coming home from school, I have been asked a million and one times if I have a boyfriend (no, I do not), or I've gotten "I bet you have all the boys throwing themselves at you" (once again, a very firm no here).
So here goes nothin'...
I am a very firm believer in love. I always have been and I'm sure I always will be. My parents are divorced and have been since I don't know when (I was old enough to remember it all, but I can't differentiate if it was 6th, 7th or 8th grade) so whatever. I don't care so much that got divorced. In fact, it made us all happier. And if that's not love... well it may not be. Ha!
Needless to say, I learned a lot from it. I learned that love doesn't last and that it's ok to move on and love someone else. So here I am - 20 years old and happily single. I say happily and I mean it. I don't think a lot of girls my age can say that. My mom has asked me a good amount of times this summer if I wanted a boyfriend. Sure, it'd be nice, but I'm so young and have so much to figure out on my own, that I don't think I could even handle having to think about another's feelings constantly and what they are or are not doing. I don't know. Who does really know?
Over the past year and a half, I have learned more about myself than I ever thought possible. For example, I learned about being happy when I was depressed. I came out of my depression phase by realizing that life throws you a shitty hand more than once and you either roll with the punches are sit in complete misery. But who the fuck wants to do that? Not me, which is why I have chosen the choices I've made and the path I have decided to take.
I'm kind of going on a rant that's not related to "love" right now, but bear with me, because it gets to the point. Going into my junior I came to terms that the choices I made were all my own. I could really do anything with my life that I wanted at that point, because I was an adult after all... still living with my mom and off my parent's money for the most part. But whatever, if I wanted to drop out of school so be it. Luckily, that wasn't what I decided. I decided to do my best at school. Fall semester worked in my favor and I kicked ass in getting my best grades that semester. Spring semester, in turn, kicked my ass, but I worked my butt off. I promise you that.
I realized that I could be mad over the tiniest things that wouldn't matter by the end of the day. Or I could move the fuck on and get over it. I took the second route, because the first one was too much for anyone to deal with, quite honestly. I also started doing everything for myself. Call me selfish... so be it. Once I did this though, I became so much more happier. For 19 years of my life, I put others first... 1) because that's what I was taught and 2) because I thought caring about other people would make them care about me.
Let me say first, thank my mom and dad for raising me the way they did. I have learned so much from them, but I'll save that for another post. And secondly, caring about other people so much so that your heart nearly breaks isn't worth the pain. This was my downfall. I have spent my entire life trying to put others before me, so much so that I forgot to even look after myself. I never wanted to see people hurt that were a part of my life. I would cry for them... because most of the time they wouldn't even cry. This isn't a way anyone should live. You don't live for other people, you live for yourself. Once again, completely selfish, but fuck it. This is how I learned self love.
Self love has been the most important part of my life for the past year. Wasn't happy with my weight? Wasn't happy with my grades? Wasn't happy with the people I surrounded myself with? The only person who could fix that was me. This is where I came in... in my own life... after 19 years. I came in and told myself that no, this wasn't how I supposed to continue. I was here to make myself happy first. And that's what I did. I cut out the negative starting with people who didn't help me grow or make me feel good about myself. Who has time for negative people who only bring you down? The answer should be no one.
I then cut out all my negative thoughts. This is definitely something I'm still working on. It's hard to only think positive and have a smile on at all times. But I really try my best. When something angers me, I think, is this going to matter in 5 minutes? If not, move on.
Finally, I've cut out most negative calories. Yes, I still will eat popcorn and chocolate occasionally! But I have really been focusing on eating healthy and staying fit. Yoga, people! I'm a runner so this was hard for me, but yoga is more relaxing than you think! It's also much, much harder than y'all might thing! But, it's totally worth it!
Here I am at 20 years old. Single and not even looking for anything serious because the only thing serious in my life right now is making sure I 1) love myself, 2) love my family, and 3) find a company I absolutely love working for doing what I love.
So cheers to me, and cheers to you!
For those of you in committed relationships, more power to you! Maybe someday we'll all be as lucky as you :)
Xx
