It's A Revolution, I suppose.

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My stomach twists into knots and churns with nausea as I listen to a live stream of NBC Monday November 24, 2014. It's maddening. A man I'm unaware of drones on and on about how much deliberation was put into this case and tons on social media.  I wait, almost hands over my ears for him to just be out with it. I know what he's going to say. No matter how much we all believed in the small glimmer of hope in the deepest pits of our stomachs to be true, we all knew what he was going to say. Of course I imagine my heart could not have fluttered with nearly as much angst and anticipation as the family and friends of Mike Brown who'd been waiting on this for the last hundred nights. Justice, as they call it, was to be served. Perhaps my definition of justice differs from theirs.

Then Obama came on. Ahh, the voice of reason. Someone who understands to come shed light upon what we all know is the reality. His eyes tell me he understands, because he has to. His eyes gleam a certain tired desperation that cannot make me believe that any of what came out of his mouth were any words of his, or remotely on the same wavelength as any words of his. They floated in the air false and detached from reality. They sat in the air like dust blown around Obama and the United States. Lost and false.

Then I took to the internet and saw the onslaught of support, love and fair share of ignorance from those who shall remain unnamed. Those who, as they sat in their privilege sipping red wine with their dog and husband complained about the destruction of property in the midst of a civil war unfolding in front of their eyes. Though who aimed to defend themselves, and not stop to listen. Those who claimed their opinions weren't viable because of their "race".

Black people have been silent for a long time. Since as far back as "history" will serve we see vast periods of no progression followed by chunks of heroic movements that set us forward. This is one of those moments.

I urge you reading this, for once, don't feel the need to share your opinion or two cents on what's happening in Ferguson. Just listen to them. Watch history unfold and pay attention. Learn. Your opinion about the "loss of property" is irrelevant and quite inappropriate at this time. I have nothing but the most sincere reverence for the people of Ferguson doing what they're doing now. This is so important. It's history. These are the people I pray the next generation of young people will learn about and emulate. Do not share your opinions about Mike Brown as a person, because realistically this has all elevated far passed just him. This is an issue for an entire group of people that have been oppressed for hundreds of years on no ground beyond the colour of their skin and the grade of their hair.

It's a time to act. And if you can't do that, it's a time to simply listen and understand.

It's finally time for the revolution, I suppose.

It's All Real

It will sound completely bonkers to say this, but have you ever come to a full realization to the realness of something when you say it out loud? Not as if it wasn't real before, but something about the verbatim have made it exist in a new form it didn't before, thus births a new meaning. When a thought becomes a sound it's put out into the world to exist forever. It will never unexist, it becomes a wave of energy that will never be destroyed, nor recreated but simply transformed from one form to another.

My story and feelings are as real as yours, and recently I've fallen out of love with mine. I spend a lot of time scouring the internet for stories of all kind and I enjoy them. I enjoy listening and feeling the things that were once only electric sparks in their mind, but became words on a paper, or letters on a blogpost and thus a movement in my life. I want to write things, and share things to become a form of energy to move you. I've run dry of my own stories. I'm eighteen years old, and have barely experienced anything worth trying to educate you about. But there are a million and one other people with other experiences that I'd like to share, and write. Take pictures and capture moments to create an energy. A forum.

It's all real. Your story is as real as mine, is as real as anyone else's. Anyone else's thoughts, feelings and experiences are as much tangible when written as anyone's is and I want to collect them. I want to collect them all and share them with you. I don't know how, when, where, or why. But I know it's something I want.

Phase one complete? Phase one complete.

Eighteen Things

1.    Life is about enjoying the highs, getting through the lows, finding the good in the bad, understanding the bad in the good and appreciating every moment in between. 

2.    Open toed shoes at a music festival has never been a good idea. 

3.     Not everyone in your life is going to fully appreciate what you have to say, what you create or what you put your heart & soul into. That doesn't matter. Anything that makes your heart sing is worth it. 

4.     It's hard for people to understand what they aren't experiencing. If you feel something's wrong, something is probably wrong regardless of anyone else's diagnosis. 

5.    You don't like parties. Don't go to them. You don't like alcohol. Don't drink it. 

6.     If he liked you nearly as much as you liked him, he'd have texted you forever and a year ago. Give your love to someone who actually cares to have it. 

7.    Drop all the things and people that don't make every fibre of your being explode with sensation. Life is too short for mediocre, or less than amazing. 

8.    99% of the things & people you stress over aren't worth it. Stop.

9.    Your playlist is actually killer and your ability to memorize raps & drop them like you wrote them yourself is other worldly.  

10.    You're so deserving of the life you wish to live. If you need help to get there, ask for it. It's hard. It'll take you a minute, but just know that it's about the journey, but the destination will make the entire thing worth it. 

11.    You're not invisible. 

12.    Good people, good times & good vibes are the most important. 

13.    The smallest things are so important, especially health wise. Eat breakfast, take your daily vitamin, wash your face and floss. 

14.    Cry when you need to and laugh when you want to. Anyone in your life who won't laugh with you, or be your shoulder to lean on has no place here anyways. Let it all out. Emotions can become dangerous. 

15.   Celebrate yourself. Your curves, your colour, your hair, it's length, it's texture, your eyes, nose, and lips and all the many features on you that are unique. Society won't. The media won't either. You've got to find your worth and beauty within yourself, or it'll be forgotten.

16.    Making lists is a super difficult thing to do that you should stop committing to it. You're not a list-maker. 

17.    You're entitled to a break.


18.    The sun isn't bright because you & I have acknowledged its brightness. It just is. It was bright before humans were around to appreciate it, and it will remain bright long after humans have fried ourselves into extinction. It won't stop being bright, simply because I call it dim. No matter what the sun remains bright. 

We remain who we are, regardless of who takes time to notice it. We are wonderful, beautiful and worthy because we just are. Someone else's denial or approval of that does not stop us from being amazing. 

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(Many thanks to Tumblr & my wonderful friend Kyra for helping me with these) 

The Moral Dilemna

For just over five months I've been freelance writing for a little extra cash. As a full time university student, with severe procrastination syndrome and a one track mindedness always focused on Netflix, I typically don't work in the school year and save that for summer, in a futile attempt at good grades.

I won't name the company I write for, obviously, as usual I'm not trying to put anyone on blast, just telling my story. I received the monthly budget with about five days to pick some stories, and get back to the editor. This was a weekend a friend of mine was coming to visit, music festivals, bowling and several other activities were planned which means my story ended up getting picked quite close to the deadline leaving me with one I was more than unqualified to write. Tips for freshman girls.

I had to write an article giving freshman girls tips on how to have a successful and "sociable" first year. Being the antisocial cockroach I am, I wrote the piece as best I could and sent it in. A few days later I received an email back asking me to add a few things, expand on the section I'd included about drunk driving which went a little something like "Don't get in a car with someone who is so inebriated they can't clearly say their name," which I felt summed up the entirety of drunk driving pretty clearly, what to do when pictures leak on social media, and various other things completely out of my field of expertise. Instead of passing up this challenge, I added what I was asked and made the best possible article I could.

Fast forward to yesterday, almost two weeks later and I receive the final edit of this email. I'm told it's undergone heavy editing and asked if I will allow them to publish the article with my name still attached to it. After having one look at the sloppy, disjointed, poorly written mistake for journalism the completed article had become I asked them to swiftly take my name off of the article. I don't care if it's published, but it will not be attached to my name. The article was shockingly poor quality.
However, I was also told unless my name stays attached to the piece of work...I don't get paid. That's right. Though both originals of this piece were written by me and the skeleton of the starved written piece that is the final edit is still derived from my basic format, idea and voice, I will not get paid if I opt to have myself removed from the piece as the author.

Here lies the moral dilemma. As a student qualified to do little more than cashier work finding any kind of way to make money doing something I moderately enjoy is exciting. Less exciting when people like this take advantage of young writers simply trying to gain experience in a field they're interested in. Nonetheless, both my parents have Dr in their title. I'm not homeless and I'm not starving, I stood firm and my name won't be put on the article. I don't need their money.

My overall zeal to want to do journalism has all but disappeared as I know things like this aren't unfamiliar in the field, particularly to those who are young and desperate for any sort of foot in the door. I mean I've never been extremely passionate about journalism, it's just always seemed like something I'm good at, so I stuck to it and here presented a way to make a little extra cash doing it. But for now, it looks like I'm through. A chapter closed. I don't know what the next experience will bring but for now this blog becomes the only spot I write & publish anything really.

I mean I've never thought of myself as the world's greatest writer but apparently I'm better at this than some "editors". Not hatin', just statin'. Go figure.

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Show and Tell

Life has always only ever been a balancing act. We stay somewhere safely in the middle of living the life we truly desire and making It seem as if we are. When I was young people used to call me lucky all the time. My how I've grown to loathe that word. As if what's been awarded me in life was something placed in front of me and not the product of someone's hard work. I never said this. People would tell me I'm pretty, That I have a great smile. I never argued. My life has always ever been on the lighter side of this balancing beam. For all intents and purpose I've been told over and over again about how great I am and how wonderful my life is by everyone except the small voice in my head. People see what I show.

Had I given any insight to my mind all the times I've cried myself to sleep because of how much I hated school and all my A+ marks. Had anyone seen how I sat alone in the airport on my parental switch between mom and dad missing both at the same time wishing I could just stay home and go to Hayley's pool parties with my friends instead of starting off my summer with a strange flight attendant who'd rather be anywhere in the world but with me. If anyone saw how many times I allowed blood to run from my skin in the hopes emotions were something tangible I could release as easy as a swipe. If anyone saw the chains of regret that lay heavy on my ankles from all the missed opportunities the voice of anxiety has held me from. The people I've let go because that voice won't let me say hello. If anyone knew the feeling in my stomach when someone brings up 'daddy issues'.  When everyone would tell me how well I'm being treated by people who seemingly find respect for my body impossible. If people heard the thoughts that plague me every time someone wishes to bring up the future. How much I battle to see the beauty and life in the eyes of that person in the mirror. 

If my life were more tell than show, the luck you believe I so avidly swim in would drain from your thoughts and back into the pit of your stomach. The pit of a stomach where your own sorrows lie, where your own stories remain untold. Where your life remains a show and no tell.

Summer 2014

I'm a nostalgic person. Every inch of me resonates in memories, good bad and ugly. This summer, undoubtedly so has been the best summer I have ever experienced and it's just time I drop a few photos in reflection on what the last few months have brought.

I could sit & list every single thing I've done with summer, but instead I wanted to focus on what made this summer great. I started this season with nothing. No plans, no one, no money just hope. Hope that I could find myself somewhere to live in this wonderful Canadian town and not be stuck at home with parents and siblings all summer. Hopes in new experiences, new people and new lessons. This summer gave me all three in ground breaking 3D. The warmth on my skin, the sun, the experiences, the smiles & the tears have made this summer into one I won't soon forget. I found myself this summer. But funnily enough, I think I lost a huge part as well.

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An Open Letter: Speak Up.

It's a bit of an enigma isn't it. Wanting something so desperately you don't get it. A weird paradox I find myself stuck in far too many times.
This summer, my gosh, this summer. The adventures & misadventures. The smiles and the tears that I've gone through this summer is entire other blog post, or novel, but goddamn this summer I think I learned the hard way one of the most important things I've ever learned.

After a sleepless night, tears and cookie dough and mounds of regret it's going to take months to dig through my god have I learned something I know I won't soon forget. You have to ask for the things you want. You need to be explicit with what you want from life. If you want to see someone, my goodness drop them a text and let them know you desire their company. There's a lot of perishable things in life we're so keen on begging for but when it comes to people, something ALWAYS gets in the way of keeping them around. Losing people... sucks. The teenage writer in me would like to describe the emptiness, desperation for sociopathic tendencies and behaviours that comes with losing someone, but words fail me. All I can say really is... IT SUCKS. Especially when you know there's SO much more you could've done to keep them around. So many more times you could've said yes, stopped panicking, just invited them to the movie. Instead you let this fear inside you rule your thoughts, and you let 'em go. I don't know if second chances are a thing with people. I'm yet to experience that. The opportunities lost when you lose a person far exceed when you lose anything material.

I don't think I've experienced a worst feeling to date, and I think it's been branded into the sides of my frontal lobe to speak up at the this point. The momentary panic that comes with asking, is nothing, and believe me when I say NOTHING, on the hours upon hours of sadness & regret you feel having let that person slip right through your fingers.

This is an off the cuff blabber of a post, because I've just lost an entire night's sleep and have a lot of thoughts that I can't help sharing. Honestly, though: For yourself, and the love of all that is good when you love someone, let 'em know.

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A Love Letter From An Obsessive Personality.

Don't say too much.
I cling to every last word that drips from the warm breath flowing from your lips as if it were the last thing keeping me on the edge of a cliff.

Don't touch too much.
Every last caress and feeling you so innocently laid upon my skin carved it's way into my soul as the earth makes a groove in a stone. It's there forever in a way I'll never forget.

Don't insinuate.
I won't see your angle. I'll see 100% of what you're saying, or none of it. It's all or nothing and all I can do is pray that you've got at least 50% of the all I need. And that's a lot.

My personality forces me to notice the freckles under your eyes, and how they crinkle like small pieces of paper when you smile. A smile that, with your crooked teeth, and pale pink lips melts my heart into a deep pink pool as flushed as your cheeks. It forces me to never forget how your dark curly hair bounces off your forehead when you've eaten too much sugar and can't hold still. How it drips from your skull, around the apples of your cheeks like the dark chocolate that's made you hyper.

It forces me to remember how you've told me you don't like vegetables, and wish you ate better. How you thought you'd scared me because I was so quiet when we first met. How you stand so rigidly, and cool at the same damn time. How you laugh so heartily at your own jokes, but won't laugh at mine. How babe was never something you used as a term of endearment. How mad that made me. But how jovial it made me at the same because I never used it that way either.

It won't allow me to sleep or wake without you on my mind. No matter how desperately I'd like to be free. It won't let me free, it won't let think.

It's found something else to eat away at my matter. Something else to be the all encompassing eclipse of my reality, and that's you.

Having a crush...

Photo: Ashley

I wouldn't wish the feeling of having a crush on someone else to my worst enemy. There is nothing enjoyable about the constant nag of fire and angst in your soul keeping you up at night, making your blood pulse through your veins in a way you both adore and loathe.

It's an awful mix of emotion, others can give. A cocktail with enough potency to send you to the moon as fast as it subdues you in the blackness of the bottom of the ocean. Lately, all this feeling and existing in my everlasting state of having crushes has got me thinking about human nature and leagues, attraction and all that stuff that belongs in some sort of psychology or philosophy class.
Does "being in a league" exist? I believe it does, but of course what you deem your league is as subjective as what you deem attractive and unattractive. Which would mean, there is no universal league, just ones we create for ourselves.

The thought we put in our heads that we aren't good enough for another person.

I'm slowly learning that life comes with a lot of acceptance. Accepting that there are things that will happen to you, that regardless of how much control you have over their presence in your life, you've got to accept. I've been feeling a sense of anxiety, coupled with relief coming to terms with this. Not only in the sense of accepting that crushes are the worst, and that I've given myself a league but that how things work out between me and another person in my life is not something I can leave up to myself to pan out. As someone very happy with having control of her own life, it's quite unsettling while painstakingly liberating to accept there are things about my life, such as other people's feelings about me, that I can't control.

I cannot control if a person's personality works with mine, if I'm in their made up league or if all my many efforts for them will ever be enough. Things will work out as their meant to, and whether that means having a one bedroom in Manhattan with a dog, and a dream job or being married and mothering 12 children...well I guess I'm just as much here to watch that pan out as anyone else.

I cannot guarantee, nor can anyone else, that one day I'll be sat in a coffee shop and some brown eyed, tan skinned hunk, who loves to cook and clean and has vast amounts of experience in child care, and loves dogs will sweep me off my feet, and make my life the fairytale all girls are supposed to pray for every night. I also cannot guarantee I won't live a perfectly productive life on my own. But, I think the true bliss that can accompany undiluted happiness is being okay with either situation or anything that can come between. Being okay with not knowing, as much as you are with leading an amazing life with or without someone else.

Basically, I've found a way to romanticize and gather up some kind of epiphany from having another crush on another stupid boy. Cut me some slack, I'm a writer and a teenager at the same damn time. Things get shifty.

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Snip, Snip.

I won't lie and pretend as if I'm the most ballsy female on the planet who decided to make a decision with no contemplation into her psyche and other people's subsequent judgements. I cried, I put it off, I procrastinated. I argued with myself, and others who encouraged me to do it for so long.

When it all came down to it, sat in he chair at the salon, the sound of the scissors ripping through every inch of protein I'd grown and straightened the living daylights out of was therapeutic. Watching as it tumbled down my shoulders and onto the floor, made me wish I had the wherewithal to do it all sooner. The relief was unlike any sort of elation I can describe to you.
Not necessarily the relief that the actual, physical hair was no longer on my head the relief of one less thing to worry about. One less thing that's going to keep me up at night.

A decision I completely went through with and I'm so damn proud of myself for doing it. Something I've wanted to do, and finally just DID.

I wish I could come with you with the typical I found feminism then decided to chop all my hair off, and not shave story but that's not the case...sorry.

I'm writing this after going about a day without sleep, there's no real deep meaning or metaphor to it all. It's just something I wanted to record and talk about. My hair's cut short. For so many years there is absolutely nothing I could imagine hating more on myself than short hair, but I'm in love and just happy I've got supportive people around me who stop me from copping out of everything.
It's been a helluva week.

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How It All Started: Writing.

Here's my How It All Started Game! Instructions and those who are tagged down below!

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It was a desire within a purely pretentious eight year old me that started it all. Having been eight in the year 2006, I was an avid cartoon watcher and Judy Blume reader. I would spend hour upon irreplaceable hour of my life watching Spongebob, the Fairly Odd Parents, and reading Tales of  a Fourth Grade Nothing and Are You There God, It's Me Margaret, still easily two of my favourite books. Around the same time I fell, like many tweens did, into the blackhole that was the Twilight Series obsession. But, I wasn't satisfied with how they ended. I wasn't satisfied with Spongebob just getting Gary back after he'd made a very informed snail decision to leave.
I wasn't satisfied with Bella marrying Edward. None of it tickled my fancy. This distaste of the endings to everything I enjoyed started as early as eight years old and continued as late as Breaking Dawn's release. Oops.

So, I rewrote them. Often trying to include a sensible and level headed Jamaican girl in the plot. She may have loosely been based on myself. Just...maybe.
Trying to insert a Jamaican rainbow fish into Spongebob didn't turn out as well as I'd imagined it would, though.

Patrick, mon. Why yuh suh fool?
Every likkle ting iz gunna be arright! 
Nah man spongebob, how yuh fi stay suh bad mind? Leff Squidward alone nuh man! 

Let's just say it's a good thing, I wasn't and still am not part of the Spongebob writing staff because I haven't completely let go of the Jamaican rainbow fish character.
Eventually, I got to rewriting entire sections of the television shows, or almost half of the book. I rewrote New Moon to include a new character who may or may not have been Jamaican and stood at 5'4" with a ridiculous crush on Jacob. She also may or may not have been loosely based on me.

It was a frustrating thought that despite my perceived brilliance of my work, I couldn't do much with these rewrites outside of showing my friends and family as it was all copyrighted material I was messing with. And then it dawned on me.
"Well good golly Leah, you've just about recreated an entirely unique story with already developed characters. Why don't you start using your own characters, so this stuff can actually be your own work?"

And there it started, I finally started writing original pieces and publishing them and discovering my love of writing, or more accurately stories.

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But, enough about me. I've never really tried my hand at creating a tag, or some kind of internet game but after sharing this I'm very curious to know about your stories and how you got started doing whatever it is you love. So here's where I'd like to start the How it All Started: (Insert Field Here) Game. Whether you're into photography, DIY, writing, music, food, fashion or whatever it is. I want to know what your story was & how it all started. What inspired you to start, what moment, what occurrence or what purely pretentious desire. I just have a love stories, and I do believe ultimately they are the backbone of human nature.
Your story could very well be the beginning of someone else's.

The first few people I'd like to tag are:

Samantha Heather
Emma
Emma Bates
Meg
Scarphelia
Domo
Lisa
Saadiya
Georgie
Filipa
Charly Cox

And of course anyone who reads this, and would like to give it a go. Link me to your posts in the comments, or just write your entire story in the comment.

Can't wait to read them!

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Blogging and Inspiration.

I lay in the middle of the a large field, a sky overcast full to bursting yelling down on me. I stared at it, waiting for it's mighty waters to fall upon me, and fell to my knees in a sea of dandelions. I looked desperately for the sun in the clouds, where it was nowhere to be found. With three deep breaths, I fell back onto the grass content.
To imagine blogging as an empty meadow where you're on your own, brings such bliss back to doing it. There's no one to please, no standard to tell yourself to meet, no one to create for but yourself. Doing out of love, creating out of love and not stress or angst. Just love.

An ever present and consistently baffling aspect of human nature is our endless concerns for other's perceptions of us. These could be of the ones we know, and care for or the snap judgements of a complete stranger to whom we've unconsciously worked tirelessly to please. How many things have we said and done, or more accurately avoided saying and doing over our everlasting concern of other people's misjudgements.

I don't know if what I've been experiencing the last few weeks is as much writer's block as a lack of passion for blogging. The fire in me was subdued for a period of time, and I think I've finally come to the conclusion why. I wasn't inspired anymore, because I wouldn't let myself be. They say comparison is the thief of joy, but it quickly turned into the thief of my fire. I had to very much reflect on myself, what I intend to do and what I want to do. I was, and still am, constantly comparing myself to others as if there is such a thing as "good" and "bad" and they aren't just fish in a sea of grey.
Proclaiming my self the most talented person I know would not only be arrogant, but a bold faced lie. I'm not, but I am the only me I know. I am the only person I know who thinks, and articulates that way I do. This isn't unique to me. Everything is expressed uniquely by that person, and unlike anyone else. Such is the beauty of uniqueness.
I worried about how other's perceived what I did. I worried about the judgements of friends and family who have found this space, and the complete strangers that stumble across it everyday. I worried about the snap judgements of the talented who may stumble across this space and collectively come together to laugh at my inadequate attempts at being a "writer".
I fell into a despair of worry. A lot of worry.

But I've come to realize doing what you love isn't a glorious path. It's a street riddled with pot holes, self doubt, traffic and obnoxious people. But because it's your love, it's worth the tears. Every single one.

Love is not a victory march. It's a cold and it's a broken hallelujah.

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An Open Letter: What Students Actually Need to Hear.

My hands clenched into small, rigid fists, and my jaws locked tightly together. I squinted my eyes as tightly as I could, took a deep breath, opened blogger and began to type.

I've done this kind of post before and was fairly sure I wouldn't be at it again, yet here I am. Recently I read a post, yes, once again by a fairly well known blogger that sent my emotions to the deepest darkest depths of hell, for lack of a less intense description. I'm not going to insert links, names, or anything like that because as I've previously stated I'm not trying to get in an internet fight or start "beef" with a big blogger, I'm just here to make my thoughts known on the topic.
The overall premise of his post was about what he (a teacher) feels students need to hear. He says that the overall purpose of school is not academics, but to learn real life skills through school experiences. For example, you're learning respect, by not "giving an attitude" to the teacher in the hall who asks you why you aren't in class. As if respect isn't something you can learn without kissing the behind of an unnecessarily assertive teacher.

As an eighteen year old, approaching my second year at university it's not really hard to see why this post annoyed me as much as it did. What students need to hear isn't that it's about time they suck it up, because school will teach you EVERYTHING you need to know about life, because that is wrong. So wrong on every possible level that you can dissect the word wrong. He went on to further talk about not "quitting" and how school prepares you to face other obstacles in life. I'm not debating that. Yes, school can teach you those things, but how does quitting fit into it? Quitting is not a bad thing, in my eyes. I've spoken about it before in THIS post. If a person is doing something they don't like, and knows it will not further them in the direction they are aiming to go, why on earth should they be forced to stick it out through school? Forcing a person to sit through bogus classes, in the hopes that it will eventually teach them something helpful in life is not only stupid, but inconceivably counterproductive. What exactly is that teaching them, resilience or submissiveness?

I guess what hurt the most was that upon reading the title, the ever so convincing title, I thought the post was going a very different direction. I genuinely believed for a second this was a professor who got it, and rather than telling kids to just stick it out, and suck it up he was coming to say something students really needed to be told.

Without rambling and spitting any further venom down the man's throat I'd like to say what I feel students really need to hear, coming from a student.

School does not define you. A mark on an exam paper says no more about you than a rogue personality test on the internet. You are not bound to the title student, and by no means are you obligated to do something you hate, because someone else is going to base your value on a piece of paper saying you've done four more years.
Before you are a student, you are a human being. Regardless of what a test paper, or a professor who knows little to nothing about you may say, you are smart, you are wise and you have a purpose.
You know yourself more than anyone else does, or ever will and you know what's right for you at any given point in your life. Don't allow anyone to make you feel like you've made a bad decision because you've quit something. Sometimes quitting is one of the bravest, and best decisions a person can make for themselves. If you're onto bigger and better things for your life, you're entitled to quit the old and stale for the new and exciting.

If you're going to spend your nights and early mornings slaving away at work, it may as well be something you're proud you did rather than an empty revision for an exam you'll write, give to your professor and never think of again. Your minutes are precious, spend them wisely.

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(If you'd like to see the post, message me and I'll send you a link)

I'm Grateful.

For something so important, it far too often takes a backseat to being unhappy, complaining and self-depreciation.
I've just completed my first year of university. I can still remember the day I published THIS post about when I first moved and cannot believe that the first year has already come and gone.

Through this year, I've been very vocal about my general distaste for school.
Not learning, but school. The very last drop of motivation I had to be force fed irrelevant information has evaporated. I love learning. I absolutely love learning about things I care about, but am absolute rubbish at allowing myself to swallow my pride and eat up economic theories (that make no sense) and the history of ground beef. I don't give a damn about any of it, which has made this first year quite the world wind of positive and negative emotions.

Nonetheless, now that it's done and gone and I've been able to step out of the context of school and look at it from the outside in, I'm grateful to be here. Not for the information I've "learnt" and less than enthusiastically regurgitated onto exam papers from my professors but the social and real life experiences I've had this year.

I've moved out of home, gotten my own place, done a small amount of independent travelling, gotten moderately drunk and met incredible people that I'll forever be grateful I had in my life, even if just for a few months. I've met some less than desirables, loved and lost, argued and fought, complained about noisy parties, developed a slight hatred for country music and the list could go on and on.

I'm more grateful than I've ever been for the amazing people I've met this year, the laughs, the hugs and the conversations we've had. I've developed a bond with these wonderful ladies in my life unlike any I've ever had before. I remember the days we moved in desperately trying to understand how we'd made it this far, and now we're on the final days saying our goodbyes. I don't know what the future holds for us as a group or individuals but I'm more blessed and happy than I can describe to have had them in my life even if they're presence was only something I'm meant to experience for a season.
I won't lie and say tears didn't run PROFUSELY when it came time for the goodbyes, and the hugs were endless but they meant so much. I'm just everlastingly grateful to these wonderful people and having had them in my life. The bond you develop with roommates supersedes all friendships you've had before. You're thrust into a new, scary environment with new people and you're forced to navigate it all with them. You're forced into this supportive, sisterly role that is definitely unlike any high-school "bestie".

I've learned this year, and I've grown and for that I'll be endlessly grateful. I wouldn't say I've gotten a taste of real life, because my entire life has been real. Not a single moment of it, much to my sadness, has been fake. I got a taste of a different life that has opened my eyes, mind and soul to so much hope.

I cannot say that after this first year of university I'm any closer to knowing what to do with my life, or that I have no regrets because also reflecting on this year has allowed me too see the PLETHORA of bad decisions I've made, but things have changed. I've changed which I think is one of the best possible outcomes that I could get from this year.

I'm not sure if the madness is over, or if it's just begun but summer is here y'all. Summer 2014 has arrived, and I'm grateful still for what's yet to come.


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On the Silver Lining.

Underneath the kiss of the sun, I taste every lie that it's told me. Every empty promise it's made. Everyday it screamed for hopes, dreams and imaginations only to leave me as you would an empty bottle of Vodka after a night you can't remember.

Taken into the soft caress of the breeze, I feel every dream it's stolen. Every thought, every story, every imaginative word that's been uttered before me beats against my face, and sends my hair in all directions. For what is a thought or experience not shared? A lost story. A story never told or learned from but simply left in the mind of a lone individual who took it to their grave, after suffering in it for years.
The wind carries those stories.
Do the untold stories of the wind burn on the olden lips of those who've left without telling them?
Is the wind the hero or the villain for stealing the tales of the oppressed and repressed?

Will the paranoia and fear that dance around my heart at night one day follow me to the grave? Will it seap through the mud and into a river, where a mother will use it to wash clothes for her son? Will the hope and dreams I carry in my mind one day become the silver lining on a grey cloud, to brighten another girl's day?

It's nearly spring. If I could describe my currently mental state I'd say I'm on the silver lining of a rather grey cloud. Spring arrives by not a date, but the presence. The presence of spring, the sun, the birds the new found glimmer in the eyes of people emerging for the first time in months.
Spring is almost here. We're all on the silver lining.

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To Understand Love.

To understand love is to look blankly into a pitch black tunnel and convince me you know the way through it. I can't say I understand very much about what love is, and by that I mean I legitimately have no idea. In the most heartfelt, soul baring explanation of this for a large portion of my existence I didn't know love was a thing that exists that people feel and experience.
I grew up believing that a single parent household, and seeing your dad once or a few time every couple of years was a normal occurrence. There was nothing in my life to tell me otherwise. After eighteen years of life I can legitimately say I've never witnessed a successful marriage.

At this point in my life love seems like somewhat of a ghost to me. I hear about other people's experiences, and have a vague belief in it's existence but I can't say that I've encountered it myself.
Because of this, I looked to so many other places to reaffirm this jaded belief that somewhere out there this mythical story about happy marriages exist, and I found some.

I found people all over the world: online on TV and every corner of the globe that could attest to these fairytales of a happy ever after being completely true, but they didn't hit home. If anything they fuelled the belief that it was this ghost-encounter like experience, that only a few lucky people witness. I've been trying to convince myself all my life that love and marriage is something I so desperately want, which I still believe it is, but right now it's something I simply need to understand. I've got nothing.

I've found people online who became my definition of love. What else did I have? It's a situation of who do you look to when you've got no-one to look to.
If CNN reports to a group of people living in a secluded part of the world that aliens exist, there is a good chance they will believe it. With no-one else to look too for news, they're going to trust aliens are a thing. I believed that the short videos you can see of someone else's existence on the internet can tell the full story, and it doesn't. I more than anyone know that we don't know the people we look up to, especially if they're famous but again fell victim to the belief that I did and finally thought I'd understood love...based on what I'd seen online.

That, like most other sources of information on the internet, failed my expectation leaving me again in a place where I don't know what love is.
I have friends who's parents have stayed married, I've had friends who watch their parents' loveless marriage exists, friends who've heard their parents having sex at night, friends who've lost their fathers twice, and friends much like myself, who've had their fathers leave with not much knowledge of the relationship our mother may or may not have had with the man. My father, whom I love dearly and do have a relationship left when I was six months old. I've only ever known the life of flying between parent's houses for extended amounts of time and maintaing the bond by haphazard, every few months, phone calls. Most of my closest female friends have had similar experiences. A friend of mine who I've known for in excess of ten years now and I were joking the other day that after ten plus years of friendship we've never even seen each other's fathers in person.

That short snippet aside though, a definition of love comes largely from a witness of it. For so many years of my life, I genuinely believed happily ever afters were only for the fairytales, and even reflecting on this now I can't 100% say that it isn't, because I'm still yet to find testament to this real life love that's apparently so reachable. I do not believe people should stick around after the love has died, or hell even pretend the love was ever there when it never was. I don't believe my parents, or any of my friend's parents or any of the celebrity couples I found so much solace in made the wrong decisions separating. In the long run, it was probably what was best.

For now, I'll stop looking. I'll stop trying to understand something that so many people can't seem to either. I don't know if I'll ever be able to recognize it if it comes my way, or trust that it's not a fleeting emotion that yanks itself out of your grips in the middle of the night. I don't know if I may ever even give it the chance to get that close, but for now...the search is going to remain on halt.

Maybe it's just going to be a thing I'll be the first to experience and share a story about. Maybe a definition doesn't exist, and looking for it in witness is idiotic. It's a search with no foreseeable answer or end, but rather an endless journey that I'm going to have to find my footing in alone.

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