The Way I Live

I think this is a very important post. Personally, I will probably come back to it to remind myself of everything that I write.

I have decided to live my life very intentionally. My life has a purpose, even if it's simply one that I give it.

Even though I've gotten rid of a bunch of insecurity and stuff, I still have some things that I struggle with. Everyday I will say to myself, "I don't believe in anything." But I can't let that be true. Because, well, I HAVE TO believe in things. The fact of the matter is, life is so much easier if you don't believe in anything. If you don't believe in things, you wont have to fight for them, and so you've done away with a lot of struggle. But I feel that you really lack a life.

I choose to believe in love. I believe that I will fall in love someday. I believe that someday a girl will like me just as much as I like her. I believe that it will be natural and beautiful. I choose to believe these things, even though it might hurt sometimes.

One of my strongest convictions and my motto for life is that you have to keep trying. You have to try, and just hope for the best. Life's experiences can hurt and they can make it hard to make any effort. Not only that, but they can make you want to hide. But if I've learned anything recently, it's that when things are good, they can be real good. Even though it might suck in the end, it's a risk that you have to be willing to take. You have to try.

What I'm about to write is a major lifestyle change for me. I believe it is best to live in the moment. Give yourself fully to every experience. Enjoy the heck out of a good time. When something good comes along, hold on to that until you no longer have that option. Then let go. You have to let go when people don't give you a choice. I spend a lot of my life physically alone, so I tend to dwell in memories and thoughts of the future. While I think some of that is definitely healthy - you don't want to lose sight of where you came from or where you want to go - doing too much of it will only cause you emotional breakdowns. When you find something that's great, do everything you can to make it worthwhile. When things hurt, let them hurt.

Because of the way I've been hurt in the past, I like to have control over how I feel. I've always tried to make myself stop having feelings for certain people, to stop feeling the pain, or to simply feel the way that I think I have to feel. But I no longer do this. I let myself completely feel. I experience everything fully. I will jump in with both feet and deal with the consequences.

I don't know if this is the best idea. But I think it's the way that I need to live, so I will.

No Longer Insecure

I am honestly doing the best that I've been in like 2 years. I have a ton of things figured out, and I now know that I didn't have some things figure out before. I've gotten rid of A LOT of insecurity. I now know 100% who I am. I'm a stronger person. I'm smarter. Wiser.

I've always been really needy. I'm a very clingy kind of person. I've known this for some time, but I didn't really think it through and figure out what it meant. I think it came down to my dependence on people. I wrote about this in my last entry. I'm entirely dependent on other people for my happiness. That is not healthy.

I can't do that. People come and go. People say one thing one minute, and truly mean it, but things change the next moment and it's all over.

I've dealt with so much insecurity for so long, and it's all gone now. I'm hoping it's not temporary, because this feeling is incredible. I know who I am, and I'm cool with it. I no longer rely on other people to define me.

You also can't bring insecurities into a relationship, it's asking for a disaster. Someone might even find it endearing at first, but it's not a good thing. The last time I was pursuing a girl, I was talking with a good friend about it and she mentioned that she thought maybe I wasn't ready for a relationship. I didn't listen to her. I mean, I was 18, and I've been wanting a relationship my entire life. But she was right. I know that now. But I do feel that I am now ready for a relationship, whenever the right girl might come around.

How did I get rid of the insecurity? I accepted me for who I am. With all my flaws and everything. I celebrated the good things, and didn't try to hide the negative things. I read something about what makes us who we are and it really struck a chord with me. I ran with it and made my own extended adaption. I posted it on tumblr as a quote because people tend to appreciate things more if they don't come directly from me. I added a couple more lines to it and posted it on my facebook as a note. I'll post on here too. There it is below:

We are our experiences, our friendships, and our relationships. We are the things we think, the opinions we hold, and the things we believe in. We are our memories just as much as we are our hopes and dreams. We are the things we do and the decisions we make. We are our heartaches, as well as our joys. We are the promises we make, and those that we break. We are our ideas. We are the music we cling to, the movies we love, and the books we read again and again.

Now you know who you are.

My Happiness

This latest experience was different than the one before it, in a million different ways, one way was that it hurt because I genuinely REALLY liked her. She mean a ton to me. But one thing that it had in common with the last thing I went through was that it forced me to evaluate who I am.

I've been thinking, why do I dislike me? I mean, I try to be a good person. I am a gentleman. I always try to be kind. I try not to be selfish. All in all, I have the makings of a decent person. So, why can't I be happy with who I am?

I came to the conclusion that it's because it feels like no one else likes me. And sometimes I feel very much so alone.

I've had so many girls tell me that I'm a great guy, and that whoever I end up with will be extremely lucky. What I bunch of bull crap. I'm tired of hearing it. If I'm such a good catch why haven't any girls, save one, showed interest? Why would that one that showed interest decide against it? What's wrong with me?

I have no answers for those questions. It's my constant struggle.

But I have also realized something. My happiness seems to depend on other people. I've never let possessions or materialistic things rule my happiness, but people have always had control. I was sincerely very happy for a time. All I thought about was how happy I was. I also liked who I was during that time. I guess it was because someone finally knew me for who I was and actually liked me. When that was no longer the case, I could no longer accept who I am.

I've come to grips with all this. She isn't in my life the way that she used to be, so I can't rely on her to make me happy. I'm cool with who I am. I have to be.

As of right now, I feel like I have completely moved on. I honestly feel like I could hang out with her without it being weird at all. While it's a major relief, it's also a scary feeling. She meant so much to me, and now I don't feel much of anything in that sense. Though it's a good and necessary thing, I kind of don't like it because it feels like I'm fully distanced from the things I loved about her. I dunno. Yeah, I'm still really disappointed that things didn't continue down the road I was hoping for. But I suppose I'm not even allowed to have feelings for her at this point, seeing as how she is dating someone else. It just feels weird being over her, I don't know how to explain it.

Being Who You Are

When I was younger, I was different.

I mean, I was very much the same, I had many of the same insecurities and such. Many of which I've written in here before. But I viewed life differently.

If you asked someone to describe me a couple years ago, they would describe me as passionate. I've always had people tell me I was mature beyond my years. I had big dreams. I saw reality for what it was, but I believed it could be better. I had hope. I had a brighter outlook on things.

About a year ago, everything changed. I started freaking out. I was having panic attacks about life and about the future. I'm homeschooled, and I was falling behind in school in my senior year. I eventually gave up. I literally stopped doing school work. I started just trying to get through the days. I had no driving force. My family has no money, and I don't have anything that could get me through college, especially the college that I want to go to. And I refuse to go to college for something that I'm not passionate about and can't see myself doing for the rest of my life. My parents don't know anything about how to get into college, and I saw that with my two older brothers they were no help. I thought my future was doomed. I didn't know what to do. I lost it, and did nothing.

I became lost and confused. That is how I would be described this past year.

In May and June I went through some girl trouble. Everybody who follows me on twitter knows about that. It was rough. Not so much because of anything she did, or even anything I felt for her. It was difficult because it made me come face to face with who I was. I also had to deal with crap that I thought had gone away. I came out of that situation with a greater knowledge of myself and where my life was. I knew it had to change, I just didn't know how to do it. But I was trying to figure it out. Eventually I came to the point where I was trying to embrace the person that is me.

Through this latest experience, I actually came to like me. At first I thought it was because there was someone else who liked me. And, honestly, that might have been why. After things ended, I hated myself. I wanted to just die. The only reason I liked me was because this other person did, and now she doesn't. But I've now gotten to the point where I have to accept who I am, because I have no choice but to live with me.

For a while I thought I have to be the person I am now. I thought that it was a part of growing up. But I don't think so anymore. I was a much better person a year ago. I was full of life. I had aspiration to be something. I wanted to do something important. Sure, I've been hurt, and I've changed through those experiences as well as some others. I'm wiser than I was a year ago, but I don't have to lose all of the elements that made who I was then.

I can have dreams. I can have hope. I can believe in things. I can have passion. I can do something with my life. And I will.

Titles Suck

Facts about me: I am overly sentimental, overly emotional, and overly sensitive.

I've always been this way. In some ways, I feel like it's something I should have grown out of. It's as if I never fully developed.

It's a weird phenomenon because I don't really care about a lot of the things normal people care about. People invest time and energy into things I just don't understand. I don't see why they view certain things as important. But whenever something matters to me, it REALLY matters to me.

I also over-think things a ton.

I'm a firm believer in finding a balance in almost every aspect of life. There's a lot of grey out there. Politically, I'm a moderate. Things like that. I think it is rarely healthy to take anything to an extreme one way or another. But it seems that I either don't care, or I care a whole freaking lot. I don't think things through, or I completely over-think them.

I wish I could find a middle ground.

My Wall

Yesterday I went to Walmart and bough a bunch of post-it notes. I already had this huge paper thing from when my youth pastor used one for a sermon, and had an extra that he didn't need. Of course I wasn't going to turn it down, haha. I decided to throw them together.

As you can see from the picture above, it's up on my wall. I really, REALLY like it. It's a simple idea, but perhaps the best idea I've ever had. On the post-its I've written either some 'inspirational' sayings that I've made up or adapted from other people, along with some of my favorite song lyrics and such. They're there to remind myself to be positive, to look on the bright side, and that life has meaning. It's all stuff that is important to me, and what makes me who I am. Really, it is made to motivate me to keep going. The great thing about using post-its is that I can add and take away things whenever I feel like it, or if it gets full. It's right above my desk, so it's always there whenever I'm working on something.

I also bought a dry erase board that I'm using to keep track of things. To make plans, and to make sure I get them done. It's a constant reminder that I have something that I need to accomplish. It's awesome. I'm already thinking about buying a second one.

These were perhaps the best purchases that I have made in a very long time, and they were super cheap. I'd recommend that anyone and everyone should do something similar.

Where Things Are

There are multiple reasons that I'm doing this whole public journal thing. Three parts I've been thinking about are so that I can get my thoughts out, so they entire world has access to my life, and so I can look back and read about all the things I went through and see how I dealt with them.

I think I should probably just make sure that we all know what's going on at the moment.

I'm completely fine. Tomorrow will be a month since it all went down. I've had plenty of time to deal with everything. I went through a lot of pain, especially the first week and a half. I questioned a lot of things the first two weeks. But I've since figured it all out. I understand why things are this way.

For a while, everything I saw or heard reminded me of her or a memory we had. It was painful. They were freaking amazing memories, but they reminded me of how much it hurt to lose her. Eventually I came to appreciate the memories, but I knew that I couldn't dwell on them because they were of a time that is no longer. At this point things don't always bring her to mind, and when they do it's not a bad thing. I don't spend time on the thoughts, but I don't push them away anymore. They no longer hurt.

It's a difficult topic because it involves someone else. I have no problem letting everybody know everything about me, but I'm not going to throw her personal life out into the internet. So I'm unable to go into full detail about everything the situation included. Just know that she and I are on good terms, and we're still good friends. As a person and a friend, I love her to death. I never want to lose her friendship.

I miss her more than anything. She meant so much to me. I miss everything that we had. It all was so great. But I have to continue living.

Every once in a while I'll see her name, or a picture of her, and it will make my heart skip a beat or turn my stomach. I guess I'll just have to deal with that for now.

I don't regret anything that we had, and I hope she doesn't either. It was good for me. I grew up a lot. I learned a lot about a bunch of different things. She changed me in a good way. I'm still struggling with some things, but I'm stronger and I have a lot more things figured out.

I wish things didn't end, but I guess that's not something I have control of, so I just have to let go and accept the situation. My biggest fear at the moment is that I wont be able to fully be with someone else. I'm afraid that I will constantly be comparing any future girl to her, and I currently don't believe that anyone can ever live up to her. She was perfect for me. Honestly, more than I ever thought I could ever find in a girl. However, I do have hope that I will one day find a girl who likes me as much as I like her, and things will be good. I'm a romantic, it's the reason I exist. Gotta keep up the hope.

Right now I'm doing well. I'm constantly reminding myself to feel positive. I'm trying to stay busy. When you no longer have texts to send, or phone calls and facetime to look forward to, you have to find other ways to spend your time. Saturdays are the most difficult because I used to spend all evening with her. But I'm focusing on some important things, and I'm working hard to make them happen. I'm also relying on good friends to keep me sane.

I am in no way as happy as I was when I was with her, but I'm happy. I'm pretty much right where I was before she came into my life, but with a few improvements.