Thrive.

I have never in my life wanted to be the blonde blue eyes popular girl. I have been irritated by them, shunned by them, and occupational befriended by them, but never have I said if only I looked like her. If only I acted like her. If only I was her.

Never.

I wanted to be an artist, a cowgirl, a veterinarian, a musician, a singer, a photographer, a writer, a dreamer, a lover, a wild child. I wanted to be the girl with the crazy hair who traveled the world, who wore whatever she wanted and felt great all the time.

Life is funny that way.

I got some of what I wanted, never all, but some. I play guitar, I sing, I write when I have the time, I dream constantly, I photograph everything, I live.  I try to live freer than those around me, even if I'm not as free as I wish I was. What they don't tell you as a child is how hard it is to make a living while dreaming your dreams.

Luckily my parents always told me I could be whatever I wanted as long as I prepared myself. So I've done my best to take my strengths and make them profitable while exploring all of my fantasies.

While all of my friends are choosing careers or marriage or schools, I'm trying my best to not choose. I want to go through life with my best friend, my husband, working hard to make it dreams come true, to only have children when I've seen enough of the world that I can show them how to thrive by the Grace of God. I don't desire to have a degree, or the debt that comes with it. A high and mighty career, with the time constraints that chimes with it, or a marriage that loses its meaning somewhere between the two. I want love, and life, and enough money to make ends meet without worrying about what it not we have enough extra to buy new shoes when we need it.

I want to thank God that I have just enough, even if that's all. I want to be happy, I want to be free. I want to be me.

Love,
Alice

One year

It's been a long, trying year, full of growing pains, love, and much realization. I've made new friends, and lost old ones. Helped friends find a new lease on life, and others to leave mine. Life changes, and it's not always easy, or bad. But here's my post for the 1 year since my first post;

Conflict makes me sad. When two people cannot possibly see the side of the other person and let it ruin their relationship. Whats worse is when it starts because one person is so miserable in their pain and suffering that they refuse to have even a normal conversation. Because they don't realize that hey, you have some serious dues to pay when you're in your early twenties! You are struggling with everything! Education, finances, relationships, wherever you are -I don't care if you are living at home, with your boyfriend/girlfriend, if you are married, if you are living in a college dorm or a tiny apartment or a giant house. It doesn't matter, because everyone struggles, everyone is trying desperately to figure out who they are and what they want. I'm doing better now, but it's still hard.  I'm not going to drag my friends down with it every single day, but it's there in the subtext of every conversation; we're young, we're struggling, we're broke, we're just trying to figure it all out and hoping that in 5 years we'll at least know what we want and who we are, if nothing else.  Don't let your misery convince you that your problems and your woes and your battles are deeper or more painful or bigger than the person sitting next to you, because you have no idea. Don't let your troubles become your Identity.  Find your center, find your faith, find whatever gets you through the day, and hold on tight, because it's bound to be a bumpy ride.

Love,
Alice

Contrary to your beliefs, the world does not, in fact, revolve around you.

I simply can't stand it.

The fact that some people are so caught up in their own issues, that they cannot seem to remember the people that help them out. Issues that they completely bring upon themselves, that they pretend to love.

If someone agrees to help you with something, you shouldn't expect them to wait on your hand and foot.you shouldn't expect them to pay for frivolous, ridiculous things that you wouldn't be willing to pay for. You shouldn't act like your needs are above their own, when you're so caught up in them helping you that you don't even bother to ask about them.about the new house they're about to buy, about the serious health issues that they've developed, about the the extra fucking credit card that they've considered getting because they want to help you so badly. but have no money left for your stupid whims.

Because they are the good friend. They are the friend who tries too hard, who listens to your stupid problems when they would rather do anything else, who is sympathetic to you even though they completely disagree with every single choice that you have made that brought you to where you are. When every body else looks at that friendship, they will judge you.

Because you are a bitch. Because you are selfish.because you couldn't care less about their problems, because you consider your wants to be above their needs. Sorry princess, have a nice life. No one does that to their friends and keeps them, think about that next time they help you.

If there is a next time.

Love,
Alice.

Just keep praying...

Today is the first time in a while I'm... hurting. Not like I have been... but how I was three years ago. Pain in my chest worry and hurt and fearful.  Are things going to work out? Am I making the right choices? Do I need to go to school? Do I need to get a government job? Worries that I've been praying for and praying for, are suddenly overwhelmingly terrifying.  My chest hurts, I feel scared... I just want to be okay. I feel like my Faith is slipping, and that I'm not good enough. Like everyone else has found better people to talk to and I'm sitting here wondering why all of the people whom I've picked up and carried through their pain and darkness have all abandoned me. I just need to keep praying..... keep moving forward... and leaving behind the people who've left me.

Love,
Alice

Poor little lovebirds.

Why do girls get hung up on guys who are bad for them? Seriously. I am a girl, and I've been that girl, and I got out, and I still don't freaking get it.  He doesn't trust you, he isn't nice to you, he doesn't respect you, and then when you finally think that you're going to leave, he brings out the roses, takes you to dinner and makes you laugh. "Of course I love him, why can't he be like this all the time, no one else is going to love me, I guess it's not that bad, okay I'll stay." Yeah, because that makes sense.  When you see your friends going through this crap, it all seems so clear to you. "Dump him! Leave his sorry ass! He's crushing your dreams and making you feel like you're worthless! It's not true! Just get away!" Yeah, that's what you tell your friend.  To not let a man hold her back.  But what about you? I've watched my friends go through this, I've watched them tell each other to get out, or that they're crazy, I've seen it all go downhill.  It doesn't make sense.

It all comes down to self worth, but you can't run from yourself.  You'll be with someone lame if you don't like yourself.  You'll marry the first guy who makes you feel special if you don't pay any attention to it.  Getting out of a bad relationship will either crush you or liberate you.  The crushed ones slowly drag themselves back up, see what was really going on, and move forward.  The liberated ones find somebody new, and start making stupid decisions right away.  Relationships are tricky.

I think that my favorite way that I've heard it was in the book "The five love languages".  Many variations of that book, all good, nay, fantastic.  Love them.  Anyhow, in the book it explains that during the first 6 months of any relationship is called the honeymoon phase (as if we all didn't already know that!) and in the honeymoon phase, you do not make ANY rash decisions.  Because you are in a state of euphoric obsession, of which your partner can do no wrong. He's amazing, he treats me right, he takes me to dinner, he buys me things, he listens to me, my parents love him -OR she's so funny, she's so classy, she's not a bitch, she's the only one who's ever made me feel like this, she's so much fun. You get the idea?

Not to say that those things go away completely after six months, but you finally understand each other. Some days you get under peoples skin, God forbid that you move in together, you know everything sooner.  Money opinions break out, one of you spends more than the other, one of you likes to go out more than the other, one of you cleans their clothes more often than the other, one yells more than the other, one eats totally different food than the other, one watches more tv than the other, one drinks more than the other, one expects more of the other. There is a lot of ground work that has to be covered before you can be truly happy together -and if you're reading this thinking that you don't have any of these problems, then I hate to break it to you- but you either haven't been with your person long enough yet, or worse you're not talking with your partner enough. Worse than that, maybe you have no differences. Maybe you are content to do everything together and to never speak with other people, maybe you are stuck in your own little love bubble and have no idea. It will all come out eventually.  Love hurts, love's hard, and love isn't always pretty.  But it is wonderful, and it is worth it, and I wouldn't have it any other way. Good luck guys.

Love,
Alice

Let go.

The tighter you hold on to yesterday, the faster it will slip through your fingers.

Seriously. I know a girl who hates everything, so obsessed with "the good old days" that she refuses to have any more good days ever. Hates her job, stays with her boyfriend not because she loves him but because he pays for stuff, hates her parents for getting divorced, hates everything for not working in her favor. But from the outside looking in, she's ok. Not ok on the inside, I'm not belittling depression in any way, because I've been there, and it's terrifying.not terrifying in the sense that it's what you feel, but terrifying in the sense that you cannot get out.it is your world. It is everything. It it's your outlook, your way of life, your permanent perspective of pessimism. One bad day leads to one bad thing leads to more bad things leads to more bad days, leads to despair.next thing you know, things are spiraling out of control in a hurricane of depression, and you're in the eye of the storm.everyone is on the outside, running from it, redirecting it, chasing it, trying to help - but you don't even realize it, because you're in the eye. You're sitting in a crowded room full of people who live you and you feel all alone. Helplessness all around. I've been there, and it's hard. And giving up sounds like not just a good option, but the only option. It fits from the back of your mind, to the front. A little voice, to your voice. Whispering, to screaming. It's horrible. People don't realize how horrible, until it happens to them, or it's too late.

But there is an escape. It's not fun, it's not easy, and it usually involves a slew of bad decisions that cause even more growing pains. But at least then you're starting to grow. You wake up, you drag yourself out of bed, you get some breakfast to go with that coffee, you get a better job, you see your friends every other day, you write down how you're feeling, and you make the ultimate choice to refuse to look back.you make a new life.you don't forget, but you don't let your past ruin you, because you finally start to realize that you're worth more than that.

It took me 8 months to climb out, to be better. 8 months, 2 equally depressed friends too battle it with me, a large number of regrets, and 1 final decision, that my life was my own. That Shit happens, sometimes you're gonna step in it and sometimes people are going to throw it at your face.you get over it, you move on, you figure out your passions, you hold your true friends close to you - and you wake up one day to realize that even if life isn't perfect, you're going to be ok.

Life isn't about clinging to the past, it's about creating your future. Always remember that. The best is yet to come.

Never, ever, give up.

Love,
Alice

God's gonna cut you down.

Why.

Why am I not good enough.

Why can't I fix everything.

Why do I feel useless and unwanted.

Why do I let it affect me so much.

Why do I feel like he's going to find new people to talk to because he's disgusted with me.

Why can't I work harder.

Why doesn't he care.

Why don't things get better no matter how hard I work.

Why do I feel like no one can hear me.

Why am I not happy.

Hypocracy at it's finest.

Don't you just love it when people forget that you're in the back office, and you learn all kinds of things that they didn't want you to know? Like what an asshole they are? Ah well, I already knew that. Grr.

But for real, this is more than just the annoyance of having a boss who bitches about everyone behind their back. Because, he owns the business, so who cares.  His lot in life is running his business, no matter how many people he tramples in doing so.  (Yeah, fantastic business owner here people.) It's that he goes to church, that he has a family, that his wife is awesome, that he has been in fact given a 2nd chance at life. And he does not act like it.  He goes to church and then completely disgraces everyone who does not go to his church. He refuses to discipline his children, who run rampant because he never does things with them. Because that's the mother's job.  The mother whom he bitches about constantly to workers, customers, and anyone who will listen.  It's beyond rude, it's sexist and cruel.  Let's just say if my fiance ever treated me like that, he wouldn't be my fiance. And the whole 2nd chance at life thing? You would think that having been given a new lease on life would encourage you to rearrange your priorities, to spend more time with your family, to not harass people.  I don't know, maybe that's just me.  It's infuriating.

And the worst part, is how many people I know just like that.  They say that they love their wives and then flirt with other women in front of them. They go to church and then judge instead of walking with Jesus. They say that they love their family and then ignore them.  It boggles my mind.

I hate hypocracy. I hate people who don't live what they preach.  Who judge and push and force their way.  People who will hate you for dressing a certain way but then go and sleep with everyone.  People who will hate your music but will live the life your "bad music" portrays.  People who think it's perfectly fine to say one thing and act another.  Or worse, in front of their children.  Therefore creating more little hypocrites   Irritating little bastards.

I think it's wrong to do those things.  I think it's worse to blatantly judge someone to their face, and then expect them to do something for you.  People deserve better than that.

Love,
Alice

Live simply, travel often.

I feel as though I am climbing an enormous mountain. (As apposed to, ya know, a really small mountain :P )

I feel like every time I think I'm at the top, the fog clears and I see where I need to go next, to keep trying.  To not give up.  But still to hope that everything works out.  That the mountain top will become narrower and  I will be able to "Trim the fat" on some of my life.  No more little minamum wage jobs that scrape you by at $50 a week, no more friends that don't return your phone calls, no more duct taping your flip flops back together because you don't have time to go to the store and get new ones.  I want all of those things to go away, that would be lovely.  Just to work two jobs that I am in control of, that strain my mind but keep me entertained and fulfilled at the same time.  To make a decent living, not to live in a decadent house, but to live simply and travel often.  To be able to pick up the phone and have a good heart to heart with friends that truly miss talking to me, and to just leave the other ones be. To go and buy some damn shoes when I need to, that would be cool.

I'll get there right? Sure, it'll happen, I just have to keep climbing up that mountain.  Everything will fall into place, with the right amount of effort and prayer.  But in the meantime, this could get verrrrrry interesting!

Love,
Alice

In a Barbie world.

Sometimes I just want to walk up to people and shake them.  Just knock some sense into them.  Wishing they wouldn't hide who they really are.

It isn’t about how many of your bones we can see, if your skirt is short or your shirt is sheer. It’s not. It’s about how you feel. Beauty is the smile that you wear when you walk down the street, the way you treat people, the things that you believe are important. The happiest people are not the ones who are starving themselves, they’re the one’s who are helping feed starving children in their hometown or in Africa because they believe it’s important one way or another. They’re not the one’s with perfect hair, they’re the one’s with crazy windblown hair because they just had the time of their life camping in the outdoors or riding rollercoasters or horseback riding. It’s not about skipping meals and showing skin, it’s about being you. Enjoying life. Smiling, laughing, being with your friends. The perfect guy won’t be looking for a Barbie, he’ll want to have fun. He’ll know your beauty when he sees it. it doesn’t matter what color your hair is, the tone of your skin, how much you weigh, how tall you are or how much money you have. Just be you, because that’s who you’re supposed to be.

Love,
Alice

Always choose waiting over settling, for the latter breeds misery.

"Happiness is not a state to arrive at, but rather a way of travelling."

Oh how I wish I could remember that more often! I may possible be the most impatient person that I know.  Followed closely by everyone else that I know.  I am not content to sit back and wait for things to happen, neither am I content to work and work and work and see no results.

That being said, when I'm not at work, I see it.  When I'm out living life, spending time with friends and family  and my fiance, doing what I love, I can't help but wish that those moments could last longer.  That all of my little people could stay little, that I could keep all of the friends I have in one place, that my dog will live forever.

Little wishes, things that will fade away over time.  Wishing that my friends could realize what they have before it's gone. Wishing that they'd dump lousy boyfriends and be happy again.  Wishing that they would open their heart to how happy they could be if they only realized what truly mattered.  Because in 50 years, I am not going to look back on my life and wish that I had more jobs.  And most likely, neither are any of them.

And if you're miserable and you think that things will never get better, that's not entirely true either.  Things will get better, you just have to keep working steady at it.  One day you're just praying that things will get better, and the next day, it's happening.  Simple as that.  But if you're afraid that things will only get worse, that you'll lose what little sanity you have left, so you hold onto the lousy job and the angry boyfriend, things will never get better.  Never settle for anything less than you deserve, and don't let anyone ever make you feel that you don't deserve what you want.  If you want the college degree, make it happen.  If you want to own a home, hop to it.  If you want to get married someday but can't see yourself doing it with the guy (or girl) that you're with, then why are you wasting your time? No, these aren't things that will happen tomorrow, but if you want them, then you know what your end goal is.  Focus on that.  Let that get you through the day.  Rely on the people who support you in what you want, not who only drag you down because they're not getting what they want either.  Don't let negativity win.

Yes, I know life sucks sometimes, and it's hard, and it's a lot of work, and it's not always fun. But you're not here forever, you're not going to settle.  You're going to go places.  So read a book, dance around your room, watch a comedy, make out with your boyfriend, laugh with your friends, and just enjoy the little moments while they're here.  Because happiness isn't a destination, it's a way of life.

"You have brains in your head and feet in your shoes and you can go wherever you choose. Things could happen and quite often do, to people as brainy and footsy as you!" -Dr. Suess

love,
Alice