Coming into Adulthood

So I've been thinking about this a lot. This whole, I'm grown up thing. High School is officially over and now it's the real thing, and it's not to say I haven't been living in the real thing this whole time, but it's just really different after High School. At least to me, I just feel it, it's a realization almost everyday that there really is an endless span of possibilities in front of me. Just a span of the complete unknown, and it seems a little daunting. How am I possibly suppose to figure all this how? How am I suppose to know if I'm doing the right thing or on the right path? This week has been a lot of that for me, not the answers really but I just found out a lot about myself I guess you could say.

This past week I was house sitting, looking after two wild dogs and living in a lonely house. At least it was lonely to me. I'm not used to how  it is in Vernon, living next to the sound of constant buses at 7 am and movement from then on, it was just a change. I also have slept with my TV every since I was a child, a fear of the dark it became the solution to my problems and now it's the silence I fear so it stays on even at my 18 years of age. And she didn't have a TV in her room. So most nights I would fall asleep on the couch to the sound of the it wake in the middle of the night to the dogs barking for some odd reason and crawl into her bed with the light on (all right I should admit. I am still slightly afraid of the dark, something I can overcome when I'm surrounded by people but can't do alone.) Along with that came the sudden realization that I depend on people far too much. I hated being there alone, the dogs were company but not enough and I realized I was left to my own thoughts, which I very much try to avoid because my thoughts aren't always the kindest. Now I must also add that I am finally back home and in my own bed and my own dog is lying next to me and I can say that I have missed all of this so much but I also must write this, because being the writer that I am I can't let all these thoughts slip away.

Throughout this week I have been spending time with my own thoughts and have tried to figure out some of my problems. . . haha sounds interesting right? Especially because how can you possibly figure out all your problems in a week, but lets just say it was a good week for a few realizations. In this span of time I also picked up Eat Pray Love again which for some odd reason I stopped reading half way through, probably because it's been a rough, busy few months since I last read it and a lot of these realizations came because of this book.

I remember talking to my dad one night before I went to bed and he was asking me how I was dealing with my own 'crib' and I mentioned how odd it felt. I didn't like coming home to nothing and no one and my dad said "it's because your a social person, you surround yourself with people and are used to it." which is true, and it's not a bad thing but I feel that my reasons for being the social person I am is to hide from my own flaws, fears and thoughts. There are things I like to keep hidden, even from myself. I try to lock them in a trunk I suppose and act like it isn't sitting there rattling in the corner dying to get out. The trunk constantly threatens to burst open without my permission, regardless of all the locks I have put on it. My mind often wanders to the most important thing, I think all of us humans have in common and is mentioned in Eat Pray Love quite a bit, love. The need for it, the search for it, the desperation of finding love so that we may not suffer this life alone. The only love I have ever faced are the two men I have mentioned previously. I have nothing else to think of except for one of them, the most recent one because I have no one else to focus all the pain on. But I realized why do I have to have someone else to focus on? And it's really because it's all I've ever known. I have always had crushes on boys, always imagined my first kiss being perfect and I have always never let yy broken heart fully heal because as soon as I found my answers to one boy (the answer was ummmm no) then I was finding a new crush, a new person to let my heart ponder over when all it really wanted was a break. I go through phases, heartbreak, crying, then anger, hate, and then back to what I think is love and how I am need to have them back in my life, but then sometimes I find someone to focus it on and I forget all about it and suddenly I feel 'healed.'

With my most recent heartbreak, I'm at the final stage, where it has been a constant belief of mine that maybe I need to try and find a way to bring him back into my life, I feel like I'm missing out on something. And I can't move on because there's no one else to focus my thoughts and feelings on, but you know what? I don't want to be that girl who feels the need to have a guy in her life just to feel complete and although I haven't in quite sometime it is something I am constantly thinking about. Constantly wondering if I'm going to find someone, etc. I far to often find my mind telling me no, to so many things it lets me wander off and think of a life absoultely alone, it lets me wander to embarrassing moments that have happened so long ago that probably no one who was even apart of it remembers. But my mind lets me remember, it lets me tell myself that I am useless, worthless and an embarrasment.

And the thing I am trying to get at most is that I am done harboring these thoughts (Can't take the credit. Liz  Gilbert, Eat Pray Love. Also this should be advertisement enough to pick this book up, it has really helped me realize many things even if I can't relate at all to what she is going through it keeps it open for you to connect in some way to her and her life and try and heal yourself.) So here is my final thoughts and they are directed to you, although you will never see this. . .

I will love you, I will hate you, I may forgive you and I may not, and sometimes I am so angry at the way you made me feel like a fool, the way you hurt me but you know what I am going to try and do. Accept that I am going to feel these things towards you and then you know what I am going to do with all of it? I am going to let it go, just let them go into the universe and never to return to me. The things I tell myself  I must also let go. I will repeat these words, I will not harbor unhealthy thoughts anymore. See, I know that I am strong, I always have been, but I can be stronger and it is because I must learn to let go. And it is not like this will suddenly happen but I will find a way to teach myself. I will learn to take some time to just let me mind wind down, shut down and completely go blank and then maybe I will open that trunk piece by piece to open my trunk and let the things I keep locked inside go. A little saying I found in the book that I took a fondness too, in Italian, Devo farmi le ossa, which means "I need to make my bones."

I am going to need to start from scratch build myself up and let some things go. And here's where I mentioned in a pervious blog a life journey we must take alone, this is my own quest, my own path which will help me further adapt into Adulthood but I will not truly be alone because as my dad says I am a social person and there are so many true a loving friends that I have that I can turn to if I am ever scared or I feel I may falter and forget this blog all together. They will refer me back to this, my own thoughts and will help me remind myself to breathe. And I know not all of this makes sense to maybe just about everybody but myself but I know there is so much truth for me in these relazations and as I read this back is makes just as must since to me as the first time I thought of it in my head, as I came to these realizations. And I know that it is now time for me to make my bones.
Until next time,
CassidyDoris

Speak Now

The thing about Taylor Swift, for me and all my friends is that there is one song that is just us. It either describes us individually, tells a story about a boy that describes the boys in our lives, or tells the story of friendship and everlasting love. Taylor Swift is best listened to in a car on the back roads of Vermont. You must definitely have it blasting out of your speakers, and the windows rolled down so you can inhale the sweet scent or spring, summer, or fall. Sadly, winter is not the best time for the windows to be rolled down, or to be driving on back roads with the fear of getting stuck in pot holes, mud, or crashing your unreliable car into a ditch because of the icy situations of the winter season. But no fear blasting it at your best friends house, with a fire blaring and dancing like crazy people in the living room is the best solution for your Taylor Swift needs when it's to cold to go anywhere. The thing that captures me and my friends with Speak Now is the way Taylor just, speaks. She doesn't hold back and she doesn't care that she is portraying her whole life through songs that people around the world will listen to. There is a song in there for each one of my girls. But the thing that I most fell in love with was the Prologue. I have such respect for Taylor Swift because of her courage and strength. She is just so raw with her feelings. She is Fearless. And that's all I can hope to be and it's pretty easy to see how Taylor Swift is such an amazing role-model for today's youth. She is so down to earth and loving, she doesn't see the need to fit in by using drugs or alcohol. The way she can just showcase her life through music as her therapy to get over things and move on, should be an example for all people who are struggling with their own happiness. I choose to write when I'm upset, I write letters to people that they might never read, I write to myself about my pain and how to stay strong and move on. I write stories that relate to my life and portray my emotions through characters. And I feel that everyone just needs that one thing to help them stay strong and move on. If you're struggling to be happy because of the people around you maybe they shouldn't be around you. If you're friends are bringing you down they are no friends at all, if random people are telling you things that hurt you, I ask you who are they to your life? Nothing more than bullies who, I can promise you, are going no where in life. They will one day get theirs. Karma is a bitch. And I can promise you that none of this is worth giving up on what this world has to offer.

There was one time in my life where I was in love with a boy. Of course we've all been there right? Right. And I can tell you that I truly had such strong feelings for him, was it love? It could've been for that age, it could've been. I loved him for three years. From 7th Grade to my Freshman year and we were on and off. He was the one that always broke up with me but never actually broke up with me to my face, he had friends do it, or text messages and I thought that it was fine the way he treated me. He would never stick up for me when his friends criticized me and broke me down piece by piece; that pulled me into a spiral of depression that eventually brought me to the point of where I self-inflicted the pain they were making me feel. I never thought anything of it when he would break up with me because I wouldn't 'put out' I thought it was my fault and maybe I should if I loved him so much. And I almost let him and I'm so glad that I didn't. And I don't mean to portray him as this terrible guy because he really isn't, we've actually managed to have a friendship. We've both grown up and matured and he was just being a boy that felt pressured by his peers to try and get with me but never actually love me. I remember in my Freshman year when I started to lose all of my feelings for him, when we kissed my stomach no longer flipped, when he looked me in the eyes and told me he loved me I no longer felt the truth behind my own words when I said it back and I was scared. Because I could tell that he actually loved me, he was actually feeling something towards me and I wasn't anymore. I kept thinking what am I going to do once I don't have a boyfriend anymore? What am I going to do without that companionship and love. The kissing and cute little moments, how long would it be till I had that again? And then I realized that I couldn't be unhappy in this relationship just because I was afraid of being on my own. Single and alone. And of course you're never really alone, I had some of the best friends that pulled me through but it was scary. But that freedom wasn't so terrifying once I started to move on. Looking back on this 7 years later, I realize how unhealthy that relationship was. I was at his beck and call whenever he wanted to be together and not, I still loved him and hung out with him when we weren't together and I cried myself to sleep every night, wishing he would just love me again. My life became centered around him, and no ones life should be about anyone else but themselves. It might seem selfish but so true, you have got to pay attention to yourself, love yourself before you can ever get in a relationship that was this toxic. I don't know how I found the strength but I just woke up one day and realized that I was ready to move on, so for the first time in three years after about 6 on and off again attempts at a relationship, I broke up with him, to his face and I had never felt more powerful. Well, that is until three years later when I spoke up to someone who once again I found my life being dictated around.

He was my best friend for six years, sounds romantic right? Oh best friends falling in love, how adorable. In fact it was worse towards the end of our friendship then the relationship I had actually been in. When  I realized I loved him it seemed to make everything worse, my actions around him began to change. I was more sensitive to his actions as well, his friends would make fun of the fact that we were friends, that I so often called him my best friend and therefore it made me turn into this weirdo controlling person who would always get mad at him the second I felt like he was ashamed of me. Wherever we went together and saw people he knew I'd always 'feel' like I sensed he was embarrassed to be around me and when I'd call him out on it, it would always be this big huge fight, that would leave me angry and hurt. I realize looking back on it, that I was still an immature, insecure girl, but most of the time it was with good reason because I believed I was an embarrassment, even though most of the time I was just a hugely overreacting.  I know now, however, looking back on it that he really wasn't ashamed. He was always there for me, regardless of how weird I always acted around him. He helped build up the confidence I know have in myself. I remember the moment he found out I was cutting myself and he made me promise I would never do it again, that I had to stop and that I had to tell him whenever I felt like I might try again and he would be there for me. I think this is why I feel in love with him, why I'm still in love with him because I know he is still this person who wears his heart of his sleeve. I remember watching him hold back tears when his girlfriend in high school had broken up with him, it was something I feel like you rarely see. The man loves the woman more. Another reason. But eventually we became to good to be true, his freshman year of College he was coming home every weekend and we were constantly hanging out. And I was so sure that I was watching him fall in love with me too but he didn't want to say anything for the same reasons I didn't. Because I knew that if it was even whispered it would shatter the bubble we were in. I was just so sure of it, but I think I was just trying to push something I thought would be so perfect. I mean it is kind of romantic when two best friends fall in love. Our friendship would change no matter what. The following year, however, something shifted and I felt that I knew what is was. The year before I don't think he was feeling too comfortable with College, adjusting was hard for him and he knew that he could find me, his best friend waiting for him and to be there for him. (this is only my assumption, I don't really know why he came home every weekend, but this seems to be the best answer.)  But his sophomore year I could feel he was adjusting, finding friends, and his weekends at home were less and less. I once again found myself in a whirlwind of emotions, my life was once again revolving around a man who simply was losing interest. My friends encouraged me to write a letter to him that he'd never read and then they printed that letter and kidnapped me up to his school. (trust me I thank them for this, they are the best friends I could ever ask for.) I left the note on his door and I spoke up. I was tired of crying over him and I just wanted answers. But the answers I got have never shattered my heart so much. It felt like my heart was just laying in pieces on the floor that I was forced to put back together for what felt like the millionth time. I haven't talked to him in a little over a year, we've run into each other a few times and he has tried to make it seem like nothing has changed, when it has. While he helped build me up into the confident person I am, he has also helped me put up a barrier that I no longer feel the need to let another man break through. At least not now. I am certainly open to finding that one, but I'm not going to force the situation to happen like I so often have done in the past, whatever is to come is to come and I have to learn to just be satisfied with my life in the present. Which I am. The only thing I have come to realize is the most important in my life, is my friends. Friends are soul mates and boys can simply be something all just have fun with. I will no longer let me life be dictated from what a boy is feeling, I am my own person and I am so glad that I have been able to have these experiences to teach me that.


The point I am trying to get across to those who feel lost, alone and scared is that you're simply never alone. There is someone who is always there for you, whether it's a friend, a parent or a teacher. Never feel like you have to do everything alone, and sure there are journeys you might have to take alone, you must not be afraid of them. And if you do get scared there is someone there to cheer you on. You must continue on this journey, don't give up. And to those people who are getting you down, you must know that the only person who will truly get you down is yourself. You have the power to not care what they think, to stand up for yourself and speak now. I did, I spoke with the words that I wrote, the words that I have always written to help me move on. And I will never be ashamed of that. So whether you go and blast some Taylor Swift to make you feel worthy or write in your Journal or talk to a friend, you must know you are worthy. You are valued and appreciated and your life serves a purpose you just need to find. Life's a journey, but as long as you, ask questions, take a stand and fight, you will find your voice. Let your voice rise and in the words of Taylor Swift. . . speak now.


Until next time,
CassidyDoris