While Looking Through Some Old Emails...

I stumbled across this quote that I believe pretty much sums up my last post:

At some point, you've just got to jump.
You've got to quit being scared of the "maybes" and "what-ifs" and just fucking jump.
Quit cheating yourself out of the best thing that could ever happen to you, quit cheating him out of the same, and just fall.
Fall hard, fall long, and fall forever.

-V

Strength Is A Funny Thing To Come By...

You find it the most unlikely of places, people and events. To wake up and go to school in the wake of a bad breakup, to hold your head high in the hallways despite a nasty rumor being spread, to get to know someone in spite of the things you’ve heard about them, to step onto a soccer pitch, football field, volleyball court etc when you know your team is just going to be crushed and finally to open your heart to someone after its been severely damaged. All these situations, though minor in comparison to some godlike heroic act, in my eyes resemble the strength a person could possess and in reality we all have that strength within us. Most of us, just haven’t realized it yet.

In retrospect isn’t that what high school is meant for? To help us see what we cannot? To help us discover our likes, dislikes, strong suits and weak points. To help us find our bridesmaids, our groomsmen and if we’re really lucky that person we’re meant to share forever with. Although I’m not one for believing in finding that special person in high school, some of us luck out and do. But what happens when the person we think we’ll be sharing forever with ends up breaking our hearts? What then becomes of us? The normal reaction of course is close off your heart for fear of it getting re-broken, for those wounds caused by the first person to be reopened by a new person. The rule, I’m told, states that for every month you were that person, a week should pass before you are truly ready to give your heart again. Well, that rule doesn’t apply to me-it took me two years. & even then it shouldn’t have taken that long, but it did. All because I was afraid. I gave everything to one person and was crushed to have it thrown back into my face. I had several opportunities after to form what was sure to be promising relationships with a few guys after but they always ended in disaster-all on my doing. How long does every person after the person who broke your heart have to suffer for what they did? How long will you question a new interest’s intentions, feelings, sincerity and honesty before it drives them away? How long will you question your own feelings and be hesitant to move on? If you have someone who truly wants to be with you, who can fix your broken heart, who can make it seem like whatever happened doesn’t matter-then I say jump. Jump and take a chance and hope that they catch you and if they don’t, well then you pick yourself up and jump again. Living in the past, consumed by your grief will only hurt you. By being afraid to truly let yourself be out there, you will miss out on something truly worth wild. I know it’s scary, hell it took me two years but every opportunity I missed out, I look back and wish I hadn’t passed them up. I look back and wonder what if-and that is one of the worst feelings in the world. I don’t wish it upon anyone and I hope anyone who is going through it will read this and take something back with them.

If there is one person from whom I draw my strength from, it is from my friend Taylor Ponder. Many choose to pass up the amazing opportunity to get to know her because of her reputation. For every bad thing you’ve ever heard about her, I’ll bet I can tell you five things that I truthfully know that will make those rumors seem more and more unlikely. She’s just your average teenage girl, whose been in love, had her heart broken but somehow managed to get through it. I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again till I’m blue in the face: I hate games and I fail miserably at them. But she, somehow has figured it all out and lucky for me she looks out for me and helps when I fall, which believe me happens often-especially with the guys that I fall for. The things she’s gone through, the things she’s going through all, instead of deterring her, make her stronger and I’ve never been more proud of her. I’d be a train on a crash course for hell without her guidance, wisdom and friendship. The next time you decide you don’t want to talk to her or make a comment about her because of something you’ve heard-I’ll laugh at you. I’ll laugh because of how immature you are, I’ll laugh because you’re missing out on the opportunity to gain a loyal, honest friend, and I’ll laugh because you don’t deserve to know her if you are so willing to believe what you’ve heard. The same goes for every other person out there. Studies show that of all rumors spread only about eight percent of them are true. While yes, all rumors spawn from some spark of truth-find out the truth and then and only then make your assumptions about person its about.
Finally, someone asked me recently what the letters TVZG or TZVG meant or stood for. No, it is not a band, a cult or anything radical like that. It simply stands for myself and my three best friends. T for Taylor, V for Vanity, Z for Zoe, and G for Geena. You might call it juvenile that we choose to unite ourselves in this way but I promise you we’ll laugh at this because honestly we don’t care. We certainly aren’t exclusive; we don’t put down other people for what they wear, how they act, who they are or anything like that. We’re just four girls who have seen each other at our best and worst of times. Four girls who despite their unlikely background bonded to form what feels like will be a permanent friendship. Four girls who have the most random times together, who make up code names for boys so we can talk about them when they’re right next to us, who steal each other’s clothing with the intention of never returning them, who can simultaneously hold a conversation with their eyes, and who will always be there for each other.

"Tell them all I know now
Shout it from the roof tops
Write it on the sky line
All we had is gone now

Tell them I was happy
And my heart is broken
All my scars are open"

-V

If You're Anything Like Me...

you are driven. Headstrong. Sensitive. Determined. If you're anything like me, you don't like taking no for an answer. If you're anything like me, you'll do whatever it takes, you'll go out of your way for the people you love-even if those same feelings aren't returned. Call it being a cancer, call it being a girl, I just call it being me. I'm a pusher-I push my feelings onto others and expect them to give me the same kind of push back. I think I've gotten to caught up in my novels and tv shows-I've always dreamed of being the girl that saves the boy whose lost his way, of falling in love with the guy I've known since I was six, and of course having the three best friends that I could always count on and anywhere you'd turn people would whisper out of envy because a friendship like ours was one in a million.

But recently, a facebook message from a supposed guy "best friend" completely shattered all my what now seem like naive standards for life. In my opinion, in order for a friendship to work you need to talk constantly-whether its keeping an ongoing message, email, skype, msn whatever. & somehow I believed everyone around me had these same expectation of friendships. So when my supposed best friend stops talking to me for months at a time (he currently lives in a different hemisphere, timezone, continent etc), I of course jump to the worst conclusions possible-hes upset with me, hes depressed, somethings going wrong with school etc. & thats when I start to push and what I view as being a good friend morphs into something close to obsession. The need to be that friend who, despite how hard you push, will always be there for you no matter what. I've done this with him so many times and every time when he doesn't reciprocate, I'll get mad, delete him off of facebook, swear to high hell I'm done and two days later he'll chase after me and things will be better-a sort of bandaid if you will. Yet this routine game of cat and mouse cut me when he didn't chase after me. Instead he exposed my weaknesses and said every possible honest thing upfront and to my face. And to be honest? It hurt. Like hell. And I'm not sure if I've recovered from it or not. His words read like a broken record, constantly reading themselves aloud in my mind over and over and over. How could the one person I know best and who knows be best say those kinds of things to me? How could he hurt me so badly when he knew about everything I had overcome.

Every day since then has been me trying to come to terms with his words. "Pathetically weak" I may be, but I'm trying to learn to stand on my own and to unclinch if you will and give people their space. I'm trying to learn how to not need my friends as much as I do and how to not force myself on them when they're hurting. But its hard you know? We all want to be the one to save somebody but sometimes we just have to learn how to walk away.

"Here I am, and I stand so tall-just the way I'm supposed to be"
-V

Summer leads to many things

including procrastination. I know I haven't updated in what feels like centuries and my deepest apologies. The truth is, so much has been happening and I really haven't had the time to sit and reflect on it let alone write it all down. I feel like I haven't gotten a grip on any of it yet so maybe writing this will help me accomplish that.

The problem is-where do I even begin? I suppose I'll start on the day that seven hundred and sixty eight fresh, innovative young minds were added to the mix of minds residing in the world we know today. Seven hundred and sixty eight young men and women joined the world in the face of a modern day economic recession, in the face of poverty, starvation, aids and so much more. They joined this world with hopeful hearts praying, wishing that is this generation who will prevail. That it is this generation who will be the face of change that everyone seems to talk about but no one seems to be able to pin point and say "Yes THAT is the change we've all been awaiting". The task before them is not and easy one and in no way is it fair that they are left to clean up our parents mistakes, yet I find myself being more hopeful than ever. Hopeful that tomorrow will truly be a better day. Of course, the class of 2010 won't be changing the world overnight-perhaps not even over a course of a decade. However, if they all-not just the seven hundred and sixty eight but all of the graduates of 2010 make one small attempt to change even the smallest of problems, well then that would leave way for my class to further this change and the class after us etc etc. In my opinion change has a domino effect. All it takes is the push of a finger to start it.

Sometimes I wonder what is better: to act on emotion or act with knowledge. I find that I am constantly in situations which tear me between the two. To act on emotion is to listen to your heart and act on it and the outcome of doing this is something you may or may not like. To act with knowledge is to plan everything out carefully, weighing the pros and cons and then acting. Its favorable in most cases but if you do that constantly you stop living. If you constantly measure everything out, you miss out on the chance to get hurt yes but you also miss out on the chances to be surprised, to love someone so passionately it hurts, to make mistakes and learn from them. Not to sound cliche or anything but as Alice in Eclipse said "This is the time to make mistakes". Who are we if we don't make mistakes? We are boring, predictable, complacent and most importantly careful. We stop living. I've never been the person to think before I act-I just act and deal with the repercussions. I take chances, I do the stupidest things like telling a boy I love him even though I know his heart belongs elsewhere, like standing up for someone I barely even know, like getting on a bus and never getting off-just seeing where it would take me and who I would meet along the way. All this and more I have done and because of it I have cried, I have lost but I have also learned and grown and yes lived. So in the face of all this, why am I so hesitant to take my own advice and admit my feelings. I know they're there, they've lingered inside me for quite sometime. In ten days, many things will change depending on my decision to follow my heart or become a hypocrite and discard my own way of life. Fear is a terrifying thing especially when facing it alone yet I'm afraid that in this situation I have no choice but to stand alone.

Besides my own trivial thoughts plaguing me, summer has been...one for the record books. It's only officially been ten days in yet it feels like forever ago that I finished my junior year. This entire year in fact has felt like a dream or an extended long summer vacation. My experiences, my friends here, all the memories that I've made- I feel like I could wake up from it all and be back in Bangkok where I had things all figured out-or so I thought. For some reason my heart cannot grasp the fact that this is where I'm at now, this is my life. Apart of me will always hold on to the past and maybe that is a good thing. In order to grow we must acknowledge our past and accept it right? Well maybe, in some twisted way that is what I'm doing. Despite my iron lock grip, things have been good so far.

Summer has brought with it new relationships, the death of old ones, and a new outlook on life-especially concerning that which will continue to confuse me well into old age: boys. Why is everything with them so complicated? Why can't it be simple: I like you, I like you too-okay we're going out. Instead you have to play the game and become good at it or else risk getting hurt-badly. You have to laugh at their jokes but not to obvious, you have to touch when you flirt but not be all over them, you can't make it easy because all boys want what they can't have. All these unwritten rules we as girls are expected to follow. You would think I, after a failed relationship or two, would be a pro at this by now. You think wrong. I am perhaps the worst player at this "game" we call relationships. The fact is, I hate playing games. I hate screwing with matters especially those of the heart. I always find that I'm the "cool, sweet, nice girl" that all the guys like to hang out with, yet I'm never "the" girl. Or I am in the case of some guys but of course the guys that I want don't see me in that light. We're always pinning for what we can't have and when we finally get it, or if we ever do I should say, we get bored with it and throw it away in pursuit for something more challenging. Life now-a-days is just too ironic. Sometimes you just have to wonder-if life were to take on a human form-what would it look like? In my mind, life would be that sadistic nine year old girl who in the face of your downfalls helps you up while laughing behind your back.

Summer is the time where all your greatest fears should be forgotten. Summer is the time to stay out till 2 in the morning partying at the beach or sharing a kiss or two under the pier. It's the time to get to know yourself better and to form unbreakable bonds with your friends. To create memories you'll be telling your grandchildren about, to fill a facebook album-or two or three or four. My summer has been all this and so much more. It's been filled with backstabbing, honesty, criticism, praise, and most importantly those laughs that I'm always talking about-the ones that come from somewhere deep within that fills you up with the warmest feeling in the world. My summer is leading me to places I never thought I'd go to. My summer is bringing me to people I never thought I'd meet. My summer started ten days ago and already it's turning out to be one of the best.

"And we were trying different things
We were smoking funny things
Making love out by the lake to our favorite song
Sipping whiskey out the bottle, not thinking 'bout tomorrow
Singing Sweet home Alabama all summer long"

-V