It's Been a While

 It's been so long since I've written a post on here that I don't even know where to start. A lot of things have changed in my life. I started this blog almost nine years ago. It's changed a lot too. From a Christian young woman figuring out her faith to renouncing that faith to now, over the last going on two years, slowly starting to open herself back up to it. I haven't been back to church yet, I still have a lot of trust issues there, too many instances of bullying when I was younger and cliquishness and lack of acceptance as an adult. Churches don't equate to a safe space for me unless its talking about my old church in Edgewood, which was the only church I ever really felt at home. But I'm getting there. I'm talking to God again, I'm working to get my life back together, actually trying to take care of myself because for so many years I just haven't cared. I knew I needed help, but I just couldn't bring myself to care enough to do anything about it. I spent two years in school on no medications, in another state and I conquered school and life and then I came back to New Mexico and the depression came back and everything's been a struggle since. But I'm back seeing a doctor, I'm back on meds, and I'm trying.

Mirror, Mirror

I've been in Denver for almost a year now. I go to school full time, I work two jobs, and I'm currently in the middle of moving to a new place. I've done well for the last year. I've gotten good grades, I've done well at my jobs, but as the classes have gotten harder, my stress level has gone up and now with moving adding to an already difficult quarter, the cracks are starting to show. For the first time, I'm not doing well in a few of my classes. I'm struggling with finding enough time to study. I'm struggling with feeling exhausted all the time. I go seven days a week. The snow day we had last Wednesday was the first full day I'd had off in a few months. The cracks are showing and I don't know how to fix them. I live in a stupidly expensive city. I can't afford to quit one of my jobs. I'm trying to graduate by next summer so I don't incur a ridiculous amount of debt and so I can actually start working. I mean, I'm 28. Most of my friends and fellow students around the same age have at least one associates degree and most have a bachelors. Me? I'm at my fourth college trying to get the associates degree I failed to get two years ago.

The Past Is The Past Is The Past

Over the past couple of days, I've been slowly sorting through the innumerable pictures I have on my Facebook account. When I was younger, I had a tendency of uploading every picture I took so I found myself going through many many albums with way too many pictures, some of them not even good pictures. It was supposed to be a relatively quick job. You know, download the few albums that I wanted from birthdays and trips and junk most of the rest. What I wasn't expecting was the influx of memories and to an extent emotions that the process has unleashed. Because the farther back I go, the more comments and likes that I've found, comments from people that I don't even talk to or see anymore. It's a strange feeling to see how many friends I used to have that I laughed with, shared inside jokes with, and just hung out with. I find it kind of ironic thinking of all the people who think homeschool kids are unsocial. I had way more of a social life back then than I do now.

This Is MY Body, Deal With It

Four years ago I saw the picture of this young woman and her words inspired me to stop being quite so ashamed of my body. Posing in my underwear or a bikini was not something I would ever do in a million years, but I so admired her for her courage to not only take the picture, but to share it online where it went viral. She gave me the courage to stop being quite so uptight about my looks. I still refused to wear shorts or tank tops and I hated leaving the house without my hair or makeup done, but I stopped stressing about it quite so much. Four years later, I'm still overweight, probably weighing more than I did back then but as I type this I'm sitting out in public wearing shorts, a tank top, no makeup and my hair is in a messy ponytail. I finally learned to stop giving a crap what people think of me, I learned to stop letting other people dictate what I should wear, what I should be comfortable wearing. I don't wear makeup anymore except for when I got to class generally. I've started wearing shorts to the gym and sometimes I even go to the store to do my shopping after a hard workout. I realized that I was never going to please everyone, it's simply not possible, so instead of focusing on pleasing complete strangers that I didn't know or really care about, I decided it was time to start pleasing myself, wearing clothes that I thought were cute and comfortable regardless of whether or not society agreed with my opinion. The way I thought of myself was more important than the way others did. And wonder of wonders, I don't hate my body anymore. I can't say that I love it all the time, I still want to lose weight, I still want to be healthier, but when I look in the mirror I don't automatically notice the flaws. I learned to see things in a new light. Yes, I have stretch marks and scars, I don't have the perfect, flawless skin that most women seek, but those marks tell my story. They show my struggles with weight, the battle I'm fighting now, the scars on my arms and legs show that despite everything I have been through, I am a survivor. I refuse to believe that I am less of a person because I don't have flawless skin or a perfect body. I AM beautiful, fat, scars, stretch marks and all. Whether anyone else believes that doesn't matter as long as I know it and I can remind myself of that because I am worth it. I'm not perfect, but I don't want to be. My size, nobody's size defines them. We are each beautiful in our own, unique way. Sometimes we just need somebody to remind us of that.

Changes and Losses

So obviously I have not been as good as I thought I would be about blogging after concluding my Lord of the Rings project.  Frankly life has been a bit crazy since then and I have not had the ideas, inclination, or time to blog.  To be honest, I could have made the time, but the inclination and ideas were just not there.  A lot has changed though since the last time I blogged so this probably going to be a longer post.

Don't Be Bitter, Be Better

Update:  In the three years since writing this my relationship with my grandmother has not improved.  I'm no longer bitter towards her because of the reasons listed below, but I'm no loner the adoring granddaughter who thought her grandmother could do no wrong.  People always talk about that when you live with someone you get to see everything about them, the good and the bad.  That was certainly the case here, though what became apparent was more bad than good.  The longer we lived together, the more I discovered that I really did not know my grandmother at all and there was a side to her that I did not like at all that drove wedge in our relationship.  The one good thing that came from it all was that it brought my mother and I together.  We'd always had a bit of a rocky relationship, but through the issues that came up with my grandmother we began to talk more and develop a better relationship.  At this point we've become quite close and I'm thankful for that even if it did come at the cost of my relationship with my grandmother.   I still don't like Albuquerque thought I've gotten used to it..  I really am a country girl and anytime I'm able to drive out more into the country whether its back out into the mountains or in more recent times out in Rio Rancho, I'm happy.  I still hate the fact that my dogs are cooped up in their pen and that our cats have never really seemed to adjust to the new house.  I also ended up driving by our home in Edgewood about a year and a half ago and discovered that people who bought our house had gotten rid of my chickens and my rooster which left me in tears.  Despite my love for wide open spaces and a more secluded home, living in Albuquerque isn't completely unbearable and I'm happy with it for now.  I don't plan on living here forever and I still dream of finding some quiet little spot I can call my own.

~*~

Recently I've been struggling with some bitterness towards the last person I ever thought I would be bitter towards:  my grandmother.  Isn't it funny how things can change so fast?  The cause can be directly traced back to my family's move back into Albuquerque.  Now to most people that probably doesn't seem like that big of a deal, but for me, it's been pretty huge.  I'm a country girl at heart, not a city girl.

Back To School?

Okay you see that picture.  That could be me in a couple years.  Well, not the food, but you know, the hand garnishing that amazing looking dish.  Okay, I'll give you some context so you can stop looking confused, or if you're not looking confused, well, then, I don't know.  Anyway, since moving back home, there are times when I'll flip on the tv, not very often, but on occasion when I'm eating or doing something in the kitchen.  Most of the time there's nothing good or appropriate on so I've taken to watching Food Network, because, hey, I like to cook and bake and its always interesting to see what other people are fixing and get some good ideas.  My parents noticed this since I fix dinner a couple days a week and usually when they get home that's what I have on.  As we were watching one of the shows while having dinner a week or so ago, my dad made a comment that I should consider going to culinary school since I like to cook so much.  I was a bit surprised, because, well, culinary isn't exactly one of the "practical" college degrees that my parents used to always suggest I go for.  Now don't get me wrong, I know my parents have always had my best intentions at heart when they suggested those practical degrees, but I know I could never do something like business or accounting or even something like being a teacher.  No, no, no.  I would die of boredom or in the case of being a teacher, I think I would lose my mind trying to deal with kids.  I like kids, I think they're cute and all, but I only like them from a distance if I don't know them.  The only kids I actually like dealing with are ones that I know and even then I don't think I could do that everyday unless they were my own.  But that is in the far distant future and not something I'm going to worry about right now.

Out With the Old, In With the New

Recently, I've been struggling with a lot of stuff.  Some pretty major emotional ups and downs and changes.  And finally, finally, today, I kind of just thought through things and decided that I really needed to get out of this rut I've been digging myself into for years.  I needed to turn around and give everything to God and let Him handle it.  I also realized that part of the reason I was have such serious emotional issues was because of my music.  I'm a Christian, yes, but that doesn't mean that I only listen to Christian music.  I've come to realize that little by little I have removed the majority of my Christian music from my MP3 player to make room for newer non-Christian music I had either heard or found.  As I thought about it today, I realized that at least 3/4 of my music was not Christian, and about 1/2 was not edifying or really good in any way.  I realized that I had started to subtly move towards some edgier music.  Nothing explicit, maybe a curse word here or there or a mild suggestion, but it was affecting me, and not in a good way.

Changes

So I've been doing some work on my computer the last couple of days and I've been finding that its very confusing to keep all my internet stuff together because I have three different Google+ accounts:  one for e-mail, one that's attached to my YouTube account, and another that's attached to my blog.  As I've been working, its been incredibly annoying having to log out of one account to open another and then log out of that one to view something else.  So, I've decided that I'm going to go ahead and put everything under the one account I have with my e-mail.  But, of course, Google+ can't make that simple, now can they?  No, they have to make it so that there is now way to transfer blogs and YouTube channels and such over to another account.  Joy!  So basically what I'm going to be doing over the next couple of days is making a new YouTube channel (thank God I have all my videos already on my computer) and also working at transferring all my old blog posts over here.  Its going to be a bit of a process, but I think in the long run, I'll be happier with it.  No, actually, I take that back, with all the crap I'm going through to get all this organized, I WILL be happier, no ifs, ands, or buts.  So, here's to getting things organized!