One of My Favorite Feelings

You know when you have a friend who you're really close with, like one of your best friends that you tell absolutely everything to, and you talk every day? But then sometimes, for some reason or another, but mostly just because life gets in the way, you kind of drift apart for not really any reason at all; no single action, no dramatic ending. It just happens. And then before you know it, it's been a whole year since you've talked. Well obviously, that's not my favorite feeling.

The favorite feeling part comes when you see that person, a year after absolutely no communication, and it's like you never missed a beat. You fall back into step with each other, almost as proof that your friendship was something that really meant something, something that was intended to last. Like a confirmation that you made a good choice in picking that person to be such a close friend to begin with.

One of my best friends that I had from middle school on through high school was a boy I met through club swimming. We had our little middle school crushes on each other once; technically he was my first "boyfriend" (aka we held hands like twice). But we moved passed that and stayed really close. We told each other literally everything - the first time I got my heart broken, I called him; the first time he got in a really huge fight with his parents, he called me and we stayed on the phone until we were laughing instead of being upset; when his girlfriend in his senior year in high school told him she was pregnant, I was the first one he called as he sat in his car outside her house, devastated. We talked through every decision he made from that point on, when he decided it was not that baby's fault that he made a mistake, and he was not going to deprive her of a father because of that. I met that little baby girl when she was about 6 months old...and a spitting image of her dad.

And then, as raising a baby will do, he got busy and I got busy and we just didn't have the time to talk on the phone all the time like we used to; and we obviously weren't swimming together anymore. And we stopped talking pretty much for over a year. But here you have it, swimming brought us together again - this time as coaches. Yesterday I coached my beginner group at their first ever meet, and he coaches for the pool that was hosting the competition. I saw him from across the pool, and following a huge hug, we just picked up right where we left off. The whole time, I was just so impressed by how much he's grown-up and taken responsibility for himself and the life that he's living. It's by no means easy for him, but watching the look in his eye when his now-2-year-old runs up to him, tells me that it's all worth it. That's an image I'm not soon going to get out of my head. True joy.

I finally finished a book

Not as in I've never done that in my life...but as in I haven't been able to finish a book for the last like, 6 months. Partially because I've been so busy, but also because I go through phases - I'll spend a couple months reading everything I can get my hands on and writing lists of books I want to read, but then I'll get so overwhelmed by everything that I want to read that I just stop reading. Make sense? Anyway, with the hope that school doesn't get in the way, I think I'm on one of those "I want to read everything I can get my hands on" phases right now. I'm supposed to go out to Sky High tonight, but between not feeling that great and knowing I have to get up early tomorrow...curling up with a good book is starting to sound more and more appealing.

The book I just finished was actually for class - Clotelle by William Wells Brown. It's a narrative of the struggles of a slave family and their separation and growth and struggles from the early 1800s until the onset of the Civil War. It includes families, friends, history, separation, reunions, love, hate, desire to change...pretty much any major topic of writing is included in this novel. I read it in two days. Needless to say, I thoroughly enjoyed it.

Slavery and racism and discrimination and prejudice has always been something I've been interested in, as far as a historical context goes. It blows my mind that people are capable of those sort of actions and beliefs. It's something I never get tired of reading about or learning about, people that stand up against racists and fight for the equality of humans regardless of their skin color or external appearance...those people are heroes to me. I could write on and on about my opinions on this matter for ages.

We've been talking about matters along the lines of this in 3 out of my 5 classes.  Slavery and the history of Africans in US History, stereotyping and judging in Spanish, and discrimination and racism in Social Psychology of Sport. And it's made me realize how adamant I am to raise my children (when I have them) to not judge a person based on their external appearances, or better yet, not to judge at all. I know I can't protect them forever from people's opinions on different races or on people with disabilities, but I can teach them to see all people as the same and beautiful in their own right, and hope that they hold-fast to that ideal and resist the peer pressure to change.  I want them to not expect that they should have to differentiate their friends based on what color their skin is or what they look like. I don't want them to realize that skin colors are different, because they shouldn't have to be; whether someone's skin is black or white or tan or purple or green, they are still a human and that's the way everyone should be treated. As human.

Just what I needed today

An email forwarded to me from my dad from something he heard on Mark & Brian this morning:

"

1. Life is not easy. - Hard work makes people lucky - it's the stuff that brings dreams to reality. So start every morning ready to run farther than you did yesterday and fight harder than you ever have before.

2. You will fail sometimes. - The faster you accept this, the faster you can get on with being brilliant. You'll never be 100% sure it will work, but you can always be 100% sure doing nothing won't work. So get out there and do something! Either you Succeed or you learn a vital lesson. Win- Win.

3. Right now, there's a lot you don't know. - The day you stop learning is the day you stop living. Embrace new information, think about it and use it to advance yourself.

4. There may not be a tomorrow. - Not for everyone. Right now, someone on Earth is planning something for tomorrow without realizing they're going to die today. This is sad but true. So spend your time wisely today and pause long enough to appreciate it.

5. There's a lot you can't control. - Wasting your time, talent and emotional energy on things that are beyond your control is a recipe for frustration, misery and stagnation. Invest your energy in the things you can control.

6. Information is not true knowledge. - Knowledge comes from experience. You can discuss a task a hundred times, but these discussions will only give you a philosophical understanding. You must experience a task firsthand to truly know it.

7. You can't be successful without providing value. - Don't waste your time trying to be successful, spend your time creating value. When you're valuable to the world, you will be successful.

8. Someone else will always have more than you. - Whether it's money, friends or magic beans that you're collecting, there will always be someone who has more than you. But remember, it's not how many you have, it's how passionate you are about collecting them. It's all about the journey.

9. You can't change the past. - As Maria Robinson once said, 'Nobody can go back and start a new beginning, but anyone can start today and make a new ending.' You can't change what happened, but you can change how you react to it.

10. The only person who can make you happy is you. - The root of your happiness comes from your relationship with yourself. Sure external entities can have fleeting effects on your mood, but in the long run nothing matters more than how you feel about who you are on the inside.

11. There will always be people who don't like you. - You can't be everything to everyone. No matter what you do there will always be someone who thinks differently. So concentrate on doing what you know in your heart is right. What others think and say about you isn't all that important. What is important is how you feel about yourself.

12. You won't always get what you want. - As Mick Jagger once said, 'You can't always get what you want, but if you try sometimes you might find you get what you need.' Look around. Appreciate the things you have right now. Many people aren't so lucky.

13. In life, you get what you put in. - If you want love, give love. If you want friends, be friendly. If you want money, provide value. It really is this simple.

14. Good friends will come and go. - Most of your high school friends won't be a part of your college life. Most of your college friends won't be a part of your 20-something professional life. Most of your 20-something friends won't be there when your spouse and you bring your second child into the world. But some friends will stick. And it's these friends - the ones who transcend time with you - who matter.

15. Doing the exact same thing every day hinders self growth. - If you keep doing what you're doing, you'll keep getting what you're getting. Growth happens when you change things - when you try new things - when you stretch beyond your comfort zone.

16. You will never feel 100% ready for something new. - Nobody ever feels 100% ready when an opportunity arises. Because most great opportunities in life force us to grow beyond our comfort zones, which means you won't feel totally comfortable or ready for it.

"

amen.

Let me build my own shelter, don't do it for me.

I was thinking about this on more than one occasion today. I absolutely dislike it when people try to protect you from seeing things or hearing things or understanding things that THEY don't think you should see or hear or understand or be aware of. That's my decision to make, not theirs. My curiosity yearns to be satiated and most often, I will find out that someone tried to keep something from me, I will satisfy my curiosity, and I will have some resentment built onto that for the simple fact that it's no one's right to tell me what I can and can't be aware of in this world.

I don't like being lied to, and purposely keeping information away from me is pretty much the equivalent of that. I was sheltered for a great deal of my childhood, and I consider myself to still be a pretty sheltered person in comparison to a lot of other people in this world. But if you really knew me, you would know that this is a quality I want nothing more than to change. I hate that I grew up so unaware of what was outside of my bubble, and I work every day to turn that around.

So whether it be something minuscule or something huge, I don't want it to be kept from me in an effort to "protect me" or "shelter me" because those are all just more positive connotations of "I'm hiding the truth from you." I'm a strong girl and it's no one's place to decide if I'm strong enough to handle anything. I know a lot more than people think I know, I've made it through a lot of stuff I didn't think I was going to make it through, and I've heard a lot of things that have broken my heart; I don't ever let any of it stop me from recovering, moving forward, and getting stronger.

I don't decide what's in someone else's best interests and I expect them do the same for me.

Spare Moment

I haven't had very many of these since moving back into school. Go to school, go to internship, go to school again, work, work from my room, do my homework...and of course eat and sleep somewhere in between there. It's funny how quickly my body adjusted to going from 9-10 hours of sleep a night to 6-7 hours. But I still don't feel like this is anything I can't handle. I still feel like I'm sitting on top of the world.

I just had this moment today, walking around the tables during kindergarten Center Rotation, helping the kids and having them come to me with their questions and problems, and I realized with a new perspective that I'm TWENTY years old, almost twenty-one. I'm not a child, I'm an adult. All 27 of those little lives look to me for direction and aid and they don't differentiate between a college student and an adult; I am an adult.

My master teacher has been giving me more and more independence with the kindergarteners and relying on me more to do things of actual value with them, instead of just supervising. I'm absolutely loving every minute of it. Recently I've been helping the kids who struggle with writing their name, and it's so fantastic to see their eyes light up when you tell them how awesome they are doing, or how much they are improving. They are so precious and innocent and I wouldn't want to spend those two hours of my Tuesdays and Thursdays in any other way. I'm so certain that this is what I was meant to do in my future; I don't think I've ever been so sure of anything.

A Sensible Change

This first week of school has been unlike any other. I can't remember the last time I felt as sure of myself as I feel right now. I must admit, it is a nice change. But it's so hard to describe...I've been mulling it over in my mind all week and I just can't figure out how to put it into words. Something just feels different. I've been happy before and I know how it feels, so I feel like describing this as happy isn't doing it justice - because it doesn't feel the same. It feels deeper, more satisfying...more radiating.

I don't know what's caused it and I don't know what to call it other than a miracle. For the first time in a long time I feel like my happiness is not dependent on anyone other than myself. Even in the midst of the chaos of this week, I have not become overwhelmed and I don't feel that it's anything that I can't handle. In fact, I know I can do everything that is being demanded of me and still be happy. That's how sure I am of what I'm feeling.

I think the strangest thing is, I don't know what triggered this change. It's just like, one morning I woke up and realized I didn't need to look at my feet when I walked down the side walk; I could look up and enjoy everything around me and smile at people as they walked by. I didn't need to fight for things to happen that obviously just weren't meant to be; I could let it go and enjoy the things in my life that wanted to happen for me. I'm not feeling this way because of an event, or a boy, or a particular situation...not a single thing can be pinpointed as the cause. It's just there.

I'm busy and I'm stressed out and I have so much to do...but I feel so at peace. I feel like the sun is inside my heart and I am glowing with joy and love and life, and I don't ever want this feeling to go away.