Always Home

Ohio will forever be near and dear to my heart. No matter what Ohio teaches me something that I am sure that I needed but at the time was too stubborn to realize. Here are somethings that being home has taught me.

• Home is Always Home:  I didn't realize how much I needed to be home until I was home. I didn't realize how much I needed to be around my family laughing about some joke or being roasted about something I did when I was younger until it happened.

• Life Moves On: For a girl who has been struggling with this over the last month this took until about a day before this was written to realize. No this isn't another rant about some dumb guy who broke my heart but yes that ties into that a little bit. My hometown town has barley changed since the last time I was really home. I drove around my high school and it had felt like an eternity since I was in school. I remembered the football field where I spent Friday nights during football season. I remembered running up a staircase before choir concerts. The thing that hit me the most is that my life has drastically changed. I wasn't the same girl in high school or even a year after high school. 

• People Change: The last time I was home, I wanted nothing more than to hang out with the same people that I hung out with before I moved to Vermont. Well, I learned REAL fast that people change and again their lives still continues. I got the chance to hang out with some people who I haven't seen in YEARS and when I mean years, I mean literally 2014 and 2016. Ow. My bad. Everyone goes through changes and deals with their own stuff. Sometimes for the good and sometimes for the bad.

• ALWAYS SPEND TIME WITH YOUR SIBLINGS: This is in all caps because I'm going to admit something. I spent Christmas time more focused "attempting" to catch up with old friends and getting upset when they couldn't then realizing that my best friends and the people who are always there were right in front of me. This trip, I spent a couple of hours individually with each of my siblings. Honestly? It has been a blast. I have loved spending that one on one time with them and just talking about whatever they wanted to and just focusing on them. I made memories with all of them that I hope we won't forget. 

• Nothing Goes According To Plan: I included this because again its what hits you hard the most. Sometimes, I think God laughs at me when I try to have a plan. This vacation, I planned ALOT of things. I planned a new tattoo. I planned on getting a laptop. I planned on avoiding my mother. I planned on being totally over the boy who broke my heart. You wanna know how much that happened?  None of it. I've learned from all of it. I spent some time with my mother and learned it's really better to keep her at a distance and move on. Continuing to be mad isn't going to get me far in life. Plans do fall through. And that boy? I don't think anyone truly realizes my feelings. Maybe people never will including him. It didn't work out and I am slowly(very slowly) trying to move on with the rest of my life.

• Never Forget Who You Are: I think before I came home, I was lost and stuck. Actually im sure I have written a blog post in the last month about it. Coming home has made me realize that yes I wear my heart on my sleeve but it also made me realize that I am almost the same girl who left almost two years ago to start over. Almost being that I am so much stronger. It took every experience I had here to make something better. I needed to come home and be grounded to know that I won't be stuck forever. I can be happy.

Being home has been an adventure. I am grateful. I am thankful for the weird gut feeling I had three months ago to push my vacation up a month. Sometimes all you need is to come home remember your roots and get a nice little reality check.

Life Moves On

The sentence that describes the last month or two of my life is, "Life moves on"

Actually, it describes the last six months of my life but that is beside the point. It's just hit me harder the month or two.

For the longest time, I stayed stuck. I stayed stuck in relationships that ended. I stayed stuck in experiences that I had good/bad just to find another reason to stay stuck. This time i refused to stay stuck.

When my last relationship ended, I was destroyed mentally/emotionally for awhile. Some days it is harder than others. It wasn't until I was basically forced to move on that I adapted to that saying life moves on. My life returned back to normal the way it was before I started seeing him, I just had all these memories I had to try to get over.

And it hurt. And some days it still hurts but making sure my life continues on after the pain and sadness I've gotten closer with my roommate who is now one of my best friends. She knows all about all my problems and we tell each other basically everything. I've gotten closer to people at church and being more active and building my relationship with God and knowing that everything happens for a reason.

What has really helped me is that a couple of weeks after I ended things, I ended up going home to Ohio for vacation. The funny thing is that I planned my vacation while seeing him. I knew I was going home no matter what. But the real good thing is that being home so far I have found everything I have needed.

I didn't realize how much I needed Ohio until I landed in Ohio.

I've had my ranting sessions to my dad, I have had lots of baby cuddles. I have caught up with old friends. It has been great. I have laughed and smiled more like myself then when everything was going on the last couple of months. I am not saying the last couple of months were bad, of course they weren't. I loved most of the last couple of months, but I am learning how to be myself again and that is beautiful.

I told myself that me coming home was going to be me learning how to fall in love with life and myself again. I was going to learn that I can be myself without someone else. I lost myself while falling for someone else. It was beautiful and magical it was also complicated and exhausting.

My life the last five days has been full of adventure laughing with my siblings, sharing stories upon stories with my step mom and learning you may move 600 miles away from home but sometimes all you need is a trip home for everything to make sense again.

I am thankful.

Life is constantly one thing after another. For me, it took a major heartbreak from someone who I would've given the world and beyond to realize that even when it ends the world doesn't. I still have so much to learn at 22 and I am beyond excited for it. I am beyond excited to see what God throws at me next.

I am in a weird place right now. I am in between fighting for what I want and what I need. I know that no matter what happens that I will come out on the other side and that life moves on and so will I even if it takes awhile.

Consquences

Today I choose to not be quiet anymore.

The last two months have been the hardest two months of my life. I have probably sat in my bed debated more stuff that is going on. I questioned myself and everything around me and for awhile I felt like I was drowning. I went to work, went to church, and got sucked in this cycle that I didn't know how to get out of until recently.

Two months ago, I started talking to and seeing someone. It turned very dysfunctional real fast. He was sweet and caring behind closed doors, we danced in his kitchen, stayed up till five am laughing and singing, he slowly became everything I wanted. But when it came to not being behind closed doors I only existed when he wanted me to exist. I prayed all the time for a miracle.

I became very angry and very sad. I ranted to friends and coworkers without saying a name about the guy I liked who was stressing me out. I found myself glued to my phone waiting. Waiting on a message, hanging on to every word, hoping that maybe he'd want to hang out with me. I remember caring about work enough to get back because I was stressed.

It became very unhealthy just keeping this secret.. He lived his life and I was basically sworn to secrecy. I coped in the worst ways. I spent Friday nights partying then Saturdays kinda stumbling into work laughing about what stupid thing I did the night before. I would stay up till 4-5 am when I was with him just so I could spend sometime with him. Then I would go work my eight hour shift after getting up at 9-10.

Nothing in that situation with this guy I was in made sense or was even good. It took me honestly so long to see how dysfunctional about it. No matter how many times I tried to tell him that I wasn't someone he could just keep a secret, it seemed like things would never change. I also never really knew how he felt. I opened up and tried so hard to communicate and I got the same thing over and over again.

At one point during a monthly meeting with my local church leader, I ended up almost breaking down. I told him how I was sad and stressed and I just was struggling to cope. He suggested that I start using church services to get into therapy to maybe start feeling better.


I tried to tell myself that he was going to change. Someday he was going to wake up and realize that I was not keeping a secret. It wasn't until very early Saturday morning that I ended up walking away. I kept telling him that I deserved better and that no one needs to be kept some dirty little secret. I couldn't stand seeing him at this place and work and him acting like I barley existed. He shut me out completely and I was over it. I was over feeling like complete crap. I knew I had to let go even though walking away was the hardest thing I have ever done.

Coming to the realization that I deserve better and that I need to focus on myself and my mental health has been challenging but so rewarding in itself.

I have learned in the last couple of days that silence and distance is sometimes the best medicine. I have learned that I need to put myself first and not lose myself in some guy. I refuse to compromise my recovery and my happiness.

It is going to take a heck of a long time. I don't know how exactly how I am going to come back from this but I promise I will come back and rise again.

Hard Times

When I was 18 graduating high school, I had a plan.

I had this plan that I would go out to college in Idaho for all four years and become a journalist. Then my life changed.

I didn't have enough money to pay for my second semester and I ended up dropping out and coming home. Upon coming home, I had this impression to serve a church service for The Church Of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints. After starting that process, I ended up getting diagnosed with depression and anxiety and spent the next year and a half getting healthy.

I told myself after getting healthy I was going to go back to school. I was very adamant on ether going back to Idaho or when Idaho wasn't an option I decided to stay local. Well again, life happened and then my dad and I moved to Vermont.

I have figured out that basically every time I try to figure out a specific plan for anything from life choices and dating to church and everything else in between something happens. It is something that has recently come to my attention that I need to take for face value.

I had a plan for two major important conversations that I needed to happen with someone. I went in semi prepared. I was sadly rehearsed just in case and as the story goes nothing happened the way I wanted it to happen. Especially with the second conversation, I was left very frustrated and felt like I needed to say much much more. But maybe I did say everything that was needed to be sad.

I believe in fate. I believe that everything happens for a reason. Sometimes you meet someone and they turn your world upside down. They make you feel things that you never thought in a million years you would. Sometimes you make a plan to visit home and then feel the need to push it a month sooner. Sometimes you find a way to get the mental help you need.

I have learned that things work out they way they need too not how I want them to go all of the time. Maybe it is not the timing or the way I needed it to but it is the way that the universe and God needs them to be. I am starting to be okay with that. I have slowly but surely realized that sometimes things in my life and I need to trust that they will work out.

No matter what happens in my life especially in the hardest of times, I know there is a plan for me. I know that everything happens for a reason and that I am slowly learning that everything is going to work out the way that they need to.

I am confident and scared but I mean what is life without a little adventure?

Life Worth Living

Life is weird.

Blog over.

Just kidding I promise.

I have to come to the conclusion that nothing is easy. Nothing is easy that is not completely worth it.

I recently have spent the last week or so beating myself up over stupid little stuff. I have cried over not getting a reply and I cried over just wanting to be back home but in the end I shouldn't beat myself up. It is worth it. It is completely and utterly worth it.

Life doesn't always need to make sense. Sometimes you will have a perfectly good day and then something really hard will rock your world. Sometimes you will have a terrible day and then something magical happens. In my case, I had a couple terrible weeks and something kinda magical happened.

I finally realized that I have been stressing out SO much about what it takes to be happy. Happiness is so simple and so utterly complicated. I have realized that I am happy when I get a good morning text or waking up next to the person I want to wake up to. I am happy when I realize that I am off and I can go home and relax. Today for example, I was overjoyed by the fact that my step mom sent me pictures of my baby brother without me even asking her.

It is the simple things in life. I keep complicating happiness and making everything super hard. Life isn't easy and in the end I have to fight for what I want but also know what I deserve. I deserve to be happy. I deserve to be someone's pride and joy. I deserve people in my life who aren't ashamed of me. I deserve nothing but the best in life.

It has taken me forever to realize all of this. It took months of me treating myself like trash. I did things to make myself feel even a tiny bit of emotion. I lost myself for months and I ended up rebuilding myself all over again.

Learning who I am and what I want is an adventure. It has been filled with tears. It has been filled with laughs and smiles and memories that I will probably never forget. I fell in love with being alive again which honestly I didn't think would ever happen. I knew I would be "happy" but in a fake happy type of sense.

Life is weird and scary and complicated. It is all about telling the truth and not hiding from it. It is all about taking risks and hoping that maybe in the end they will all be worth it.

My life is worth living again after a long darkness.

I still have a long way to go. I know that but right now I am content with my progress. I am content with the fact that it gets better. I know that I will still have really bad days. Let's be real, I still have days where I just lay in bed all day and let everything out.

At the end of the day, I will be okay. It will all be okay. That is a life worth living that is for sure.

Things I Am Learning At 22

I am basically 2 months into being 22 and let me say it has been the weirdest two months of my life. I have never laughed, cried, and fought so hard in my life and I have some lessons that I will probably take with me for the rest of my life.

Things I have learned since turning 22:

• Find a reason to smile each day. I have this customer who is the biggest pain in the butt sometimes but in reality he is my favorite. No matter what he makes me laugh and smile on the worst days. He told me that you have to find a reason to smile each day and its stuck with me. There's always something good that happens even on a bad day.
• ALWAYS CALL HOME. Living out of state is so weird but Vermont is my home. I call my dad at LEAST 2 times a week sometimes more. He is my best friend and my biggest supporter even at 22 and I am forever grateful for his example and his love even when he makes fun of me.
• Life is awkward. I recently started going back on dates after really ending something that has taken me two months to finally decide that I can put myself back out there. I went on a date with a guy who spent the entire time talking about his ex girlfriend. I went on another date with a guy who I later found out works at the restaurant that my ex and i used to go to all the time but we never met until then. Yeah life is weird. Awkward stories down the road are pretty sweet sometimes
• Cut out toxic people. So I recently cut out my mother. I don't have any communication with her at all nor I don't think it is gonna happen. My life has been fantastic since then. It has been a long time coming and that is all I am going to say about that.
• Be Bold I thank a guy for this one. I met him probably a month a half ago and since then I have learned to be bold in my feelings and take chances. I am learning (still a work in progress) to be up front in what I want. I also am more bold with what I deserve. I have come to realize that I deserve to be treated with respect and to love and be loved in return.
• Don't Beg Anyone To Stay In Your Life. This one hurts. Between, losing people who I swore would be in my life forever to a breakup that honestly has opened my eyes and made me realize that it is a complete waste of time to beg people to stay in your life if they don't want to be. It does so good just to let go and move on even if it super hard.

22 is weird. I some days feel like I am constantly having a midlife crisis. I feel like sometimes I need another tattoo(i mean its true but adulting) or a piercing or to just go home and cuddle with my baby brother. As interesting as it has been, I am honestly excited for all the things 22 is gonna bring at me.

Be Alright

Opening up is always hard but here we go.

May of 2017 I met a guy. I met a guy who I really liked. He was in the military and gosh darn it, it was attractive. We ended up starting to date and seeing where things go.

Right after we started dating, he went on a military training thing for a couple of weeks.

He came back and things were fine for a bit. Then for some reason, he got kinda distant. He would hide his phone away and when I would even pick it up he would freak out just a little bit. He would also tilt his phone away whenever he would put in his password.

I being paranoid I googled searched the likelihood that he was cheating on me. I didn't think he would cheat on me. One night before bed I saw him put in his phone password and then once he was sleeping I looked and saw he was sending messages to another girl. He was telling her all the things he was telling me and even telling her all about his training. She was also sending him pictures.

At that point in my life, I had just found out my then roommate stole my money and didn't pay our rent so I had to find a place to live so my apartment was basically empty other then my stuff. I ended up going into the other room and crying for two hours. I felt so broken.

I confronted him that weekend after meeting his mom.

I took him back because he seemed sorry and he cried in his car telling me how he messed up and how it was never gonna happen again.

We broke up for a reason I think my mind blocked out but after i moved on and started dating someone new he ended up slashing that guys tires.

After that relationship ended and we took a break from being friends or even communicating. I somehow was back in communication this this boy. We ended up hanging out again and going on dates and things seemed normal so normal.

It seemed normal until we put a label on things. When he became my boyfriend again, my every move was watched. He always had to know who I was texting. He didn't like the male coworkers I worked with. He didn't like that I had a guy friend who made me laugh.

It got worse when I went home to Ohio. I spent most of my trip trying to enjoy it. But in reality it was hard. I got texts and calls everyday of how I should've been in contact with him. I couldn't go hours without not talking to him or he would get mad. My sister couldn't make a joke about her getting all my time because he thought I was cheating. He tracked my location on snapchat to wonder who I was with.

I remember two weeks we went to a dinner and I made plans with a friend who I hadn't seen in three years between college and a mission and he got jealous and angry because I was excited. Well at that dinner, I kept getting my phone blown up because he thought I was cheating.

I got home and really ended things days later. I told him I wasn't happy and the jealously was killing me.

Recently, I hung out with him because I loved him and I wanted to see if maybe things would get any better. Of course they didn't as he started drama with another one of my guy friends. Everytime even recently if a guy friend would text me he would roll his eyes at me about it. I would get constant crap about my male coworkers and how they just talk to me to get with me.

That's not even the worst.

I googled searched signs of emotional abuse and mental abuse and I find myself sick of the realization of what it was. I thought it was just pure manipulation not abuse.

He recently admitted to trying to get me isolated from most of the males I knew. He also blamed all my guy friends for being my friend and me for talking to them.

I am scared to be happy. I am scared to get to know someone I have feelings for someone in fear of getting screamed at and put down. I have rejected dates with guys for a month because I am scared that someone is going to yell at me for even trying to have a good time.

I have taken a stand against my mental health in terms of just wanting to feel whole again. Confronting him and realizing that I indeed was in an abusive relationship is hard. So hard but freeing in the fact that someday I will be able to move on. Someday I will be happy. It has taken me a bit to wonder why I couldn't put myself out there and why I couldn't just say yes.

Abuse is never the answer. You don't abuse someone you love. You don't fuck them up emotionally and mentally.