Dear Self-

Dear Stubborn Self,

Why can you not take your own advice? Stop being so stubborn and talk to yourself how you talk to your best friend. That beautiful mind in between your two ears is actually not your enemy; start acting like it. Here's some advice and words of wisdom I am bestowing upon you.... And self, read all the way through. I know how you like to skim important documents. 

1. Stop being so hard on yourself. Seriously, stop. ((There you go again.)) Try looking in the mirror and liking what you see, not analyzing what you see. 

2. Keep working out. But don't just work out for the "WOW factor" for everybody else. Work out for yourself. For your health. For your personal satisfaction. 

3. Please, please come to grips with the fact that not everyone has the same heart as you. &&that's okay. Try to understand where other people are coming from and help people understand where you are coming from. Be patient when dealing with matters of the heart. 

4. I'll try to be lay this one on you as nicely as humanly possible. It's Selfie-Sunday...Not Selfie-MondayTuesdayWednesdayThursdayFridaySaturdaySunday 

5. Codependent relationships will never work. Being needy, clingy, and insecure is not only annoying, but it is disrespecting yourself. You are a gem in this big world. A rare beauty that has a sense of humor, crooked teeth, a giving spirit, intelligence, and the biggest heart. Not everyone has that to offer, especially crooked teeth. Ha, okay, maybe what I'm getting at is someone should not only accept your flaws, but cherish them. They will never lie or hurt you. Remember you're own worth always.

6. You simply cannot own the entire Humane Society in your apartment. I'm sorry. 

7. Remember that the only person responsible for your happiness is you. 

8. You are allowed to have other clothes in your wardrobe other than teal, turquoise, and mint. Psht. Who am I kidding?! GIVE ME ALL THE MINT CLOTHES NOW! 

9. Cleaning is actually a healthy part of being an adult. I know you will never love it, but you HAVE to do it. Calling a room an "organized clutter" does not make it pass as organized, sorry. 

10. Go do things by yourself for goodness sake! Want to see a movie nobody else does? More popcorn for you! ((And you won't even have to feel a twinge of guilt for getting the popcorn man to add in layers of butter in sickening amounts)) Which by the way, he should get a pay increase for making that happen. 

11. It's okay to cry it out. Just don't live there. Don't camp out in your room with your besties Ben &Jerry and endless seasons of Netflix. Cry it out, and then work it out. Period.

12. Remember the saying, "Work like it's up to you, pray like it's up to God?" It's a good one- use it. 

13. Stop relying on your memory for everything. It's terrible when you need it most. Write important things down, promise it will pay off. 

14. Put yourself first. It does not make you selfish to think of yourself and do what is best for you. Again, you are not selfish for thinking of yourself. Wait... Let me tell you again, it does not make you selfish to think of yourself. Got it? 

15. And lastly, take the time to do one thing every day that you love, just for you. Refill your soul and rejuvenate your weary mind with things you love. 

Sincerely,

You. 

BLOGATHON!

Spectacular news people! My blog about education got selected for a blogathon by BreakThrough TV called #selfiesforschool! Breakthrough’s #Selfies4School campaign is a campaign that aims to send young girls to school, because we believe that education can help break the cycle of early marriage. Every blog you submit helps send 10 girls to school.

#Selfies4School

 Check out this link for my story- and submit a #selfie4school yourself

Many thanks to Arunima for reading my blog and coordinating this wonderful site to promote education across the globe through the power of words! You are doing great things in the world- thank you for allowing me to be a part of this great cause!

Endless thanks to everyone who reads and keeps up to date with my blog- It really does mean the WORLD to me! Love you all!

http://tell-a-tale.com/

Awake with Passion!

I don't want to just coast through life and just be. I want to have a fire for life; I want to awake with passion!

I want my soul to dance with happiness from a purpose that is being fulfilled. I crave this; I crave this for myself and for the world.

I want to kiss passionately under the stars, whisper sweet-nothing's in each other's ears, write until dawn, travel where love is needed... I want to live; I want you to truly live. 

Through all of life's ordinary, mundane tasks I want to see them as extraordinary. I want the little things to matter most; I want the little things to matter most for you, too. 

Life may be hard, it may be knocking you down right now- but remember your strength and get back up! Tell the world who you are! 

What impact are YOU making today? The journey to a life filled with passion starts now. 

Crossroads of Freedom: College

His eyes were iceberg blue; he wore a torn and tattered OD green coat in the whipping wind. His large, rough hands gripped a one-word cardboard sign that read, "Imagine." A one-word cardboard sign that hit me like a bullet.

The light turned green. My heavy heart seemed to coarse through my veins all the way to my right foot and the gas petal mashed the floorboard. As I attempted to gulp down the frog in my throat, I imagined what his life must have encompassed, the roads he may have crossed to get to this street corner of humiliation. But as my mind turned this over and over again, I began to transition from not imagining this stranger's life, but imagining my own Dad; and moreover, thinking of my life.

You could say I've been dealt an ace in a hand full of struggles. I've witnessed heart wrenching events, lent a helping hand when it was probably time to walk away, and poured my whole being into holding a family together, but I will always have the knowledge that came with those events. The more I thought about that sign, I realized this could have been anyone; it could have been my Dad; my hero in my life that almost didn't make it. Or, it could have been me. 

That cardboard sign has stuck with me throughout the years. Encouraging me to take a different perspective and 'Imagine.' I now crave travel. I crave stories. I crave the knowledge it takes to delve deeper into the hearts and minds of those surrounding me on this little planet called Earth. Education is my window of opportunity to stop imagining, and start doing. Start seeking cultures that need a voice, people that have faced injustice, and seeds of knowledge planted in the minds of those who do not know it yet. I'm an aspiring photojournalist that is out to change the world; to explore, write, and capture the moments, memories, and stories of people around the world.  I have an incessant keyboard in my mind typing out accounts of the world through my eyes, and a higher education would allow me to excel in the pursuit of my dream. 

I believe we each start life with a breath of hope. We don't start with capturing charisma, eternal reassurance, or even the strength to love; we learn. We experience each avenue our life leads us, and sometimes we cross paths with a man on a street corner that makes us think, makes us imagine our path, and sometimes we come to a crossroads of freedom: college.  

 

High School Graduation

Graduated with Associate of Arts-
Now a full-time student at University of Colorado Denver

 

Am I the Only One?

Let's face it- we're all a little...unique. We each have our weird quirks and silly views on the world around us and ourselves. Anyone else out there have any of these in common with me? If so, rest assured you are not alone. 

I am NOT a singer. Like, I should NEVER quit my day job kind of deal. I loooove karaoke and I can thoroughly annoy every neighbor within a 3 mile radius while in the shower, however, I have no illusions about the extent of being tone deaf ;) 

I think the blue and red gummy worms should be the only gummy worms that exist. Period. 

Baby sloths and I have kindred spirits.... Okay or I just think they are literally one of the cutest things to walk this beautiful Earth. 

I've noticed that I feel most comfortable with a book nestled in my arm. It's like this shield of knowledge that helps me gain ten leaps of confidence in my step. 

I strongly believe the "smolder" is the "raspy voice" of faces. And I think both are undeniably sexy.... Flynn Ryder- you had me at. the. smolder. 

When I daydream, my eyes have a complete possibility that they will pop outside of my actual noggin. They go beyond "deer in the headlights" status. Not a pretty look, my friends... Oh, but the daydreams! 

I look and feel like a new-born giraffe in short dresses. Is the dress too short? Are my legs awkwardly long? Is this sarcasm?

I am not a clean person. I have the best organizational skills, I can redecorate a house on a low budget, but seriously guys, I canNOT manage to hang up my towel or put the toilet paper roll back on the dispenser. Hygienically, might as well call me OCD as I use a clean towel every day because I refuse to hang it up, but my house I would like to classify as an organized clutter. Come on, I can find everything and I am definitely getting better- much, much better. ((Mom, all those years of chores have not gone to waste!) But I will never love it. Sorry. 

I have a sick obsession with school supplies. The most wonderful time of the year? Christmas? Hahahah. Wrong. School supply shopping time. Ahh, sweet, sweet pens and notebooks GET IN MY CART! 

I think flirting is an art form. Some people are just not artists, and then there's others... Isn't flirting sex of the mental variety?? I mean, who doesn't love that?! 

I have tried thousands of times to not make the "mascara face," it just doesn't work. The face is a part of the routine, I swear! People, you just don't get lashes for days if you don't have a ridiculous open mouth concentrated stare in the mirror. 

I believe love and laughter are the cure to all ailments. A healing power comes with a good laugh, and the power of love is beyond any science. 

With all my love,

TheWordMedic. 

Humbled by Humanity

There is nothing I hate more than media cashing in over the loss of loved ones. Nothing I despise more than flipping through the channels and seeing every channel have something about the event that transpired 13 years ago on this day. It all seems so heartwarming and is masked with a “never forget” message, so it seems entirely innocent and purely in remembrance…. but it’s also a way to make more money- bring more traffic or revenue or views on a blog.

But I have to say something about 9/11…There is something to say about the tragedy that I just can’t leave unsaid this year. Something that some may call me “unpatriotic” for, but writing helps me process events and emotions- so click away at any point.

The United States of America is a melting pot; meaning that at some point (unless you are Native American) your family emigrated here from some other land.

9/11 hit us all so overwhelmingly hard not only because it was unexpected, but because with each loss we saw someone in our own lives. We may have not lost our own father, but when we hear of a little girl who did- it becomes personal. We told our loved ones our sincere appreciation and love for them on this day because we felt the effects even when we weren’t in the thick of it all ourselves. This day brought us together as a nation. This day helped us to see how similar we all are. How the loss of a loved one can happen to anyone, at any time. September 11^th gave us a heart for those in need. So many thousands of people lost their closest family and friends to a terrorist attack, and my heart aches for those on this day and every single day in-between. This heartache will never cease, it will only be filled with little moments of happiness until eventually the moments of happiness outweigh the deep sorrow in your heart.

I have always been patriotic; I still am. But there is something unnerving about what happened, and is still happening- that I feel is worth talking about. The way we look at “them,” the way we perceive “the enemy,” is truly heartbreaking. By all means, a deep hatred for whoever is responsible for masterminding the whole operation and all those involved to this day, but this slowly…..no, very quickly, transpired into a strong dislike towards a people unlike us- sort of as a whole. We have grown to become so incredibly patriotic, so consumed by the “American way,” that we forget to see humans as just that- humans. Whether they are our closest neighbor, or our most distant stranger….We forget what ties us all together.

Which brings me back to my first point, that we all, at some point in time, moved from another country here. Why are we now so judgmental and biased that we cannot accept people for who they are, instead of stereotyping them into who we think they are?

9/11 happened when I was very young, in fact- I was in 4^th grade I believe. It was not something I fully understood, or rather, not something I will ever fully understand. From that day forward, I have almost had a sense of fear instilled in me for that part of the world. They are “terrorists” by default. We have certainly come a long way in this mindset over the years, and have begun to realize our attitudes and be more accepting, but you cannot tell me this still doesn’t exist with a seemingly never-ending war. (And if you are shaking your head no right now, you are lying to yourself or you never watch any sort of media, ever)

I am humbled by humanity, though. I will not let this attitude shape my friendships. I have made friends with a woman across the world that is just like me, a passionate soul who loves to write. It is a truly beautiful thing, to connect with someone who lives in a world entirely opposite of your own. To know that although you may live in polar opposite places, you are so alike in countless ways. In this friendship, I have realized that by having a mindset of “the enemy” and not ever truly letting yourself get to know someone, you are missing out on invaluable friendships. You are limiting yourself from making another best friend.

September 11^th left a scar on our hearts; a mark that some have let them grow cold and bitter towards the world; towards a people unlike themselves. Losing someone close to you can do this. Actually, losing someone close to you more often than not DOES do that. It leaves you with so much anger, so much resentment, so many questions and unsaid things… and it blocks out a love of people.

I ask that on this September 11^th, you remember all those who have fallen. You send up a prayer for your loved ones and those who have lost loved ones, and you decide to open your heart to new friendships and opportunities…. Even those that live in a land we are at war with.

I ask that you begin to see the world in a new light; I ask that you begin to see a world with no walls.

 I urge you to wave your American flag with pride, but look at the world with no boundaries.

I ask that you build a close friendship with someone from a culture nothing like yours, so you can see that there’s no such thing as “nothing like you….”

For we are all humankind, it is time we start acting like it.

Uniquely You

We truly can't predict the ways in which something will change us until they happen. 

We may dread the loss of a relationship only to find that we feel a thousand times better single, or we may really want to break up with someone only to find out they were the one person we simply could not live without. 

Life is chaotic and complicated. Our minds become the master of confusing things. One thing is for certain is that everyone deals with these crossroads of change in different ways. 

Let people grieve how they see fit. Our hearts are fragile and each has its unique ways of healing... And more importantly, its own schedule. We may never understand what someone is going through because we cannot possibly experience everything they have gone through.

The older I get, the more I am learning that not everyone has the same heart as me. Sometimes I can cry at the thought of a sad song, and sometimes I can stay strong through the loss of a loved one... But the quicker I realize that not everyone will understand my feelings, and that I can't always understand other people's feelings, the more able I am to lend a shoulder to cry on in time of need; whether I understand the need to cry or not. 

You're uniquely you. Everything you have been through has designed a heart that is unlike anyone else's. Don't feel bad for not being okay, and don't make other people feel bad for not being okay. We each have a road paved specifically for our purpose- a purpose that only you can fulfill; remember this when dealing with matters of the heart.