COURAGEOUS

Oh boy, blog ‘ol pal It’s been too long.

Ever wonder how much shit you’d be in if people could read your mind? Take a look at those people who just say whatever the hell is on their mind without thinking first. There’s a reason everyone think’s that they are an asshole.

I’m sure if we could read each other’s minds, I’d probably have an abundance of enemies, and I bet I’d surprise many people. There’s a reason I keep a lot of my thoughts to myself. Think before you speak is basically what I’m trying to preach, although, sometimes I’m not very good at that either.

I mean, if I NEVER said what I was thinking, I’d have shied away from many situations. I guess I’m trying to live by that whole, “20 seconds of courage” crap, where “all you need is 20 seconds of insane courage, and something great will come of it”. It’s from the movie We bought a zoo with Matt Damon, and I have to say, he has a point. Where would I be if I had never taken a chance at something crazy? Told someone I loved them when I absolutely meant it, or embarrassed myself completely, but could really care less because I was being brave. I think that’s something in itself to be proud of.

Hell, I embarrass myself every day. I’m a huge dork, and I dress like one too. My own mother has told me that she hates going into public with me because of how I look. I couldn’t care less, though. I like that about myself.

And I’m going to end this with a very flattering picture of myself at the Science Centre.

Beauty.

Just my opinion, not that it matters.

I feel like absolute shit.

Not only do I feel like shit, but absolute shit.

I think I should stop dealing with men altogether. Most of them think with their male “appendages” and dive into decisions dick first. That, I can’t relate to. It’s just not logical to me. You want to go out drinking and then tell me about it like you’re proud of it? Fine. Want to go have sex with some arrogant girl who’s only with you to use you as an accessory? Even better. I don’t know what’s going through that mind of theirs, but I’ve lost so much respect for our generation.

It makes me sick.

Sometimes I wish I didn’t care. I wish I didn’t care about his new girlfriend or the fact that I’ve already told him he could do better. It sickens me to know that I’ve wasted so much time on people who wouldn’t give me the time of day. Why do I bother? The truth is, I shouldn’t. Spend my time on something that’s actually worth fighting for.

The Infamous “L” Word

Over-used, mis-used, and when it’s not mutual, it’s a relationship problem. The word in question, of course, is “LOVE”.

A popular theme in most songs, “Love” is expressed through heartbreak, lust, and unconditional feeling. If you play just about any Beatles song from the 60′s, you’ll have a pretty good idea about the varying aspects of “Love”.

The word “Love” has many meanings. Traditionally, it expresses a deep feeling for another and is considered a powerful word. At least, I consider it powerful. Despite this, “Love” can be misunderstood when used in an everyday situation:

(Waking up in the morning) “I LOVE you, bed!”

(Eating pizza) “I LOVE this pizza!”

(Seeing someone’s new haircut for the first time) “I LOVE the new ‘do!”

Do you actually LOVE that damn pizza? No.

It’s come to the point that when someone tells me that they “Love” me, I a) Don’t believe it,  and b) Get severely uncomfortable. The word put in context makes me feel like my heart is trying to jump out of my throat. I’m 16. You don’t love me. You think you love me, but what does love mean anymore?

I’m scared to be in love, especially if it’s anything like Nat King Cole’s interpretation in the song “L.O.V.E”. Love is about feeling so strongly about someone, that  it allows you to be completely vulnerable in front of them.  Love means your trust in them outweighs your comfort zone, and you’d do anything for that one person.

How could you know what that’s like at 16? I’m not ready for that.. If you claim you’ve been in love multiple times, are you sure it’s even love?

It’s ironic how this is coming from a cynical, sarcastic, 16-year-old, who’s never felt love. But then again, I’ve never seen it.

Beautiful song, check it out:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JErVP6xLZwg

Believe me when I tell you..

So, my advice is constantly given out. Wether it’s asked for or not. Sometimes, although I know someone is a lost cause, I manage to share my self-nominated “words of wisdom”.

Right now, I want to share my thoughts on something I never knew I’d be so passionate about.

For the past two weeks, I’ve been stressing out over someone who is perfectly capable of making their own decisions, but has a history of making some bad mistakes. I wish I could say I knew them well, but for some reason, they’ve always been closed off to me.

I’ve tried making my own sacrifices to gain their trust. I’ve even tried to make myself vulnerable for them to feel comfortable around me. The result of that was me, crying about my sad life, and being late for class that afternoon.

Have you ever felt like someone was making a bad choice, and although it’s ultimately their decision, you think that maybe if you told them your opinion on the matter, you’d be at peace with yourself?

Basically, I have this friend who has been crazy about me for a while. I have all of these great memories with him, and I’ve questioned my feelings for him a lot too. After knowing him for over a year, and going to prom with him, here we are.

Recently, my mother brought up the fact that I hadn’t mentioned him in a while. That’s when I realised it had been about a month since I had last spoken to him. It was also around the time I stopped going to his hockey games with him. She then continued to blame me for being the reason we haven’t spoken.

I’m not exactly sure why I stopped going to his hockey games. This guy I was kind of dating at the time convinced me not to go anymore, and I began to talk to him less and less.

Throughout my whole relationship with this friend, I never really listened to what I wanted. I heard rumours about his “encounters” with girls and how I shouldn’t date him. In reality, I know him as the sweetest, most talented person I’ve ever met. And for some reason, he was hung up on ME.

The last time I saw him was about two weeks ago. He was with these two girls younger than I, and all I received was a wave.

I wish he could just realise that he could do so much better than those twats and I hope he doesn’t make a terrible mistake with them.

I don’t think I could be the one to tell him that, considering he’s made the decision to give up on me. I understand why he’s doing so. I’ve been terrible to him. I just don’t know why I care so much. I’m actually losing sleep because I’m worried about him.

Like I said, sweetest guy I’ve ever met. Delt with my Beatles obsession. He’s probably sacrificed a lot for me. I just wish he knew how much better he could do and that those low lives don’t deserve him.

I just wish he didn’t have to make mistakes in order to learn from them.

Kristen`s New Year`s Resolutions

 

I`m a big list maker, but I`ve never participated in New Year`s resolutions.. Unless it was a topic for a journal entry, back in elementary school. Anyway, I was thinking about some things I should catch up on, and figured I could come up with some things I should do more (or less) of:

1. Start writing in a journal again.

I had a journal a few years back, and I’ve stopped writing in it. I feel like it’d really do me some good to start writing again so that I can look back on it and remember my teenage years.

2. Stop sweating the small stuff.

I constantly worry. I worry about saying the wrong thing; I worry about looking okay before I leave the house. It’s alright to be conscious of these things, to a certain extent. I think I could feel a lot better about myself if I stopped worrying about the little things in life that make me human.

3. Know when to say “no”.

Unfortunately, I’m known to be reliable because I almost never say no. “Kristen, will you perform at our pancake breakfast in two days?” “Kristen, could you bring in some Christmas cards for me? I can’t go out today, and I’m swamped with homework.” “Kristen, do you mind helping me clean my house and cook a meal for 21 people?” Yeah. These are actual situations I have been a part of.

4. Take more time for myself.

With the worry about other people, and doing things for other people, I figure I should take more time for myself. I regularly take baths, and it’s like that’s the only time I can be alone is when I’m locked in a bathroom with hot water surrounding me. I think it’d be beneficial to take some time for myself to take some of the stress out of my life.

5. Communicate my feelings in a more “constructive” way.

Normally, I bottle things up (see “My English Object Presentation” post) and it has taken a toll on my sanity. Instead of stressing myself out with family issues, my social life, or school work, and keeping it to myself, I could improve upon my communication skills to those who are on my mind.

6. Stop feeling sorry for myself.

This year, I’m going to work on confidence. Instead of being embarrassed about a bad performance or looking like shit one day, I want to be able to take it in stride and move on. It was a chapter in the past, but in order to see what happens next, you have to keep reading the book. I guess what I’m trying to say is my self-esteem is low because of how I see myself, and I want to work on being happy with being me.

December is for Cynics

December.

A month for dragging out those old, reliable Rubbermaid bins full of snowmen and various other Christmas decor that haven’t seen the light of day since the previous holiday season. A time when frantic shoppers invade the nearest Wal-Mart, in need of a last-minute Christmas present. A four-week period where you have to endure the pine scent from your $58  Christmas tree, and sweep up pine needles every few days. God forbid that anyone oppose these traditional holiday experiences.

Unfortunately for those holiday fanatics, I regret (not entirely) to inform you that I am a cynic when it comes to anything remotely related to the holiday season.

I don’t dress in “Christmas colours”.

I don’t like the cold, therefore, I do not look forward to a “white Christmas”.

I don’t decorate.. especially when you own so many ornaments and plush snowmen that it becomes overkill.

I’ve just never been one to get into the holiday spirit.

Well, this year, I’ve decided to change that. I figured, “Somehow everyone else manages to take pleasure in seeing their fireplace crowded stockings and garland, so why can’t I?”

Watch out, thrift stores. Your immense stalk of overweight-elementary-school-secretary-holiday-sweaters is about to be raided. I’m also currently working on a Christmas present for a dear friend of mine. She had endured me for many years, so I’m making a book celebrating those memories. Yesterday, I even managed to make sugar cookies shaped like gingerbread men, sleighs and snowflakes.

This is a rare occasion for me, considering I’ve never done so before.

You may be wondering, “Kristen. Why DO you dislike the holidays?”

To be completely honest, I’ve never really known how to react to Christmas. I’ve never understood why people are so happy around this time, when all they do is argue about spending money, and pester you to shovel the snow. When I don’t ask for anything, people get mad at me. I don’t ask for much, or in this case, anything, so I don’t know why it’s more trouble to ask for nothing.

I don’t know what it’s like to wake up on Christmas morning and open presents with your family. I wake up at my mother’s house, get yelled at for eating breakfast before opening anything, because I’m on a time limit. I wake up late, and have to scramble to open gifts that I didn’t ask for in order to make it over to my father’s house to open more gifts and have pictures taken of me so that it looks like the whole family was together on Christmas day.

Then I make my way over to my Oma’s (“Grandma”, we’re German) house, to see the rest of my father’s family. We eat food, talk, gossip about other family members, and open presents. Then, I go back to my mother’s and she expects me to talk to her even though I’m exhausted from being social and eating the whole day.

I just don’t know how THAT can make someone actually enjoy the lengths we go through to put up decorations in the Canadian cold, or even think about taking them down the day after.

We spend so much time worrying about the money being put into this holiday. I’m not even christian. I don’t celebrate Christmas as the “birth of Christ”. I’ve learned to celebrate it because I’m expected to. I’m expected to buy gifts for everyone, and to pretend I like eating their Christmas cookies when in reality, they look and feel like rocks. I’m expected to donate to charities at my school for our “Christmas cheer campaign”, but I only donate because you get to buy out of class. I’m expected to go to a  tree farm and pick out an overpriced Christmas tree that we’ll only use for a week, and then it’ll sit at the bottom of our driveway covered in snow.

I think Christmas should be about spending time with your family. I don’t see many of my relatives very often because we’re all so busy. I’d like to celebrate in a cliché Christmas where everyone is happy, but only if it’s because we’re genuinely happy to be with each other, not because we have to act that way. This year I’m going to try to be legitimately happy with the holidays.

Or maybe I’ll go caroling and annoy the hell out of other pessimists because of the rays of Christmas sunshine shooting out my ass.

To whom it may concern,

When they say “You don’t know what you have until it’s gone”, sometimes it can illustrate a situation perfectly.

First off, I’ll start by saying how sorry I am and I guess I didn’t realise how much of a bitch I’ve been. Of course, I’m a little late now and I feel like a cynical, lonely, cat woman at 16.

Honestly, I don’t know how to express myself, and yeah, you make me uncomfortable sometimes. Maybe I haven’t told you that because I’ve been constantly worrying about what you’ll think. And I know exactly what you’d say to that. “You can trust me”, “I thought I had shown you that I’d never hurt you”, “you can tell me anything”, I’m sorry. I’m sorry, times a thousand. I’m not good at this (I’m not good by Julia Nunes, Describes this perfectly).

I’m REALLY sorry as to how I told you I “didn’t know what I wanted anymore”. I still don’t know. I’m just really sad that I’m just another asshole who doesn’t know what the hell she’s been doing since, what?  Last February? I don’t know what I’m afraid of, but the thought of being with someone I really care about has scared me for a long time. I always figure I’d screw it up somehow, so I end it before it’s even started.

You’ve made me realise that I’ll never know unless I’d at least tried.

I’ve tried to make excuses, and they were all terrible. I had no reason to end it, especially if I still think about you 24/7, and no matter how hard I try, it won’t go away! Especially thinking about how happy you’ve made me feel.

Well, as usual, I screwed it up. And hey, maybe one day I’ll learn from my mistakes and take advantage of a situation where someone who likes me has actually made me feel mutual towards them.

To be honest, I still like you. I don’t know who I was trying to kid, but apparently I couldn’t convince myself otherwise.

And that’s how my apology would go if I grew a pair and could formulate my words properly if I saw you face-to-face.

 

 

By the way, you were right. And I’m pretty stubborn, so be proud that I’m admitting that.

Morales.

Sometimes, choosing to be “straight-edged” or sober, isn’t as easy as I once thought.

Let me start off by saying that it’s a personal choice. It’s against my beliefs to do any underaged drinking of my own, and I also have chosen to boycott any drug usage. I stand by my decision as of right now, 100%. Unfortunately, being social, and using these illegal substances go hand-in-hand.

I’ve been asked far too many times  to “try this” and “try that”, but honestly, I just don’t want to. I like where I’m going, and I like my body the way it is. Sure, there are MANY aspects of my life I wish to improve upon, but I know that in the long run, drugs and alcohol are just temporary fixes to a temporary problem.

I’m really just like any child of divorced parents that has regrets. So pretty much, the majority of the American population.

No, I don’t know what it’s like to suffer from drug withdrawal, or depression and anxiety. That doesn’t mean I don’t know what it’s like to suffer.

There are countless times that I had been awake all night, worried about a friend’s drug addiction, and wondering if they had gotten home safely. I’ve told my friends how I had felt about their drug usage and that I was worried about them.

They laughed in my face.

When I have people come up to me and tell me they’ve “smoked up” or “gotten smashed”, it’s like they’re confessing. To be completely honest, I  have never led anyone to believe I was strict about these things. I don’t believe in participating in such activities, but hey. To each their own. If you want to shorten your lifespan, by all means, go ahead. Your body.

What really bothers me, though, is when people try to CONVINCE me they’ll change. “I swear, I’ll go a month without smoking”, they’ll say, or “I’m going to stop drinking”. Never thought I’d have to hear that from a 16-year-old. In the end, I dismiss it, because there have been far too many times that the next, month, week, or even the next day, they’d come up to me and “confess” to breaking their promise.

It’s upsetting, because I’ve actually begun assuming that everyone is just going to lie to me, so I don’t believe a thing anyone says.

For once, it’d be really comforting if I could meet someone who didn’t lie to me. Someone who’d make me have faith in our youth. Maybe one day we wont have to rely on the use and abuse of drugs, no matter how shitty you think your life is, because you know what? There is always someone out there who is suffering worse than you, and you think because your boyfriend dumped you, or because your parents fight, the world is going to end. Maybe if you weren’t so narcissistic (though you’ll try to pretend you’re modest and that you don’t want all the attention you’re getting) you’d look up and realise that you aren’t the only one suffering.

/endrant.

Object Presentation: My english project

Tomorrow, I have an assignment . This Tuesday, my english class will complete their presentations for an assignment I wasn’t prepared for on the original due date.

This assignment consisted of bringing in two objects that somehow represent your growth as a person, or represent your life/personality in a way. upon choosing these objects, you must include a description on how it represents YOU.

I chose a bottle of soda, and a dish rag. Here are my explanations:

Though my life has not consisted of drinking soda, I find that a bottle of soda would portray my personality very accurately. This bottle would represent me, and the liquid inside would represent my thoughts. You see, when a bottle is filled with such liquid and it is in an agitated state, upon opening the bottle, the liquid typically foams up and over flows out of the bottle. I’m positive many of you have had this problem. This relates to me, because I’m the kind of person who won’t share what’s on her mind. I keep things “bottled up”, per say, until the point where I absolutely can’t take it anymore. A flood of emotions pour out, and, like the soda, I look for something to clean it up with.

… Which brings me to my next object; a dish rag. You see, close friends, and even peers I don’t know very well, will come to me for advice. They pour out their emotions and heartfelt issues to me, and I offer advice, to help clean up their “messes”. A dish rag, a towel, and bounty paper towel all have a common purpose. Whether it’s cleaning up someone’s mess, or reducing the appearance of a stain, I find that I’m constantly in the middle of solving someone else’s problem. Unfortunately, a dish rag can only suffer so much wear and tear.

I wonder if my English teacher will approve…

Role Models

Role Model; A person looked to by others as an example to be imitated.

If you ask a child from the ages of about 3 to 7 who their role model is, there is a very likely chance that they will say their “parents.”

My mother is exactly what I never want to become.

When I fall in love for the first time, I want to do it right. Even if it’s messed up, and complicated. I hate being vulnerable, but when I find that someone who I want to spend the rest of my life with, I’ll never want to let that go. I hate the idea of marriage, but if I’m in the position where I’m up there in front of my friends and family, standing with the man I love, I will mean every word of those vows. Sure, this is a lot to expect in these times, but I wont be able to give myself away until I can find someone I absolutely trust.

I don’t want a family that’s broken. I know what it’s like to have to live in separate houses, and split the holidays. I know what it’s like to tell my friends that she’s my “step-sister”, just because it’s easier than explaining how she’s actually my dad’s, girlfriend’s, daughter, and we share a room because we live in a townhouse for now. I know what it’s like to have attention split between 4 children, yet you feel as if you’re the loneliest person out there. I know.

If I ever have children, which isn’t in the plan so far, I want them to trust me. I want them to come to me, not only because of that bruise on their knee, but because of that bruise a boy left on her heart. I want to be there for them when they didn’t reach a goal, or if they need someone to confide in. I want to be there when they feel absolutely reserved, when they feel as if there is no one in the world who understands them, because I will.

I want to be able to love something with all my heart and not be afraid to let go of my comfort zone. I want to be comfortable with who I am and not feel as if I should slather on makeup because society tells me I need to fit a standard.

When you’re brought up to think that you aren’t good enough to walk outside without a mask on, or wearing pyjamas to school will give people a reason to look at you differently, you can’t try to let people in. When you’re lied to, and brought down, constantly, that has a huge impact on your relationships with others.

I want so many things for myself. I want a bright future. I want to make friends, and fall in love. But, I’m afraid I can’t do that. My so-called “Role-Model” has done none of these things. I don’t trust her. If anything, I want to be the opposite of what she has proven to be. I want to make myself, and those around me, happy. I don’t want pity, or a break. I know who I am, and who I want to become. Fortunately, my “Role-Model” isn’t in that picture.

Maybe I’ll find someone who wants the same thing.