i recently read this blog post on creature comforts and it was as though someone was speaking for me. i was so impressed with the idea of “truth”. sometimes, i want to explode on the blog and say what is really going on in my head. i feel like a bit of a fake showcasing the best parts of my life. it can be overwhelming searching the internet (and i do a lot of that) hitting blog after blog full of beautiful inspiration of things i want: kids, a husband, fancy furniture, clothes, food that i wish didn’t make me fat…and then posting it all on pinterest in hopes to, what, acquire it one day? sometimes it can motivate me, sometimes it can torture me…and apparently a whole lot of other people. we aren’t alone in any of our feelings.

the truth is, i have been in one of the biggest emotionally transitional eras of my life. if that makes any sort of sense.  i use to talk about it a bit on here, hinting around to hurt or anger.  i stopped because i thought it was letting others get the best of me, i stopped for fear of not being able to move forward…and frankly i didn’t think anyone was interested in my bullshit.  this post and the amount of people that are also doing it (check the post for the list of bloggers) left me inspired to just let it out there. to let others know, life is hard sometimes, life is up and down. it is okay to acknowledge your triumphs and your failures. it is just so much more real and frankly, genuine. life aint always fun and games, and if yours is, well then i guess you won the lottery! this is not to say i am not grateful for EVERYTHING that i do have, but i am a person. and we all strive for more, have really bummer days. we identify with each other through our emotions, don’t we?

here are the things i am afraid to tell you.

 1. i am so not a girly girl. i hardly ever get manicures, pedicures, waxings. i get my haircut like once a year. i don’t color my hair, get blow outs, laser surgery. i just can’t spend the money on things like that. i just can’t. (well, occasionally i do mani/pedi’s… but i haven’t had one since decemeber and i still have some paint on my big toes from that pedi! ha!!!!) i have been too lazy to even put on eyeliner anymore.  i wear the same outfits over and over sometimes. and more often than not i am at home in leggings and a tshirt. i like to look pretty, i just take the chance it happens a bit more naturally.

2. i have to remind myself that Facebook, instagram, blogs…are people showcasing the best of their lives. sometimes, it can make me feel like a failure.  why am i not married and having babies? why am i not out having fun on the town? why am i not skinny enough? or creative enough? or funny enough?   it takes effort to remind myself, why it just doesn’t matter. i took myself off instagram, i don’t really post pictures on Facebook anymore. i use the blog for this purpose i suppose. people can choose to read it or not. it isn’t right there staring them in their face on their news feed.  i mean, occasionally it is…but i always have a guilty, strange feeling about it.

3. i never finished my bachelor’s degree.

4.i sometimes feel weird that i post so much original content on my blog. like i am exploiting myself. going back to #2. sometimes i wish i did more inspiration posts…maybe i will.

5. i am 32 years old, sometimes i still feel emotionally 25.

6.my line of work is hard. sometimes i work and sometimes don’t. that means sometimes i have money and sometimes i don’t. i am absolutely terrible at managing money. there i said it. i am working on it. i wonder if i made the right career choice? life choice? i often don’t feel successful. i often want to leave LA. i want to live in the country, or the desert.

7. i love my cat and dog so much that i hate leaving them at home. i miss them so badly sometimes, it hurts to leave.

8. i worry that i will never get married. i worry i am incapable of being in a relationship. this sucks, because i want it so bad. i want to fall madly in love. i want to have children. i also want to travel the world. ?

9. i tend to give and give and give. i am realizing i do this to make people like me or to keep the peace. and then when i feel it is not reciprocated, i get angry and hurt.

10. i use to love flying on an airplane. then one day i developed a fear of flying(a number of factors played into this). i didn’t go to one of my best friend’s weddings because i couldn’t get on the airplane.  i started having  to take a major amount of anti-anxiety pills to fly which lead me to completely pass out for the majority of the flight. (who knows what i looked like? yikes!). i didn’t stop this from letting me travel, it was just really difficult. i have been to europe twice since this began…and countless other trips. but my palms still sweat in turbulence and my heart is generally in my throat somewhere. i have to try and plan my flights to fly directly (less anxiety) and during the day (i hate flying at night).i can get super anxious the night before a trip as well.  i can get anxiety at other times too. i hate saying goodbye to my family and this often makes me anxious. i sometimes get anxious before a new job and working with new people (which is crazy because that is what my job is…all the time)

11. i have spent my life in spells of depression since i was a child.  i can get sad, i am HIGHLY SENSITIVE. it is frustrating, it is lonely. it is also, i believe, the one thing that gives me the heart and empathy that i have. it makes me creative, it makes me work harder sometimes, it makes me, me.

12.i had some falling outs with a group of friends last year and i have spent the last 4 months trying to heal from it. somehow i let myself become sooo incredibly insecure and didn’t even know who i was anymore.  i can’t even begin to go into the details of why or how. but from my end i was being accused of being selfish, depressive, not living my own life, hijacking another’s life, not happy for others, jealous, and a whole list of other things. sometimes, if it pops into my head it sinks so far down into my gut that i can immediately tear up.  we all have faults, we all do things to piss each other off, but this was somehow so much more than this. it all turned so incredibly bitter, ugly,and  immature .  i was being criticized for so many things. i felt backed into a corner, and frankly i felt if i didn’t walk away i was never going to get out of it . my side was never going to matter.  the hardest part was feeling as though i had to take all the responsibility because these “friends” were telling me who they thought i was…and it felt like they could sit there and agree with each other.   now i know, that just isn’t fair.   i know no one should do that to anyone. i would certainly never do that to anyone, certainly not how it was done to me. everything has two sides…and i have one too. i tried and tried to get them to understand that. i tried and tried to apologize for whatever i did that was so wrong to them….but this was all out of fear of loosing them.  the truth is, they were probably never friends to begin with.  sure, i had my faults, could have handled things much better than i did.  i was so desperate not to loose those friendships that i became the worst side of myself. that isn’t who i am, nor who i want to be. friendships like that, just aren’t worth it.

i somehow let this all bring me so far down that i was constantly second guessing myself in every single conversation i was having with anyone. even my mother.  was i being selfish? was i not listening? did i say the wrong thing? why was i spending so much time judging myself when i know deep down who i really am? i am compassionate, i care, i listen, and i am genuinely happy for all of my friends. i have never been a jealous person. are any of these people taking the time to assess themselves, to asses what their role was in all of this? my instinct doubts it. it seems to me once i was out of the picture, they could sit back and watch me fade away and tell themselves, they did no wrong.  and i somehow sat there for months telling myself i was the monster they made me out to be.  but i am not. i am human. sure, i was angry and i obviously let that anger show through. i had no idea how to tell these people that i was hurting, that they were hurting me because i no longer felt the support from a friendship, that i just couldn’t do it anymore, that i didn’t really understand what i did that was so wrong when we were all to blame. so i got angry.  i am sure i did my fair share of hurting. i am not trying to make myself  a martyr, but i do know how i want to be treated and that is how i treat my friends. i can honestly say that each one of my friends has something about them i don’t like or think they could work on. I DONT BRING THAT ON MYSELF TO BE THE ONE TO TELL THEM THEY NEED TO CHANGE. my approach is to give positive advice to encourage what they, yes, probably want to hear. some people say this is wrong. but who i am to tell anyone how to live their life. unless they are in an abusive relationship,a drug abuser, life threatening situation, or flat out  asking me….it is up to them. i will be there along the way one way or another.

i am not going to say that i don’t mourn these friendships. i do, a lot. i go back and forth between reminiscing about the good days and then the bad.  somehow, in these cases the bad outweigh the good.  and that breaks my heart. i sometimes long for the old days when i was part of this crowd. in a way though, that can seem bit juvenile to me. why am i longing for it? why do i need it? i don’t really know. i think for a few months i felt like these people were home. i felt like no one could hurt me. now, i feel like a fool.

i have to say trusting people is becoming a bit harder.  maybe this is a good lesson for me. i have always trusted too easily.  i actually really admired and looked up to these “friends” and i think that was why it hurt so much.  but i am trying much harder to look up to and admire myself. and it ain’t an easy battle. i still judge myself and compare. i still get so hurt over all of it and wonder if there will be a day i can forget all of it. i actually try to imagine being able to move on to a point in my life where it doenst sink so deep down.   i don’t know their sides anymore, nor am i sure i ever want to know.  i don’t think i could bare even being in the same room with any of them anymore.    i am in a phase in my life where i am most comfortable being along (i think that has to do with not trusting myself with others or not trusting others), but i also think it is good to get to know myself again. because i spent the last year and a half loosing her.

there is a way to treat your friends to love your friends. i know who those friends are now and i know the kind of friend that i am. i will never let anyone take that away from me ever again.

13. i just don’t care anymore what people are going to say about me. i can’t try and control it. not everyone is going to like me. i just need to understand that.  i don’t care that my thoughts or feelings are going to piss anyone off. i am tired of compromising myself because i am fearful of loosing people. the people that are meant to stick around, will. the people that are meant to be in my life, are and will be in the future.

14. i came home last night after a lovely evening with a girlfriend. i turned up some music really loud and had a solo dance party with head flips and all.  today, my neck and upper back are incredibly sore. i feel old.

thank you so much creature comfort and all the other bloggers out there doing this, for giving me the confidence to say whats really on my mind.