The sun never seems to truly rise during January – just a perpetual grey afternoon that carries the sad lilt of evening, like every day is dying before it’s begun. Even the bright sunshine has an eerie feel to it, like the quiet melancholy after a funeral.

I don’t much like it, I’m already counting down again til autumn.

No parents, no friends, no acquaintances keeping you in line with their expectations of you, no one smugly thinking to themselves that they know you and know your goals and your dreams, no one compartmentalizing you and categorizing you. No one to anchor you down to your predetermined identity.

Who would you be? How would you act? Would it matter?

Would you be the same person? How much of who you are do you allow others to dictate for you?

How many adjectives used to describe yourself have you gleaned from another’s opinion of you?

If no one knew or cared what you did, what would you?

Is your “support system” of family and friends trapping and caging you, or are they helping you? How would you ever know unless you started to live your life for yourself? Because no one else has to deal with your consequences, your pain, your thoughts. Only you.

H.a.p.p.y.

Filled with a sense of well-being, direction, and joy.

I was afraid that the happiness was a tentative, temporary thing, and that paying attention to it might frighten it away like a skittish deer.

But I think it’s here to stay. I’m going to acknowledge it. I am happy.

I love someone I trust implicitly, who trusts me, who makes me smile and believes in me.

Is this allowed?

I don’t care.

I’m going with it.

I won’t let my past haunt me anymore, dragging me down, casting shadows over my sunshine.

I’m going to cherish every second I’ve got. <3

So,
“I must learn to love the fool in me – the one who feels too much, talks too much, takes too many chances, wins sometimes and loses often, lacks self-control, loves and hates, hurts and gets hurt, promises and breaks promises, laughs and cries.” – Theodore Isaac Rubin

I’m going to turn everything around. I’m going to be the very best person I can be.
He loves me. I love him.
I should love me too.

I solemnly vow to do everything in my power to love and respect myself.
I will stop being so hard on myself,
focus on my positive attributes,
work on the things I’m not happy about,
be grateful for my healthy, attractive body,
nix the self-criticism,
and shine brightly.

I am beautiful. I am strong.

I vow to do my very best to be the happy, open, loving girl I know I can be.
Simple, really.

I close with a famous quote Nelson Mandela used in his inaugural speech.

“Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate. Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure. It is our light, not our darkness that most frightens us. We ask ourselves, Who am I to be brilliant, gorgeous, talented, fabulous? Actually, who are you not to be? You are a child of God. Your playing small does not serve the world. There is nothing enlightened about shrinking so that other people won’t feel insecure around you. We are all meant to shine, as children do. We were born to make manifest the glory of God that is within us. It’s not just in some of us; it’s in everyone. And as we let our own light shine, we unconsciously give other people permission to do the same. As we are liberated from our own fear, our presence automatically liberates others.”
- Marianne Williamson

Do the best you can. Throw all your preconceived notions away, because nothing is what you expect it to be. Proceed not with paranoia but with caution and an open heart. If you love someone, there is no need to wait, no “right time” to orchestrate some extravagant show of feeling, all you have is now. Now. Now. Smile. Laugh. If you are unhappy, do something that makes you happy. Don’t wait. You may not have tomorrow, and in the grand scheme of things, if you fuck up you won’t remember it in ten, twenty years. Live your life with intention and compassion. Don’t hold grudges – the only person you’re hurting is yourself. It’s incredibly cliche, but you have to stop what you’re doing, blink away all the things you keep yourself busy with, and bask in just how beautiful the world is. You are alive. You can be whoever you want to be, do whatever you want to do. The only limits you have the ones you set yourself.
It will be okay.

It takes some effort to take my own advice and heed my own little manifesto, but I try every day. I trip, pick myself up off the ground, take note of the scars, and move on. Life doesn’t have to be this insanely exhilarating adventure, if you don’t want it to be. (In fact sometimes I think everyone’s expectation that life has to be heart-poundingly thrilling all the time leads to apathy and depression when it’s not as much like a movie as you thought.) It’s as simple as spending an afternoon in the sunshine with your favorite book, if that makes you happy. Hugging your favorite person. Smiling at a stranger. Watching the way a daisy bobs and waves in a light breeze.

Of course my mind is always tick-tick-ticking away, analyzing, calculating, storing. I can’t help that. But I’ve decided to not care quite so much and just do what I want to. Indulgent? Entirely. Selfish? Perhaps. But I can’t spend my life aligning myself with other people’s vision of me, of how they think I should live my life.

I’m free.

I realized a few things about myself…
I am a ridiculous pack rat. I save almost everything, convinced that I would want it later. Probably due to my bad memory, I save things so I can remember places I’ve been or things I’ve done. Concert/movie tickets, Greyhound bus passes, receipts, fortunes from fortune cookies, you name it, I assign meaning to it and ferret it away somewhere. I can’t bring myself to give away or donate clothing I’ve worn on dates or trips, even if I don’t wear them anymore. (Also out of guilt, because my mother bought most of my clothing and I feel like I wasted her money if I don’t keep it.) Gift bags, pads of paper, pens, notebooks, I collect and convince myself I will write in them or use them or be crafty and make something out of them. I’m working on fixing this aspect of myself…my hoarding is to the point where it’s an actual effort to throw things away.
Also, I am incredibly disorganized. I try so hard to compartmentalize that I end up with too many categories and I confuse myself more.
Also, for some reason I find it difficult to write in brand-new notebooks. I relish the feeling of a pen in my hand, hovering over the blank page, but I feel like I’m wasting paper. Like once I begin to write, I must finish it to the last inch of the last page without any scribbles or mistakes.

Anyway, here’s to my new life – I hope everything works out the way I think it will.

I’m beginning to think this isn’t the case.

See, the jerks, douches, whatever…they keep dating new women all the time. They’re jerks because they can’t commit, right? So they’re serial-relationshipping all over the place. Woman after hapless woman.
But I think it’s a very small percentage of men who do this, given all the “Why do nice guys finish last?” bemoaning we hear. So really, when all these woman are talking about their latest horrible breakups to some girlfriends over brunch, they’re really all deploring the same people as some other poor girls across the city.

The nice guys are biding their time, waiting for us to get this out of our systems, waiting for us to learn what it is to have a good thing and appreciate it, before they swoop in and make their presences known to us. Or they’re doing the same thing as we are – dating the very small percentage of woman who are actually horrible bitches.

So there’s hope, really. It’s not about trying to defy the statistical impossibilities of finding one good guy out of thousands of bad ones… it’s about learning to spot your prince before some bitch can ruin him.