Planting Weeds

   

Life is a garden; grow it. 

I stopped struggling with insecurities when I was around 15; the year I realized I was hot. By that I mean I came to an understanding that the only opinion of my level of attractiveness that mattered was the opinion that I held of myself. 

Even still, I walked into a relationship whose key player danced on the human weakness of feeling as if you are not enough. I would lay awake at night thinking that I needed to change my body or my habits to be enough for this person. 

It felt like an insane uphill battle because my well founded self confidence in who I was fought with this projected insecurity of who I felt I needed to be.  

  
  
Insecurities are like the weeds of life. Bad people are the pests. Unhealthy thoughts like having bad soil. 

I’ve never seen someone plant weeds, but that is exactly what I had done. 

A moment of enlightenment brought to you by: unconditional love.   

After that relationship withered away, I found myself laying in the arms of the man who told me he loved me so much that when I was away he even missed my stinky feet. Yet even in the arms of someone who loved me so fully, I found myself struggling with the ghost of those insecurities I had never come to know, and this sudden hollow need to feel like I was somehow enough. 
  
The result of unaddressed emotions lead me to become both bitter and needy.  

  

I expressed to my best friend during this exploration of self awareness, “This must be hurt pride causing a bitter root to take hold.” and she had given me three weeks to bitch, whine, and be resentful, and then assured me I had to get my shit together. 
  
Once my allotted timeframe came to an end, I worked to uproot the bitterness. I imagine visually it’s a lot like weeding a garden, where you grab the weed by the base pulling hard, trying to ensure you get all of the roots out of the soil so that it doesn’t take hold again later. I turned my love off, and it had been affecting all my relationships. 

  
The weeds sprung up ever so often, and I become more equipped each passing day to handle them. There would be a season where it came time to plant a new garden. However, I discovered that though free of weeds, my plot of land had bad soil. *Coming out of the metaphor, I never addressed the needy feeling taking its toll.   

If love is like sunshine, then pain must be the rain.

This has brought me through another growing season: You do not need either person to be enough. 

  
The sun and the rain do not dictate to the flower to grow, bloom, and be a flower. You do not need either the insecure or loving person projecting their perspective of who you are and what you are worth on you. 

The rain does not arrange a downpour on your schedule, and the sun does not shine at your command. You will never be enough for the wrong person, and there is nothing about you that would keep away the right person.

  
  
You are enough. 

Be a better version of yourself today than you were yesterday. This change in yourself is happening every day because of the love in your life from family and friends, but strongly because even when it seems like you fail, you spring back up. You are not a victim of others actions. You are strong, loving, hard working, attractive inside and out, and intelligent; all of this makes you beautiful. 
  
Say it every day, with conviction “I am enough.”

  

Adventures in Amsterdam

im going to be honest… At this point I’m not even sure what day of the trip I am actually on. The fun and traveling and drinking and laughing all caused everything to blur together on the road trip of a lifetime. 

Let me just start with Amsterdam… Wow. 

Originally not a place on our map to visit, we last minute drew it in. And just wow. The history, the tours, the friendships, the live sex show (what?! It’s Amsterdam!), and the staying up at an Irish Pub until 4am singing “Don’t stop believing”made this the most memorable part of the whole trip. 

It was coming to an end, and ended on a bang. My eyes are tearing up just writing this post. 

  

Unicorns, Conspiracy theories, and Confederate Flags… Oh my!

Toto, I don’t think we are in Kansas anymore. 

  
I started this conversation with my pole dancing instructor the other day (wait, what… Anyways), and so my mind was already in the mindset to explain how I feel… 

So following suit, here is the next long rant: 

The media blew up with opinions on the confederate flag, and then after that, a conspiracy theory was presented as a cover up scandal. 

<Sarcasm is about to be used> What if this sudden media awareness brought to the TPP law was just another government cover up to another huge government scam and we are just falling victim to this “leaked truth” that we all were so very blind to while the man behind the current event pulls the lever on the next magical leak……. Oh, the conspiracy! 
  
If you can find it on Google, then the word “secretive” should probably not be used as the definition of the law… But not the point. 

  
Please know I jest in love (and also because I use sarcasm to cover up that I am an asshole…) 

There are a million important causes and changes all happening all the time. 

First off: Balance. 

Secondly, know that change starts with yourself, by leading by example, and then showing (by example) how your actions are truly the way of the light. 

Finally, you as the individual have to choose which of these causes are the most important to you, and then from there dedicate your time to those causes. It is not for you to decide or belittle or devalue the causes others choose as their priority.  

 Following this process you will then influence those around you, that will influence those around them, that will influence those around them that will… You get the picture. 

(The following is not a dick joke) Eventually that influence that started with YOU will grow to influence members of the government (who have already have been working on their own mass local influences) to make choices. (Note that I did not say good or bad choices)

We can’t face this big scary government if we keep trying to make it out to be this big scary government. 

Mr. Government is actually millions of individuals making choices that they think are best – whether selfishly or sacrificially – and once we put faces and hearts to that, we now open up for influencing (again, by leading by example.)

The sculptor chips away one small piece at a time to reveal the beauty underneath.

end rant.

  
Also, I liked some points in this persons thought process here: “Back to the Confederate flag…one problem that thickens the mud is that people can’t respect perspective and it becomes a double-standard. The people demanding that the flag be removed are making assumptions, drawing conclusions upon those assumptions, and then demanding action that supports their conclusion. They see hate, slavery support, etc. But they aren’t respecting the flag-flyer’s perspective as to why the flag is flying, what it means to them, etc. But now we have the media repeatedly blasting images and videos of ONLY the racist flag-fliers, which creates a mass identity in peoples’ minds (including those who are ignorant to the flag’s origin), gives the bandwagon some momentum, and makes the politician and business owner’s butts pucker. The public pays their bills, so they have no choice but to play the PC card or else suffer accusations, persecution, creation of guilt, etc. That’s the illogical logic of it all. This country wasn’t created with unicorns and rainbows. Some of yesterday’s actions aren’t acceptable by today’s standards. But that was yesterday, and we live in today. I don’t feel guilty about what this country did “then” because I wasn’t alive “then”. It’s all history and thats where I leave it. Can’t change it, can’t bury it.”

A letter to Casanova

  

“He’s just so hurt, and he makes a decision which actually turns him into the man we know him as now. Never to enter into a long- term relationship. Never to be that hurt again. And somewhere he says, from now on when I see love, I’ll pluck it, I’ll eat it and throw it away. And that’s what he does.“

Dear Casanova,

Hiding behind the blame of a painful past is weakness manifesting in you, powerful people do not live like a victim. 

You have allowed pain to turn you into something you are not. There is a dam that you built up around your heart that is only within your power to open up. Do this, not to appease someone else, but for yourself. The pressure you feel is a vulnerability anticipating bursting forth through the flood gates allowing you the experience of unconditional, unimaginable love. 

A man who loves like this with only his mind, but not with his heart, will never find true happiness. We become unhappy when we think love is something we require from someone else. 

Know that happiness is when what you say, think, and do are all the same.

With love, 

An apparition of Lucrezia