Sometimes, a memory pops up right when you need it and a smile rushes to your face. Although life brings you pain, you can always see something beautiful in the daily routine of life: how the sun shines across your face when a cute boy walks by, a warm day with just the right breeze. Just as you feel stress, the perfect song bares through the speakers of your iPod. Look for the simple moments of life; you can be happy or cranky, but know that it is your choice.

The end of the school year is drawing to a close, and my thoughts are a jumbled mess. I'm not sure if I want summer to come. There are so many people graduating this year, and while I'm excited for them, it makes me sad. Next year is going to be so different. I have never been good at changes, but these are going to be huge changes. It reminds me just how uncertain life is, how crazy this road is. I had so many ideas of how next year would go, and none of them are what I thought. My plans for the summer are so different from my original plans.

It's so crazy how things can change in such a short time. One day, you are taking one path and the next, you find yourself back-tracking, trying to figure out where things changed. Sometimes we never figure out why things went wrong, or why they changed courses. And while I'm excited for this new path my life is heading on, I'm also sad.

I've been trying not to think so much lately, but sometimes, it just comes back. All the sadness. And while I know I'll get through it just fine, hey, I didn't want to come to college! And I didn't want to go to high school...it seems as though I've dreaded every transition I've made in life...but loved the result in the end. I wouldn't be who I am today without the changes I've made in my life.

And I've made some pretty big mistakes. I've let some people down. But I've never compromised who I am, and I'm proud of that fact. And while I lost some friendships, I think they needed to be cut lose. They were dragging me down, making me feel sorry and upset all the time. I ran into one of them today, and it made me look back on that time. All I did was complain about how horrible this person made me feel. Now that they are out of my life, I no longer feel so horrible, guilty, or stupid.

There are a few that I wish could be friends with me again. But they wanted me to change for them, and when I wouldn't do it, we had a falling out. I guess that's just the way these things go. I've forgiven them, and I hope one day they can forgive me.

Life can be pretty crazy, and it can change pretty quickly. But every change only makes us stronger, every struggle only shows us how blessed we really are. Don't forget who you are, don't change who you are to please another person. Life isn't about getting through, it's about creating yourself. Looks like I've got a lot of work ahead of me.

Best Friends Can Become Strangers

Have you ever thought you knew someone really well, only to be surprised several months later? Have you ever seen someone change before your eyes and you couldn’t even understand why? The personality change was sudden; the results drastic. Your normal way of acting suddenly changes as well because you are trying to adjust to their sudden change. Everything you do revolving around this person requires extra thought, time and work. You feel yourself getting confused and messed up, all by one person’s sudden change. You don’t understand why only this person can make you so messed up and you wish they could see the changes and the results themselves. And yet, they notice nothing. They are so lost in their own little world that you could blurt out the problem at the top of your lungs and they would probably never notice. So, you continue to suffer…wishing to solve this cycle on your own…but it seems impossible. After all, you don’t want to lose a valuable and treasured friendship.

I don’t regret
the friends I have made.
The choices they made
helped me see
Who I wanted to become
And who I didn’t want to be.

I don’t regret
proclaiming my beliefs
the people who didn’t like it
may one day see the truth
and the people who did
stayed my friends.

I don’t regret
the choices
I have made.
The right choices brought results
I have loved
And the wrong choices
Made me tougher.

I don’t regret
living in the present
Choosing to live
the days as they set
Instead of in the past
Will only make me
a happier person.

I don’t regret
Being friends
when I knew the friendship
couldn’t last.
Their friendship was great
while it lasted
And I am sure
They are happy
where they are.

I don’t regret
the anger
I once held
It helped me mend
the wounds
I had earned
over the years.

I don’t regret
the clubs
I didn’t join
the sports I couldn’t play,
the life I never lived.
I may have been sheltered,
But it helped me be me.

I don’t regret
this life I live
I love who I am
And what I do
And the people I touch.

Love is...

“Romantic love is one of those rare human endeavors that succeeds best when it requires the least effort. Those who pursue it the hardest are the most likely to fail.”

We all want to be loved. We wouldn’t be human if we didn’t long for the touch of another, for someone to care about us so deeply that they would do anything to keep us happy. If you have already felt the love and grace of God, then you realize that we all already have it in our lives. But we also want the love of another individual, someone to whom we can one day marry.

So we search everywhere, looking for a love we cannot seem to grasp. We look and we find, but maybe that love isn’t the love we want. And so we continue on, breaking hearts and getting our own broken as well. Some never have the opportunity to get further than a broken heart from afar. They make the effect and get destroyed; sometimes the destroyer never even knows. After all, everybody plays the fool.

It’s easy to fall in love, but it’s hard when the other does not always feel the same way. There is no way to force a person to like you and sometimes the result is a ruined relationship. Sometimes we don’t even realize how we ruined it, it just happens. Just remember that while you may be crying now, next time around, someone will be crying over you.

It also helps to keep in perspective that you don’t fall into love, you grow into love. You must first start with a friendship that must be watered and nurtured. If you move too fast, you may break the relationship before it gets to where you want it to be. When you overwater a plant, it never grows, or it dies. The same is true with a relationship. The faster you water (or move) the faster it will slowly dwindle down to nothing.

“Genuine love is an expression of the deepest appreciation for another human being. It is an awareness of his or her needs, and character. It shares the longings, hopes, and dreams of that other person.”

You must first respect someone before you can love them. If you don’t have respect for someone that you are “dating” how can you expect to ever truly love them? The first place most relationships fail is when they don’t understand or respect each other. If you lose trust in your partner, you will have to work to gain back the trust and respect that relationship craves.

“If you hold love too loosely, then it files away; if you hold love too tightly, it’ll die. It’s one of the mysteries of life.”

Don’t cling to love once you find it, but let it grow. Watch it, but don’t choke it. Be careful with the ones you love because when you strangle them, they will never want to be around you again.

“We crave what we can’t attain, but we disrespect what we can’t escape.”

Be Yourself

Why can’t people be true to who they are? Why do we have to care so much about other people’s opinions?Isn’t it true than underneath all the designer clothes, pounds of makeup and facials, is the same lonely person as everyone else? A person who strives on the looks of others, who is insecure and hopes to be brilliant, who questions everything he or she does? Why do we hold up a perfect scale and try to hold ourselves up to it to see where we stand? I think we need to accept the negatives with the positives and just hope for the best. After all, when we die, the only thing that will matter is what we have done with our life, not who we have pleased. What have you done today?

Consumption Obession

By nature, I am a true pack rat. I am not going to hide the fact that I own a lot of items. I love to shop, I love to find good deals. And I can never seem to part with anything. I always have some kind of excuse. "Oh, I'll use this for ____" or "I was going to wear that one day". And yet, despite the fact that I own a lot of stuff, I still find reasons to long and want more. I often wish I had purchased things that I saw in the store. "Oh, why didn't I get that?" I often think to myself.

This is definatly not the way to live my life. This past weekend, I have been working on a paper for one of my classes. I have to research the company's history and past advertising ideas and what they have been up to the past couple years. The company I chose from the list was American Girl. I used to love American Girl. I always wanted one, but I knew that my family couldn't afford one. So instead, I saved up all the magazine catalogs that I got in the mail, and whenever I got sad, I would stare at all the pictures and dream up stories about the characters. I read some of the books, and owned a few as well. We could afford the books.

Eventually, I gave up my dream of owning an American Girl. When I got older, my parents offered to buy me one. But by then, the excitment of owning one was long gone, and no one really cared anymore. And so my dream of owning one never came true.

But this past weekend, that thought came back in my head. I suddenly longed to own one again. I even thought of buying one. Why? Why did I so desperatly want one? All I talked about was how I wished I had gotten one and why couldn't I get one? So stupid. It's just an object-just an item. I do not need to own everything in the world. Yes, it would be nice to have one. But do I need one? No.

Especially since money is very tight these days-to waste money on a doll is stupid. But it was just the thought-the thought of owning one. I was consumed with the thought of items. God doesn't want us to love money or items. Shouldn't we love people and not items?

I came across this in an old textbook and I love the thought behind it:
The relationship between people and their objects is a complex and multifaceted one, which is continually negotiated between the material and the immaterial. Objects are used as tokens of affection, symbolic gestures and statements of devotion and can be represented, employed and appropriated in a multitude of ways. They carry out important roles in our relationships with each other, either as bearers of significance, or through embodiment, engagement or control. The seductive quality of objects can also mediate our relationships with them, as they engage our emotions in both subliminal and visceral ways. In doing so they facilitate the projection and subversion of identities, and the creationof the contexts in which they operate.

It's true-I hold onto a lot of items for sentimantal reasons. I have a box of almost every letter that I have ever gotten, so whenever I get sad, angry or upset, I can go back and get happy again. I also keep a lot of gifts that I get, stuffed animals I received, and pictures of everything. I like to look back on happy memories, because I want to enjoy life-as it was, is, and is to come. I think when you appreciate what you have at the moment, you will learn to be okay when you don't always get what you want. I may not have gotten an American Doll, but I gained an impressive imagaination. I gained an appreciation for hanging from trees and enjoying the fresh air.

As I was thinking back, I realized that I had overlooked the past that I had purchased an American Girl computer game. It had all the characters and you made up stories and they would act what you wrote. It was perfect for a writer like me, and I loved the game a lot. That was better than any doll I could have ever received.

Sometimes you need to look for the postive in everything. Things may not always go your way, you may not always get what you want. But things happen for a reason. You may not know what that reason is today, tomorrow or even ever. However, if we learn to be happy no matter what, good things will come. We don't need objects to be happy. We just need each other.

"For the love of money is the root of all evil" 1 Timothy 6:10

"Be still and know that I am God."

Psalm 46:10

As I look back on the past week, one would think that I would be curled up in the corner, crying my eyes out. But that's not the case. I actually feel good, I feel strong, and I feel loved. God took control this past week, and I finally released my hold on my life. I gave my life to God, and He knew what I needed all along.

Last year, I would have been writing poem after poem of heartbreak, and would have been really shelfish with demanding lots and lots of time to be sad and angry. But this year, I don't need that. God has all my tears, and He's holding onto them for me.

Now, I haven't been completly strong this whole week. There have certainly been times of sadness, and tears have definatly been shed. But I keep holding on to God, and my friends have been very supportive and always around when I need them.

Over the years, I have grown strong in my faith and I have failed in my faith. It was when I failed in my faith that I actually found God. It is when we fail that we often stop pretending to be someone who we are not. We stop trying to make excuses for everything that we do and we let the blame lay where it belongs. We let God take over, because we no longer have the strength to keep trying to do everything on our own. When God takes over, only then do we truly begin to start to living our life the correct way.

You see, we often try to live life our way. We have our rules, our ideas and our dreams. And we often shut God out of them. But God wants to be in on these plans. He wants to be happy with you when you get that glance from the guy you like. He wants to see you get excited to get an A on a test. He wants to be with you when you fall down the stairs and turn red. He wants to be with you when you lose your engagement ring and start crying. He wants to be with you when you break up. He wants to be with you when you get in a car accident.

He wants to be with us through the bad AND the good. We often let Him in during the bad. We cry out to Him, we want his help. But during those times of joy, when we feel extremly happy, we leave Him out. God wants to be our friend and we should treat Him as such. Don't you go screaming to your friends when something good happens? Don't you jump up down, because you are so excited to tell them? Why do we often not act this way with God?

In the past, this is how I acted. But now, now I'm learning to lean more on God. I know that He loves me, and I want to keep Him in all aspects of my life. It's not an easy task, but it is definatly worth it. Even though their is sadness and anger in my life at times, I still try to thank God for it. I know it's not fun, but it challenges me and keeps me strong.

You cannot grow without failure. If you never fail, then you have not tried hard enough. And that's just sad. Challenge yourself. Don't limit yourself in the things that you can do. This world is waiting for you!