Vulnerable

A new belief that I’m developing is that if you aren’t learning something from life, either you’re living wrong or you aren’t paying attention. No matter what there’s always something to learn or relearn. Whether it comes from being reminded of the beauty of live or a figurative slap in the face, we are constantly learning and growing.

The past couple years of my short life have been dark. I have battled with my mind and my emotions and struggled to find lasting happiness in anything. I’ve developed self-destructive behaviors and there came a point were I basically gave up. For the past year I’ve been living as if I’ve been waiting to die. I know it’s morbid, and it seems like I’m straying from my point, but I’m not. See, before about two months ago I felt  sad, angry, confused, hopeless and worthless. But if you were to ask, I probably would’ve chalked it all up to tired.

So, what did I learn from this? Something difficult…that I am just now putting into effect. I’m learning that I have to be brave and bold, and in order to do that I have to be emotionally vulnerable. I have to be able to communicate these feelings and be open about my past in order to move forward.

Screaming in a quiet place

I live in a world where stress and emotion basically run my life. I am constantly stressed about school and constantly reminded that if I don’t stress about school I basically won’t have a future. When it’s not school, it’s about my home, my family, drama with friends or basically anything else that has to do with life. Sometimes, I feel like I just need out, not like a break, not a weekend getaway, just out. I need to not be surrounded by people who put school above everything else, especially when I feel like my emotional health is being traded for academic success. I can’t be around people who blame each other and never take responsibility for themselves. So, sometimes, I just need a minute to step out of the craziness of my life and breathe. I need to plug in my headphones and internally cry my heart out and pretend the stress and the people don’t exist, but I can’t.

I can’t get away from this, I don’t have anywhere to go, there’s nowhere that is just mine, there’s not quiet room I can sit in to just breathe and forget about life. So all I can do is say nothing about how much pressure I feel and pray that I make it through the day without speaking my mind, because if I spoke my mind nobody would like what came out. Nobody wants to hear about how I don’t believe school should go before everything else, nobody wants to hear about how I can feel my home falling out from underneath itself, and no one wants to hear about how unhappy I am, being where I am. So, I will find a place in my mind that is quiet and safe and I will scream in a place where no one can hear me, and I will cry where no one can see me and I’ll only tell myself how I feel because at the end of the day, no one else is even listening.

My unknown story.

When people ask me for my story, I always ignore them. It’s not because I don’t want to, it’s not even that it makes me uncomfortable, I just don’t know how. My story has too many sub-stories to be sidetracked on, too much context to explain, too many details to describe other details, it just doesn’t work. So, here I am, willing to try but not knowing how.

My story revolves around so many things; I’m not even sure who the main character is. There are so many story-lines, I sometimes wonder if God is preparing for a spin-off. There too much me and not enough airtime.

When people ask for my story, do they mean the jumbled up sentences in my head that could easily be a trilogy? Or do they mean the short novelette that barely scratches the surface? I want to tell them who I am, where I come from, and where I’ve had to go to get to this point. But there are a lot of roads I’ve traveled and backtracked and so many places I have yet to go. I don’t know where to begin and I don’t know how to end.

So, to those who truly want to know my story, I will tell you, as soon as I have figured out how to tell myself.

Never say never

It’s funny how often I look back and think of the times in middle school and even freshman year of highschool that I had told myself, convinced at that moment that there was something I would never do, someone I’d never be. I always said I’d never be that teenager that stayed up all night and slept all day, I’d never listen to loud rock music and I’d never get so stressed out over anything that I wouldn’t be able to control my emotions. Now I stay up all night because I’m stressed out about school while blasting all kinds of music to keep myself awake.

When I was little, I always wanted to be sixteen. I’d have my own car, I’d be in highschool, I’d have the perfect boyfriend and a huge group of friends. I know I was a very shallow and naive child. Well here I am, age sixteen, and while I’m in highschool, nothing else I expected has happened. I’m not saying being a teenager is a huge letdown or anything, but it’s not what I expected.

I am not who I wanted to be. I’m not who I want to be, basically the opposite. I wanted to be bold, and friendly, and smart, and happy, and creative, and I wanted to know exactly what I wanted to do with my life and how to make it happen. Instead I am timid, self-conscious, rude, I’m not completely depressed but I’m not happy, I continue to make decisions impulsively that I do not agree with, and I have no idea what I want to do with my life.

In a way this is me admitting that I have no idea what I’m doing in life right now. I don’t like how I took everything I said I never wanted to be and made it my identity I took my ideas of being a good person and said “screw it!” this is highschool, I’m going to do whatever I want and figure everything else out later.

I keep asking myself how it is that I ended up where I am now. When did I start caring what others think so much, that I change depending on the people I’m with so they’ll like me? When did I stop telling people how I felt about something because I didn’t want them to hate me? When did I become so worried about things other people wanted me to do because I didn’t want to disappoint anyone?

I became that teenager that only cares what humanity thinks of her, I became that girl who is afraid to tell people what she thinks, how she feels, and what she’s going through because she doesn’t want people to hate who she really is. I became self absorbed to be honest.

The thing is, I convinced myself that everyone thinks and sees things the same way I do. I am convinced that everyone sees me the way I see me which is probably why I work so hard to get their attention and approval. It’s probably the reason I assume that I need to make myself seem perfect in the eyes of whoever I am around so they will not hate me.

I’m not who I wanted to be, all those things I said I would never become, I became. It’s kind of funny actually because now I understand why so many people keep saying “never say never,”

Thanks for reading!

-Abby.

 

 

Goals

Not a lot has happened lately to give me something to write about. A new year has started but not much has changed. I find that a lot of us are expecting some big change to happen right at the beginning of the new year, and maybe for you it has. But I don’t think we should expect big changes to happen in two weeks, it only discourages many of us from achieving the goals we have set for ourselves.

In school I’ve been learning a lot about setting goals. I’ve always liked setting goals for myself but I’ve rarely ever achieved the goals that I want to because I always give up within the first three or four days after it doesn’t happen within the first three or four days. Sometimes we expect everything to happen right away and when it doesn’t we give up because we’ve made ourselves believe that if it hasn’t happened yet, it never will

Of course even things we work for our entire lives may never happen but things we work towards for a week and give up will not happen.

 

Thanks for reading!

 

God, do you hear me?

God, are you there? I prayed but I never heard a response, searched your book but did not find answers, sang your praises but did not feel you. Am I doing it wrong? Am I not praying hard enough, searching long enough, singing loud enough?

God can you see me? Do you see me trembling? God I’m scared and confused but I’m trying. Am I not trying hard enough? 

God can you hear me? I’m sorry. I know what I did and I’m sorry, but you said you wouldn’t leave, please don’t leave me. Do you hear me crying out, screaming? I need you, where are you? Am I not screaming loud enough?

God did you leave me? I understand, if i could I’d leave me too. Do you not want me? Because I doubted you, disobeyed you and hated you. Did you not want me? Did you turn your back and decide I wasn’t worth your attention? I get it I don’t want me either.

God can you touch me? If you’re still there can you let me feel you?

Did I not pray hard enough, scream loud enough, search long enough? I know I don’t deserve your attention, but God I’m breaking, I need you, and you promised you would never leave.

God, did you forget me? Were you too busy with people who needed you more? Did you forget how hard I’ve tried to get you to hear me, see me, touch me. I searched but couldn’t find you, cried out out but you never came. 

God do you know who I am? My name is Abby, I’m broken, i ran away from you, but I’m back and I need you.

God after everything I’ve done do you still love me? Will you take me back? Do you remember me? We were close when I was little.

God, I’m sorry, I know I’ll mess up and maybe run away again. Will you wait for me to come back? Because God I’m trying and I want to come back. 

God I don’t know what to do and I need you. Please, help me. 

                               Love, Abby. 

Being a teenager

I am a teenager, and sometimes being a teen sucks like a lot. I hate school not because I don’t want to learn (well that’s partly the reason) but because think of how much time I spend focused on school. I online school but I try to spend six hours a day doing school but somehow I still have to catch up on some stuff and I keep having to stay up really late to finish many of my assignments on time.

I don’t know if you know this but many teenagers need this little thing called a social life. I don’t have much of one but it’s important to me. If I don’t see my friends for a few weeks I tend to be in a bad mood or get depressed I may be able to text them but it’s not the same. The thing is school and other responsibility can sometimes make it difficult to find time or energy to go out and have fun and for me even if I’m out with friends a lot of times the only thing I think about is how I’m going to finish that one assignment that’s due the next week.

I know that you were expecting this and I’m not sure where I’m going with this but here goes nothing.

I am a teen girl so with my social life comes this little thing known as drama, and not just any kind of drama no this is probably the worst and sometimes most annoying type of drama; Boy Drama. Okay, so everyone at some point in their life has had a crush right? I thought so.

I try to stay away from boy drama because it’s stupid and avoidable but I am a girl and I have actually met and spoken to a boy at some point in my teen life. Let me explain something; when a girl talks to a boy though sometimes it means they “like” them sometimes they’re just friends and she doesn’t see it as anything else. But we’re talking about the one’s girls “like”

Normally it starts when I girl gets a crush on a guy but wont tell him blah blah blah they start going out blah blah blah “Oh baby I love you,” fast forward *fights, breaks up* tears girl claims that she’ll never love again, oh look cute boy.

Yeah…I’ve never had that happen I’ve only seen it on TV. So yeah avoid boy drama, just don’t go there.

So yeah being a teen has challenges and so does every other stage of life. I’m not saying we have it worse than everybody else. This was short and there are so many other things I could put in there but I gotta go do school.

 

Thanks for reading!

 

The bench

Take a look at the featured image. You’re probably asking yourself why I’m making you stare at an empty bench, what’s the meaning of this picture? What story is it telling?

This is one of my favorite pictures, the bench is empty now but it’s not always that way. Just think of all the people who have sat there think of all the stories that bench could tell you if it could talk. How many single mothers have sat there trying to calm her hyper kids down so she can have just one second of peace, how many young couples sat there talking about the future, how many confused teenagers wondering about whether they would pass their next test sat there?

I find myself looking at this picture for almost hours just imagining the stories that have begun and ended there. It may seem insignificant but think about it, how many lost people have sat there wondering if life is worth whatever struggle they’re going through? How many friend groups sat there laughing at some story or joke someone was telling? How many families had a picnic there?

It’s these things that make you think and imagine and wonder. Maybe that bench was where two people met, maybe they fell in love. Maybe that was where two people realized they didn’t love each other. Maybe here somebody decided to keep fighting and maybe here somebody decided to give up. Whatever stories are in this bench, whatever stories it could tell doesn’t it make you curious? Life stories have always fascinated me and this one little bench in the middle of this small park knows more life stories then we may ever know.

 

What is beauty?

Is beauty when I have my true face hidden behind a mask of powder and cream? Is beauty perfect hair, perfect eyes? Or maybe a perfect smile?

In this world; yes. This world claims to want you to be your own person, but only as long as you meet their standards.

They say things like “True beauty is on the inside,” and “We are all beautiful,” but do they mean It? Well yes they mean It, as long as you are visibly attractive according to their guidelines.

In the morning we stand in front of the mirror judging ourselves, covering our skin in make up. But will you be perfect? Once you’ve filled in your eyebrows and turned your lips cherry red have you successfully achieved perfection?

Just because the media says something will make you beautiful by promising flawless skin and hair means nothing.

I too am guilty of standing in front of a mirror and convincing myself that I am not beautiful. This is the biggest lie I have ever told, this is the biggest lie you will ever hear.

So look again. Find one thing you love about yourself. Your eyes, your nose, that freckle on your cheek, or your dimples and hold on to that. Remember somewhere in the world somebody is standing in front of a mirror wishing they had your blue eyes, or your dimples, maybe they want your curly hair or maybe they want your smile.

Remember you don’t have to be perfect in the world’s eyes because the world is wrong. The world has everything twisted. You don’t need to fill in your eyebrows or curl your hair today. You don’t have to cover up to be beautiful. So do yourself a favor put the make up down, look yourself in the eye, smile and tell yourself “I am beautiful,” and repeat this until you believe it. If you don’t believe it, if you don’t believe that you are beautiful you’re lying to yourself.

Pros and Cons of Homeschooling

So I’ve been homeschooled my entire life. I know lot of people that when I mention that I’m homeschooled, explain to me about why they’re jealous and how much they wish they were homeschooled.

Let me explain something to you, when you’re homeschooling you still have to work. It doesn’t mean sleeping in until 3pm and then sitting on the couch binge watching your favorite TV show. The second part of the word homeschool is SCHOOL.

Now if you want to be homeschooled or are a parent who wants to homechool here’s something I want you to consider.

I have been homeschooled my entire life which means limited social interaction. I have a friends from church but being homeschooled makes it very difficult to meet new people. I have been pretty shy my whole life and I honestly think it’s partially because I didn’t interact with people a lot. Of course different kids have different personalities, but if you’re homeschooling please come up with other social activities to do with your kids and other families with kids around their age.

For a while I was actually afraid to tell people I was homeschooled because it’s considered weird and it just wasn’t normal, honestly I still hate telling people I’m homeschooled. Also I have a weird fear of people especially teenagers, I often don’t want to do things with other teens because they act differently then I do. I’ve started doing other social activities weekly and I think it’s really helped me to overcome that fear but it’s still there.

I’m not saying that homeschooling is bad because there are definitely many good things about it and I’ll get to that after I explain a couple more things that I struggle with.

One is just being in a public place such as a store or riding a bus. I get nervous when people mention riding the bus or walking somewhere because I don’t think that I even no how to find my way around and I don’t have friends in my area to help me out. I also find that I get nervous checking out items at the store but that’s probably just my personality.

The last thing I would like to mention could honestly be both a good thing and a bad thing.

Age difference, one thing that I love about myself is the fact that I get along with people that are both younger and older than I am (mostly younger). I like that I can get along with kids that are much younger then me without getting annoyed or being rude. But most of my friends are younger then me making it difficult for me to be able to talk to them if I have a problem that can really be explained to a 16 year old girl.

Now what is good about homeschool? Well lots of things.

The assignments can be more exciting and fun and parents are able to help the student individually in a way that the student will understand.

Also, I do feel like I have a lot of self esteem even though I can be shy and have a lack of confidence I have high self esteem and don’t really care what the world thinks.

Another thing that is great about homeschool is that I have developed my own opinions without any influence from other students, teachers, or even curriculum. Also my faith has a huge part in this. As a homeschooled christian I have been able to grow in my faith and I haven’t been bullied for it (Yet) I think it’s important that I was able to develop my own opinion about God and the bible without having anybody discourage me from it.

I wrote this  in case anybody  wanted an opinion from a teen who has been homeschooled. It’s important to see it from both the parent and the students perspective because every child is different and even if you think everything is going well your child may have doubts that you never knew about.

If your child has concerns listen and think about it because I see why my parents had me homeschooled but I also wish that sometimes they would listen to my opinion and really understand what I was saying. Homeschooling is great but consider if that’s what’s best for you and your child.

I have to have social interaction or I get depressed if I don’t hang out with other teenagers. While I’m not sure being homeschooled was what was right for me and I feel like I missed out on a lot I understand why my parents made that decisions and now I don’t think I’d do well in public school.

So there’s my thoughts on homeschooling. I’ll probably write another post like this at some point.

Thanks for reading!

-Abby