Oh; These Lives We Lead.

I know way too many people here right now
That I didn’t know last year, who the fuck are y’all?
I swear it feels like the last few nights
We been everywhere and back
But I just can’t remember it all.


It's been one helluva year. And that's the fuckin understatement of the century. I'm gonna pack up the last of my room today with a Dear Summer-Lights Please-Find Your Love playlist and all the songs that have become equated to my life in the past few months. I wonder if I need to watch what I say...fuck it.
So...here's what's left up my sleeve:

• Proof that laughter DOES heal you.

Even if it's temporarily and only for the moment. And you gotta learn to laugh at yourself and all your shortcomings, downfalls and heartbreaks. Cause if you don't; the build up of all the stress and drama and bad days will pile up and crush what's left of you and you'll wake up one morning to a strange version of what used to be yourself wondering how you fell so far from grace.

• It'll change you if you let it.

IT being a lifestyle, a friendship, a love interest...anything and everything can and will change you; whether its for the better or for the worst. I've seen so many people change; including myself. It hurt my soul when some people changed for the worst...and it gave me hope when I watched them grow...

• Alcohol is the problem and solution of all of life's problems.
• People spend too much time building walls instead of bridges...

Or they spend their time building bridges to get them to the wrong people and walls to keep out whose so right...but who am I to say who's right or wrong for anyone else. I don't even know who belongs with me...wants and needs are so different and if you focus on one more than they other; trust the other becomes so trivial. But I've build my walls through all the tears and pain that I've been caused and have caused...I'm nobody's victim but I'd like someone to know how I feel. I mean honestly; who wouldn't ?

• I've watched people's fears unfold right before their eyes...

Realizin that the person you love is...to say the least...crazy; moreso because they're chasing after ugh blah blah blah...how do you deal when you think their amazing ? Like they could shit sunshine and piss excellence...idk how you're supposed to handle it but you let go...and hope that all the things you love the most in life find their way back to you or at least just find their way. There's nothing like watching a lost soul.


And I know a lot about lost souls. In this last week; my roommate tried to kill herself lost all hope and attempted to put permanent ends to her pains. I've seen way too many tears from people I love...including myself. And now I've got these "Roman Numerals" that are like tally marks of my pain and the times when I've lost hope. And now I have to wonder where I'm goin next...I know where I wanna be but if this life has taught me anything: you don't always get what you want...rarely.


Confessions ?
I've got a ton...but it's best that I keep such amazing and heartbreaking realizations to myself. Cuz no one, especially myself; is really ready for the thoughts that surface when I look at you people...yeah; you people.


I don’t know how our lives got so crazy or where we’re headed next or how the hell we’ll survive; but I hope we all find the love we need, the peace we want & the happiness we deserve.


I love you, love.
"Sometimes I lie awake at night, and I ask, “Where have I gone wrong?” Then a voice says to me, “This is going to take more than one night."

Something I Needed to Read.

I'm further in than ever before; smh...

In honor of National Eating Disorders Awareness week, we wanted to share a beautiful story written by a former TWLOHA intern, Stephanie Koszalka. Please read it and enjoy remembering that your life and your story are powerful. No self-determined imperfection can change that.

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Dear Body,

I’ve always let some imperfection or another stand in the way of me seeing what you truly are, that you are beautiful. You are a divine creation housing the most valuable thing known to the universe, my soul. I’m beginning to realize that a person’s soul has the capacity to radiate light that transcends all the characteristics that I have been conditioned to believe are flaws.

You naturally tell a story. Your blue-green veins are like a map to where your heart has been and where it is going. The curve of your waist and the shape of your cheekbones tell a tale of heritage and ethnicity. There are crayon markings on the wall somewhere that has measured your height throughout the years. Always returning to the same spot to see how you’ve changed.

Your eyes bare resemblance to nature. They are a deep forest green with golden yellow sunflower flecks. Your faded birthmark, once beet red, brought me shame because all I wanted was to conform. It now reminds me of how unique you are and all I want is to be different.

Your body begins as a story but continues with new chapters throughout your life. Some are chapters of sadness and pain, others of joy, and all of growth. Each chapter a blank canvas meant to be painted by our experiences. Photos are memories but so are our bodies in a way that’s more real, no posing and no fakeness.

I’m realizing these things now, but I’m so sorry that I didn’t realize them before. I’ve done everything I could to destroy the canvas and deface and burn the pages of different chapters.

I’ve waged war on you before; used razor blades to feel and drugs to numb. I’ve used caffeine to stay awake and alcohol to sleep. Abusing the side effects of my prescription drugs like loss of appetite, to deliberately starve myself into making you skinnier.  I’ve spent far too much time on a scale that merely weighs your effect on gravity, not the depth of your beauty. I wanted you to look like one of those girls in the magazines.

But in the ruins there is still a canvas. There is still beauty in your brokenness. The faded scars show healing reminding me that even though I’ve been in dark places, I’ve survived and learned and become stronger.

Although the war is over, the world still takes its toll. You have calluses on your hands from me writing too much and concentrating too hard. Yet the words are beautiful and the studying is worth it. You have the ache when it rains from broken bones, and stretch marks from growing too fast. You have burns from jobs and scars from falls. But those experiences were worth it.  

Dear body, as I grow older I worry about how you will age. Together we gain wisdom and wrinkles, after being young and beautiful and naïve. The wisdom tells us that the beauty doesn’t subside, it only changes, and more of it comes from within.  So I won’t worry when my hair doesn’t look just right, or when I do something stupidly funny and emerge with another scar because you are telling a story. And what would I be without my story and my past?

TWLOHA

TWLOHA

To Write Love on Her Arms is a non-profit organization that encourages hope and strength for people struggling with depression, addiction, self injury and suicide. Their vision is the belief that:

-You were created to love and be loved.
-You are not alone, especially at the times you feel MOST alone.
-Pain is real.
-Your life is worth fighting for.

So today, on November 13, I supported the movement because LOVE is one of the most important factors in my life. I've said it before and I still stand by it: Love is everything it's cracked up to be. It really is worth fighting for, being brave for and risking everything for.

And the thing that gets me about TWLOHA is that you never know who needs love and hope. Things like TWLOHA remind me to keep an open heart, not be judgmental and remember that no matter how bad I think I have it, someone, somewhere has it worse off than me...Some days it ain't sunny but it ain't so hard...

Yung, I'm cool as shit. lmao.

Lil Angie's arm. lol. 

For more info hit this :http://www.twloha.com/vision/ for the vision, the story, and ways you can support the movement. LOVE is the Movement. Rescue is possible.

♥missflyybarbie