Why I "Hate" (Dislike) (the Catholic) Church So Much

First of all, I'm "picking" on the Catholic Church because it's the only church I've experienced. Therefore, it's all I know to create my own opinions about. I think I dislike all organized religions. I don't know. I guess you can decide if that's the case once I post my critiques.

I don't like someone telling me what to do for the most part to begin with. I don't think most people do. I like having rules and instructions, but when it comes to something like faith, I really don't like someone telling me what to do, and that is how I see organized religions. Giving you rules to worship and telling you it's all or nothing with their rules to be accepted by them. I don't think that God (Yes, I do believe in God and Jesus Christ.) thinks that you have to follow all these rules that men created to be accepted by Him. Most religions think it's their way or no way to get into Heaven or whatever pleasant afterlife in which they believe. I don't agree with that at all. I think that as long as you're a good person, you get into Heaven/pleasant afterlife. What dictates a "good person"? I think we all know how to be a decent human being. My father once told me that the voice inside you that tells you whether you should or shouldn't do something--you know, your conscience--is the voice of God in you. That probably sounds cheesy and holy roller, but I agree with that. It makes sense. Use your best judgement to be a good person, and I think you'll get into Heaven.

Another point I feel like I have to make about rules of the Catholic Church is that they're (the rules are) created not by God but by men! These men claim that this one was told from this one who was told by God (more or less) that this is how you should live your life. I do not believe that literally. I took a Bible literature class in college (because even if I don't agree with it, I like it as a story and I like to learn about what I'm going to claim to disagree with), and one of the points that were made was that some biblical scholars believe that the Bible isn't even supposed to be taken literally. Instead, the stories are parables (I think is the word) that are supposed to teach lessons. THAT makes a lot more sense. Still, I don't agree with every rule. Although, I do think that many of the rules can help make you a better person, and I think we should all strive to be our very best and always work on improving. We'll never be perfect, and that's okay. No human is, but I don't think we should settle either. I like to start with the Ten Commandments as guidelines to being a good person. I do not remember all of them yet. Perhaps I will look them up soon, but I remember that you should not covet (want) your neighbors' house. I take that almost literally. I don't know if I should, but I think it basically goes back to "The grass isn't always greener on the other side," and some things might look great but there's more than meets the eye. This is especially pertinent with the popularity of social media now. We judge other people by their social media posts, and we compare ourselves to people using social media and think their lives are better than ours because their posts look beautiful. People tend to post their highlight reel on social media. They don't feel the urge to post when they're upset or going through hard times. There are more important things than social media at those times. Even when you're happy and things are working out, there are more important things than social media, but you know what I mean! I don't think that people purposefully hide their bad times from social media to make themselves look good. I think that it's just that--again--there are other things people are worried about besides social media when life feels like it sucks. I attempt to post the mundane, too, but I still haven't posted the crap yet. I fear looking like an attention seeker. I know that I shouldn't care what other people think, but I can't help it sometimes.

Going back to the religion topic, I feel like religion is a personal affair. I don't think it has to be. I think it's okay if you want to make it a social thing, but I feel like the Catholic Church especially turns it into if you make your worship personal, you're ashamed to admit your faith to the public. Hence all the click bait-y Facebook posts with Jesus saying something along the lines of, "Share if you're not afraid to accept me in front of your friends." Those posts shame you into not sharing as if you're not proud of your faith, but I really think those people just want a popular/viral posts.

Finally, I dislike and seem to disagree with Catholicism so much, but I feel the need to baptize my children as Catholics. It might be fear, but I feel like it's my conscience telling me it's the right thing to do. Also going back to a previous point, I don't think that there is only one way to get into Heaven. Therefore, contrary to what I was taught in one of my world history classes in college that some people and faiths believe, tying yourself down to one religion does not damn you if it ends up being the wrong religion in the end. Therefore, I really don't think baptizing my children as Catholics will be very consequential. It will put me (and admittedly much of my family) at ease to have my children baptized as Catholics. Then, I will let them decide how they want to worship if they want to.

Current Life and Career Goals

Hello, few and far between, distant readers! Why must I be so negative? But what are the odds of having a lot of views/readers? I’ll check my views, okay? Okay, I normally get 2 to 4 views per post. I’ve had a couple with 17 or 14, but it’s four or less posts out of 25 (edit: 26 now that this post is published (; ). It looks like ten to fifteen end up with two, three, or four views.

ANYWAY, I’m here today/-night because I’ve been craving blogging lately and have been in this really cool, refreshing creative mood. In my head, I’ve been describing it as a weird creative mood because I can’t ever remember feeling this creative for this long and it nagging at me. I also don’t know quite what to do to satisfy it either. Like, part of me thinks, “Blog obviously,” but I’ve been wanting to improve my writing by writing it all out and taking time to organize it and proofread it, which obviously will take more time, so that creative itch part of me is like, “ACK, TOO LONG, NOPE, I WANT INSTANT GRATIFICATION.” I’ve been having diarrhea of the mouth with instant gratification since I worked teaching first grade. The interventionist at our school (the person who does small group reading and mostly with the struggling kids) used that word to describe when kids choose the first answer on a test to quickly finish a question and move on or even the first one that looks even remotely correct instead of looking at all the answers to check for the best, etc. But yes, my creative itch wants instant gratification, so it doesn’t want me to take my time to make a better post because it wants the satisfaction of having the post done and out there and that itch satisfied.

I’ve been thinking lately about what I want most in life and what are my dreams, especially career-wise. Right now, I think I want to teach and write/blog most. I focus on blogging when I think about writing because I want the freedom in my writing. That’s what I enjoy about writing. That’s also why I have this anonymous blog—so that I can write almost anything I want to write and almost anytime and have very minimal if any negative consequences for it. Keeping it anonymous protects my reputation because my identity is hidden, so whatever I say shouldn’t (Remember, anything is possible.) make it’s way back to me and stick to my name and affect my reputation with possible future employers and on a smaller scale friends, family, and acquaintances, even. I’ve been thinking about writing on my personal/main account where my identity is known and my posts are visible to people who have access to that account with my identity attached to it, but I am scared of the possibility for negative consequences because I think some of the posts I have planned/brainstormed are controversial or at least have some controversial aspects in them, and I being the non-confrontational/anxious person that I am do not want to start shit or deal with people being pissed off at me. I just want people to hear me out and consider every single point that I make separately, not dismiss or discount my entire set of views and opinions laid out in that post because they might disagree with one point. I also don’t want my career opportunities in the future to be limited because of my opinions. I hate having to censor myself. Maybe that’s just part of being a mature and responsible adult, but it sucks. I wish we could be free to be ourselves as humans and have opinions and freely express them without having to fear whether we can have a job that we want later in life, but the fact of the matter is that you cannot do that, which sucks.

Then, I want to teach because I love learning and I want to inspire people to love learning, too, and I want to make a difference with children and show them that they can truly do anything they want. I truly believe that if you want something badly enough, you can achieve it. You can achieve anything! It’s how badly you want it that makes the difference. You will put in the work and time for even the hardest of tasks for you if you want the results badly enough. We have that potential, and I want to help students realize their potential relatively early in life—before college. I feel like college determines how much struggle you will have with setting up and creating your adult life. I know it’s very unlikely that you know what you want to do with the rest of your life by 18, but I would want students to at least know that they can do anything and that it’s okay to change your mind later but also find things they like and use those likes to find a job/career to support them in the mean time so that when they do change their mind (if they do), they have a savings to support them whether their change requires more schooling or some sort of training where they’ll need money help and be out of a job for a little while while switching. And as much as I loved spending six/seven/eight hours five days a week with ~twenty five-/six-/seven-year-olds, I feel like they are way too young at that age for me to instill all of that information in them. I feel like too much can happen from first grade to the end of high school for me to make a difference for those kids by college. Someone can undo all the work I’ve done in one year (more like nine months—hello, summer) in the eleven years that follow. I also had trouble effectively teaching first graders for more than one reason, and maybe I have more passion for teaching older kids so it stopped me from working as hard as I possibly could to work with first graders. I don’t know exactly what it is or why. I just know that now that I’ve taught first grade, even though I dearly loved my kids and coworkers and the environment there, I want to work with high school students more. And I can focus on teaching math and/or science instead of all subjects. Math and science are my favorite subjects. And I like that since the kids are older, I can censor myself a little less. I can help prepare them for adulthood, which includes sex, so I can teach them about that! Biology, health, I’m looking at you. I’m really passionate about sex education, which—side note—is part of why I stuck with becoming an OB/GYN for so long, because I feel like and have somewhat seen (and more so have heard with my mom having had worked as an OB/GYN nurse) that kids don’t get enough sex education but have sex and then get diseases or unplanned/unwanted pregnancies or just straight up don’t know what they’re doing and get in some sort of “trouble” with sex, even as seemingly trivial as not enjoying sex. I can go on and on about this. Basically, I think that sex should be enjoyable, too. I know some people think that sex should be for procreation only. I disagree. Also basically, it just seems like teaching older kids (middle or high school) is a better fit for me, so I’m going back to school in January for that. I think I may have posted about that already.

And I still want to have a life with my husband and kids. No, I have neither right now, but I want them one day, and I want to have time for work and them and the rest of my family and friends and myself. I want my current boyfriend to be my husband, by the way. I also think that you should feel that way about whoever you’re dating. If not, I don’t think you should date them, but that’s just me. Some people are into more casual relations/relationships. Some people don’t want to ever be married—have a lifelong partner, yes, but not necessarily marriage. That’s okay whatever you want! But I want what I want, too.(:

So in my head, I think the way that all of that would work out is teaching full-time, writing part-time, I guess. Or on/by commission—is that a thing? Basically, I’d write something and whore it out for someone to pay me to publish it or I’d reach out to a company/site, ask what they want me to write and what price, and write that for them. I don’t know anything about that. Maybe I’ll look more seriously into that later. I do like that idea of writing for Refinery 29. They seem really casual and do some opinion pieces it seems like. They seem cool to write for. One of my favorite blogger/online writers is Danielle Campoamour. I’m too lazy to look up her name. Sorry, girl. She even replied to me on Twitter once, which is super cool to me because she is a celebrity to me because she is well known or known better than me, which isn’t saying much, but I think you catch my drift. If I understand her writing correctly, writing is her career. She gets paid to write whatever she wants to. Maybe I’ll contact her for advice one day. I don’t know! I probably will since this is what I really want to do with my writing and don’t know who else/where else to go and she is doing exactly what I think I want to do in the writing world.

I think I’m ready to close this post out now!

Good night, and if you’ve stuck around to the end of this post, thank you.(: I appreciate it and love you for that!!!!

My First Job--Teaching!

I was here in May, telling you about my career switch. I decided to pursue teaching instead of medicine. I fell into what felt like the perfect job--teaching first grade at my old elementary school. I originally was aiming for high school, but none of the high schools contacted me back or had positions available. I thought about how much I would love to work with little kids for the rest of my life (in an effort to fill the void of not being able to have a baby once a year for the rest of my life and not having any right now--probably not the right reasons?) and decided to more seriously pursue teaching elementary students. Again, I fell into what felt like the perfect position. My coworkers were AMAZING--amazing, amazing, amazing. I can't speak highly enough of them. My kids were awesome, too. They were soooo cute! I loved them, and they seemed to have love me, too.(: Probably because kids are easy to impress but we'll go with I'm cool. My father said that kids are not easy to impress and that's just a knack of mine to get along so easily with kids. Maybe it is. I don't know, but I know I loved working with them. I wish school was more play learning, but it's not, which is where I think I started to not enjoy myself. Not enjoy myself? This post was starting off so positively. Why is it negative now? I resigned. That's why. Lesson plan writing was hard and time consuming and a pain in the butt. Granted, I did procrastinate a lot, but I ended up staying up past midnight most nights, and I came home crying almost every day. There were even a couple days where I cried once I got to school before students were let into the building. I was so stressed. Every time I got feedback (which was often because I had zero experience teaching), I took it so hard and so personally, beat myself up about it, and almost always cried. One good piece of advice that helped a little bit was from my father. He said that you can't take work personally--none of the feedback, nothing. But it still wasn't quite enough. Lesson plan writing was starting to come along somewhat. Then, they started adding more subjects for which to write lesson plans and how many I had to write at a time and pushing the deadlines forward, and I felt like I was drowning. I met with a mentor teacher almost every afternoon and while she did help a lot, the stress still wouldn't go away, and I had a lot of tunnel vision when it came to my work. I would focus in on one thing and overkill and get nothing else done. Then, the "best" part: Once I got better at writing lesson plans, I couldn't get the hang of effective instruction in a first grade classroom. When I was in school, the teacher did most of the talking and instructing. I noticed when I was graduating high school that something called Socratic Seminar was starting to make its way into the underclassmen classrooms. I had no idea what it was at the time besides a lot of group work and discussion, which in high school would have made me want to barf. Even in college, I think. Now, I think I'm more confident in myself to not be worried about what people will think about what I think and/or say. But there was something similar to Socratic Seminar in elementary instruction, also. It was where teachers directed classes to discuss the topic about which they were learning. I don't know if it was the control freak in me or panicking about time management and assuming first graders couldn't stick to a fast-paced schedule, but I could not let go of leading the discussions and not leaving much of a discussion available for my students. I would talk and talk and talk and talk. And I kept getting told not to do that and to let the students discuss, but something kept not clicking. I was too scared or something. So formal observations came around, and I failed mine. I expected but thought oh well and figured I'd just learn from it and move on. What I didn't know about were the remediation steps that are in place to help teachers help students. I would have been placed on an intensive assistance plan and re-observed in six weeks. If I failed the second observation, I'd be fired. Big deal, I thought. I would just get up and try again. THE CATCH: If I got fired from a teaching job in this school district, I could never teach in the district again. That was NOT what I wanted. In fact, it is my dream to teach in this school district. So I sat through the longest yet best meeting of my life with my principals--three hours. They found teachers to take my class for the afternoon, and we discussed my options and my concerns and questions. The first hour or hour and a half was a bunch of feedback and information concerning the observation and tips. The rest was talking about my options and how stressed I had been and how going back to school felt like an amazing option and the only thing stopping me from quitting that day was what my parents would say because my dad thought if I quit, then I was giving up. And I thought the same. Until I heard what happens if you get fired in this district, and he agreed. I knew my mom would have my back, but I was so worried about what my dad would think. And I miss my paycheck (even though all it was was one) and the little bit of financial freedom that was starting to come with it and my students, but I feel tons better. I will go back to school in January. I'm trying to decide between a Master's of Art in Teaching (MAT) or Bachelor's of Science in Secondary Education. I'm in contact with the dean of the college of education at my college write now, figuring that out. I was going to apply for a job at a local hospital (I am homesick of science and medicine.), but when I was on the phone with my grandma talking about how a nannying job seems like the dream (getting paid to play with kids and run errands), my mom offered for me to be her nanny and housekeeper since she and my father both work full-time and all of my siblings are in school and my stroke-ridden grandpa lives with us. So I accepted, of course, and I get to go to school and live at home cost-free and my parents will continue to provide for me financially if I keep up my end of the deal and keep our house clean and fed and take care of everyone's appointments. So that is my life update! My first job lasted less than two months, even though it was what I wanted. And I am bummed that having kids and getting married and moving in with my boyfriend (not in that order (-:) will be pushed back even further now, but I know I'll be happier and healthier this way instead of if I continued to push through with teaching first grade and possibly losing my job and having to move to teach public school or be limited to private schools here at home. Seven months ago, I thought I knew exactly what I was doing with my life. Now, not so much. I mean, kind of but also not really. I am super open to the possibility of anything changing and me not knowing what I'm doing. I know what I'm working toward now, but I do not know if this is what I'll want or be doing for the rest of my life. I also wish I could write on the side like opinion articles. Getting paid for that, too, would be nice but just to change the world with my writing is what I really want. I want to educate people and open their eyes to possibilities in the world around us.

Danielle Tullo of Cosmopolitan Thinks We Need To Stop Saying "Adulting," But I Disagree

I read this article on Cosmo's Snapchat story last night, and I have to say that I disagree with it. I think it was too harsh. I TOTALLY understand some of Ms. Tullo's points, but it's the way that she interprets the word with which I disagree. She has the right to interpret things the way she likes, but I have the right to interpret it differently and talk about that. I agree with the evidence she uses to support her points. It's the points themselves that I disagree with...if that makes sense.

I need to start this with a disclosure. I am very literal as in in arguments, it is not uncommon for me to send screenshots of a word from Merriam-Webster online. Maybe that's annoying to some people, but think before you speak. Say what you mean, and mean what you say. It's how we communicate with people. No one can read your mind.

This is very important to remember in my first point. "'Adulting' also known as 'existing.'" I will put the definitions of both side by side. I'll even use the definition of adulting from Ms. Tullo's article:
"Urban Dictionary defines 'adulting' as 'to do grown up things and hold responsibilities such as a 9-5 job, a mortgage/rent, a car payment, or anything else that makes one think of grown ups."
Merriam-Webster defines existing (exist) as "to have actual being," or, "to be real."
Therefore, adulting is NOT also known as existing.

Next, "'Adulting' implies that being an adult is not a necessary part of growing up, but rather a life choice you're hesitant to fully buy into." Maybe I'm wrong, but I think what something implies is subjective and/or a matter of opinion because people understand, comprehend, and interpret things differently from one another. I do not think that adulting implies what Ms. Tullo thinks it implies. It doesn't imply anything to me besides what it means. To me, adulting implies you're performing tasks that children are not expected to perform. That's it! In my opinion.

Third, "Cara is smart and has a great career, but when she talks about making dinner like it's her biggest accomplishment to date, she downplays all of her impressive achievements." I'm somewhat torn on this point. On one hand, I agree that if Cara thinks making dinner is impressive, it downplays her great career. On the other hand, maybe she and others who use the term adulting feel accomplished that on top of handling a great career well and all the steps to get there, they also managed to soldier through cooking a nutritious dinner instead of opting for take-out or whatever junk food was already waiting to be eaten. Like Ms. Tullo quotes Cara in saying, "[But] it just feels good to be self-sufficient in small ways." Yes, Danielle, it does! That is what I think people's points are in using the term adulting. They're excited to not have given into the temptation to be lazy and get nothing done but instead be proactive in taking the steps necessary to create the life they want to live.

I think you read too much into adulting and took a cynical point of view. Maybe I'm reading too much into adulting and took an optimistic point of view. To each their own!

Please, discuss your own opinions below.(: And if Danielle Tullo does happen to come across this (ha!), please, feel free to leave a rebuttal below. I welcome it. I'm all for civil debates. Call it my anxiety or human nature, but arguments and attacks on differing opinions make me want to cry and vomit...vomit tears and cry vomit...

Relationship Advice (If You Want It)

Relationships, relationships, relationships--I love relationships. I love love. I never knew that was a logical thing to say. I think I thought of it before and felt kind of silly at the thought of saying it out loud or "publishing" on the web, but I saw Lisa Gaskarth (guitarist and lead singer of All Time Low, Alex Gaskarth's, wife) say such a thing in her Twitter biography (autobiography (; ) and thought, YEEESSSSS! And I also thought, But I said that first. I don't know if I really did.

Anyway, I love love. I love, love, love love. Sex scenes in movies make me want to cry because I only get my boyfriend once a week and sometimes we're not both in the mood, so when I am and he isn't, I miss out for two weeks. I love romcoms because they fill the void in me from not being able to spend more than once a week and a random trip to the grocery store he works at with him. That's my catharsis. My English II class in college was horror movie themed. I hate horror movies, but I desperately wanted to take English online. I learned about catharsis there. I don't get my catharsis from horror movies, though. I get mine from roms (you know, since the rom in romcom means romance) because they hurt me since I want to be with my lover and can't, but they make me so happy because even though it hurts that I miss him, it makes me think of him and how much I love him and want to do all the things couples do in roms with him. Well, almost all the things. I don't  need the drama that movies add to captivate people.

So I love love and love to write and love giving advice through narratives, so I'm here today to give relationship advice based on my experience. I've only ever experienced a romantic relationship with one guy, but we've been together for over seven years (May) and have been through very much together since we've been together since I've been 14 and am now 21. Aww, that's so cute to me.

Relationships have ups and downs. All of them. Even the seemingly good from the outside ones. For example, my parents have been together for nearly twenty-four years, but my dad cheated twelve years ago. Thankfully, my parents worked it out and remarried after about two years of being divorced. I've been with my boyfriend for seven years, but I cheated on him at the end of our second year. Then, I had anxiety so bad for two years four years later that he didn't buy me a birthday gift one of those years because my anxiety was so bad that he didn't think I loved him anymore and that we were going to break up soon. I'll talk about our downs and then some of our ups because I can't remember all of them super vividly because sometimes, some of us take the good for granted and let it blur together, or maybe time just has a way of doing that. I don't know. So we got together May 2009--basically. I say basically because the day we consider our anniversary is actually the first day we started talking. Neither of us can remember the day he asked me out, but we acted the same as we did before and weren't talking to anyone else at the time that we consider it all the same. I think he may have asked me out later that summer because we were still in school at that point in the school year. Our last day wasn't until later that month.

We have the slowest, most awkward to tell others about relationship! Both of us are okay with the way it worked out. Of course, we wish it were a little faster so that we had more time really together, but things happen for a reason, and I think it let us learn about each other more before things got serious and be more sure that we wanted each other for the long haul. What I mean is we didn't talk in spend time together in person until August or September, and it took us even longer than that, I think, before we even spoke in person! We are two crazy, shy kids.(-: Even when we spent time together in person, it was only sometimes! Like, when we were alone. For example, the first semester (our high school worked by semesters), we only walked together to our buses--in other words, not in the morning with his friends, which I totally would have the time and availability to do so!!! Like, when I hung out with my best friend in the morning, and I'd go with her to hang out with other friends of hers, and those friends hung out in the same general area as my boyfriend and his friends, but still, we were both too shy, so neither of us were mad at the other for not approaching us at least.(-:

I was a freshman, and he was a junior when we first started talking that May 2009. Then, he graduated at the end of the next school year. I assumed that we wouldn't last after he graduated, but I didn't want to be single again. So I started talking to another guy and then broke up with my boyfriend later for a whole hour. While we were broken up, I realized that I wanted him more than the other guy, so I told him I was sorry and asked him to take me back, and he did. So that was our first down. After that, our relationship was some of the best it ever was. It made us stronger having gone through that together, and for me, it made me realize how much I really did love him and wanted to make it work. I also found out that he wanted to make it work, too, so we could last past his graduation. We didn't see each other for nine months after he graduated because I knew I wouldn't be allowed to go anywhere with him until my parents met him, but I was so nervous about having that. Therefore, I never said anything about it, and neither did he. I saw him by chance the February after he graduated. He was working at another grocery store, and I happened to go while he was working. It was a grocery store we don't usually go to, so it really was by chance. I was so nervous to see him. Of course, I wanted to see him, but my anxiety was larger than my want to see him. But I saw him anyway.(: And he met my mom and my brother because they were with me. Then, some time after that, my parents told me they wanted to meet him, etc. So that May, he came over for the first time, and I was still so nervous to see him and talk to him again. We had been together for two years at this point, and we had never spoken on the phone. I was anxious about talking on the phone to anyone for so long. I still am. I feel this pressure to be entertaining the entire time, and it freaks me out. So he called me when he was trying to find my house, and I almost didn't answer him because I was so nervous. But I think I did. He passed up my house, and I think he hit someone on the way back toward my house after turning around. The guy he hit told him not to worry about it, though, and let him go.

But I recall the nine months we didn't see each other with such fondness. I think that was the peak of our honeymoon phase (if we ever got out of it here seven years later). Everything was through text, and he'd text me these long, sweet messages. It was so amazing. Now, we're way past that, and I know how he feels, so he gets to be lazy and not have to text that much to me anymore. Boo! I miss those long texts!

Then, our other down was two years and four months after the first time he came to my house and formally met my parents (and one of our family friends because I was the oldest and a girl so the friend wanted to observe my dad the first time I brought a boy home). I was in my sophomore year of college, and I made a new friend in my organic chemistry class. We were getting to know each other and talking about our lives, including our relationships with our boyfriends. I told her how I felt like my mom didn't like my boyfriend. She told me that maybe that was a sign that my relationship with him was a test from God. That is where my relationship anxiety started. That night, I took my shower and couldn't stop thinking about it, and how could I know for sure? So I started looking for signs and reasons to either leave him or stay with him. How could I be sure that he was my one? I couldn't. Honestly, there is no way to know anything like that for sure. We have no way of knowing what the future holds. Therefore, my anxious mind interpreted that as if I'm not sure, then he musn't be the one because like Katy Perry reminds us, "They say you know when you know. I don't know." Looking back now, I know so much better, but that relationship anxiety was severe and seriously made me doubt my relationship with my boyfriend for the next two full years. The summer following my junior year of college, I was diagnosed with depression and anxiety and prescribed medicine, and hallelujah, the medicine helped so much. My parents ultimately gave me the best relationship advice. Great, trusted sources of relationship wisdom as evidenced by them being together for nearly twenty-four years and having gotten back together after something that usually tears other couples apart. Everything boiled down to two questions according to them: 1. Do you want to be with him? 2. Is the relationship harmful to either one of you? If the answers are yes and no, respectively, you stay. I'm happy to report that those were my answers, and I (obviously) stayed. Being diagnosed with depression and anxiety and being prescribed Citalopram has been one of the best things to ever happen to me. There's nothing wrong with our relationship. There's something wrong with me. As twisted as that sounds, that makes me so happy because I can work on me. He can deal with me. The best part is that we can stay together.

Now, I am the happiest with him I think I've ever been. If not just as happy as our ups--the nine months of sweet love letters and--yes--sexy nudes back and forth and the time between then and when my relationship anxiety started. All these downs made our relationship stronger and me more confident in our relationship and also me more in love with him because he still loved me despite the wrenches I threw into our relationship. When I was going through my relationship anxiety, the stress made me lose my ooey-gooey feelings for him, so my parents told me that it was the end of the honeymoon phase and totally normal and healthy. Now, I got my ooey-gooey feelings back.(: Maybe our honeymoon phase isn't over. Maybe this is just how I will feel about him forever. I'm thinking our honeymoon phase might not be over because even after seven years together, we still aren't living together yet because it's not a smart decision for us yet. I think if anything will end our honeymoon phase if we are still in it, it will be that and if not that, having kids. Until both of those things happen, I will not be convinced that we ever left the honeymoon phase.

So we are self-proclaimed relationship goals according to me. I love us. I think we rock. I think we are one of the strongest and lovingest and best couples out there, and even we have some crappy downs that probably would have torn others apart. So it goes to show that even the "perfect" relationships aren't perfect. You can have the best relationship in the whole wide world and still go through shitty things, and it will be okay!

I hope this helps someone or inspires someone. I think I could have really used a post like this from someone whose relationship I admired--a reminder that their relationship isn't perfect either. And I think I actually did stumble upon that eventually here (Bliss Katherine Braoudakis's "Love Story"--one of my favorite posts ever since the day I found because it does remind me a lot of my relationship struggles and gave me hope when I needed it most). 

Bye, y'all.(:

Struggle

I'm struggling with a friendship right now. I know what everyone's advice would be, I think, and despite that, I'm still having trouble. I have a friend who is making the seemingly dumbest love life choices right now, and she gets frustrated and asks for advice and also complains about her decisions but then repeats her mistakes repeatedly. Besides that, I love being her friend. I love her. But she makes all our conversations about her love life, and after dealing with trying to give her advice for probably almost three years now and her flip flopping and not listening, even to the point of telling one of our other friends not to tell me stuff because I lecture her and SHE SAYS she knows I'm right. I have nothing to say anymore, so I don't even answer half of the time. Her love life came really close to getting the same friend of ours to get fired--definitely some discipline at work. It ended up not being for that, but it was a weird coincidence. It happened the day after the friend told her not to say anything and she did anyway. I keep being friends with this friends because I do still love her and want the best for her and don't want to leave her at a hard time in her life when she probably needs her friends most, but she exhausts me. I can't even stand to spend time with her right now, and I've been ignoring her texts. I know this probably makes me a terrible friend, but I'm so frustrated with her right now but not ready to let her go if that's what I end up doing. I didn't come here for advice because I THINK I know what anyone would say. However, feel free to say your piece if you'd like. I seriously just came here to vent. And y'all can vent here if y'all want, too!

A Moment of Reflection

Such a cool title for this post because of the Lilian Axe song!!! (Link to the album--such a good album. I think I'll play it since I haven't heard it in so long anyway!!! I miss it!)

Anyway, I'm here for a serious reason as alluded to by the title post. I want to reflect on some feelings I have over and over. Whenever you have a problem with somebody--in my case for this post, jealousy--it's always good to reflect on why you have those feelings in order to work on hopefully getting rid of them. I know that it's normal to be jealous from time to time, but there's no need for it. I would be better and feel better without it, and one of the purposes in life in my opinion is to work on bettering yourself every day. So why do I feel jealous of people? It's almost always women. I know I shouldn't compete with women. I don't want to, but I can't help but compare myself and then feel bad about myself and less than them when I see women doing every single thing I want to do, and we can't do it all, right? If I went after everything I wanted, as counterintuitive as it sounds, I wouldn't have any time for myself. It seems like it might sound counterintuitive to me because if I'm doing things I want, it's totally time for myself, but I'm talking about me time and breaks. We all need those. Sometimes, we need longer breaks than other times. I personally love my breaks, and I think I need them. I need the time to relax and do whatever I want for a while. For example, my breaks are usually when I find the time to write blog posts, and I LOVE writing blog posts. So my breaks aren't always brain dead slumps. Anyway, back to the point of the post--I compare myself to other women and feel bad about myself when I see women accomplish the things I want that I have yet to accomplish. There's SO MUCH I want to accomplish. For example, I graduated high school with a 4.0 and walked into college with the goal of maintaining my 4.0 streak. I was poor with time management and had some personal stuff pop up and I handled it the best that I could that would also keep me happy. I had to sacrifice my 4.0, I think, in order to not be perpetually miserable. I started to burn out, so I started slacking and made a B. Then, I made another B. Then, a C and two Bs. Then, another B and another C. I think. I don't even remember, and the details don't really matter, but I started dropping. I recovered, thankfully, but then senioritis that last semester, woo-hoo. I was so close to the end that I started giving up too early, and that is okay because we all deserve breaks and we don't need to be perfect, and for some of us, there are more important things in our lives than grades. Priorities mixed with poor time management and something needed to give. Individually, I am okay with my 3.7 college GPA. Then, however, finals ended and my classmates posted their final grades on Facebook, Instagram, etc. Then, graduation came, and cords were handed out for summa cum laude and medals for Presidential Achievement or something along those lines, and I started to feel like less. I was less. I had a less GPA than them, and that was so important to me. Then, I see all the people who made it into medical school, and even though I changed my career plan and I think correctly so, part of me is still sad like they're living part of my dream, and I'm not. I say that because there's more to that dream of being a doctor than being a doctor. There's family and my boyfriend. I don't want those other people's families and boyfriends or girlfriends. I would not trade mine for anything. I would only maybe trade my boyfriend if it came between my boyfriend's life of my families'. Anyway, again, I'm ranting, which I often do (And is somewhat okay because this is a blog about my thoughts and I think it helps you understand my thought processes when I add in even the mundane details.). So I've compared myself scholastically and have felt inadequate for a long time now. I've been doing it since there's been any sort of awards in school, I'm sure. I'm competitive, and I think that's why I've done so well academically so far. I should grow up and change my reasons to being the best I can be instead of necessarily being better than others, but as asshole-ish as this sounds, I'm sure my best can be the best scholastically if I work for it. It's possible for all of us to do it, but in the end, some of us will be above. But I get tunnel vision. I look for GPA, but there are so many more things to make you good academically, and WE CAN'T DO IT ALL. I'm reminding myself and anyone else who stumbles upon this and might need it. So I didn't get the highest GPA, but there might be other skills I have that are better than even those people with better GPAs than me. They can't be better than me at everything. The world doesn't work that way. It's all yin yang. There's a balance. You've got skills and weak spots. School has always been super important to me, which is why I'm so hard on myself and compare myself to others. To me, it's a fact of life that you will be compared to others and on some level, you do need to compete with others and be better than them. Hello, job applications and interviews. But there are other ways than scholastically that you can be better than someone that will score you a job. Practical things like people skills and charisma and decency AKA not being a competitive jerk. It takes time to learn to change these things when you've grown up thinking that this is the way to do it and do well and get ahead. You can work on doing your best without looking at someone else and saying, "Oh, I have to be better than you." Instead of wanting to accomplish what someone else is doing, focus on the accomplishment and yourself, not that that person has it and you can't stand to be below someone else. Another thing that is so important to me (that I don't need to elaborate on--at least not in this post because I've written about it at length on here, I believe) that causes me to compare myself to others in this area is my relationship. I look to other relationships to gauge whether mine is a good one or not. We need standards, right? Right but they don't need to be in the form of other people. They can be in the form of VALUES and CHARACTERISTICS. Focus on you and your partners' values and characteristics to judge whether your relationship is good. I forget these things in the moment--in moments of panic--which makes sense because physiologically, when you panic, you're in stress/fight or flight mode where your body senses what is the emergency and focuses only on that and as quickly as possible, so my brain isn't ready to take time to sit here and think all of this out rationally. And of course, in moments like that, I'm not going to trust myself because I'm panicking. I won't know if the panic and anxiety is talking or my rational, intelligent intuition. Folks, I present to you the anxiety attack. As I'm writing this all out, everything feels so "duh," but it's so hard (LIKE I SAID) in the moment during anxiety. It really, really is, and I feel like I can never overstate how hard it is to do so. These reflections are so helpful for me to figure things out, which is one reason I wanted to start this blog--the other because (as I've said several times before) in case my epiphanies and thought processes and advice can help others. Finally, the main reason I came here to talk about my jealousy is babies. Having my own children one day is SO important to me. In fact, it is one of the main reasons I changed my career (which apparently is not a good reason to give if asked in a job interview so I need to dig deeper to be honest but give a better answer--food for thought for me and maybe someone else out there!). And pregnancy and birth are so important to me, too, not just after all that, so I get jealous when I hear wonderful, dreamy birth stories. Because I know things don't always go as planned, I think it adds to my jealousy even more. It's not like working my hardest will guarantee that I'll get what I want, and I do my best to plan generally for my dream birth so that I have a bigger chance of getting what I want and/or being completely satisfied. I want an orgasmic birth. As of right now, I am SO attracted to my boyfriend. It scares me sometimes because I'll read an article about relationships (I really need to stop doing that. It's comparing again, and I take it too seriously. I need to remember that it's okay not to take or agree with all advice you run into, even if you asked for it.), and the article will say for example that you're ready for marriage when you're past the stage of wanting to be naked all the time.): I still want to be naked around him all the time. That makes me feel like I'm in fake love or in lust instead and that as soon as that goes, I will not have feelings for him anymore because apparently that's all I have, but what I forget is that everyone is different. The author of that article--what he or she described might be true for a handful of people or a lot of people--maybe even MOST people--but it doesn't have to be true for everyone. It can be untrue for my boyfriend and me. I can want to be naked around him all the time and feel horny for him 23/6 (Yes, I do have unhorny moments. I'm surprised, too.) and still have true love or lasting love or real love or the right love or whatever you want to call it--love that can withstand a marriage and all that life can hand you and you're still in love with that person decades later. That is what I want, and I want it with my boyfriend. I think I have it, but you never know what the world holds, so I worry because having that kind of love with him is so important to me because I love him. Orgasmic birth--I want that. I heard a birth story through my favorite podcast (the only one I listen to but who cares? It's so good that it's the only one I listen to. I'll branch out later. The Pregnancy Podcast, I'm looking at you. I think that's what it's called. I will have to find out via my favorite podcast later.(-:) The Birth Hour about a woman whose second birth was an orgasmic birth. I love the way her whole labor started and progressed. THAT is what I want. At one of her last appointments, her midwife told her to go home, do something that I can't remember, have sex with her husband, and sleep. When she climaxed that night, it started her contractions, and she said she realized that orgasms and contractions feel the same when you let go of the fear of pain and surrender, so she was able to have and orgasm every contraction instead. She and her husband even made out and he stimulated her nipples while she was in labor. How hot is that??? I want to do that with my husband/boyfriend (whatever we are when we have kids) when I'm in labor. Horny, present me wants that. Maybe when I'm pregnant and/or in labor, I won't be horny, which will be sad.): So I'm totally jealous of that birth, and I follow the girl on Instagram, and she is so pretty. She has pretty boobs. I'm totally insecure about my boobs and think they can be better, so I compare my boobs to other girls, but I don't want a boob job, so there's not much I can do. I'm hoping if I ever seriously exercise, that'll make them nice with the mix of pregnancy making some women's boobs bigger. I don't want too much more, I don't think, just something fuller-looking. And the woman is an RN. I still miss the prospect of a medical field career. And she is SO knowledgeable about birth. I love birth SO much. I want to know that much about it. I just feel like this woman embodies a lot of what I want, but the work of doing it all overwhelms me and paralyzes me from doing the work (like most things that seem like an overwhelming amount of work to me--schoolwork, resume). My jealousy about her looks and her body stems from me being horny for my boyfriend all the time right now and liking to imagine our future and wanting him to want me this much forever. So I see people with features that are attractive to me and would make me feel attractive if I had them, and I get sad because I feel like not having those features makes me less attractive and like my boyfriend won't always want me the way I want him to because I don't have those attractive features, but that's attractive in my opinion. He's told me several times that he's attracted to me the way that I am, but for some reason (fear?), I can't help but worry about what if/one day, which is pointless to worry about because I will never, ever know. There will always be a one day that never comes and therefore, we never find out what one day holds. The same goes for what if. What if never ends. As soon as we reach it, we start all over with it again. I know I shouldn't worry about those things and trust him since it's his attraction I'm worried about, but I just feel those sucky feelings sometimes. I'm sure we all do. Maybe it never goes away. Maybe what matters is how we handle it. The best thing you can do is probably acknowledge it. Give yourself the freedom to feel it, and move on. Stifling feelings is never good because they only come back stronger when you finally do give in and let yourself feel. And my jealousy about people being knowledgeable is petty. I like to be the best, so I want to be the most knowledgeable about things that are most important to me (pregnancy, birth, and babies for example), and I want to be responsible for everyone's knowledge of the topics. LOL. It's ridiculous, but it's how I feel. Again, I need to acknowledge it. Let myself feel it freely and move on.): I don't want to feel it, though, because it makes me feel really shitty!!!!! But it's going to take work to honestly move on from it. I'm getting better with looks and labor jealousy, even GPA jealousy, but I still need to work on knowledge queen/king jealousy.(-:

I'm doing it again, and I'm coming here to stop it.

I'm comparing myself to others again--specifically love lives, which is my biggest insecurity because it's one of the most important things to me that I constantly feel like is out of my control. I really don't feel like anything is wrong with mine, but I feel like I have to prove it for it to be true, which I also don't think is true regardless of how it feels sometimes.

"...I want to share these dreams and desires

With someone that has dreams and desires..."

And this is where my insecurities resurfaced. I was brought back to my parents' worries that my boyfriend doesn't have enough drive and ambition to do anything with his life and eventually support me, himself, and our future children. I still hate when people ask me what my "boyfriend does" because I automatically fear that those people will think the same thing my parents used to think, and I automatically feel the need to defend him to them since he's not their to defend himself and I love him and care about him and he probably wouldn't know what to say anyway if he felt that somebody questioned his ability to support a family. I know that I worry too much. I'm probably doing that again right now, but I can't help but wonder, "If I feel like there's something for which I have to defend him, there must be something he's guilty of and it might be a real problem that I need to deal with now instead of later." I just made a BIG career change. Is this the season of changes for me including my relationship with him? I don't want it to be. 

On the other hand, I feel like I need to give both of us a break--myself a mental break and allow myself to enjoy myself without worrying about what other people think and him a break because if he ever knew I had these exact thoughts, he would be so hurt and insecure and incredibly insulted. From what he tells me, I and my parents are the only people who have faith in him. His own mother doesn't even seem to. In fact, in the past, he's told me about times his mother's terribly put him down. I worry all the time. I love him to death, and I'm so scared to make the wrong decision that I constantly worry that I'm being blinded by love to problems that need to be taken care of to combat my suspected blindness, I look for any sign of weakness as a possible problem.

But we are humans. I am human, and he is human. We are not perfect, and people's imperfections are different. One of his just happens to be apathy in high school and low self-esteem to imagine doing anything to prepare for a future right away out of high school. Now, he's not sure what the heck he wants to do as a career yet to be able to know which steps to follow to get there. And everyone at least acts understanding. I mean, he's not the only person to not know what he wants to do with his life and not follow the straightest life path, so why shouldn't he be understood? At the very least, he should be able to rely on having my understanding. And he does. But I'm nervous and scared because I love him so much that I'm so scared to lose him that I worry about every imperfection because I'm scared that it will be the one--the one problem that sets us off for destruction so to speak. And all of this--all this worry (once again as usual as burdensome as it is)--should be a sign that I should be okay because it all indicates positive answers to the questions my parents oh-so-wisely told me to ask myself when I worry about my relationship with my boyfriend.

Do you want to be with him?
Is the relationship hurting either of you?

For me, those two questions are all I need to assess the state of my relationship, and even during my hardest times, the answers have always been yes and no, respectively.

I need to find a way to acknowledge these worries and the love they indicate that I have for him but not let them run my life. I have been doing such a good job so far with it, but (as expected unfortunately) there are still hard days. I don't like those days. Maybe one day I will appreciate them, but for now, I don't because they make me sad and then feel guilty for doubting the very wonderful relationship that my boyfriend has helped me create because he is so awesome to me. I seriously really do love him. I'm not trying to convince myself or anyone else--for once.(;

Announcement and DOES MY HANDWRITING FONT WORK?

Update: I was able to see on a different computer that my custom font did not show up on all computers, so I reverted it back to the font I usually use for posts because I think Times New Roman is boring on my blog.

Update 2: I deleted the picture of my handwriting font because when it was big enough to see the font, it was too big for my blog and ran into my About Me section, and when it didn't run into my About Me section, you couldn't see the font anyway.

Hi, everyone! I’m going to ”write" my post like this today—as a screenshot of this Microsoft Word document to show off this cool thing I did tonight: Made my handwriting into a font! I hope to find a better website, though, so that I can have symbols such as a dash (two hyphens) because that dash between today and as is terrible. Also, to do quotation marks, I have to go to Insert and Symbols... because this is what comes up from the quotation marks key on my keyboard: ” “”””””””””””””””””” Do you see that bottom-y looking one? That’s what’s been coming up for my quotation marks, and as you might see, there are no close quotation marks. Also, I have to go to insert symbols for my apostrophe. My commas are a little big cut off the bottom. Other than that, it’s pretty freaking cool! I’ll put links to the website I used and templates I tried and indicate which one I had to use ultimately. I’ll have to do more research ultimately to fix the little issues I have that I mentioned above. I also want to make a font out of my cursive handwriting, but that will take some practice because having to separate each letter for the website to recognize it is hard to keep straight in my brain how I would write in cursive for a whole word when I’m forced to write it as a single letter. Side note: I’m hungry. Eat when you’re hungry. I need to find food now, which is so hard for me since I’m a picky eater.): Oh my gosh, typographical smileys are so cute in my handwriting.(; (: ): :3 ;* Hahaha. xD Them crazy eye wrinkles, though, in that xD face. :D I’m having too much fun looking at all these typographical smileys in my handwriting! There’s an actual legitimate reason for this post besides talking about turning my handwriting into a font. I usually come here to update y’all on my life, so here it goes because I have a BIG update for y’all! I decided that I don’t want to be a doctor anymore. I want to be a high school teacher.(: Let me walk you through my train of thought. First of all, I did decide to graduate with my Bachelor of Science in Biology. I still LOVE biology and studying medicine and the human body, so I don’t regret having gone the route I did and end up changing my mind to wanting to teach instead of doctor. My mom found a position at my local school board (same district of schools I attended before college) for a non-certified teaching position, meaning I can qualify without a teaching degree as long as I have ONE of the following qualifications: 1) passing the writing (AND or OR?) reading PRAXIS tests, 2) score of 22 or higher on ACT, or 3) score of 1030 or higher on SAT. I never took the SAT or PRAXIS, and I don’t plan on spending the extra money on it until/unless I have to do so. I took ACT in high school when I was preparing for college and made a 26, so I qualify just with that alone!!!(: I’m so excited! I just finished my finals yesterday (Tuesday), so I can continue my application soon!! I took a break today (Wednesday). I have an exit exam to take for the biology department at my college tomorrow (Thursday), another break Friday, and !!!!!GRADUATION!!!!! Saturday!!!! Thankfully, the exit exam tomorrow doesn’t count for anything. The department wants us to take it for statistical purposes. The only thing it really affects for us is that showing up to take it is a requirement to graduate, but other than that, there are no scores or anything that affect our grades or GPA or anything. Therefore, there is NO stress or pressure. You know what’s super cool about being done with school for my undergraduate degree? I don’t have to be in school again as a student with deadlines and papers and projects and due dates and tests and studying until I CHOOSE TO!!!! I want to eventually at least get some (yes, some (:) Master’s degrees because the school board for whom I want to work requires it for a student to get college credit in the class while in high school as dual enrollment. Therefore, it makes a teacher/job candidate more competitive and attractive to do so. I want a break from school for a while, but eventually, it would be super cool to do. I don’t even know if I want to do teaching forever. I am really excited about it, but if it’s true that you should find your passion and make money doing that for your career, then as of right now, I don’t think teaching will be or should be my career. Honestly, the only thing I can really think of that I am super passionate about is maybe two things. The first thing that comes to mind is writing—creative writing like this where I simply write about my feelings and opinions in the hopes that they help or inspire somebody. I can only think of a couple of ways to make money off that, and I don’t know how good of an income they make at least starting off until you land in the right place. I really just don’t know about it. Then, one of the ways I could think of making money off it doesn’t seem fair or right to me. Like, it seems like cheating because it would be too easy of a way while really not contributing much to society while expecting money. ANYWAY! Let me tell you the ways I can think of instead of being annoyingly super vague about it. The first way I can think of making money from creative writing is I don’t know what it’s called (freelance writing? Is that what this is?) but when people write for sites like Buzzfeed or Bustle or Thought Catalog. Like my bae Danielle Campoamour (I might be butchering her name and am currently too lazy to double check, sorry, bae.)):). Google her. Read some of her stuff. She freaking rocks! And she tweeted me recently! *insert heart-eye emoji* I love her and her writing. Her writing makes me think and empathize a lot. That’s really good, so I like that. It makes me like her and her writing even more. That way I think is an honest way of earning money for creative writing. The way that makes me uncomfortable is being paid to blog. I haven’t looked much into it, so maybe I have misconceptions about it. However, it seems to me like most of it is being sponsored/endorsed by companies trying to sell things, and that seems un-genuine to me. Like, you are being forced to say only positive things about products because you’re being PAID to do so. You have to. It would be okay-ish if it’s a product that you genuinely completely love, but it still seems lazy to me to make a living by writing positive reviews on a blog for companies you love. Or doing some weird thing where you pay to promote your blog on Twitter and odd things like that. It just seems lazy. Maybe I could possibly maybe look into the ”freelance writing" as I (maybe incorrectly) call it and have it as a side job until I might ”make it big" doing that. Still, I don’t know if I’d enjoy that being my only job. Maybe? I don’t know. Uh-oh, I think even as a full-time thing (at least for myself because I am my own worst critic, which is GOOD because it feels really good when someone important like a teacher or Dean of your college tells you that your work rocks the socks off of them after you’ve convinced yourself that your work was so bad that they’re going to change their mind about every good thing they’ve ever thought or written such as in a letter of recommendation about you or that they will not let you have your Honors award because your Honors thesis was that bad) it would be lazy.): Danielle Campoamour, write your opinions about that so that maybe I can be more open-minded! I don’t think you’re lazy! Probably because I’m only hard on myself. ANYWAY! Now, I have to back track to when I told y’all that I would tell you about how I came to my decision about switching from being a doctor to becoming a teacher. It was a Friday night around midnight. I had just gotten home from my night with my boyfriend. If I’ve never said it before, I’ll say it now: My boyfriend and I see each other once a week because of work and school (school will now literally become work for me if I get hired!!!!). He only gets two days off work per week anyway, and one is for himself because that’s only fair. Although, MAYBE now that I don’t have school, I can spend the last couple hours before my parent-set curfew (There’s some give when you still live with your parents at 21 years old free of charge.) with my boyfriend when he gets off work a couple times a week.(: Although, he might be too tired, but we like sleeping together anyway. WE’LL SEE. ANYWAY! Friday night at midnight—I was thinking. Honestly, I don’t even remember what specifically besides I might want to be a teacher instead of a doctor and that I was seriously, hardcore thinking about it at that moment. Therefore, I texted my mom: When you get home, wake me up. I have a question about medical school and doctor stuff.

My mom works night shifts as a nurse and was working that night, so I couldn’t just call her or walk up to her and talk to her about it. However, she must have had some free time at 1:38 in the morning in her relatively new department at the hospital (8- to 24-hour stay for non-emergent or non-critical patients) because she asked me what. So I told her and explained why. And here is the To the Moon Pigs and Back version of why. I’ve always loved the idea of teaching. I would sit in classes, even in middle and high school—even college—and once I understood whatever was being taught, especially if it were taught rather poorly in my opinion, and imagine how I would want to teach it to someone. Even when considering medicine, patient education was, like, literally my favorite part about being a doctor. I would even get super excited every time my siblings would come home and ask for my help (ESPECIALLY IN MATH!!!) with homework. There were even a couple times a family friend would call and ask me to help him with his stepson’s math homework. I always chalked it up to liking to help people and the ego boost of people thought I was so smart that they would ask me for help with schoolwork. Or I’d acknowledge that I liked teaching people but never thought it was to the extent to seriously consider teaching as a profession. There were two reasons that stopped me from pursuing teaching: 1) Money and 2) once I started college studying pre-medicine, what people would think if I switched from medicine to teaching (that I was wasting my time as a teaching student or that I wasn’t tough or strong enough to handle medicine). Both are not good reasons to not pursue a career. Money isn’t supposed to be everything, but until my mom graduated from nursing school the first time as an LPN (when I was in fifth grade or so), I grew up poor. As a kid, I didn’t notice it too much because all my grandparents and one set of my great-grandparents were around and really close to be able to help us and also because kids or kids and love toys and stuff and don’t know the difference between the dollar store and a decent Walmart toy and/or Walmart clothes and name-brand clothes. I didn’t feel any strain until middle school or high school, which wasn’t even when we were poor. I was simply (still) spoiled and wanted what I wanted and when I wanted it. I actually never felt the strain of being poor while we were. I can look back now and think, ”Oh my gosh, we had those crappy dollar store toys because we were poor, and you never bought me Limited Too clothes like my cousin had because we were poor." (Then, there were some things I didn’t get because we were poor that I am actually now thankful for, lol, like the Kool-Aid pack and Capri Sun pack purses with the fuzzy feather borders or Abercrombie clothes or the ugly sequin purses!!!!!) I never felt a strain with our money as a family or stressed about how my parents could afford things in general and then felt guilty when I would need gas money or money for anything else, especially for school, until I started my undergraduate degree in college. My mom went to nursing school again this time for her 4-year RN the spring semester of my junior year of high school and graduated the spring semester of my junior year of college. She actually ended up having to be in school for four-and-a-half or five years because of the way the nursing program there is, even when she was taking almost every summer semester until she entered her clinical years and only because there were no nursing classes offered during the summer semester. With two of us in college, even though most of mine was completely paid for by scholarships and grants (I am seriously so thankful because my eyes have been opened up to how rare that is. I’m seeing my little brother have to already take out loans in his second year of college. I didn’t even pay for Scantrons in college. It’s good to see that I made one of my college goals: Get through college without ever having to pay for a Scantron or Blue Book. I didn’t reach my college goal of graduating with a 4.0, but that’s a story for a different day because this post is already grossly long and I’m/y’all are lucky if I’m currently even halfway done with this post.) ANYWAY. I’ve felt the strain and stress of money for the past four years of my life, and I never want to have my kids feel that. Ever—even when they’re in college and if my kids are so close together that my husband (current boyfriend ((((;) and I are putting more than one of them through college at once. I’ve felt that strain, too—at one time, my parents were supporting four college students at once plus two or three extra people besides our immediate family at some points with only one income coming in because my mom’s nursing program and having a family to take care of was so demanding that she couldn’t work at all. She thought about it a couple times, and I’m so glad my dad and I were able to talk her down because she would have had a mental fucking break down. I think I had a premature one for her from IMAGINING her working while going to nursing school and taking care of our 7/8+ househole. So yes, I have SO felt the strain of money. Therefore, I always planned on going into one of the highest paying professions. That wasn’t my reason for choosing a high paying job originally when I did so in seventh grade. I don’t remember what my reason was then, but this is the reason that kept me sure I wanted to be a doctor while I was in college. Originally, I decided I wanted to be a lawyer to make a lot of money, but I thought that was boring and switched to anesthesiology. Then, I thought that that was boring, too, and was in doctor limbo. Sometime after my mom worked for OB/GYNs as an LPN, I decided that I wanted to be an OB/GYN. I thought that I genuinely wanted to be a doctor and not because of money because I had changed my mind based off my interests. But then, I decided there was more to medicine than teaching patients about their bodies and delivering babies. That is LITERALLY all I wanted to do as a doctor. The rest wasn’t worth what drew me in anymore: the hospital policies specifically surrounding labor and being on call sometimes to be able to deliver babies, which meant having to drop any other thing in my life for that, even my family, which is my number one priority. Even now while I don’t have kids, my family is more important to me than anything else: My parents, my siblings, and to an extent my boyfriend because we are still only boyfriend and girlfriend ): The to an extent my boyfriend part sounds terrible but it’s because regardless of how much I love him, my immediate family besides my adopted brother (again, I sound terrible) will always come before him. I love him so much, but because he is my boyfriend and not my immediate family, I know I will always be able to count on my immediate family more than him. He can leave me whenever he wants to, even if he won’t or says he won’t. My parents at the very least (because I’ve seen from my mom’s siblings how easily and fast and surprisingly and suddenly your siblings can turn on you or at the very least only go to you when they need something) will NEVER abandon me, and because of the way my siblings and I were raised, I have more faith that my siblings will never abandon me than I have faith that my boyfriend will never abandon me because as much as I trust him and love him, I saw when my dad cheated on my mom (They got a divorce but got re-married and are still together now for which I am so thankful because again, I’ve seen how rare that is.) that regardless of how much faith and love and trust you have in someone, they can still let you down BIG FREAKING TIME in a huge, hurtful way you could have never expected. So yes, I love my boyfriend, and he really is one of the most important things in my life, but he will always be second to my immediate family. Would I have missed school in college if he were hospitalized? Only if he were in critical condition and dying. If not, I would have arranged visiting him around my school schedule. Now that I’m working, how would I handle that? Probably better as in more willing to miss school if he were having even a non-emergent surgery. Emergency room trip for something like a broken bone not to the point of needing surgery? I still don’t know. I’d be hesitant to risk my job for that. But whatever—I’m attempting to convince y’all that I love him enough to have a lasting, healthy relationship and eventually marriage with him because they way I wrote that, which are my literal feelings, sounds so bad. It sounds so conditional when love like that is supposed to be unconditional. BUT it doesn’t matter what other people think, even y’all my loyal followers (however many of y’all there are if there even are any of y’all yet). I care about what y’all think to an extent. I’m willing to hear any of y’all out if y’all would have any concerns that my feelings are not consistent with a serious, marriage-bound relationship, but ultimately, only I know my true feelings to be able to make such a decision, and I am SO confident that our relationship is good enough for us to marry each other one day. I want to marry him and spend the rest of my life with him. I love him. I truly love him and am in love with him, which feels so good. He freaking rocks. I love him because he rocks, or does he rock because I love him????? I love him because he rocks...to me...in my opinion.(: Back to teaching because there is still a little bit left to say about it! My dream teaching job is to teach at my high school alma mater as lame as that sounds. My dad always said he thinks that a lot of people go into teaching to relive their glory days, because that’s the only place and time they felt important. I was scared for a little while that subconsciously I was choosing it for the same reason. My high school experience was better than my college experience in some ways. I wasn’t popular in high school in a preppy way and never want or wanted to be, but my intelligence was respected, and that felt awesome. I had a reputation for being a genius. That was the coolest thing! In college, I think I had a reputation like that maybe in the biology department because no one else had classes with me to know or with people I went to high school with because nobody else knew me. I still wasn’t popular in college and again, I don’t want to be nor never wanted to be. I do/did, however, miss out on my intelligence being respected throughout the whole college. A college campus is too big for everyone to know me unless I was in a sorority or student government, and I have and had absolutely no interest in either. I would have been going into those dishonestly with an ulterior motive to show off my intelligence, which is bad. Showing off and bragging are bad. But I’m confident that that is NOT why I want to be a teacher. I want to be a teacher because I genuinely love teaching people and think I could do a damn good job at it. High school, though—why else would I want to be a high school teacher if not to have a second chance to become popular, right??? Wrong (: Of course, I want my students to love me, even when I’m being my goofy self, but I didn’t choose high school for a chance at popularity. I chose high school because the material is actually challenging and stimulating. As much as I love little children, I don’t think teaching circles, squares, triangles, two plus two equals four, and how to spell tree and pronounce the word to would hold my interest very long. Maybe the point is to enjoy the babysitting and creativity. Or how am I supposed to enjoy having children and teaching them if I think that stuff is boring already? I think it will a) be different with my own kids and b) only be temporary! Not for the foreseeable future. Subjects? Do I want to teach science since I have a Bachelor of Science? Yes. But is that all? NO! I think my favorite would honestly be to teach algebra (minus graphing x.x). Definitely not geometry. Fuck you. It wasn’t too hard for me. I mean, it somewhat was, but I still made an A pretty easily in it in high school. I had to work harder at it, though, which made me dislike it. I don’t mind having to work at things, but I didn’t like how much I hard to work at geometry. It wasn’t an instantaneous click for me, and I so disliked that. I would also want to teach world history because my teacher in my college world history class made learning about world history so interesting! I need pointers from him how he learned these things since some of it was contrary to what I had been taught for so long because that is part of what made the class so cool to me—that it was contrary to what I learned and he concretely connected what happened then to our world now and why we should care. I want to do that for students one day before college because that is just the coolest thing to me, and I didn’t get it until my senior year of college because I waited until my senior year to take my freshman general requirements because I disliked history so much from grade school that I kept putting it off until I couldn’t any longer, but I’m glad I did wait for two reasons: 1) the break in between my difficult (and eventually boring) biology classes was nice and 2) I’m unsure if I would have appreciated all of the lessons then as I did now. As mature as I have always been, even during my freshman year of college, I think my brain was just in  a different place and not thinking seriously past what I had in front of me. Maybe that presence was good, but also, I think it was too much presence and not enough thinking past then or past myself because I was thinking about the future sometimes but not very big picture-y, just what I wanted to do with my life and not so much why or that I should care about more than what is going on in my bubble and how it affects me. Anyway, I would also be interested in teaching psychology or health. Healthy, especially, because I know sex education is lacking in public schools, and since I wanted to be an OB/GYN, that is my jam! In fact, my final exam that included male and female reproductive systems was my highest grade in that class, and I hadn’t even studied it much. My passion about safe sex and pregnancy is part of why I wanted to be an OB/GYN, so I think it would make me an excellent health teacher.(: I would even be interested in teaching environmental science, which is a slacker science class. A science class for people uninterested in science and need/want an easy A to complete their science requirement for their high school diploma. I would probably be the students’ least favorite teacher because I would take that class seriously. Or maybe they would like me because I’d teach it so well that they will learn it more easily??? We’ll see. And finally and most shockingly to those who know this about me, I would even be willing to teach English. The fact that I LOVE, LOVE, LOVE and am good at grammar makes it not surprising that I want to be an English teacher, but the fact that I made straight Cs in reading in middle school when it was separate from the grammar side of English and that the reading sections of ACT and MCAT were my lowest scores do make it surprising that I would want to be an English teacher because high school English teachers have to teach reading!!! Hahaha, and I’m not so quick with reading comprehension or the way it was taught to me in grade school BECAUSE when I finally took my literature elective in college, I fucking excelled at it!!! I put it off probably for the same reason I put off history: I disliked the subject in grade school and was dreading having to take it so put it off until I couldn’t anymore. But I did awesome in it and enjoyed it. What was different between the way I was taught in college and before? In college, it felt like my teachers would always give me the definition of a figurative language element (I’m literally a literal person and have trouble with figurative language, which is probably why I’m good with concrete subjects, such as grammar, algebra, and science.), have me read material, and make me pick out the figurative language and the meaning of it on my own whereas in college, my teacher taught me all of it! The definition, examples in the reading material and what it meant. Then, I think I was able to finally figure out the figurative language in a text on my own. It was so empowering, and I want to help students who might be like me see that it isn’t impossible to be good at reading, too. I always thought I was eternally doomed to be bad at reading comprehension because nobody is perfect and I was already good at almost every other subject. I guess my only obstacles between me and perfection now are singing and small boobs. That’s supposed to be a (funny) joke somewhat. Somewhat because it is actually true but also because those things aren’t what I should be concerned about. This is fifty-five freaking pages in Microsoft Word at 36-point font. I need to stop here and go to bed since I need to be up at seven for my last college task!!!! I might not post this whole thing as screenshots for y’all since it is (now) fifty-six freaking pages!! I’ll probably copy and paste it into Blogger and post it normally and change my blog title to a JPEG header with my font for the title and tell y’all to check it out to show y’all how cool it is to turn my handwriting into a font, or I might do that AND or OR (and do the header later) make some sort of JPEG signature for my posts with my handwriting font.(: I don’t know if I want to use this handwriting font as my header because it looks like chalkboard/kindergarten writing more than it looks pretty.): I knew I had kindergarten handwriting-ish handwriting but not to the point that it would look ugly.): People always tell me that my handwriting is pretty, and I agree, but it’s not looking pretty enough as a font to be a pretty header image. >.> Ugh. We’ll see. Whatever-ish.

Comparing myself to others and feeling less special

I like to post my stories about overcoming problems and how I did it in hopes of helping people going through similar problems. Usually, I post about these things AFTER I’ve figured them out for the most part. I say for the most part because many problems aren’t one and done. Even after you’ve figured out how to solve them, some problems take work every single day maybe for the rest of your life; therefore, you will still have bad days sometimes. That doesn’t mean you’re back at square one, though. Use your coping techniques to cope with your hard day, and find mantras that help you. Repeat those to yourselves on those days, especially.

My point in bringing up all of this is that today I’m going to post about a problem I’m dealing with at the moment. I don’t think I’ve made as much progress of this problem like I have my relationship anxiety, but since I want to be as real and relatable as possible and since writing it out helps, I figured I’d kill two birds with one stone and talk about my problem now—use this as an online diary. The problem I’m going to be talking about today is comparing myself to others and feeling like someone who is just like me makes me less special.

My boyfriend has a friend who is engaged, and his fiancée is gorgeous and smart—like, really, really smart. She’s graduating with a four-year degree for physical training, so she’s taking many physics and biology classes—both of which I’ve taken. She even used to be a chemistry major. I love chemistry! I took college chemistry classes. Our boyfriends are skater/druggy types. I hate to be so stereotypical and almost degrading, but that’s who they were in high school, and even though my boyfriend doesn’t smoke anymore, he’s still got that outside appearance of one. And the girl and I are kind of that style, too. So we’re both these punk chicks who know this mind-bending science really well in a blow-your-mind-I-didn’t-know-you-were-that-smart kind of way. I love my science, and I love knowing such a complicated science so well. And I love not looking like your typical braniac. I like being a science nerd but still look like the punk rock/grunge kid I was in high school. I prided myself in it in a way. I thought it made me special, unique, one-of-a-kind, and now, this girl comes in, and she seems just. Like. Me. Now, I no longer feel special. I mean, to be special, you have to be different. If there are people like me, I’m not so different, right? Someone who knows her before me might be so amazed and blown away by how much she knows and that she’s so alternative and cool. Then, they meet me, and they’re not so impressed. I’m old news—nothing special. Like, wtf??

Well, I’ve been re-battling with this for a few days now. Re- because I felt this way before about her and had to unfollow her to stop making myself feel so bad about not being unique and special anymore. Now, I’m starting to realize that it doesn’t matter if other people think I’m cool, unique, or special. The fact that I’m me makes me special enough. There’s so much more to me than those two things that make me like nobody else. Likewise, there’s so much more to her as well. We’re not just two alt girls who love science. So there’s a lot that make us unique, and we don’t need other people’s opinions to validate that for us.

It’s really hard not to care what people think about you. Every time I convince myself that I don’t care what others think of me, I find myself worrying what others think of me. In a way, I don’t care what others think of me. Like, I’m confident in myself and who I am. I like who I am. I love who I am. I think I’m, like, the coolest person ever! You know how when you’re looking for friends, you look for people who like what you like? Well, guess what? Who else likes everything you like besides you? Probably no one! Therefore, you should be your favorite person for that reason! Does that make sense? For example, say your favorite things ever are A, B, C, D, and E. You want to look for a friend who likes those things, too. You found one who likes three of them, another who likes three also but three different ones from the first person. You found several people who like at least one of those things you like, but you know who checks off every thing you look for in a friend? YOU! Therefore, that’s my lecture about why you should be your favorite person and why I’m my own. So yes, I’m confident in myself in that sense, but like many other people, I want people to like me or at least be amazed by me and my love for science since not a lot of people know as much about science as I do. Like, I think that makes me really cool. I’m so proud of it, and I want others to acknowledge how amazing the thing I’m most proud of is. So I feel threatened by this girl. I’m not going to lie! She’s pretty. She’s active. She eats healthy for cheap. People look up to her for advice on their bodies. And she goes to school for hard-ass science, and she seems to have it all together and doesn’t worry and stuff. She wants to be a student for life if she could get paid for it. Ugh, that sounds to me like someone who has their shit together and doesn’t get stressed by school. I love my subjects, and I love learning. However, I hate deadlines, especially for papers. She even presented research like I do! Like, ugh, it feels like there’s nothing she can’t do, and the things that she seems to be able to do reminds me of everything I’m slacking in: How I feel overwhelmed and like I have too much to do, so I’m falling behind, but I made a commitment, and I’m so close to the end, so I have to squeeze it all together in, like, two weeks. Like, it’s fucking crazy. I’m overwhelmed. I know it’s all my fault, but it doesn’t make me feel any better. Like, yes, I can fix it, but it’s going to suck ass. I’m going to feel less like I can breathe. I have five more weeks of this. I feel like I’m going insane. I’m so annoyed and aggravated. I want to be able to balance school and free time well. I want to enjoy myself, and I can’t it feels like.

Yes, y'all, I have issues, which is why take medicine for anxiety and depression.

I think a good thing to remember, though, is just like a quote I read that said, "Another woman's beauty is not the absence of your own," another person's alt-girl-and-science-girl-ness is not the absence of your own. I mean, that quote can be said about anything you're comparing yourself to another person over, and it's still true. Just because I feel like another girl has my style and is a science brainiac doesn't mean I'm any less of one. I'm still super cool and special, and she is, too. That's really hard to remember sometimes, though. It really is. It doesn't make it any less true, though.