Courage and Unconditional Love

It takes courage to be yourself. 

It takes courage to wake up in the morning and choose to expose yourself to hurtful judgement.

It takes courage to stand up for yourself in the face of adversity.

It takes courage to defend your beliefs. 

It takes courage to admit that you may have been wrong.

It takes courage to apologize.

It takes courage to share your secrets.

It takes courage to be kind to people who have been unkind to you.

Life takes courage.

So why do we discourage one another?

Sure, there are bad people in the world. But there are also a whole lot of good ones. There are INFINITELY more people in the world trying to do and encourage good than there are people doing and encouraging bad. 

So why is is that we are often unkind to those who are doing the best that they can in a different way than we are? If we are all doing our very best, the only thing that we should be doing to one another is encouraging. 

I have been fortunate enough to be surrounded by people who love and accept me even though I choose not to participate in something that they hold very close to their hearts. Absolutely the people who love me enough to let me make my own choices and mistakes encourage me to participate in the things that make them happy. I do the exact same thing! I happen to really love red lipstick, Crayola crayons, and snuggling, so I encourage the people I love to try those things because they make me so happy. But if the people I love choose not to, that's okay too. 

Love is something that is, in my opinion, unconditional. That has been my experience, anyway. And just like I said before, I'm lucky enough to be surrounded by people who love and accept me even though we don't share the same beliefs.

Courage and unconditional love are the main ideas behind this blog post which is why I'm about to share something with the internet. I hope that I'll be met with respect and unconditional love, but I know that that may not be the case. 

I'm bisexual. 

Let me explain that a little further. I am attracted to both men and women. This doesn't mean that I'm attracted to any of my female friends. This just means that I don't look at a person's gender when I'm looking at a potential relationship. 

I hope that you all understand that I am literally the exact same person that I was the last time I talked to each one of you. I understand that this is hard news for a lot of people to swallow. I understand that a blog post may be viewed as the best medium for coming out to a very large group of strongly opinionated but lovely internet people. 

But I also hope that you all understand that coming out is as hard and scary for the person coming out as it is for the person that is having someone come out to them. 

I hope that the courage that it took me to share something intimate about myself with you encourages you to be a little more accepting of those who you may not understand or agree with. 

Being yourself takes courage. And I hope that you can have the courage to be yourself as well.

If you have any questions or comments, feel free to email me at my email address which you can find by clicking here. 

You can also contact me on Facebook or on my cell phone at (480) 356-2121.

Be kind to one another. I love you all.

Becoming a Functioning Adult: Even More Difficult Than It Sounds

I have been in college for 92 days. Never mind the fact that I just had to stop and count actual individual days instead of just adding the number of days in each month since I got here. That is irrelevant. What is relevant is that in the 92 days that I have been living in the absolutely lovely mountain town of Flagstaff, Arizona and going to NAU (GO JACKS), I have learned a number of things. 

This isn't what the uni's sign looks like right now. But it will be soon!

Below, I will provide you a comprehensive list of important things to know about going to college.

• If you do not own good headphones, BUY SOME. Sometimes it's nice to just plug in to some mindless music and avoid responsibility for a few hours.
• Promising yourself that you will do your homework later is not a good idea. You think you're feeling unmotivated now? You just wait until 3 hours later when you've woken up from a nap in the one patch of sunlight on the floor in your room. THEN you will feel what real lack of motivation is.
• Keeping your room clean is a whole lot easier to do when you're living with someone who doesn't know that nearly every day at home your mom would say to you "You live like a homeless person, PLEASE clean your room."
• Living in a 12x19 box isn't going to be the best thing that's ever happened to you, especially if you have incredibly loud, inconsiderate neighbors like we do. THANKS GUYS

This is our room at night. It's kinda nice with the Christmas lights. Also S/O to sleeping Lindsey in her bed because she has lab at 7am tomorrow. Poor girl.

• Your roommate is going to be the person who listens to you when you cry about the silliest, most trivial things. Be nice to her. She will quickly learn all of your secrets. 
• Having a random roommate just might be the best thing that could have happened to you. I know that this is not always the case, but my roommate and I have become close friends and living together has becomes more of a blessing and less of a chore every day.
• Money gets spent quickly. Only buy the things that you NEED and give yourself a monthly fun budget. Don't be me and end up with $6.50 in your bank account halfway through the semester. 
• Long distance friendships are hard. But it's true that distance makes the heart grow fonder.I have grown to love my best friend even more than I did before we both left for college, and I didn't think  that that was possible. The important thing is that you communicate your needs to one another and understand that you both need to lead your own lives and talk when you both have time. Truly great friendships don't just fall apart because you're not texting 24/7. 
  
  Heaven knows I wouldn't survive without this girl.

• GO TO YOUR CLASSES. Like really. Just because attendance doesn't count for points doesn't mean you shouldn't go.
• Be kind to everyone. Just like in the rest of life, everyone is going through crap. You never know what is going on in the life of the girl who just pushed you out of the way to get on the bus. Assume the best of people and that is what you will usually find.
• There's nothing like my mother's cooking. University food gets real old real fast.

Above all else, I have learned that it is so so important to put yourself first. Over the past few weeks especially, a very special friend of mine has helped me to recognize the importance of helping myself before I help others. I have learned to love spending time with myself. I have learned that before I can do anything for anyone else, I have to make sure that I am taken care of.

Bottom line, college is an experience. And it's an experience that I think everyone should have.

Be nice to each other. We need more of that in the world.