Samson

From the point I was twelve years old until I was 16 I was in relationships. I was rarely  single during that time; at most I was single for a month. It sounds ridiculous and it is. That’s not how life is supposed to go. Romance is supposed to come in high school and college, not carry you through your formative years. You’re supposed to develop as a person, not as a couple.

I failed that class.

I grew up learning that to be valuable I had to be with a man. I assigned my value as a person to who I was with and what they did and what we did as a couple.  I was never Taylor. I was Taylor and (insert name) or (blank)’s girlfriend, never just me. So after my last run in with the laws of love I decided to respond with a law of Physics: The Law of Action and Reaction. If you push me, I’ll push you back just as hard. I took on a fast; a fasting of the heart. I decided to take one year of being single. A whole year dedicated to just being me and living my life without the interference of boys. My first few months were difficult. I almost gave up on it, but when I wasn’t following my fast I realized I felt like shit. When I was following my fast I felt a lot better about myself. I broke down into tears often, I struggled with my identity, and I didn’t feel right. I felt heartbroken and angry and resentful. I didn’t know who I was and standing naked before the world was frightening. It was more frightening than writing this blog or facing the truth that I had fallen apart. So after 2 months of struggle and debating, I dedicated myself “fully” to the cause or idea of being single for an entire year.

It was a conscious decision to be single for a year. It sounds stupid, but I had a few people I wouldn’t have minded dating, and I almost did date some of them. By some I mean one. The one guy I had consistently been interested in; I was more interested in him than my boyfriend-to-be in the months before Matt and I. And for the first time in the 3 years we had known each other, I was single. He was single. Shit was going to go down.

Shit did go down. But not in the way I anticipated or wanted. We ended up struggling to be friends. We argued a lot, stopped talking, yelled, cried, basically every facet of emotion available. Eventually I realized that losing him as a friend wasn’t worth it to me. The security of being wanted mattered less to me than having him as my best friend. This was the first time in my life I made that choice: friendship over love.

December came on quickly and my resolve was beginning to wear thin. I was tired of being lonely; watching all of my friends fall in and out of love, cute couples at the mall. Most of my single friends laughed at me. I had only been single for 6 months; most of them had been single their entire lives. In my reality 6 months felt like an eternity. I was at a football game with my friends when it hit me…I didn’t want to live like this. I didn’t want to have to force myself to not want a relationship. I realized that wanting a relationship was a good thing, but I needed to want it for the right reasons. My wavering dedication to my “cause” evaporated. I was resolute. I was going to make it one year without falling in love or having a boyfriend, and I was going to find myself in the process. It wasn’t an easy process. As I had learned so much about myself in relationships, I learned infinitely more about myself when I was outside of one.

I don’t need to narrate to you every instance of turning down an opportunity to “get with” someone. There were a few, but not that many. I began to focus on myself. I worked on gaining real confidence, not arrogance. I started to read books I wanted to read, meditate, and go to yoga. I worked out, ate healthy, and I began to form stronger bonds with my friends than I ever had. My life began to turn up. When I wasn’t dedicating myself to someone else I discovered I could do many more productive things. I began to realize that this woman I was becoming was someone worthwhile, someone valuable, and someone I shouldn’t have ignored for such a long time. I realized that discovering yourself is the most important thing you can do before you fall in love. You can’t be in love if you don’t know yourself and I spent years being ignorant of who I was. I assigned who I was to the people around me: my boyfriends, and not to the person looking back at me at the end of the day: myself.

I realized that there was more to my future than becoming a wife and mother. There was college, a career, adventures, life, and so much more. I realized I could discover all of these amazing things by myself, and that that was okay.

On the 8 month marker of the end of my relationship and the eighth month of my romantic fast I walked along the beach Matt and I had spent much of our time together on. In the previous months I had felt sadness, anger, and resentment whenever I went there. And yet, as I stood there, 8 months later I just felt pity. I felt pity for Matt. I finally overcame the hurdle and genuinely felt sorry for him. Not in the “he lost me” way, but I had seen where he had come from. His controlling father and the pressure to achieve drove him rather than his own want to succeed. For that, I felt great pity. On that day, 8 months later, I finally got over him. I got over what happened. I was finally able to set my anger and sorrow aside, and officially move along with my life. From that day on life has changed. Everything has changed. I can’t describe the feeling of being happy with one’s self. I am genuinely content to be who I am and I’m proud of who I am. I love knowing that no matter what happens, I will be able to move onward and that life will take care of itself. My only obligation is to live life and to live life happily, or at least try to.

The four months between then and now have passed rapidly. I’ve graduated form high school, I know where I’m going to college, I’ve met new people, and I have become a new person. Over this year I have realized that life moves so quickly and that it’s waste to spend any of it waiting for someone to tell you who are because you’re the only person who really knows.

This past year taught me more about myself, and my life than I could have ever imagined. I learned to be happy in my own skin and confident in what I was saying. I faced my fears: not only of heights and the dark, but also my fears about myself. I have come to the realization that life can be just as fulfilling alone as it can be with a companion. I feel lucky to have had this experience, even though it was scary and hard and confusing at times.  I stand on the beach I did one year ago. The water is the same beautiful shade of blue, the sand still cushions my feet and drips between my toes. The rain clouds are just as grey and the fog is just as thick, but everything is new. Everything is different. These are not the same blankets or fog or drizzling clouds. This sand is not the sand I stepped upon a year ago. The water, though the same glassy blue, is not the same. It extends to a new horizon, one I could not have even imagined reaching 365 days ago. The world is new, everyday, every hour…and so am I. 

Sweet Disposition

I co-wrote this with my friend Alyssa. She was recently broken up with so this little piece is tinted by a bit of bitterness haha. Enjoy!

I’m just going to get right into this one. There isn’t really anyway to say this: getting engaged at 18 is not a good idea. I will come back to this point in a bit. Relationships ebb and flow, people change, life moves on; you will not be the person you are now in 20 years and if you are I feel sorry for you. I was in the car with my friend Katie discussing love: why we “fell” in love, what love is, what chemicals are released, and how love drives women off the deep end (it totally does).

50 years ago Katie and I would be engaged (not to each other for obvious reasons). We wouldn’t be going to college; we would be preparing to have children. 100 years ago we would have been married by now, having ha done or two children. 500 years ago we would have 4 or more children by this point, we would be half way through our lifespan. Mid-life crisis in the 1500’s was at the ripe age of 18. What joy.

The human body has not changed much over the past 500 years; our brains release the same chemicals. Sure, we live longer, better, and ultimately healthier lives, but how we fall in love and the process by which we are able to have children has not changed and probably will not change unless by some evolutionary leap the powers that be decide a period and endorphins are no longer necessary (I’ve wished for this day and it has yet to come. I’ll keep hoping).

So. Here we are, women of the 21^st century! We vote! We go to school! We run companies; empires! Yet we fall in love at the age of 15. Our body tells us to have children when we are not even a quarter done with our lives. We make life-impacting decisions when we know so little about our selves and the world around us. We have come so far, and yet our vice has not changed over a millennia. We women love men. A process occurs that we have no control over that dictates how our life will move. We can fight it and many women have tried, however most have failed. We will always fall in love. We will always want to have sex, feel love, acceptance, and a place.

Now some people will disagree with me and argue that their value comes from a place deep rooted inside of themselves. To them I say brava. But nothing, nothing in the world, matches the intensity of being in love. Being in love is simultaneously the most frightening and yet most beautiful feeling in the world. Love makes or breaks you. It determines whether today is a good day or a bad day. Love can control you, and often times it does. Now. Take that feeling of being crazy in love and put it in a seventeen year old girl. She has roughly 73 years left in her life. 75 years. 7 decades, 75 graduating classes; unfathomable advancements in technology, medicine, science, literature, music…every single aspect of our society will change. Now, not only is our society rapidly changing, but life is moving. We’re learning new things about ourselves. Our tastes change, we enter the real world. Life moves us rapidly forward.  

When I was 10 I knew I wanted to be an archeologist, when I was 13 I wanted to be a journalist, when I was 15 I wanted to be an anthropologist, 16 a writer, and then in the time I’ve been seventeen it has morphed from activist to politician to humanitarian to writer to motivational speaker to pretty much every single career idea in the world.

When I was 14 I believed in God and Conservatism. At 17 I now believe in neither.

When I was 13 I thought I had met the boy I wanted to marry and be with for the rest of my life. When I was 16 I fell in love a second time and I was REALLY sure this time that this young man was the man I wanted to spend the rest of my life with…We broke up 8 months later.

Planning your future, when we have lived so little life, seems foolish. You will change, what you want will change. Maybe you’re one of the few couples that grow together, but most couples grow apart. Being “engaged” on Facebook doesn’t make you and adult. You’re 17. You can’t get married. You don’t even live on your own yet. Changing from engaged to In a relationship to It’s complicated in the matter of a week and then talking about buying a house together doesn’t make you a “normal couple who fights” it makes you children. Professing your love through statuses, wall posts, and cute little videos doesn’t make you in love. Being together for 3 months doesn’t make you soulmates who have weathered many trials. Life will fuck you over, hard and it isn’t fun.

I’m sure those who are reading this who do want to get married to their high school sweethearts are affronted. I get it. It would have pissed me off if someone told me Matt and I wouldn’t be together for forever, but we weren’t and more than likely neither will you. Getting married won’t keep him around and it won’t make your life better. Marriage is hard and complicated and scary. Planning your future is totally awesome and fun, but don’t fall too heavily into the illusion. Look at what being in love means. Being in love isn’t arguing all the time and being married one second and broken up the next. If you break up more than 3 times it’s over. Don’t try it. Don’t make it work. It won’t. You’re young and you have the entire world at your feet and you’re willing to throw it away for someone who you can’t even keep level with. I wish someone had sat me down and bitch slapped me silly before I got so far in with the boys I have dated in the past. Love distorts reality and makes you do things your normally wouldn’t do. Keep a level head. Look at things objectively. Life is too long to spend it with the first boy you kiss, but too short to make the same mistakes over and over again.

I’m sure I’ve offended some of you and I apologize for that, but please wake up. The boy you’ve been dating for 3 months won’t be the only boy you date. You probably won’t love him forever and ever. He probably won’t love you either. It’s hard to hear but it’s life. It hurts and it’s scary, but it’s the truth.

Peace Out,

Taylor

Never Say Never

Well...First off: I now have a facebook page for all the people that actually read this blog. It's great :) . Like it on Facebook!Also I've noticed that people who aren't my friends on facebook are sharing my blog posts! AND THAT MAKES ME FEEL RIDICULOUSLY AWESOME!! So thanks guys :)

Anyways, with the shameless self-promotion out of the way we can get down to the nitty gritty. I have the wonderful feeling that my writer's block is finally over! Yay! *cough* But today's blog post is going to be one of those deep dark intimate fears type posts. So brace yourself. 

There are some things we never talk about. As a society we tend to avoid certain topics, or we tend to not to want to talk about them when they are presented to us. One of these topics happens to be mental disorders; mental disorders such as bipolar disorder, depression, and anxiety (to name a few prominent ones). The reason I'm writing this is because a friend of mine was recently diagnosed with depression. Her parents think it's just a "phase" she's going through, they think there's something inherently wrong or perverse with her condition, as though she's making it up. Her choice to take medication and seek therapy is viewed as weakness by her family, and as a society we tend to see these disorders as taboo. Going to a therapist means you're crazy, taking "meds" insinuates that you would be locked up in a looney bin otherwise, and these things are inherently untrue. 

I have been seeing a therapist on and off for 5 years, but more consistently over the last two. By consistently I mean every other week/every week. It isn't because I'm "messed up" or "broken". I see my therapist because it's nice being able to go to someone and work out all the little road bumps in your life. I'm a 17 year old girl and at times life can be awfully overwhelming. Going to college, boys, friends, my ever fluctuating hormones and emotions make life seem more complex than it really is. I started seeing my therapist consistently when I went through my anxiety-filled, nauseating relationship with Matt. Yes...there's a blog for that too! (Get It Right) And since that time I have been going very consistently. I have come to the realization that I can't figure out everything on my own and I shouldn't have to. It shouldn't be "bad" for me to talk to someone. It shouldn't be "wrong" for someone to struggle with depression or bipolar disorder or anxiety. These things aren't caused by wanting them to happen or faking it, these disorders are chemical, not personal. 

So back to my friend, she's really struggling with her depression. The fact that her family doesn't support her isn't helping things either. It's making it worse. She feels alone and scared and absolutely out of control of her life, and she doesn't feel like there's anybody for her to hold to. She shouldn't have to feel that way. Her family should be supporting her 150%, and showing her the love she deserves. Her disorder doesn't make her any different or a different person. It isn't her fault. It's nobody's fault and that's what gets to me. It gets to me that people seem to think that depression is a choice, that these can people can just "make themselves" happy, or snap out of it. And those suffer from depression seem to think that they're alone, and they aren't. Most people suffer some form of depression; it's normal. 

Being depressed or bipolar or having anxiety doesn't make you a social leper. It doesn't make you any less valuable or wanted. It jsut means your chemicals react differently and that's okay. You haven't done anything wrong, you aren't broken I can promise you that. Some people may argue that having a chemical imbalance is something "wrong" and you know being depressed isn't the best thing, but it doesn't define who you are. The person you are isn't bad, it's just you and your depression, bipolar disorder, and anxiety don't define you, even if you may feel that it does. 

I suffer from anxiety. I can keep it under control most of the time but sometimes I spiral into these anxiety filled holes where I feel like my anxiety controls my life. Sometimes I feel that it drowns me and takes me captive and that there's no way out of it, and that's not the truth. My anxiety is a flaw and it's something I deal with, but it isn't who I am. I am a perfectly normal person and I am proud of who I am. My anxiety could rule ym life if I let it but I can't do that, and neither can you. I can't turn my anxiety on and off, I can't just make it go away or fix it, but I can try my best to make it easier. I can go to therapy and work on ways to calm myself down. I can be who I am and do the things that scare me because I am more than my anxiety. You are more than your depression, bipolar disorder, or anxiety. You are a person, a normal person who deals with a normal problem and no matter what people say you aren't broken. There's nothing wrong with you because almost everyone goes through it, you're just aware of it. 

When I first started uncovering my anxiety (because identifying it is kind of a step.) I felt so worthless and broken and fucked up, to say the least, and my dad told me one thing. He told me that being selfaware is the most important aspect of becoming who you are. So many people walk through life being completely blind to themselves. They live this half full life, never knowing why they don't feel right because they're too scared to admit anything is wrong or that they might not be as happy as everyone else. And that's not good, denying your disorder only lends it more control over your life. It sounds weird, but admitting to yourself is the most freeing experience if you let it be.  

There's support out there for people struggling with any mental disorder, please reach out to it especially if you're hitting a particularly low point. Life is beautiful, even if it doesn't feel like it. I promise. 

I hope someone reads this blog and leaves feeling a bit more hopeful and a bit more accepted. Obviously disorders can't be sumemd up in a thousand words and these aren't supposed to be a cure or have weird healing powers. I just hope that they are a reminder that you are who you are, you aren't you disorder. 

And most of all...I love you. And I'm not the only one. 

Scheiße

So. Something made me upset today. I was driving to Barnes and Noble and I see this girl on the corner walking to her car. I am not a particularly observant person, but this young woman caught my eye, and the eyes of every single person who drove past. Her hair was bleached to a white blond, her legs spray tanned to a dark brown. Her shorts were nonexistent and her shirt was easily 4 sizes too small. By all of societies standards this young woman is what we would call “hot”. Her shirt was a “hooters” shirt, leading me to the assumption that she probably worked there as a waitress. And this upset me. The morbidly obese men breaking their necks as they sped past, the looks that the women in the car next to me gave her made me upset. This young woman would be branded by society as a slut or whore by society by the way she dressed and where she worked.

            Places like “Hooters” are upsetting to me as a woman because they reduce women to their lowest common denominator: skanky clothes, stupid games, serving old men and horny college students mediocre food and booze. These waitresses serve the express purpose of exciting men they make themselves sexual objects rather than people. Watching her walk by I suddenly had a large amount of respect for the tacky ties at Tahoe Joes.  I mean seriously? What allure does this resterraunt have besides its waitresses?

            In the deep recesses of the “Hooters Handbook” there lies 4 statements that the female workers at Hooters must affirm. Among them I found this gem:

The Hooters concept is based on female sex appeal and the work environment is one in which joking and entertaining conversations are commonplace.

Lovely…I’m so glad that we have places like this; places where the entire structure is based upon female sex appeal. It’s degrading. Some people may argue that these young women are “embracing their sexual power as women.”

Well I’m calling bullshit. The entire concept of the restaurant is based around making women into sex objects. Now, some people may see no problem in this and that’s fucking terrible. People are free to do what they please, yes, and some women probably enjoy their jobs as being disposable, minimum wage pin-ups. However, some women like me find it offensive. Some people find the concept degrading and stupid. A woman’s body is not only something to be admired, but respected and it’s irritating as shit to watch young women just throw it out the door. Decades of work by feminists to make women MORE than just a sexual object is thrown out the door in mere seconds by Hooters, by Girls Gone Wild, by Playboy.

These institutions and companies set women back decades. They argue that these are new, highly sexualized times, and that they are encouraging women to embrace their bodies. No. You aren’t. You’re encouraging women to look like pornstars, to please you, to receive little to no sexual satisfaction. You’re encouraging women to become nothing but a body. Playboy says their shoots are “classy”, because a woman posing for a magazine geared towards male satisfaction is classy. A woman putting silicone in her breasts, collagen in her lips, and dousing her hair in hydrogen peroxide until it’s stiff is classy? A woman bearing her body for the world because “Heff suggested it”? That’s what passes for class nowadays? Audrey Hepburn and Jackie O must be rolling in their graves.

Young women now look up to models like Miranda Kerr, Playboy bunnies like Holly Madison, and reality TV show stars like JWoww and Snookie. Women of my generation have forgotten the likes of Eleanor Roosevelt and Betty Friedan, little to none even know who Simone de Beauvior is, and that’s sad. It’s sad that young women look to those who shove us back into the kitchen instead of those who battled and still are fighting to give us the rights and recognition we deserve. Women have forgotten how we got to where we are. We have forgotten how long it took us to earn the right to vote, to equal pay, the right to divorce, and the right to own our bodies.

            Now, I’m not saying that sex is bad or that men are the devil. I am not advocating no distinctions between genders, I am simply asking women to LOOK at themselves and ask themselves what they’re doing with their bodies; for their pleasure or for the pleasure of others? Some, I’m afraid, will see no difference between the two. 

Solitude

My first blog post in a while. Sorry for the delay guys…Life gets kind of crazy/my writer’s block just sucks. 

You know breaking up is hard. It’s difficult losing that one person. Sometimes it’s a mutual thing, other times it comes as a complete surprise. Sometimes it is painless and quick, other times the loneliness and anger haunt you for a very long time, but what I’ve discovered is the worst is the moment when all of that anger and sorrow falls away and you have nothing left to take away from that experience. I have discovered that it is easier to hold on to that event as some sort of turning point in your life because it means you can look back whenever you want to without feeling guilty. I am writing this blog because I am finally naked in front of the mirror. The wounds have healed, the scars have faded, and now it’s just me.

I miss the anger sometimes. I miss being able to wrap myself up in this cocoon of rage and pain because it kept others at arms length. It meant I wouldn’t have to deal with people and I had an excuse to curl up in bed and cry. I miss being able to reflect on what happened and still have unanswered questions because answering those questions hurt. I miss the sorrow because at least I knew it was coming. I miss being consistently able to blame my problems, my anxiety, and my fear on one event. I used it to define me and as a social identifier. It was my façade.

Today it just fell apart. I don’t know whether it was the laughter with friends and the realization that my life was about to change or finding the shoebox I threw all of the memories into and not feeling anything, not even sorrow. And it made me cry. It made me cry to realize that this huge event, this painful, terrible, life-changing event had taught me all that it could and now there were new lessons to be learned. I guess it kind of goes along with this theme of change and motion and new things. My life as I know it is ending. I am graduated from high school, moving onto college. I am officially forfeiting my childhood and entering the transition to adulthood.

I guess my break up was the final thing to let go of. I had let go of everything but this one singular moment in time. It was an important moment in time, but now it is time to set it in the box of memories and lock the lid. It’s time to move onward. The past is what it is and all that I can take away from it is knowledge and the assurance that I can survive. I think that’s all anyone can take away from the past. And I think it’s all anyone can wish to gain in the future. Knowledge in the past, joy in the future, but in the present there is only hope; only the hope that tomorrow will be a new beginning and the knowledge that it can be anything we wish it to be.