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| Over the past few weeks, I've learned some really valuable lessons; some of them I know will be applicable for the rest of my life, while others are probably a bit less lasting and much more for contemporary sakes.
Of all the years I've inhabited this world, I've had a lot of people come and go in my life - though for the most part, it's them 'coming' and not 'going.' As long as I can do something about it, I usually don't let my loved ones out of my life so easily. :]
I've come to understand what an amazing idea friendship really is. I read somewhere, "A friend is one that knows you and loves you just the same." I concur, wholeheartedly.
Friends make my life so much richer and fuller - they add that extra oomph where I need it. :] I am who I am because of my friends; my family taught me what to believe, but my friends helped me to understand why I believe it. The most beautiful facet of friendship is love - as is the case in so many aspects of life - because love in a friendship allows you to accept the other person for who they are - flaws and all. My [real] friends? I know (and they know) exactly what their (and my) biggest flaws are; and that's what our friendship is built on!
I've also realized this week that a friendship truly founded on love & trust is insanely hard to come by, which is what makes them that much more special, I suppose. If I had to define the term, I would have to say that a friend is someone who's not only there for you when you need them, but a person who is also as willing as you are to put time & effort into making the relationship last & succeed. Because as I've learned (the hard way), any relationship - whether it is between you and a friend, lover, or God - needs effort from both ends in order to work. If only one person is investing their energies it will be futile, for a real relationship is anything BUT one-sided.
With that said - I looooooove my friends. <3
Second...
Love is the WEIRDEST thing in the whole entire world. There isn't a type of love in specific I'm talking about; love in general is just SOOO peculiar! Love makes people do strrrrange things; it can bring out the best and the worst in someone. I guess this topic and the previous one are pretty much interconnected since friendship is really about love.
Loving someone means that you take them for who they are - you don't get to pick & choose only the qualities that you like best... You get the whole package. People's weaknesses and flaws become traits you love them for. And after a while, if you are so lucky (as I have been), you will start to realize that they complement you: their strengths are your weaknesses and vice versa.
But love takes effort. No joke. I wake up in the morning (sometimes afternoon) and remind myself that I should carry out the rest of the day loving those around me. It sounds so cliche and sappy, I know. But really, love makes our world so much better. It's what makes me who I am and it's what keeps my hope afloat.
I can't wait to fall in love. Yes, the romantic in me is peeking out - and I can't help it! It must be amazing to get married; loving someone soooooooo much that you are committing to spend the rest of your life with them - in sickness and in health, till death do you part... I've got my fingers crossed that God will have someone who will just blow me away. I can hardly wait.
P.S.
If you can come out to Riverside next week (5/22-24) call me. :]
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| The worst of disappointments are the ones you set up for yourself.
Forget all this crap.
No more of it for me; I'm done. | | |
| I was watching "That Thing You Do" this weekend (I hadn't seen that movie in SOOOO long) and that's what Liv Tyler says to Jimmy (an uber jerk) who breaks her heart.
It just seems like a really sad thing to say to someone that you thought you loved.
Of late, I've been surprised by people. More often in a bad way, but just once in a while, somoene will blow me away. And I love it. The unwelcome surprises are always overshadowed by the rare, meaningful, and awesome instances where an individual will just leave me in awe. Utter awe.
I corresponded with my godmom, Amanda, via e-mail - whom I haven't spoken to in about two years - and I just found out that my baby godsister, Lila, was diagnosed with autism right after we stopped talking. I am so burdened by guilt - I feel like I should have been there for them, especially when something like that was going on in their lives... I'm so heartbroken, I've cried 4x in the past half hour. Pray for Lila and Amanda, please. If you know anything about autistic children, enlighten me.
I'm feeling insecure about a lot of things right now... and I remembered one thing that uplifted my spirits a bit - Dove.
Yes, the company that makes soap, Dove. They've got this awesome "Campaign for Real Beauty" where they've established a self-esteem fund to help the younger girls feel confident in their own skin and to take more pride in their inner beauty rather than the fleeting beauty of flesh. It's awesome. I give Dove major kudos for it; check it out for yourself and make a donation to the self-esteem fund if you've got some spare moolah. I know I will. :] www.campaignforrealbeauty.com
Anyway - most of my diffidence stems from feeling... unloved. Or at least I feel insecure about the people who say they love me - because, alas, actions speak louder than words.
There's one person in particular whose alleged love I want to be confident about; I try so hard to make sure that they know how much I care about them. Yet, each time they tell me "I love you," it gets harder and harder to believe because their behavior doesn't corroborate their speech.
So at this point, what do I say? SCREW YOU, GO AWAY!? Maybe.
Add on...
Over the night, I realized that love is just love. Love should be unconditional, inexplicable, and beautuiful. But I can't help but wonder - if someone says they love you but act otherwise - does it mean they love you any less? Or even under those circumstances, is love still love? Or do my insecurities stem from my own lack of really understanding what love is??
According to I Corinthians 13 - "Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast. IT IS NOT EASILY ANGERED. It keeps no record of wrong. Love does not delight in evil, but rejoices in the truth. It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres." Envy is different from jealousy, right? If God is a jealous God, am I allowed to be a jealous Irene??
Does this make any sense?? Sorry for being confusing, but I'm confused, too. :] So let's all jump in the boat of confusion and sink together. Woot.
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I NEED CONTRIBUTIONS FOR ARGENTINA o6 PLEASE<3
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| I didn`t even realize this till today, when I was talking (texting, really) with Jane, but it`s been four months since Chris and Nick have been gone. It`s funny the way life works - how it never stops moving. You always hear 'life moves on' - but rarely do we stop and really realize that life does move on, almost at a frighteningly rapid speed. The accident - the night of, at the hospital, with everyone there - seems like a faraway memory, but it was just four months ago. I remember it vividly, its seeming distance has nothing to do with the clarity of the night in my mind - but everything to do with time. So much and so little has happened in the four month span - you would think a tragedy like that would`ve had a greater and more lasting impact on our student body - but disappointingly, I`ve found that hardly anything has changed at all. When life is taken so quickly, without any warning,right from under our feet you would think people would learn to appreciate each other more - that somehow through such loss, appreciation for the true value of life would grow. And really, for a few weeks, I thought it had. But sure enough, life moved on and those few weeks, those precious few weeks, where students relied on each other for comfort and support and the distinctive lines between cliques faded - slowly dissipated into time and it was but a blink of an eye.
It`s my senior year - it`s almost the end of this chapter, but hardly the end of the book. I think to myself, if I died tomorrow, what would be the one thing I regretted most? And nothing comes to mind except this: I regret always hearing and knowing that I should tell the people I love, I love them - but not doing it nearly as much as I should. So here I go, scream my lungs out. In my final thoughts before death, I won`t be someone who thinks I hope insert name here knows how much I love him/her. Nor will I ever again regret not having told someone that I care about them - and I hope he knows. You get but one life - love it and live it up. Live it up. | | |
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