Remember

Scars. Like the ones on her body, where she was bleeding and needed stitches, glue to hold everything together. 

Like the ones on her mind. Saying she can't be great, she won't amount to anything. She's not smart enough, good enough, she's wasting her life. 

Like the ones on her heart. The pieces she picks up and fits haphazardly back together each time someone leaves or changes their mind or what they had together was never anything anyway. 

Remember. Where you came from. What you have been through. 

The scars are a reminder, but they're also proof. That you alone can be both your own hero and worst enemy in the same breath. Remember.

Pretty

White light illuminates her face as she peers at herself in the bathroom mirror.  She tilts her head down a little bit staring at the shadows that appear. Showing her strong facial structure the hollowness of her cheeks. She sighs looking away.

 Her eyes come to rest on a discarded glossy fashion magazine lying face up on the cool tiles of the floor. The model on the cover is eerily flawless, no pores; way too perfect. Her stunning eyes captivate the viewer and hold them in her icy blue gaze. 

The girl finally looks away and back into the mirror. She's greeted with the same eyes as the model, looking back at her. Although there is a rawness about her face. Visible pores dot her nose and her face seems less chiseled, nose how it looks every single day when she first wakes up. It really is hard to tell that these are the same face, the same girl even. 

But they are. And she wonders then how many little girls will see her in the unreality of a fashion shoot, visions clouded by makeup artists work, and editing and think they are seeing the truth. Think that they are seeing what is possible to aspire to. Classically conditioned to see images as realistic. How may will see the picture and ask themselves: "am I pretty enough yet?"

Even she wonders this. 

Why do I dance you ask?

I dance because sometimes

I have so many feelings trapped inside

When I can’t talk about them,

I move

My body telling the story

The pain, love, heartache, happiness, confusion,

I dance because it makes me feel beautiful

It helps me forget

Creating something beautiful with the body I was given

The one I’m trying to love

It helps me live

My soul searches for a way to be free

In a turn, a leap, a head tilt

It’s more than a movement

I’m opening my heart

Becoming one with the lyrics

Why do I dance you ask?

I want everyone to feel

The pain, love, heartache, happiness, confusion,

Emotions we’ve all felt, are feeling, will feel

Sometimes all you need is one song, one dance

And it makes sense

Enough

She's alive, breathing.
She doesn't know what storms are coming, but
She knows she's strong.
ENOUGH.
She's learning she is
enough.
Tries to love herself
each day.
And
She's getting better.
at treating herself
like she would a friend.
At accepting her flaws
her mistakes
her past
Bandaging her self inflicted wounds
Super gluing her heart back together
Standing up and shaking the dust off
Moving,  onward upward
We're all broken, and she's no
different.
And like you,
She's alive and breathing.

The Essence of Pain- A Poem

The essence of pain is that something is broken, not working the way it used to.
It's an ache, a tug, a reminder of a past trauma.

You don't know what it's really like to feel until you've experienced pain,
until you've experienced love, and loss, and joys of life.

It can awaken the senses or numb them.
It can remind you to live in the moment or crush you till you can't breathe.

It can blur the past, darken the present, hold you back from the future.

Or it can help you appreciate the things you are able to do. See the important people in your life and the beauty of the world around you.

Day 2

2. The concept of "being yourself" can sometimes be confusing, but you should try to be anyway.
I am an 18 year old female. That's what the world can see at first glance. That is not my entirety as a person  nor would these observations reveal anything about my interests, goals, passions, or personality. The puzzling thing about the phrase "be yourself" is that it implies that you have an understanding of who you are as a person.  What things make up a person? Is it the organizations they belong to, or the talents that they posses? Does it depend on the day? Your current mood? Does who you think you are depend on the situation you are in or the people you surround yourself with? Because people are always changing this is a hard thing to wrap your head around. People are multidimensional and tend to break out of the boxes and molds we try to keep them in . Even though you know yourself better than anyone else, it can sometimes feel like you have no idea who you are. That is seriously okay! I mean you have the rest of your life to figure out who you are and who you want to become.
 Though you may change as a person I think that it is important to stay true to your core values. I also think that high school is a time when people tend to lose their sense on individuality in order to belong to a social group. Wanting to belong in a group is part of being social creatures. Being yourself doesn't mean that you can't belong either. It means that you try to do what you believe in and what makes you feel happy/beautiful/strong/(insert positive adjective). It means letting your own unique light shine no matter what anyone says.

“To be yourself in a world that is constantly trying to make you something else is the greatest accomplishment.” -Ralph Waldo Emerson

Things I Learned About Life From High School: Day 1

On Friday I completed my last day of high school. Now that it's over I have time to think about all of the experiences I have had over the last 4 years. Things that I had success doing, and things that where harder than I ever thought could be possible. For the next 11 days until graduation I will be posting a take away or important reflection about high school life.
-Abs

1. Grades are important, but unhealthy thinking causes stress and unhappiness. 
 I had conditioned myself to strive for perfection in everything I did. When I fell short (which happened frequently, because we are all human), I would get upset and only focus on what I was lacking. For example if I studied hard and got a 95% on a math test, I would be upset that I still missed 5%, instead of being proud that I had mastered the material. This kind of thinking lead me to see every assignment, test, and project as a potential "grade crusher". I would envision the worst possible outcome, a bad grade that lead to a lowered GPA that lead to not getting into college. This scenario never actually happened. But still I continued to be stressed out and unhappy. Then in the last 6 months of my senior year I started to really change the way that I approached my school work.

I began to focus on learning the material and less on my unrealistic expectations of myself as a learner. I began to give myself more positive "self talk" and allowed myself to enjoy the little victories when I did well. I became less stressed out and started to have more positive attitude. I'm not saying that it was easy to change my thinking, but I feel that I have made lots of progress in the right direction. I think the biggest thing that I am going to take with me to college is that it is good to be motivated and to have goals,  but good learning  can take place when you don't get things right the first time. I think it's about trying and trying and trying again until you understand.
"The only person who is educated is the one who has learned how to learn and change"
-Carl Rogers