Stitches of Make Believe

I tend

to live my life like I know what I am doing. Like I have it all together. I like to think my life is something I am making up. I am wildly weaved together with stitches of make believe. I like to pretend that I planned this whole thing, like a magic show. All have you know though, I didn't. I never planned for broken hearts, new adventures, a shocking new love story to tell, or sitting at a desk for my work. I didn't plan these things, they chose me. You cant plan out your life. You can try, but the universe will always direct you to where you are supposed to be. I think that's why it is easy for me to pretend like I am planning, because I know that what is meant to be will always find a way. In the grander scheme of things, the universe will eventually put me where I am meant to be in the end. Life is something unplanned, its a scary ride. The funny part is that we all take it so seriously, especially so seriously for knowing that eventually we will all become dust. This life is mine, weather I am planning or not. Ultimately I belong to the universe and the universe decides what to do with me. I like to pretend that I know how every story ends in this storybook of Meaghan's life but I do not have a clue. I don't know what happens when we die. I do not know if I will quit this desk job for something that makes me feet swell and my back hurt. All I know is that I am living for this moment I am blessed with. I am living for the feeling of sand between my toes, and the sound of crickets singing me to sleep in my backyard. Nothing is promised to me, and that's okay because I am not selfish. I can live without promises, without being all knowing. I could be okay if there was a God and I could be okay if ultimately there wasn't, because I know in the end something is happening where I disappear from here and I no longer have this moment regardless. So I will embrace what I am blessed with now. I am fine with pretending, with being stitched together by story books my mom used to read to me. I hope that you are living in this moment. Right now. I hope you take the time to breathe, weather your sitting, standing, walking, running, laughing you my friend are full of life. You are getting one more extra second that someone else might not have. So believe in God if that makes you happy, believe in fairy tales, Santa clause, more than one God, evolution. Believe in the things that make you happy, the things that make living right now in this moment your number one priority. This life is yours, and weather you think you know what is going to happen, or weather you don't it ultimately doesn't matter, whatever is going to happen is going to happen with or without your consent. The only thing you know right now for a fact is that you are breathing, you are a living breathing person and the only thing you are promised from this universe is this very second. Soak it up like a sponge and let death by the least of your worries. You cant fight what is already promised to happen. Live your life my friend. This the best advice anyone could ever give someone because many moments go unlived, many moments go unnoticed because of the wish for something greater in the future. This life isn't about the future it is about right now. It is about learning how to live with the situation handed to you in this very moment. If you can do that, if you can live, I  mean really just let go and live well then what else could you ask for?

Getting Over the Humps

Sometimes

I break down and I cry. Today just happened to be one of those days. I took my tear filled eyes into a bathroom stall and let my tears of stress fall onto the tiled floor. That is until someone walked into the bathroom. I then wiped my tears, came out of the stall,with bright red eyes and a girl staring at me asking if I am okay. I smiled big and said I was fine. I am good at that, being happy when I am sad. I am also apparently good at crying. I have moments, moments of stress and anxiety that make me just cry without wanting to, that make me feel lost, make me panic. Its anxiety overwhelming me, a disorder I was once diagnosed with, and then told not to think of it as a disease or something terrible. Well it is terrible, the feeling sucks. The thing is though, is that I fight it. Every second of everyday. Sometimes things happen all at once and it makes me cave and I cry, I cry for as long as it takes, 20 seconds, 1 minute, an hour. Then I get up, I smile and I try my best to forget about whats overwhelming me. High moments of stress are hard to overcome sometimes, sometimes I get a pain in my chest that wont go away for a long period of time. The first time I got that feeling was in a parking lot and I was afraid I was dying. I called my dad and cried and asked him what was happening to me, he said he wasn't sure and that maybe it was an anxiety attack, they run in our family he said. I didn't know what to do so I just held my breath and tried to feel my heart again. I think this is why I believe so highly in surrounding myself in peaceful, beautiful things. I don't want to feel that feeling ever again, I don't want to lack that kind of control over my mind effecting my body, but I do. I have the uncontrollable crying that I am working hard at overcoming. When you have anxiety and depression its harder to be happy even when people say "just stop thinking about it, just let it go and be happy" they don't understand how much effort it takes to actually do that. It feels like your brain wont let you. It just keeps repeating itself over and over the same stressful thing and you cant let go. You want to, trust me, you want to so bad it hurts but your brain is a powerful thing, and you will is a weak competitor. In the end, I always end up winning, eventually. Life is to short to be unhappy, to be filled with stress, anxiety, depression, anger, sadness. I am in a battle I work hard everyday to overcome, but I do it. I do it one step at a time, one foot in front of the other. I will not be conformed to antidepressant pills or anti-anxiety medication. I believe that my brain got my body into this mess so my body can get my brain out. I have found outlets for my anxiety and depression. I go to the gym, even when my brain says it doesn't feel like it, I write loud and clear about what hurts, I do yoga when things get really bad, and I take a deep breath. Then I climb out of the hole I put myself in. If you suffer from anxiety, depression, or any other disorder I am telling you right now you are not alone and there are ways of overcoming it that doesn't involve being highly medicated. You are in control of your body and your mind you just have to keep telling yourself that. Do not let your brain fool you, and do not give in. This is your life and you must fight to live it every single day, because if your not living your dying. Do not give up. You got this.

Green isn't Everything

I am not

someone who grew up in a rich family. I didn't get a brand new car for my 16th birthday and I don't have unlimited funding to go to whichever college I please. Growing up my parents were separated. They have been since I can remember. My dad is a hard working man who raised four kids and goes to work at the crack of dawn to do so. My mother went from job to job and we moved around from a renters house to another renters house. My step mom is a wonderful woman who would do anything for her kids and she works at a job that is far less than her dream job to give us kids whatever we need.My parents taught me what hard working means. What it means to earn everything you want. Me and my siblings earned the things we wanted by doing chores or helping where ever we could. Neither of my parents were poor but they didn't have a money tree in their backyard either. We ate a lot of Ramen noodles, and we also ate a lot of good food too. Having this type of upbringing taught me that money isn't what I should live for. Of course my parents push me to get a high paying job and go to college but that is because they don't want to see me struggle, to have to worry about money like they do. The thing is, I don't care. I don't care about money at all. I will never be one who searches for a rich husband or chooses a job because of how much it pays. I don't think all the money in the world could bring me happiness. I wouldn't mind being broke if it meant traveling. If it meant living my life outside of an office, exploring. You need money to travel but you don't need much. The memories you could make are worth it all. I have never traveled very far from my home town. The farthest I have been is California and Arizona. I want to change that. I wouldn't mind not knowing where I was going to stay, not knowing how to pay for my flight home. I just want to learn all I can from other people, other cities. I want to visit sights I have only seen in pictures and if that means being broke I will be happy to be it. You can't take money to your grave and I think people forget that. I want memories, I don't want to worry about a piece of paper when I could be worrying about who I am going to take with me on my adventures. We get so wrapped up in money that money drives us to live. I don't feel like that is right. I think that your life and making it fun and happy is what should drive you to live. The hardest part for me is being scared of the unknown, I always have to know what is going to happen and I believe that has held me back from accomplishing a lot of my dreams in my life. I always have to have a plan because I am scared otherwise. I would like to overcome this and stop planning and start living. I recently met someone who is the complete opposite of me in that aspect, He has stopped planning and started living. I am both jealous and in awe of him. I recently told him my dreams of going to Disneyland for my 21st birthday. He was excited and said lets make it happen!! Now my dream that I thought was impossible because I am to afraid, is becoming real. We are both saving up to go to not only Disneyland but also LegoLand and Sea world. I have never thought my dream would happen. I was always afraid of not having enough money to go, or that something would happen. I was basically making up excuses for reasons why I couldn't, but I can. I can and I will. Stop letting money be your deciding factor on if you're happy or not. Go out there and grab your happiness. I promise you don't need money as much as you think you do to do so. Anything is possible if you want it bad enough, with or without money.

Say Next Week.

Dating advice

is complicated. I recently got advice from a male that shocked me. I was telling him about a man I have gone on a couple dates with recently and how I like him and we are planning on going on another date tonight. The male who gave me the advice we will just name Bob. Original I know. Anyways, Bob said do you want my advice about the situation? I said sure, I am always open to hear other peoples advice since I don't go on dates hardly ever. Bob said I would tell him you cant. Tell him you cant this week but maybe next week. This will let him know that your time is valuable. That he cant use you whenever he wants. I stared at Bob like he was crazy. This would be assuming that every guy is going to use me. It would also consist of me changing my own personality. If I like someone I am going to show it. I am going to woman up, and see them when the opportunity comes up. Why would I play mind games and pretend I have something going on when we all know I don't? Wouldn't that make me a liar? Plus, if things didn't work out wouldn't I be dragging out the inevitable? The only way to get to know someone is to spend time with them. Wouldn't this man feel like I didn't like him if I kept "putting off" our dates? I didn't see Bobs logic. It made me question things though. Why do we play so many games when dating? Whats wrong with showing up and being unapologetically yourself? Why do you have to act different, wear different clothes than you normally would? This is me. This is who I am. Why would I change for one night? If you like me you have to like me for who I am now or there is no point. In my eyes every one's time is valuable. This is life. This is your life and it ticks by every second. If someone is willing to waste a minute of their time with anyone else then both people are lucky.Spending time getting to know another soul is amazing no matter who's soul it is. Someone has opened their life to you and brought you in, that is something amazing within itself. I am not going to punish this man just because my time is valuable. I think he knows that. From my point of view, his time is just as valuable as mine. Why would I make him waste it? This is your life and it is passing you by. I feel like you should jump head on into the things and the people you enjoy, if not whats the point of living? I enjoy this man. He makes me laugh. How will I ever know the potential of our relationship if I don't take chances? If I play games and pretend? I am not scared. I know that if it doesn't work out it just wasn't meant to be and if it does it could make me very happy so what do I have to lose? I don't think I need dating advice. I don't think I will ask anyone for dating advice or read magazines or articles about dating. I think the best advice anyone needs is to trust yourself. Believe that you know what you are doing and just be yourself. If its meant to be it will work, if not you had good memories while it lasted because you put your whole heart into it. Live in the moment and enjoy the people that enter your life, they are as much a blessing as anything else.

"A chance is a terrible thing to waste"- Rob Hill

I Can't Find You.

Your gone

I no longer know where to look to find you. You are hiding in the clouds or in the breeze that sweeps over my face and makes my hair dance. I cant remember the last time we hugged. The last time I heard you laugh. You have been hiding, where are you? I don't see you in the shadows that dance across your grave, I have never seen you there. Its just a resting place for your body while your spirit soars somewhere else. I cant stand there for too long, it feels wrong, it feels awkward, like someone else is laying underneath that patch of grass. It cant be you, can it?  Your not gone you cant be. I tell myself that everyday. I tell myself that you will show up at the next family party with your dance moves and your laughs. The next family party comes, and your not there. Where can you be? I cant feel you anymore and its making me nervous. Its making me scared that you are really gone. There are no more little signs that you are still on earth. There are no more blue birds or dreams of you. How can I find you? I am scared that you have left me here. Left me here to figure it all out on my own. How could that happen? You would not leave me. I feel it. I feel the emptiness that comes with you being gone. I feel it all around me, in my heart, my moms heart, and my sisters. I see them crying and sometimes I think its secretly for you.  It breaks my heart. I want to heal them like you would. I want to wrap them in my arms and tell them that you are here. Here inside my heart that your not hiding, but I'm not so sure if that's true anymore. I cant find you. Tell me how I am supposed to fix them? Tell me how you heal someone in mourning? Tell me something. Anything. I want to feel you again. I want to see your face light up. I want you to see this tattoo on my back, the one I cried after getting. It is so beautiful and I got it just for you, just so that I could feel you, I could see you watching over me. I cant find you and I am angry. Angry that someone took you away from me, away from your family. I want to scream some days because I cant stand the pain, its pain that I don't know what to do with, it just lingers there. Where have you gone? Please tell me your here. Please tell me you will hug me tomorrow. I need to see you, to feel you. I know where you are hiding. I think I know where you have gone. It is somewhere I cant go, somewhere I cant reach. Somewhere beautiful people go. I have found you. I found you sitting on a cloud with hiking shorts and tivas on. You came to me in a dream and hugged me so tight. You told me its okay and then you walked away. I found you last night in the tears that hit my pillow case from the dream you came to me in. I found you younger. I found you healthy and happy. I found you sitting with Willow on a cloud. You didn't leave me. I knew you wouldn't. I can feel you. I can feel you in the hearts of my family. I can feel you tell me how beautiful my tattoo is. I can hear you laugh if I think hard enough. You have gone to heaven but I can feel you visit me. You are not gone. Thank goodness you are not gone. I need this piece of you. I need something to remind me of how to feel, how to be happy. I need you, we all need you and you are right here. Right here inside us, inside our hearts. I looked at the heart of my family members and I found you. Thank goodness I found you. I miss you.


Dedicated to all those who are in mourning, it never gets easier but time has a way of healing all wounds.

This is not a Diet. Its a Nutritional Plan.

Okay

lately I have been really mushy gushy and heartfelt on here. Its time to write something a little more light hearted. Recently I have decided to go on a no Gluten or processed Sugar diet. Yep that means no breads, pastas,candy, and yeah no Soda. Bummer right?! I have been doing this for about 3 weeks now. I'll be honest, I tried to do it before but I would always relapse on a bunch of bread or candy. So this time for real I have done it for 3 weeks straight only eating bad on my free days. Let me tell you how hard it is at first!! It is so so hard to resist, to not be an addict. Food is an addiction, fattening foods are even more of an addiction and taking them away from yourself is like overcoming a drug addiction. I would like to share with you my steps in overcoming a food induced trance. Here we go:


1. Always always find support somewhere. Without support you'll be eating bad again in no time (my support is a fabulous lady I work with, she asks me everyday what I have eaten and shames me if its something bad)

2. You can say NO. That's right, just because people offer you food doesn't mean you have to eat it. (This was a tough one for me because I felt like saying no could be insulting. Its not! Say no, say no thank you, either way just do NOT say yes to that donut, you'll regret it later.)

3. ITS NOT ABOUT LOSING WEIGHT. It really isn't. Its about feeling good in your body, feeling good staring back at that gorgeous figure in the mirror. (If you make it about losing weight, trust me you'll get discouraged and that will make you want to eat more of the bad foods!) Just be healthy that's the main priority.

4. Don't shun yourself for relapsing. Its not about bringing yourself down! Its about lifting yourself up. If you relapse on the food just get right back on the healthy saddle tomorrow and work even harder. Your human, your not perfect. Its trial and error baby, trial and error.

5. Don't do it because of the way strangers stare at you! They will stare at you either way. Do it for no one but yourself. Its your life, your body and you have to want it in order to accomplish it.

6. Give yourself a free day, once a week or if your hard core maybe once a month. Either way give yourself a free day! Now, that doesn't mean pig out on all the junk food you can get your hands on. It means eat ONE of those cookies, or drink half a soda. You don't want to have to start the process all over, so limit yourself but if you eat one of those cookies don't feel ashamed!

7. Your not an animal, so don't reward yourself with food! Reward yourself with something you need, new shoes or a jacket but do NOT reward yourself by eating a whole plate of nachos. A couple hours later it wont feel so rewarding.

8. Drink TONS of water. I mean TONS!! Your changing your diet, your body needs water no matter what diet your on and it needs it more now that your on one. Drink up!

9.  Don't call it a DIET! Throw that word out the window. Call it a nutritional change or a healthy life style. A diet is something you don't stick to. If you want this to work it has to be a FOREVER commitment. If you just do this for a couple months then go back to bad eating trust me, you'll be right back in the same boat as before the "diet". You have to want to stay healthy forever!

10.DO NOT GIVE UP! This is going to be hard. Its not always going to be fun and you'll have to resist temptations ever day but don't give up! You decided to make a change in your life. Remember why you are making that change and kick butt!! You got this.

11. Finally number eleven. Stay positive. Always! No matter what your doing in your life you can do it if you put your mind into it. Don't look down on yourself or tell yourself you cant. Have strength and the rest will fall into place. I believe in you and you should believe in yourself too.

Whatever nutritional change you are doing with your life I wish you luck! You have all my support because I know personally that it isn't easy. Thanks for reading!

"I'm only 20"

Dear future years and current year of my 20's,

First off I want to say thank you for letting me get through my teen years, those were pretty hard. Next I want to say that I promise to not ruin the perfect womanly body you have blessed me with as long as you promise not to give me wrinkles and take away some of my zits. Second, I promise that I wont waste these years on finding a man, looking deeply in the crevices of the earth to find a mate to run off and marry. I just wont let myself. I promise you I'll be young, wild,and free for as long as my body will let me. Let me tell you years of my 20's, I am afraid for the years of my 30's to happen but we wont worry about that right now. Also I want to point out, if you haven't noticed we only get nine lovely years to spend together. Nine. That is it and then you are gone. I promise I wont waste you on silly things like worrying about what shirt I am going to wear or what to do on a Friday night. We will just wing it, go where ever the wind takes us. I also wont complain that I am "only 20" ever again. 20 is a blessed year, filled with independence and soul searching and the first year we get to spend together. There is nothing to complain about. I promise I'll make mistakes so that you know that you weren't wasted, you were lived. I will learn from the time we get to spend together by going to a strip club for my 21st birthday or maybe even going to Vegas like the rest of the world does on their 21st birthday. You'll be well spent I promise. Maybe we will spend that birthday in Disney Land. I'll leave that up to you when the time comes. I promise to be reckless, so that you can remind the years of my 30's that sometimes its okay to have a little fun. I promise to fall in actual love at least once with a complete stranger and have it only last a summer, just so you can say you experienced that. I promise to always dance in the rain because someday we wont be able to. Years of my 20's I am afraid of how short you are. I am afraid of getting old and having children in my years of 30. I promise to not wish I was older, because one day I will wish I was 20 again. I swear that I will explore the world and learn new things about different cultures instead of my own. I will go to the gym and run for as long as I can because one day I will hardly be able to walk. I will live you like your the last years I will ever be alive, because who really knows? I promise to spend your days picking flowers and running through sprinklers because I have no excuse not to. We will be best friends years of my 20's I promise. I wont waste you on planning my life, or worrying about the future. Its just me and you. I promise to take chances, to stop at stop signs and to never drink and drive. I promise to stay safe, Happy and free spirited. I promise to dance like no ones watching and to meet new friends. I promise to scream into a pillow when I am angry and to cry when I am sad. You, years of my 20's will be the best years of my life. I wont forget you, and I wont take you for granted. Lets make our 20's the best years. Years filled with memories and excitement. I am ready years of my 20's. Are you?