Warning: This post might be a bit morbid

...at first. But bear with me through the seemingly depressing stuff and I promise I won't end it that way.

I've often thought about what would happen if I were to die.

Now before someone goes calling the suicide hotline or a psychiatrist, I don't mean this in a "I don't want to be alive" way. I just wonder how the world, or well, how my world would continue on without me in it. And this certainly isn't an uncommon thought, right? I'm sure plenty of other people have idly wondered the same thing as I have.

This first thing I think about is, obviously, my family. As my daddy's first child and having come out of my mother's womb, I imagine they would find it hard to continue on. I can't imagine the...you know, pain isn't a strong enough word for it, but the struggle to live in a world where your child once lived with you. Honestly, I can see my mother going mental. She would focus all her rage and anguish on finding someone still living to blame and make them suffer as much as she would be. And my father wouldn't even have the strength to try to stop or calm her, no matter how much he would want or need it. My brother...well he's pretty unpredictable. There's a number of ways I see him reacting. And my sister would be the worst of all to leave in that permanent way. Rachal has experienced more loss than I can imagine already, at sixteen years old. That would surely be a breaking point for her. She would begin questioning all her beliefs, everything she was ever told would be thrown in the wind and left to settle elsewhere.

Then I think about my best friend, Alex. She's so fragile sometimes. And we've been taking on this world together for so long. There have been people we both know that have left this world so untimely, and those have affected her so deeply. And those weren't people either of us consider ourselves to have had close relationships with, but they were people we knew and have memories with. And just today we were talking about the fact that we will always be best friends, and that our friendship is really as perfect as one could be. And for her to lose that? Indescribable. But I think she would eventually come to terms. Eventually being the key word there. And she might be the one to help Rachal through it later on, if Rachal didn't have an actual psychotic break. Then there's my extended family that I'm close to. My grandma, my cousins. Gosh, they would be...frozen.

Then thinking of Alex makes me start to think about other friends. I have a few close friends here at school and elsewhere (aka Michigan). What would they do? And Zeb. Sure we only just started dating, but he said himself the other day (though jokingly under those circumstances, I'll add) something along the lines of "we're far enough into this relationship that if you died, it would suck." I honestly don't know how he would react. I imagine the friends that know each other would help each other through it. That loss isn't easily carried, so sharing the burden might ease...I don't know, something. With my family and Alex, I don't see them coping very quickly. But with my friends, how quickly would they be able to move on with their lives? Which, of course, is what I would ultimately want if something were to happen. But, of course, that's easier said than done.

Then there's all the people that just know me. Coworkers I don't see outside of work, extended family that just exchange Christmas cards, classmates I've had random conversations with, guys I've previously dated, people I go to church with, people I used to go to church with, old babysitters, people I used to call my best friends, people I went to high school with. The list goes on and on. How many people have I really had an effect on? How many people would take my loss to their hearts, to their own graves? How many people would, years later, think of me and still cry? How many of the hundreds of people I've met in my life would actually cry?

What would they say in my eulogy? What would my family and friends tell people about me in hindsight? How would they remember? What would they remember?

But the weird thing is that, sure, I've met a ton of people, but I haven't even begun to meet a fraction of a fraction of a fraction of a fraction of the amount of people in this world. And the rest of them would just keep going. They would continue dealing with their own lives and problems and losses and never know about me or the grieving those that love me would be feeling.

Now. I know its hard to believe, but I don't mean any of this in a somber way. I honestly just wonder. But all of this makes me think, who am I really? I mean to other people. Because, sure, its one thing to say "don't ever worry about what other people think of you!" And that works in most situations. But I want people to think of me fondly. I want the thought of me to not be stressful or upsetting in any way to anyone. And that's one of my curses. I want to be liked by all people. But is that so horrible, really? I just like to think that I bring others some kind of joy. That people think of me as kind. Because I know there are people in my life that I think of as rude or annoying or angry, which is natural. I just don't want to be that person to anyone.

I also don't want to do something stupid, like be on my phone and driving (though...I am guilty of this), and cause all those people that know me to go through something as horrible as losing me. And I don't mean that in a conceited way, I just mean that I would be overwhelmingly distraught if I lost any of the people I mentioned in this post, so I'd like to think that would be reciprocated. And that thought just makes me want to make sure I'm taking care of myself and being cautious. But it also makes me want to be sure that I'm always telling the people I love that I love them, because who knows when you'll have your last chance? Someone else could be on their phone and driving and something still happen to me. Completely out of my control, and yet it would effect so many.

So I guess what I'm trying to say is that I always want to be living my life in a way that is beautiful and loving and sharing as much light as possible. Our time here is limited. And though the thought of Heaven is comforting, its also unfamiliar. So I want to make the most of my time here while I can. I hope you do the same.

I like the idea that just sharing a smile with someone can really brighten their day. Just sharing a smile with a stranger is touching yet another person's life in a positive way. So why not?

xoxo

Hindsight

I often look back on different parts of my life and think about the person I used to be, or the situations I used to be in that I'm not anymore. And when I say often, I mean like frequently throughout every day. A lot of the time I don't do it intentionally. It's usually a situation like today when my friends at work and I were talking about the way our parents disciplined us in our high school years. I began to idly reminisce on the girl my parents were disciplining. I was explaining to my friends that my mom was relatively laid back about most things, but that my dad stopped trusting me the day I entered teenhood for no apparent reason. No really, I was a golden child, ask anyone who knew me then. No reason.

The funniest thing to me is when I think back on even less than a year ago. I've realized recently that at the beginning of this past year, I was a vastly different person than I am now. You know, I feel like I say that a lot in this blog. How am I constantly a vastly different person? I'm not sure. I definitely have done a lot of growing, though. I'm becoming more and more independent and confident in myself and my abilities. I've learned how to be myself and not care what other people think. I'm not fully there yet, but I'm making my way in that direction pretty quickly.

But it's not just the essence of who I am that's consistently morphing. Circumstances are alive and ever changing as well. When I was in that play this past spring, I never thought a few months later I'd be dating the music director (oh yeah, did I mention I have a boyfriend now guys? So much for that boy diet. Oops). But seriously, I was looking at the pictures from the play and I saw that we were tagged in some of the same ones. And I started thinking back on that time, what was going through my head and if any of it even had to do with him. I remember seeing him in the hall and saying 'hi' once between classes. I remember him telling me I look 'fly' in my costume the first time he saw it. I remember thinking about how much I love when a guy can play the piano during music rehearsals. And honestly how everything happened between us is just a little blurry. Because one minute we were mere acquaintances and the next we were talking every day. It makes me laugh to think that then the thought didn't even cross my mind, and now we're so close. And that applies to a lot of situations in my life. I'll see a picture or hear a song and be reminded of someone I used to know or something that made me laugh or cry at one point. Or I'll suddenly realize that a year ago, I didn't even know some of the people I now consider my closest friends.

But in hindsight, I realize that everything happens for a reason. All the things in my life have lead me to this exact moment. And everything is as it should be, whether it makes sense or not. And somehow, this makes me really excited for what the future holds for me. In a few months, or a year or two or even ten, I can look back on this moment. Maybe I'll laugh. Maybe I'll be nostalgic. Maybe I'll hate my life then and wish I could go back to now. Maybe I'll wonder how I was even happy the way my life is now because it'll be that much better by then. Who knows?

And that, to me, is a beautiful thought. Who really knows? All I know is that if I keep trusting God, my hindsight will always be twenty-twenty.

xoxo

Change.

Change is such a funny thing. Think about how many things change daily. The weather. Traffic lights. Ocean tides. TV channels. Tires. Radio stations. Clothes. Moods.

Minds. People.

I was just looking through old pictures on Facebook and having a moment of nostalgia. Honestly, all I wanted to do was see my hair when it was ridiculously long (and let me tell you, IT WAS). But of course I came across pictures I forgot about, people I haven't talked to in ages and rarely think about anymore. And I was just thinking, why do some things change? Really, it's just not fair. I saw pictures of myself with people I used to call my best friends. And I meant it then. And I thought that even though I was coming to college, there was no way we wouldn't still mean so much to each other.

And yet.

So what changed, the people or the circumstances? Or was it a combination? I suppose the latter is correct. There are some friendships I lost that I like to blame the other person for. They changed, not me. Or they stayed the same and I grew up. That's what I'd like to think. But I have changed SO MUCH in the past two years. I think about the person I used to be a lot actually. The girl that was so good, she was disappointed when her friends made mistakes. The girl that only worked and never played. The girl that couldn't even talk to guys without stuttering and laughing too much (okay, this one is still a little true). The girl that dreamed dreams bigger than she was ready to work for. The girl that was so terrified of anyone rejecting her, she mainly kept to herself to avoid it. I am not that girl anymore. But was that the mistake?

No.

No no no no. I like who I am now so much more than who I was. But does that mean the other people are at fault? Who knows. No one really has to be "at fault" I guess. But in these moments of nostalgia, it's nice to have someone else to blame for the relationships I miss.

And in reality, they could be thinking the same thing about me. My own mother tried to disown me the other day because she said I have become "big-headed and demanding." Although she was kidding (I think), there's no telling how those people justify what happened with us in their own heads. Maybe I'm the bad guy. That's perfectly plausible. I finally outgrew my intense innocence and have made a few mistakes, and that was definitely shocking to some of my old and still current friends. It was shocking to me, too. Who would think I could be someone so drastically different than I was two or three years ago? That seems like so little time now that I look back.

Change is such a funny thing. But its so essential. If I didn't become the person I am, if I wasn't on my way to being the person I want to be, there would be no point in continuing living. Same goes for every other person on this planet, including the ones I used to be close with.

So why not accept it? That's what I should do. While these moments are a little sad, they're also fleeting and infrequent. I'm trying my best to look forward to everything the future holds for me, because it looks bright from where I'm standing.

And if yours doesn't, maybe you should change your attitude.

xoxo

But I always seem to give up on myself

Sooo...remember the boy diet?

Honestly, I made such a huge deal of it two months ago, and I completely forgot about it up until tonight. Due to a recent series of strange events, I've come to see that I've been doing the diet all wrong for a few weeks now. Anyway, I've also realized that really I've been thinking about it all wrong since I started it.

Maybe the boy diet has been working in some strange reverse psychology kind of way and making me think about boys even more than I normally would. But honestly, something in me has changed in the past two weeks. I've realized that my self-confidence problems stretch far beyond the realm of hormones and a weakness for cologne.

My problem is that I allow anyone and everyone to tell me who I am.

People that I admire or think good thoughts of, even in the slightest, have some kind of pull in the person I think I am. One person who claims to be a friend calls me annoying, and that's it. I must be annoying.

But that's wrong. And sad really. Not in the pathetic way (which is usually the way I refer to myself), but in the sense that I'm probably much more sad than I even realize. What kind of life is it where I let others dictate the way I feel about myself? If other people talk about me behind my back and think badly of me, then I allow myself to think badly of me. That's so middle school.

But once I realized that, something clicked. It's time for me to take a real step forward instead of taking tiny steps forward and huge ones back. I've had all these revelations, but I haven't acted on them. So I'm done letting what other people think of me affect me. I'm going to be the person that I am, and if there's someone out there who doesn't like it, then I'll make it a point not to know them. I don't need that kind of negative energy in my life. I know who my real friends are, the people who love me unconditionally and stand up for me when I need it. But hopefully, soon enough I won't need it. Soon enough I'll be able to stand on my own two feet without having to prop against anyone else for support. Soon enough I'll be enough.

So, after all that...

Boy Diet Status: whatever.

xoxo

Miracles happen once in a while

Miss me yet?

I was just standing in my bathroom getting ready for bed and thinking about my blogs and wondering why I haven't blogged in such a long time. Honestly, I love it. I love tracking my progress through my life and having other people hear me out and relate to my problems. And I've said before how great of an outlet it is for me sometimes. But I was thinking about when I had lunch with a girl who read my posts before she moved to North Carolina and she made the comment that "my friend [in New Jersey] is gonna freak when I tell her I had lunch with the girl from the blog!" (shout out to Kelly, if you're reading this). I will probably never forget that moment. In that moment, I felt so...important. I felt like I had a purpose, and it was one of the few times last year when I was writing my Freshmeat blog that I felt that I had any reason to continue. There were actually people out there who were paying attention. There were people out there who cared. Then this year, my blog became a bit more popular (in case you didn't know this, I can track the number of views each post receives. Pretty cool) with my view counts starting to grow. Not saying I'm some mega BlogSpot celeb or anything, I'm not that popular. But my audience has grown. And that makes me feel good.

But my writing has dwindled down to a. Maybe because I made real friends, something I didn't really make last year. Maybe its because I'm really busy with my job and school and obsessively watching Netflix. Or maybe its because I haven't had anything to write about.

Until now.

Ooh. Talk about a heart dropper.

So today after my shift at work I was scheduled for a massage. I talked with my therapist- lets call her Tiffany for anonymity sake- before we began so she could get an idea of what I needed work on. We discussed my scoliosis (I have a slight curve at the bottom of my spine), the knots in my shoulders and the neck tension that causes occasional headaches. Before she began the massage, she said to me, "Olivia, I'm a Christian woman, so I would like to ask for your permission to pray for your healing." Being a Christian as well, I said I was perfectly fine with that. She explained that her hands would feel very warm because that was God working through her. She ran her hands slowly up and down my back for a minute, then my shoulders. About five minutes into the massage, she ran both her hands down the sides of my spine, feeling where the curve is. Then she moved to the right side of me and place both her warm hands on my back right above my hip, explaining that she was going to leave them there for a while. After a few seconds, she noted that my muscles were relaxing considerably, and I noticed that her now static hands were growing warmer and warmer. After a minute or two, she moved back to my head and ran her hands down my spine again, then again.

"Olivia," she said, "your curve is gone." ...what.

At first I thought, no. There's no way Tiffany, this plain ol' massage therapist from some random place born at some random time in history just happened to correct my scoliosis I've had for years. But the more she ran her hands down my back in a perfectly straight line, the harder it was to deny. She brought in someone else to watch her. She was so excited, proclaiming that the power of God healed me, that the Lord didn't want me to live in pain and suffer through school as a hard working student with a job. I feel bad for the way that I just lied there, nodding and offering up an occasional "yeah," but I just couldn't believe it. And I could check myself without her noticing, potentially offending her. So the second she left the room after the massage, I jumped up, bent over, and ran my own hand down my spine, something I've done to feel that curve a thousand times before.

That curve...that I no longer felt.

Impossible. Impossible, right? But suddenly I felt so high. So high on the awesome power of God, on the miracle that just occurred. When I was diagnosed with scoliosis, the doctor told me that there was no fixing it. The curvature wasn't bad enough to wear a brace, it was just something I would have to be aware of. And here comes Tiffany who, within ten minutes, used her blessed hands to heal me. I called my sister when I left and cried to her out of amazement and being so overwhelmed.

But by the time my mom called me back when she got off work, after that high subsided, I've come back to doubting. I keep running my hand over my spine, but I can never get my own hand at a good angle to really feel it. I even had Lizzie try it and she said she felt a very miniscule curve at the bottom, but in the other direction than before. So now I'm just confused. I asked my mom to call my doctor and see if he can order an X-ray, and I'm probably going home next week to get that done and be sure.

But even still, I just can't stop thinking about how Tiffany's hands were never as warm as they were when they were resting on my suffering muscles.

xoxo

Birthday

Today is my last day of being 18. The last day of my golden year.

What that means, boys and girls, is that tomorrow is my birthday.

You know, birthdays are so funny. Every day of every year a few hundreds of thousands of people are being born. On December 18, 1993, that was me. And that was a life changing experience for a lot of people. My parents, my brother, my grandparents, my aunts and uncles. All of them suddenly had one more mouth to feed, one more card to buy on Christmas, one more child to support for many years to come, one more person to pray for, one more girl that would need protection from the world, one more person to worry about housing when they visit, one more person to want to visit. And that is a normal and beautiful thing. But all the December 18s after that really don't do anything but keep time. Birthdays are just a way to measure our age. When I was younger, I always thought it was so weird that I never felt any different on my birthday. I remember the year I turned 13. I went to my mom's room the night before crying to her because "I'm never going to be a kid again!" I slept in her bed that night. But then the day after, and the next few days, nothing really changed. I had more money and possessions than I did the day before, but that was it. I still went on acting like a child.

Even important birthdays. On this day last year I was bursting out of my clothes from excitement all day. I was about to be an adult. I was going to be able to buy lottery tickets and get into the club without lying to the bouncer and buy things from infomercials. And sure, all that changed. My life is more convenient now that I can do those things that come with turning 18. But really, I wasn't any different on my birthday than I was the day before.

So why do we make such a big deal out of birthdays? Of course, I'm not complaining. I love getting presents and having a whole day to talk about myself without anyone having the right to get annoyed. I love getting all the phone calls and Facebook posts from people who are required to think about me at least once a year. But really, in about 30 hours, when the day will be winding down tomorrow, I will be the exact same person I am right now. I'll just be 19.

Its not birthdays that do anything. Its life experiences. This semester has changed me so much in ways I'm not sure I fully understand yet. I'm more responsible than I have ever been. I still have so much growing up to do in my life, but I've done a lot of it in the past few months, and really in the past year. I'm undergoing that metamorphosis I always talked about last year (see Metamorphosis blog post). The only thing is, last year I thought I was coming to the end of my transformation. But this year its clear that this isn't something that will happen in a few months. I still have some time to go in this cocoon. But that's okay. I have no choice but to wait until the transformation is complete to be a butterfly, and I've accepted that. But my point is that the day of my birth isn't what is going to bring the metamorphosis to its conclusion. A series of events will occur, force me to grow up and find out who I am, and then I'm going to look back and say, "Wow. I've shed the shell." Maybe that day will be April 8. Maybe it will be October 22. And maybe it will be December 18. The point is that I don't know, and I'm not supposed to. Its all part of life.

However, in spite of all this...

MY BIRTHDAY IS TOMORROW OMG I'M SO EXCITED.

xoxo

Tired

Life is so exhausting.

It's Thanksgiving break and I'm still so tired. Granted, I didn't get home Wednesday night until Thursday morning. Then yesterday my allergies were acting up at home so bad that I spent most of the day sneezing and dying and fighting to stay awake from the Benadryl and trying to cook and eat in between all that. Really though, I had an excellent day with my family and I actually really enjoyed my time yesterday (between all the dying going on). But this morning I had to rush right back for work again, so my trip home was cut extra short this year. That's okay though. I'm going back next month for an extended weekend for my birthday, so I'm just looking forward to that. My point in saying all this is that, even though its break I'm still SO TIRED. Its not even eleven and I'm ready to pass out.

I've got a lot of big assignments on my plate for classes at the moment. That's starting to stress me out again, but I guess it's right on schedule since the past two weeks have been pretty low-stress. I'm not working tomorrow so I'll be spending most of the day on those.

Now, the boy diet. Sigh. I was doing so well for a few weeks. Then the sneaky thoughts started creeping back in my mind and I've started thinking about different boys again. Those dang thoughts are so frustrating. I'm forcing them out of my head every time they try to be sly and slip in, but they keep bombarding me when I have too much time to think. Like today on the way back here. But I'm sticking to the diet, no matter what my mind tries to get me to think about.

I just read that paragraph over and realized that its possible to interpret those thoughts from the reader's point of view as very sexual ones. Just so you know, that's not really what I'm talking about.

Anyway, time to catch up on Glee and go to sleepy-by. TTFN, friends.

xoxo