AFI - 12/21. Tainted, but beautiful.

This is my virginity song. Not because I lost my virginity to it, but rather because not only is

the title the date, but also because the words fit it better than anything else could.

I didn’t lose my virginity out of love. No, that day was a nightmare, where my world of glass 

was being threatened, and I felt that if I gave this prize possession, I would not be abandoned. 

But he viewed me as a conquest, and once I was conquered and broken, my value was gone. 

And for a long time, I believed that lie too. I viewed myself as worthless, and tainted, no longer 

did I have anything to offer. My actionscaused my fear to happen, and come to life.

Luckily, I was wrong. My worth does not depend on how people view or treat me. Nothing that I could do could make me worth any less. I have come to believe that everyone, absolutely everyone, has inherent value. Even the people I don’t like. Like diamonds, and Sapphires, just by existing we add to the beauty in the world. We are priceless, and perfect. And the people who view you, or me, as less than that are wrong. 

Fort Minor - Slip Out the Back. Cold silence.

       A song that played on repeat every night. When I moved home after being gone for a year things were different. My family did not know me. They did not know who I had become and why. But they saw that I was different. They had heard Dad's rants about me. They had heard that I had several interactions with cops, and that I got busted for smoking pot. They heard that I had gotten drunk. They had heard that one of my friends had been stabbed. They knew about when we tried to rescue one of my friends from an abusive home.

This song rang true for me, because I had left for almost two years, and yet when I came back it was like I had never left. I was both invisible. I had completely changed as a person, my life forever altered, but I was the only one who noticed. They noticed enough to say a snide remark here or there, nothing more.

I was alone in a house where twelve others lived.

It was then that I learned that at the end of the day, you need to be the one who determines your self-worth.  Others will let you down, and they won't notice all your efforts. But you will, you know how hard you try. You know who you are. And you need to be the one to convince yourself that you are worth-while.      

            

                  




To this day, when I listen to this, I stare off into the far corner of my mind. My heart will feel a familiar ache of sadness. But having a family that did not care, helped me figure out in the long-haul whats important. I now seek people to be vulnerable and open with. I search out the people who will notice if I change, or if something is wrong. We as people were never meant to be alone in life. In our very core we want nothing more than to be fully known, and fully accepted.

Chandelier - Sia. True Emptiness

If there is one thing I have learned in my life, is the wildest, most fun, die hards. Are the saddest and loneliest people out there. They have absolutely nothing to lose, because they feel that they have nothing in the first place. Whether or not its true, that is the perception they have.

Why do I say this, well, I used to be the life of the party. A true wild one. I lived both more than I have ever lived before and since, and at the same time so much less than I do now. When I was the wild one, I didn’t allow myself to live and learn, because I wouldn’t allow my emotions to catch up to me. I wouldn’t allow myself the time to process what I was going through or feeling. I just kept moving forward, refusing to pause or look back. I was not purposely trying to hide from myself, I just wanted to be happy. I wanted to feel loved. I wanted to feel alive.

This song is perfection. It shows how sad the party girls are. How in order to cope with their past, they must keep running from it.

The biggest problem is that at the end of the day, no one knows who you are. No one knows what drives you, what you think, what your family is like, ect. They just know that you are “fun”. But when you stop being fun, you are alone. Utterly forgotten.





After leaving that life behind, I started showing my cards. Started being more open about who I am, almost everyone left. But it got better, because now the people who are my friends, actually like me for who I am.

Eminem - The Way I am. Rumors and Gossip.

     This is the first Eminem song that ever grabbed my heart and held it. Walking around the halls of my school, there were rumors about me that people believed to be gospel truth. There were stories and lies. But only a few knew the truth about who I was.

Constantly I would get looks and words of judgement from people who thought that they knew me. People who thought they truly understood what my motivations were in life. I never got a chance to defend my position, they did not want to hear it, their mind was made.

So I learned to hold my head high, knowing exactly who I was. Knowing what I was capable of. I no longer cared about my perceived reputation because that was not alterable. Who I am, the character I have, that is what I am to be held accountable for. As for others, what they view and what they think. That is on them.         

When Eminem sings this song, he is pointing out how stupid it is for people to think that everything they read about him is true. Or for them to think that that is the whole story. His saying "I am whatever you say I am", is pointing out the fact that who they believe him to be is entirely made up of hear-say.  



           Let them talk and let them watch. You are not who they say you are. You may not be able to prove them wrong, but you have the truth on your side.

Grouplove Itchin' On A Photograph. Living better :)

      This song has captured something beautiful. This song doesn't say to forget the past, and to simply keep going. It is so much deeper and more complicated than that.

We often spend some time looking to the past and yearning for what we once had. For the memories that we can no longer make. For the people we can no longer be near. For the people we once were. For the innocence. For the adventures. For everything that you lost.

But moving forward isn't about forgetting the past. Moving forward is being able to love the photograph, and being able to know that you will always be able to cherish that but that the story does not end there. Being able to be at peace with what has been, and what will not be again.

It is being able to remember the old times, and being comfortable with not only what happened, but where you are now.

But it doesn't end there. It is also about the desire to create a future that makes the past pale in comparison. Building hopes and dreams and then running towards those with your eyes looking ahead. If you are always looking back, you will hit many obstacles as your life moves forward. Before long though, you stop itching for the pictures from the past and you start capturing the pictures of today, and itching for the photo's and memories that have yet to be created.

The future can always be better than the past. You know something today that you did not know yesterday. The past is a beautiful thing, and to reflect is good. But during that reflection it is essential to never forget that you can live bigger and better than that.

For those who say things like "the good old days" and "high school was the best", I can say this, YOUR DOING IT WRONG!                      

                                    



Learn from the mistakes and from the triumphs of the past. And then make new mistakes and conquer new mountains :)

Life is an uphill battle, because you are farther than you were yesterday. You have leveled up.

Hoobastank - The First Of Me.

       
When I entered the public school system for the first time. I was an outcast from the beginning, I was controversial and broke the mold. I was kind-hearted and warm, but also very adimant about my beliefs. I had convictions and a moral standard which I lived by. I valued others. And I valued myself. I had self-esteem and was uneffected by others expectations.

A year later and I begun to realize more and more how offensive people found me to be. My liveliness and unstained joy bothered everyone. They did not like the fact that I had not experienced the rejection and objectification that they had. To some it became a game to see if they could affect the way I viewed life. To see if my world was shakeable. And though they alone did not succeed, through a long chain of events. I slowly grew to an increased amount of cynicism.

They say that the heartless people in this world were once the ones who cared too much. they are correct.

People loved the altered me. The cold, self-sufficient, quiet, non-confrontational Hope. I listened when others debated. I ignored it when people did things that went against what I had believed in. I fit the social organization. But I was not good at fitting molds. There came a point where I embraced the mold completely, and people rejected me because I took their mold to the logical conclusion, and a harsh conclusion it was.

Alone, confused, and frustrated. I decided to take a different approach. I started trying to search for the answers I had once had. I started becoming more and more brazen again. People still did not like me for the most part. But those who did, were under no illusion, they liked me for who I was.

Recently, I went to a place that tried to do that to me again. Tried to have me conform to a societal game where you are putty to their system. They promise approval, and acceptance, but at a cost. I left. I will not become a shell of a being. I will ask questions and state my opinions til' the day I die.
       



                                 



God sees me and says that I am imperfect, but I am lovable and accepted. He will shape me. If I am rejected it is because they reject him.

I would rather be rejected for who I am, than loved for who I am not.

Hinder - Better than me. Vulnerability or Isolation.

  When I was in high-school people found me to be attractive but for the most part people did not want to get involved with me. I was trouble. I would not let people get close. I was bubbly and friendly unless you wanted more than what was on the surface.

When people would want to get close enough to me that I could screw up and hurt them I would simply respond by pushing them away. It made me sad, but I believed that I was doing the right thing. I was someone who did not know how to be a good friend. I did not know what I wanted. I did not know what I needed. I did not have role-models. Or structure.

All I knew was that I was capable of causing incredible amounts of pain to the ones I loved the most. So time and time again I would push people away. After it, this song would start playing in my head. Because I was truly doing them a favor.     

                      

                                      




But looking back, it fills me with a sense of loss. You trust people by choosing to trust them. You can choose to be trustworthy. In every relationship there is going to be pain. The question is what to do when conflict and pain become part of the picture. Do you let that permanently come between the two of you? Or does confrontation, and forgiveness enter the picture?

It's never about who you were or where you have been. It is about who you are, and who you are becoming. Are you the type of person who is willing to face their demons? Are you willing to apologize when you are wrong? Are you willing to love yourself even though you are imperfect?

Everyone is flawed. But are you going to hide your heart for fear of hurting others and being hurt, or are you going to choose to live knowing that pain can shape you in beautiful ways if you will let it? All gold must go through the fire in order to be purified. Do you want to be gold? Or do you want to be stone?