This is Just the Beginning

   

At First, I wasn't really looking forward to writing all these blogs. I'm not really one to write out what makes me happy and unhappy, because if I had the choice, I wouldn't think about it. But there was something about this project that made me change my views of things. It kind of made me reconsider some things in my life. 

I can't tell you I'm so much happier than I was before, because I'm not. But I am happier. I've realized I deserve to be happy. Sure I'm not the best student, or girlfriend, or daughter or friend, but I am trying. Trying is all I can do.

I've made goals for myself:

• Keep negative thoughts away
• Treat my friends better.
• Keep my mind focused on school.
• Don't stress myself out too much.
• Remember I'm not alone.

I'm determined to make my life better for myself. I can get there, it's just going to take some motivation. The day will come where I can look at myself and say, "You're strong, you can get through anything". Until that day, I just have to take it slow.

It's amazing what we can discover just by looking deeper into ourselves. It's been fun. Quite an adventure actually. 

Tiny Tots, over and out. 

(Ok, that was lame >.<)

TheBomb.Com

This creature right here is my amazing, spoiled, strange, Standard Poodle, Noble. He's pretty awesome. And cute. Cute is always good. He likes when I take awesome pictures of him.

He's probably the best listener I've ever come across. He has no idea what I'm saying, so he can't judge me. And as long as I pet him, he says by me. It's a win-win situation.

Is it sad I spend my days talking to a dog? I mean, he's my dog, so that makes it a little better. Right? yea, no it probably doesn't. But ya know. YOLO. Oh my god. No i didn't say that. *slaps forehead* bad Taylor.

This snazzy looking thing is my turtle Mr. Kickles :) Except, I'm not entirely sure he's a guy. LOL awks. He is entertaining though. I got him to distract myself from "bad thoughts" Well, that's what my therapist and parents say. I just wanted a turtle. Turtles are chill. I don't appreciate when he scratches me though.

If I put my hand up to the tank, he'll put his face on my finger. It makes me feel loved. I sing to him a lot, just because he watches me. He also always lets me take pictures of him. See how I just made him seem all loving and sweet? The only reason he does any of that is because he wants me to feed him. He's fat. Ha ha.

These two have the ability to make me really happy. They're cute, what can I say. <3

Photography: My guilty Pleasure.

My uncles is a photographer. I always loved hearing his stories and seeing all of his equipment. I remember when he took a bunch of pictures of me, and I got to pick the ones I like the best. We edited them and made them look really awesome. From then I was always taking pictures of things.

I remember the first picture that I thought looked really cool. I was in 6th grade and it was a picture of a telephone pole in the sunset. I was really proud of myself. A few years after that I convince my mom I needed a better camera. It was just a little 10 megapixel camera. his year though, i got a really nice 16 megapixel as an early christmas present. I love it.

I mostly like taking pictures of nature, or my turtle or dog. But sometimes I see something that catches my eye, I can get a pretty cool picture.


  Photography is a way for me to be creative with my own mind without others trying to tell me what's right for wrong. I can just be myself and ignore what others say. They're my pictures, and if someone doesn't like them  just say "too bad" because they make me feel good about myself.

  

Broccoli and Cheese

I don't really know where I stand with "Me". Myself and I have constant fights abut liking each other or not. I have my days when I do and don't. I guess it depends on the situation.

It's really easy for people to convince me that I'm not good enough. Just simply because my self esteem has been low for a long time. Don't get me wrong, I have a great boyfriend who makes me feel beautiful and worth it, but I just can't seem to keep in in my mind.

Honestly, part of the reason I slip so much in school is because I do bad on one thing and I convince myself I'll never be able to achieve anything. So my mind shuts down and I give up. That's what happened this quarter. And now here I am... Trying to make up a million assignments. But I can only blame  myself. I did it, not someone else. 

I don't know what made me not like myself so much. I don't know what made me think I won't be good enough. I might have an idea why. But I don't know. I guess only time will tell.  

Best Friends are the Best Medicine.

There's two people I will go to for anything I need. They're ALWAYS there for me, even when I'm being ridiculous. Those two girls are Evett and Kaila. I wouldn't trade them for anything.

I met Evett in middle school. We didn't get super close until 7th grade, but since then, we've been inseparable. It's easy for me to be myself around her. She just understand me better than most people. She's the one I take weird pictures with. The one I'm fat with. The one I quote Kevin Hart with. The one I can just go to and say something stupid and she know exactly what I mean. She was there when I was going through a really hard time in my life and she stuck by me. While others walked away from me for not being open about anything, she was the one i confined in.

Now Kaila and I had a rough start. We also "met" in 7th grade. (more like saw each other) We had a few... choice words for each other that weren't exactly nice.. ha ha. Freshman year came along and we had band together. From then one we jut became best friends. She's someone I also trust with my life. she's the one I have strange conversations with. The one who literally lives two minutes away from me. Her mom and I are home gurls fo lyfe ;) She's the one who drives around with me and helps me work. The one who I've stuck by since day one. (of freshman year not 7th grade:)

I've been through a lot, and I've lost a lot of friends. But I've never lost these two and I know I never will. I'm extremely lucky and grateful to have two amazing best friends that I can go to for anything. Whether it be to laugh, cry, be stupid, be fat, or just do nothing, they're there.

I'll never be able to tell them just how much they're done for me. I'll never be able to fully thank them for all they've kept me strong through. But I know I can repay them by giving them back all they've given me, which is why I'll never leave them on their own. It's really a great feeling to know that you have people like this in a world that can be so cruel. Good things really can happen.

I HATE PEOPLE. KTHANKSBYE.

Ok. Why. WHY. WHHYYYYYYY. Do people touch me. Like, EWW I DON'T LIKE YOU GO AWAY. I need my personal space. A lot of it. There's no room for people to be touching me when I clearly never said they could. And not to be mean, but if you smell, I REALLY don't want to be touched by you.

Not only that. BUT PEOPLE ARE RUDE. I can be a very nice person, but I then i expect it back. It's common curtsey. If you're going to treat me like crap, I promise I'll return the favor. -.- UGHHH. People suck. I can't even type right I'm so mad. kdjfng;jkhrk gaw;rht;alwjfl;ajrglsjrlg

I'm going to go yell and scream into my pillow now.

Rant done.

May 1, 2009. Best Decision of My Life.

May 1, 2009. This day will always be an extremely important day in my life. This is the day Steven asked me out. I'll try not to make this too cheesy, I don't want to make you puke. But this boy truthfully makes me happier than anyone else can. We've had a long time to work on our relationship, and we've gone through soooo much together.

It's obvious that no relationship is perfect, and I know mine isn't. It never will be, but it's as close to perfect as it can be right now. The distance affects us a lot, but we're still able to keep each other together.

One thing that I love is our Skype and Netflix dates.

Skype dates; we video chat for a few hours and we talk about everything and anything. Someone always has a story to tell, or a joke, or we screen-share and watch Youtube videos together.

Netflix dates; one time, we decided we wanted to watch a movie together. We didn't know how to do it  on Xbox together, so we did it the ghetto way and counted to three and pushed play together. Ha ha. It was great. We watched the Land Before Time. It's because we're awesome.

I'm proud to say he's my boyfriend. I'm proud to say he's been in life for almost 4 years. I'm proud to say he's a soldier. I'm proud to say I'm happy, because he loves to see me smile.

Okay, I don't want you to be smothered with my love for my boyfriend. The point is he makes me happy, and I'll fight to the end to keep him. :)    

The Army Life

Something I said made me happy and unhappy was the Army. There's some things that make it great, but there's also aspects that make it not so great.

The good:

• There's amazing benefits. For you, and your family. 
• It disciplines you.
• You get to travel. 
• You meet many new people. 
• You protect others on  daily basis. 
•  Free college.
• Keeps you physically fit. 
• Love letters.

The bad:

• The distance
• The worry
• The lack of information you're allowed to know. 
• Not being able to see each other.
• Limited time to talk.
• Missing them.
• Time differences.
• Uncontrollable tears. 
• Waking up in the middle of the night crying and out of breath from horrible dreams you can't recall were real or not. 
• Smiling everyday like everything is perfect. 
• The fights.

One of my favorite things about my boyfriend being in the army was the letters he sent me while he was in basic training. We never had a perfect relationship. We fought a lot and a lot of times we would break up. Once you throw distance into that, the change was amazing. We finally realized we shouldn't be fighting. We finally realized there was more important things we should be focusing on. I would always get letters on Thursdays. Those were my favorite days of the week. And every letter was heartfelt. I still read them from time to time when I'm not able to talk to Steven. They're a nice reminder that good things can come from the military. 

On top of the letters, his body. Ohhhhhhhhh man. Ha ha talk about physically fit. He's so much more respectful now. I'm saying he wasn't before, there's just a bigger demand for respect in the military. He always holds open the door, he says "yes/no ma'am/sir", "Thank you ma'am/sir" and so on. It's actually pretty adorable. And his face just lights up when a stranger comes up to him and says "thank you" while he's in uniform. 

He's currently in Hawaii which makes me really jealous. Before that he was in Georgia for Basic Training and Advanced Individual Training (AIT). Throughout his time, he made a few good friends that he still keeps in touch with. But now he doesn't get to see them, so it's hard.

One thing that sucks is the distance. It's really hard to go from seeing someone everyday to only seeing them every few months. You never really know how their doing or what they're doing. Not to mention the time change is a challenge. You never get much information because everything its secretive. It's just really hard.

The fights are worse because you're so far away it's hard to fix things. most of the time you just end up going to sleep mad at each other which is never good. Then your left worrying if you'll end up being ok. 

I find myself crying a lot. Mostly because I miss him. But sometimes I find myself crying because I'm just so proud of everything he's doing. I wake up in the middle of the night sometimes in tears because I have nightmares of something bad happening to him. It really rally sucks..

One thing I'll always have to hold onto though is the fact that he's coming home to me. That I'm the one he talks to everyday and night and says I love you to. I'm the one waiting and holding on. Just like he is.   

The Truth.

I've know for quite sometime that I wasn't a very happy person. I have to admit, I was a little bit in denial just how bad it was. Writing these list, I realized that there has been such a significant change in my life since I reached my lowest point 4 years ago. But I also realized all the things about myself that make me unhappy. All this time I blamed it on other people, but in reality, it's not that people don't like me; It's that I don't like myself. I'm not just an emotional teenager looking for attention, I'm not just over dramatic, I'm not looking for sympathy. I'm looking for change. I'm looking to better myself.

Things that make me happy:

• Photography. I love taking pictures.
• Walks where I can just think.
• My boyfriend Steven.
• food.
• TRUE friends.
• Animals.
• My ability to make others smile.
• Music.
• Football.

Things that make me unhappy:

• Fights.
• Counseling.
• My health. (mental, physical)
• My ability to procrastinate.
• Me.
• Being so gullible. 
• "I miss my boyfriend/girlfriend after one day" Couples
• Ignorance.
• "Touchy" people.
• Being so sensitive.
• Rudeness

While making these list, I managed to make a third list that makes be both happy and unhappy: 

• Army. 
• College.
• Holidays.
• Family.
• School.

I don't want to be unhappy. I don't want to feel like this anymore. I want to be the Taylor that smiled all the time, REALLY smiled. The Taylor that knew who she was as a person. The Taylor people didn't talk about all the time for her relationship. The Taylor everyone loved. I'm going to find her. Someday, somehow. I will.