Love you.

So many of life's biggest challenges and mysteries revolve around love. When are you truly in love?... Is love ever enough?... who should you love?... Do you really know what love is?... this list could go on and on and on. People make careers answering and asking these very questions and still it seems no one ever has a direct answer to any of them.
Growing up I was always told "Until you love yourself you can't truly love anyone else" and I always took it lightly. I actually didn't believe it at first because I spent a large majority of my life not liking myself and still felt there were plenty of people in my life I loved. But now after watching my friends get their hearts broken, mended and broken again... after learning how it feels to actually love myself and to see the changes it's made in my life and my relationships... it makes perfect sense.
You always hear stories of the "perfect" relationship ending abruptly. One person cheats or all of a sudden doesn't love the other. But when you look a little closer often times you'll find that at least one of those people (if not both) still needed to find love for themselves. Often times when people get married or enter long term relationships one or both of them loses themselves. Their world begins and ends with that other person and they forget about what they want, what they need... they forget about their worth. And when you don't require love from yourself how can you ever require it from someone else? And how will that person know how to treat you?? By how you treat yourself. If you are willing to settle for little or nothing from yourself then why should you require anymore from them?
That's where self love comes into play. I've found that when both people in a relationship feel whole and happy by themselves they are even better when they are together. But when one or both of those people are missing something within themselves and they can't find it with the person they are with they will keep looking until they do. And often times they eventually discover that no one else can give it to them. Just like in The Wizard of Oz what you are searching for you've had with you all along. And unfortunately most people discover this after they've broken hearts and had their heart broken time and time again.
It seems to me that people waste so much time looking for love, looking for someone to complete them when what they should be doing is looking inside themselves. And once they discover they don't need anyone else to complete them or to make them happy that's when everything else they wanted comes. And no matter what happens from that point on you'll always have someone who loves you... YOU.

takin it back...

I was looking through old photo albums of me and my friends. I can't believe how easy life was back then and how much I took it for granted. I have pictures from concerts and amusement parks and parties... and I thought my life was tough. Pfft! And why didn't I believe I was pretty and skinny!?? I look at those pictures and wish I looked like that now!! I will never look like that again and at the time I thought I was ugly and fat. MAN! If I could only go back and get inside my head! LOL But what looking at the pictures really made me miss the most was my friends... Melissa, Liz, Nichole, Shayla, Jenny, Vikki, Tamera and many more. You guys have been awesome friends and I wouldn't be who I am without knowing you so thank you!!

just keep it real

I always wonder why people feel the need to pretend especially girls/women. For as long as I can remember I've watched girls pretend to like someone when they didn't. I can understand being civil to someone... smiling and saying hello even if you don't care for them or really like them. But why put on the show? Why invite them to parties? Why invite them to hang out with you and then as soon as they leave spend the entire night talking about them?

Is it purely for entertainment? Is it because you don't have enough going on in your life so you have to create something to talk about? I just don't understand the need for being two faced and acting phoney. It's too much work if you ask me. Why not just keep it real?