Wordless.

I love watching people find the right words to say.

Inspiration.

Words are swung around so loosely that most times nothing tends to really stick. Some people recall a line of letters and will live by that string for their entire lives. Others forget most facts but can memorise the harmonies of their favourite tracks. Words have always been significant and most of my life consists of remembering irreplaceable selections of sounds that somehow have effected me. What's the hardest thing someone has ever said to you? There is a difference between something that is coated with anger, emotion, or lust. There is a difference between an insult, a compliment, a hushed breathe and the sound of someone you love. 

The hardest thing anyone has ever said to me was that I didn't inspire them. 

What a strange coarse phrasing that touched my skin like sandpaper. Inspiration. What is inspiration but the mere sense to continue onwards and believe. We all can name off a handful of people or places, events or things that have left us with the odd hum of inspiration in our time of being. To love is to know and to know is to understand and for me to understand that someone I know didn't find me inspiring, somehow left me open.My bones have heard the clatter of hard statements times before. It's thick nature still peels zebra stripes as the scars leave me bare but this one didn't slice, didn't cut, didn't imprint on me there but instead it stayed and the letters that create that sentence are forever written in my blood stream. Pooling in my veins with deep colors of pain and I sit and ponder. Ponder what it is to inspire, to impress, to excite and I find the bitter taste of lacklustre self and understand that I lack the notion with or without the praise. I want to be inspiring. I aspire to inspire no one but only myself. And one day the hardest words I'd heard and written and said will be the definition for the woman I remember in my head. 

Aspire to be Inspiring. 

Reintroducing Color Into My Life

This is going to be one of those posts that'll come off super rambley and probably insane but bare with me here, I'm trying. I miss color. Isn't that such a silly thing to say? If you've been reading my rambles for some time now you'll know I'm heavily into figurative language. I was an English Junkie most of my life and I just remember every essay I'd ever written for school was filled with long sassy analogies or personifications of such and such. I like using colors to express my emotions and my photos. This past week was a nice break from "creativity". I actually didn't much take out my camera at all and aside from the posts on here, I was pretty blocked off from all things artsy and bright. Surprisingly though, it's been one of the most colorful energizing weeks and waking up isn't grays or whites anymore, rather I've been physically searching for color. 

I miss seeing bright cheery photos on here that are laughter and activities and experiences. Those times at the beach last summer or going on adventures in the sun, they were so gosh darn bright. I felt colors and I felt alive. It was such a heavy weight that had been lifted off my shoulders to feel things and I just remember choosing those moments over everything else in life. With that realization though, came some hurdles. When you're growing and living a new better way, your old life still exists. With that transition of wants and needs, I grew away from things I'd once believed to care about eternally and those emotions had to come to the surface eventually. 

I have never been more happy or content with myself than I am right now. I have days that are sad and lonely and dark but more importantly, I'm completely aware at all times that no matter what happens I'm not losing myself and I like the person I have become and continue to be. My family and friends who have known me for a while have no way of understanding this and in reality, how could they? I've changed. They haven't. My mom is still going to be the same person she's always been. My friends are still going to act and react the same way they always did. I just see things differently now and that's where this recent clash of darkness has been. When you try holding onto things you've grown apart from, you're prohibiting yourself from progressing and it hurts but running in a continuous routine of emotions is unhealthy and hurts just as much.

I realized that people were affecting me ways that I wasn't affecting them. They weren't able to see that my emotions were very real every time and with that knowledge I had to remove myself from those situations. I have always been an incredibly passive aggressive person who has trouble letting things go. Rather than fighting or wasting more lost words, I have now been able to just step away from people who are always going to be the same. This in no way means I don't care about people I've always loved, it purely means that I've learned to love myself more. I've become more important to myself where I no longer let people hurt me as much. There's only so many times you can die for someone. 

The darkness of loss has been a hurdle. It's been an obstacle and I've backtracked countless times but with the same results every try. I'd always end up walking around the same circles wondering why things happened a certain way. I want to enjoy my brightness again and feel colors. 

I'm feeling better lately, happier even if not content. I have more will to live than I did dying so many times and I'm not asking as many questions anymore because I've learned my lessons and answers. I want to live in colors again and I think it's about time to start doing that with a new state of mind. I had bucket lists last summer I quickly made up with irrational minds. I thought I'd never check off a single thing and it was just a gimmick to try. I checked off so many places on my previous lists and rather than feeling satisfied I kept adding to my lists and it was beautiful and bright. I vow to keep doing that. I vow to keep checking things off every bucket list I can write with myself and with whoever else joins me in my journeys. There's a new addition to my blog up on that little header line. It's my bucket list, it's a draft and a small list but I'll be adding to it often and experiencing things frequently and it's exciting to feel able and capable and light. 

Shay and I are aiming to go to the Santa Barbara Zoo this weekend and it'll be journeys and adventures there too. I'm happy and I feel blue. Not a dark blue or a navy, a bright bizarre brilliant blue and it feels nice to look forward to sunshine and waves. Check out my bucket list, leave a comment with some other things to add too and let me know if you're feeling a color today. I hope your day and weekend is bright and colorful too.  

Mistakes I Make When It Comes To Blogging

I was going to call this post, the problem with blogging but honestly, it may not be a problem for most bloggers so that would be a bias inappropriate title. My problem with blogging and the mistake I've recently been making is that I saw other people make a career out of something and used that same notion as a form of escaping my own reality. Recently I was feeling a little fed up with the way my life was going. I didn't like where I was in life and thought that I could solve all my problems by trying to be like someone else. I think this is something many people do and I'm definitely a prime example that you can only do it for so long. Twenty four hours to me are very very long. In a matter of twenty four hours I can feel and think thousands of different ways and somehow rationalize that they all suddenly are more profound than anything I've thought or felt before. 

Some days I wake up and I'm insanely insanely upset and devote myself into crawling inside a wormhole of new ideas that will somehow improve my present state. The flaw in this profound system is that the wormhole usually just involves mimicking someone else's form of improvement and after a few days I wake up and realize, oh yeah, this isn't me at all. 

I'm a pisces, does that make sense? Haha. I know it's a cop out but gosh I definitely identify with my star sign quite a lot. Pisces are notoriously known for feeding off of emotions and energies and molding themselves to fit in. That right there has basically been me my entire life. Time and time again I've found that this mold I carve myself into isn't a right fit and am then found back again questioning my existence. 

Social media can suck you in and make you think you want to be something you're not. It happens to me a lot and I see it happening to many people every day. Every once in a while you have to just step back and re-evaluate everything. I love this blog. I love blogging and taking photos and sharing my journey. I care about that more than I care about how many people view my photos or find my posts interesting. I feel embarrassed that I thought doing something so artificial would somehow satisfy what I was missing. 

Yesterday after having an incredibly pessimistic depression soaked day (Exhibit A: my last blog post), I went home and felt lost. Shay and I are staying at my house this week and for some sick reason, I convinced myself that that would mean he and I would stop seeing one another this week. It's been eleven months and three days. I have seen that man almost every day for eleven months and three days and somehow still I'm capable of convincing myself he doesn't like me and that what we have and do means nothing. He came over and had a long day too. 

The thing is tho, his grumpy pants came and got right into bed to watch our show and we were sat at our usual position of normality. A couple that's been together for so long, all we do is watch netflix and chill right?

No. My silly dorky man gets comfy in bed, starts watching his show and then leans over and grabs from his bag out of nowhere a banana and starts casually eating his banana. I can not tell you why but I have literally never laughed so hard in my entire life. It was just so perfectly innocent and simple and funny and like us and it was perfect, you know? We laughed and laughed and came up with silly phrases and he is now known as the man with the banan and it made me happy. 

He makes me happy and my life makes me happy and sometimes I'm so ridiculously lost in my head that I forget everything. Last night he let me cook for him and I made him a homemade pizza with garlic and herb dough. I baked him a whole pizza pie with chicken and spinach and cheese, onions, garlic, seasoning and more. I even cut up little tomato slices and lined the dough with oil and I was able to cook for someone I care about. I made a beautifully presented meal without needing to share it with anyone but him and myself. This generation and this society is so into sharing everything with everyone that we get lost in actually experiencing anything at all. I thought I wanted to take up vlogging and was focused on why people weren't following me on instagram and honestly? what the fuck was I thinking? I don't even share insanely important things about my life with my friends and family and somehow I convinced myself I'd want to do that with a bunch of strangers? I'm just not cut out for that dude. I go on here to ramble and journal and talk to myself. I read your comments, I love hearing what you say but if you say something or don't, I'm still going to keep writing. Everything is a learning curve and this is one of them for me. 

Basically what I'm rambling on about is to say that I'm going to go back to being myself now and caring about this blog for me. I have a job that pays my bills and gives me time to explore and adventure. I have a camera that I love to use that I take with me to capture memories. I have people I care about that give me what I need every single day. This place is just for me.

Tonight I'm baking banana bread. Chocolate and peanut butter banana bread. I'm making it for my guy and I'm more than excited to do so. I might take a few snaps and have a memory to share but it's an experience and I'm going to spend my night living rather than editing and writing about a life I wish I lived. What I'm trying to get at here, friends, readers, folk, is make sure you're living life too every once in a while. 

Don't get lost in showcasing an existence without existing in it too. 

Needing to Be Used

I'm a people pleaser. I don't like letting anyone down ever so when someone needs something, I always offer to be the one to help. I think it's a personal insecurity or fear of being unliked. I like being needed. I like knowing that someone somewhere needs me. I have a hard time telling people "no". Lately it's been becoming a real problem. I sit there in my mind listening to people rant off their expected needs from me and I stress over scheduling them into my twenty-four hours. By the time they finish listing off their sentences, my mind is whirling and rather than admitting any of this - I always agree. 

There's a line between being needed and being used. I'm always sitting on the line watching the lives that surround mine and wonder if I'm really at use for them. If they really need me or if I'm just the poor sap they suckered into doing their dirty work. I invest. I invest in everything I do. None of my life is my own but I'm invested in all of it. The misconstrued notion of becoming a necessity is unjustified because in reality I'm replaceable. I'm replaceable like a worn shoe; faithful and patient carrying others around but once they show ware it's time to invest in something new. I'm not something new, I'm something used. 

A bruised reality of an old worn our shoe. 

A lot of Life

Today I was able to spend the afternoon in bed with my little one. I've been slipping back in between my covers more often lately. A lot of my life is changing at the moment and sometimes it gets a little hard to get out of bed. My blog has always been more of a journal and I love looking back at my older posts and seeing the emotions and feelings of that moment. Sometimes I beat myself up for not being more commercial or having a clear theme on my site but in all honesty, these posts are just who I am. They're what I'm feeling and how I'm growing. I'm not trying to sell anyone anything I'm just trying to tell my story. 

Something I've struggled with time and time again was my living situation. I started blogging back when I was in a whole different world, literally. I was living in Europe and I was very unhappy and always felt unwelcome in a world that didn't understand me. Since then I've moved back to America, of course and just fell back into place at my parent's house. My family is not ideal, we are not close knit and we all have gone through enough where that is completely understandable. It's been almost two years now and it's been living with strangers for the most part. We walk on eggshells and all live in our four walls and little by little those walls are being broken down. My older brother moved out about three months ago and recently my mother and little brother have decided to go their separate ways as well. My father is choosing to stay in my childhood home and I'm kind of just left here, hiding under my covers, avoiding the reality that is my situation. 

Now, I'm twenty years old and I have been paying rent for quite some time. I have a job and have been providing for myself for as long as I can remember. I always promised myself that if I were to move again it would be to somewhere I could call my home. I haven't felt comfortable anywhere in a long time but living with my family was easy. I have a dog that needs taking care of when I'm working long days and someone was always home to make sure he was well and ok. I'm eternally grateful for that and he is one of the big reasons I haven't ever just gotten up and left.

I have a guy that I like who I can see myself with in the future. I have a best friend I would love to live with. But he's not sure about me and she's not financially stable and even if the love I have for them is eternal there's no real guarantee that that feeling flows both ways. My mother is asking me to move in with her. Not because she wants me there but because it would help with the rent. That reality is all too painful to understand. I know that if I move out I won't come back to my home, this house, this building that has sustained the growth of all of us children and the break of my parents. I know that if I tell my mother no, we will not speak for a while and I will lose what little definition the term family still applies to in my life. Living on my own would be difficult and painful, freeing yet draining and would ensure a stability to a life I'm not entirely sure I want. 

I'm at quite a crossroads at the moment and I'm not entirely sure how to handle it. A lot of everything feels detached at the moment. The attachments I've grasped onto are waring thin and the newer elements of my life are starting to scare me because of this turn of events. I know I deserve a real home and I know I don't deserve being forgotten all too often but I'm not entirely sure I'm strong enough to go for what I deserve. So, that's where I'm at at this moment and point in time and even though putting this out there isn't going to solve all my problems but at least I can look back in a year or so and read this post of emotions and understand that I made it. Something changed as life always does and who knows what is going to happen in the next few months but it's a rollercoaster and it's a lot lately. 

A lot of life. 

September Thoughts

It was cloudy and overcast today which is rare for us in California. The heat waves have been punishing most of us so it was nice to go outside and enjoy a less sticky climate. Dilshika and I were meant to go get our faces threaded but happened to go on the one day the shop was closed. Of course. I took her to Orcutt Ranch instead and we walked around and talked a bit.

Our schedules are so busy lately it's weird not seeing her every second of every day. Dil is working and is now back at school again and with my job, Shay, and the new photography side gigs it's sadly become rare to just see my best friend. It's already September which absolutely blows my mind and I know that these next few months are going to just breeze on by. Fall is coming and another year is nearing to a close. It's always a wonder to stop and think, enjoy a day out of the heat and live the memories of a new month's start.

September thoughts.

Scattered

The weekend is over and Monday is here. These past five days were such a dream that it's really hard waking up today and realising I'm back to reality. Shay and I had a house. We cooked together, went to sleep together, woke up together and for five days we had a place to live and stay and grow. One word that always tends to get to me is 'Home'. It's been a long time since I've felt like I've had a real home. In Austria I always had a hard time feeling comfortable and back here now, the walls that I wake up to are shelter but never quite home. Home for me is a place I could feel comfortable, vulnerable, express myself in every corner and feel weight lifted every time I open my front door. Yesterday as we were driving back from running errands, he called the house our home and for five days I felt like I had one too. 

I'm at a bit of a stand still at the moment as I'm once again reevaluating and trying to see what I really want to do with my life. It's funny how the people that come and go in your life can have such an impact on the entire scheme of things. Lately life has been more about traveling and experiencing. Writing on here and taking photos has become more important and I've been counting time only to see when I'll be free of my responsibilities and back to feeling lost and alive. I've had a lot of free time lately at work as my boss is traveling and the confines of an office room really tend to itch after twelve hour days. I'm become wary with my path again and find myself envious of people pursuing a freer passion. I'm a paralegal. I'm a good paralegal. If I keep heading in this direction I could be a good attorney and then I could become a great attorney. There's a clear path I can hike down that can offer rewards and titles and stability. 

I'm an amateur photographer. I'm an illogical traveler but I find so much more joy in experiencing life lately than the control of an office corner. I wake up mornings thinking of ways to get through the work day to move onto an adventure at night. I'm a bit out of control at the moment with my thoughts and am having second thoughts about my path. 

For the moment, the one way to gain better control of myself is to focus back into something I can adjust and fix. I've begun caring more about my body and food again. Restricting, limiting, adjusting, fixing, controlling the food I'm taking in and the work I'm doing to burn it off. I feel good but also know that this new breed of control will cause me to begin looking for more in myself. I'm a very scattered person and I usually work towards the extremes rather than the healthy mediums. I can already feel myself looking in the mirror differently so I need to be careful with my current state of mind. 

Shay is going out of town next weekend so maybe by Friday I'll be more relaxed and have a better grasp on my reality. Life is hard sometimes and every day can be different so maybe tomorrow I'll wake up content with my office space again, happy and proud of my little pathway. Maybe tomorrow I won't. I'll skip work and drive off for a while. Maybe just travel and not come back. 

I really don't know at the moment. It's all just very..

Scattered. 

Bones

Some people remain the same most of their lives and they're recognizable; familiar. These past few years have been constant change. My familiar faltered reality became unfamiliar territory the day I moved away and looking back at everything that has happened, the only thing that still remained the same were my bones. Strong, bruised skeleton holding together an imperfect being. Growing into an adult and baring the ages of wear and tear that bring me to this place, here. My bones held me together as I was sitting on my first airplane away from home. The fear of being up so high, gasping air trying not to get lost. To stay grounded. My bones carried weight.

I remember crying. I cried a lot. It was one of those body guttering cries too, the ones where your insides shook and your heart felt like it was collapsing from emotions but somehow it kept pumping. I remember feeling like I had died and having absolutely no control over anything. I had Jack. I had my mom. I had myself and I started working on me.

Then I bought tickets and I remember fireworks. I remember my grandparents pouring champagne on New Years and knowing it might be my last time there. My bones carried me to a different airport in the winter and landed me back to an unfamiliar family. The doorknobs felt different. I remember how much it bothered me that all the doorknobs felt different. Off center, too low, just not right. I found a job. 

I worked for a man who was balding with promises. Tall and told me about how people really thought. Very blunt, very honest; nothing like the quiet back in Austria. The people that would never quite touch, never quite speak, never really listen. He never listened, the man. But I cared. There was light. Two little boys that were light; eyes that were so happy and love. I felt love that wasn't tainted and wasn't forced and I cared. I had reasons. Reasons to smile and laugh and love. I turned twenty. 

I met back up with the sun. The sun from my past that warmed my bones and made me feel wanted. He was the sun. Jack knew too much, saw too much, felt too much. The sun knew little, cared less, wanted more. He was comfortable. I was so grateful to have someone love me again, to have someone want me and need me. I had to work. I had to work and beg for him to want me to be his too and it hurt. It hurt everyday having to try so hard to be worth loving. 

I found hope. I got a new job and I found passion again. I found purpose from people who didn't need me and didn't have to but wanted me. I wore bones that were thinned with sorrow and I was unloved. I was unloved until it went too far and then it stopped. It had to stop so it did. I stopped it and my tongue tasted new colours. 

Sometimes I sit and I experience the days and forget how much has happened to make the person I'm existing to be now. Sometimes I forget why I'm so tired and why my heart is so scared. I forget why I give up faster than push through and forget how much loss and sadness my skeleton has buried. 

Bones.

Chasing Sunsets

This week has been full of stolen kisses and sunsets. It's Shay's birthday today and the beginning of the weekend. I celebrated with him last night and am spending the night with my best friend today, cooking and finding comfort in laughter and normality. This weekend I'm hoping to go to a few new adventure spots and shoot some photos of the days. I was planning on driving down to Santa Barbara for the weekend as a birthday present to Shay and staying there over night. It's weird, this limbo we're playing lately. It's only been two months but it feels like I've known him for years sometimes. Other times, I remember we're still just mere strangers and the realisation is haunting.

We communicate through song lyrics and hike to see sunsets. We're lucky. We're lucky to see everything we see every time we're together. We're lucky to drive and laugh and touch. We're lucky to have found someone to spend those moments with. It's endless skies with us. Always.

Sweet Sound // 1

1.  Maybe // Alina Baraz 

2.  The Waiting (feat. Lawrence Hart) // George Fitzgerald 

3.  Closure // Lapalux 

4.  Nothin On My Mind // Astronomyy

5.  Wildflowers // Made In Heights

6.  When I'm With U // Astronomyy

7.  Livewire // Oh Wonder 

8.  Top To Toe // Honne

9.  We Won't // Jaymes Young & Phoebe Ryan 

10. XO // Eden Project

11. Drowning. // Eden Project

12. Shudder // Basecamp

13. Firefly // Mura Masa, Nao

14. Yes I'm Changing // Tame Impala

15. Grace // Bob Moses 

16. Soul Phazed // Jessica Hart 

(Listen on spotify here)