love is the only thing that doesn’t hurt

Paige showed me this quote yesterday that she found on stumbleupon.com and it showed up on mine yesterday too!  I believe it 100%.  It doesn’t apply to my life at this moment, but I feel like this quote is so true.  Even in like, if a relationship has not quite reached love, losing someone hurts.  Whether or not it was your decision, theirs, or a mutual decision to go your seperate ways, not having someone’s hand to hold can be one of the hardest things.

“Everyone says love hurts, but that is not true. 

Loneliness hurts. Rejection hurts. Losing someone hurts. Envy hurts. 

Everyone gets these things confused with love. 

But in reality, 

love is the only thing in this world that covers up all pain 

and makes someone feel wonderful again.”

defying the odds

Some of you may have heard of Ashley Hegi. She was a girl who lived a great life, but she had to deal with more criticism, bullying, and hardships than anyone that I have ever known. I just found out about this girl a couple of months ago when I was looking online with Brookie. She died shortly after this video was made, but I feel like watching this video can change the lives of everyone. 


It seems like it is an automatic reflex to stare or say something about someone with a strong disability, but after watching this video, I know that I am going to try and just see someone who may look different or even scary as a normal person. Because inside, that is exactly what they are. These people did not choose to look the way they do or have the disease that they do. They were born with it just as easily as anyone of us could have been born with it. 


So please, watch this video so that you may no longer look at people that may look different as being different. A lot of these people are better people than I could ever be.

R.I.P. Ashley Hegi

VI.XX.XC

Brooke and I turn 20 years old at midnight tonight.  Turning twenty is one of the more depressing birthdays, but it’s also super exciting.  We are adults, no longer teenagers, yet we still can’t legally drink alcohol or go to fun bars and clubs with all of our friends who seem just as mature and capable as we are.  Turning twenty, besides that minor set back, is going to be a lot of fun.  It is the perfect time for transition.  I just moved into the new El Casa Trio with my two best friends.  We upgraded from an apartment to a house with a front yard and a back yard.  Already, we feel so much older and we feel more like our actual age.  Next year we’ll be juniors in college, which means pretty soon we’ll be out in the real world with real jobs and real responsibilities.  I guess that means that this summer we all need to continue to live our lives to the fullest because we won’t be this young for long.



The past twenty years have been amazing.  Through the ups and downs, the great friendships, and the dying friendships, everything that has happened has made me who I am today.  I love the way that my life has turned out up to this point.  I have a job that I love, a great boyfriend, fabulous roommates/best friends, and an amazing family.  Sharing my life with a twin sister has been difficult at times, but I wouldn’t change it for anything.  


How many people can say that they have been best friends with someone for 20 years and 9 months on their 20th birthday?  


VI.XX.XC


Let’s make tonight a night to remember.

eat, pray, love

I just finished reading the book Eat Pray Love by Elizabeth Gilbert.  I probably started reading it at least a year ago, but I could never get past the first couple of chapters.  When I was on vacation in South Africa, I decided that the long plane ride and the long road trips across the country would be the perfect opportunities to read a book that so many people have loved.  


The book, that is going to be a movie soon, was a story about a woman who had such low self esteem and could not live without a guy or without loneliness in her mind that she was on the verge of destruction.  I am in no way like this woman.  I have such good self esteem and I feel like I am a pretty independent girl.  By looking at the life of this woman, though, I saw how your mind can do detrimental things.  If you have bad thoughts, you will spiral into bad actions and even worse thoughts.  No matter how bad your life may seem at one time, the truth of the matter is...you are alive.  Only you have the power to change how your life is.

"There is so much about my fate that I cannot control, but other things do fall under the jurisdiction. I can decide how I spend my time, whom I interact with, whom I share my body and life and money and energy with. I can select what I can read and eat and study. I can choose how I'm going to regard unfortunate circumstances in my life-whether I will see them as curses or opportunities. I can choose my words and the tone of voice in which I speak to others. And most of all, I can choose my thoughts." 

— Elizabeth Gilbert

Everything around us is changing.  Commercials, television shows, the media, friends, enemies, family members.  Everyone is telling us how we should live our lives, what we should be concerned with, who we should be with, etc.  Eat Pray Love was all about leaving the modern world behind and finding a spiritual world within yourself.  If you can look past the pain and try to truly become and think HAPPY, then you can truly attain happiness.

"You are, after all, what you think. Your emotions are the slaves to your thoughts, and you are the slave to your emotions." 

— Elizabeth Gilbert (Eat, Pray, Love: One Woman's Search for Everything Across Italy, India and Indonesia)