From My Childhood Bedroom...

I had the fortune of taking over my parents' basement when I was a sophomore in high school. I had a bedroom and a living room, and I was pretty much the coolest kid ever.

Before that, I had an upstairs room facing the backyard. This room has gone through a couple phases. When we moved to Buffalo when I was 6, it was pink with some wallpaper border that I can't remember. It was my fortress of playtime where I preferred to play on my own with American Girl dolls, Polly Pockets, Barbies, you name it. I had an awesome imagination. It was the bedroom where I got ready for little league games, then came back after to make myself look like a girl, only to go running around outside barefoot and get dirty all over again. It's where I stood in the mirror smoothing out the bumps in my hair from my ponytail during the phase where I was really into those snappy clips, which were later replaced by every butterfly clip you could possibly imagine.

Around 10 or 11 years old, the room went purple with a wallpaper that had yellow and green flowers. I changed the setup and got my first TV - that I won - which completely changed that place. I no longer had to suffer through the news channels and boring shows that my parents watched. I could toon into Nick or Disney or even MTV all I wanted. That was also the room where I experienced my first childhood heartbreak, and all heartbreaks since have been handled the same way: find a comfy pillow, lay on the ground and stare at the ceiling until you can figure out all your feelings.

Though the colors and designs stayed the same through middle school, I moved my bed and convinced my parents that it was a great idea to put these dreamy, see-through curtains around my bed as if I was some sort of khaleesi. I loved this so much aside from the nights when the curtains would crash down and scare me awake.

In high school, the purple became covered in band posters. The curtains concealed my late night phone calls to friends when my parents thought I was sleeping. The heartbreaks were handled the same way. And then I moved down to the basement.

As I sit here in what is now the guest room, I try to think about what little me would think of older me. She would probably first want to know if I was happy. She wouldn't understand what a difficult question that is to answer, even though my answer should just be, "yes, I have a lot to be thankful for." She would want to know if I'm having fun. I'm pretty sure that would be a yes, if you're able to forget some of the stress that adulthood brings with it. She would then want to know if I was learning something new everyday and if I was still the most curious person ever. I would tell her about the internet and how it makes being curious the most rewarding and time-wasting trait you could ever have. And I can honestly say that yes, I am still learning something new everyday.

The lessons I learn now aren't nearly as fun as what I would learn as a child. In fact, I learn most of them the hard way. I don't know if I would tell little me how painful lessons can be when you're an adult. Why would I try to curb that intense curiosity I was known for so early? But at the same time I wish I could warn her of and protect her from the things that will hurt her in the future that some people deem as "character building."

But you can't protect everyone from everything, and you can't go through life being constantly worried or scared. That's the current lesson I'm learning, and I'm not even really sure how to feel about it. In high school and college, I learned you can't change people no matter how much you intervene in their lives. I've been trying to be good about keeping my mouth shut when it comes to others' decisions, because more often than not they still do what they wanted to do regardless of my advice. So I thought I could at least be the protector for those that I love. But now as an adult, I'm learning that you can only protect someone if they want you to. It's hard because I go in with the best intentions, but more often than not I'm the one who ends up looking like an idiot.

If I was saying all this to little me, she definitely would've asked for a snack at this point, because I'm really just going stream of consciousness style at this point. I think if I really were given the chance to warn my young self against anything, I wouldn't. Everyone has to learn things their own way and experience it for themselves. And I really just need to let go.

On Learning to Love Yourself...

It's been going on as long as I can remember, and it started some time during my elementary school years. That little voice that instigates comparisons and tells me I'm not good enough. I can be watching a TV show filled with beautiful people that basically aren't real people and start wondering how I can make my thighs not touch like the lead character. I can be out with others and meeting new people and start worrying that I'm not as witty or funny to keep up with the group. Or one of my friends makes a new friend that has different, cooler interests than mine, and I immediately try to figure out how I can prevent myself from being replaced.

I know I'm not the only one who does this, and I can't just call it a "girl thing." But a certain female writer recently put this sensation into words in a way that I never could:

What Men Want In A Woman by Chelsea Fagan

I read this piece at work the other day and started tearing up, not because I just went through a break up (no worries guys, me and the boy are still going strong after 3 1/2 years), but because I've felt everything she writes about at one point or another in my life. I know what it's like to feel the need to change every single part of myself to the point where I'm not me anymore just to meet someone else's expectations, and know deep down that it still won't be what they need.

"I have people in my life — including, yes, a man — who have chosen to be there because of what existed there already. And when I was torturing myself over the loss of someone who never really wanted me, the idea that I could have changed his mind is what really killed me." - Chelsea Fagan

 This has been a tough lesson to learn, especially as someone who looks to constantly keep improving themselves. I know I can always do something better than I've done it before and there's a fine line between improvement and changing who you are. Of course, when you think about that, you start overthinking all your decisions and drive yourself crazy.

But as I was saying, it's a tough lesson to learn, and it applies to more than romantic relationships. Friends, work, family, I know I'm always striving to everyone's ideal in these relationships. I want to be exactly what they want in a daughter, sister, friend, employee. What I've recently learned is that changing my own interests or aiming for impossible physical goals won't work. If anything, it will eliminate what these people liked about me in the first place.

I had an epiphany with this a couple months ago when I felt jealous of my boyfriend's friends that love and are great at video games. I like them but I don't want to play them all the time, and I'm not particularly great at them. After expressing said jealousy, he told me something that kind of blew my mind, which was that he loved me for what I'm into, not for me trying to be into the same things he likes. It shouldn't be mind-blowing, right? That's something I should just understand after 3 1/2 years together, or after being friends with someone for a long time, or having a job for about two years.

Which leads me to this next piece:

You Deserve Love As Big As Your Thighs by Alexandra Bochetto

I won't delve too far into the body positive message of this one (as I have done so before, here), but I'll say that the title of this piece is brilliant.

When I leave my home and walk past people on the street, I’ll constantly fix myself – keep my shirt from riding up, elongate my neck to make sure that sinful double chin isn’t sticking out to ruin everyone’s view. Because despite physically being alone, I am never quite alone. - Alexandra Bochetto

I'm figuring out just how exhausting it is to constantly compare myself to others. When I meet another girl, I need to stop noticing all the ways she's better than me and why people will like her more than me. I especially need to stop comparing my size and shape to theirs, because it's usually different in ways that are impossible to fix (and in ways that I should really just embrace).

Everyone is different and it's beautiful, and it's what makes bringing new people into our lives interesting. And when you find someone that loves the shit out of you just for being you, then you shouldn't agonize over what they like about other people that you don't have.

I think a huge part of this is accepting that there are people out there that love you exactly as you are. Many people will try to change you and make you feel bad to incite some change, but the ones that matter just want you to be your awesome, weird, quirky self. As Paul Rudd said in Knocked Up, "do you ever wonder how somebody could eve like you?" All the time. And we - and by we I mean me, of course - need to stop wondering that.

Every over-enthusiastic women's magazine I read tells me that confidence is the sexiest trait you can have, and that's the only piece of advice I'll ever take from them. It's totally true. When you meet someone who isn't insanely self-conscious or putting on a mask all the time, it's refreshing. And so I'm making it my goal for the rest of the year - since resolutions aren't only for the beginning of the year - to silence those voices that tell me I'm not good enough or smart enough, and just learn to love myself as I am. There is always room for improvement, but I can't lose myself in the process.

On Anxiety...

It's a bitch.

I'll preface this entry by saying that my anxiety decreased exponentially when Loestrin left my life. And good riddance to THAT crap.

I'll also note that I have a mind that never stops. It keeps me up late for no reason, despite how exhausted my body is. It snowballs ideas until they become something terrifying. It's basically the epitome of the "scumbag brain" meme.

So for the past two and a half years or so, I've been trying to battle anxiety with a brain that refuses to do so. It would get to the point where I could be doubled over in pain because I couldn't deal with anything that was going on around me. I never wanted to leave my apartment, but at the same time, every time I stayed in for a weekend I felt incredibly alone. Go ahead and try to take on intense anxiety on your own. It doesn't work.

All this leads to anxiety boiling up inside you until you think your body might actually physically fall apart. It leads to what Holly Golightly referred to as the "mean reds."

I've always thought the best horror movies keep some things hidden so that your imagination can fill in the blanks. Often what you yourself come up with is much more terrifying than what a filmmaker can portray on screen. So try applying that to your real life, and not being able to fill in the blank.

In the past couple months, I've been really proud of how I've kept my anxiety under control. I no longer have to curl up in a tense ball and wait for the wave of worries to wash over me. I can take a deep breath a dissect a problem rather than hide from it. But every so often it comes sneaking back into my life and brings with it self-doubt and fear. It doesn't manifest itself as physical pain anymore, but it does show up as annoying foot tapping, constantly needing to have something in my hands or just dropping out of reality to zone out and get through it while in public.

I'm not sure why I've decided to write about all of this now. It's therapeutic in a way, but I don't want people to be worried about me. More than anything, I want to know when and how it goes away. What do I need to do to turn my mind off for one night? And does anxiety ever really leave your life, or do we all just keep ourselves distracted until it slowly fades away? The thought of how long it could take to go away just makes me more anxious.

Other things that have changed in the past couple months: the things causing me anxiety will be good for my future regardless of how they turn out. First time that's happening in about...two years? I'll keep you posted on where it all goes.