Smile!

“Let your smile change the world, but don’t let the world change your smile.”

I read this the other day and it has stuck with me. It’s been really hard for me lately to make sure that my smile isn’t affected by the world, more specifically, the people who I’ve recently been surrounded by. This past week I’ve been at a conference with my boyfriend for his job and the people who are here with us are just not my cup of tea. I don’t really have anything in common with them. Their conversations consist of cussing, disrespecting people, and behaving immorally.

Luckily, as someone who works from home, I can bring my work with me anywhere and have had the great excuse of having to work during the days to keep me occupied while they’re doing the stuff for the conference and attending classes. That means I only have to interact with these people for a few hours at night. It’s hard being surrounded by the negativity. I get that everyone goes through stuff and that can affect behaviors. I know. I’ve been through my fair share of stuff. I choose to let it make life better and not focus on the bad, the negative.

I guess I think about it like this… it’s that whole saying, “you become like the 5 people you interact most with”. It just has a way of getting to you and eventually taking over. Compare it to weeds. Once one pops up, soon they suck the life out of all the plants and take over. That’s how I feel about these people. They’re weeds sucking the positivity and balanced life out of me. I’ve always been considered a very upbeat person, despite the load of crap that life has thrown at me – between the death of my mom and the death of my twin sister. I’m always smiling and laughing. There’s no point to life if you’re not making the most out of it.

I choose to be positive and surround myself with people who are like that. My boyfriend, just this morning, started playing with my cheeks saying “Don’t they need a massage? You’re always smiling, and, you know, those are muscles too, they need a break” and continued “massaging” my cheeks, which just made me laugh more. I don’t want the world to change my smile, and this week, that has been a huge challenge. I’m glad that I’m here with my boyfriend because at least there is one other person who rejects the negativity and tries to ignore the lack of values these people we’re currently surrounded by choose to live by.

There are just two more nights, one more day, and a plane ride between the struggle to remain strong and being home and washing my hands of the ‘dirty’ that I feel whenever I’m around them. Just smile!

Let Life In

Pride gets in the way of a lot of good in this life. Have you ever passed on an opportunity, missed out on an important moment, lost something you cared about, because your pride got in the way? Is it still getting in the way? The rest of your life is a long time. Whether you realize this or not, let me tell you, your life is being shaped right now. You can choose to blame your circumstances on fate, or bad luck, or bad choices – that’s just your pride talking – or  you can choose to fight back. Spending today complaining about yesterday won’t make tomorrow any better. Wouldn’t it be better to let it go? We are human and we get to decide how we are going to live. We get to decide who is going to be in our life and how our life is going to turn out. Let your pride go. Let life in.

I am who I am…

I am who I am

I’m not hot or gorgeous. I don’t have an amazing figure or a flat stomach. I’m far from being considered a model but, I’m me. I eat food, I have curves, I have scars, I have history. Some people love me, some people like me, some people hate me. I have done good, I have done bad. I love my PJs and I go without makeup. I’m random and crazy. I don’t pretend to be someone I’m not. I am who I am. You can love me or not. If I love you, I do it with my whole heart. I make no apologies for the person I am.

There is nothin…

There is nothing more dangerous than the moment you become a hostage to yesterday’s comfort zone.

Rob Thompson

“To see a world in a grain of sand and heaven in a wild flower Hold infinity in the palms of your hand and eternity in an hour.”

“To see a world…

A constant annoyance

There is a group of kids from one of the not-so-well-off-complexes down the road from the apartment complex I both live in and work at that continuously comes to our property. While here, they go back and forth between the basketball court and the gym. The basketball court is an open court, no access card needed, however it is in our community and for residents only. The gym is locked at all times, needing an access card to gain entry any time of day. This is clearly for residents only. These kids, ranging from middle school to high school ages, and both males and females, have figured out a system to get into the gym without an access card – simply yank as hard as you can on the door until it gives away and flies open. For the past 8 months me and all of my coworkers, have had countless residents, all college students, since we are a student-living community deemed “off campus housing”, come into the office and complain about the kids playing basketball or football in the gym, throwing weights around, laying on the treadmills watching movies and TV, yanking on all the weight machines so they go slamming down, and bending the basketball hoops. For the past 8 months we have tried effortlessly to kindly ask the kids to leave the property or we would call the cops on them for trespassing. Since our efforts as a staff to stop these kids from coming have been absolutely useless, we have started to call the cops and ask for them to come trespass the kids before even confronting them ourselves. We believe that months of verbal warning have been fair enough. Every time we call the cops, by the time they actually show up, the kids have left, or see the cops coming and run. I realize that the community that these kids live in probably does not have a basketball court and this is the closest community around with an easy-access court. However, our residents have been promised a college, student-living community and not a family community with young, reckless children breaking the equipment they pay to use. It looks bad giving tours and having to tell kids to leave the property because they aren’t residents and they are trespassing. It sets a bad first impression and is hard to recover from sometimes. I feel guilty calling the cops on such young children, but at the same time, isn’t it important for them to learn that what they are doing is inappropriate and “against the rules”? If you belong to a gym that you pay a monthly membership fee for, but had to workout around kids misusing equipment and breaking what you are paying for, wouldn’t you be upset as well? For our residents, this is the same thing; a constant annoyance and inability to use the equipment. It has gotten to the point that my guilt for calling the cops on teens has turned into a desire to finally have them trespassed and formally have a report about these incidents. I would like to go to work one day and not worry about having to either call the non-emergency police department or walk out and escort the kids off property myself.

       

Denying an old saying

Lightening struck twice… What does this mean? My intention in this blog is to tell my story, the story of my mom, and the story of my twin sister. The old saying goes that lightening never strikes the same place twice. I have to say that is wrong. At the age of 7, just before my 8th birthday, my mom passed away. A coma induced by too high a dose of painkillers after surgery. At the age of 20, just before my 21st birthday, my twin sister passed away. A coma caused as a result of a hit and run on her bike by a drunk driver. Lightening struck twice. Two instances unique in their own way, yet so similar and devastating. In time I will tell these stories. I hope that you will learn with me the lessons of life and experience all that comes with it – funny and serious, petty and significant, questions and answers, upsetting and fulfilling.