Saying too much vs. Saying nothing.

I think it's a good thing to think before you speak, but sometimes people think too much and miss the opportunity to say anything. So what's better- saying too much or saying nothing at all?

I've become a fan of saying too much. In the past i've been super cautious before confronting someone; but then I turned out to be non-confrontational and avoided things that needed to be said. This all changed when I started college. I didn't want any more opportunities to slip through my fingertips; I was tired of letting things bottle up inside of me and then never having the chance to let it out. So if I noticed that I had been thinking about a situation too much, I started talking about it. I definitely noticed a difference in myself; even if things didn't turn out the way I wanted them to, I felt better. I felt relieved   knowing that I had tried to make things different.

I've also spilled my heart out to people and they've said nothing. Maybe they literally didn't have a response. Feelings were building up inside of me to the point that I had to verbalize them just to make myself feel better. I didn't care if I changed the situation or the other person's mind. I just knew it would have driven me crazy if I didn't say something. So I did. I don't regret it at all; i'm glad I spoke my mind.

What bothers me the most are the times that I didn't say enough; I often think about what would have happened if I had been honest and said what was on my mind. I don't want to spend my life analyzing the past. I would rather say everything I need to say, just for the sake of making myself feel better. To me, saying too much shows that I've made an effort instead of just letting the moment pass by. 

I love my giiiirls.

For the first time in a very long time, I got to catch up with my favorite group of girls. They are: Kelly, Sara, Aileen, Ashley, Courtney, Morgan, and Kelsey. This is the high school group of girls that got each other through everything; we've cried together, we've yelled together, and we've laughed together.

Now we all have separate lives, growing and learning from new people in different surroundings. But we all get together and it's just like it used to be. No matter where life takes us, we share a bond that will always be present. It feels good to have us all in the same room.
In Kelsey's words, "It's good to hear all our laughs together again."

In college, I've heard some people talk about how much they used to party in high school.  My friends and I sat around eating pizza and rainbow sherbet quoting the same movies all weekend. And it was fun. I wouldn't trade that for the world.

I'm thankful to have friendships like this.

Don't wish your life away.

Dear You,

I'm sorry that it's taken awhile for me to make another post. I made an introduction and then left on a cliffhanger. Well, not really a cliffhanger. My life isn't that exciting. Point is, i'll get better at this I promise.

I'll just share some of my thoughts over the past week. Cause it's pretty fitting with the title of this blog.

The best relationships (friendships or dating) take a while to establish. Fact is, it takes a lot of time to get to know a person. And that's why these relationships turn out to be the best ones, because you spend a lot of time with someone and share experiences together. If you have stories together, there's more to talk about and you have a greater connection with someone. It doesn't happen instantly. I don't know why we get that idea in our heads sometimes; if we meet somebody and think they're cool we want them to automatically be our best friend, or start dreaming of a wedding. Sometimes we go so fast and wish our life away. In reality we should savor the moments when we barely know someone and take the time to learn their story. Because if you take the time to get to know someone you'll have a stronger relationship.

But these relationships are also hard to destroy. If you get in a fight with someone you've been close friends with for years, it's going to hurt more than if it was someone you never spent a lot of time with. So just be careful and prepared to risk that. In every situation, it's all about the risk. If you're not willing to make yourself vulnerable then you'll miss out on all the people you could have had great relationships with. Just something to keep in mind.

It's 2am and I'm tired and I want this to end so byeee.

Love, me.

Blog 1: In the beginning

I've been thinking about starting a blog recently, so here's me actually doing it! I think I'll start off by telling you why I want to do this, and some things you may not have known about me.

I'm a sophomore at UT Chattanooga, my major is English: Rhetoric and Professional Writing with a minor in Communications. But when people ask me, I just say that I'm an English major. Which is 99.99% of the time followed by the question, "Do you want to teach?" Honestly: "No. I have absolutely no desire to teach. I will if I have to, but I don't want to." In reality I answer: "I'm not sure yet." Because I just don't have the patience to explain my life goals to the lady giving me a haircut, or some friend of a friend of my mom's brother.

You see, there are two things that I want to do; I want to be an editor and a writer. I'm going to school to be an editor. Ideally, I'll be able to find a job at a publishing company after I graduate and eventually work my way into editing. Not newspapers, not magazines, books. I want to be a book editor. I think I figured this out in high school; that's when teachers started making us peer-edit papers. English has always come easy to me, but I never realized how much I liked it until I came across awful papers written by 15 year olds. This passion was solidified my first semester in college. For an exam, my English professor gave us a sample essay full of grammatical errors. We were assigned to correct 10 of them; I corrected about 25. When I got back from class I told my roommate it was fun.
I know, I need help.

My other passion is writing. This is something I've wanted to do my whole life. In preschool I would get a hold of a pen and paper and make squiggle marks, I was trying to make words but I didn't know the alphabet yet. It was very frustrating. Also, I lied a lot when I was little. I feel bad admitting that, but it's so true. I told my friends I had a dog when I didn't, I always twisted events to make them more interesting, and in my head I made up names and stories for people that didn't exist. I wrote my first story when I was seven. When I was nine, I wrote a short chapter book. Throughout my life I've come up when story ideas and sketched outlines in notebooks. I became serious about becoming a writer my sophomore year in high school. I had this one idea for a book that wouldn't leave my head, and I felt compelled to try to write this book. But pursuing this scared me; I would have to put so much time and effort into it, only for it to be rejected by several publishers.
Then I bought the book Speak by Laurie Halse Anderson. My edition had an introductory letter written by the author herself, I can't recall everything but basically she said it was worth it. For some reason, that letter is what did it for me. I decided that at some point in my life, I would write a novel; I would give it a try.

But what would I write about? Well, I came across another letter this past summer by F. Scott Fitzgerald (my favorite author, just saying). He's writing to another author and telling him "You've got to sell your heart" Basically, he's saying to write with emotion from your own personal experiences. Just google it, it's good letter.
I've also seen the movie The Perks of Being a Wallflower twice and read the book. So i'm going to quote Charlie's friends when Charlie doesn't know what to write about: "Write about us."

So I figured I would write about my life for now. This is my story, I hope you'll be a part of it.