WonderPonderWander

I am declaring myself ready to express to the world. I will tell my story, and share my thoughts with you as I take you through the many facets of my mind. Just want Peace, Love, and Macrame.

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Walking into 28 like...

I turned 28 years young on Wednesday. I say young, because I mean it. I am still young, and I feel young.

I was not always confident, nor excited in any way to turn 28. I dreaded the fact that I am entering my late 20s. I was even ready to adopt my slightly older friend’s tradition of only celebrating her 27th birthday every year from then on.

But I am now happy and proud to be 28.

I won’t lie; I still have a slight nausea when I realize how much of my life has passed. But I realize that growing in age also means growing in wisdom and knowledge.

I have come a long way from even just a year ago, and so very far from ten years ago.

I feel like I know so much more about life and about having relationships (romantic and platonic). I also have realized that I may never get to the point where I have completely found myself, but I know that the rest of my life will be the journey to that goal.

I have been at a few points and ages when I was confident that I was completely comfortable with myself, and that I knew what I wanted to do with my life. I thought I had discovered the correct path for my life.

I was wrong.

The realizations that I was still lost as ever hit me so hard each time. I was left with a shaken confidence, and a confusion as to how I had fallen from what I thought was my grace.

I would reflect on how I thought I had “it.” Then, I’d come to find that I don’t even know what “it” is and that I do not know who I am yet.

Realizing that you still have insecurities is like coming upon a sudden wilderness that you never prepared to trek through.  

The problem was that I had not reached the point of complete selflove. I still had demons to face.

I guess life really is like a video game; each stage has a boss to defeat. Every insecurity and flaw that we must accept and embrace about ourselves is a boss. The key is remembering that it is possible to defeat the boss; you just have to figure out how.

To make matters worse, insecurities are always multifaceted issues to deal with. Your insecurities may be affecting your relationships, your physical health, your work, your emotional state, your ambitions, your passions, etc. And the task of conquering your insecurities includes fixing different areas of your life, creating new areas, and even leaving old areas behind.

When you do conquer your insecurities, you are left as a whole new beast of badassery.

So back to turning 28 years old, I have decided to embrace the positives of growing older. A few positives that I have decided on are: becoming wiser, stronger, more graceful, and more confident.

I told myself that I will focus on these gifts from growth. I will realize that I am a woman now. I can make my life happen if I want to. I can be taken seriously now. I can be strong and forward if I need to. I can express myself and not be ashamed of it.

There is something about being a woman that just feels empowering. I do not feel that I can pinpoint where the empowerment comes from exactly, except that we can be role models now, and that can allow us to be badass in different ways. There are so many different ways to admire a woman.

This is why little girls cannot help but to look up to women, especially women that they feel are talented, beautiful, charismatic, etc. And ladies, all of us have these types of qualities. We just do not all show them, or have not even discovered them.

As little girls we want to grow up fast so that we can be the women we admire. We look forward to the next year, and the next birthday. We look forward to turning 16, then 18, then 21, then 25, then we get depressed. We begin to worry about our age, our careers, where we are in life, what we will accomplish, what we have accomplished, our physical appearance, our talents, our dreams, etc.

We begin to fear time passing and we no longer look forward to the future. We want to go backwards instead. We could not wait to get here, and now we want to wait forever to have to move on.

And this mindset makes the years go by faster.

I say, “Eff that attitude.” I know a lot of my life has gone by. I know I have not accomplished most of my dreams. I know that I am physically getting older. I know that I need to find my path in life.

I know… and you know, too.

But, what we need to remind ourselves is that we also know of all the things we have accomplished. We know that we at least have made it to this point, after whatever BS we have been through. (Because women go through a lot of BS.)

And we need to look at our lives and ourselves in terms of our character and our love toward others. We need to start seeing ourselves as awesome individuals with unique traits. We need to see ourselves as people with talents and skills. We need to view ourselves as people with compassion.

We need to view ourselves for all the good that we are. When we do this, I believe all that needs to change for the better will do so naturally.

The hardest thing for me to change is caring about what other people think. I still care to a certain extent, but not as much as I did even just a month ago. In fact, the past two years were an emotional and mental struggle for me to come to terms with the expectations those around me have of me, and to ignore the shame that it caused me to feel.

I felt so much shame. And why? Because I cared about what people thought of my current place in life. I compared myself to my classmates, and other women. I tried to plan my life around the goal to impress everyone and meet their expectations.

I was unhappy.

BUT, now,

I am happy.

I have decided to love myself. I have decided to just be me. I have decided that I will no longer suppress who I am just because other people may not like it, or not understand it.

I really just don’t want to care anymore.

After a lifetime of trying to fit in and be accepted, I am exhausted. I am freeing my mind, heart and soul, and I am embracing who I am.

As for life? I am putting it in God’s hands. My plans have never happened the way I want them to, anyway. Therefore, I am going to go with the flow.

F*ck it.

Seriously. Just stop caring. It feels so much better. Focus on loving yourself instead. Focus on learning your own mind, and your own way of viewing the world. If what you want is along the lines of other peoples’ expectations, that is totally ok. There is nothing wrong with that.

But if what you want is something different, and possibly unknown. That is totally fine, too.

Sorry Mom and Dad. Sorry teachers and professors. Sorry friends and family.

I am going to live for myself because I want to be happy. I still love you, and I will take your input and opinions with sugar to consider it in the scheme of my life.

HOWEVER,

At the end of the day, I am going to make myself happy; I am going to be me.

I will love you better that way. I will love me better that way.

I will live life better that way. I will help you live life better that way.

I will be the authentic me, and I want you to be the authentic you.

If everyone focused on themselves, they would not have time to be negative toward others.

What I am trying to say is embrace your life. Embrace your age. Embrace the wisdom of growth. Embrace all that is good. Life sucks when you are unhappy. So be happy.

Whatever it is you want in life, you have it in you to achieve.

Thank you for reading.

Peace. Love. Macramé

[nikita-ermakov]

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Just love this. <3

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And you are?

Not quite first off, allow me to introduce myself. I go by the name Consuelo MaryAnn. I would tell you my age, my education level, and my blah blah blah, but I would rather introduce myself the way I would like you to know me.

I do not open up easily. There may not be even one person in the world who knows everything about me, or has seen every facet of me. There are people who get plenty, but I guess it would take a lifetime, and digging, for me to reveal all to one person.

The reason I choose to remain particularly “mysterious” is because I have an incredibly hard time trusting that people will accept me. That may sound silly, or it may sound completely relative to you, but I fear ridicule. That is all.

Long story short, which I will tell eventually, I have been teased at various times in my life which has made me a little insecure to be my true self. From what I have learned recently, I seem to have carried around a lot of shame from my experiences.

But that all changes now.

I have been working daily to cleanse myself of any internal shame about who I am. I am simply tired of suppressing myself. It is too exhausting after 28 years (whoops you learned my age). I am just like, “F*ck it.” Seriously, I am trying really hard just to not care about anything but myself.

That sounds selfish, but it is not.

See, caring about myself means becoming in love with myself, and making sure that I am happy and healthy. If I am happy and healthy, then I will be good to the people around me.

I will not be taking out any frustrations on them.

I will be in the right state and shape to care for them when they need me.

I will bring positive energy into their lives.

They will be able to enjoy a real and good version of me.

AND, best of all, hopefully I can allow myself to accept their love completely.

Then, things like their constant questioning of my life and what my plans are will not affect me in a negative way. I plan to be so secure with myself that I can have a better relationship with my parents.

I believe that I am progressing already. I can handle certain talks better now. I am able to feel less pressure about finding my way because I know that I am in control of my life. What my parents do not understand is that I am completely confident that I will figure it out soon (whatever that means).

I have just accepted that my parents worry about me enough to be this way. That is fine. But what I also know is that I am a grown ass woman, and I need to start taking charge of my own life. I have to make sure that I do what will make me happy.

Mom and Dad have raised me up to be strong enough to know when I need to do what is right for me.

God bless them, really.

Anyway, back to what I think I was saying… I do not open up easily. But this blog is a pivotal point in my life, as well as a pivotal effort. I am aiming to share.

Or, more like taking a bullet for the sake of my dreams. I want to write, sing and act. I have not pursued these things until now because I have struggled with confidence.

But, now…

I am going to love myself. I am going to give myself so much tender loving care that I am happy.

I want to just be strong and secure throughout. I want to go after my dreams and actually make them real.

I have felt a burning in my bones for the need to express myself since I was a little girl. I feel that I am finally ready to share what I can with all of you, and I only hope to spread whatever knowledge I have gained.

Could I fail? Of course, I could. I do not want to, and I believe I have what it takes to succeed in what I find makes me happy. And what will make me happy? I still do not know the answer. All I know is that I have dreams to follow. So, that is where I will start.

But I have a specific idea of success in my venture:

What I truly want is to help people love themselves too. Everyone should know that they each deserve the best, as well as everyone else.

Mutual respect. Mutual understanding. Mutual acceptance.

This is not to say I think I am perfect. I am not 100% in love with myself, yet. I am still on the journey.

And what a horribly arduous journey it has been so far.

But, you know what? I have learned to enjoy the horritastical (horrible+fantastic+al) experience that is life. I have become obsessed with getting stronger and learning from the shittiness that I have been served. Mind you, this does not mean that I do not feel any pain. I do.

Life is beautiful and grotesque all at the same time.

I feel that too many people are unhappy because their life sucks.

I want to help them be happy even though life still sucks, and share my journey at the same time.

This is who I am. Thank you for reading.

Love. Peace. Macramé.

[pondersomeable-blog]

We grow in beauty and love because we ARE beauty and love. 

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Regenerate like a rose for 2018

Here is a blog I wrote on January 1, 2018. ( a wonderfully procrastinated start to the new year, don’t you think?) I am on a journey to use my skills to achieve my dreams.  The journey starts here with this first blog. 

Happy new year! I hope you flourish.

~~~~~~

I think 2017 was a year of extremes for me. I was either extremely sad, angry, depressed, happy, excited, or grateful. I saw beautiful things, and I learned about real horrors. I felt a dichotomy in my heart and mind as I went back and forth on issues across a whole spectrum of life topics.

I forced myself to cut out all the negativity that weighed on my soul. But I also decided that I was finally going to give myself personal credit for my ability to continue to adapt, learn, and progress despite all the adversity and confusion. I decided that I was going to embrace my skills of regeneration.

I bought a plant about a month ago, and from my care of the plant I realized that it can teach lessons for life. The most impressive ones: regrowth, perseverance, and resilience.

When one prunes a rose plant, or bush, the ideal way to do so is by cutting off all the leaves and branches down to the thickest and healthiest canes, or stems. Every leaf, every small branch, every dead piece of wood, even every old piece of wood is not necessary to keep, and may even be detrimental to the plant if left on. 

All must be snipped off.

Even if any of the main canes/stems look diseased, or just unhappy, it must be cut off, too. And all the waste must be discarded far away from the rose plant as not to ever come in contact with it again.

In the end, the rose plant is left looking like a pathetic, bald plant in denial of its impending death. Indeed, the pruner may even get a little nervous that they have cut off too much, and will never see a bloom again.

Yet, what is so amazing is the that rose plant bounces back immediately. In fact, she is now stimulated and has the energy to grow back even healthier, and quickly. Surely, if you take good care of her, she may regrow incredibly soon and give a bloom more beautiful than the last.

The rose plant teaches us to positively use the painful and ugly shedding, breaking, and cutting away of all the parts that are no longer needed, or that are unhealthy for our well-being. From the wounds will come new sprouts of vibrancy. Although you grow new parts, you will still have the same roots you always have.

Peace. Love. Macramé.