Through a New Lens

traveling the world with a new outlook on life

[throughanewlens]

I think about you every single day. and sometimes, I hope that you miss what we had and wonder if you'll ever find that kind of love in your life again.

[smittenmami]

i miss u more than u know

[quotefeeling]

“I think when I met you, I became myself again. And we stumbled towards this mad world and made sense of it. Together.”

— R.M. Drake

[throughanewlens]

The one minute of FaceTime was the best minute of my whole day.

[throughanewlens]

Hello out there!!!! I've been pretty bad at keeping in contact...with everyone...so sorry for not writing here if anyone even still checks this (probably not). A lot has happened and it's consumed me so I haven't really been in the mood to write. My aunt asked me to leave her house so I stayed with a friend and her boyfriend for a week. I bought a car so I could lug all my stuff around. I then catsat for a friend of a friend for five days. I'm currently watching another cat until tomorrow and then I'm going to go on a weekend camping trip. Should be interesting! After that I'll be subletting a room with this lady for at least three months so it'll be nice to have a landing spot and I won't be hopping around. I'm still applying for jobs and interviewing. I've gotten very close to offers a couple times but it's hard and it's taking longer than I would have liked. I'm sticking with it though. I'm doing ok. I'm healing which is good and I feel happier overall so that's important. I'm just working hard and hoping things come through here soon.

[wnq-writers]

And you know, I’ve found in my life, through these terrible storms, that what often seems like a tragic ending turns out to be the beginning of some… *fantastic* adventure. The beginning of a new chapter. But only if we keep going, you know. Keep reading to see what happens next. It’s up to us to turn the page. So what do you say? Are you ready to turn the page on this?

Lipstick Rick from ‘Music Box Earth’ by SC Rose (via wnq-writers)

[onlinecounsellingcollege]

You don’t have to explain your dreams. They belong to you.

Paulo Coelho (via onlinecounsellingcollege)

[thequotejournals]

I made up my mind that I’d get out of that place and I did…I learned that if you want to get somewhere, you just make up your mind and work like hell til you get there. If you want to go somewhere in life, you just have to work till you make it.

S.E. Hinton, Rumble Fish (via thequotejournals)

[wordsnquotes]

Healing is a choice. It’s not an easy one, because it takes work to turn around your habits, but keep making the choice and shifts will happen.

Yehuda Berg (via wordsnquotes)

[i-am-america-deactivated2016121]

It’s okay to live a life others don’t understand.

Jenna Woginrich  (via thatkindofwoman)

[throughanewlens]

I spend a lot of time with a dog, which is great, but also human interaction would be really cool. Preferably with people my age?!

[throughanewlens]

Went to the museum of modern art today to see an exhibit that happened to not be on display yet. Needless to say our visit wasn't as long as we thought it would be, but some modern art makes me kind of angry. Like there was this one of this circle of rocks. I'm over here like, I did that in my backyard when I was seven but no one called me an artist?! Or the one that is just a blank canvas with one red dot on it? COME ON PEOPLE. And that my rant on how modern art can be annoying. Some stuff is definitely cool though!

[throughanewlens]

Got the scans back from a roll of film. I’ll upload them to the shutterfly soon. I haven’t been taking as many pictures as I had hoped but I’ll get back to it.

[throughanewlens]

[throughanewlens]

Counting Months

“I hate writing mean words to you. It is painful for me to do it, but you have been awful to me. I have been patient. I have forgiven you. I have wished you well, always. And you have been mean. You have been cruel. You have hurt me. And I’m done. I’m done with you thinking that’s ok. So don’t contact me again unless you have kind things to say because that’s all I’m accepting into my life anymore”

This was the closing paragraph of a long strongly worded email I sent exactly two months ago. It has stayed at the forefront of my mind for the best and worst reasons. It took a lot of strength to write this email but particularly that last sentence. I was proud of myself for standing up to this person that I loved so deeply because I had put up with so much pain and suffering out of love for this being. I knew I deserved better than the cruel words I had received. I knew I did nothing wrong in the first place. This was an email of strength. But I often reread it wondering if I forever pushed away one of my closest friends. I shouldn’t care after all I’ve been through, but I do. Things got so out of hand between us, and unnecessarily so. I tried so desperately to mend our friendship with forgiveness but it never worked. I can’t express to you how profoundly sad that makes me, still.

This week will have been 7 months since it all ended between us. I’d be lying if I said I didn’t still struggle with this loss every day. Receiving the email I did that evoked the response above helped some with the healing, but it didn’t fix everything I feel inside. I stopped crying every day over this person because I realized that the soul I loved no longer existed in the body I used to know. But the pain I felt of being left and disposed of in the way I was, I struggle with that a lot.

As I begin to meet new people here in this city I hope to one day call home, I work so desperately to leave these experiences in the past, in Chicago, where they belong. I’ve never been one of those people who can flip a switch with my emotions. I put up a good facade, but my mind is always racing, overanalyzing every detail, making sure I don’t say the wrong thing. So as I meet new people I’m always walking myself through being a functioning human in society. I know how ridiculous that sounds, but I struggle getting to know people because I’ve been so hurt every time I open myself up. Vulnerability is scary. I found myself so exhausted by the facade of “super chill, very casual Cassy” a couple weeks ago that I ended the night bawling my eyes out in my cousins arms. I strive to be the strong version of me, the one that takes no shit, the one that wrote that email, but deep inside I have a lot of feelings that aren’t working out the way I had hoped they would. I can hear my therapist saying that it’s ok and we all heal at our own speeds and one day I won’t feel so anxious about these encounters, and I sure as hell hope she is right.

7 months. It’s felt like 7 years. I might never get the chance to say “hey, I wish things hadn’t blown up like they did because I miss your friendship” but I do hope that one day I’ll look in the mirror and fully believe that I did the right thing by sending that email. I hope I’ll believe in my strength and confidence and believe that I am a better person because of it. For now, I work to get to that point. Some days I’m like “hell yah!” but other days I’m like “oh god am I any better? I might have hurt someone.” But I work hard to keep my thoughts elevated. I work hard to meet new people and not overthink it and just be whoever I am right now. But I truly believe that my life WILL be a better place because I AM only accepting kindness into it moving forward.

[throughanewlens]

Trying to be patient with myself even though I feel like I've made a series of giant mistakes.

[throughanewlens]