Lemonade

When life gives you lemons, lovelies...

(you know what I mean)

If you only ever read one post I write on here, let it be this one.

Everyone needs to read this... not because it's the most profound blog post you'll ever read, and I'm the Shakespeare blogger of the 21st century or the next J.K Rowling.

(it isn't and i don't claim to be--my lack of talent pales in comparison to their overabundance of it.)

or because you're my Nation full of lovelies & I'm your fearless princeless princess who loves love too much for her own good.

(although you are all the loveliest humans i've been blessed to interact with & i love each & everyone of you.)

 nor is it because I care about "how many followers I can get" or "I want endless profile views".

(i don't...i'd be a liar if i said i didn't want people to take my words & sift through them with me for meaning & purpose meant to teach & inspire. but that's not the reason i write. it's not my Nation, it's yours too. my words are for you, lovely. after all, what good is anything in life if you don't share it with anyone, if you keep it locked away in the dark when you could be inspiring others who are inspirationless & about to give up, when you could potentially save a life with your story because the people who need to hear it are either headed or already on a path full of trials & heartache [almost identical to yours] that you've survived & could help them through it by being vulnerable & brave enough to share your experiences, when it's part of what you were born to do, when you turn your blood into ink, when we are saved only by love--love for each other & the love that we pour into the art we feel compelled to share by being a writer; being a friend, as Tennessee Williams observed 'We live in a perpetually burning building, and what we must save from it, all the time, is love', when you're letting fear stop you even though you are a massive forest full of beautiful and vibrant stories and every single one of them deserves you more than those that abandoned you to hell, when words are magic, when they bring light to those stuck in that hellish dark place and you could offer a glimpse of heaven, when even though I feel like Peyton Sawyer--either saying too much or not enough and then they're gone--but I don't care what the haters, the naysayers, the worldly people out there think [i, for the record, don't hate anyone] if we all gave in to people like that, what a sad place this planet would be, i refuse to let one of the greatest regrets in my life be what others want me to be, rather than being myself and loving me for me, and when i know the reason and always have...)

i write because it's right.

Lovelies, don't squander your astonishing potential because your life and potential are priceless.

I am a small city girl with big dreams.

To those who tell me my dreams are too big, I counter that and confront them with the truth that theirs aren't big enough. 

We all know that famous, cutesy Audrey Hepburn quote: "Nothing is impossible. The word itself says 'i'm possible'."

Those of you who know me know me, know the girl behind the blog of inspiration and endless love, know that one of my top 5 dreams is to write and publish my books, my novels, my story. I want to be a writer. The only bad writers are the ones that give up. Believe. I am here to tell you with an infinite amount of certainty that miracles, as rare as they are, are real. They happen to the ones who work hard, never give up, endure, love, change, grow, hurt, keep the faith, and don't let the bitter ones bring them down. I am a miracle. But that's another story for another day...

Even if my dream of becoming a best selling published author never see the light of day, if this blog, if these posts (my heart and soul in words) can save or inspire even one person it will have counted for something and worth everything.

As I said, if you only ever decide to make time to read one entry this is the important one.

...

STOP&READ. 🚦🚦🚦📓
If you read ANYTHING today, read this 👇🏼

To every girl and boy who gossip about me publicly, privately, on social media, in hushed corners, to those who judge me, to those who have stabbed me in the back, to the closeminded or misunderstood, to the just plain mean, to those who love to try, with every fiber of their pathetic being, to make me feel worthless, unworthy of love (or anything), and use my pain and my past to taunt me as a sick form of entertainment, pleasure, and power, to those who broke my heart. 

Guess what? 

You may have made it your mission to break me [and I'll admit you almost succeeded with the living hell you turned my life into] but you didn't. I'm not broken. All of you challenged me to become the girl I wanted to be my whole life. The best me. The badass princess that I am. I am stronger because of the pain, trials, sleepless nights, overwhelming anxiety and deep depression you put me through, and no matter what you have done to me, you have unknowingly done so much more for me. I will ALWAYS be unconditionally and unfailingly kind. Your bitterness and hatred can't change that. As the heroic, Holocaust survivor, Viktor Frankl said best: "Everything can be taken from a man but one thing: the last of the human freedoms--to choose one's attitude in any given set of circumstances, to choose one's own way." 

Your hatred will never take away my love. Your cruelty won't make me pernicious. Your ice cold veins can't steal my warmth. I'm one of the kindest, most loving girls in existence. You may be heartless, but I have a heart bursting at the seams full of love. You can take everything I have, try to tear me down, but you can't take me or break me. I am not you. And I never will be. You can pin me down with a hundred arms, but I will resist. I won't stop believing. I will love into hate, into refusal, against hope and without fear.  Remember. You cannot take it. I am fearless. I forgive you AND love you. 

I honestly pray that you will someday find true happiness and discover that trying to steal other people's happiness will never make you any less miserable.

I would never treat or inflict hurt upon a person like that. Being the sweetheart that I am, I always try to see the good in people and ignore the bad. Thank you for teaching me I can love people that have harmed me and not let them back in my life.

Love > Hate.

 This world needs love and decency. There's enough heartache, warring with yourself, chaos, tragedy, trials, sadness, and misery in this world. You never know what someone is going through. Choose kindness. Have heart. What it all comes down to is this: all 7+ billion souls and human beings, despite our vast differences, want to be loved. Don't be a bully. Be better. Love is the answer. It always has been and it always will be. Fight for love, don't love to fight. 

<W/L3 Charley Brooke [aka Queen C, the next best thing to Queen Bey ;)]

To Wish Impossible Things

For your reading pleasure, lovelies. 
We're flashing back to 2012 and excerpts of my journal "Here(Hear)You Me".

Friday July 20, 2012

"Christian and I were discussing what we would do if we won the lottery, today. I'd like to know the secret of "how to do and get everything that you would do and get if you won the lottery without actually winning the lottery". I could leave this town and run forever. I could move to North Carolina or Utah or Washington or Oregon or maybe have a home in more than one state. I could build and pay off my beautiful dream house. I could get agents so I could become an actress and model and taking acting classes. I could find a publicist and become a writer and publish my journals and books. I could get porcelain veneers, a new surgical smile, a gorgeous smile that would light up everywhere I went. I could afford to buy a Forever 21 or whatever store I love for my closet. I could afford to shop at Saks, Urban Outfitters, Vera Wang, Bloomingdales, and Free People. I could actually buy real, lovely vintage dresses and shoes. I could travel the world... visit the USA, Canada, Australia, Italy, England, France, Fiji, anywhere and everywhere. I could take cruises.

I could get some sort of role (big or small) on Grey's Anatomy. I could have my own huge library full of endless books and DVDs. I could work towards or contribute to curing cancer and other terrible diseases. I could have a pink Voltswagon Beetle.  I could take amazing art classes and become an artist. I could help my family, especially my mom, to repay them for all that they've done for me. I could accomplish everything on my list of things to do before I die. I could donate to the church and charity. I could change lives and make a difference.

  Now I know they say that money can't buy you happiness. Love, family, and friends are true happiness (heaven on Earth).  However, life, this life, doesn't come with any promise or guarantees when it comes to love. Our birth certificates don't contain a declaration that states one day our prince, or our true love, will come. No matter how much you wish, dream, hope, pine, and think about love, you can't will it into your life. Happily ever afters are as rare as once upon a times.
Can you be a princess without a prince? A princeless princesss? What makes a girl worth saving, worth fighting for, worth slaying dragons for, worth taking to a ball? I like to believe true love exists and that you can make your life a fairytale, more than that: a fairytale even fairytale characters would be jealous of, but until I see evidence to the contrary, I know fairytales are merely fiction told to children and little girls to make the difficult task of becoming an adult, or growing up, less painful.
I believe that money could buy me happiness that I could share with others. It could make me as happy as possible in a life lacking love. After all, winning the lottery seems more realistic than the chances of finding, and falling in, love."

Here I stand, four whole years after writing this, and I thought I found love. I was the happiest girl alive , and thought I'd found forever, but it turned out to be a lie. I got married. Then my world, my dream, my love all came unravelled, undone, transforming into a nightmare that showed me the painful light of truth which I was too blind in love to see, until all the beautifully gorgeous lies were discovered. No matter how many lies you try to bury it with, you can never hide the truth. Remember that, lovelies. As much as it hurts (hurts being the understatement of the day), I'd rather know the piercing truth than live a lifetime of lies. My forever only lasted two years.
Be of love a little more careful than anything.
Sometimes Prince Charming is really no prince at all. He'll tell you sweet nothings that are the best words you've ever heard. Never forget that actions are more important than words. It's no secret that I LOVE Taylor Swift. It's like she saw my heart and situation when she said the following things:

"Real love doesn't mess with your head. Real love just is. Real love just endures. Real love maintains. Real love takes it page by page."

"Part of me feels you can't say you were truly in love if it didn't last. If I end up getting married and having kids, that's when I'll know it's real--because it lasted."

This is what it comes down to...

"Love is not love, which alters when it alteration finds. When life gets hard, when things change, true love remains the same."
-William Shakespeare

Lovelies, 
It is my sincerest wish and prayer that you find love. Read that last word one more time. Not infatuation. Not a crush. Not a one night stand. Not a fling. No. I'm talking about true love. You deserve a love that will not alter, grows stronger every day, is sure (leaving no uncertainties, no lies, no fear, no second guessing), and lasts forever. Never settle. It's better to be alone than with the wrong person who takes you for granted and treats you as anything less than the exquisite, perfectly imperfect, extraordinary, lovely miracle that you are. I have to have faith that it exists despite all the evidence to the contrary... because make no mistake, love is the reason. Love. It's why we're here. Love. One word, four letters, that means everything, is misused and abused by the world, while people who find love can testify that no other words in any language can even begin to touch and do justice to the enormity of its definition.
Do you want me to tell you something really subversive? Love is everything it's cracked up to be (and more). That's why people are so cynical about it. It really is worth fighting for. And the trouble is, if you don't risk anything... you risk even more.
Everyone says love hurts, but that is not true. Loneliness hurts. Rejection hurts. Losing someone hurts. Envy hurts. Everyone gets these things confused with love, but in reality love is the only thing that covers up all pain and makes someone feel wonderful again. Love is the only thing in this world that does not hurt.

 Charsley & Lambsey
twins 7 years apart.
10/14

I am the most blessed older sister in the world.
I love all of my three siblings and even my four stepbrothers.
Family is everything.
I'm sending a shout out in this entry for my little brother, Christian (Lambsey) because he is the one who had the lottery conversation with me that led to this post. I love this boy fiercely. I can't believe he's growing up so fast! He's turning into such a handsome man. He has the biggest heart and the best personality. It's impossible not to love Lambsey. I could shout out [or write] loud about how proud I am for all he is and does. He's a pillar of strength. Someday, some girl out there will become the luckiest girl to have him! I love you, little brother. #bft

Quote time...

"To fall in love is easy, even to remain in it is not difficult; our human loneliness is cause enough. But it is a hard quest worth making to find a comrade through whose steady presence one becomes steadily the person one desires to be."
-Anna Louise Strong

"It is impossible to fall out of love. Love is such a powerful emotion, that once it envelops you it does not depart. True love is eternal. If you think that you were once in love but fell out of it, then it wasn't love you were in. There are no 'exit' signs in love, there is only an 'on' ramp."

"Trouble's part of your life, and if you don't share it, you don't give the person who loves you enough chance to love you enough."
-Dinah Shore

"We chase wild dreams and long for all that eludes us, when the greatest joys are within our grasp, if we can only recognize them."

"Though one may be overpowered, two can defend themselves. A cord of three strands is not quickly broken."
-Ecclesiates 4:12

"It's easy to be happy when things are going well. Marriage is about making it through, staying together, even when things turn to crap."
-One Tree Hill

"Love means giving chances when there are no more chances left to give."
-OTH

"It wasn't a matter if I loved you, it was a matter if you fought and stayed."
-R. G. Moon

"Real love asks us to do hard things--to forgive one another, to support each other's dreams, to comfort in times of grief, or to care for family. Real love isn't easy--and it's nothing like the wedding day--but it's far more meaningful and wonderful."

"No one falls in love by choice, it is by chance. No one stays in love by chance, it is by work. And no one falls out of love by chance, it is by choice."

"Have enough courage to trust love one more time. And always, one more time."
-Maya Angelou

"i do not want to have you
to fill the empty parts of me
i want to be full on my own
i want to be so complete 
i could light a whole city
and then
i want to have you
cause the two of 
us combined
could set it
on fire."
-rupi kaur

All or Nothing by Lang Leav
If you love me
for what you see,
only your eyes would be
in love with me.

If you love me
for what you've heard,
then you would love me
for my words.

If you love,
my heart and mind,
then you will love me,
for all that I'm.

But if you don't love
my every flaw,
then you mustn't love me--
not at all.

"Repeat this until you understand it: I do not need people who do not need me."

"Your feelings are so important to write down, to capture, and to remember because today you're heartbroken, but tomorrow you could be in love again."
-Taylor Swift

THIS--->"Perhaps the problem is not the intensity of your love, but the quality of the people you are loving."

"The best feeling in the whole entire world is meeting your next love. To meet a person who completely mends your heart and fixes you piece by piece, injecting love into your veins and reminding you of who you were before your heart was broken. It's something that you never believe will happen, but when it does, it's so amazing, it's impossible to describe."

"I would apologize for my sadness, but then I would have to apologize for my words. For my heart, all the thoughts cooped up in my mind, and for this love that never seems to leave me."

"In a dating and courtship relationship, I would not have you spend five minutes with someone who belittles you, one who is cruel at your expense and may even call it humor. Life is tough enough without the person who is supposed to love you leading the assault on your self-esteem, your sense of dignity, your confidence, and your joy. In this person's care, you deserve to feel physically safe and emotionally secure."
-Elder Jeffrey R. Holland

"Here are the things I know for sure: when you think you're right, you are most likely wrong. Things that break--be they bones, hearts, or promises--can be put back together but will never really be whole. And, in spite of what I said, you can miss a person you've never known. I learn this over and over again, every day I spend without you."
-Jodi Picoult

"You know what will make a difference? Pour your heart and soul into everything you do and watch every aspect of your life change one by one."

"All we have endured will make us invincible. From the fire comes strength."
-Tyler Knott Gregson

"Love is never wanting to give up."
-Jodi Picoult

"Sometimes you look up and there just seems to be so many more stars than ever before. More. They burn brighter and they shine longer and they never vanish into your periphery when you turn your head. It's as if they come out for us and to remind us that their light took so long to come to us, that if we never had the patience to wait, we never would have seen them here, tonight, like this. That as much as it hurts, sometimes it's all you can do, wait, endure and keep shining knowing that eventually, your light will reach where it is supposed to reach and shine for who it is supposed to shine for. It is never easy, but it is always worth it."
-Tyler Knott Gregson

"Never love anyone who treats you like you're ordinary."
-Oscar Wilde

"If you tame me, then we shall need each other. To me, you will be unique in all the world. To you, I shall be unique in all the world..."
-Antoine de Saint-Exupery

"If you stay, stay forever. If you go, do it today. If you change, change for the better. If you talk, make sure you mean what you say."

"The hardest walk is walking alone. But, it also makes you the strongest."

"Sometimes, we go through the worst to get to the best."

In all things, make love your constant companion. Be loving. Be lovely. Be you. Believe.

<W/L3 Charley Brooke

Run

'

"The scariest moment is always just before you start."

"If only. Those must be the two saddest words in the world."

"I know what love is; only because I've came in contact with what it isn't."

"You're better off being alone that with someone who makes you feel alone."

"Be the energy you want to attract."

"If it didn't matter you wouldn't be thinking about it."

"I will teach my daughter how to love, but most important how to stop. They never teach you how to stop."

"Just a reminder that you're who without someone else. You are not a fraction. You're a complete masterpiece all by yourself."

"Be patient with all things, but especially yourself."

"Because sometimes the people you can't live without, can live without you."

"I hope you're thinking about me. Because I'll always be thinking about you."

^Throwing it back to CiCi (Charley Brooke) 2012 (:

"It's a very powerful feeling when someone sees you as the person you wish you were."

Excerpts from my journal "Here(Hear)You Me" in 2012...

"I am entirely morose, depressed, and dead inside right how. I just feel so disconnected and lack a sense of belonging. I feel alone everywhere I go no matter how many people happen to be around me or how close they are. I'm sick of everything, really. This is just hitting the surface of what I'm feeling.  It's nearly impossible to put it into words. Happiness is a complete stranger to me. It's like everyone is living their lives and going places, and me? I'm stuck in slow motion with no one going nowhere. I don't even know what else to say... I don't even know what else to think.. No one understands. No one really knows me, not even you."

"I don't remember what it feels like to be happy. What is this thing you call happiness? I don't feel anything at all. They say the best things in life come free to us but so do the worst things. Do you know that silence has a sound that can be defeaning?"

"Drowning on dry land... did you know that it's possible? Or at least it can feel like you are? Feel like you cannot breathe because of the constant, crushing pressure surrounding you? I know. I like to, no...have to, believe that everything I've been searching for is in reach, even if it's impossibly hidden."

"I want to catch a break but I'm only breaking down. Breaking apart. Broken. Falling, falling, forever falling to pieces. Fading. Invisible. Disappearing. Gone. And no one notices or cares. It's an effortless mess, my SOS calling out to deaf ears in distress. The girl (me, I) is hopeless. She's open for suggestions. She can barely breathe. Countless questions. Is she wonderful? Do you wonder at her? Or, is it any wonder [her fate]? Full of wonder. Wondering. Waiting. Is it mere coincidence the fact that fate rhymes with wait or something deeper? I'm getting weaker. And you, you, you. You. It ends with you, or more accurately begins with you. Always you. Only you. Perfect you. The one. Will you come or run? She can be found on the ground. Find me. Save me. Embrace me. Press me to you. Hold me. Tighter. Never letting go or you'd fall, too. Strength in two becoming one. Learn me. Feel me. Catch me. Take me. Love me. I am yours forever. Irrevocably. Unconditional hearts and love. Enduring. Wishing. Hoping. Dreaming. Living. Flying. Breathing. Like stars crashing into each other in a cold, dark light years length, infinite galaxy, transforming into one radiant, bright, wonderstuck, breathlessly, beautiful shining star full of light filling the sky and each other with warmth and electricity. We are a star. You are my star. Guide me home."

Lovelies, I love you. Not everyday is perfect and sunshiney but through writing and speaking up and out you can help others. 
I hope you are all making you dreams come true. Never forget your loveliness.
I love you and am always here.
<W/L3
C h a r l e y B r o o k e