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

Wait. They don't love you like I love you.

I've come to the conclusion that sometimes there are phases in our lives that feel like a waiting room. There's nothing anyone can do about it. Most of the time change happens slowly, one day at a time. You have to be patient with small steps in the right direction. That's what life is. Small, long, hard steps that you take every single day so that when you look back you see how far you've truly come, it adds up, the distance you've covered. You have to smile and press forward enjoying the journey, the now, realizing the wait will be worth it.

Waiting doesn't mean you're just standing still watching your life pass by... waiting means to keep going  and never let go or falter even when it seems impossible. What you're waiting for could be further along the path and you can't see it. You want to give up, but you CAN'T stop because it's there. Once you reach it, and you will, you'll discover it was worth the wait, that you'd actually repeat the tedious, tearstained, treacherous, heartbreaking, seemingly unending trip and time it took to get there. Not only would you'd repeat it, you'd do it again countless times because it's that worth it.

Waiting means something's coming.

You're waiting for something, some goal, someone...

The longer you wait, the harder you work, the more you anticipate, then the stronger you will be, and the better and sweeter it will be when you find it. 

Waiting is worth it.

That was then. Here we are now.

Moving forward slowly but surely.

My faith gets me through all of this.

This trail of the past year doesn't have to define me.

I will be soft. I refuse to let the world make me hard. I do not let the pain make me hate. I don't let the bitterness steal my sweetness. I take pride that even though you or the rest of the world may disagree, I still believe the world is a beautiful place.

Lovelies, I'm falling in love again...

with life.

Decide right now to love life. To love it even when you have no stomach for it and everything you've held dear crumbles like burnt paper in your hands, blown away by the storms of adversity, you throat filled with the silt of it. When grief sits with you, its tropical heat thickening the air, heavy as water more fit for gills than lungs; when grief weighs you like your own flesh only more of it, an obesity of grief, you think how can anyone stand this? Go look in the mirror and hold life like a face between your palms and say, "Yes I will take you. I will love you again." And run with it. 

Only you can make your dreams come true. 

What's stopping you?

There are some things in life you have to wait for.

There are other things you can't wait for. You have to make them happen. Nothing will ever be perfect so use the time you have. 

I know I'm jumping around here.

I love this quote by Stephen King:

"Remember, hope is a good thing, maybe the best of things, and no good thing ever dies."

Hold onto hope, cling to it for dear life in the moments when all you feel is lost and alone. 

When you feel happy, really happy, it somehow seems that you've always been happy and that you'll always be happy. The same is often true when you feel sad, or lonely, or depressed, or broke, or sick, or scared. Remember that.

"I can just be me."

"She is not a failure because she tried some things that didn't work out. She only fails when she stops trying."

"Where we are today is where we are meant to be. It's where we are meant to be to get to where we are going tomorrow. And that place we're going tomorrow will be better than any we've been before."

Start now. Start where you are. Start with fear. Start with pain. Start with doubt. Start with hands shaking. Start with voice trembling but start. Start and don't stop. Start where you are, with what you have. Just start.

Choose people who choose you.

Choose you.

Choose life.

"We can't predict all the struggles and storms in life, not even the ones just around the next corner, but as persons of faith and hope, we know beyond the shadow of any doubt that the gospel of Jesus Christ is true and the best is yet to come."

-Elder L. Tom Perry

I love you, lovelies.

Love yourself.

<W/L3 

Charley Brooke

Deterioration of the Fight or Flight Response

Lately, I wonder if I disappeared, vanished out into thin air, went missing, would anyone notice?

Would anyone care?

Would it make a difference in anyone's life?

Would I be missed?

Who would come searching for me?

Would people say they missed me? I don't think they'd mean it... most of them... because if they did, why didn't they try to talk to me, be with me, when I was there?

How is it possible to feel so alone when there are 7 billion people in the world, but then again, how do you stand out, be one in a billion? 

When asked if you could have any super power, what would it be? many people say they would want invisibility. I feel like I am invisible. Trust me, it's not all it's built up to be. People look through me, not at me. I am not seen. I sometimes feel as if I am fading away. I miss being a kid. When you didn't have to be anything but yourself and everyone loved it... loved you. I am easy to look at but so so so hard to see.

I am too fragile. I am trapped in glass and I want to break out and breathe deep but I'm too afraid that it will hurt.

I want someone to break me out. I want to be rescued by my prince charming or knight-in-shining-whatever. I want Romeo to save me. I've been feeling so alone. I keep waiting for you but you never come.

I think waiting is a little heartbreaking... your heart feels like it's going to shatter because it's bursting, nearly overflowing with love for this person you are waiting to give it to... and when they don't come, you wait wait wait and wonder if it's too late... your heart starts to break a little because it's much too much. When you drop a glass or a plate to the ground, it makes a loud crashing sound. When a window shatters or a picture falls off the wall it makes a noise. But as for your heart, when that breaks, it's completely silent. You would think it's so important it would make the loudest noise in the whole world. But it's silent and you almost wish there was noise to distract you from the pain.

I love love & that is unfortunate. Ever notice how sometimes you want something so badly that it will always evade you? That is how love is for me. I wonder if I will ever get my love story... Some days I just want to rip my heart out of me because it is overflowing with love that won't fit in me alone. I'm not sure why I have so much love in my heart. Why not I suppose? Why doesn't everyone? If people focused on loving a bit more, maybe the allocation of our energies would be a lot more productive and peaceful. Where do I get all of the love? It's inside of me. I think we have a choice every moment to be, do, think, say whatever we wish... why not choose love instead of all the other stuff we waste our time with? Love is everything. My downfall is my stupid hopeless romantic heart and blind optimism and believes in fate, magic, and fairytales mentality... I'm basically setting myself up for heartbreak, and there is nothing I can do about it unless a miracle occurs in the form of a boy who proves to me all of it is real and gives me a love story better than the movies. To me, true love is the sweetest thing in life. That's why we're all either in love or looking for love. Sometimes you have to work for it, take chances--especially when life gets in the way--but I believe true, deep love is always worth fighting for.

What I mean is best summed up in a quote from, you guessed it, Grey's Anatomy: "Too often the thing you want most is the one thing you can't have. Desire leaves us heartbroken, it wears us out. Desire can wreck your life. But as tough as wanting something can be: The people who suffer the most are those who don't know what they want."

I don't want to disappear. I want to be FOUND.

I will be strong lovelies.

I love the new Facebook timeline. I was going back looking at all the things I said, the quotes I posted, and they made me feel better. The things about staying strong, being happy, goals, fighting for your dreams... it's all true. That's why I do this. I write on this silly blog my silly thoughts and share the lovely thoughts of others in the hopes that when you are having hard times, doubts, and insecurity, you can read them, read this, know you belong to this nation of inspiration. You are not alone. Words can heal. If even one person feels better after reading something on this blog, it's all worth it to me.

Stay strong and always believing. 

I know I can't be the only one who feels this emptiness... who feels like they are disappearing... who feels like they are drowning on dry land. I notice you. Struggles give us strength. 

It's my faith in something greater than myself that enables me to do what I have to do, to press forward even though I am tired, hurt, and afraid, to keep going when the challenge seems overwhelming and the course is entirely uncertain.

I have to bring my own light, not let the fire in me die out, to the darkness. My heart is on fire and no one can put that out.

Are You True?