navigating life......

Why this path of self destructive, self discovery?

As it has been said before "If we havent already done so, we have the task of becoming ourselves so we may welcome love."

I suppose thats what im doing. Pursueing passions, diving into experience, molding myself amongst my choosing. 

So maybe none of this is really destructive at alol. Maybe im just clipping a path through a shit load of crab grass so i can see the Falls more clearly. 

I'm gonna be here for the next 60+ years or so right, so i guess i want to be something, somewhere, and right now, im just trying to figure out how to get there intact. 

For the first time in my life i have a "family" outside of my own. 

For the first time i only worry about love 3 or 4 times a week rather than my usual 22 1/2 hours a day, everyday. :p

For the first time i feel adult. Responsible. Smart even. 

Sometimes i feel like ive got it all togethe rwith it all lined up. and than other times im stull trying to line it all up. 

But for now, thats my step in the right direction. 

And as long as im still steppin', im ok with all of that. 

This process of growing up is hard. I wont lie. Its challenging every day to wake up and make choices, in any sense. 

But im wrapping my head around it. Im trying. and than i keep trying. 

Tomorrow a new day, and i'll get there. But im going to focus on today. 

Thats fine for me.

 For now. 

 

Watch this Assholes

Fuck you. 

You call it Agenda, I call it ambition. 

I call it Passion, you call it indecision. 

  

Follow you? Let you take care of me and work it out as i go?

This IS me figuring it out as I go. 

That's what you don't get about me...

I'm passionate about what I am ambitious about.. and those are many things. 

If you put me in a box I will escape and run. 

Let me love it all.. why do you force me to decide on one?

Judge me for my bank account? Tell me to grow up?

How can you say such things or observe such things honestly from the outside?

I just want to be seen.. not created in someones imagination for someone I'm not. 

Is there anyone who can just see Shaina and love everything she is, and love me more for not molding to who you wish me to be?

Isnt that a beautiful thing?

  

I always thought a girl fighting for what she loves was more attractive than a pretty face worth nothing.

Maybe I was wrong. Maybe I should allow you to throw your money at me as I do your cooking, shopping and rub your feet when you get home at night. 

No. that is NOT me. I'd roll over dead before I allowed someone to love me and take away all i dreamed and desired. 

I have plans, and i will reach and succeed in all of them with or without someone. 

I can do this all alone. 

Just watch me unfold. 

   

Its in the stars...

I'm not going to apologize or try to make up for the mess of what my last post was. 

Like my new favorite songs says " Were not broken, just bent."

I'm not damaged goods.  I'm not even broken. But I've been hurt... bent so badly that it's going to take a while, and some patient repair work in order to get me straightened out again. 

 I guess time really does play a pretty giant part in this... 

 

I was on the train a few days ago, earphones turned up full volume with "Just give me a reason" playing on repeat. 

 I watched people pass by, coming and going from their daily routines. 

I watched people's faces and through the lyrics of the song I started to see them in new ways. 

People with broken hearts who probably cried themselves to sleep last night, having to compose themselves well enough to pick up that briefcase and go into work on a Thursday afternoon.

People so in love that smiling comes as natural as blinking. 

The lonely, the misplaces, the friendless. 

It was mostly depressing.. but seeing others in the way I was feeling helped me not feel so alone. 

I realized that we are all searching for Love. To be loved. To feel love. 

We all want to be held by someone, to hold someone. 

We all desire a relationship molded from friendship. 

We all seek True Love, even if we don't believe or can't explain it. 

Were all searching.. for something.. someone. 

I may be lonely... sad.. confused and aiming towards who knows what.. 

but i suppose in a selfish way.. im held together by the knowledge that my neighbor may be feeling the same way in this exact moment.. and that makes me almost... almost believe that.. 

"we can learn to love again. "

An ode to pain i suppose.....

I want to write. I need to. I want to word vomit all over this blog post, everything i've been feeling and thinking... but I can't seem to mold the right words to keyboard from brain.

 I'm going to struggle through this... word by word and apologize in advance if it doesn't come out in any sort of eloquent manner. 

Sometimes I'm as scattered brained as my life looks to others. 

 But this is for me.... 

 

 

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God damnit i'm a beautiful person!

Will someone please just look at me and see that? 

 

I want to be noticed for who i am; Do i have to yell in the square at the top my lungs in order to get your attention?

I feel so battered and bruised from soo many long years... I'm writhing with pessimism and bitterness that i never knew i held on to. 

 

  

On good days I can see nothing but Blue skies, i can count my blessings and make lists of everything i love. 

The days in between.....  

I feel a hatred inside me that keeps growing. 

My chest caves in and I feel suffocated by my own pain. 

I can't catch my breath.

I just need one reason to believe this ia all worth it. 

 

     

 I need to burn this blanket. I need to trash every word document and delete my email accounts. 

I need to start over from scratch... make a new beginning and forge a new name for myself. 

Yet without my past... who am i? I want to dispose of it all... of you all... but if i do... I don't exist. 

 

Why can't i learn to leave it be as lessons learned and start fresh by taking another foot forward?

 

I hang on and thats my biggest downfall. 

I try so hard to let go... I do so well on moving on.. 

So why do i move backwards when all is going so well?

 

When i believe the best of a person or situation it never works, it never lasts, im proved wrong.. 

so than i believe its easier to just expect the worst, because than if they disappoint you, you knew it would happen anyway. and if they prove you wrong, than i've got a little speck of hope to hang on to for awhile. 

 

         

 I sound so broken. Thats not how i meant for this blog to go.

I wanted to write about Bobby.. or the fact that i'm still attached to Tyler when i don't want to be. 

 

I found out a couple days ago that Bobby is married. 

Married. 

5 years I've been carrying around this load of Love for him that i couldn't seem to give to anyone else. 

I tried.. so many times i tried. I picked myself back up after each one... Dane.Lincoln. Tyler. 

I even went as far as getting on a plane and confessing how i felt in person.. I didnt throw my heart at him.. rather i held it in and just let emotion out. I didnt beg to be loved in return.. i didnt force an answer or confession. I just released everything i'd kept in for so long.. 

After a night and 1/2 a day of feeling like the heavans belonged to me... 

Well.. the story doesnt need to be re-told.. 

but after that.. i managed to pick myself back up. I dusted off old wounds.. I stitched what i could and i began again. 

 

I feel free in an odd way. 

As if knowing makes everything i feel and felt final.. It's over and i can now learn to love again. 

 

If thats true.... why do i feel so empty?

 

 

 

   

 

 

 

 

      

 

I always Cry....

I always cry, It doesnt matter how many times i've left, how many times ive said goodbye. its never something i get used to. 

4 months feels like 2 years. Is my time here really over so soon?

I guess it is, since im currently thousands of miles in the air, headed toward my first layover in Miami. 

I'll be reaching Cedar City by tomorrow morning. Than its off to what i hope to forever call home.. Oregon. 

Utah, Oregon, California, Greece, Mackinac Island, Hawai'i, St. Thomas, Europe and the east and west coast. Texas and Alabama, idaho and Arizona. 

What an amazing journey of life i've lived. If i died today, id die saying "I sure lived."

What a growing experience my 25 years has been. I feel so entirely blessed to have lived and loved, hurt and heal, fall and rise. 

I stare out of seat 22F gazing at the blue below and feel a love and fondness for St Thomas that i know i will always hold on to. St.T. gave me a strength i didnt have before. 

These memories the past four months. I learned to feel again. I re-awoke, re-committed, I remembered to not only look, but to see, not only touch, but to feel.

I'd lost allot of myself before, and in my first couple months here. But i am thankful for the peace of mind in knowing that being lost is ok- that its really about the inbetween.. the journey and the adventure in "finding" you. 

Because i found me again in taking the time to do so. 

Thank you St. T. 

The last night....

Hands in the air, we owned tonight. Shouts of goofy with friends I’ll never forget, unforgettable images of the past 4 months I’ll always remember. 

Tonight I’m smiling. Tonight I’m also finding a few tears as I take time to sit and just absorb. Mr. Chubbins, the dog I named fittingly, of whom I have no idea where he belongs… was whining outside my door tonight. I stopped my typing and went to investigate. The little guy, nose in the air and sad eyes, just stared at me, waiting to be invited in.

He broke my schedule for the night with one short whine that had me instantly sitting on the floor, giving him belly rubs through rambled quite one sided conversation as he soaked in the luxury of attention.

As cheesy as it is, I found myself mid belly rub comparing this blonde stubby puppy to my time spent on St Thomas.

He came to my door, asking to be let in, Just as St Thomas came to me. He didn’t try to sneak by or force his way into my home, but kindly sat and asked... waiting for my answer.  Just as St Thomas waited for me. As soon as I let him in, ( not literally ) , a warmth came over me. I found a comfort in taking time to enjoy his company. I found a delight in just being there, sitting there, simply just enjoying.

St Thomas from the beginning was just an idea, that through my own asking and simply making the choice to try it out, became my new life.

I went through allot my first couple months here. I struggled with some things, made some really stupid choices, and found myself balled up and crying more times than I’d like to admit. I’d like to say in all actuality that I did ok, I picked myself up time and time again, made it, survived. Which I did. But if im honest with myself, when my saving grace(s) came along in four wonderful friendships, I found myself smiling with all sincerity again.

Just as Mr. Chubbins did for me.. they did for me. A warmth came over me in meeting Kameron, Jake, Joel and Charles. I found a comfort in taking time to enjoy their company. I found a delight in just having them in my life. Simply just enjoying.

For me, tonight was the perfect send off. I could not of asked for anything more than to spend my last evening in Beautiful St Thomas with anyone but Kameron, Jake, Joel and Charles.

I can never thank them enough for the opportunities they gave me. For the lessons they taught me. For their open arms in receiving me as part of the group. For their unselfish friendship.

I’m missing them already, and I’m still sitting in my little home in St Thomas…

Guys, If you ever happen upon this, Know I love you all.

Tomorrow will mark the morning I left the island for “Home”…Portland Oregon, I can’t wait to meet you again.