Throwback Thanksgiving

Throwback Thanksgiving!

*27 on 27*

27 seemingly not-so-perfect things that I’m thankful to have experienced.

Some lessons cannot be taught. They have to be lived.

“Sometimes we have to suffer a little so we can truly enjoy life.”  -The Ogre

Rising Phoenix/Shaking Scaredy Cat

When I get knocked down, I don’t stay there long. I pop a can of spinach and I whoop ass!

1• I once watched a stupid teen movie that changed my life.  I used to have a hard time stepping out of my comfort zone and never really had a lot of fun. One day I watched “I Love you Beth Cooper” and realized that I’d never be alive if I wasn’t living.

2• I’ve experienced life from many different shapes.

a.       I was a gangly and skinny child.

b.      In high school I was a lean, muscular athlete.

c.       I developed late and ended up with gigantic tits and a bubble butt my senior year.

d.      In college I put on a lot of weight and was nearly obese.

e.      I took the weight off and became trim and healthy by the age of 24

f.        I went through a fit of morbid depression at the age of 27 and was nearly emaciated.

g.       I’ve since put on some healthy curves while still maintaining an athletic build. I like this shape best.

3• I used to try and denounce my intelligence because I thought it made me uncool. When I decided to take it back in my early 20s I wasn’t taken seriously by my peers. It took years, but those who mattered eventually were able to see that I’m not a dumbshit. I don’t really care anyway if people think I’m dumb or not.

4• When I was 25 I fell out of love with my hometown in the Chicagoland area. I didn’t feel that there was anything left for me there and that my life had hit a dead end. I took a chance and moved 1000 miles away from my friends and family to Denver, Colorado in search of something new. I found it. :)

5• I used to smoke cigarettes… a LOT. There wasn’t a whole lot to do in my home town so we’d all congregate in diners or somebody’s basement and eat pizza and smoke a bunch of cigarettes and weed. By the age of 22, my poor diet and bad habits had more than caught up with me and I felt sick all the time. I felt like hell 24/7 and I truly didn’t believe I’d live past my 25th birthday. My only choice was to turn my life around. I started eating healthy and exercising right away and I quit smoking cigarettes and weed a few years later. It worked!

6• When I was 20 years old I met a man who I thought was the love of my life. 6 years later I ended the relationship as a broke and battered woman with a pile of debt created by that man. In the nearly 2 years since the break-up, I’ve hit rock bottom and been at the lowest, darkest points in my life…. all while busting my ass to try and become the rising-phoenix kick ass woman I’ve always wanted to be. I’m pretty sure I’ve nailed it.

7• I was once guilted into adopting a stray pit bull. I’m so happy I gave in because that dog has become my best friend in the world.

8• I once had a crush on someone and I made a goddamn fool of myself when he denied me. Luckily he’s a good person and he handled it appropriately. It helped me to take a step back and realize that more than one aspect of my behavior at the time needed to be tweaked.

this pretty much sums up our entire friendship

9• I used to make really weird recipes. My mom used to tell me they sounded gross and that I should just make regular food. I’ve since waited tables in 9 different restaurants and have spent countless hours looking through cookbooks and recipe websites. I now make really weird recipes that are fantastic!

10• I’ve always had an insatiable desire to connect unrelated ideas. It used to drive my parents and my friends mad. It seemed like the more stressed I got, the more overactive it would become. I hated that people didn’t get it but I could never denounce my passion for it. Recently, through the help of the interwebs, I’ve realized that there are a world of people who go ape-shit over allegorical creative writing and over the top cross references. I’m now writing an autobiographical fairy tale.

This picture has absolutely no correlation to my novel

11• I was an over-medicated child. The “little white pill for every ache and discomfort” mentality was instilled in me from an early age. I pulled myself out of that life in my early 20s and have learned that most accounts of sickness and discomfort can be treated with lifestyle changes. The only pills I take now are vitamins, dietary supplements, and the occasional ibuprofen or sleep aid. The less medicine I take, the less medicine I end up needing.

12• I’ve lived “50 Shades of Grey”… minus the BDSM… minus the controlling aspect, minus the losing-my-sense-of-self part. …

Okay so it was essentially more like an empowering sex-god fueled journey of self-discovery that took on the unlikely form of a “50 Shades of Grey” parody. Read it HERE

13• I love to make things. Sometimes my desire to make things outweighs my need for the things I make. Sometimes I want to cook something but I don’t have any desire to eat it. Sometimes I want to write something that doesn’t make sense because I like the way it sounds. Sometimes I want to build something even though I know I won’t have room to store it afterwards. I still make things because it makes me happy. It all works out in the end.

14• I’ve been unlucky in love the past two years. I have trust issues after my ex. I’ve incidentally spent the past two years getting to know me for who I am instead of letting myself be defined by someone else. I’m a creative genius and I don’t give a shit if anyone disagrees with that statement.

15• Awhile back I took a second job I knew I didn’t have time for because I had no other choice financially. It was an amazing decision. I have the coolest job in the world and I get to make things everyday.

16• I’m always accidently stealing parts of other writers’ ideas. Everything I write is accidentally exactly 2.7% plagiarized. On the flip side, I’m pretty sure I’m the only person who’s ever written that last sentence.

17• I’m single and living in a state where I don’t have family, so I spend a lot of time by myself. Needless to say, I get lonely sometimes. Although on the extreme plus side, the freedom gives me the opportunity to make and do so many things I’ve always wanted to experience that I was never able to before now.

18• I like to take risks. I like change. I like being confused and not knowing what will happen tomorrow. My dad doesn’t like this about me. He’s always asking me “What if something bad happens?” What my dad forgets is that he is the exact same way. I am my father’s daughter and I’m damn proud of it.

19• I can't sit still for very long. I can't think about one thing for very long. I'm always thinking. I'm always moving. I'm always productive. I'm always creative. I'm always learning.

20• I've had sporadic allergy attacks for years that I couldn't figure out. This past year they got so bad that I had days I wanted to die. One day after a friend's birthday party I woke up super hungover and randomly ate a big handful of granola. My chest and throat immediately closed up on me and I felt like I was going to die right then and there. Luckily I had a jar of cold coffee in the fridge and I grabbed it to neutralize the allergy attack. It worked. I soon made the realization that I might be allergic to oats (a non-common allergen). I cut them out and haven't had an allergy attack like that since.

21• Sometimes I completely lose interest in everything and have no ambition or drive. I used to feel bad about these phases, but now I just embrace the disinterest and let myself be for a while. Sooner rather than later, my passion for life, the universe, and everything always finds its way back to center stage.

22• I thought I was a lesbian for like 3 months one time. I wasn't actually dating girls, but I had absolutely no sex drive for men for awhile and thought that was why. Turns out I just hated my boyfriend. As soon as we broke up my libido for men came back with a vengeance. 

23• Lesbians always think I'm a lesbian, which gets slightly awkward sometimes. On the plus side, I've made some really cool friends who started talking to me because they thought I was gay.

24• Last Spring/Summer I went through a very difficult break-up with a very bad man. THEN I fell down a flight of stairs and obliterated my right wrist and tore up my face. THEN I lost my full-time job. THEN a very good friend from my childhood passed away. I fell apart for awhile. It was devastating. My body, mind, and soul spent a good few months curled up in the fetal position shaking and feeling hopeless. Then one day I got tired of being sad so I picked myself up and I hit the ground running in the Pursuit of Happiness.

25• The last 2 men I've been out with have been insta-clingers. This is a huge turn-off! On the bright side, I've let them both down nicely and on good terms (even though all really wanted to tell them was "GO AWAY!!!!").

26• I have really bad insomnia. There’s no plus side to this one. Insomnia blows.

27• I think nonsense is hilarious. It cracks me up on a whole-nutha-levol. If you don’t understand, then you probably aren’t listening and that’s ok  mission accomplished!