“I am trying to see things in perspective. My dog wants a bite of my chocolate chip bagel. I know she cannot have this, because chocolate makes dogs very sick. My dog does not understand this. She pouts and wraps herself around my leg and tries to convince me to give her a tiny bit. When I do not give in she eventually gives up and lays in the corner, under the piano, drooping so sad. I hope the universe has my best interest in mind like I have my dogs. When I want something with my whole being, and the universe withholds it from me, I hope the universe is thinking to herself: “Silly girl. She thinks this is what she wants, but she does not understand how it will hurt her” – Blythe Baird

Isn’t it ironic? That more often than not – we want the things that we cannot have. Even more so – we want the things that are bad for us. I’ve given a great time of thought to this. Because just like everyone else, I am not immune to giving into the things I desire, even when in my gut I know they are terribly wrong for me. But that is the powerful thing about the mind, we can somehow convince ourselves that these things may be good for us, just maybe they won’t hurt us. But they always do.

Now unfortunately, it generally takes getting hurt not once or twice but maybe three or four or how many number of times to finally get the universes’ message. That is the troubling thing about our generation, we never listen the first time. We think we know best and we do what we want. Personally, I find that I never figure it out the first time. I think for various reasons, including events occurring over the course of my childhood and teenage years, I have made it comfortable for people to hurt me, because I always forgive. Unfortunately though, I never forget. I have the mind of a writer. I keep everything in there. Even the things I want to forget. My truest problem is that despite the dishonestly people have handed me on silver platters, or the pain they have brought to my life – I love the people I love. It never goes away. It is both a beautiful blessing and a heart-wrenching curse to feel as deeply as I feel. But I would not change it for a second.

Everyone has their own story. We all have our troubles and our fears and our mistakes. We all have a past – it makes us who we are everyday. But I think all too often, people use these things as an excuse for why they cannot be the best person they truly can be. I could sit here and say that people have been bad to me or that life has been unfair. I could say that life handed me problems I was too young to handle or that life took away people I loved far too soon. But that is bullshit. I have been blessed with a beautiful life. I have loving parents, and three amazing brothers and despite the craziness or the dysfunction. I would not trade it for the world. It is MY dysfunction, my family, my foundation. I would never take back the heartbreak or the troubles of my teenage years, they forced me to learn hard lessons at an early age and become (as cliche as it sounds) an independent person who knows what I want and who I am.

It takes the bad to know the good. It takes absence to be able to appreciate presence. It takes understanding ourselves to be able to understand others. Life is terribly ironic.

I am writing today, because over the last nine months I have learned a lot of hard lessons. Lessons I have been faced with before – but chose to ignore. Life went to an extreme – life made me step back yesterday, wipe the tears off my face, and made me say enough is enough. I am who I am. I am not going to change. I will always be nice. I will always be genuine. I will be damned if I let people try and take that away from me. I am surrounded by honest, loving, loyal family and friends. They deserve my presence, my focus, my love. Like I said in my last post, “No. 1″, “Some people are meant to be loved from a far. That is okay. That is life.”