In Other News

Let’s see. Decisions, decisions, decisions have been made! I have decided on my dance path for the next two months as well as my college decision! I will officially be attending the University of Iowa starting this fall :)

I was going to keep going about the other stuff going on but I want to keep it short, sweet and happy for once! This is my other news post. Prove that yes I can do things that benefit myself and my future. I’m excited for what I have in store over the next couple of years! Ta-ta for now my friends.

I’m picky. Sorry.

Too much driving.
Too much food.
Too many times packing and unpacking.
Not enough hot tubs.
Not enough dancing.
Too many restaurants.
Not enough working out.
Too much time to talk.
Too much sleep.
Too many walks around campus.
Too many tours.
Too many snacks.
Not enough fruit.
Too many hotel rooms.
The perfect amount of snow.

Yup. That about sums up my past week. I went on my college audition/tour trip with my mom. We left last Thursday evening and are heading back right now. Such a relief to be done with the auditions but now I just have to wait to hear back the rejections:/

Welcome Home?

Last weekend I found out that my sister would be coming home this weekend. Great heads up mom and dad! This would usually be alright if I didn’t have to mentally prepare myself for her returns from college. You see, her and I don’t get along all too great and some of the things she says really affect me when she (and my parents) doesn’t even realize it. This makes the times with her really crappy sometimes. One of the first things she says to me was explaining that I had gained weight since this summer…Gee thanks. If only people knew the issues I have with weight and appearance and then maybe people would stop making stabs at me about it. Then she also expressed that I “have been ruined.” Again, thank you oh so much. I know that my life isn’t perfect, and I don’t expect it to be, but I wouldn’t necessarily say that my life is ruined. I have many issues which are really hard to talk about with other people but I can still have a good life if I want to. Comments like these make it really hard to welcome her back when I don’t enjoy being around her. Good grief :(

Am I Being a Diva?

My “freshman” year of college has approached even though I am taking the year off from school and am staying at home with my parents (ugh). With this comes a lot of changes around the household and it feels at times that I actually am living on my own and starting to support myself.

I think back on my life and I was very much so supported by my parents emotionally as well as financially. I had food on the table, clothes in my closet and plenty of toys to play with as a child. As the years went on I stopped asking for quite as much on a regular basis, but when I would ask for things they would be bigger and therefore more expensive: a laptop, an ipod, a phone, money for gas and pointe shoes. The smaller things in life (such as new clothes and shoes) were much less often given to me because I realized I had what I needed. My sister on the other hand continually got the smaller items and wouldn’t ask for the bigger. I therefore tended to get on edge when my parents wouldn’t grant my requests about a new dress for Christmas Eve service, but had already bought her one. But then does this make me a diva? Living off of my parents for the expensive things in life and getting flustered when my wishes weren’t granted? I know that the cost of life is HUGE, even larger than I can imagine right now. But I also know that my income is nowhere near what my parents make in a given week, month, or year. I am more than grateful for the food, the bed, the dance lessons and the doctor’s appointments that my parents are currently providing me but it is going to be quite an adjustment to start paying for my own gas, my own clothes and items such as a laptop and a phone bill. It is going to be even harder since I know that whenever my parents visit my sister she goes on shopping sprees and they pay for everything. And I know this will not occur with me since they see me every day. I feel very full of myself writing this, but it is just really hard to make these changes especially with someone who hates (and I mean HATES) spending money. Half the time when I buy something I will end up returning it because I feel it was too expensive. Half of those times it wasn’t. I just freaked out and started feeling guilty.

Here is to a year of spending money when necessary and putting money away for college whenever possible…Here goes nothing!

Senior Year: Take Two

So you know how everyone tells incoming seniors to not take a single moment for granted, but to live up your final moments with your friends and family? Yea, well that is not how my senior year went. Instead of enjoying the time with my friends, I lost many of them and very rarely saw anyone. My family and I went through hard time after hard time. Fight after fight. My senior year was so different than expected and now is leading me to staying in town at home for another year. This seems like the best decision at times and the absolute worst at others…

We move my sister back into college tomorrow which means that tomorrow begins my time at home with just my parents once again. I survived last year since I went straight from school to dance, I would come home for dinner, head back to dance and then come home straight to my room to do homework into the wee hours of the night. I rarely came in contact with my parents it seemed. On top of this I had rehearsals for dance productions for most of the day on the weekends and if I wasn’t at dance I would be up in my room doing homework. In the fall things were shaky, but they weren’t unbearable. Come winter and spring when I wouldn’t go to dance was  when things started getting worse and worse as I was home a lot more. This is what this year will be like since I am not taking any school classes so will be home most of the morning. Thankfully I have a few jobs so can focus my time on that but I am still really nervous for what this year will bring.

I have absolutely NO wishes to relive my senior year. I hated senior year with a passion and now I am pretty much in the same situation again. I once again have to apply to colleges and await the dreaded weeks for acceptance/rejection letters to arrive. I have to plan auditions for the dance programs. I have to fork up tons of money to do all of this, plus attend auditions and plan for my future. I am already stressed and the year hasn’t even begun yet. There are times when I really regret choosing to stay home instead of just heading off to college this fall. This year will be an adventure to say the least, but hopefully with a better ending than the first time around.

Saying Goodbye Sucks

We have hit the point in summer where people begin taking off for college and orientation and different adventures as they start a new chapter of their lives. This is also the time where the goodbyes begin to be said and the final hugs are given for quite some time. This is when you begin to realize who impacted you and who you will truly miss from your life. You know which goodbyes will be hard and which may not even be said at all.

So far I have bid farewell to 2 of my friends and they are the ones which will be hardest to see go of anyone. Both though I did get to see before they left and I am so thankful for that. They have both helped me so much in the past and it is so sad to think of them not being just a short drive away. One is off in Boston already, and the other leaves the country on Tuesday. I am very surprised that tears have not been shed yet but I know when it really hits me they will fiercely fall…

On Saturday after work I met with someone to get coffee and we literally just sat there talking for a good almost two hours. He has meant so much to me that it is so hard to think that that was the final time we will talk face to face for 8 months. He is so inspirational and intellectual. He has helped me through some really tough times and he just gets me. Sometimes it seems that he knows me better than I know myself. We have both had a hard past, in different ways, but we can still find it in us to relate to one another. He truly cares about me and I care about him. He is a real, true friend. The thing that he said that will stick with me forever is: “We have talked quite a bit over this year and yet you’re still not as happy as I wish you would be.” This just meant soo much to me. He wants me to be happy and he could see that I still wasn’t even though I was managing to fool everyone else in my life. I love him as a friend and I am truly going to miss him. He promised me that we could be in contact and that means the world to me. Even though he will be thousands of miles away I still know he will be there and he will still care.
“This isn’t a ‘goodbye’ it’s a ‘see you later’!”

Young and Beautiful

“Will you still love me when I’m no longer young and beautiful?”

Recently I’ve been doing a lot of thinking about society, appearance and expectations. It thoroughly amazes me how much time girls (particularly) put into how they look, instead of how they feel, each and every day. I used to think that to fit in with society’s expectations of a teenage girl I needed to wear brand name clothing, makeup and my hair better look spot on every day. But truthfully instead of portraying a “beautiful image” girls just need to feel beautiful in their own skin. Why not wear what is cute and comfy instead of unaffordable and skimpy? Why not go all natural with your hair and lack of makeup instead of caking on layers and layers of a fake appearance and spending hours making your hair look absolutely perfect? Sometimes it is necessary. Instead of becoming beautiful try to feel beautiful. Be the person God created you to be instead of just conforming to the ins of society. Why be what everyone else looks like when you were created to be your own person in this world? Just because you do not wear makeup does NOT make you not beautiful. If you get your clothes all from “cheap” stores, who cares! Make them work for you instead of making them work for society.

Right now the crazes are crop tops, high waisted everything and chopping off your hair. But why? Why would you cut your hair just because your friends did? Did you like your hair the way it was? Then keep it that way! Be your own person! Follow what makes you happy! Do you feel uncomfortable showing that much of your stomach in a crop top? Yes..? Then DON’T BUY THEM!! It is as simple as that. Instead wear something that you yourself are comfortable in.

Most people my age are heading off to college next year and are realizing that once they get there they can be whomever they want to be. They can be themselves finally instead of being ‘stuck’ in the image of the person they had created themselves as in high school. It is a chance to start new. But instead of making drastic changes to your appearance to fit in with your new friends I challenge you to find yourself first. Figure out what makes you happy and who you want to be as an individual before worrying about how you will look to the hot guy who sits across from you in your Calculus class. Make the next four years count in terms of experience not appearance. When you think back on your time in college you will remember the people you met and the things you did. I promise you that you will NOT remember what brand of makeup you were wearing on October 21st, 2015, or which cardigan and pair of shoes you had on. Instead you may meet the love of your life. Or begin your new internship with the top company in your surrounding area. These are the things that impact your life in some way and are what you should spend time making decisions about to better your future. Tomorrow: put down the mascara, look at yourself in the mirror and tell yourself “I am beautiful.” It is as simple as those 3 words, but something that people very rarely tell themselves until they have created their appearance to fit the expectations of society.

Erasing Anonymity

There are so many blogs out there written anonymously and there are also a ton that write and post them directly to another social network for their friends, families, and strangers to read. As of now I have only shared my blog with a select few people. Everyone else who reads this have stumbled across it through my anonymous Tumblr page or WordPress itself. I am really thinking about starting to post my blog to my personal Twitter account. I really think it would be interesting to see if I get any feedback from the people who don’t realize there is a different side of me. I am not only the nerdy, dancer freak that I come across as at school. There is more to me. I am battling with something that I have been trying to hide. But eventually high school life will be behind us. We have already completed the 4 treacherous years of classes. We are on our final summer with these people when we know they will for sure be around. Everyone is moving away. Many things will be left behind us as we begin a new journey in our lives. People will pack up their things and head off to a place of more freedom and start making decisions purely for themselves to better their future. Some people will begin this journey with a few of their childhood friends by their side, and others will go into this completely alone. They will make the decisions to branch out, or stay a little shy and wait for friends to find them. The life ahead of everyone is a life with so many opportunities and no one can be sure where this path will take them, but at this moment everyone is taking a leap of faith into a new direction. I think that I will take that leap of faith tonight and share this blog with others. Let people know the “real Ashley” or at least the “Ashley” that I have become. This past year has changed me a lot, but in good ways, I have learned a little more about myself and keep discovering new things everyday. So if anyone new is reading this tonight, hello and welcome to this part of me:)

Guts and Dreams

Today, I have had a lot of time to think. For me thinking can be very good or very bad, but today has been a mix of both. I am surrounded with a lot of situations that are causing me to think as well as free time finally to do that thinking. So this post may come a bit ‘stream of consciousness’ as I go, but I will try and refine it so it makes sense.

So I am like 98% sure that I have social anxiety. I have talked with my therapist about this idea and she somewhat confirmed it without completely diagnosing me. I get super nervous in most social situations which has proved really hard for me in the past. I hate confrontations and I hate trying to explain myself. This sucks and makes me even more jealous of the people around me. When most people are angered by another persons actions or behavior they can go up to them and let them know, me on the other hand, I just bottle everything up and burst when I am alone. This can be good and bad. I feel bad watching and listening to other people get in fights about one thing or another* but it creates this bubble of envy inside of me that wants to escape. I wish I could let people know how I feel about something they did or something that was said, but instead I just get nervous and back down or nod my head while they explain why I was in the wrong. I am currently observing a set of friends completely destroy one another while trying to stay on top of their imaginary ‘food chain’ so to speak. I wish I could do that sometimes. I don’t want to see anyone get hurt and I don’t want to lose more people from my life which is why I never follow through with my thought up actions, but there are moments when I wish I could escape my shell and finally let someone into my heart and my thoughts. I’m scared of being broken and I’m scared of being left behind. The ones I have let in have left me and I don’t want it to happen again any time soon.

Tonight was the second night of the 2 night season 10 premiere of So You Think You Can Dance. This show has been a part of my life for a few years now and has really changed how I feel about dance. When I first started watching SYTYCD I would dream every day that I could one day be on this show. I wanted to compete up there for the title of “America’s Favorite Dancer” so badly and I wouldn’t give it up. Until the day that I told what had been my best friend and she responded snarkily with: “You really think that you could do well on there?” Clearly this did not go over well for my self esteem, but as previously mentioned I lacked the guts to stick up for myself. My dreams were then crushed and now have doubted myself since. (This isn’t to say that I hadn’t doubted my dancing before that point. I’ve always doubted my dancing, but this just solidified the doubt of my dreams becoming reality any time soon). I have given up on this dream. I haven’t once thought since that day that I even want to think about auditioning. My views of myself as a dancer have plummeted over the last couple years and my injury isn’t helping one bit. I’m sick and tired of being put on the bottom of the list in terms of dance. I get the worst roles and am just viewed as incapable. I wish I knew how someone truly viewed my dancing because I am always told by my peers and teachers that I am good, they can see my passion, my technique is above most of the studio, so I don’t understand why I am still ranked last. In everything. Today I got the news for the second time (hopefully it is true this time around) that I can start returning back to dance slowly but surely. I don’t know if I want to anymore. I am scared. I am terrified truth be told because now I will be even worse than I was before. I was already the worst in my classes so now where does this put me? I have been off for just over 5 months now and am scared to death. Of course I haven’t expressed this concern to anyone though cause I don’t know how to. I still have my dreams of going off to college in fall of 2014 (after a one year deferment) to major in dance. But I don’t think anyone understands how hard it is to hear everyone ask me the 2 questions which kill me each time: 1) What if your injury never heals?   2) What if you don’t get into the dance program?      I could cry in front of every single person that has asked me one or both of these if I had the courage to do so, but instead brush it off and tell them “Well, I guess I wasted a year of my life then hoping for recovery and success.” It breaks me down. It shatters my dreams. But no one knows that. No one sees what they’re doing to me. I need to find the personal strength once again to stand up and face the world as I did before. I am stronger than I think but I just need a reminder. Everything happens in this world for a reason. I need to find my reason and rekindle the fire underneath my hopes, dreams and aspirations.

I am StrongTilTheEnd and you are too <3

*Today I was tutoring at a middle school and I asked a girl how her day was. She responded with “It was good, except I got in a fight with my friend 7th hour.” Of course I was concerned and made sure everything was okay but in the back of my mind all I was thinking of was how jealous I was of her. How she could explain herself through her words. How she didn’t let something that happened phase her even a couple hours later. She dealt with the problem at the moment that it occurred instead of hoping that it would work itself out later on. I. Just. Want. This.