A short bit on Friendship

                Good morning Bloggers!

                The last post I did on friendship really came from the heart because I truly believe friendship to be very important.  I have been blessed with a friend that keeps me from drowning and always cheers me on. She also gives me a big steaming cup of reality when I need it. We have a track record of coming together and then drifting apart. It doesn’t matter how far we drift we always sync back up.

                There is a lot of things I have learned from being blessed with such an amazing friend. The first thing is that friendship takes time and self. That means when a friend texts me I need to make it a priority to respond. Or if someone calls me I need to make it a point to either answer or call them back. This is probably the thing I struggle with the most. It is not that I don’t want to talk to someone it is I look at it and decide to respond later and then end up forgetting. I don’t make it a priority. That is how I end up losing a friend.

                Another thing that I have been taught is that it is not always about me. I need to put my selfish hat away and listen. Friendships are give and take. Sometimes you need to get your shoulder wet and sometimes you need to ask for one. Sometimes people we care about go through something really difficult that can make you uncomfortable because you can’t relate and don’t know what to say.

                When I terminated my rights to my son I was nineteen. Most of my friends were nineteen. Most people that age cannot relate to that. I didn’t have many people to talk to because nobody knew what to say. I was a mess and didn’t want to go on. There was one person who did exactly what a friend should do in that situation. They said nothing….. They held me and let me fall to pieces for as long as I needed with no judgement and didn’t try to say the things that made it worse (“At least you know where he is” or “at least you can still see him”). When I was ready to stop breaking they asked what he could do to help. Sometimes silence is the best way to help somebody.

                This may seem like a short post but I think the message is pretty clear and doesn’t need to be dissected any more. Don’t be selfish if you care about your friendships. Learn to give and take. And one big thing that I need to work on…. Answer my damn phone.

What is Religion?

Today I decided to talk about something that can be a very touchy subject for some but it is something I have seen over and over again scrolling through blogs….. Religion.

I should start off by saying that I did not grow up with any sort of religion. My knowledge of God was a man that lived in the sky and sometimes people talked to him when they were sad or scared. I had two books about God. One was on his love and how much he loved everybody the second was about Noah’s arc. I truly just thought they were stories just like my green eggs and ham. I wasn’t really introduced to the concept of God until I was 8 years old. After some unfortunate events between my parents my dad and I moved in with my grandmother. She wasn’t religious either but she did have a relationship with a higher power. She brought me to church every once in a while and even then I still did not really understand much when it came to God. I just really enjoyed the music.

Fast Forward to my high school years. I had grasped that God was a big deal and that he made everything happen. As a teenage girl that gave me someone to blame. I remember trying to pray and it was really emotional for me. I would cry and beg and cry and beg. And then I would be more upset because I didn’t get instant gratification. So for me God was just someone to blame. After I got sent to a temporary foster home my feelings started to change and I was introduced to a religion for the first time in my life. My foster parents were catholic and went to church every Sunday. I chose to go with them out of curiosity because all I had heard about Catholic Church was that they were strict and mean. But my foster parents were the most amazing people I had ever met so I wanted in to their life. As I walked into this church they gave me all the instructions. And I have to say I loved it. I still didn’t understand most of it but I loved the structure and the consistency. Coming from a life that was so chaotic and walking into something so sturdy feeling I loved it.

Fast forward to my 20s once again I had gone through a bit of a rough patch. I was homeless and pretty alone. I was introduced to some people who didn’t teach me religion. They taught me spirituality and it saved my life. I still don’t know much about religion. I just know that there is a power greater than myself. I found a lot of comfort in having a God. I have not defined God or have even tried to figure out anything about him. I don’t want to over think or complicate it. I just know that God is watching over me and wants me to be a good person. I have nothing against religion I actually find it a very good thing because that is how others have found God and I think that is amazing. Every religion has someone that has given it a bad name. That is one person! I have met many people from many different religious backgrounds and they have been some of the nicest kindest hearted people I have met.

What I choose to believe or what others choose to believe is their choice and not for anybody else to try to decide for them.

Rants and Rambles: Weight Bashing.. Just stop

When you hear weight bashing I am sure you are thinking someone is bashing another for being big. Well that is not the only form of weight bashing. Telling someone they are too skinny and should “Eat a Burger” Is just as much a weight bash as telling someone they should “hit the gym”.

First off who asked for your opinion anyways? Not me. My weight has always been up and down. The happiest weight I have been at is 115 and the highest I have been is 135. Here is the deal. It doesn’t matter what others think because they are not in my body or in fact my life. You don’t see every meal I eat nor do you know how sick I feel when I am at 130. I have recently been teetering on the 130 so I decided to join a gym. While trying to talk to people about my goals with joining the gym all I got was “What are you talking about? You are so skinny. You don’t need to lose weight” and it just puts me into a rage. Do you see me naked? No. Do you have to live in my body? No. It’s not even about my weight it’s about how I view myself and the plain fact is my not happy when I see myself naked. So I chose to do something different rather than sit in my insecurity and be miserable. It is not a compliment to tell someone they are too skinny. That is the same thing as calling someone fat. It is you inserting an opinion that was not asked for.

So next time you think about commenting on someone’s weight just remember you are inserting your opinion where it wasn’t asked for. Now if I was withering away and not eating then yes of course someone close to me should confront me. Not some random person I barely know commenting on my pictures asking if I’m eating. Yes I am thank you very much.