#This is a shitty edit but I needed to express my hatred for this bitch

[diamndwitch]

[itsleafourie]

18 things i learned in 2018

2018 has truly been a year of learning for me. from physically going through a transformation to making new friends and memories. here’ s some things i learned.

18. the only constant in life is change.

i say this in the most positive way possible. for me, i see change as a good thing. there is some type of assurance and security i find in the fact that in whatever situation i might be, it is not permanent. i do not have to stay here - lemme scratch that - it is guarenteed that i am not going to stay here. even when i am at a peak point, i still find it amazing i can even go higher - i have to power and will to drive ‘change’ into that direction.

17. life is better when you live it.

something i struggled with this past year is overall confidence. it started with the basics: such as my body image and my outer look. but something i learned is that hatred spreads. i always thought that the only thing that ‘turned others off’ was my body. as i continued to search my body for every flaw i could find; the self-hatred spread to other more emotional and inner things. i started disliking my personality, how i talked, how i laughed, and most importantly how i reacted as person towards certain situations and things. simply everything i did wasn’t good enough. i thought that i was a complete failure - personality wise. my need to force some kind of change into my personality and the way how i think about life was fed through this constant self-bullying. i thought that every single situation that i found myself in could have been resolved if only i had some sort of personality change. the words “if i wasn’t born like then life would have been easier” crossed my mind every single hour of every day. it created this stress and anxiety inside of me. my raw thoughts were scorned by my very own self-consciousness. i would find myself being way too awkward (when in reality i was being completely normal) or i would trick my own brain into thinking everyone secretly hated me. 

what i meant with this title is that the moment i started to slowly let go of that need of approving others i started enjoying the little things around me. i tried to make it a habit to stop overthinking certain situations. i started to make it a daily goal to react towards things in a utter natural and raw way in hopes of learning myself to be more comfortable with how i am build. i stopped stressing about things such as the way i laughed or how much i ate. just like that - life got a little bit better.

16. no one is as bad as they seem.

my father is a very hostile person. he believes that every person in society is out to get him. growing up with such a negative outlook on meeting new people, it got pretty hard for me to trust strangers with my pride. in other words, i started believing that everyone was out to get me too. i find myself doing exactly what i was scared of - criticising others. i wasn’t bullying anyone, i just thought that every person that i wasn’t necessarily friends with automatically hated me. here is where my insecurity of pleasing others played a huge roll. it was only after i learned myself to be more open and relaxed with new people that i realised the “popular groups” in my school can be extremely friendly. don’t get me wrong, some people’s insecurities still shine through. there are some bad and rotten apples out there. but after actually getting to know some of them, i grew some sort of confidence towards wanting to meet new people. and remember, some people tear other people down only to feel the need of some sort of self-acceptance. 

15. home is where your heart is.

after multiple drama’s and tears, i learned probably one of the most valuable lessons in life; your family is your number one support group. i know i cannot speak for everyone but 2018 made me realise that my family is truly one of the most supportive people i know. i admit, i took it a little bit for granted, but this year’s pain made me realise how blessed i am to have such an amazing lil group of humans as my safety net in life.

14. the arts will always be your number one way of self-care.

i always knew i was a creative person, but in my lowest points of my year i always found myself craving to express my feelings and pain in some sort of art form. whenever it was editing, painting, writing, listening to music, learning or reading, my ‘self-care’ always had something to do with art. that’s why one of my new years resolutions is to spend at least one hour every day doing exactly what i was born to do; to create.

13. exercising is actually pretty fucking amazing.

in 2018 i discovered how much i love doing sports. in previous years, i despised it. little did i know that it would soon become one of my favourite ways to escape from my daily stress. from doing nothing all day to exercising at least 4 days a week really played a roll in my transformation - physically and mentally. 

12. hating things does not make you cool.

oh!!!!! my!!!! god!!!! can people please start to realise that we all have different interests in life? so what you don’t like ‘mainstream’ pop-culture? don’t bash people who do. i used to look down upon people that band-waggoned onto trends. but now honestly who cares? liking a certain genre of music or having a certain style that is not considered “”””mainstream”””” does not make you any cooler that someone who prefers things that are mainstream. if you have time to insults those who do in your day-to-day life, i hope you make the effort to take a step back and change that shitty habit. no shade, all tea.

11. judging a person does not define who they are. it defines who you are.

this might get cheesy, but who has the time to tear others down? this goes hand-in-hand with my previous point, but judging others really does not benefit anyone. it only makes you look like a douche, makes the other person feel like crap (believe me, every gossip you share to a friend will get out) and feeds society’s negativity. i know some of you might think, “oh, it’s easier said than done” but really, just shut the fuck up. after a while of not bullying others and shit-talking, it becomes a habit to just mind your own business. believe me, no one thinks your cool when you tear other people down. it really only shows how insecure you are.

10. it is okay to be emotional.

we don’t even have to be close, after a while it becomes pretty apparent that i am a VERY emotional person. not only do i cry when i get slightly offended, i cry when i get frustrated (for example, i’ve cry almost during every mathematical exam this year, not because i think i’m an idiot, only because math is fucking hard) and i even cry sometimes when i’m happy. for the longest of time i tried to force that side of me away, mainly because society has created this message that not feeling anything is cool af. being a bitch and mean is trendy and crying just shows weakness. but now, i see expressing yourself so vividly and emotionally as such one of the strongest traits a person can have. for me, crying or even showing my raw emotions is the biggest form of rebellion. fuck being emotionally stable all the time. we’re human. every person cries and has bad times in their lives. let’s make it a beautiful thing to express oneself in that manner. 

9. learn how to be on your own.

after drifting away from a few people, i realised how lucky i was to be able to enjoy my own company. at first it was a strange feelings. you never see people being alone in our society. it is label as being “lonely” or “weird”. but honestly, when your not listening to our world’s toxic way of thinking, you realise how unnatural it is for humans to not being able to enjoy being alone. yes, we are social creatures, but we’re also very highly intelligent. sometimes we need some “alone-time” for self-reflecting. learning to become your own best friend will result into you becoming one of the most confident people you will ever know. being alone will not only learn you to love yourself, it also prepares you for the times when you have nothing else to do but to be alone. life is so beautifully peaceful when your realise that the only person you ever need to be dependent of is yourself. simultaneously life will become easier, becomes the only person you’ll ever really need is yourself (and your mum in my case).

8. materialistic things mean literally nothing.

seriously. read that again until you believe. stop caring about your follower count or your likes. stop caring about what brand of clothes you wear or how much cash you have. things such as what type of schoolbag you carry, how “aesthetic” your school stationary is, how “trendy” you are or whenever your style is relevant enough means nothing. no one really cares if your followers are active enough, if you have enough brand-clothing, if you are in-tuned with the newest trends, how much you’ve spent on things or how much your willing to spend. 

no. one. cares.

people only care because other people do. think about it. if we stopped linking this imaginary sense of worth to these things, no one would ever give a second of their day thinking about it. but in our society, it has become second nature to look out for it. for subconsciously compare our likes and followers and money. of course, it is in our human code to want to strive above others, but i believe we need to shift that energy towards different things. strive to be kinder than the person next to you. strive to impact the world positively on a larger scale than the generation before you. those are the things that determine how great of a person you are. 

7. you really need to cautious of getting caught up in the numbers.

this one links with number 8, but it is a bit more focused on this that i struggled with this year (and what i am still struggling with). i made it a priority to lose some weight, and i did achieve it in a very healthy way in comparison with others, but the dieting culture still affected me in some way. for a few months, i became a bit obsessed with giving my everything in going through this body transformation. along with that, i made it a daily goal to break my personal records. records in a sense of weighing or consuming a little bit less than the previous 24 hours. don’t get me wrong, i never did anything physically to force my body to reject those numbers, but i would feel sad or unaccomplished if i didn’t achieve that goal. it became a race between how good (or how small) i looked and how much my body could keep up. i’ve come very far since then, but sometimes it still overwhelms me. this is usually when i remind myself that change is inevitable. remember, progress over perfection.

6. life sometimes sucks.

in total honesty, i struggled with a lot of anxiety and sadness this year. i went to see a therapist to talk about my feelings. it helped, really. but i think it’s safe to say that person who truly saved me was myself. i became my very own hero this year. i learned myself how to dug out of that hole. life is going to suck. being a teenager with hormones, i do experience mood things. but being human, i experience feelings. maybe i have some type of mental illness, maybe i don’t. the world may never know. all i know is that sometimes you have to help yourself from the darkness.

just a little disclaimer; listen to yourself. listen to others. mental illness and sad thoughts aren’t things to be treated lightly. life gets rough and we know so little about mental health. please, whenever you have some form of mental illness or someone you might who has, be kind. treat them softly. we have no control how we react or feel about certain things. acting hostile towards your feeling or thinking you can control your raw emotions will bring you no where but closer to more pain. it is okay to be vulnerable. just make it a effort to help yourself and others. 

5. you need to learn to let go.

please, learn yourself this skill. people are going to leave you and you are going to leave others. you are going to meet new people and do new things. no one and nothing is permanently there. let go of that heartbreak or of that toxic friendship. this is can come off as extremely cheesy, but it is really so so true. 

4. listen to your gut feeling.

one of the biggest mistakes i made this year was ignoring my instinct about certain people. if i reacted earlier on how i felt about someone or something, i would have saved so much tears. but so we learn. put yourself first in life. there is nothing wrong with that. you only have one lift, do not waste a minute doing anything that makes your uncomfortable. 

3. please never stop doing what you love in fear of other’s judgement.

i stopped editing for a while. why? i feared others discovering my fan account. it literally disgusted me to such a point where i felt an anxiety whenever i was creating anything with my editing software. i thought that people would think it was lame, so i forced myself to dislike it. now with not being able to edit due to technical difficulties with my laptop, i long for it so so much. i took all of that wasted time to create something for granted. never push your passions aside only to please others. what a waste of talent.

2. you can still enjoy doing something without being necessarily good at it.

you best believe i am one of the worst gamers in the world, but i enjoy it so much. i’m not a talented singer or dancer, but i will be singing and dancing my heart out whenever i feel like it. i might suck at writing novels and stories, but i enjoy the thought of being able to express myself to freely. enjoy being undoubtedly untalented in something that makes you feel alive. i’ll never be a star athlete or a worldwide famous actor but i still enjoy pushing my athletic abilities or attempting to do any accent. you really feel fulfilled when you do let yourself self-awareness go. just do what you love, no one can be talented at everything.

1. most importantly, appreciate every moment.

once upon a time, my history teacher delivered a speech in one of our weekly school assemblies. it was about not wishing seconds by. sometimes we wish we could fast forward to finishing school. sometimes we wish we can just get out of that period we all dread so much. sometimes we are not in the mood for a sport practise or to deliver a speech. but do we ever realise how quickly all of that can disappear? how blessed we are to be alive and to learn new skills? to express our opinions in front of a classroom? to be able to compete in a sport? we take small things and privileges in life so much for granted. life is so much better than what we give credit for it. also try to see the positive.

cannot wait to learn new things in 2019, here’s to another year full of pain and happiness. here’s another year of growth and living our unmistakably perfectly-flawed lives. 

[st0pdr0pndm0sh]

A little rant on what’s been going on in my life for the past few months that aren’t even anime related.

If you’re reading this, it means I finally wanted to write down my feelings on something. I have endured a lot the last few months that a few of my friends know part or half of the story and don’t know the whole thing. So, for my friends who follow me on tumblr who know very little or half and don’t know the whole story. I am going to write it all out, and hopefully this explains why I have been doing what I have been doing. I hope it provides insight as to why I am doing this, and why I keep pursuing the same guy who broke me into a million pieces and left me to die. My last ex, for now due to his safety I won’t reveal his identity so I will give him the name Bob, because why the hell not. So Me and Bob have been friends since high school in 2011. He isn’t from New York, Long Island specifically. He is from Las Vegas, Nevada. He lived a hell of a life from what he would tell me back then. Well, he ended up moving here when he was 14 and I was 13. We went to the same high school, but for shits and giggles I will name it High School of Bullshit (HSoBS). So he came to the Island and had no friends whatsoever. He came just in time for the fall semester of HSoBS for 9th grade. I was in my mega scene phase, I was very cheery, happy-go-lucky. I enjoyed living at the time, and he- not so much. He had a lot of things going on and when he first met me, it was an instant attraction for both parties. The significance of this was we became best friends in high school, we were inseparable. You wouldn’t find him without me next to him and vice versa. The entire school was probably convinced we were dating, but we weren’t. We actually wanted to so badly. We never did because us being stupid children in love we didn’t know how to express this. He would date other girls in my class because he felt like he could never have me, that I was too high of a level for him. However, I wasn’t. I loved him dearly, and when he dated other girls in our class he would still always be with me to the point that he wouldn’t be with his girlfriends that much. He would always be with me. Now to every fucking person in this school they can TELL we were in love. It’s such a silly thing to say we were in love because it was high school we were 13/14. Well, one day he moved. I begged him to stay because I would miss him so much. Even by me saying that we still didn’t realize we loved each other. He didn’t want to go, but he had to. We still talked and everything until 2013. Truth is when he left I felt empty. Because in high school he wouldn’t talk to anyone but me. Even when that was a rarity, he still would talk to me and solely me. It made me very happy, knowing I felt so special to him. To him I am his first love, and his first best friend here. He always tells me how he can never forget about me, and how he never loved any other girl as much as he loved me. We have everything in common, from our music tastes, to our creepy and eerie pasts, to just who we are. We enjoy the same things, we act the same, we talk the same. We are legitimately the same person in the opposite genders as if we are made for each other. As time from 2013-2016 went on, we stopped talking completely, and I lived my life without him and he did without me. Or so I thought. Deep down we always wondered how we were. He always thought about me after 2013 and how I was doing. I always wondered about him, but we never decided to contact each other. He had girlfriends and I had boyfriends. We spent happiness in others. Well, in late August of 2016, I got new video editing software for my gaming channel on youtube and I made a status about how I was going to make more videos now. I was really excited to tell everyone about it, and he saw it and never knew I was an avid gamer. He messaged me saying “wait you’re a gamer?!” and we added each other on every gaming software we owned. We played games a bit and then stopped talking for a few months. Now, fast forward to September 23rd 2016. My 19th birthday, he texted me “Happy Birthday kid, how old are you now?” and I said how I was 19 and his immediate reaction was “wow you’re young compared to me” and meanwhile he was only turning 20 I made the joke of “You’re almost a year older than me though. As we are speaking we are both 19. So shush.” and we laughed because we made shitty jokes about how we are old/young. After that we put some distance back again. One day in October I met another guy, who I was attracted to. His name for this story will be Frank. Frank and I were going well in our soon-to-be relationship albeit we couldn’t see each other ever due to our conflicting schedules and whatnot, but we talked daily. Well, one day I posted on Snapchat how I needed someone and surely enough Bob saw it. He wrote to me asking to hang out to catch up after work and talk. I was hesitant at first because he was my first love, what if I fall for him again? especially since at the time he had a girlfriend. I didn’t want to ruin their relationship because he might still love me. I doubted it though, nothing ever lasted for me because I fall too hard for guys and get nothing in return ever. So I brushed it away and said fine, I’ll go out and talk. So we went to the taco bell near my house. He worked in Riverhead at the time which was 35 mins from my house, and we sat there and I knew. The minute I saw him and hugged him, all of my feelings returned. I had fallen in love with my first love again. That hug was a smack back to our happy moments together in high school. I missed it so fucking much, he was my best friend and my first love. He meant the world to me then, and even to this very day as I am writing this and crying over my computer I still love the fucking shit out of him. After we saw each other, I didn’t want him to leave. Not again. Not like he did back then, it ruined me to have to leave his side. I wanted to beg him to stay with me. I couldn’t though, he found happiness in someone else. His heart belongs to someone else. Not me. The next few days we talked a little, and I flat out (being the blunt bitch I am) told him how I think we shouldn’t see each other as much because I wanted to kiss him as if we had dated, because my feelings for him returned. I knew they would, but wanted to defy myself. I couldn’t. I told him that, and surely enough he felt the same. This caused more than a kiss to happen. Which tore him and I and his girlfriend at the time apart. This caused a lot of hatred, pain, heartbreak, bitterness, and tears and blood. After that, we dated in November shortly after his birthday for 2 weeks. We were happy for those 2 weeks, we had cute conversations like how I would say “I love you to the moon and back” and he would be silly and cute and say “You’d only love me for 3 days?!” because that’s how long it takes to get to the moon and back. Then he called me his queen, he would send me reasons why he loved me every night and that he was happy to be with me. He would always tell me to be happy for the day and have a good day at school or work. It went super well then and even the next time we dated it was just bliss. However, the first time we dated I decided to be a selfish cunt and not say I was in a relationship with him on facebook because I wanted to stay married to my ex on facebook from many years ago. I was still hung up on him, and little did I know. It fucking killed Bob. It hurt him so much that it pushed him away back to his ex-girlfriend now at the time. This in turn made me angry because he was with her when I was very ill at the time. I was nearly hospitalized, and he had done what I never wanted to be done ever again in my life. This caused turmoil, and he had to make a choice, me or her. He walked out of his house and when his ex-girlfriend at the time said “Where are you going?” he said “To make my decision” and told me to meet him at the lake near his house, where it all began for us. That was where he took my virginity, and where he asked to be mine again. I normally would’ve accepted it. However, I cursed him out, I caused him to cry so fucking much in my arms. I caused him to be in so much pain that I caused my own tears. I told him to live and to suffer. I wanted him to suffer like he made me suffer at the time, and once my head got cleared. That’s where mistakes began. He flip flopped between me and his ex-girlfriend at the time until she finally dipped and left. Once she left he worked on us and it was the best time of our lives because we didn’t let anything get to us. Not at all. However, I would always confront him about his ex-girlfriend’s posts regarding him. He would naturally deny it, but it fucking hurt because some was true some was false. However, we lasted a few more weeks and he broke up with me to fix his relationship with his ex-girlfriend. This hurt me, but I understood. So the issue here was he was still in love with me. He still wanted me, but he also wanted her. After we saw each other and his ex-girlfriend at the time refused to take him back. He found another girl and this caused some turmoil between us again because its back to a few months ago again. I befriended new people through this, and lost them just the same. Combatting my health, family life, and him all at once really destroyed my mental state to the point where I was numb. He told his new girlfriend at the time all about me and she hated that we still talked. He claims she trusted him, but in reality she didn’t. If she did, she wouldn’t have anything to worry about, but the fact that she was worried about this means even she along with he and I knew that he still was in love with me. Fast forward to 2 weeks later where we got into a HUGE FIGHT over the phone. He let his emotions engulf him completely and screamed at me, telling me how he’s going to call me every single name in the book and scare me away. However, he didn’t. He didn’t call me anything negative other than stupid. That was all, he didn’t call me a cunt, whore, a slut, a useless piece of shit. None of it. All he called me was stupid for still talking to his ex-girlfriend that hated me and confronted me blaming me for their break up. He also said these exact words to me: “Do you know why I am so angry, Angela?!” Me: “No WHY ENLIGHTEN ME.” Him: “BECAUSE I STILL LOVE YOU ANGELA, I TRIED TO FORGET US, TO FORGET YOU, TO GET YOU OUT OF MY LIFE AND NO MATTER WHO I DATE OR WHO I AM WITH IT’S NEVER THE SAME. I CAN’T FORGET YOU. I WILL NEVER FORGET YOU.” when he said this to me he was out of his shell, it was his true personality talking to me. This is when the truth really comes out. Afterwards I was left a crying mess feeling useless. Then I got a text from him saying “I’m sorry for over reacting. I do love you and I do want to be with you and work things out. I just need time” and all I did was give him time. However, I might’ve pushed a lot on him. That is what most likely ruined us. I wanted to see him that night. I wanted to see the person who broke me down so much that I can’t help but be in love with because at the end of the day when we make each other mad or sad, we always apologize and make up for it. After that phone call he posted on twitter how he isn’t human because he just shattered the one girl he probably never wanted to shatter. To shatter your first love and your first best friend like that has to be mentally eating someone alive. I always forgave him and I always will because I just love him, yes he hurt me. Yes, he did things he shouldn’t have done. However, at the end of the day we always talk to each other and check up on each other. If he’s a fucked up person, then I am fucked up for the same reasons he has. They say two people who are the same really belong together, then I guess this is our story because at the end of the day we still come back to each other. Now that we know how we feel about each other, we don’t want to lose each other again. Not after what happened in HSoBS. After they broke up, I witnessed him breaking down. Multiple occasions and I was there for him as a friend because he needed someone. I didn’t trust him alone. I was always there when he needed a friend. Every time he was upset, I would always check in on him and stop by to see if he is okay. He always calls me when he needs me, even after he told me he doesn’t love me anymore and said how he wants me out of his life for good. He still wants to talk to me, now I know what you’re thinking “why the fuck would he be so childish and fuck around so much and you still be there for him?” and the answer is, love makes you do some really fucking crazy and unexplainable things. This is one of them. When we are together we are so happy and there’s nothing bad going on, but when we are apart and he is unsure about himself and talks to other girls, that’s where the fighting happens. He tells me how he doesn’t love me, how he doesn’t care if I date anyone else, but truth be told. It’s a lie, he gets jealous a lot over me talking to other guys. Why? He still loves me, but doesn’t know what to do. So he’s pretty much prolonging us, but lately he has been calling me and texting me daily and talking to me and we are realizing how we are perfect for each other and how we are legitimately the same person but opposite genders. We both agree we are meant to be together, because he never felt like this with anyone else. When we were gaming late the other night he kept wanting to call me his babe and his girl etc. And it was even harder for him to not want me to come over to sleep with him. He misses me a lot, and I miss him too. However, he has another girlfriend (again) and until he realizes I am gone and find someone else and then want to fix us because he realized how he chased away the only girl who was there for him through everything and didn’t care about what he did because she loved him for who he was and for him. He will either be sorry that I am gone, or not care. We will see where this goes, because I do love him. However, this game of “I am going to date every other girl before I date you” fucking hurts. I can’t handle it because it’s not fair to me. It’s not fair because I keep trying to make things right and all he does is hurt me by seeing other girls. I just want him to snap out of this phase and realize I was the one who was always there for him. I want him to not fuck himself over someone who is willing to go anywhere with him when no one else will. I know all about him, every single thing. If anyone knew half of him they would probably be unhappy and not want to live with it. He may be a difficult, and a stubborn guy, but he really isn’t a bad guy. He always asks me how I am and if I don’t answer he gets worried because he knows my health is dancing with the devil right now. He truly does care about me. I just want these games to end and finally be at peace either with him or without him. Its either me, or never me. Pick one before someone else picks it for you. We all have that one person we can never stop loving, and for me that is him and for him it is me. However, it doesn’t mean when we see other people and love others we still won’t be affected by it because deep down we want each other. Please save me, before someone else saves me for you.