I'll Walk Through Fire To Save My Life

Hello lovelies,

How have you all been doing? It has been a hot minute since we all sat down and had a little pow-wow. Speaking of hot, I AM SO FREAKING EXCITED THAT THE SUMMER MONTHS ARE HERE! My skin just sizzles when I walk outside, and that is not because I am a vampire, even though I look and glisten like one. I don't know about you guys, but the summer months always allow me a little time to think. These days I work from 8 am until about 8 pm, so when I walk out of the REC Center, typically smelling like chlorine and urine, the beautiful sun is usually floating beside the tree line, waiting to guide me to my car before saying goodnight - yeah, we are pretty close like that. Well yesterday, the sun was hiding behind the clouds and creating this pink haze across the sky, which in return created this ambiance that forced me to think and evaluate my life:

 It didn't help that I had Taylor Swift playing a beautiful guitar through my headphones. It was like I was walking in a movie to a perfect soundtrack that went along with my life! Before I realized it, I was walking like this to my car:

You should've seen the looks I was getting...
And they weren't excited. More like worried.

But have you ever had one of those moments? Before I could stop it, my mind started thinking about everything and everyone in my life. It started off feeling like a pro-con list and ended up being more of a happiness enhancer type ordeal. Lets see if I can describe it. Have you ever had your makeup done by someone at Sephora or Ulta? They place a certain kind of makeup on one side of your face and a different kind on the other. Then the comparing begins. They place their hand in front of half of your face, let you explore the other half, then they switch it. I always always always end up feeling dizzy and completely confused...and makeup-less. This is what I was doing with things in my life - placing my hand in front of it seeing if I needed it...or if I really wanted it. I finally came to a conclusion: life is weird...and this weirdness, well, it's a dadgum problem - YES, I AM CALLING YOU OUT, LIFE! But the worst part about it all is the fear. Fear is icing on the cake of our weird life. I am fearful of getting that dang makeup because what if it doesn't look as good on me when I go out into the sunlight...or when I put it on myself? Like when we get our haircut. It looks delicious after the hairdresser touches it, but as soon as it gets washed, it looks like poop again:

And this is why I said BYE BYE BYE to bangs!
Two hours later: I would've missed class still doing this.

But this fear, it's like the boyfriend that tells you everything you want to hear just so that you will take the easy way out of everything...or so that you will feel like it is all your fault for feeling that way. Fear is a sneaky little heifer. It's the silent killer. It has the ability to blind us of our issues and our reality. Fear is the smooth part of a rollercoaster before you hit the big drop. We've all seen it in action: we watch the movies and see the young girl get slapped by the one she loves, and we scream at her when she keeps going back. And when I say scream, I sometimes get really aggressive and throw things at my TV hoping she will really feel it and dadgum wake up! But I actually remember something that I learned in class this year. It's a story by Raymond Carver called What We Talk About When We Talk About Love, here is the Shmoop version if you're like me and want a quick overview of it, http://www.shmoop.com/what-we-talk-about-when-we-talk-about-love/. Raymond states that people feel love differently. Some people have to be yelled at or hit to feel loved...and some people need to receive it through various gifts and ways...and others, they need to hear it and truly feel it. Love changes from person to person, which is why each new relationship you get in feels differently in its own way. No one sums that up better than Johanna Mason from Catching Fire:

Fear forces your mind and heart to believe that you deserve someone that forgets all important dates in your life, or someone that treats you like you don't matter unless they need you, you know, like you are a handkerchief or something. It wants you to believe you deserve someone who doesn't want to show off how proud they are to have you, because let's be honest, if you are sitting here reading this, you are incredible and deserved to be looked at that way. Fear makes you believe that being alone is this horrible thing, and if you're like me and you live in the south, most people are still under that impression. I swear if I get asked one more time if I am ever planning on settling down and getting married...uhh...CAN I PLEASE GRADUATE AND REMEMBER TO FEED MYSELF BEFORE I ADD ANOTHER SOUL INTO MY LIFE? Besides, I can't get married until my dog approves. 

Let us all take a moment and note how perfect and fluffy she is.

But I've always said, if he or she doesn't look at you the way you look at the waitress when she finally brings out your food that you ordered on a day when you are just so beyond hungry, well, that person needs to hit the road, jack. 

"Till death do we part, precious vanilla ice cream.
Till death do we part."

Oh, or if they don't look at you like all the princes look at princesses in Disney movies, yeah, they can get to stepping. Because if they aren't looking at you like this, then they probably wouldn't search a kingdom of to find the foot that went inside that slipper, and they definitely wouldn't climb your hair up a tower just to be with you. Or cut off your hair after being stabbed by a sharp slab of glass because they don't want you to be imprisoned by a hideous woman claiming to be your mother....awww...Flynn is perfection. He just really is.

Oh, LAST ONE, I SWEAR, but if they don't look at you the same way all the dadgum men look at the leading lady in each of Nicholas Sparks' freaking movies, then you need to cut the chord before ole Nicholas does it for you, because lets be honest, "Sparky" Nicholas over there LOOOOVES killing off the male lead:

I totally remember crying to this part in the theater while saying,
"Why is he getting all deep?! Channing, if you cry then I'LL cry."
I swear tears spread like a yawn, but yeah, I was asked to leave the theater.

Ryan Gosling literally would exchange his perfect bod for
feathers and a beak just. for. her.
Yeah, it is safe to say that Ryan has set the bar incredibly high.

Don't even get me started on Josh Duhmal...
I claimed him before Fergie.
She and her London Bridge can get on.

ACTUALLY, WHERE DID THIS HUNK OF PERFECTION COME FROM?..

Nevermind....I have no more questions...

Actually, real quick, if someone has a close relationship with Nicholas Sparks, it'd be great if you could forward this to him: Hey Nick, it has been really cool and fun crying to your movies over the years, actually, The Notebook was the first movie I ever cried to while watching, and I haven't stopped crying since. But I have a favor to ask of you, could you please give someone a happy ending, because if I see one more cute guy die, I will cry myself to sleep at night. YOU'RE TAKING ALL THE GOOD ONES THAT ACTUALLY DO SWEET THINGS, SUCH AS BUILD HOUSES AND FIGHT FOR LOVE, AWAY FROM US...AND I'M GONNA QUIT YELLING NOW BECAUSE I WOULD REALLY LIKE TO STAR IN YOUR NEXT MOVIE WITH GERARD BUTLER...AND WE HAVE TO LIVE HAPPILY EVER AFTER. Actually, that sounds more like a Disney movie...let me just forward this idea to them. Anyways, I got a little distracted and slightly aggressive, wshoo, I am good. But it's the same ole same ole, we settle for what we think we deserve, and usually it's far less than what we actually do. But in the wise words of the beautiful Zac Efron:

I need to watch this again.
Just looking at him makes me want to become an Astronaut...and really shoot for the moon.

We are all afraid to shoot for the moon, because what will happen to us if we don't make it? What will happen if everything we ever dreamed of doesn't work out? What if the one thing or person or place or any other nouns that we've always loved or wanted in return rejects us? Then what? Well, for those who have watched and spent their youth wanting to be Hillary Duff from the movie A Cinderella Story, and may or may not have made Sims characters, one being Chad Michael Murray and the other being yourself, so that they could recreate that beautiful movie and all the beautiful moments that happened in it since nothing as exciting has happened thus far in your lives...oh, whoops, there I went on a rant, ANYWAYS, you guys should be familiar with this quote:

YEAP - I went and took a picture of the EXACT SAME WALL they showed in the movie.
I know, I know, I must really love you guys.

The fear of not hitting a softball during my intramural times didn't keep me on the benches, no, the fact that I got extremely excited and tore my ACL did. BUT not only did I test my unathletic body, but I got a killer scar to go with it - it's actually a really great conversation starter. I like telling people different stories. My favorite is that I got in a fight with a member of the Mexican Cartel...then I like to add, "But you should see the other guy..." But these fears can keep us on a bench if we don't face them. For those of you who know me, you guys know that I'm not one to dance in public. As a matter of fact, I'm banned from dancing in public at most places because it's just not okay. It's frightening actually. And I also have some kind of weird fear of dancing in public. Well, I got weirdly excited and daring last week while I went to Mexico and I DANCED ON STAGE AND INFRONT OF A STAGE AND I RECREATED "HOLD ON" by WILSON PHILLIPS FROM BRIDESMAIDS WITH THIS RANDOM CRUISE GUIDE LADY BECAUSE I LOVE THAT SONG AND I AINT NEVER SCARED...annnnnnnd because those people didn't know me. I also went into the cloudy waters of Progreso, Mexico and had a mysterious object nibble on my fingers. Don't worry, I ran my white buttcheeks out of there right after that. BUT I am so sick and tired of being scared...but that's not me saying that I don't still have fears. Trust me, brothers and sisters, I have plenty. They can be small ones. For instance, I am completely terrified of finishing season 2 of Grey's Anatomy. I know that beautiful Denny is about to die and they are going to play "Chasing Cars" while Izzy lays atop his cold, dead body...and I cannot....I cannot do that to myself just yet. But your fears can also be pretty big.

I may be on the stage ready to work my Beyonce skills...
But as you can see, I chose to bring my buttcheeks to the back.
DON'T YOU WORRY - MEGAN STILL GOT PLENTY OF PICTURES!

My fears? My biggest fear was always losing my parents. I remember that was when my OCD began. When I was a little younger, I would stand by my parents bedroom door, just simply watching my dad breathe. Whenever I finally found out how sick he was, I was always so afraid that I wouldn't be there for him when he died. I was actually terrified of spending the night at my friends'  houses because I didn't want to be away in case something happened. During that last year, something was always happening. It was like I was living in a constant rush of ambulances and hospital rooms. At night I would count each of his breaths....then I'd let my mind tell me that that one could've been his last, so I would start counting again. and again. and again until it was almost time for me to get up for school. After my dad passed away, and watching him take his last breath, I felt like I had to continue the same routine with my mother. See, with us OCD folks, we are under the impression that if we don't do something, something bad will result from it. My mind kept telling me, "girlfriend, if you stop doing that now, you will lose her, too." So as my mom began sleeping on the same side that my dad once had, which was where the light shined perfectly from the hallway, I began my routine. But instead of standing by the door, I got really ballsy and walked next to her and would actually feel her breathing. Literally, I would place my hands above her face to feel her breathe out of her nose. She would often wake up....which would lead her to threatening my life...but hey, her threatening me meant she was alive. But I was afraid...I lived in fear. But I thought to myself, "You lose one parent...you can't lose another for at least another 10-ish years, right? Isn't that a deal somewhere?" Well...that's what I get for thinking. Just as soon as I shipped off to college and was unable to check to see if she was breathing, she stopped. But, somehow I survived that fear. The weirdest part was that it was almost like I couldn't comprehend what happened until later on down the road...until I was no longer allowed to step foot on my property, until I realized that I wasn't dreaming, and everything that had happened was real life.

After watching the way my mother fell apart after my dad passed away, I began to fear the idea of loving someone so deeply and then losing them. My mother became very open with me after going through such an event. It was like every feeling she ever had went from being muted to finally unsilenced, and with those unfiltered feelings busting out, many nights she would drink more than she needed. I only watched that type of thing happen in movies, and watching that situation come to life sent me in a panic. I think after I locked myself in the bathroom one starry night, crying and hollering at my mother, she finally realized that I wasn't fit for dealing with it. I actually broke one of my brothers' friends fingers when he was drunk at my house. I don't do well with people trying to sneak in my room. But I watched my mother fall apart and build herself back up again. That same feeling came back up like burning vomit when my brother called me to tell me he and his fiancé were no longer together. He opened up to me for the first time in our entire lives...oh, and even more, he actually called me. When I saw his name light up across my phone, my heart dropped instantly.

Nowadays I am afraid of dying without living, without loving, without speaking my heart, without writing what I feel, without finding a place that feels like home, without fighting for myself.

Dying without feeling free...
So I decided to climb to the top of a Mayan pyramid type thing.
Don't worry, I didn't free fall off or anything.

All those fears, well, they suck. They keep us down, drowning us really. I'm not saying that going after your dreams will always end happily. Trust me, I've spent many nights crying in the bathtub with my Disney radio because of my failures and my stupidity. But that's why God created bubble baths, right? But I am saying that leaving those dreams in the dark while you settle for less, well, that's the kind of crap that will leave you drowning in misery on your deathbed. What would've happened if Noah never tried to fight for Allie in the Notebook? He never would've found his one true love, and they would've both died on the same day, alone, and not knowing each other. Instead, they got to beebop out together so that they didn't have to plan the other ones funeral - that's what your kids are for, right? But without following your dreams and facing your fears, you will never fully understand how incredibly strong you are. So don't be afraid to shoot for the moon, because even if you miss, you'll land among the beautiful stars:

Shall we start fighting together? 

Enjoy your summer, lovely people. Have a beautiful summer.

Love always,

Haley

"You did not break me
I'm still fighting for peace

Well, I've got thick skin and an elastic heart,
But your blade - it might be too sharp
I'm like a rubber band until you pull too hard,
Yeah, I may snap and I move fast
But you won't see me fall apart
'Cause I've got an elastic heart

I've got an elastic heart
Yeah, I've got an elastic heart

And I will stay up through the night
And let's be clear, won't close my eyes
And I know that I can survive
I'll walk through fire to save my life."

Elastic Heart - Sia