Things I Have Learned From My 10 year old Cousin.

Children are often viewed as innocent and extremely naïve to the world around us. While this is mostly true, there are a few things we could take from them and apply to our own lives to make this scary adult world a little less scary. 

1. A compliment is the best thing you can give someone. I see my cousin, Grace, every single Sunday at church. No matter what I look like, if I’m wearing my best fitting dress or if my hair looks like I just rolled out of bed, she greets me with “you look pretty today”. Such simple words yet it always touches my heart. Every day there is at least one person in our life that is in desperate need of encouragement. So tell your best friend that she is having a good hair day. Tell your dad how much you appreciate him for working so hard to provide for the family. Tell the girl in the dressing room that she should buy the dress because she looks fabulous. Life is not all about us, believe it or not. Sometimes we forget that other people need encouraging just as we do. 

2. It is acceptable to dance at any point during the day. Grace takes dance classes, so this comes natural to her. However, professionals or not, dancing is the best way to take a break from the constant seriousness and stress of life. I personally struggle with this one because I am naturally just a very serious person. However, I will let you all in on a little secret. When I get ready for the day, I put on a playlist that consists of nothing but booty poppin’, rap music. And yes, you guessed it, I dance. I wobble while putting on powder, I twerk while waiting on my flat iron to warm up and I drop that thun thun thun while putting on my clothes. Life is just more fun that way. 

3. Just because someone doesn’t like you, does not mean you make them an enemy. When school was still in session, I would go and eat lunch with Grace at least once a week to catch up on all the 4^th grade gossip. All of her little friends would tell me about this girl that was a total brat to everyone and honestly could not stand Grace. She even tried to turn all of her friends against her! Now if ever put in this situation, I would start planning all of the ways to make the bratty girl’s life a living hell. But because my cousin is obviously a less evil person than I am, she just completely ignores it. Yeah, you read that right, she just lets it go. There is a lot we can take from that. Just because there is a girl who gives you the stink eye every day and makes it known that if you were burning alive she would rather drink the water than save you, still does not mean you should make her your enemy. There is no point. Think of it this way: obviously she sees something in you that she envies. And instead of wasting time feeding her the attention that she wants, just let it go and move forward with your awesome life. 

4. Wear what you want and own it. My family comes together for dinner often. Once at one of these dinners Grace showed up in her dance outfit, complete with tutu and all. My aunt looked at her and asked “really Grace? Is that what you want to wear to dinner?” Without any hesitation she replied with one word: duh. We live in a judgmental society. It doesn’t matter if we wear a turtleneck and a long skirt or a tube top and short shorts, someone will have something to say about it. My point is: we might as well wear what we want. For example, crop tops. I am the queen of crop tops. And I may not have a super flat stomach or abs, but guess what? I wear them anyway. I wear maxi dresses to the movies, wedges to Wal-Mart and Nike shorts to dinner. I wear what I want to wear and am totally unapologetic about it. You should be too.

5. Boys should NOT be the center of our universe. For the longest time I have obsessed about finding “the one”. Many of my friends are the same way. In fact, my cousin is one of the few people who doesn't ask me about my dating life. She is more interested in what I am doing, how school is going, how my friends are and what I want to do in the future. These are things that I should start being interested in about myself and others too. Constantly talking about whether or not so and so has a boyfriend, or all of the dates that you went on yet you still haven’t found someone, is just annoying. SO WHAT if everyone you graduated with is getting engaged. SO WHAT if you haven’t dated anyone in over a year. SO WHAT if you would rather travel the world with your best friend than with a boyfriend. The right person has not come along yet, and that’s okay. Keep living life for yourself. Because the only person you should rely on for pure happiness is you.

Sunday, June 8, 2014

Blogging seems to be a popular way to occupy time among my friends, so I thought that I would give this a try. When the idea first came to me while laying in my bed this afternoon, I honestly laughed at myself. I am not an English major like many of my other talented friends and I am not a self-proclaimed writer. So forgive me in advance for any grammatical errors or if my words are all over the place. I am just a girl who loves to express her thoughts through writing.

Most of you may not know that I am part Italian. And yes, I have the dark features and the sassy attitude. It runs in the family. That is why when thinking of a title for this blog, I thought of the Italian phrase "Continua ad andare avant" which means to "keep moving forward". This has basically been my motto for the past year now, and I am certain it will remain a constant reminder for the rest of my life.

For some of us, myself included, life after high school is a confusing time. For others, like many of my friends and classmates, everything falls into place perfectly and I admit that I am often jealous of that. In the two years that I have been out of high school, I have: transferred colleges and can honestly say that I still haven't found a college that is the right fit for me, found out the hard way that a lot of college guys are still not "grown men" as we wish they would be by now, gained so-called "friends" and have lost real ones, experienced what it is like to be B R O K E, and most recently, have been battling anxiety and depression. Now don't get me wrong, none of this is me complaining. I know that many of you have experienced at least one of the things mentioned above or maybe worse.

I choose to tell you about this confusing time in my life because through all the madness, I have learned something. I spent many nights crying out to God asking "God, You say You 'know the plans You have for me, plans to prosper and not harm me' so why am I going through all of this?" Those nights were the ones that I considered giving up everything. The truth is, for a long time now I have left out the most important part of that verse. Jeremiah 29:11 says "For I know the plans I have for you, plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future." Often we are so focused on the "bad" things that happen in our life, we forget what we have learned because of each experience. By no means has any of the above "harmed" me. I have learned to praise God for the trials in my life because through them I have become a stronger Christian and a stronger woman. It is because of the trials that I have hope for my future.

I read back over this first blog and I apologize for the mini sermon (I am a preacher's daughter after all). Consider this first post as a long "about me". I have learned a lot after graduating high school and the transition into this new phase of my life. The main lesson that I have learned thus far is no matter how big the trial, no matter how many times you are knocked down, no matter what you are going through this exact moment: God promises us hope for our future. And because of that hope, we can keep moving forward.