One Thing I Have Learned About Life

“If there is one thing I have learned about life, it is that it goes on.”

~Robert Frost

This is one of my favorite quotes. Now a days life is dramatic! No longer does failing a test mean that you will have to study harder next time. Now it means that you will have horrible grades, not get into college and live in your parent's basement the rest of your life! Things are blown out of proportion all the time! I am no stranger to this kind of dramatization. I am very sarcastic, dramatic, and I exaggerate everything! [See that!? That was an exaggeration! =P]

As I was saying, life is hard. People from a young age are expected to have the rest of their lives mapped out, and I think I get caught up in the moment sometimes, and I think a little to far ahead of myself. Goals are a good thing, but goals that are to high? Well just make sure that you know that they are high and may be unattainable. Sometimes the best things in life are the simple joys. Things like bubbles, children laughing, old couples holding hands in a park, warm summer rains that come right when you are feeling down, and nature.

Now I don't know how many of you know this, but I love nature. To me nature is spiritual. I believe that deity lives on earth through nature. I believe that in every aspect of nature there is rebirth, growth, challenge, and symbolism. I recall spending a month watching a tulip grow out of the ground. No I was not sitting there staring at it for a month, but when I walked in and out of my house I would look at it. I watched it grow out of the ground, slowly. Then the petals filled with life. They slowly began to open and the snow came. They closed up again. Then it melted and those petals opened, but slower this time. It was as if the little flower was watching it's back, so it wouldn’t get hurt again. Several times I watched as the flower opened and closed it's petals until finally those petals opened through wind, rain, snow, and sunshine. That flower grew til it was strong. Oh listen to me! I am going off on my tulip adventures! But basically what I am trying to say is that nature is wonderful to me!

This past week I had something occur to me. This was not a new phenomena. I had been there several times. Every time I felt helpless, weak, small, and like I would never find light again. I had grown so dependent on someone else that when they left, my world caved in. But I am okay. Just like Mr. Frost said, life goes on. My world hasn't caved in. As Regina Spektor has said in her song Rejazz

“the clock still strikes midnight and noon
And the sun still rises and so does the moon
Birds still migrate south and people move on
Even though I'm no longer in your arms
Thought the mountain would crumble
And the rivers would bend
But I thought all wrong and the world did not end”

I have friends. I have talents. I have potential. I have me. I have my Goddess and my God. I have love. I have music. I have a life all my own. And it will continue, it will be harder for a while, and it will hurt at times. But it will go on. I still hope that things will go back. I still hope that things will work out and get better. I know they might not, and although it hurts like Hell, I am okay. I know that I will live my life and things will get better.

Now for just one more quote. This one comes from my amazing friend Katrina. When all of this was happening I was crying to her and Kylie for comfort. I said to her “what guy would want to be with me after all that I have done?” and Katrina just looked at me and said “The right one.” I just thought that was pretty cool! I have wonderful friends! I am so lucky! I have truly been blessed in my life with amazing people who ALWAYS have my back! Thank you to Katrina and Kylie! Thanks to my “Personal Mafia” (you know who you are), and thanks to the Torres Family who has helped me remember to smile! Thanks to all who have helped me through this time!

Finding Faith

I have had a lot of people ask me about my journey to finding religion. The thing is I haven't really found it yet. I pray but I am not comfortable. I read but I am not sure. A lot of my friends joke around calling my religion "the Religion of Angela". It combines several religions using Wicca as the base and stemming off into Presbyterian, Catholicism and Buddhism.

What did it take me to find faith? Everything. It took me going into a place that I didn't want to be in to realize that there even was an anything after this life. It took courage and a lot of practice. It took many trails as well. It semt that the more I prayed the worse things went. But if we don't have a storm then the sun wont mean anything to us.

Religion is personal. People react differently when it comes to faith. I have friends that hate how everyone always invites them to church and mutual and they just don't want to go. I on the other hand have gotten many invites to church and mutual and I love going most of the time. It tells me that other people care. I personally believe that it's not what you believe, but more that you do believe. So I love seeing people's commitment to their religion and trying to share the joys that their faith has brought them with me.

If someone wants to find faith the hardest thing to do is experiment. Read, pray, and fast. Fast, read, and pray. You just have too. What do you read though? This is the hardest part in my opinion. The Bible? Well that is a sure fire start. But what else. Well the Book of Mormon is a good place to find out about the LDS religion's book. Don't ever read a book about a book though. Don't read a book on the Mormon beliefs that wasn't written by a current and faithful member. The same goes for any churches especially Pagan sects.

In the end religion is something you have to find within yourself. Something you have to humble yourself and focus on for a while in order to truly get it. Something you must trust your instincts on and not hold back with. Experience everything and try everything out. When I was going through my process I tried rituals, I tried prayers, I tried certain meals too. I didn't like some of them and some of them I have adopted for my own, and others I have kept unchanged.

In the end I haven't exactly become comfortable with anything quit yet but I have told my parents my difference in religion, I have told many people of my quest, and I am no longer ashamed of my lack of faith in the Mormon church. (not a blow to any of the Mormons out there I swear! I love the Mormon faith, I believe some of what they do as well!)

I will now share a few brief words of my faith. I believe in God and Goddess as equal partners in creation. I believe that they have light and dark aspects, playing good and evil at once in order to create the opposition that is so vital in our lives. I believe that the Goddess and God live on our Earth through nature. I believe that when we die we are evaluated and then either sent back to earth (but only as a human) to learn what we still need to know, or moved on in the spirit world to progress and create worlds of our own. That (in my heart) is why we only use a small portion of our brain, we are storing what we obtained from past lives. I believe that bond last in heaven, not necessarily marriages and families, but those things on earth do create bonds that last in the after life. I believe that the only way to stop progression on earth and in the spirit world as well is to end your earth life by your own hand. That is the difference between heaven and hell to me.

These are a few basic things that I feel are true for me. I respect all religions though. I love to learn about them and attend them and I don't hate any religion at all. I just love religion and I encourage everyone to find what they truly believe in themselves.

A Random Writing - Slip

So once in a while I write something randomly. Not a part of a book, but just something that has to do with how I am feeling. Often when I write these I'm not telling the whole truth, because these aren't the stories of my life. These are stories that I randomly bleed out when I am doing just that, bleeding. So I guess I really like this one that I wrote during history today. Like I said, some of this isn't true, it's not all me, it's my characters in my head that have SOME similarities with me, but they also have their differences. So this one I call, "slip". Enjoy!




She started to slump a little. Derek wasn't sure why she was so down. She said she was okay with it. Her head hung low so that her hair covered her face. The bell rang.

“Come on Hon', I'll walk you to class,” he said sweetly. Her body tightened again. How could he sound so sincerely in love with her?

“I don't want you too,” she said quietly, but firmly. It hurt her to say those words. She just sat there. Derek knew why she was upset, but it shouldn't be that big of a deal. He knew what could happen, but it was just that. It was what could happen, and in his mind, not what would.
As he stood there feeling upset, wanting to understand her mind, and justifying his actions to himself, her mind was flooding with hatred. How she worked to make these voices stop. How she prayed for the strength to forget these feelings. And yet years of work, struggle, battle, and a final victory had shattered into a thousand cliché pieces.

How could her heart not fill with questions? How could he not care? Her fists clenched, her nails began to dig into her skin and her toes curled under and STOP, she told herself. She could not allow herself to slip back right now. Somewhere in the back of her mind, she whispered to herself that she would give in later.

She hated herself. She tried to hate him, she tried to hate his parents, she tried to hate his “so called friends”, but she couldn't. He looked at her for a moment as she left alone. She couldn't stop the tears from tearing out of her eyes. She was angry with him. Why didn't he come and talk to her? Why didn't he stop her? But she knew the answers. He didn't want her to be mad at him, and she would have been. But it didn't matter how much she cried, screamed, begged or pleaded with him. She could slap him across the face and nothing would change. He would still hurt her. He could have tried to comfort her, he could have hugged her, and he could have chased her down. But that night he still would still shamelessly go out and do that thing that killed her inside.

Why was he okay with hurting her like that? She wasn't sure but it all felt horribly familiar. Why did it feel so close? It was Jason. She loved him but always felt like something was off. He always put her down, made her hate herself, and made her so unsure. She convinced herself that he was just trying to help her, and he might have been, but he wasn't. She was torn down sliver by sliver to stand half naked in front of a skeptical eye that only wanted to change her into something he thought was better. She would never be good enough. She cut and cut and cutcutcutcut the pain away, but for once she realized that the hurt was deeper than her skin.

That's how she felt every time Derek told her he was going to drink. He left a scar that made her wince every time she looked at it. She couldn't hide. She couldn't get lost in tv, books, or movies. It was the itch she couldn't scratch, because no matter what she did she could not forget.

He made her feel stupid.
He made her feel ugly.
He made her feel weak.
He made her feel worthless.
He made her feel small.

There it was. Small. Insignificant. Petty. A grain of sand to step over. Why should she care if he didn't? Why should she bend over backwards for him, take the fall for him, worry for him, and help him in every way she can when he didn't want to help her in the only way he can. The only way she wanted him to. Why should she care?

Because she did care. She loved him. He saved her from herself. He taught her how to find the light. He taught her how to smile again. He reminded her why she loved to write, and sing, and dance. He gave her life, so she gave him everything. Maybe he didn't jump as deep as she did, because now she was stuck. Stuck in a place of love and hate. A place of now and then, but never later. A place of masks and chains. A place that gave her the self hatred that she seemed to feed off of her whole life. A place that she felt comfortable. A place that she loved with all of her heart because she was never alone when she was there. She was with him. And she loved him. And that was all that mattered.