Fading Footprints

As I sit here and eat a bowl of ice cream I thought back to how I was feeling earlier today. Not even twelve hours ago I hated myself because I feel fat. The only reason why I have ever considered myself fat is because I don’t look like the other girls around me. I’m not stick thin and I can bend myself to fit in a suitcase and way less than 50 pounds. You know? Even as a dancer I don’t have the ideal “dance body”. I have muscular thighs and wide shoulders and hips. My stomach isn’t exactly flat but I’m not too much over weight either. 

Yet, because of the society we are in we have to live up to these certain standards. I have to be that certain type of skinny or I’m not popular. This isn’t a new thing, it isn’t like suddenly last year people started doing this. It’s been this way, at least for me, my entire life. I was always that girl that people made fun of and called ugly and fat. I remember being a part of the “popular” group for the sole purpose so they could make fun of me but that never changes. At least not in my eyes, those words and comments have stuck for years and even now as an adult there are still other adults making the same comments. 

But why?

Why is our society so set on having these set of standards that make the average person hate themselves because they don’t fit into these categories?

This is not just exclusive to girls this is also for the guys. 

We have tried for years to go against the grain and end the bullying and try and change the cannon but yet there hasn’t been much progress. What can be done though? There is this closed minded ideal that there are certain ways people must look and act in society to be accepted. 

I for one will not stand for it. 

I am done not liking the way I look. 

I am done not feeling good about myself because I can’t look like model. 

I am done being insecure about myself. 

I am a beautiful young woman and to hell with society’s set ideals on how women (and men) should look. I am the way that God made me and I intend to be the healthiest person I can be. Even if I don’t fit the “dancer body” category or the “super model” category. It doesn’t matter because I love my body and it’s all mine. 

So, suck it society. 

I find it interesting that people have to publicize everything about themselves online. There seems to be a competition on who has the most drama happening in their lives on facebook and who can get the most followers on Tumblr. While I do not mean to discriminate against those who don’t care and just post things just to post things, myself included in such category, I can’t help but make judgments on those who do not. 

This is popular, at least by my own observations, in the younger generation. I see that a lot of teenagers nowadays posting about every little thing that happens in their day. They post about private conversations, intimate encounters, illegal parties and things that they do on weekends. I don’t mind reading a status or two about a boyfriend or a girlfriend but at the same time, I don’t want to know about all the details in the relationship. 

The point I’m trying to make is that, we seem to have fallen into a popularity contest over the internet. It’s suddenly cool to tweet every five minutes about everything you’re doing in one hundred and forty characters. It’s suddenly popular to advertise your sex life on facebook and blog about your sexual fantasies involving celebrities. 

We’ve all done it, some of us still do it. 

But why?

How much of ourselves are we willing to sacrifice and put out there for everyone to see before we have no private lives?

I admit, sometimes I’ll make a post about something that I do with my boyfriend or something with my friends but I never post about a break up or a death or even a fight that I get into with my Mum. There should be a line there shouldn’t be? 

We’re in a world where it’s popular for complete strangers and people we barely know to see everything about ourselves. It is no longer popular to meet someone on the street. Our profiles are our identity and I find it hard to believe that the world can function like this for much longer. Soon we will be mindless drones that get married through facebook and have it be legal and reproduce by cloning. I know it’s a dramatic statement but what else is there for us except our technology nowadays.

I’m sick and tired of reading about an argument someone had with their boyfriend or girlfriend. I’m tired of reading about how someone got completely smashed and did drugs over the weekend. I’m tired of reading about something that won’t matter two days from now. I want to read things that have meaning, that stick with you and are intelligent. I get that we all need a break from reality every once in a while but we all need to understand what is appropriate and what’s not.  

I think everyone should fall in love with their best friend. Why? Because that in itself is a relationship. 

Friendship=Relationship

We tend to want to separate these two things because in one the feelings are platonic in the other the feelings are romantic. Yet, a friendship is a relationship. How? Because you are in a place with someone where you constantly compromise. You work through things together and you make sacrifices with each other and IT’S EASY. 

Relationships were never meant to be hard and in a sense they are black and white. Either they work, or they don’t. Let me explain, I say that they are black and white in the sense that automatically you know that you can potentially be friends with someone but then again I may be wrong because that may not be that same for every case.

I think that when it comes to romantic relationships, and this is something that I have learned on the way and have been told. Is that falling in love is supposed to be easy, or nobody would do it. We all ask what the secret of love is but maybe that is the secret. That it’s easy and it is being with that one person for years and going through trials together that make it hard. 

That’s why marriage is hard because suddenly you’re not just taking care of yourself but you are taking care of and being taken care by another person. You are trusting that person completely with everything you have; physically, spiritually, emotionally… and that scares the hell out of people. And maybe that’s easy for people to fall into but then when tragedy hits it affects both of you. That is where I think today’s marriages fail. 

We are stuck in a sense that you have to run through the streets of New York to prove you love someone. That there has to be this whole romantic gesture where he or she fights off his/her friends. Just like on the big screen but there is the misconception. That is not love. 

Okay, so maybe I know a guy that would run eight blocks to prove his undying love. (Well more like he has the potential to :P ) but you get the idea of what I’m saying right?

Love is supposed to be the easiest thing you ever do in live. 

For example, my Mother the other day commented on how she could not believe that her and my Father had been together for twenty-two years. Let alone that they now have three children, a house and four animals. My parents have gone through a lot in their marriage, and at times lost faith that they were even meant for each other… but I know that when it came down to the wire they couldn’t see themselves with anyone else. 

What I’m trying to say is that, relationships are supposed to be like friendships. When you meet that person and you realize that you’ll probably know this person for the rest of your life no matter what. I’ve had the same best friend for twelve plus years but it’s not her I’m completely falling for. 

You see, there’s this guy… 

We met five years ago almost and we were the best of friends. He was that guy in class that you gravitated towards because he has the looks and the guitar. Not to mention the sweetest disposition but anyways… We really got to know each other and I had the biggest crush on him that last until I transferred out of that high school my sophomore year. He was one year a head of me in school and we hadn’t spoke to each other since I left until a few months ago. 

Last December he sent me this message asking me to blog about his band (which never happened by the way) but we reconnected. Even before then when we weren’t talking we would see things about each other on facebook, watch each other grow up really. 

It wasn’t until recently that I found out that when I was crushing on him, he was crushing on me too. Two friends that were close but couldn’t never tell each other how they felt. Cliche right? Not really, not now looking back and realizing that if we had been in a romantic relationship it never would have lasted. 

But what I’m saying is that when we reconnected and came back together after years of not speaking to each other and not being around each other. It was easy for us to come back and fall into this romantic relationship. 

It’s not like kissing that person that you so desperately want but your heart breaks because you know it isn’t right. It’s the opposite…. it’s kissing that person or even holding their hand and your heart sighing with content. 

I have dated a lot of guys. I have been in one committed relationship where it’s failed in the fire pits of despair and I have been through one relationship that a woman should never have to experience. Each one of those relationships failed because most of them were hard, a couple were easy to be in but never passed the test of trials. 

Love, like I’ve been saying, is supposed to be easy. 

You’re supposed to fall into it and later on say to yourself, “How did we end up here? Yesterday we just met at your friend’s apartment.” 

There is supposed to be this sense that things are just falling into place, that God or fate or whoever and whatever you believe in brought you together. 

This guy, he’s my best friend. Not like the one that I’ve know for twelve years but the best friend that I’m in love with. 

Because there is a difference. You will have that best friend that that is all they are but then you should have that best friend that fall for. 

So, when you think of it… everyone should be in love with their best friend… just saying. 

This is something that I don’t usually do. In fact, I try to stay away from these sorts of “flame” discussions. Especially while they are on facebook but this one caught my attention., not just because it was a close friend who started it but because of all the things that were being said. 

Lately there have been conversations about gay marriage and recently the President himself just came out to give his own support to it. Also recently, North Carolina just banned it in their state. 

I have to say that for me, I am going to be one of the first people to stand up for gay rights, and support gay marriage. Yet, lately I find myself walking away from this “debates”. Why? Because we are arguing over the same thing, over and over again. We’re getting caught up in the politics of it all instead of taking that step back and looking at things from a different perspective. It’s like when you’re in a relationship and you fight over the exact same thing every time instead of stepping back and seeing how the other person is seeing the situation. 

Frankly, I’m over it. 

I am over all the fighting because it will and has not gotten us anywhere except states that pass gay marriage for a time and just to have it voted off the next year. When it comes down to it, at the end of the day, politics doesn’t matter. 

When you’re in love with someone, you don’t care about what the color of their skin is. You don’t care what gender they are, and you don’t care about what they look like. You just care about who they really are, down to their very core (their soul). 

We have arguments about how gay couples can’t procreate, yet men and woman go outside of the marriage to do it all the time. The use of surrogates is not new to us, and some religions even claim that is against God. 

The fact of the matter is, we can argue about this until the cows come home, yet both parties are unwilling to compromise. So we’re stuck in a relationship that consistently argues and I’m over it. 

I don’t know what your opinion is on gay marriage or religion but just like everything else in this world. It’s your choice. 

You can choose to keep your religion close to your heart and discretely spread the word of God. You can choose to be proud of the person you love but you can also choose to force your beliefs on other people. Unfortunately, you’ll find that won’t get people to listen to you. 

The reason why I’m making this post is because I’m tired of all the fighting. I’m sick and tired of this constant fight because nobody is willing to open their eyes and see that all this arguing is a waste of our time unless we are willing to make a compromise. 

I am not saying that I am not going to continue supporting gay rights, because that isn’t what this post is about. It’s that I am saying I ready to finally sit down and say hey this is what we want for gay rights what are you willing to do about the situation. I’m ready for the other side to sit down with me and say this is what we are willing to do and then come up with a plan that works for everyone. 

If you are interested in reading the facebook “discussion” just read on. If not, thank you for reading. 

Now, I am going to be quoting people but I am in no way trying to say that someone’s opinion is wrong and I am not trying to start a discussion. This is simply me, writing about something that actually does affect a lot of people. 

I will be using first names only, now if this is a problem and you know you are part of the discussion, please let me know if you don’t want your name in this post anymore. 

Jeremy’s status: “Brainwashed Christians and there brainwashing ways. Live your life. And keep your personal faith to yourself. After all, it is personal, kinda like homosexuality.”

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