Tag: family

Break Ups

The Hate That Can Come From Love

Love can change us. Young love shapes us, quick love pleases us, the love that’s here to stay grounds us. But I don’t think anything changes you more than the hate that can come from love when everything goes wrong.

I have loved people in situations that didn’t end poorly. We lost touch and I still hold them in my heart. Our interactions changed me, knowing that I always have and had a person who cared for me like that is warming.

But I’ve loved a lot of people that ended very very badly and nothing has impacted my life like the hate that stems from that kind of ending. It has happened with family, it has happened with friends, and it has happened romantically.

When I was young, I felt misunderstood a lot which resulted in me feeling betrayed by the people I put my heart into. The hate that stemmed from not getting along with my family followed me into high school. I didn’t put myself out there, I wasn’t a nice person, and I made it a point to not enjoy anything.

Which lead to more people betraying me – friends who didn’t care about me as much as I cared about them. Friends I dropped as soon as my graduation cap came off. Friends that hindered my ability to make friends in college. I didn’t know who truly liked me and who didn’t, I didn’t have anyone to confide in. Except a boyfriend who betrayed me.

A boyfriend who held me back for years. A boyfriend who wouldn’t let me end things with him early on. A boyfriend who shrugged me off his shoulders and never looked back when the relationship ended. And that resulted in the most hate I have ever felt, the hate that stems from really strong love. The hate that ruins your life.

For years, I carried it with me. I wouldn’t commit to anything or anyone but myself. And while I grew a lot from that, when I got out of it I realized how much I had changed. When my relationship was on the rocks, I still had high hopes and was in the process of meeting new people. The boys who gave me attention when I was in the relationship were shocked by the person I was out of it and the baggage that weighed me down after the break up. I had been happy go lucky, I didn’t have worries before the break up. I didn’t have to impress anyone because I had a person.

I didn’t have any security and zero trust. I let it change me for years, trying to love people while I healed and just returning to that same hate. Once I was past the phase of using people to make myself feel better and started getting used to make others feel better, I took a break to be by myself. I took a break and found that happy go lucky person again. And I hate that I carried that hate for years, let it change me, let it make me someone I’d never want to be.

But when you have a strong emotion like love and it ends, strong emotions follow and it’s not always pretty.

person holding cup of milk pouring
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PostGrad

Tips For Making Somewhere Your Home

I’ve always been more prone to making a home in people instead of a location. But when you start over somewhere new, it’s so important to nest and love the place you are. People are great, but you need to love your home too.

Here are some tips for making somewhere your home.

  1. Personalize the crap out of your home
    Our apartment is decked out with things that mean a lot to us. Most of our decor is unique and one of a kind, things we picked out together during our travels instead of HomeGoods. Whether it’s lots of photos or meaningful decor, personalize your home.
  2. Start looking through Facebook events nearby
    Looking for ways to start loving your city? I go through nearby Facebook events and mark interested in anything that seems fun. When that date comes up, we have lots of options for exploring!
  3. Find the restaurant you love
    This is so important, right? You have to nail down your pizza place, your favorite take out place, your favorite sit down place. Nothing makes me feel more at home than food.
  4. Surround yourself with people who feel like home
    Whether that’s your dog, your friends from back home, or your family. Make a point to keep those people in your life.
  5. Meet a friend
    Join a club, go on BumbleBFF, get close to your coworkers! All you need is one friend to really start fitting into a place.

Do you have any tips for making somewhere a home? Share them below!

 

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PostGrad

Why I Prefer Nights In

There are many days where I take my relationship for granted and we just go with the flow of life. Forgetting to stop and appreciate each other.

But on nights in, I really get to soak in how I live with my best friend and my cutest little fam. I’ve always preferred nights in. In college, I loved the pregames but not the parties. I loved when we all sat together and listened to our favorite music and talked and drank together before diluting our group with strangers.

I don’t do well in large groups of people. Bar settings always make me uncomfortable because I don’t like dancing and there’s nowhere to go for a fun conversation. Drinks are high priced and I have to keep in mind that I need to stay awake as long as the rest of my group.

Nights out just put a lot of pressure on me and honestly they give me anxiety. When I start getting anxiety about it, I basically ruin the night before it even began. So I have been opting for short nights out or more game nights with friends. Keeping things casual works for me.

I’ve also grown accustomed to picking up food and eating at my apartment rather than going out to eat. Again, the crowds, the wait time, the discomfort. While I prefer nights in though, I do need to continue pushing myself out of my comfort zone. Otherwise I’d really become a homebody. Even if it’s what I prefer, it’s not exactly healthy for me.

monopoly board game on brown wooden tabletop
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PostGrad

Leaving Your Home

I’ve lived in New Jersey basically my whole life. I was born in another state, lived in another, but that was all before memories really started to form. I grew up in New Jersey, went to college in New Jersey, and built my life here.

And while I love everything about this extremely underrated state, I never wanted to stay here forever. First I wanted to go to college in Canada, then maybe Ireland, then I wanted to move south as quick as I could. But I never did. I stayed. Until now.

Now I’m leaving my home and I don’t think it’s quite hit me yet that everything I know will be a 6 hour drive away when I move to New Hampshire. All of my friends, most of my family, my coworkers, and familiarity will be so far gone. It’s nerve-wracking.

But I’m ready to leave it behind. My adult life has become so busy anyway that I think some distance between me and all of those things will actually make the bond stronger. If the bond becomes weaker, maybe it wasn’t meant to be in the first place.

I think it’s so important to start over somewhere new, to live in new places, to meet new people. Those experiences help shape you into a well-rounded person – it’s part of the reason I travel as much as I can. It makes me a better person. And even though I’m terrible at new things and meeting new people, I at least have to try.

It’s so sad to leave your home, but there is a whole world out there to explore and we owe it to ourselves to experience it.

woman sitting on chair beside brown table
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PostGrad

Give Yourself A Break

If you read my post where I documented all of my negative thoughts in 24 hours, you’ll know that I have a lot of negative thoughts about myself. We are so hard on ourselves. And this is on top of the weight that the world is already putting on our shoulders. Responsibilities are always going to pile up, people are always going to disappoint you, and life is just not going to go as planned.

But that’s okay. Seriously, give yourself a break.

You can’t control the actions of others. You can’t control how people treat you, you can’t control life’s unforeseen twists and turns. And you can’t punish yourself for the things you can’t control. Sometimes people are just going to suck and sometimes bad things are just going to happen.

For the things you can control, be realistic. You can’t always control every aspect of your job, you can’t just quit when time’s get tough. You can’t always control how much time you have in a day to just be yourself. But you can empower yourself to learn how to deal with it better, to speak up for yourself, or to make changes when change is necessary.

But you seriously need to give yourself a break.

Take one day this week to jot down every negative thing you thought about yourself. See how hard you’re being and how unrealistic you’re being. Because you deserve better from other people, but you definitely deserve better from yourself.

woman sitting on a cliff watching the body of water
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PostGrad

The Struggle Of Being Sentimental

I’ve never had a good memory and I’ve never had a huge attachment to places. But if I have a token of a place or a photo of a time, then I’m able to remember the event more clearly. I collect things from important people and places I go and I’ve become very sentimental.

I have boxes of things I’ve acquired over the years. Diaries, cards, ticket stubs, birthday presents that came from people who I left in the past, a lot of bad poetry from high school. I have a hard time throwing those things away because they are probably the only things that will trigger those memories for me.

I went through some of the boxes recently and could only throw away a few things. Diaries that mostly only spoke about how my family were jerks and how I was fat, photos of people who left me with bad feelings, and trinkets that I couldn’t find an attachment to.

But there’s so much left and the problem with being sentimental isn’t that I’m going to become a hoarder one day. The problem is that these things make me miss people who have hurt me, who I don’t even like anymore. They make me miss times that I was actually miserable during. But by being so sentimental, it’s easy to forget the bad. Even when they are things that should be long gone.

It’s hard to be so sentimental, I feel oddly attached to dumb things and then feel like reaching out to people who stopped caring about me altogether. It’s a dangerous road and I’ve found it best to just keep those boxes closed.

diary girl hand journal
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