I'm back!

Hey there guys,

I'd like to apologize for being off the grid for over a month. A lot has been going on and I have a very active little boy on top of that. I'm back though! I hope to start writing a little more often and getting back to what I wanted this blog to be. I'll have insight on my life, activities, interests, and what not, as well as guest posts!

Gloria

The Envious and Encouraged

So… Life goes in all kinds of directions all of the time. It’s hard to get everything straight. On one hand, you should be thrilled for your friends and family surrounding you—their lives are filled with positive outcomes and happenings. I mean, why wouldn’t you be excited? But there is always something going on in your own life that makes you envious—even jealous. And you know, in the long run, you shouldn’t be at all. Being successful. Having a house. A car. Kids. There is something in your own life that makes you stand out from everyone else. It makes THEM envious of YOU. I honestly can’t believe I just said that.

That being said, don’t gloat about it. Don’t shove your successes and happiness in someone else’s face. You have NO IDEA what someone else is dealing with. What they have going on in their life. How they feel about a certain topic.

You are raised throughout your childhood and adolescence thinking and basically being taught that bad things won’t happen to you. There is always someone worse off than you. Sure. That could be true. Parents—adults in general—they don’t put you through hardships, at least not intentionally. They try to make it where you will never understand or see it. So you aren’t taught how to handle the hard stuff, but isn’t that life? Doesn’t life become just that when things get hard? Why don’t teachers and parents—all those adults in our lives—teach us the hard stuff? It’s at that point where we can’t figure out what to do. How to deal. So now what?

As I was reading through an article the other day, I came across something that could be helpful in allowing us to learn how to handle the hard stuff. How to handle being angry with someone because they have something you want. Encouragement. Wow. Just one word. Can you believe it? Encouragement to make your life better. As I kept reading all I thought was “how?” How does that even matter? Does it really make a difference? Encouragement is contagious. It starts with one person with one word of encouragement. Being a gentle person. Not the way you think of the word gentle typically. The dictionary actually lists gentle with a negative perspective. It’s not severe, not rough, not with a bad temper. What if we changed our perspective on it? What if gentle was being soft spoken? What about caring and loving? That’s what it is.

So, for those of you going through something—for all of you that feel hopeless or angry or jealous, ask yourself if it’s really worth it? Over the past month or so, that’s how I’ve felt. Really, it’s been even longer than that, but there was one thing that happened that made life that much more difficult. On the flip-side of this, as I’ve been writing, I’ve been more hopeful. It shouldn’t matter what everyone else has. For those of you with friends getting married, just think: is there relationship as good as the one I have right now? For those of you whose friends have kids, but you can’t: trust that there is a reason you are where you are right now. Don’t be angry. Things happen. For those of you that have someone in your life that throws everything in your face—it’s okay. Let them do it. Find your person. The one you love talking to. The one who is there for you no matter what. The one who will do anything for you. Find the Christina to your Meredith. So remember—find your person—the person you’d call to help drag a corpse across the living room floor. My 2017 was the “pick me, choose me, love me” year, but I’m making my 2018 the “he’s not the sun, you are” kind of year.

Until next time <3 

A.L.N Blackert

Birthday and Other Shenanigans

Phew, 2018 has been a busy one so far! So busy in fact that I missed my post for last week! I’m sorry. Of course, I’m awesome so all is forgiven, I hope.

To kick it off I’ma give myself a shout out for turning 28 last week!

*ahem*

 Happy Birthday to me!
 Happy Birthday to me!
 Happy Birthday dear Gloria!
 Happy Birthday to me!

It’s crazy to think about how old I’ve become! (Don’t roll your eyes at me...I see you). To some 28 is nothing and there are plenty excited about 30, which is fine. I’m ok with aging and  I’m not scared of it trust me but goodness adulting is hard as crap. Lol. I miss being a kid, I took it for granted. I definitely took my naps and downtime for granted. I find myself wanting to sleep for many, many hours at a time now.  On the plus side though,  this week and a half since turning said age has been amazing! I got to go to dinner, hang with my family,  go out with my friends, I ate cake (best friggin cake ever!). I couldn’t have brought in 28 any other way. To top it, one of my cousins, who is like my sister, came to visit for a week and more family came over the weekend!

Ashley visiting was perfect and just what I needed. We haven’t been able to catch up as much what with her life being busy and mine being busy as well, there is just not much time. However, we caught up, we laughed, we went out, and we ate to our hearts content. Most importantly, she got to spend time with my son Francisco! He loves her and warmed up to her real quick, I was pretty impressed! I was really sad to have to drop her off at the airport, but every time we part is sad because we just have such a great time together. I’ve told her plenty of times that she should just move to Atlanta. Maybe one day she will listen to me! Having my other family members come to visit was equally as great. I don’t get to see any of them all that often so I enjoyed getting to see them and spend time with them. We even managed to go up to Helen, it was super cold. Maybe not the brightest ideas to go but who cares right!? We gotta enjoy life and do fun things.

Mixed in with all that fun though comes the start of school. My last semester and I’m done; I’ll graduate. Thank god. My first day back was Tuesday and I can say now, my 8 o’clock class is probably gonna end up killing me. It’s just so early, I don’t know what I was thinking. Oh wait! I do know. I was thinking they weren’t offering the class at a better time and if I didn’t take it I was gonna be screwed. That’s a completely valid reason to torture myself for 4 months. Yup. Anybody else facing this struggle? Come on. Anyways, I’m pretty sure school will be a topic I touch upon again at a later date!  For now, I bid you guys adieu.