When Life Gets Hard..

What do you do when you feel like your entire life is falling apart? Who do you become? Do you allow the bad to destroy you or do you grow and learn from it? Right now in my life, just about everything that could go wrong in the past two months, has. I've had my ups and downs and at times I have allowed my situations to break me down. I've cried, yelled, pleaded, and prayed. No one anticipates losing the most important things in their life, and then all of the sudden we are faced with the reality that we already have. That is where I stand right now and that is what I face every day. Recently I have realized that I have allowed it to completely change who I am. I started pushing people away and shutting down. I also let things hurt me, people that I cared about are constantly walking out of my life and turning their back on me right now. But then I have a few who are getting me through every second. When I cry they are there, when I feel like I have nowhere else to turn, they are there. I couldn't ask for people more loyal and caring. Those that have turned their backs on me have really blown my mind lately, but those that have stuck around through everything are the ones that really impress me. Aside from one person, I am happy with where my life is right now. I have finally gotten a job that is going to pay really well. I know exactly who I am and I know who my friends are.

Social Networking

Social media... those two words have taken over the world! Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, Myspace, Blogger... There is a social media for just about everything! If you want to post a bunch of statuses there's Twitter. Or if you just want to talk about whatever is on your mind, well then there's Blogger! If your more of a picture posting type, we have Instagram! And if you just want to have it all, then there is Facebook. Has anyone every noticed how serious people take their social networking?! If you "unfriend" someone from Facebook or stop following them on Twitter, oh it's over. Don't lie, we've all been that person who got their feelings when they went to look at someones profile and realized we'd been deleted. Ouch! So what is so great about social media anyway? It is a lot of fun, but in a way I feel as if it takes away all of the personal interactions we have with people and when I say personal I mean face to face. It's easy to hide behind a computer screen but everything is different once we are looking a person in the eye!

Loss

"It's hard to lose somebody. I spent a lot of time searching for reasons or answers. But you can't find what's not there, it just happened."

I read this quote today and it really spoke to me. As I posted about in my last blog, recently I lost someone who I was very close with and whom I love very much. I have been having a very hard time dealing with it and coping in the right way. Every one around me noticed that I shut down and put up this emotional wall, which forced me to push my friends and family members away. I was also trying to find answers and reasons, on why I had to lose someone who had been so influential on my life and had meant so much to me. When I read this quote, I realized that if I continued to search for a reason why this happened, I would be putting my life on hold and searching forever, because there are no answers. Pain like this is never going to make sense and no reason that I could ever find would ever be good enough for me to justify the hurt I feel right now. So, I had to make the decision to push back at the pain and not let it hold me back. I had to choose to stop wasting my time to search for something that is long gone.

How Writing Has Affected Me

            Writing has just started affecting my life recently. Previous to the past few months, I have always thought of writing as boring. It was just something I had to do for classes in order to get the grades I desired. Lately, I have been having a very hard time coping with some things going on in my life. Writing has really been a comfort to me during this time. Whenever I start feeling weak or upset, I put my thoughts on paper. Last month I lost someone very close to me and when that happened, I started building up a wall and pushing every one else in my life away as fast as I could. Then, when I discovered writing and how soothing it can be, I slowly started becoming myself again. When I write my thoughts down, I write them to the person that I lost. It not only helps me get my feelings out instead of bottling them up, but it allows me to communicate with that person, who was my rock, in the only way possible. The letters that I write really give me something to hold on to and they get me through every day. I never thought something as simple as words on paper would mean so much, but at the end of the night, when I am putting that pencil on the paper, those words mean everything. Through this experience I have learned that all writing is a way for humans to express themselves, even if it is an essay on a topic that may not mean that much to us. We still have to look deep inside ourselves in order to understand a subject. Then when writing our papers we have to allow ourselves to bring our own meaning into the equation and write something with enough substance to back up how we feel and why we feel that way. Words can change everything. They can make someone feel better in a card or a letter. They can devastate someone in an instant through an obituary. And I believe that a lot of people in this world do not understand how powerful words on paper can be and how they can change someone’s life for the better or for the worst.  

Writing Weakness!

I think that the rule from Kurt Vonnegut that will be the toughest for me to follow will be "sound like yourself". I get very caught up in attempting to make sure that all of my grammar is accurate and it makes me second guess sounding like myself. I typically end up writing and rewriting my final draft several times because I feel that it sounds too much like the way I speak on a regular basis, which isn't always correct grammar or speech. I am excited to learn a little more about sounding natural and making things flow better with out changing the fact that it is actually me writing a piece.

Hi Everyone...

My name is Courtney Pate. I am 22 years old and a pre-professional biology major here at Jacksonville State University. After I graduate I plan to go on to medical school and become a neurosurgeon. I am an Alpha Xi Delta. I am originally from Wilmington, NC; but I have lived in many places including Georgia and South Carolina. I have never had a blog before and I am excited to get started and learn how to use one!