To me, with love.

As you all know, and as I have said a million gazallion times: happiness is a choice that we make. And I am here to talk to you about finding that happiness within YOURSELF. Not in or from anyone else.... but from you... to you. As RuPaul so eloquently states: "Honey, if you can't love yourself, how the hellll are you going to love somebody else!!" and he (she?) is so right! (Can I get a HALELU?!) You have to start with you. You have to love YOU.

Imagine this: You see that boy from across the room and butterflies well up in your stomach. You smile at your best friend. You go to a concert and get chills. Now all of these things are well and good but what if... now just what if you could conjure up those feelings of joy and love and connectedness all on your own? Wouldn't life be great?! If you could just jam around your house alone, not thinking of anyone else, and just smile because you are so darn happy with your life? (And maybe not even with your life, but with yourself in general...)

Now I guess this is sounding kind of silly and maybe even slightly narcissistic. But lately I have been finding myself seeking out more and more alone time, and coming out of that time alone feeling refreshed and quite honestly, happy. This is the total opposite of how I used to be: dependent on others for happiness and distraction. I remember even only a few months ago being APPALLED at my friend Ben for saying he rode around in his car with no music on and thinking "how are you ALONE with your thoughts for that long without going completely INSANE!!?"

But, lately I have found comfort inside my own head for the first time in a long freakin' time. It is like I have cleaned out and dusted the attic that is my mind. And I have only brought things up to this attic that deserve a place.

And I have made a little space up there just for ME.

Me? But wait Olivia, I thought that after that last post you had no idea WHO YOU ARE? And well, that is still pretty much true... but I am working on it. I am working each day to do a little something to find out who I am and to build a better (happier, more independent) Olivia. I want to find her under these ten pounds that I have gained post-chemo and under this haircut that, while people say it is adorable, I hate like every 3 minutes. I want to find her behind the thick walls I put up. I want to find her underneath all my BIG TALK. I want to find her so that the word "cancer" in every lecture wont make me feel (imagine?) that one hundred side-ways glances dart my way. I want to find her and love her and make her happy. (Sorry if that got creepy...LOL)

So I have been running, everyday, and doing yoga, and studying in quiet library spots, and even driving in silence (sometimes...). But most importantly, I have been learning to love myself again. To be comfortable in my own skin. To shake off these doubts and fears. To feel good enough. For myself and no one else.

And it feels damn good, y'all.

lovelovelove,
Olivia

Little miss, do your best

Little miss, never rest

Little miss, be my guest, I'll make more anytime that it runs out

Little miss, you'll go far

Little miss, hide your scars
Little miss, who you are is so much more than you like to talk about

It's alright, it's alright, it's alright

Yeah, sometimes you gotta lose 'til you win

It's alright, it's alright, it's alright

It'll be alright again

It'll be alright again, I'm okay

It'll be alright again, I'm okay (I'm okay)

It'll be alright again, I'm okay

Welcome back, Olivia.

Hello new school year. New hair cut. New friends. Oh and new Olivia. I am back in Memphis and I am better than ever. You know, thinking back, I haven't felt this good/healthy/awake in over a year. It is just crazy to me how I got so used to just feeling BAD, and tired, and sick. Even before the crazy diagnosis, I remember thinking in September... "you know it isn't normal for a 23 year old to go to bed at 9:30 every night and take 3 hour naps every afternoon...OR MAYBE I'M JUST IN MED SCHOOL??!?" HA! I am amazed I even had the time to sleep that much and do well first semester anyway (except that our first semester wasn't THAT bad... and it is nothing like second year, which is studystudystudy all day all the time.)

I just feel so good. So alive. So happy. So everything. It is almost overwhelming. It IS overwhelming.

Sitting in church this Sunday I became so overwhelmed with happiness I actually (silently, and rather stealthily) burst into tears during communion. You see, before, when I was sick, that is the quiet time during Mass when I would pray for God to make me whole again. For Him to cure me from the inside out and to fill me with the strength that I so desperately sought. But there I was this Sunday.  Just sitting there and feeling SO WHOLE.  Knowing that my prayers had been received and answered.

But not knowing where to go from there.

I am healthy and emotional and silly and loud and snarky and passionate. I feel like I have been given back my life, and with that, my old identity. But WHO AM I? Because I do not feel like any of the old Olivias at all. But more like a completely different and changed and affected girl. And I don't think I want to be crazy Sophomore Olivia or motherly Senior Olivia or dependent-on-boyfriend Olivia or any of the other ones that I have either forgotten or dare not share with the world. I want to be something bigger, something more. Something more... me.

How do I achieve this new level of "me"-ness, you ask? Well, something in church really struck me this weekend and kind of answers that exact question:

***
Brothers and sisters:
Do not grieve the Holy Spirit of God,
with which you were sealed for the day of redemption.
All bitterness, fury, anger, shouting, and reviling
must be removed from you, along with all malice.
And be kind to one another, compassionate,
forgiving one another as God has forgiven you in Christ.

So be imitators of God, as beloved children, and live in love,
as Christ loved us and handed himself over for us
as a sacrificial offering to God for a fragrant aroma. (Ephesians 4:30-5:2)
***

There it is, plain as day. Let go of everything that is not love. Let your bitterness for your past escape from your heart and breathe through moments of passing anger. Life isn't about holding onto evil, but rather overcoming evil and stepping into the light. And I think that once you learn to live in this light (as a friend so eloquently wrote in her own blog recently...), in love, in happiness, in compassion, then you can finally be who you are truly meant to be.

I guess I don't really know who I am anymore. When something defines your life for so long and is so permeating, it's hard to let the real you show through all of that. And now that I am stripped bare of these curtains that I hid behind, I am left standing there front and center in a great big spotlight. Naked to myself and the rest of the world. Finally able to see myself, without pretenses or excuses. It is just me, whoever that is now and whoever that turns out to be.

And so here I am now, sitting on my bed and smiling to myself like an idiot. Because I just cannot help but feel so blessed to have my life back. But not just my life "back." I feel so blessed to have this glorious opportunity at a new beginning. To prove to myself and the world that I am back and with a vengence. I am going to go far and do big BIG things with this new lease on life.

Who ever I am, I am happy, so deliriously happy standing in this new found light. Living in love. Letting go of bitterness and basking in compassion.

I am so me. And it feels great to be back.

With all my love,
Liv

Miss Almost.

I blame Corie for all these emotional posts because she told me Grey;s Anatomy would be "a good summer show to watch"... but geez I just loved this song when I heard it at the end of my most recently watched episode...

Miss Halfway- Anya Marina

You oughta hear the mirror in my house
You oughta fear her pretty, pretty mouth
Says I'm imperfect in every way
Miss Almost
Miss Maybe
Miss Halfway

All my friends in L.A. got jobs on Melrose Place
I play Replacements songs and sigh
A waitress in the sky

You oughta hear the things I've been thinking
You oughta swim in a heart that is sinking
You try to break me with all the things you say
Miss Almost
Miss Maybe
Miss Halfway

Tony makes 60k, invests in IRAs
But I'm busy making paper airplanes out of resumes

But I'm gonna burn
I'm gonna shine and multiply
I'm gonna fill up the great divide
You'll never break me with all the things you say
Miss Almost
Miss Maybe
Miss Halfway

I'm gonna burn a pie now and then
And I'm gonna say the wrong things to your friends
I'm gonna burn and shine and multiply
And when I do, you're gonna see me in her eyes
I'm gonna burn and shine and multiply
I'm gonna fill up the great divide
You'll never break me with all the things you say
Miss Almost
Miss Maybe
Miss Halfway

Getting FUNKy.

So Joanna came over to pick me up today and I was in a funk. Like a bitter at the whole world funk. And well Jo pointed out that I really have never written a “bitter” post before… so here goes…

In this world, we are surrounded by so many different people. Millions of people. Everyday we pass hundreds of total strangers on the street who leave no mark on us.  But then there is that one. That one person who sparks a feeling inside of you. Good or bad or happy or shocking or angry.

Is it proximity? Is it just happenstance that someone walks into your life? That this particular someone stirs up that emotion inside of you? And what about when this someone is gone? When you decide it’s just better to write them out of your story but you cannot get them out of your mind to save your life.  It reminds me of gravity. How two objects have a certain pull on one another. (And really do we even know why gravity works?? I mean I guess SOMEONE knows…)

Geez Louis I just have a million questions today. Like how even from miles away someone can still make you so angry or make you miss them. That shouldn’t even be allowed to happen. How can I be sitting on my couch this morning watching Grey’s and drinking my cup of coffee and then all of a sudden be in this dang funk? How can a Kenny Chesney song overwhelm me with emotion in the middle of my shower? How can a 20 year old girl’s relationship problems make me want to punch a random stranger in the face?

Ugh. And what are feelings anyway. What is love? What is hate? What is anger? Where do they come from? Now as the science-y person that I am I assume/half-know they come from hormones and things in your brain. But, it seems so much more than that. How smells and sounds and sights stir up something so strong inside of me. How just a single memory can make you burst into tears.

Now I know what you are thinking… and I am sure half of you stopped reading this after the first emo paragraph… but for those of you still with me, you might think: what has gotten into happy life-your-life-to-the-fullest girl we know so well? And sorry this normal pick-me-up blog has turned down this dark and stormy path. Maybe it’s this intense thunderstorm happening behind me right now. But everyone gets in a funk every once in a while and everyone deserves to write a bitter blog post every now and then (although I admit this may have been better kept in my own journal locked away from all you judgy-mcjudgersons.)

But it just feels good to rant. (And there is that word “feel” again…) It feels good to get all these bad emotions out there… like I just word vomited my funk right out of me. So thanks for listening, and if you ever need a good rant, feel free. Go ahead. Let it out. Because it feels good to feel bad sometimes. 

Liv

PS Alanis is just the icing on the top of this rant sundae. Dare you to scream this at the top of your lungs. Seriously, DO IT.

The human "experience"

MEREDITH: [narrating] "The early bird catches the worm; a stitch in time saves nine. He who hesitates is lost. We can't pretend we haven't been told. We've all heard the proverbs, heard the philosophers, heard our grandparents warning us about wasted time, heard the damn poets urging us to ‘seize the day'. Still sometimes we have to see for ourselves. We have to make our own mistakes. We have to learn our own lessons. We have to sweep today's possibility under tomorrow's rug until we can't anymore, until we finally understand for ourselves like Benjamin Franklin meant. That knowing is better than wondering, that waking is better than sleeping. And that even the biggest failure, even the worst most intractable mistake beats the hell out of never trying." -(Grey's Anatomy Season 1, Episode 6)

***

Why did I think I was too cool for Grey's Anatomy before this point? Because I regret this decision immensely, and am now currently obsessed. Hence the quote above.... just bear with me for a bit though because it really touches on something that I have been rolling around in my head now for a while...

 Think about this for a minute: have you ever felt an emotion so intensely that you feel it in the tips of your fingers, the tip of your nose? Emotion just consuming your entire body, filling you all the way up, until you feel ready to pop? Ever been that passionate about something, loved so deeply, laughed so hard, been so alive??! 

This weekend someone told me that I live my life "at volume 100" and we laughed a little about how intense I can be sometimes... but when I replied with "why not??! What is the point of living any less than that... I mean why not experience every moment? Because you never know if you are going to be around for tomorrow. You never know if you'll get another chance to live this one moment, have this experience, feel this alive." And the car went silent. It was such an "Olivia" thing to say, but still, they all knew it was TOO true. Roll your eyes all you want- but you know you want to live at volume 100, too. 

And while Meredith Grey is clearly fictional (although I wish McDreamy wasn't, haha!!), her message rings so true in my head and it is so everything I have been trying to do with my life recently. I want to FEEL, I want to DO, I want to BE. Because this is my one chance to get this life right (and who knows what is waiting for us on the other side.) Live, really live, while you can. If there is music, I am going to dance and if there are people, I am going to laugh. 

But through it all I am going to FEEL, I am going to DO, and I am going to BE. 

And geez, it's not just about feeling happiness, because in this human experience there is going to be pain and there is going to be hurt. Why do you think it is called the human "experience??" Dip your hands into everything and gain as much of it as you can. Expose your heart to the world and let it be touched by those around you, for better or for worse. It's like this song I heard the other day that I am in love with currently by the Lumineers (go look them up really...) called "Stubborn Love" where they sing "it's better to feel pain, than nothing at all, the opposite of love's indifference." Pain is not the opposite of love but rather a different form of it. To be hurt is to love, because if there was no love, no connection to another, then, well, there would just be nothing. And that's what should worry us: that nothingness. Not pain. Not hurt. Because to be hurt is to know that we loved and were loved. To be connected to another and to this life. In the end it is passion or it is nothing at all. 

I cannot imagine living a life of nothingness. Of passing pleasantries. Of could've beens or regrets. I want passion more than I have ever wanted anything in my entire life. I want to be around others who love life with everything they have. Who live so hard that it shoots straight out their fingertips and into my outstretched hand. Even if it means crying at bars and making fools of ourselves dancing to Aretha Franklin alone on the dance floor. Even if it means exposing my tender heart to the elements, not knowing if it will bask in the sunshine or endure the craziest hurricane this side of the Mississippi. But knowing that either way, I will have no regrets because I TRIED. 

And I don't regret living my life all the way turned up. I mean, it does get pretty intense sometimes, but geez, I feel more alive now than I ever have before. I never want to just do "enough"or be "enough" again. You will find me living at the edge of this human experience for the rest of my life. Always pushing my boundaries. Going further than I ever thought possible. Loving and laughing harder. Learning more. Being more. Experiencing more. 

So here is your typical "Olivia" send off: get out there and FEEL and DO and BE. Never settle. Let regrets be a thing of your past. And let your life get a little messy every once in a while for the sake of experience. For the sake of growth. For the sake of passion. For the sake of living life turned all the way up. 

Liv

When we were young, Oh Oh, we did enough
When it got cold, Ooh Ooh, we bundled up
I cant be told, Ah Ah It cant be done

It‘s better to feel pain, than nothing at all
The opposite of love‘s indifference
Pay attention now, I‘m standing on your porch screaming out
And I wont leave until you come downstairs- "Stubborn Love" The Lumineers

Bloom.

So I'm back home for a bit, like home home, in good ol Bristol.  And yesterday I got to see some friends who have been there for me forever. It's funny how sometimes you lose touch but end up picking right back up where you left off. And how it feels so good to be around people who have known you basically your whole life. Who have been a part of you growing up, who grew up alongside you...

Now, I always joke that our group of friends is the one that is going to get the heck out of Bristol and make something of ourselves.  And we are. Some of us are moving on to graduate degrees, while others are out there trying to pursue lifelong dreams. But we always have home to come back to, and it feels good to know that I can pick up the phone and call any one of them, even years from now, and talk like there is neither time nor space between us. 

I cried a little today reading this sweet sweet note one of these friends, Franny, gave me yesterday. And among the many words was the mention of our kindergarten graduation "motto"... "bloom where you're planted."  She likes to think of it not in a "stay put where are are planted" kind of way, but more in a "plant your roots firmly and then bloom so big and beautifully, stretching those petals and leaves as far as you can while soaking up all that delicious sun" kind of way. And so do I. Mmmm and that second choice just sounds amazing to me.  There is just so much sun for us to soak up, and just so much of the world for us to explore. 

But it all starts with our roots, and without these we cannot grow tall or beautiful. We must keep them nourished and planted on solid ground. Taking good care of these precious lifelong relationships that at so dear to us, realizing how much they contribute to who we are today and the value of their steady presence. Keeping them in mind as we become the next generation of people who will change the world. (I can hear it now... "wait??? They grew up in Bristol, TOO??!!?") haha...

Can you believe it's been five years since we graduated high school??I don't even want to count the years since that kindergarten graduation day. We have all grown so much and bloomed so big.  Geez, I cannot wait to see what this next chapter holds for all of us.  Hold on tight y'all and grip those roots firmly because we are here to bring beauty and life and sunshine to this tired and sometimes gloomy world. LET'S DO THIS!

Liv 

jk.

Ok time for something a little less personal and a little more lighthearted. But obvs still super profound. (haha.)

What a wonderful evening. Karen and I attended this modern dance class that meets every Monday, and it was so much fun. I forgot how much I loved and missed dance. It is so amazing to let go of everything at the door and focus completely on something I love for an hour and a half. It was kind of a shock to my body though, and I will probably be too sore to move tomorrow. Oh well, gotta start somewhere, right??!

Something the teacher, Wayne, said just really stuck with me, though. We were about to do the left side of a combination and he said "Don't worry if you mess up, sometimes mistakes are more real... they tell the truth." And we all kind of laughed about that, that mistakes are honestly more honest, that they are what your body wants and where you should probably go next anyway since it seems more natural. They are what you do when you really let go.

And it is so okay to make mistakes. In dance... and in life. And after you make them you just have to keep on going. Just a little hiccup and you move on. But, those mistakes and wrong turns and "just kiddings" of life are a window into your soul. They are what happen when you let your mind off the hook for two seconds and follow your heart. They are YOU.

Looking back at all my "mistakes," I realized that...well... can anything really be considered a mistake in life? It all happened for a reason. It all just happened. Maybe everything is not done deliberately, but it is still DONE.  Calling something a mistake is just a way to bury a part of ourselves of which we are ashamed or scared. A way of dismissing a little piece of what makes us who we are.

And so I challenge you, as I have myself, to really look back at those things which you may have considered a "mistake" or a "just kidding." To look back at them and to embrace them. To realize why you decided at that moment that it was easier to turn right rather than go straight. It may be difficult, but you may surprise yourself with how much you can learn. And not the whole "learning from your mistakes" line... but more like, "learning through your mistakes." Learning that as humans we are going to do what we want sometimes regardless of the consequences. But, think for a second about WHY you wanted to make that "mistake" and WHY you filed it away under "mistake" after it was done. It may show you the very person that you are. Or it may show you a piece of your life that you have been missing all along. Or it may show you a way to achieve happiness.

So, let's live honestly, realizing that what we do is who we are. Realizing that every "wrong" turn brought us to where we are today. And finally, realizing that there is truth in everything we do, especially in those visceral moments which we deem "mistakes."

Good night and sweet dreams.
Liv