100 things I would like to try

This is an easy prompt because I can format it as a list and not an essay. It will still require some creativity on my part, though. One-hundred things is quite a bit to come up with! Here goes...

1. Belly dancing
2. Sewing
3. Playing an instrument
4. Gardening
5. Photography
6. Painting
7. Tandem bicycling
8. Building a sandcastle
9. Ride the world's tallest roller coaster
10. Running a 5K
11. Learning to skate backwards
12. Renewing old furniture
13. SXSW
14. Fun Fun Fun Fest
15. Meet Glen Hansard
16. Meet Frank Turner
17. Crashing a wedding
18. Win an award
19. Master the French language
20. Save more animals
21. Cook a full-course meal
22. Go to every vegan restaurant near me
23. Run around White Rock Lake
24. Get my boyfriend into running
25. Get my boyfriend into ANY type of exercise
26. Help my loved ones make healthy choices
27. Creative writing
28. Go to all the museums near me
29. Building something
30. Create a closet worthy of envy
31. Become better at dealing with heartbreak
32. Avoid heartbreak
33. Be a better daughter, sister, girlfriend, cousin, friend, etc.
34. Remaining humble
35. Plan a cheap but pretty wedding
36. Vegetarian sushi
37. Get accepted again
38. French-braid my own hair
39. Having a healthy sleep schedule
40. Eat lots of fruits and veggies every day
41. Wearing contacts
42. A good, consistent workout regime
43. New mix-n-match outfits
44. Staying in love with life
45. Keeping my head up
46. Be a better listener
47. Don't allow myself to be hurt so easily
48. Don't allow bitter, angry, envious, drunken words to hurt me
49. Learn the choreography to... something
50. Staying in touch with people who matter to me
51. Be retweeted by someone I admire (besides Bryce Avary... done that)
52. Learn to make Mom's awesome enchiladas
53. Learn to make Mom's awesome arroz
54. Parasailing (if that's what it's called)
55. Jet-skiing
56. Make the most baddest, awesomest music playlists ever
57. Stop being such a grammar snob
58. Continue making good grammatical choices myself
59. Go to more shows
60. Save money
61. Travel
62. Explore DFW
63. Explore Texas
64. Get Dustin to meet my family in Mexico
65. Remember the Alamo
66. Discover new music
67. New hairstyles
68. New hair color
69. Be less judgmental
70. Be a better listener
71. Complain less
72. Skydiving
73. Hold as many species of animals as possible
74. Have toned abs
75. Go vegan
76. Finish Ana Karenina
77. Have a favorite author
78. Avoid getting the flu
79. Go another 14 years without vomiting
80. Maintain my weight
81. Not overwhelm myself by adopting too many animals
82. Visit Mexico more often
83. Try veggie burgers from every local restaurant that offers them
84. Get people to try being vegetarians
85. Keep an open mind
86. Always love
87. Go through a "haunted house" by myself
88. Read more books in Spanish
89. Becoming an expert bargain shopper
90. Avoid getting split ends
91. Collect more vinyl records
92. Keep my record player working
93. Remain decluttered
94. Laugh laugh laugh
95. Remember what matters
96. Listen to The Adventure Club every week
97. Like babies and children a little more
98. Spend less time on the interwebz
99. Being a forward thinker
100. Continue writing

Done. It only took me three days.

Becoming a writer

I enjoy writing, I really do. And I enjoy sharing what I write and getting feedback, which is why I blog. What I don't like is always writing about all my problems and how I'm trying oh-so-hard to fix them. That gets boring, doesn't it? That's not how I do life. Life is to be enjoyed and it isn't just about the present moment. Life is past moments and moments you look forward to experiencing. Life is good if you allow what is good to surface and fixate yourself on that rather than focusing on all that is wrong.

In an effort to become a bit more creative with my blog and to surface the greatness, I will be using prompts from this website and writing away. I am actually really looking forward to this and should add that this is yet another bright side. I have time to be creative again. Hooray for that! :)

Update

Well, friends. I have a job.

It's not entirely official yet, there is paperwork to be done and a background check to pass, but a position was offered to me and I accepted. The pay is great, the benefits are amazing, I don't have to work on weekends, and I'll be working in neurology. You know, MRIs, CT scans, brain surgeries, and such. No big deal. ;)

As I mentioned before, I will also be submitting an application to UNT next week and hopefully start working towards a Master's degree in Public Health as soon as this fall. I just need to get some things in order and get transcripts prepared. Then I will be well on my way. I should hear back from them in about two weeks. Amazing.

This past week has been crazy going from one interview to another. When permanently moving back to Dallas became a reality, I immediately worried about not being able to find a job. How silly of me. I have been getting phone calls and emails out the wazoo! Weighing my options became quite the hassle. Lucky for me, I didn't give myself time to be stressed because I was too busy spending time with the people I have missed so much.

I played ball and went for a stroll with Cent, Heather, and Tee on Monday. Odet and Edith came to visit me on Tuesday. Yesterday, I went shopping with Jonathan. Today, I had lunch with Edgar, Edith, Odet, and Christie. I've been everywhere from Lake Ray Hubbard to Deep Ellum to Uptown. All of this just emphasized how thrilled I should feel to be back with these people and in this town.

I do feel thrilled. It's more than a feeling, though. I am thrilled.

Happy weekend everyone!

Up up up above

Things are looking up now. They're not entirely perfect, but definitely not as bleak as they were early last week.

I have a job interview this afternoon, go me. Over the weekend, I applied for four different openings all over the Metroplex. This is the only one I have heard back from. This morning, I've already applied for two additional openings. I am becoming obsessed with this whole job search thing. I couldn't even tell you how I found three of the postings. I just google various things, go to whatever sites come up, and then I'm off on tangents. Ah, well.

The other news is that I will hopefully start working towards a Master's Degree in Public Health from UNT this fall. It should take a year or two to complete and it is perfect considering that it's relevant to veterinary medicine and I can take my classes online. I can keep a full-time job, y'all! My goal is to boost my GPA back up in hope of getting back into vet school.

I also can't express how happy I am to be back in Dallas. I truly am. Yesterday, as I was riding with Dustin  from his place near Plano back to Dallas, I just looked around and was thankful to be back in DFW. As we were exiting to get to my parents' place, I pointed out a billboard advertising legal services with the words "Baby Mama Drama?" printed across it in huge red letters. Oh yes, I am home.

I am also happy to say that Dustin and I will are doing well. We had a good weekend together that culminated with us spending Sunday evening at The Ballpark together to watch the Rangers beat those freakin' Angels. My problem has been that with all this free time (I can't remember the last time I wasn't either in school or working full-time), all I do is think think think and overanalyze things. I find cracks where they don't necessarily exist and stress myself out over nothing. I have definitely been doing this where my relationship with Dustin was concerned. I'm beginning to trust that we will be okay, though, which is finally giving me some much-needed peace of mind.

That's where I currently stand, friends. Hopefully, I'll have some nice updates for y'all soon!

Backyardigan

I'm sitting in my parents' backyard, watching my nephew shoot some hoops. Mom never changes. He said he wanted to come outside to play, but she wouldn't let him because she couldn't watch him. She's working on dinner. Mom was always like that. My brother and I could never do a thing unless we were being well-supervised, preferably by her. No one could watch us better than she did, of course. She's always been such a great mom.

It's always weird coming back here. Obviously, I don't spend much time here anymore. I remember how big this yard once seemed and how Mom would warn me not to go past the garage. Then I'd be too close to the alley and who knew who or what could be lingering back there. Again, she always sided with caution. I was never afraid, though. I read too many books and figured there was too much to imagine, too many spaces to explore, and too many adventures to experience to be held back by fear. Those were the first lessons that books taught me.

I want to be that little girl again. I want to renew my sense of adventure. Not only that, but I want the promise of a bright, long future back. I want to have endless possibilities in front of me. I want to be fearless.

My nephew is giving his own play-by-play as he shoots... Where did my own imagination and idealism go?

I also remember spending hour upon hour with my dogs out here. Running around and making them do tricks. Although, I'm not in school anymore, I can still enjoy the company of animals. I can't give up on them. They are still my life.

Being here is nice. Just another thing that I probably needed without even realizing it. I even got a good laugh. Why on earth would my parents get such a lawnmower? They crack me up!

Rejection

The decision was no. I can not stay. I tried, but it wasn't enough.

The most immediate thing that I have to do now is find a job. After that, start thinking of how I am going to get them to accept me again. I have some ideas, but they're not concrete.

When the decision was final, I was calm. I was in the middle of texting Dustin when I received the call so he was the first person I told. I am still calm. This is a setback, sure. A major setback, but it's not the end of the world and it's not the end of my dream either. I'm still dusting myself off and probably over-analyzing everything that went wrong and led to my fall, but I will be okay again.

To be honest, I am looking forward to being back in Dallas and to have free time again. This gives me the opportunity to enjoy life again, something that I haven't felt that I've been able to do since school started. Of course, I'd rather continue with school, but I have to look on the bright side. There is good that will come out of this.

So that's that. I'm heading to Dallas later this afternoon. I'll have to come back to move everything out of my little apartment, but that can wait until later this month. I'm ready to be home now. I'm ready to smile again.

Can't stop!

Seriously, I deactivate facebook and now I can't stop blogging or tweeting! This is good, though. I would much rather blog than update my status or post links to this or that on facebook. Actually, the majority of the time I was on facebook, I was only being nosey. You know... Reading others' posts and looking at their pictures and following drama along and so on. Quite stupid.

I blog during adversity. This is a trend that I first noticed years ago, when I still blogged on myspace [I keep telling myself that I need to figure out how to export those posts onto this site, but I never bother to do it]. My "spills" are the most thoughtful and longest of posts. All my posts are honest, but I am a lot more transparent in times of trouble. I let it all out.

It's funny, isn't it? How troubles never stop coming? You think you have dealt with it all only to be hit with another massive punch. It'd be foolish for me to believe that this is the worst that is ever going to happen to me. Oh, far from it, I'm sure. Life has more in store for me, without a doubt. I just have to allow myself to continue to grow. I have to know that I can manage my way through the hardship, no matter what else is going on around me. No matter the world, no matter the people in it, no matter my loneliness, no matter how abandoned I feel.

I bought a book, probably two years ago when I was actually happy, called Bounce Back. I must have known that I would need it someday. Again, life isn't pretty all the time. A lesson I had already learned and one that I am continuing to learn. It's being beaten into my pea-brain! When you're falling, dive, says the book, the quote credited to Joseph Campbell. Dive. Plunge.

It's easy to be your strongest, highest self when things are rolling along smoothly. But how you handle life's setbacks and traumas reveals your authentic character. If you can be strong during challenging times, then... well, you truly ARE a disciplined and spirited person. And this identity makes you not only a very cool person but a very happy person.


Don't you just love books? Like music, they always have the words that I need, when I need them most.

So I wasn't strong or disciplined when challenges presented themselves to me during the semester. Son of a biscuit, eh? But there is no point dwelling on the past, not unless I'm conjuring up plans on how to avoid repeating my mistakes. It is time to be a forward thinker. Forward. Carry on, carry on. I am going to be strong and I am going to be happy. Nothing and nobody can take my happiness away unless I allow it. Dammit, I am not going to allow it. No way, no how.

I know how amazing I am. It's nice to have people tell me that I'm amazing. Cent, my parents, my brother. It's even nicer to tell myself that, though. I am an amazing person. I deserve happiness. I am going to keep smiling and helping and dancing and loving.

And I'm gonna go to a Rangers game. I am. Michael Young is Mexican.

Nerves

So much for pretending that nobody read my "Honest" blog post. Over fifty views... Wowzers!

My immediate future lies in what happens tomorrow morning. Either I will be given the chance to stay at school or I will be dismissed and left to think of what my next move should be. To say that I am nervous is an understatement, although I'm not entirely sure what I am nervous about. I have had several days to let the reality of my situation sink in and to stop being depressed about it. I have accepted that while it sucks (really REALLY sucks), my life will not be entirely based on this one tribulation. I have to come back fighting and I have to choose to be happy, regardless of what tomorrow's outcome is.

I think what I'm really nervous about is simply standing there, in front of my professors, taking their questions, wondering what they're thinking about me. It is going to be brutal, ohmigoodness, I can't believe I have put myself in this situation!

Now is not the time to be discouraged.

Go in there and be honest, Daisy. Let them know that you have learned from your mistakes and refuse to repeat them. Express how badly you want to stay. Remember how much you love animals and let that love get you through whatever happens tomorrow morning. Do not give up on yourself. Be strong, maintain your composure, and believe in yourself.

Whatever happens happens, right? Everything happens for a reason, right? I just have to make the most of it and come out on top.

I can do this.

The Hill by Marketa Irglova

Walking up the hill tonight
when you have closed your eyes.
I wish I didn't have to make
all those mistakes and be wise.
Please try to be patient
and know that I'm still learning.
I'm sorry that you have to see
the strength inside me burning.

But where are you my angel now?
Don't you see me crying?
And I know that you can't do it all
but you can't say I'm not trying.
I'm on my knees in front of him
but he doesn't seem to see me.
With all his troubles on his mind
he's looking right through me.
And I'm letting myself down
By satisfying you
And I wish that you could see
that I have my troubles too.

Looking at you sleeping
I'm with the man I know.
I'm sitting here weeping
while the hours pass so slow.
And I know that in the morning
I'll have to let you go
and you'll be just a man
once I used to know.
But for these past few days
someone I don't recognize.
This isn't all my fault.
when will you realize?

Looking at you leaving, I'm looking for a sign

Honest

Blogger has changed and I am not quite "getting" the changes made.

Regardless, it's time for me to spill. Not just a vague spill like the last one I made. I mean a spill with excruciating details that won't be easy for me to disclose. I feel that I should just do it, though. If I end up regretting it, I'll just make it private and pretend no one read it. [insert sheepish smile]

Where do I start?

I should just throw it out there. I might get kicked out of vet school. The powers that be at school put it a bit more nicely, though. I am going to be dismissed. I had less-than-spectacular grades going into finals, but I planned to kick ass on my exams and be fine. I was going to bring those grades up and move on to my second year. That did not happen. Far from it. I choked. Big time. My crummy grades are unacceptable and so... I'm done.

There is one tiny little opportunity to stay, but it depends on my professors and my ability to persuade them that I not only deserve to stay, but that I also won't repeat the mess that I made this past semester. Honestly, though, I just need to get my shit together. I was homesick, my relationship with Dustin felt strained (it's even worse now), and then my Mom went to the hospital. It was more than I could handle, apparently, which sucks. Grrrr, I wish I could have been stronger. I should have been stronger! Dammit dammit dammit.

When I found out, when I first saw my grades, I felt my world fall apart. Actually, all throughout last week, the week of finals, I was stressed beyond reason. My poor family had to deal with me. So did Dustin. How many times did I call him crying and feeling defeated? How many times did he try to get me to snap out of it? How many times did I bring him down with me? Too many. Now he's so distant. I waited seven weeks to see him, I missed him miserably for seven weeks, only to have to endure a cold reunion.

I really did feel ruined when I saw my grades. If I think too much about it, I still do. I cried. And cried and cried and cried. I stayed in bed, I stopped eating, I couldn't smile or laugh or enjoy anything. I expressed all of this to Dustin. Dustin who's in Dallas living his own life, but having to deal with the wreck that I had become, not knowing when I would be okay again. I drained him. I was unfair, I thought that he could handle me in what is without a doubt the lowest point in my life. I can't even handle myself, why should I expect him to handle me? So then, I felt as though I had ruined my relationship too. Seriously, life. Butcher everything all at once, why don't you? Might as well.

Dustin tells me not to focus too much on our relationship and that I should focus on school. Really? How can I not focus on something that is also supposed to be a part of my future? It made me happy too. It was a huge part of me. Am I supposed to ignore that? I am a romantic, I always have been, and I told him this from the very beginning! I'm losing that romance and it hurts. No more kisses. No more hugs. No flowers, smiles, holding hands, compliments. No affection. It's a bitch to lose that.

It's not easy.

I'm taking the steps necessary to try to stay in school. The verdict will be given to me on Wednesday morning. I honestly haven't thought of anything beyond that. Right now, I don't know what I'll be doing next week, the rest of the summer, the rest of the year. I don't know where I'll be. I don't know if Dustin and I will still be together. It's such a strange position to be in. I'm in limbo.

All I want is to be happy. I think that I need to be in vet school to be happy. I think that I need to be planning a future with Dustin to be happy. I can find happiness elsewhere, though, right? Happiness surrounds us. There is still so much that is wonderful in this world. There are other dreams to dream, there are other opportunities, redemption will come eventually.

I know I need to be patient, strong, and hopeful. I need to keep finding the joy in life. I need to absorb everything that I do have left and let it all fulfill my battered little heart.

I'll be okay. I keep telling myself that I will be okay. Honestly, I'm starting to believe it.

Thanks for reading. Leave me a comment? This is a formal plea for some much-needed encouragement. Thank you again.

-Daisy

My current state

I just want to be held.
I want to be loved.
I want to be romanced.
I want to feel needed.
I feel that everything in my life is falling apart and I don't know how I'm going to come out of it.
I'm the definition of a loser, I'm losing so much.
I have ruined things.
I want to fix things, I really do.
I need to fix things if I'm ever going to be happy again.
I feel that my happiness isn't in my own hands.
There is only so much I can "control."
I've never even had control.
How do I fill this vast empty feeling in me?
I don't want to feel so lost.
I love him so much, but I've been bringing him down.
I've been so terrible.
I worked so hard to get where I am, only to ruin it in a matter of weeks.
I have never been so disappointed in myself.
I want redemption.
I need the opportunity to redeem myself.
I want my Dustin.
I want to make him happy again.
I want us both to be happy again.

I had it all.