Pre-notes:

I don't do this kind of thing very often, but when I do, I dump a lot. Last night I was filling out some brief information about myself, and unintentionally, it escalated into a long meaningful reflection of myself. I really was into writing this and wanted to share it with as many people as I possibly can. I basically dumped everything that has been on my mind over the past couple of months into this one long reflection piece.

I recommend my friends do this sort of thing all the time whenever they are really down on themselves. It has benefited me so much by helping relieve stress, and make me feel much more happy and optimistic. What I basically did was just basically typed up anything and everything that came to my mind during this session of writing. It took me approximately 24 hours to fully complete (calculating in break times and revising,) and now that I have lifted all of this off of my chest and put it down in a journal, I feel so much better and happier.

One last pre-note is that if you guys haven't noticed, I don't use my journal to talk about my art and whatnot. I try to give you guys an insight to who I am and what kind of person I am... I would rather touch my viewers on a more personal level by implementing pieces of my life into my journals for you all to read up on and see what my life is like. I realize that this post is going to be really long (with the addition of the pre-notes and the reflection piece was 5 pages itself in word), but I would really appreciate it, even if it's only 5 people, if you guys took some time out of your day and let me know what you think. I would really love to hear what you guys have to say or answer any questions you may have for me. Basically I'm just trying to connect with more people and have a more personal type relationship (without getting too personal of course) with my fans and sharing with you what makes me so different from the others out there.

Anyways on with the long reflection piece lol.... Here it is.... Hope you enjoy, and I look forward to reading your responses *please respond ='(*


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This is a reflection of me…

I'm a bit of a dork, but I'm nice as long as you don't piss me off or dishonor the trust I put in you. You can ask any of my friends and even my fiancé about me being pissed off. I speak my mind and don't give a fuck about what I say or even if it hurts the person at that point in time. Sounds harsh, but sometimes you have to tell it like it is so that people get it through their heads that you don't take shit. I mean I have even told a couple of my teachers off and won both the arguments because I was right and had very valid points. They seem to think I'm dumb and can't see what they're trying to do by manipulating situations into making them sound right. I'm a very smart woman and know not to give up on something that I whole heartedly believe in. I'm going to get my life straight and get my problems fixed one way or another. I don't want my future children to live through the struggling me and my fiancé are going through right now. We will make it through this and pull ourselves out of the hole we have dragged ourselves into. That’s why I’m trying to finish my schooling… I’m trying to make it through school for my future family. I just want to be able to provide and give everything my children want and need to them. I want to be a great mom and give them so many opportunities in their lives. But as I sit here, I begin to wonder about the “what if’s.” There’s two big future setter or breaker “what if’s” that I think about. Don’t get scared… I don’t mean anything bad about Timmy and me. I love that man with all of my heart and wouldn’t trade the world for him. It’s about whether or not I’m going in the right direction with the choosing of my career. I mean I have already changed my major once, which proves I’m still not sure what I want to do with the rest of my life…. There are two other things that I really enjoy doing and have thought about going to school for during high school.

Being that I am the only one that lives in my household that doesn’t have a job, I’ve had to grow up a lot. I’m usually the only one here with a 5 year old and a 3 year old. And I’m also the only one doing the cooking and cleaning, as well as keeping up with my homework. I’m not complaining though because I don’t mind doing my part in this household and being able to provide something for the other adults in this house to appreciate. I feel like I’m doing my job just like when they go to work, so do I. However, I love doing my part in keeping this house together and working like a fine tuned fork. We take care of each other here, and that’s what family is really about, and just like with any family, there are fights too. However, also just like a family, we work out our problems and solve things so that we can grow closer together as a family. Anyways back to my point about taking care of the kids and whatnot. Since they all do go to work I watch the kids (which they’re good kids, they just have their moments like any other kids), cook, clean, and keep up with my homework. I don’t really like to clean, but I know I need to do it to contribute something to the working household. I’m so proud of myself though. Yesterday, I got a stick up my ass and cleaned the entire kitchen by myself (even the parts that don’t typically get cleaned {i.e. behind the blender, the food processor, etc}) except I didn’t mop because I just hate to mop. That’s one thing I never do because I never had to mop growing up due to us having carpet in our kitchen. So, I absolutely refuse to mop. However, I’m becoming more and more accepting of cleaning. It’s becoming part of my daily routine and that’s good. Now I can pass my good cleaning habits on to my children. I’m not saying I was a dirty person before, more or less just unorganized. But now I’m actually putting my heart into this to help contribute to the household. But this isn’t about all of that. This is about something I have contemplated during high school. And ever since I’ve had to take on the job of cooking dinner for everyone, it’s been at the back of my head just saying “What if…? What if…?” During high school I really had an interest in culinary arts and was thinking about becoming a chef that owned my own restaurant. I was obsessed with watching cooking shows on T.V. Now, I just enjoy cooking for the family and being able to try new things with food (like putting in my own seasonings or just trying something new altogether). I really enjoy cooking and letting my southern family have the opportunity to try a northern spin on foods. I also like challenging myself to making something that I’ve already made good better. I like to see what I can add or subtract to make it even better tasting. So, what if I pursued culinary arts back in high school when I really enjoyed it? I mean I’m more of a baker and love to bake homemade cookies, cakes, candy, etc. However, I also like to make main courses too. That’s a whole new experience to me and I love it because it’s a challenge. I knew how to cook before I came down here, but I never really experimented with it. I’m growing fonder of it. So this all makes me think about what if I didn’t go the route of either fashion design or graphic design? I mean I’m happier in graphic design than I was in fashion design. I just didn’t feel the desire for fashion design anymore because it wasn’t what I was expecting. I could draw and sew clothing like no other, and I actually still like to do those things, but I didn’t like making patterns. I couldn’t force myself to do that for the rest of my life. Besides when I signed up for the fashion design program, I thought I would be actually drawing my ideas out and having someone else make the patterns for them. I just wanted to design the clothing and have the ideas in my head and my drawings from my papers recreated for people to wear. I didn’t enjoy doing all the technical stuff. So when I had to take my photoshopping class called Digital Imaging, I was excited about it. I’ve worked in Paint Shop Pro 7 for years and absolutely loved it. I love creating my own avatars, banners, tags, and animations. I have always enjoyed making digital graphics and constantly was working on something during my off time. Since taking that class, I’ve enjoyed working in Photoshop and want to learn the other Adobe programs. So I’m still really interested in graphic design, I’m just still indecisive about if that’s what I really want to do with my life. I just don’t want to look back and think “Wow, I should’ve changed my major sooner.”

The other “What if…” question that I have for myself has to do with my career as well. It’s also something that I’ve thought about in high school. I’ve always loved doing hair and make-up. I’ve thought about going into cosmetology, but just like culinary arts, I didn’t pursue it when I had the opportunity to. Every morning before school, my best friend and I would get to school early just so I could do her hair. I always loved doing her hair and doing different things to it. I would even do her make-up and sometimes her sister’s make-up. They loved it when I did that sort of thing. I was also in color guard (the girls with the flags that marched with the high school bands), where we always had to do crazy hairdos with our hair for our competitions. I loved just doing random off the wall things with my hair and some of the other girls on the team. It was just so much fun and I really enjoyed doing it. I’m really good at doing hair and make-up and I think I’m really good at it. So what if I had chosen to pursue that in high school when I could’ve already had my cosmetology license now? Who knows, I may have found my true calling in it, or at the very least have something to fall back on should the actual career I choose turns out to be a bust…

I’m just basically confused about what it is I really want to do with the rest of my life. I have most of my future figured out and planned out, but I need to first establish my career in order to accomplish everything else. I have already decided to keep pursuing my degree in graphic design for the fact that I do enjoy it and I can’t change my major at my school again. I wouldn’t say I’m stuck with graphic design because I enjoy it, but if I want to continue my education at the Art Institute of Indianapolis I have to stick with graphic design. Graphic design has really challenged me, and I think that’s what I like the most about it. I’m always up for new challenges, and I love accomplishing things that are hard for me for the sheer satisfaction of proving to myself that I could do it. It challenges me in both computer related drawing and editing skills, as well as traditional forms of art. I’ve already learned so much in this course and I’m just coming up to completing my first year of it. I’ve learned so much about myself and the skills that I wield with drawing and such. I’ve always wanted to be able to draw like my brother, Justin. He is truly my inspiration, and I admire every work of art he has ever created. If I could be half as good as him at drawing one day, then I would be the most content, blissfully happy person in the world. He is such an amazing artist and deserves everything that he has earned from putting all of his effort and talent into his work. I try to be the same way. I practice drawing almost every day, whether it’s working in Photoshop and further developing my skills within that program or just sitting down and practicing the human anatomy. I don’t feel like I’m doing homework or anything like that because I actually enjoy creating works of art. There are just certain things I would rather do more than others. For example, if I don’t like an assignment I am given in school due to it restricting me from really letting myself go and putting my own style into it, then I really don’t put my full effort into it. That’s one thing I really need to work on. I should always put out my best effort because in the real world, I’m not always going to have clients who have ideas and concepts that I can really get into. However, I hope to be able to further develop my style into something so unique from everyone else that my clients will ask for me to have free will on their logos, banners, posters, etc. That’s what I enjoy doing the most. Having free will to do what I want within certain perimeters such as size, elements that absolutely have to be incorporated in the piece (i.e. logos, text, pictures, etc), and time limit. Other than those things, I want free will to do whatever I please and do whatever it takes for me to make it look awesome. I’ve pretty much also decided what I want to do with my degree. So far I’ve had two projects where I had to make band posters in two separate classes. I really enjoyed these projects because I love music and working on band posters would be an awesome job for me. I thought I did an amazing job on both of my posters and have had my Kittie poster up in the hallway at school. Designing band posters would be a dream job for me just like designing racecars is Justin’s, my brother, dream job. He’s always been a racing fan, so what could have been a better job for him than actually designing their cars? That’s the same way with me. I love music from country to rock to techno to classic rock, and have always been able to relate various songs to my life and actually interpret these songs further too really show who I am and what I am about. So actually being able to work with these artists and getting my name out there on their posters would be like a dream come true. Having my name up there along with the band’s name and actually being affiliated with them would be the ultimate accomplishment of all of my efforts and struggles.

I’m so proud of myself for always being strong and never giving up on myself. If there was ever one thing I absolutely wanted to teach my children it would be to never give up on their dreams and goals. I’ve been through so many tough times in my short life of only 21 years, and I’m still going strong. I really want to carry this attribute on and hopefully pass it down to my children. I have big plans for them and want them to have whatever they may want or need. For this reason, I really need to start cracking down and finally figure out what I want my career to be. I know for a fact that I want to finish getting my degree in graphic design just in case I do decide to try to pursue culinary arts or cosmetology in the future. I want to have that security of having something to fall back on if things don’t go as I expect and everything falls through. I definitely don’t want to give up on my education or degree for graphic design. I’ve made it this far, and I still have a lot of fight in me to pursue on. I am constantly violently kicking and screaming through everything that tries to knock me down or make me feel like I don’t deserve to be happy. People used to ask me what that meant when I had it as my Myspace name. To me, it’s me basically saying that I will fight until the end, never giving up, growing stronger from what doesn’t kill me, learning from my mistakes, proving to those who doubt me that I can and will accomplish my goals, and basically proving to myself that I deserve everything I have earned because of where I came from and what I’ve been through. As I’ve said before, I really want to instill this attribute, that I had to develop for myself through countless hard times and problems, in my children.

My children… Even though they aren’t even really being planned right now or for at least two more years, my children are the most important thing to me. I think about my future children all the time and how my fiancé and I will parent them. I don’t want them to go through what I’ve been through, and I don’t want them to have to experience the lifestyle of being poor and alone without having anyone to turn to except their significant other. However, I don’t want them to have it so easy that they take little accomplishments for granted. I want them to appreciate every goal they set for themselves and actually accomplish. I would also like to see them struggle a little in their lives, although, not as much as I have before and after I met Timothy, my fiancé. I want them to see what it feels like to go through hard times and being able to pull their selves out of it with little to no help from Tim and me. I want them to feel that sense of pride and self-esteem from within their selves that comes forth after going through a hard time and coming out on top.

I believe a person doesn’t truly know the meaning a life until they have brought themselves back from their lowest point in life on their own. I believe that without having challenges and struggles in life, life just wouldn’t be worth it. It would be extremely boring, and no one would ever learn anything about themselves. I have learned so much about myself over the past few years that some people will never ever learn about themselves because they have it too easy. I can truly say I am a strong person and that I know when I put my mind and my whole heart into it I can accomplish anything I want. I prove that to myself all the time by keeping my head up and not thinking about what could go wrong, but what could go right for me if I tried my hardest. I know that someday soon all my dreams will come true, some just may take longer than others. That doesn’t matter though because I will keep on going strong until I have what my heart truly desires. I have too much riding on my dreams to allow myself to give up without putting up the best fight I can muster out of my entire body and soul. I not only have myself to prove, but also my parents, Tim (who I know believes in me and knows that I will be able to accomplish anything I want), anybody who has ever doubted me, and even some of my old friends. I want to show people that I have grown up and that I’m not just some dumb high school kid anymore. I may have big ambitions, but someday soon I will show the world that my efforts did not go unrewarded.

The meaning of this post was solely for the purpose of me. Sometimes I have to get my thoughts out on paper or in blog form to help me realize who I am. It’s my way of comforting myself and talking myself up to make me feel better about who I am. It helps me be more optimistic and look for the better things within myself instead of dwelling on the problems that face me. To this day, I have never ever ever EVER once regretted anything that has happened in my life. I don’t even regret being in the abusive relationship that I was in a year ago. All that has happened to me made me stronger and into the person who I am today. I love who I am, what I am about, and just being the laid back, down to earth girl that can get along with just about anyone that doesn’t immediately piss me off. I know I’ll never make it to my personal nirvana if I don’t put up the best fight that I possibly can to achieve the things I want in life.