Thanksgiving

Last Thanksgiving was the last time I ever talked to my most serious ex. I’m going to be completely honest. He ruined Thanksgiving for me (I’ll refrain from going into details about it). *Cut to this year* I came home yesterday excited to see my family, but I was mostly anxious to get the holiday over and move on with my life. Thanksgiving has never been one of my favorite holidays anyway because as a kid, I hated the *cough* white people food *cough*.

As a now-broke and hungry college student, I love any food that comes my way (aside from red meat, of course). I realize now that I was going about Thanksgiving all wrong. I had an unpleasant experience that happened to come on Thanksgiving, but that doesn’t mean that I have to let the past dictate my present. Thanksgiving is a time to be grateful for the blessings in our lives (although I still feel uncomfortable celebrating a holiday with such problematic beginnings). It’s a time to let go of the negative aspects of life that holds us back and appreciate the good that surrounds us.

So for this Thanksgiving, I’m going to try my best to accept that my past is the past, and the if I continue to let it affect my present, I’m only letting the negativity win. I have an amazing life filled with people who love me, I attend a UC, I have 2 adorable cats, and I’ve grown so much over the past year in terms of self-love. Happy Thanksgiving everyone, and I hope you can all find things in your life to be grateful for too.

–Chloe

Breakups are Opportunities (to do more than eat your feelings)

As I’ve said many times before, breakups are the worst. But really, they don’t have to be as bad as you make them out to be. I spent some time reading my journal entries from a few months ago and found some really good advice from past-Chloe to present-Chloe.

Breakups may hurt a lot, but they also give you an opportunity to decide what kind of a person you want to be. In most of my past relationships (and I have so much proof of this in my diaries), I was this small, needy person who over-analyzed every tiny aspect of her partners. Whether it was something they said to me, something they did or didn’t do for me, I dissected the shit out of anything that involved my exes.

But after my breakups, I try my best to reflect on what went wrong and what went right. For figuring out what went wrong, I write a list of things I did that I wouldn’t want to do in any future relationships (e.g. Facebook stalking, waiting on his texts, leaving my plans for the day open so I always have time for him) so I can look back on it and remind myself what not to do. I do the same thing for my ex–I’ll write a list of ways I felt that he mistreated me or aspects about him that were essentially deal-breakers, so I remember not to let anyone do the same to me again (e.g. doesn’t like Community, checks my phone for texts from other guys, swears at me, flirts with other girls right in front of me/behind my back). I know how easy it is to romanticize the past, so I make sure to write the bad memories down to ground me. At the same time, I try to keep a fair account of the good memories too, so I remember that my past relationships did have love and benefits to them.

After every relationship, you’re bound to change somehow, so your expectations and standards for relationships might very well be different from the ones you had when you first got into your past relationship. A breakup is a good time to re-evaluate what you want from relationships, or if you even want a new relationship. My standards for relationships have changed immensely, just in the past few months. As I’m approaching the big 21 in a few months, I’m reminded of the fact that the next person I date might end up being my future husband or wife. With that in mind, I know better than to date someone who doesn’t bring anything positive to my life or somehow help me to become a better person. It’s good to pause between relationships to remember that you are beautiful and you deserve someone who will treat you with love and respect. What’s worse than being single is ending up with someone you settled for just because you were lonely.

Breakups suck, but you can still make the best of them. Re-evaluate what you want out of your life and out of your next potential relationships and always remember that you deserve the best, much better than the last one. Don’t ever let heartbreak screw you up; you are better than staying lovescrewed.
–Chloe

Past-Chloe’s sound advice

I’m Cookie Dough

Growing up, I watched Buffy the Vampire Slayer. A lot. Like I’d walk around my neighborhood at night when I was 11, wearing boots, a faux leather jacket, and carrying a stick around (my stake) “patrolling” for vampires/demons.

I continued to watch Buffy into my teens, and this quote really resonated with me:

I’m cookie dough, okay? … I’m not done baking yet. I’m not finished becoming… whoever the hell it is I’m gonna turn out to be. I’ve been looking for someone to make me feel whole, and maybe I just need to be whole. I make it through this, and the next thing, and the next… maybe one day I turn around and realize I’m ready. I’m cookies. And then if I want someone to eat m — or, to enjoy warm delicious cookie-me, then that’s fine. That’ll be then. When I’m done.

-Buffy, “Chosen” 7.22

Throughout my teens (and honestly, when I was a little kid, too), I spent so much of my time pining over boys and wishing they’d want me back. I wanted a boyfriend who would do sweet things for me, like write me letters, give me white lilies and candy, write cheesy poems about me, and all the other cute things I expected out of my ideal relationship. I was so needy in my relationships and expected my boyfriends to make me happy, but what I really sought from them subconsciously was someone to heal my wounds of insecurities and heartbreak. I needed emotional bandaids and I cried when they didn’t fix me.

Now (at the risk of sounding super big-headed) I have the assets to make me attractive enough to actually have someone want to do all those thoughtful boyfriend things for me. But the funny part is, now I don’t want a boyfriend, I don’t want a relationship, I don’t want anyone to take care of me. I don’t want any of it. I even end up pushing people away who try to get too close to me because I want to maintain my independence. Because the quote really is true for me; I am cookie dough. I’m not whole and I’m not ready to be in a relationship.

I get really lonely sometimes, but deep down I know that I’m not ready to share myself with someone without compromising who I am to try to meet their needs. I need to wait, I need to be alone, I need to be content knowing that I am still baking. It may take years, but someday I will be cookies. And for now, I’m perfectly happy knowing that I am cookie dough, warming up in the oven that is my wonderful life.

–Chloe

Zero IS a Size

I know I’ve read before about Sophia Bush boycotting Urban Outfitters because they released a shirt that says “Eat Less,” which encourages eating disorders, and there are some articles about it circulating on my Facebook newsfeed. I wholeheartedly agree that the message on that shirt is obviously horrible and problematic; I agree that the company was totally wrong to promote body dysmorphia and eating disorders. I’ll side with Sophia on those points.

But what makes me really upset and offended by her campaign is the slogan “zero is not a size.” For those of you who don’t know much about women’s clothing, our sizes start at 0 (or 00) as the smallest, then 2, then 4, then 6, and so on. I don’t think it’s empowering at all to look down on one body type to validate another.

When I read that article, I almost cried.

Hey, Sophia! I’m a size 0. I’ve struggled with feeling too skinny, having tiny breasts, having a flat butt, and not feeling sexy for so many years, since I was in middle school. I know this might sound like “skinny bitch problems” but it hurts. I sympathize with people who have eating disorders and bad self-image issues, but those kinds of issues apply to people of all sizes. I’ve never been curvaceous and I don’t think my body is perfect. I barely have curves between my waist and hips and reading “zero is not a size” hurts me deeply. Don’t delegitimize my body or my problems.

Instead, let’s celebrate all body types. Beauty comes in all shapes and sizes, and it isn’t productive or inclusive to promote one body size at the expense of degrading another. You’re all beautiful! 0 is a size, but so is 4 and 6 and 8 and 14 and even 32+. Fuck anyone else who tries to tell you differently.

Unearthing the Dirty Roots of Jealousy

For as long as I can remember, jealousy has been one of the problems that is most prevalent in my daily life. It’s a horrible feeling. When I get jealous, I feel a sickly combination of fear, anger, and anxiety burning in my heart. I hate feeling this way, and it happens much more often than I’m willing to admit.

I felt it when I was four years old, and my first crush told me that he liked another girl more than he liked me. I felt it when my middle school crush decided to pursue another girl in our class because she had bigger boobs than I did. I felt it when I saw my ex boyfriends Facebook messaging other girls sexually/romantically, while we were still in a relationship. I feel it when my parents do nice things for my siblings, even though they deserve it. I feel it when I see pictures of my friends from Guam doing fun things together when I can’t be there. I feel it when I see my new best friends hanging out with other people instead of me.

Sometimes my jealousy is reasonable, but more often than not, it is unreasonable.

Today, I watched one of my closest friends laughing and chatting with one of our newer friends and for a second, I felt a pang of jealousy. I looked at her having fun with someone who wasn’t me and felt threatened. But why? I love my friend and I think she deserves to be happy, all the time. I want the best for her. But when I began to think critically about why I was jealous about something so irrational, I realized what I was truly afraid of.

I was afraid of being abandoned. Over the past few months, I’ve made many new friends, but this particular friend has stuck with me since our first week of college. She’s seen me at my absolute worst and was there to comfort me and listen to me bitch for hours on end about everything. Looking at her being happy with new friends made me worry that she’d like them better than she likes me. Maybe then she wouldn’t want me anymore. Then who would I call to come over to my apartment to talk to? Who would watch scary movies with me? Who would go to Jack in the Box with me late at night when I need comfort food? I care about her so much that just seeing her have fun with other people scares me.

But it isn’t just her I’m afraid of losing. It’s everyone. I get jealous over the tiniest things with everyone in my life, and it’s a problem that has plagued me every day for years.

I may seem like I have my shit together and I might appear happy and sociable, but deep down, I’m very scared. I’m scared people will leave me and find something better. I don’t mean to badmouth/disrespect my family in any way, and I’m really happy with the family I do have as a result of divorce and remarriage. But as a product of a divorced family, I think I will always have deeply rooted abandonment issues. And it’s sad because my jealousy isn’t just about the fear of abandonment by family or romantic partners; it extends to the way I feel about my friends and other parts of my life on a micro level.

There are a few ways through which I can approach my jealousy issues now that I’m more self-aware of its roots. I can continue to let jealousy rule my life and keep living with the fear that the people I love will eventually abandon me for someone else.

Or I can accept that my past is the past. It happened and it’s over. In the present, I know that the people I love care about me and love me for who I am. There’s no rational reason for them to leave me because I make it a point to show them how much I care for them.

But at the same time, I know who I am. I know that I am smart and I am strong and I am worthy of love. And if people decide that they don’t care for me, I can be content knowing that I’ll always have myself, even if (for whatever reason) everyone does leave me.

Self-love is the strongest weapon you can have to combat negative feelings and deep fears. It’s changing my life every day and it’s what keeps me going. I’m beginning to realize how powerful self-love really is and it’s becoming my mission to help everyone else achieve healthy levels of self-love too. And just so you know, to whoever is reading this, you are awesome and deserving of love too.

–Chloe