The Palm Trees are Crooked Here

All right guys, this is going to be a long post so unless you want to hear my rant about self-love you can keep scrolling. The photo on the left was taken in October 2014 (when I was my heaviest) at that time I hated myself. My whole life I lived to please other people. All the makeup and editing I did was just to fit in and have people like me, I became a performer in an incredibly unhealthy way. I measured my self-worth in the opinion of other people. I channeled the stress I put on myself in every bad habit you could think of.  Luckily, I managed to snap myself out of it. Through all the wise words of the great adults in my life and my own interactions with people my age, I came to my own conclusion- I was blind. We are given one body and one life and every person is blessed with unique and beautiful traits.  I feel as humans we naturally compare ourselves to others, but no two of us have the same path. We have to learn to see beauty in everything, including ours...

The book My Life on the Road shows an incredible glimpse into Gloria Steinem's world. I don't just mean her childhood or experiences alone. I refer to her perspectives on the situations, how they changed, and in result how she changed. Even though I feel I have the free spirit and ambition like Steinem I did not get to travel as frequently, this caused an itch in my feet (would explain why I traveled to the opposite side of the country to attend USC). Yet though our back stories are very different I found I very much agreed and related to the experiences Gloria had. I learn every day- yes I've been in school for the last seventeen years- but I'm not talking about what I learn in an establishment. In a world where we are so engrossed in the world our iPhones control, we must break through the bubble and look up from our screens. The same experiences Gloria spoke of in her book are not experiences that one must travel to a faraway place (or much less back in tim...

Upon reading this book I had not heard of Gloria Steinem. However, the first few chapters are filled with a like-minded inspiration. We all wake up in different beds and go through different circumstances but Gloria's childhood from day changed more frequently than most. She took her gypsy-like experience and instead of becoming a homebody after and looking back on this as a negative experience she flourished. It is clear she received inspiration for traveling with her father. But it was through personal experience that she gained experience. She learned life lessons through those she encountered- shopkeepers, taxi drivers, travelers, and natives. Instead of acquiring knowledge through school she gained information by traveling with her father (a salesman) across the US. From truck stops to cab rides to travels to every cranny of the world Gloria absorbed the world around her and let it help her grow and become the intuitive woman that she now is.

The Process of Unlearning Everything So, I am twenty-one years old. Half of the readers are thinking, "Oh what I wouldn't give to be that age again!" and the other half is just jealous that I'm old enough to drink alcohol. But before your jealousy prevents you from listening to my side of the story just give it a shot. We graduate from high school and are just excited to be rid of those brick walls that held us captive and the neverending standardized tests we prepared every year for. Freedom!... Well not exactly. You could either satisfy your need for an escape and work a minimum wage job or you could go back to an institution and go through more schooling to hopefully get a better job that supports the cost of living. This time it will be better than grade school because you've got skin in the game -because your paying for your classes and the subjects (hopefully) are going to pertain to something you are actually interested in. Well not quite... You ...