It’s Not You It’s Me..No, but Really

We all know how the saying goes, “it’s not you- it’s me”. I’ve recently come to the conclusion that although I’ve heard that countless times coming out of the mouths of men I’ve texted for 72 hours after matching on Hinge ….that I should’ve been the one saying it all along.

Now, I don’t mean it in the same context that we’ve come to know. What I mean is “no you’re right, it’s not you carrying the good conversation skills and witty jokes… it quite literally is ME.”

None of the men I’ve rushed to text my friends and say ” I AM IN LOVE HIM!!” ” HE IS THE ONE” ” HE IS FUNNY AND WE CLICK” have ever truly encompassed any/ if at all those characteristics. Let me clarify by saying I don’t think every man I’ve had exchanges with is comparable to dry toast either, what I mean to say is although they may have a more humorous personality type it is truly me that shines. I could talk to a tadpole and have the time of my life- no really….ask anyone. 

The moral of this rant is – recognize your part in the dating game and get comfortable with your role in it. If you’re the funny one STOP TELLING YOUR FRIENDS ITS THE DUDE YOU’RE TALKING TO THATS BLOWING YOU AWAY. STOP TELLING YOUR FRIENDS HES NICE WHEN YOUR THE ONE OFFERING TO MEET HIM BY HIS APARTMENT FOR DINNER. STOP TELLING YOUR FRIENDS HES THE FUNNY ONE WHEN YOU’RE SMILING AT YOUR PHONE AT YOUR OWN DAMN JOKES.

Ladies- ITS YOU! NOT HIM. ITS ALWAYS BEEN YOU.

The Standard

Why are nice” and “funny” a standard we set for finding a significant other. What about those qualities are irreplaceable? I lost count of how many times I’ve told someone “okay I haven’t talked to him in two days but he is soooooo nice so I know I’ll hear from him again”-only to never hear from him again and to be blocked on all social media accounts left wondering what the fuck went wrong. So what about being nice and funny make us hold on to someone who is also terrified of commitment, lacks basic communication skills and oh yeah is talking to 15 other bitches? I personally, am raising my standards. Not in a “he better be 6’4″ and he better be a lawyer or doctor and own his own house” type of standard. But there has to be more than just surface level qualities. What is it that truly matters? What is it that would add something to my life that I can’t find from any average joe on the street? What about your future partner is one of a kind just for you? I know for me I need someone that gets my humor and that’s great and all but I also need someone who can communicate and express their emotions openly and honestly and I need someone who doesn’t want to go to bed angry or mad. I want someone who will surprise me for lunch while I’m at work or make sure to leave enough coffee in the coffee pot for me to make a cup on a Tuesday morning. I want someone who sees the dishes pile up in the sink and says “you wash -I dry”. I want in actual partner. So,I’m not letting just anyone in and just anyone have a piece of my heart just because they are funny & nice. I want so much more than that. 

Never Stop Saying I Love You

I just held my grandfather’s hand for probably the last time, I kissed his forehead and told him over and over how much I loved him with tears racing down my cheek. He opened his eyes ever so slightly, just for a brief moment and softly mouthed “I love you too”. It’s an image I will replay in my mind for years to come- it’s one I will always remember.

It’s times like these that you wish you could just freeze and never let go. You don’t ever want to let them go but, you don’t have a say in that. The person you have loved your whole life- you’ve never lived a day without them is now no longer going to be on this earth. Time doesn’t stop for anyone. It’s their time to go.

This type of pain is indescribable. The range of emotions one feels can go from hot to cold and back to hot again. One minute you are a puddle on the floor telling yourself you will never get through this and the next you are wishing their pain away and hoping they fall asleep and drift away-go quickly so that they no longer suffer.

There is no right or wrong way to cope with loss. You can’t define how someone deals with death. Just like you can’t define how someone lives their life.

All you can do is love. Love the people in your life while you still have them. Death is real, it’s inescapable so love your heart out and don’t let anyone close to you not know what they mean to you. Never let anyone doubt how important they are to you, because there will come a time when you can no longer call them to tell them that. There will come a time when you will no longer hear them mouth back softly “I love you too”.

Why I Hate The Tinder/Bumble/Hinge Dating App Men of My Generation

I am not afraid to admit this but I, like most single people my age have a dating app profile on one of the more popular dating sites : Tinder, Bumble and or Hinge. I use mine for recreational purposes, out of boredom and curiosity but every now and then I exchange my phone number with a nice sweet boy and then if things are going well the topic of a first dates enters the picture. THIS IS WHERE THINGS GET FUNKY. Why on God’s earth would you ask a girl on a date, follow through with times, places etc., hype it up all week long and then the day of the date go ghost??? This is not just from personal experiences either- this is like an epidemic of prank dating that a handful of my closest friends have experienced first hand and I just don’t see the point of.Like why waste two- three weeks of your time texting me, adding me on all social media sites asking ME out to dinner and then pulling the plug right before were supposed to meet? At first I thought maybe they stumbled across my tagged photos on Facebook, but I mean get real it’s almost 2019 who has time to do that anymore. So then I start thinking does he have his phone on do not disturb? Is there another girl? Did he die????? That’s when it hit me. THIS IS THE PROBLEM. Not them. This right here is why us females are called “psychos” and “crazy” because this is the game. We feed right into it. These guys think they can say, behave, treat us anyway they please and we will be the ones to analyze the entire ordeal; sending screenshots of the last 5 convos to your girl gang group chat, watching his snaps stories for the next week drafting a scathing message in your notepad that you wanna fire up when your 3 spiked seltzers in next Friday. But here is the truth bomb: why would you chase after someone who clearly doesn’t value you as their equal? Because if they did, a normal respectful human being would be honest and say something along the lines of “Listen tonight is a bad night, let’s reschedule for Saturday?” or even “ I’ve been thinking about it and I don’t want anything serious so it’s best not to lead you on.” Even though those are both upsetting messages to receive at least you’re not left wondering if your the most worthless piece of garbage living thing ever created. So the message I am trying to spread is DO NOT text him the next day and ask, “what happened?”, or “what did I do wrong?” because if he ignores you again the pain you felt before is going to double on top of embarrassment- so save yourself the anxiety of hitting send and throwing your phone on your bed and walking away, just don’t send it at all. Show them they we will not win this sick twisted game of dominance. Show them that the lost out the day they decided to not go on that date with you.Sometimes when these things happen the natural reaction is to break down. Remember one thing, you are the prize- never, ever lost sight of that.

Meet Kailyn.

I decided I’m going to be an open book – bare everything to the world because putting pen to paper gives me hope and I need all the hope I can get some days. So here goes nothing.

I have not written in awhile as I have been soul searching and working on myself- it was time to work on myself. I’ve spent probably the last 7 or 8 years of my life in turmoil. On the outside many people saw a vibrant, charismatic happy girl. But that was just not the case. It never really is. Ever since I can remember I was “chubby” and “fat” and told I had such a pretty face. I looked in the mirror and picked apart every. single. flaw. I had a gap in my teeth so I fixed it, my eyebrows were always too thick or too think, my hair was always too long or too short and don’t get me started on my weight. I never believed I was worthy, I never pushed myself to excel because I didn’t see any potential. Everyone was athletic or beautiful in high school and I always just felt somewhere in the middle. I never stood out, I was never the girl guys pined after. I just felt there. So I decided to become funny.
I took things to a whole new level, I had to be loud and exaggerate every story and post ridiculous things to validate myself. I didn’t see any problem with this for many years as I got results. It didn’t matter if they were good or bad I got a reaction out of people and that made me feel important and that’s what I built myself around. This idea that I was funny just stuck. As I’m writing this and tears are falling down my cheek I realize how truly broken I really was and how sad all of this is.
This is ABSOLUTELY NOT written for pity of ANY kind. I just know I’m not the only person in this whole world who has experienced the things I have experienced. I am not special or claiming to have the saddest life in the world, because everyone has their own story and everyone has their own issues but writing is my therapy and right now this is exactly what I feel I need to do, it’s exactly what I HAVE to do.
Some people might say but Kailyn you have had boyfriends and you have so many friends what are you talking about? And I’ll sum all of that up for you right here: The guy I loved in high school cheated on me, I was 16. How do you cope with something like that? I never really did I just kept moving on because I had to. So here I am broken hearted and in the awkward growing up stages and I had not one single clue who the fuck I was without him. So I moved on dated other people hooked up with whoever to fill that void of not being good enough. That’s the thing growing up I never felt good enough and that voice in my head was always there, but at this stage of my life it was screaming in my brain, I didn’t eat and I didn’t sleep and I cut myself off from everyone because I had no idea how to function on my own and that terrified me to my core. Every guy form then on just reopened that initial wound because in the end they all left me, I was just “too much” of this or that and I was a project they didn’t want to be apart of and looking back I can’t say I blame them- but I got help and I picked myself back up and onto college I went.
I remember one of my first college experiences with a guy he left me in his dorm room after we hooked up and he got up, left, and didn’t come back so I had to walk home alone in Albany at 5 am crying, drunk and ashamed and I think that’s when everything really spiraled for me. I started gaining even more weight and I took attention from ANY guy who looked at me and I pursed absolutely any guy I could and I came off as painfully desperate and aggressive because I just wanted to be loved. I wanted someone to look at me and say I’ll fix all your broken pieces and you’ll be okay. But that was my biggest mistake.
I threw myself at any guy I could time and time again and continuously picked the wrong guy because I couldn’t look in the mirror and face the facts. I was too afraid of what I might see. So I lived like that all of college. I think I walked around with “ SELF-CONSCIOUS” tattooed on my forehead because that’s all I ever felt. My clothes didn’t fit me anymore but I didn’t want to change so instead I slipped into a depression again except this time I overate and over drank to compensate in some way and I am so sorry for that version of myself because I truly felt like there was no other way out of this.
But here I am having an a epiphany and I needed to write I needed to see everything in front of my eyes because I am no longer that girl and I no longer want to be that girl and I needed one last push of motivation to wake myself and say you did it. You became the person you’ve always wanted to be and yes it took time and effort but it wasn’t so bad. And this time the results hold so much more weight. This time the results are going to stick because I love this person, I love waking up and looking in the mirror now and seeing beauty and radiance because I worked so hard to get here. It’s like an artist admiring their artwork. I’m allowed to be selfish and cocky because form where I was and where I am today there’s miles and miles of growth in between and that’s the beauty I see and feel.
I realized it not about perfection and being the most beautiful. It’s about being healthy physically AND mentally and work on both of them simultaneously. It’s a battle every day and some days I want to go to war with myself again but I know where that gets me and I no longer want to go backwards. I realized all things I have been through have brought me here and my happiness was always in my own hands, I just had to look inside of myself and that’s the scariest thing you could ever do. It was easier for a while masking it with jokes and crude behaviors but I realized it was so hard to maintain. I had to constantly appear like my life was awesome but inside I was nothing, a barren place. I learned no one, absolutely no one on this planet is attracted to sad lonely and desperate no matter how beautiful or ugly you may be. It was never about looks – it was about how I presented myself to others. No one is going to love you unless you love yourself. That’s it. Case closed.
Now a smile isn’t forced and I can still light up a room and make people laugh because I am sure of myself and where I am headed. It’s so empowering and I just want to empower as many people as I can because I want everyone to feel that spark inside of them like I do.

The Year of You.

For the first time in my 22 years of life I actually took an oath to make this upcoming new year one of personal growth and change. Not a New Years resolution exactly but a whole new outlook on how I want to live my life and the legacy I want to leave behind one day.

I no longer wanted to be that person who always talked about all the transformations they wanted to make but had no actions to back up all their demands. I wanted to become a woman of her word- a go getter.

I no longer wanted sympathy from those around me because I am single-handedly the reason I am where I am in my life – which means that only I can turn things around and that in itself was a powerful lesson to learn. Only you can make your life become one you are content with and other the hand you can be the sole reason for your downfall.

So my advice is to journey to new places, stimulate your mind without the baggage of mundane day to day routine, take all new experiences in both mentally and physically and let things have an effect on you, let moments of your life follow you around like a snapshot of all time you realized you were truly alive. It’s in these raw seconds in time we saw a raw version of ourselves and all the beauty we already possess and who cares if it’s not the stereotypical kind of beauty. Smiling is beauty, laughing is beauty, crying is beauty. Feeling is beauty. Living is beauty. Do what makes your soul happy.
Let everything you do this year nourish your soul and feed all your desires no matter how big or small. 365 days is not a lot of time so don’t push it off another day.

Begin. Right now.

Don’t look back in another 22 years saying the same things. Live your life with not a single regret.

The most intense moment one can have is to realize you have to work on you before anything else can begin to grow. You’re the seeds and all the good things to come along like love, family and a career it’s all the water and sunlight to help you grow but don’t forget it all starts with you.

So make this the year of finding your inner strength through the absolute piece of shit days, make it the year you really look yourself without any sugar-coating and rebuild yourself back up from the ground or make minor adjustments, just do whatever it takes to make you happy.

Make this the year of YOU.

How To Grow Up

“It takes courage to grow up and become who you are”- E.E. Cummings.

 

Sometimes that path you chose wasn’t the right one and sometimes it was the right one for a temporary amount of time and sometimes we get it right on our first try.  The hardest part is not knowing until it’s too late, until you’re knocked down and you don’t know how to get back up – you don’t know how it can go up from here. But you know something – somehow you always land back on your feet and days go by, months go by and you realize that although you struggled you came out of it alive; bruised and a little bit beaten but you’re still you and sometimes and even better version of you.

 

I don’t claim to know it all – heck I’m only 22 but what I do know is sometimes it takes being put in the most uncomfortable of situations to see your true strength. Once you’re pushed outside your limits it’s how you claw your way out of the hole- that’s what determines who you really are.

 

I’ve wanted to give up and say enough is enough how much more defeat can one person experience in their lives until I realized I was the one putting myself in a position to fail

 

I pitied myself for giving up in school only to cry over my bad grades, I cried over being single only to realize that I have so much work to invest into myself yet for anyone to even be romantically involved with me. I pitied myself for gaining weight only to see that I was eating and drinking whatever I wanted whenever I wanted.

 

Everything that happens to you may not be in your control but take control of the things you can, and reap the rewards. Why wouldn’t you try as hard as you can to make life easier for yourself instead of putting up your own roadblocks??

 

Don’t you want to look back in 20 years and say I’m so happy I decided to join the gym or join that club or cut my hair to my chin or travel to London because it will feed your soul in ways that cheese puffs and bud lights can’t (trust me there are definitely circumstances that those are the cure). Really fuel your body with things that make you feel happy so that when something does knock you down you have positive things in your life to make it easier to bounce back, to make it a life worth living.

 

The best way to grow up and is to realize that you finally have to. It’s time to flip over the page, it’s absolutely time.

A Happy Soul Is The Best Shield For A Cruel World

I know it’s been a while since I’ve put my thoughts and feelings out there, I have been adjusting to my new home and lifestyle and I’ve hit my first bump in the road, I’ve been at a standstill with myself and I thought the best medicine is to see if others feel the same way I do. It’s so hard out there on your own, they don’t teach you that in 5th period English class, they don’t dedicate a textbook to it, you don’t even learn it in your undergrad. You learn it when you’re alone in  your studio apartment in another state miles away from your home – your comfort. You learn it as you polish off another bottle of 8.99 wine and put on the same oversized sweat pants and beat up t-shirt from high school. Everyone your age is stuck in the in between, either flourishing with their dream jobs living in a beautiful apartment or taking a year off from the real world and finding themselves. No ones right because what is right at 22? what should you be doing? It’s so easy to feel so lost because really the only person who cares how successful you are is yourself. You’re the only one measuring all your tiny accomplishments and all your giant failures. You’re the one comparing yourself to Joe Schmoe who got an incredible job in the city, got engaged, is getting their PhD. The only time you truly lose out in life is by overshadowing your own with what others may have that you don’t;  maybe the path they took in life wasn’t meant for you. Maybe you were meant to travel and see the world pinching pennies for the first couple years of life, maybe you’ll go back to school and get your masters in something completely different then what you majored in years back, maybe you were meant to be alone so that you could learn your company is one so many would love to keep. Sometimes you just need to breathe and say where you are right now is only temporary if you want it to be. You can be whatever version of yourself that you aim to be, just don’t become blinded by others’ success that you no longer recognize your own. Because the truth is no matter where you are at in life  because guess what – you’re doing it, you’re living, breathing, thriving in this world and that is more than enough for you to celebrate who you are. You will make it out there because you have believed in yourself up until this point, you have grown and shape-shifted into what we call an “adult” and it’s really a beautiful thing if you let it be and you owe it to yourself to be proud, I wish that’s what they told you growing up is like.

As One Door Closes, Another Opens

As I stuff in my last hoodie, zip up my suitcase and head for the front door- I can’t help but reflect on the past 13 years that Burnt Hills has given me. 
Thank you for giving me a safe place to call home, thank you for the cotton candy ice cream at Marcella’s I used to love so much after my rec softballs games, thank you for giving me endless nights spent at Mcdonalds after a wild high school party, thank you for Friday night footballs games I’ll always have a special place in my heart full of that Spartan Pride.Thank you for introducing me to the most amazing friends that I know no matter the distance we will never lose touch, thank you for my first kiss at Party in the Park, thank you introducing my first love as well as my first heartbreak. 

When I decided to go to Saint Rose I wasn’t scared because I always knew where I’d be going home to, I always knew I’d walk back up my front steps put my key in the door and smell the new candle my mom had burning in the living room, I knew I’d visit my friends and they would visit me and there would be dinners and drinks, there would be surprise visits from my parents and grandparents and that sense of home remained with me for 4 more years.

 I take one last look around my room and realize I will no longer know the comfort and security Sutherland Drive has brought me for the last 11 years, I’ll be taken out of my comfort zone and I’ve never been more ready for that, I think it’s time, I think it’s been time. 

So as I load up the car and make sure I packed all the going out shoes I could need I can’t help but put the finishing touches on this chapter of my life and I do it with the biggest smile on my face. Thank you BH you’ve given me more than a girl could ever ask for and then some so take care of my mom my dad my sister and those I leave behind, I’ll be back soon. 

how happiness can happen to you

I used to be a non believer. I used to think only special, selective people were born into it as if it’s some genetic mutation. You see a old man and wife walking hand in hand down the street with eyes only for each other, you see a mom taking pictures of her babys’ first taste of carrots at a restaurant, you see that beautiful girl on Instagram with a perfect boyfriend living in their beautifully decorated apartment somewhere in Peru. And it’s so hard to be get caught up in all that, it’s so hard so compare your life to those 5 minutes you judge someone else’s- because all you see when you look at those people is happiness. But what I’ve come to find is happiness is an operationally defined concept. What you don’t know is that: maybe that husband found out his wife has Alzheimer’s with only a year left to live, so they are spending as much time together as possible before she forgets her own name; and maybe that mother had 4 miscarriages before she was lucky enough to welcome a beautiful healthy baby boy into this world; and maybe that picture perfect Instagram couple is all a lie and they cheat on one another every chance they get and it’s a toxic relationship. You see, other people are so keen on showing you glimpses of their lives- the parts they want you to see, the parts they aren’t afraid to show the world. But there’s two sides to every story. 
I think the most raw, pure form of happiness is when you find it within yourself to expose all aspects of who you are; good and bad no matter how ugly that may be. It’s when you water yourself down to that mold that you truly lose out on happiness, because all you’re giving to others is just a bland almost false taste of what you really offer. 
The only way I know how to be happy that will work time and time again without fail, is to accept all parts of you that you’re afraid to show, because that’s what will draw in real true connections with people- a significant other, friends that love you even no matter how dark your insides may be, a future employer who will appreciate how human you are and understand we all have bad days.
Happiness comes from acceptance, accepting that you will fall down but knowing you can always get back up, accepting you may not be a psychologist like you had planned but instead might be a really great journalist, accepting a job offer, accepting your letter for college, accepting that it’s time to let go, accepting it time to start over.
You have the power to keep that smile on your face even when things feel like they will never get better. They can and they will. Believe in that.