A Year Later

Hi everyone.

As you can probably tell, I've been a little busy since I haven’t been on here in about 9 months. Truth be told, I want to start writing again because of some inspiration from another source. Last week, a girl from my Communications class walked over to me in the school cafeteria saying that she found my blog (I guess it’s not just Facebook friends reading it). She asked me why I stopped writing and, surprisingly enough, I couldn't come up with a good enough answer except for “Eh, I was too busy” Yeah, for freaking 9 months. It got me thinking that maybe I should get back online. I mean, it’s a great way to vent my feelings. But what should I write about? I already covered a lot of basic topics: Religion, Love, Friends, etc. (If you read my blog, then you already know the etc. part). I kind of just sat here at my desk and read all of my previous posts for an hour straight to refresh my memory and to continue writing my blog. With my hands embedded in the temples of my head, I couldn't think of anything. Did my creativity leave my brain? Honestly, what the Hell happened to me within this past year. *Ding* What the Hell happened to me? That’s it! How on Earth have I changed since I moved, better yet, since I graduated?

        

Well as we all know, I barely tried during my senior year of high school. Because of that, I had to enroll in a community college. But then I decided to move up north because I realized all of my friends were moving and I would have no one left by my side. So why not start off fresh, right? A month after I moved, I enrolled in a community college and found a job fairly quick. I hated it. No friends, work sucked because I was too shy to bring myself out, school sucked because I was in a northern school with a southern education (Yes, there’s a HUGE difference “y’all”) and no one liked me because I lived in a very wealthy community and my school was in a low-income town, and I still didn’t try as hard as I was supposed to. All I did was sleep and play video games. I was still stuck in high school mode. I got a wake-up call when I looked into the mirror one morning. My hair was frizzed out, acne all over my face, I gained 20 pounds… I looked like a monster. I really let myself go. I took a look at my phone and noticed I only had a few conversations going on. Most of my friends stopped talking to me either because they were bored with talking to me, or I felt as if I was annoying them so I cut them off. Either way, I take full responsibility for losing them.

What was happening to me? This wasn't me. This COULDN'T be me. I knew I had to change myself. But was changing better for me? Or was it for the people around me?

The truth is it was for both. Since that one day, I've started working harder than ever. For the past year, I did what every other person does: change. I became best friends with an old friend from 2^nd grade and one of her friends became my best friend shortly afterwards. This was a huge step for me. I didn't know what my best friends in Florida would think about me making new friends. How were they going to react? Oh, it looks like you don’t need us anymore. You have other friends. But thankfully they weren't like that at all. They were actually very supportive of me. It felt great knowing that I could have friends up here and still keep some down south.

Now I knew that I shouldn't care about what other people thought about me. But how was I supposed to live through life thinking about myself being a fat, ugly, and worthless tomboy? I mean I definitely did dress like it. I started straightening my hair more and wore girly clothes with jewelry. Dressing nicer helped boost my mood and I was able to last through tough days with a smile. I would even wear make-up to work to push through a long shift with many challenging customers. So far, changing felt awesome.

But it wasn't just clothing that raised my self-esteem. I started to grow a back-bone. On Christmas day, I went to my dad’s side of the family to hang out with them. Shortly after being there, I could obviously feel myself becoming tense. I tried talking to my older cousins, but even after 18 ½ years, they still wanted to hang out with my brother (probably because I was the only person in that whole house of 50 Italians who didn’t smoke pot so they didn’t have anything to talk about with me. No for real, one of my cousins was like, “Haha don’t do drugs!” when it OBVIOUSLY looked like he was stoned off his ass). So what I did was take one of my dad’s cigars and smoked outside in 10-degree weather and talk on the phone with one of my friends. I could already hear everyone in the house screaming, “WTF, IS SHE SMOKING?! LITTLE ALLISON IS SMOKING?!” It was pretty much a huge middle finger to them and the outside world that I was growing up and they couldn’t treat me like a little girl anymore. And with this one small action, I felt like I was unstoppable.

The next 7 months flew by so fast. Truthfully, I barely remember them. It feels like yesterday was Valentine’s Day. But I have to admit that I’m a lot happier. Since Christmas break, I stopped thinking about suicide. I finally learned that life is too precious to end so quickly. I never think about crying to sleep every night (I only do that now when I regret staying up late working on an assignment). I actually like my job and I’m even friends with most of the employees. They make work enjoyable to wake up and drive to on a daily basis. People at school have even gotten to know me better than “that girl from Westport”. Hell, even the security guards are cool with me! I keep myself busy with school and work that I don’t really have time for a social life, but then again I don’t really care. I’ve grown used to this schedule and I actually like it a lot.

As for Florida? I only talk to four people on a daily basis. I kind of wish I talked to more people, but then again I’m pretty content with what I have (Oh and for those wondering if I ever think about that one guy I used to mention, not going to lie I do think about him often. But it’s never in a loving type of way anymore. It’s mainly ever thinking if he still thinks of me. I don’t talk to him but I kind of wish I did. I still miss him, but I realized life moves on and I have to do the same. Liking guys just got in the way of everything so I put that part of my life on hold. I’m kind of happier that way, to be honest). I leave for Florida next week to spend some time with friends. I know that not a lot of people are going to ask to hang out with me like last time, and that’s okay. I’m not doing what I did last time and begging people to chill when they obviously don’t want to and I will be okay with that.

*Sigh* Life, unfortunately, waits for no one. But I finally figured out how to play its game. Living life in a positive way has helped me become a better and happier person altogether. My social life was put on hold but I’m slowly getting that back and I can’t wait to actually experience a social, college life. It took some time to realize this, but I will admit it:

I’m happy I left Florida. Connecticut, you aren’t so bad after all.

A stronger, independent me,

Allison

(How’s that as a “welcome back” blog post?)