♥

There’s so much more to life than finding someone who will want you, or being sad over someone who doesn’t. There’s a lot of wonderful time to be spent discovering yourself without hoping someone will fall in love with you along the way, and it doesn’t need to be painful or empty. You need to fill yourself up with love. Not anyone else. Become a whole being on your own. Go on adventures, fall asleep in the woods with friends, wander around the city at night, sit in a coffee shop on your own, write on bathroom stalls, leave notes in library books, dress up for yourself, give to others, smile a lot. Do all things with love, but don’t romanticize life like you can’t survive without it. Live for yourself and be happy on your own. It isn’t any less beautiful, I promise.

-- Emery Allen   (via c-oquetry) 

Love will never be like it’s shown in the movies. It’s a trap and we all fall for it that’s why relationships take an early end these days because they can’t reach the expectations we have and we have them because of all those movies that teach us the wrong things. We fall for those ideals like kissing in the rain and running after someone and finally finding the right words but this is as wrong as the ideals itself because kissing under summer rain isn’t as special as kissing under the shower. And I would have used the right words if I could but I never ran after her because I was afraid and no words could have healed what I have broken. Maybe my feet would have been running after her when there would also have been some dramatic music that made up the suspense and maybe with that music in the background the right words would have come floating out of my lips like a waterfall. But there has never been this background music I waited for because this is life and not a god damn movie and I will probably never find the right words to turn it all around, instead I will just stand here and watch everything fall apart and say nothing at all and realize that I’m my own director and right know I’m making a better movie about the real love than anybody ever has because there is no assurance of a happy end in this love, just like it is in reality.

-- Elay Neal Moses   (via c-oquetry) 

when it comes to love

Life is really interesting the way it turns out. Especially in the transition from being a child to being an adult. You may escape reality for a while, but it catches you up and scares you from behind. 

What seems like a brilliant love story always has its pain. Nothing turns out as it looks like. Even when anything else seems to be stupid to claim. 

Life is not what you make it, because you have so little power over your own life. 

Ironically enough, others form what you become. Others form where you are, and how you feel. 

And, sadly enough, so many young people have such an amazing view of life - life is what I make it. 

Truth is, you’ll have very little to say. 

I don’t know if I will laugh at this when I get older, but I have discovered that when you see the best in people, you get blinded. You have to be ready to see the best AND worst in people. You can’t ignore the bad sides, the luggage or even the slightest signals. 

Truth is, most of the time, it’s too late. We are so positive as people. We always want to hope for the best, give the best, try our hardest. 

Especially when it comes to love.

Love just seems so lovely. Truly, even after all the awful stories you’ve heard from friends and relatives... even after countless warnings. After countless advise. You still give yourself to someone because you think this significant other is, somehow, different. 

And so it goes. It seems like you have all you ever wanted. It seems like this is it - this is the life, this is the love - your dream has come true, everything is the way it is supposed to be. 

But little by little, reality catches up with you, and before you know it, you are staring into the eyes of a wholly different person. It is almost frightening, how little you know, and what is even more frightening is that you thought you actually knew.

Because after all... this was nothing close to blind love. You know each other’s good and bad sides, you know the pretty and the ugly, you know the habits and you know the stories.

Yet reality, in it’s purest form, still hides behind that imperfect but, yet so cherished person. 

Truth is, we think that our stories are different. That finally, it will make sense. Finally, someone understands and receives in the way that you have longed for. You give everything you have, even what you do not have. 

But nothing about us is different. Just as real as everything else. Disappointment, tears, misunderstanding, grudge, regret, sadness.

Every person that comes into our lives shapes us, creates us. That is, we are a creation of other people. Now meeting another creation, of other people, can form a clash, which happens in every single story. 

What do you, then, do with it, when there is no way back? When the tables are set and the dress is bought, and life is ahead?

There is no regret, but reality certainly does frighten.

(Source:  leloveimage)

strangers

___________

This one time I painted a living room with a girl.

This was a handful of years back. It was about eight months before the huge, flame-out of a breakup. That day, though? That day we painted the living room? It was pretty uneventful. We painted my parents living room for $50 between us and a pizza. That was it. I think we watched Anchorman or something after that.

But it still holds as on of the most indelible memories I have. Don’t get me wrong, I’m not still in love, it happened, it was good, it ended, and we’ve both moved on. But I’ll never forget that day. Because it’s never, in the long run, about the grand gestures. You can fly across the world and show up on her doorstep with a rose in your teeth and a ring in a little velvet box but I can guarantee you that - more often than not - she’s going to remember the time you built the birdhouse in the back yard, or what have you, a whole lot more.

Life wasn’t meant to be taken in large movements. The next day will inevitably arrive, you’ll sleep, and the moment will have passed. But when you have a hundred thousand small moments, you can step back and appreciate the picture a lot more than metaphorically blowing your load on some grand moment that, in all honesty, look, you’re not Bruce Fucking Springsteen, you’re not going to be able to blow everyone’s mind every single night. You’re not Romeo and/or Juliet. There’s no reason to drink the poison together in some flame-out gesture. So that leaves us with the small stuff. It’s all about the detail.

That’s what love is. Attention to detail.

And the moment will end. And then things will get boring. And it might get a little quiet. And it might all end horribly. And you might hate eachother at the end. And you might walk away from eachother one day and never speak again. But that’s just how it goes.

But she’ll remember the time you held the door open for her on your first date.

She’ll remember the time you laughed at her impression of the landlady.

She’ll remember the time you stayed up all night that first time. 

She’ll remember the small things a lot longer than the big ones.

But everything ends. And I’ll tell you why you have to make the small things, the small moments count so much more:

One day, probably a while longer from now, when old age takes ahold of someone, she might just only remember your smile. Everything you ever did together, every second, every moment, every beat, every morning spent in bed, every evening spent together on the sofa, all of that - gone.Everything you ever did will be reduced to the head of a pin.She won’t remember your name. She’ll just remember your smile, and she’ll smile. She won’t know why. It’s a base, gut reaction. But she’ll smile, uncontrollably, and it will come from somewhere so deep as to know that you touched her on a primal, honest, and true level that no scientist, scholar, or savant could ever begin to explain. There is no more. There is nothing else. There is just this: She’ll remember your smile, and she’ll smile.

And you know what? That’s all that really matters in the end.

(Source: Ned Hepburn)

versus

2-

"YOUR 20’S ARE YOUR ‘SELFISH’ YEARS. IT’S A DECADE TO IMMERSE YOURSELF IN EVERY SINGLE THING POSSIBLE. BE SELFISH WITH YOUR TIME, AND ALL THE ASPECTS OF YOU. TINKER WITH SHIT, TRAVEL, EXPLORE, LOVE A LOT, LOVE A LITTLE, AND NEVER TOUCH THE GROUND."

Kyoko Escamilla

The 20 Things You Need To Accomplish In Your 20s

1. Support yourself - Finally leaving the nest and flying on your own can be difficult at first — so I understand the reluctance. Nevertheless, there is no reason to be nearing your 30s and still living off mom and dad’s dime. If you can’t support yourself financially, then you have not learned how to survive. You must become a survivor.

2. Get your own place - Living with mom and dad is free and living with roomies can be fun. But everyone ought to live on their own for at least part of their life in order to better get to know themselves. If you’re lucky, you will fall in love and get married one day. Then the possibility of being alone becomes a distant memory — or a costly divorce.

3. Date the wrong person - I am a strong believer that in order to date the right person, you first have to date the wrong person. Otherwise you will always question whether or not you made the right decision by committing. Dating can be pricy, so you may just want to skip the dinner and just sleep around a bit.

4. Begin to put money in the bank & learn to leave it there - There are much more lucrative, albeit riskier ways of investing your money. Putting your money into the bank, however, is a good practice to learn. It is always good to have a bit of funds on hand for an emergency. You should be able to put some savings away in your 20s.

5. Get out of debt - Before you can save money or create wealth, you first must get yourself out of debt. Debt not only grows as the years go by, it also gets heavier on your mind. The stress of having a debt hanging over your head will give you is too much distraction from what is important.

6. Clearly outline your life goals - Your 20s are a time to figure out which direction you wish your life to go. What goals do you wish to accomplish and what steps will you take to get there? This the time to define what is most important to you and to promise yourself that you will do all you can to attain all that you wish for.

7. Learn to read regularly - Learning is not just something that you do while in school. Human beings should never stop learning. We were blessed with intellect superior to all other animals and we would be failing to live up to our abilities were we to allow our minds to become stale and slow. We need to keep our minds fit and perform mental exercises. One of the best ways is to read every day. 

8. Learn to keep up to date with current events - There is a world outside you that goes beyond that which you see and do. There are other people on this planet — people that you share a common bond with. Knowing what the human race is doing — all the good and all the awful — is an important part of understanding life. Knowing what is going on overseas may help you better understand why you are experiencing what you yourself are experiencing. If you haven’t learned to read a newspaper regularly — cough cough, Elitedaily.com — then you should get used to doing so before you hit 30.

9. Get that body you always dreamed of - Getting into shape gets harder the older you get. I know you planned on starting your diet tomorrow, but before you know it you’ll be turning 70 tomorrow. Have you ever tried to get into shape for the first time at 70? Me neither, but it must suck.

10. Find work that you love doing - The key is to do what you love and love what you do. If your work doesn’t give meaning to your life, which honor may very well be reserved for your friends and family, then it must at the very least not make your life more unpleasant. The perfect job is out there for you. Figure out what that is while your age still starts with the number 2. Once you hit 30, it will be more difficult to get hired without any previous experience.

11. Surround yourself with people you would like to keep around - Having close friends are important. Building a trusting relationship with someone takes years, so it’s best to get crackin’. Do people make new friends in their 30s?

12. Reestablish your connection with your family - Keeping on good terms with your family is important — if possible, of course. I understand that not everyone is allotted the luxury of good parents, but for those of us that were ought to try to keep in touch as much as possible. Even if you were never much of a family person, as I wasn’t, if you plan on having a family of your own one day, you’ll want to be adding onto an already solid family tree.

13. Outline your perfect partner - Some believe that it’s best to leave love to chance or fate. I, on the other hand, believe that loving is a decision and not some completely random, unexplainable concept. You may not be able to find a woman that matches your dream woman 100%, but you should have a good idea of what you do want in a partner and what you don’t want — as well as how important each characteristic or lack of is to you.

14. Learn to adapt - We must all embrace change — the sooner the better. Change occurs constantly and unless we learn to change along with it, we will get left behind. Sticking to the ways of the past finds you living a life unfit for reality, but rather fit for a time that once was. The longer you wait to embrace change, the more difficult it will be to change your ways and habits.

15. Start to accumulate a fortune - I don’t know about all of you, but I plan on being a billionaire. If you are to become a billionaire, you will have to become a millionaire first. Hit that first million by 30 and your first billion by 40.

16. Learn to dress well - People judge you on how you look and how you dress. Wearing the right clothing for each occasion will make whatever you wish to accomplish a bit easier — in the very least it will only work to your benefit and not against you as would dressing poorly or inappropriately. Women need to learn how to wear dresses and walk in heels (walk, not waddle) and men should get comfortable in a suit. No matter who you are, there will be at the very least several times that you will need to dress to impress.

17. Learn to maintain your body - Exercise is important. And so are all the grooming tasks that a person should learn to maintain throughout the years. Looking tidy, organized and well trimmed becomes more and more important the older you become. You may not feel the need to trim those nose hairs now, but you will when you are 50. This goes for both men and women.

18. Learn to maintain & keep your environment organized - Your personal home environment very much reflects who you are as a person, who you are inside. If your surroundings are hectic, you are likely to feel inner tension. If your surroundings are neat and peaceful, your mind most likely experiences the same peace. If you want to find and maintain peace, then you must manifest your inner peace in your outer surroundings.

19. Accept that you are an adult - By the time that you reach 27 years of age there should be no doubt in your mind that you have reached adulthood. This is the time to accept that you are an adult and that it is time to act like one. This does not necessarily mean to tone down your crazy escapades, but it may. In your 20s you need to come to terms with being your own master and taking responsibility for your decisions and your life.

20. Let go of the past & look forward to the future - By the age of 29, there will be many things that you will accomplish and there will be things that you failed at. You must learn to let go of your failures and learn from them. You must not think about what you could have or should have done, but rather what you will do next. The 30s are the new 20s, so get your shit together and make something of the next decade!

PAUL HUDSON

  Five more to go.

are you happy?

.... is such a difficult question. I always say yes, because I have friends, I laugh at jokes, I go out a lot and have fun. My life isn't as bad as it could be, and I don't have terrible problems. It could be worse.

But then, one night at 3 a.m.when I'm alone and still awake, lying in bed and thinking about life, I find myself crying my heart out. Suddenly I'm convinced that nobody likes me, or nobody will ever like me. I feel horrible and I question everything I had.

And I don't know if I was ever happy at all.

(sf.)

picture perfection

I keep having the same conversation over and over. It starts like this: “I gave up Facebook for Lent, and I realized I’m a lot happier without it.” Or like this, “Pinterest makes me hate my house.” Or like this: “I stopped following a friend on Instagram, and now that I don’t see nonstop snapshots of her perfect life, I like her better.”

Yikes. This is a thing. This is coming up in conversation after conversation. The danger of the internet is that it’s very very easy to tell partial truths—to show the fabulous meal but not the mess to clean up afterward. To display the smiling couple-shot, but not the fight you had three days ago. To offer up the sparkly milestones but not the spiraling meltdowns.

I’m not anti-technology or anti-Internet, certainly, but I do think it’s important for us to remind ourselves from time to time that watching other peoples’ post-worthy moments on Facebook is always going to yield a prettier version of life than the one you’re living right now. That’s how it works.

WHEN YOU’RE WAITING FOR YOUR COFFEE TO BREW, THE MAJORITY OF YOUR FRIENDS PROBABLY AREN’T DOING ANYTHING ANY MORE SPECIAL. BUT IT ONLY TAKES ONE FRIEND AT THE EIFFEL TOWER TO MAKE YOU FEEL LIKE A LOSER.

My life looks better on the Internet than it does in real life. Everyone’s life looks better on the internet than it does in real life. The Internet is partial truths—we get to decide what people see and what they don’t. That’s why it’s safer short term. And that’s why it’s much, much more dangerous long term.

Because community—the rich kind, the transforming kind, the valuable and difficult kind—doesn’t happen in partial truths and well-edited photo collections on Instagram. Community happens when we hear each other’s actual voices, when we enter one another’s actual homes, with actual messes, around actual tables telling stories that ramble on beyond 140 pithy characters.

But seeing the best possible, often-unrealistic, half-truth version of other peoples’ lives isn’t the only danger of the Internet. Our envy buttons also get pushed because we rarely check Facebook when we’re having our own peak experiences. We check it when we’re bored and when we’re lonely, and it intensifies that boredom and loneliness.

When you’re laughing at a meal with friends, are you scrolling through Pinterest? When you’re in labor with your much-prayed-for-deeply-loved child, are you checking to see what’s happening on Instagram? Of course not. We check in with our phones when it seems like nothing fun is happening in our own lives—when we’re getting our oil changed or waiting for the coffee to brew.

It makes sense, then, that anyone else’s fun or beauty or sparkle gets under our skin. It magnifies our own dissatisfaction with that moment. When you’re waiting for your coffee to brew, the majority of your friends probably aren’t doing anything any more special.

But it only takes one friend at the Eiffel Tower to make you feel like a loser.

I’m a writer. I use Twitter and Facebook and Instagram and Pinterest and my blog as part of my professional life—as a way to connect with readers and be part of a conversation that we’re creating together, a conversation about creativity and faith and writing and parenting and community and life around the table. It’s a lovely conversation, and part of my work involves reading many blogs and commenting on lots of photos and scrolling through status after status.

Some days it feels rich and multi-faceted. I learn and I’m inspired. I find recipes I want to try and stories I want to live. I feel connected and thankful to be part of such an intelligent and creative internet community.

And then on some days, I feel like I have nothing to offer, like I must be the only one who isn’t a graphic designer and hasn’t yet managed to display her entire darling life online with lots of chevron and mint accents. I feel so certain that my life is a lot less darling than other peoples’ lives.

But that’s the Internet. The nature of it. I so easily fall prey to the seduction of other people’s partial truths and heavily filtered photos, making everything look amazing. And their amazing looking lives make me feel not amazing at all.

Let’s choose community. Let’s stop comparing. Let’s start connecting.

Some days when I sit down at my laptop, instead of choosing to be an observer via Facebook, I choose to be a friend via email. Instead of scrolling through someone else’s carefully curated images, I use those few seconds to send a text to a person I really know and really love and really want to be connected to.

It’s not about technology or not. I’m not suggesting you get all old-school-pen-and-paper about it (unless that’s your thing.) It’s about connecting instead of comparing. Instead of using the computer to watch someone else’s perfectly crafted life, enter into someone’s less-than-perfect life. You can use Facebook if you want, but you might find email, Skype and phone calls work better.

USING TECHNOLOGY TO BUILD COMMUNITY INSTEAD OF BUILDING CAREFULLY-CURATED IMAGES OF OURSELVES IS AN OPTION, AND A WORTHWHILE ONE.

The distinction I’m making is public vs. private, not in person vs. long distance. I have very close, very honest friendships that depend on phone calls and Skype dates and long wandering emails, and I’m thankful that technology allows for those connections. But I don’t think you can build transforming friendships that take place only in a public sphere like Facebook or Instagram.

For many of us, walking away from the Internet isn’t an option. But using it to connect instead of compare is an option, and a life-changing one. Using technology to build community instead of building carefully-curated images of ourselves is an option, and a worthwhile one.

And on the days when you peer into the screen of your laptop and all you see are other people’s peak experiences that highlight your lack in that moment, remember that life isn’t about the story you tell about yourself on the Internet. It’s about a million more beautiful and complex things than that, like love and faith and really listening. It’s about using what you’ve been given to craft a life of gratitude and passion and grace.

Remember that the very best things in life can’t be captured in status updates.

by SHAUNA NIEQUIST

happy

As we grow up, we learn that even the one person that wasn't supposed to ever let us down, probably will. You'll have your heart broken and you'll break others' hearts. You'll fight with your best friend or maybe even fall in love with them, and you'll cry because time is flying by. So take too many pictures, laugh too much, forgive freely, and love like you've never been hurt. Life comes with no guarantees, no time outs, no second chances. You just have to live life to the fullest, tell someone what they mean to you and tell someone off, speak out, dance in the pouring rain, hold someone's hand, comfort a friend, fall asleep watching the sun come up, stay up late, be a flirt, and smile until your face hurts. Don't be afraid to take chances or fall in love and most of all, live in the moment because every second you spend angry or upset is a second of happiness you can never get back.

Hear, hear.

touch of words

Tim and his partner, Bill, had been together for six years. One morning it all ended. “I really have never talked to anyone about this,” Gunn says slowly. “There were two major things that happened. The job advancement that I thought I was going to get, I didn’t. But the biggest blow was the complete erosion of my relationship. It was abrupt. It was like a surgical strike. I still have a big raw spot on me from it, and that was 24 years ago. We were watching television in bed, and he just turned to me and said, ‘I don’t have the patience for you anymore.’ I said, ‘What do you mean? Do you mean you want me to leave?’ And he said, ‘Yes.’ That night, I got all my stuff together and left.”

It’s here that Tim stops with the story, his voice wavering. “I’m about to break down,” he says before taking a long pause. “I’m not gonna go through it again. I’ve never been in a relationship since and I never will be. It was so devastating that I can’t possibly conceive of being more emotionally hurt and scarred than I was by that. I still love him, and I haven’t a clue where he is now. 

Tim Gunn - Instinct Magazine (2006)

favorite.

When I Was Your Man

- Bruno Mars

Favorite song.

Favorite man.

presumption - assumption

Out Stealing Horses
- Per Petterson

We are all human, I get it. We are the slaves to our body, mind and soul. And many times we act on what we base on. Emotion, knowledge and beliefs.

Though.

Do not presume nor preach of your assumptions. Do not speak of fact based on your own assumptions. I take in words, but I will not understand. Because nothing is ever certain, and you will never know till it smacks you right back in your face. And the truth, will hurt one day. Two days. Three.

Never say you know someone best. Never say another is of no worth. Never say you hurt the worst. And never say you love the most.

Simply because you don't know.

goodbye:hello

Today marks the last working day of 2012 for me. And the last blogging that I'll be doing till I return from my trip early next month.

Okay, so wait for it -

woohoohoorahrahyippeeyadadoodledootweedledum!

Pop some bottles of champagne people, because the day has finally arrived for me to embark on my next adventure -grins widely with full metal mouth in display- . From the day we paid for our air tickets, excitement has had no bounds. And let me just say this, believe it or not,  I'm pretty sure that I've also possibly gone through 80% of Google's search list on recent blog posts on Japan travelogues. Yes, I kid you not, I am that thrilled kiddos. But of course, experiencing the real deal and tastes is a whole different matter, one which I will be living in less than 24 hours. Yessssssssah.

Soon enough I'll be back (well I hope it doesn't need to be that soon really, but reality sucks anyway), bursting and no longer fitting my clothes. Pleasssssssse Santa, all I really ask for is to NOT gain the pounds.

So for now its just goodbye then, till we say hello again.

But before we do, some thoughts on the passing year and sidetracking to leather on leather action today.

Leather Peplum Top & Leather Skirt - Taobao // White Blazer - Feist Heist

Necklace - Twentyeightlane // Snakeskin Flats (unshown) - Taobao

Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays people!

daylight

And when the daylight comes I'll have to go 

But tonight I'm gonna hold you so close 

Cause in the daylight we'll be on our own 

But tonight I need to hold you so close 

Maroon 5 // Daylight

perfect perfection

Source: tumblr

october 30th

October 21, 2012

I still catch myself feeling blue about things that don't matter anymore.

- Kurt Vonnegut

get the message?

Need I say more?

source: vintagerosepetal