Growing Up Without Your Best Friend

hunter and I meeting

hunter

me

Many people grow up with siblings that later in life become their best friends. Growing up, I had many siblings- whether they were half, step, or full siblings- I only became close with a select couple. I was blessed enough to get to see my little sister Hunter when I going into the sixth grade. Even though she lived and Kansas and I from Ohio, after that we became closer than ever. 800 miles had nothing on us. We talked on the phone, skyped a lot, and facebook messaged back and forth. We had become so close that going days without speaking to her became some of the most difficult days of my life. But unfortunately as we grew older, we started losing contact and for that, I am sorry. I blame myself. I was the older sibling and I tried to be there for you as best as I could, but things got difficult for us. We started arguing more and more, letting our family and our pasts get in the way of not only our sisterhood but our friendship. Spending most of our lives apart from each other is definitely one of the hardest things that has ever happened to me. We were super close as children then we were ripped out of each others lives. We became close again and I let personal life choices get in the way. I hope you know I regret not trying harder. I would do absolutely anything for you. Seeing pictures of you with your new family melts my heart. Its so relieving to see you finally have a sincere smile on that pretty face of yours. You deserve it. When my friends see pictures of you and tell me we look like twins, my heart kind of breaks, because there’s no better feeling in the world than being told you look like a role model of yours. Yes, that’s what I said. You my adorable mini-me, are such a role model to me. You have gone through so much, we both have. But you have gone through it most of your life, where as I got out of it fairly early. Yet you have still come out being one of the most loving and amazing people I have ever met. I love you and I sincerely hope that you forgive me for the years we have lost and I can not wait for the years ahead of us, and hopefully we can grow closer than ever.

Another New Year

As 2015 comes to a close I realize how much I have learned this year. This year has by far been one of the most difficult, yet insightful 365 days of my life. In just a single year I have lost who I thought was the love of my life, ended then rekindled my relationship with my family, graduated from high school, started my life on my own, and fallen in love with the most amazing man I have ever gotten the chance to meet.

The beginning of 2015 started off super difficult for me because (in November of 2014) I had just lost the guy who I thought was the love of my life. After this I lost all self respect and self confidence. I was convinced I wasn’t good enough for anybody to love. So I completely closed myself off from everybody. I let myself believe I was worthless and this ended up ruining more than just my self esteem, it ruined my relationships with both my family and my friends. I acted out and blamed everybody else for my problems. I let things get so bad that I actually left my home and my family and didn’t speak with my family for months. I lost so much time that I will never get back because I was so angry at the world. I started making bad decisions and got annoyed when people called me out for them. As far as I was concerned I had every right to act how I was. My love was taken complete advantage of so why would I not have the right to be angry with the world? After almost a year of feeling bad for myself and making excuses for my ex’s actions I finally realized that was no way to live. I started working on my self confidence and finding happiness in things other than boys. I finally learned how to be happy without relying on anybody else.

After graduating high school back in May and having a “rebellious” summer where I was angry at the world, I finally started getting my life together. My friend and I got our own apartment, I started working regularly, and I rekindled most of the relationships with my family. I became closer than ever with my grandmother and I realized how much I need my grandparents and the rest of my family in my life. Along the way of starting my journey as an adult, I unfortunately did lose many friends. I found out who my real friends were while I was struggling and unhappy. They were the ones by my side the whole time and they were the ones telling me that I needed to stop living the way I was. I may only have a few friends now but they are all I will ever need.

After my awful breakup, I completely gave up on the thought of love. I started thinking that there was no such thing as monogamy or being faithful in my generation. I met so many nice guys after my break up but as soon as they started catching feelings I stopped speaking to them. I didn’t want to get my heart broken again but in the process of thinking this way, I hurt so many people and for those that I hurt, I can not say sorry enough. I did to you guys, what I was afraid you would do to me. I am so sorry. Little did I know that one of the guys that I led on and randomly stopped talking to, I would later fall deeply in love with.

Back in April I had been hanging out with two of my friends from high school and one of them invited a friend of theirs. His friend came and I thought he was the cutest guy I had ever met. My friend and him had worked together at the time and that’s how they came to know each other. So me, being the flirt that I can be, went to their work every Thursday for 2 months trying to drop the hint to this guy that I thought he was “kind of” cute. He never caught the hint even though I completely embarrassed myself in front of him once when he tried to start a conversation with me. So I gave up on it. Not long after I had given up, I found Jacob on social media and we finally began speaking. We had planned to hang out a couple times, and I cancelled every time. I ended up doing to him what I did to all the other guys. I randomly stopped talking to him and started talking to someone else. Things didn’t work out with the guy after him either, so Jacob reached out to make sure I was okay. We began talking and I finally decided to go on a date and I fell for him almost immediately. Almost 3 months later, I am more in love than I have ever been with anybody.

I realize I have been through many trials. But I have also realized that each and every trial came with a lesson that I learned so much from. Things may get hard, living on my own and starting my life, but I can not remember the last time I have ever been this happy. So as 2015 comes to a close, I want to remind everybody that everything your going through happens for a reason and you will come out so much stronger. Keep holding on and here’s to another year of struggles, holding on, and growing from every single experience!