☮

 mystical     [mis-ti-kuh l]
 adjective
 obscure in meaning; mysterious

“The secret of health for both mind and body is not to mourn for the past,

nor to worry about the future,

but to live the present moment wisely and earnestly.” 

―Buddha

“In the end

these things matter most:

How well did you love?

How fully did you live?

How deeply did you let go?” 

―Buddha

“Every morning we are born again.

What we do today is what matters most.” 

―Buddha

perhaps I'm a philosophaster

Kurz: Dislike. Those cops are as innocent as Eric Garner.

Can you mourn the death of one innocent man and celebrate the death of two more?

J: At least this is for a purpose... I know what you're saying.

And you were the one reason I was hesitant to post this because I knew you would put me in my place, but honestly.... it's tiring. And wearing to see a whole race be disregarded and devalued for years and years and years.

Kurz: Ya I got nothing.

We try to do better.

We try to be better.

Martin would NEVER approve of violent revolution.

In his last year, Malcolm would not have approved either.

J: I don't want LA or Ferguson riots where we self-destruct,

but I don't know how else we can convey our frustration, anger, sadness, pain, and the desire

for SOMETHING to change.

We are just as intelligent, passionate, and deserving as all other humans

yet we haven't been treated equally for 400 years........ YEARS.

nothingness or.... something, ness

we don't 

see things as they are,

we see things as 

we are.

– Anaïs Nin

▲ ▲ ▲

laugh like a story
body of a goddess
have you seen golden indigo?
I have and, my stars, is it something
her walk flows like the lyrics that 
play by her heartbeat
    smile. laugh. her.
a perfect example of being, by being
Beauty for days and a heart of ocean
gems
Power, will, love, hope; another
lost star in this sea of growth

if only she knew



—r*

sno

staring at base was mouthwatering I love the smell of her...

god how real

if I could sleep with her, I imagine heaven

my body light and energized, she takes over my body, and I groan something like
"I" and "love" and "you". she's silent. this eternal neverland is full of jokes & smiles & relief.

white

like this bullshit ton of snow dropping like sand in an hour glass

all my brain can do is bitch about why here, why this?

why



—r star

Sha Wants To Know

"Why is it that we, as females, criticize ourselves? 

And then! Other b*tches criticize us as well! 

I just don't understand it. We're hatin' b*tches.

Why do we do that?

But we're all beautiful! 

And I'm sure some girl walking down the street with an amazing smile thinks she has an ugly smile. 
There are things we don't like about ourselves thAT NO ONE ELSE EVEN NOTICES. 

Stop worrying about those things." 

―Shalynn Marie

Coal's Wise Words

The Best

always remembered♥

Robin Williams 

July 21, 1951 – August 11, 2014

Everlasting Words

I've learned that no matter what happens, or how bad it seems today,

life does go on, and it will be better tomorrow.

I've learned that you can tell a lot about a person by the way he/she handles these three things:

a rainy day, lost luggage, and tangled Christmas tree lights.

I've learned that regardless of your relationship with your parents,
you'll miss them when they're gone from your life.

I've learned that making a "living" is not the same thing as making a "life."

I've learned that life sometimes gives you a second chance.

I've learned that you shouldn't go through life with a catcher's mitt on both hands;
you need to be able to throw something back.

I've learned that whenever I decide something with an open heart, 
I usually make the right decision.

I've learned that even when I have pains, I don't have to be one.

I've learned that every day you should reach out and touch someone.
People love a warm hug, or just a friendly pat on the back.

I've learned that I still have a lot to learn.

I've learned that people will forget what you said, people will forget what you did,
but people will never forget how you made them feel.

Maya Angelou
April 4, 1928 – May 28, 2014

Make Way For Gray

appreciate (n.) 

to value or regard highly

    It's a shame I have to begin with a cliché, but furthermore, my sadness stems from the thought that people don't truly understand the candor of it: you do not know what you have until it's gone. 

    I lived in Colorado for 20 years and grew too comfortable and familiar with it. It didn't help I lived in a town with a small population, about 14,000. I got into a really terrible physical fight with a childhood friend. I dropped out of nursing school. My best friend recently moved to Utah with her amazingly perfect son (my god-son). Things just really started to look bleak for me. 

    One cold, winter day, I had a conversation with my aunt who was visiting for the holidays. We decided that it would be best for me if I moved to Florida with her and her family. I was ecstatic! I was so eager to get away from the weed and partying and shady friends I revolved my life around for the previous five years. It was time to get away and to start fresh. 

    I spent almost two months working at a nursing home, not really seeing anyone, and counting down my days until I ascended to the sunny state. I threw a party the night before I left. It had a fairly decent turn-out. One of my exes showed up and reminded me why he resided in my past. My best guy friend and I got shwasted and danced to the "Macadelic" songs that blared from my speakers. My good friend drunkenly chased my dog around and took care of her all night. Good times....

    The flight was easy and only lasted for three hours. I listened to music the entire time and looked out my window. I love that sight. It feels like you're in a Sims game, towering over the different shades of green and brown patches that stitch together and make an agricultural blanket for the earth. I love being amid white, fluffy clouds and daydreaming about jumping out of the plane; pretending that the clouds would rearrange their consistency just for me and support my weight. Sure, I pictured my plane crashing as well. I came up with hypothetical situations that could arise and how I would handle myself. Nothing happened, though. I landed safely at Jacksonville International Airport on a rainy, February night. 

    I would like to say that my first couple months in Florida were fun and exciting, but in all honesty, they weren't. My uncle is a homebody, and although he has an impressive income, he doesn't use his money to travel or to go out on the weekends. He makes sure his alcohol stash is supplied plentifully and tucks the rest of his earnings in savings for his retirement. I was so used to hanging out with friends and throwing/going to parties. When I got to Florida, I had absolutely no friends and my aunt & uncle didn't know anyone my age, either. I spent the first few weeks with my 10-year-old cousin, but after a while, her naive antics were no longer funny or cute. I wanted to socialize with someone on my level. I wanted to laugh at Seth Rogen bromance movies. I wanted to talk about Tyler, the Creator and how he impacts the music industry. I wanted to talk about the Christian book I was reading and get intelligent, thought-provoking feedback. Want in one hand, shit in the other.

    I got a part-time job at a clothing store. I was hoping to meet a friend there; someone to give me an excuse to get out of the house. Four months later, I still haven't found anyone. There are a few people who I get along with great, but it mostly stays at work. No one compares to my friends from Colorado. The ones that send me daily SnapChats saying how much they miss me (Kisha), the ones who send me letters and brighten my days (Robbie), the ones who used Throwback Thursday to devote a picture and paragraph to our wonderful memories (Nicole), or the ones who spent late nights talking me out of my terrible mood (Kyli). People in Florida don't seem to have much substance to me. 

    It's incredibly strange to me that now that I'm financially stable and live in a big, majestic house like I have always dreamed of, I'm the most unhappy I have been in a long time. This "rich" life filled with healthy food, a gym membership, a car that was actually made in the 21st century, and plenty of time to lounge around has actually panned out to be unfulfilling. 

    I am in awe of the beauty in Florida. The flowing green plant life and the diverse animal life contrasts the bland plains of where I'm from. There are more beautiful African-Americans than I'm used to and the respect strangers have for each other is unreal. However, I find myself missing my "poor" ways of life that I'm used to. 

    I have no clue what's holding those four walls up, but I have had so many great times and memories in that rickety trailer. My true friends know they're always welcomed and I don't have to hide anything. I found my own ways of entertainment and I had my stupid siblings to keep me on my toes. I was too busy trying to see a mirage in front of me that I didn't see what was right there all along. Don't get me wrong; I am infinitely thankful that I was given the opportunity to live halfway across the country and out of my comfort zone. But... I just want to be happy again.

    I wonder when I will look my own grass with the admiration I look at my neighbor's.

The Heart of Hate

    I think what attracts one person to another is their ability to see something in the exact same light. They say opposites attract, but only for so long until the things that they disagree on starts to separate them. At least that's how I feel, though I'm a bad example because I'm a cynic and foresee anything that is built has a date with destruction.

    One of my best friends and I connect over our atheism. We are constantly inspecting the world around us and scrutinizing beliefs for their fallacies as well as their truisms. So when someone retweeted: "I don't get how someone can say I don't believe in god because I don't go to church. When was faith was based on church attendance?"

    Alright, I don't doubt that homeboy believes in god, because how could anyone even know that but him? What I find ironic is how it is literally in the 10 commandments (or the biblical constitution) that you must attend to church to commemorate god. I am a frickin atheist and I know this! I wanted to explain this to him, ie. correct him, but the thing about being atheist is that you must keep your beliefs to yourself, otherwise you're considered insensitive or arrogant. It's fine for Christians to plaster their beliefs up and down and left and right, but if atheists were to do the same, it would be "offensive". High five for double standards!

    Because I'm me, I couldn't let this go untouched. All I did was simply tweet: "I just about had to school a Christian on Christianity, but I didn't because it would escalate to an argument probably." My atheist best friend "favorited" it and I laughed. She understands me. I took this as a cue to text her and fill her in on my motive for the tweet, so I started explaining a conversation I had with my brother.

J: I called Marc the other night to talk about "Law and Order: Special Victims Unit" and we ended up having a 45-minute religious debate. LOL. Needless to say, he called me a hypocritical bigot.

Homie: I just power-rolled my eyes, just so you know

J: Me response- I hate catchy choruses too

J: **my

J: Goodness. Typing like the Cookie Monster & shit.

J: No, he thinks I'm a hypocrite because I try to promote open-mindedness, yet I myself am not open-minded, since I don't openly accept Christian ideology. To which I explained to him that I was one and studied it for 16 years before I decided it was illogical and untrue.

To which he says is an even greater mystery as to how I was, in fact, a Christian for so long and suddenly changed my point of view. 

I didn't have an educated response at the time, but I've been thinking about it the past few days and I have 2 rebuttals.

H: Do tell!

J: 1. You used to believe in the Easter Bunny for several years until you found sensible evidence to prove otherwise.

H: Love it love it

J: 2. The reason I started out believing in god is because that's what my mom fed me. Then I went to a private kindergarten where they taught me religion. They were my influences until the day came where I was in charge of my beliefs and used the knowledge I gained over the years to make a sensible conclusion.

H: Noice

J: OMFG if that is a Key and Peele reference, we should probably just make love now

H: It was indeed!!

J: Oh ya. But the debate was pretty great. I held my own. Although he did mind-fuck me at one point and I was forced to reword a statement.

H: What did he say?

J: I explained to him that knowing our origins won't affect how we live tomorrow or next week. I asked him if he would become a murderer tomorrow if he found out today that god truly doesn't exist and he said no.

J: Oh, the mind-fuck thing? Here it is:

J: I started with the basic truism that "snakes can't talk". He said "that isn't true. A snake may be able to talk, other snakes know what they're saying." I said, "Still... it can't talk."

He said, "Do you understand Arabic?"

I said, "No."

He said, "By your logic, because you don't understand what someone speaking Arabic is saying, therefore they're not talking."

J: So I recanted with― humans cannot communicate with snakes to the extent the bible exhibits.

H: Nice save

J: So I told him, "It's okay that I'm atheist because Jesus died on the cross for all sins and therefore I will still hypothetically go to heaven." Then Bizzle whipped out a bible verse that states, in sum, all sins will be forgiven except not having faith in the holy trinity.

H: Damn

J: I didn't reply then, but a thought occurred to me a few days later― if the bible is supposed to be taken completely literal, Deuteronomy 22:13-21 says, "A marriage shall be considered valid only if the wife is a virgin. If the wife is not a virgin, she shall be executed."

H: Checkmate

J: Also, wearing different fabrics is a sin, divorce is a sin, and so is premarital sex, which the majority take part in. 

J: I'm not understanding how I can lead this perfectly wholesome life where I don't hurt others, I don't participate in promiscuous sex, and am a giving person, yet I can't get into heaven for the mere fact that I am atheist, whereas a man who raped and murdered a child becomes "born again Christian" and has the chance to go to heaven. If that's the case, this is not the type of god I want to associate with.

H: Yussssssss

J: I asked my brother why he did believe and he said when he was 8 or 9 he heard my Mexican grandma reciting her Hail Marys and that when he saw how devoted and passionate she was about Jesus, he said there was no way it couldn't be real. 

J: I said― similarly, a Nazi soldier would recite his creed and genuinely believed that what he was standing up for was the truth and that it was right.

He said, "Ya, but the Nazi creed was made and written by man."

H: Please tell me you said "so is the bible"

J: I didn't because he clearly wasn't making that mental connection on his own

J: At one point he said I feel sorry for you

J: And I said― no, no... it is I who feels sorry for you

J: He thought I was mocking him

H: So it ended in a stalemate?

J: I said― no, I'm not. In the time you commit to reading the bible or going to church, you could be devoting that time to biology or chemistry or physics or astronomy. You could be discovering a cure for cancer, figuring out more efficient and ground-breaking ways to put man further into space, or figuring out a legitimate way to filter industrial pollution into clean air. Albert Einstein was an atheist and look at everything he discovered!!!

J: No, it ended with him calling me a bigot and saying that he loves me all the same.

H: That would piss me off even more

J: Hahaha. It didn't because I know that I'm more knowledgeable about what I'm talking about than he is. Shit, I could have a whole argument for my opposition. I know my stuff.

H: You do indeed 

I hope you have a friend that supports you and comforts you like I do.    

About Ambiguity

    Since I'm no longer living with my mom in Colorado, I asked her to shut my cell phone service off. I didn't want to be a burden on her any longer. She had been supporting me and paying endless bills for me for 20 years. It was time to give her a break.
    With that said, the only way I can contact people now is via e-mail, Twitter, or Voxer. Since R.G. only uses Twitter to follow political accounts, Jon Stewart, and Bo Burnham, and probably doesn't even know what Voxer is, I resorted to e-mailing him about my woes. Not being in touch with him is not an option. So I says to him, I says:
"RG,
I'm living with my conservative uncle and when we watch the news together, he's so crass. He knows I'm liberal but will say offensive things about Mr. Obama and the legalization of marijuana in Colorado. Strangely enough, I just bite my tongue so things don't get heated.

My point was to ask you if you still think the ACA is still a good idea. Only 7 million Americans have signed up and my uncle arrogantly points out there are 317 million people living in the United States. I'm getting worried because I know this is a good thing for our poor but with the elections in November, there's a possibility of the Democrats losing the House & just AHHHH!

Also, don't certain news channels kind of lean towards certain sides?

Like CNN and MSNBC and the like? Who goes for who?

aaand I'm out."

Response:

"Msnbc is liberal. Fox News is conservative. The huffington post an the Washington post are liberal. The New York Times is fairly conservative. The Aca as I understand it is for poor people. Wouldn't you want the number of people who have to rely on it to be fairly small? 

Anyway the number will increase more. Twenty million more people and it'll be ten percent of the entire population. Helping others is never a bad thing I think. Keeping them from abusing the system and havin a way for them to repay the assistance they get are good things too. 
I think the house is going to go republican. Then we'll finally get some justice!"

    I've been worrying about the Affordable Care Act, considering everything Mr. Obama does is under the most severe scrutiny I have ever witnessed. Worse than 2007 Britney Spears or a 2013 Lindsay Lohan. My uncle says that businesses have resorted to only hiring people for part-time positions or reducing current employees' hours drastically in order to prevent being accountable for supplying them with healthcare insurance. So when I was hired at Ross: Dress For Less this past month for a part-time position, I was so worried that my uncle's hypothesis was, unfortunately, correct.

   A couple days ago I walked into the break-room at work to relax for my whopping 15-minute break. One of my co-workers was sitting at the only table situated in the center of the room. I sat down in a chair directly in front of her. She's a 32-year-old Puerto Rican and happens to be someone I vibe with. Maybe it's my own Spanish roots, but since the first time we met, I have felt the utmost respect for her.

    I watched her as she stroked her cheek. She began, "Hey, if you want some of this chicken, you can have some. The boss bought it for stock people, but since there's only two of us, you can have some. We're not gonna eat alla dat." I laughed and thanked her for her generosity. Here's this woman who could be happy with her abundance of food, which she deserved, but instead chose to share it with the rest of the crew. I don't know; I feel genuine gratitude for stuff like that.

    "There was supposed to be four of us, but we had so many call-outs today," she continued as she shook her head. "People call-out to work all the time and wonder why they lose hours. I mean, shoot... I can either sit at home and pick my nose for no money, or I can come to work and pick my nose and get paid, you know? I've worked here three years and have 0 call-outs."

   "Dang...." I said in awe. "That's so great." She rubbed her cheek again.

   "Man, I got my wisdom teeth pulled out yesterday. I took some aspirin but it's still tender."

   "Oh yeah, that's the worst," I replied.

   "Yeah, well now I can afford it," she disclosed. "I didn't have any insurance at all but they moved me to full-time and I applied for it in December. It didn't go through until January, though."

   "How long did you go without? If you don't mind me asking..." I pried.

   "Six years," she answered. "I mean I had to pay $50 for a deductible but it's whatever."
    "Do you think that it's worth it?" I asked.
   "Psshhh... yeah!" she exclaimed and then glanced up at the clock. "Well, I gotta get back to WORK." I watched her as she picked up her plate splattered with only remnants of barbecue sauce and threw it in the trash can. She pushed her chair in and slipped out the door.

    I felt something. Something wonderful. Something serendipitous. I went on my break expecting to get off my feet for a few minutes and what I found was a renewed sense of confidence. I was so proud on November 5, 2013, when 18-year-old Ness walked into that voting booth for the first time ever and put a big, fat check mark next to Barack Obama. Now, four months later, there is no decision I could be more satisfied with. 

Growing up, I was a walking statistic:

Single-mother household? Check.

Low-income household? Check.

Of African-American descent? Check.

Prominent alcoholism & addiction on maternal and paternal sides? Check.

    On November 4, 2008, Mr. Obama "won the presidency with 365 electoral votes to 173 received by McCain" (Wikipedia.org). It was a fantastic day, to say the least. What an amazing feat. I remember sitting on the floor of my 6x7 room in my mom's trailer. I was 14 years old and I couldn't take my eyes off my tv (the kind with the VCR attached to it). There was a man out there with the same background as me, overcoming obstacles I would never dare to even approach, let alone conquer.

    It's hard to explain. I see people making racist comments about him, as though he didn't accomplish something they will never even come close to. It's hard for me to watch his every word, his every gesture, his every action considered to be full of false pretension. They don't understand what it's like to be poor and have this beacon of hope that advocates for you; that tries to make policies that pave a way for you to be successful. Because when I look into those brown eyes and see that graying head of his, I am only inspired. Inspired to be a better me. Inspired to reach for the stars. Because day-in and day-out, I watch this man conquer adversity and strive for a more equal America.

About My Atheism

"Suppose that every memory, written word, and piece of technology on earth was destroyed all at once,
leaving humanity to start completely from scratch.

Everything we have come to know about science would eventually be discovered again.

Given a few thousand years, people would figure out chemistry and rediscover all of the same elements we know about now.

People would once again understand biology, including its evolutionary origins.

People would eventually see the motions of other galaxies in the sky and work out the details of the Big Bang.

This is the glorious part about science; it can and would all be replicated.

I can assure you, however, that your story about a talking snake would be gone forever."

The Arboreous Adventure

“It was a sort of ferocious, quiet beauty,

the sort that wouldn't let you admire it.

The sort of beauty that always hurt.” 

― Maggie Stiefvater

“Beauty doesn't have to be about anything.

What's a vase about?

What's a sunset or a flower about?

What, for that matter, is Mozart's Twenty-third Piano Concerto about?” 

― Douglas Adams

The Beginning of a Start

    I was going through a list of words that I feel have adequately described me over the past few years when I decided that hostile would suffice. Dictionary.com says it means "not friendly, warm, or generous". What about defiant, which means "boldly challenging"? I had myself convinced that I was actually a good person there for a minute, but, man, was I a raging lunatic for a good three-years. And then I still questioned why I wasn't invited to parties or gatherings anymore. Do you know the word for "making claims to superior importance"? Arrogance. And no one really likes an arrogant person; unless it's Kanye West, of course.
    I used to consider myself open-minded, but I wasn't. I judged people relentlessly and was constantly throwing insignificant faux paus in their face with hands covered in mud. Like the time I posted a picture on Facebook of a girl who accidentally messed herself when she was drunk. Little did anyone know about a year later I, myself, would get black-out drunk at a party with 40 people in attendance, start a fist fight with a guy, get my cousin jumped, get the cops called, and fall into a barb-wire fence to slash deep gashes into all four of my limbs. Not exactly the definition of classy. When I snapped into an interval of consciousness at one point, my 106-pound friend had my arm around her shoulder and was directing me away from the scene of the crime. It was dark and I could only see the blur of rushing minors everywhere, but what I heard has been ringing in my ears for three months now.
    I overheard this handsome guy who's a year older than me say, "Ya, man, she pulled the same thing at my party" (which can be found here). I actually lost a good friend that night because she deliberately told me: do. not. start. shit. That's all. Out of all the infinite conditions, she gave me a simple one. Yet in my drunken stupor, I did the exact opposite. That's when I discovered I was that person: the obnoxious, sloppy, belligerent drunk. That's not fun. No one wants to be around that person. That's exactly how my dad acts when he gets wasted. It's ironic that sometimes we become exactly what we try so hard to escape.
    When I was a junior in high school, my English teacher started class with: Janessa, come grab this. She was Italian, if that explains anything. You do what you're told. I got off the medicine ball and walked to her desk. When I was a foot in front of her, I caught a whiff of vanilla. She held out a tube of tooth paste and said, "Put a glob on the board." I did what I was told. I made a white, creamy, horizontal line on the white board. I turned to her. She held a popsicle stick out to me.
    "Now put it back in the tube." I looked at the tiny opening and then at the thick streak on the board. I managed to get some of it in, but there was still a visible outline of white residue.
     "You see..." she started in that New York accent of hers. "Sometimes you say impulsive, offensive things to people. And you can say 'sorry' until... until your eyes bleed, and, and even though you say you're sorry, there's always going to be the residual hurt that it was even said. There's no going back from it. Ever."
     Yet here I am, three years later and that has barely sank in. Rapper Drake has a line that goes, "Better late than never, but never late is better."
    I had a best friend once. She was my completely other half. We were the same height, had the same hair color, eye color, and body type. One of us would make a comment and the other would stare in bewilderment because she said the exact fucking thought the other was thinking. It happened all the time. But one unfortunate Saturday night, this party we were at got ratted on. Three cops entered the only door in a garage full of drunk, stoned, wild 17 through 21-year-olds. My best friend dipped and hid behind a dresser in a dark corner. I jumped into the back seat of the SUV parked inside and pretended to be asleep. I didn't fool the po-pos though. They dragged my ass out and slapped a good ol' m.i.p. on me when I blew a zero point nine. Fuck my life. They never found my friend. Some people ran. About eight of us got hemmed up. And I was mad at everyone. Every single one of them— the guilty as well as the innocent. I sent my best friend a Facebook message that said, "If you want to party, that's fine, but I just don't want to associate with you anymore." I was blaming literally everyone except the biggest damn culprit: ME.
    I didn't speak to her for three months. When we reconciled, I ended up living with her over Christmas break, which was a solid three weeks or so. She was a sophomore in high school and I was a freshman in college. Not even two months after that, I wigged again and stopped talking to her because she wouldn't go to a party with me just because her boyfriend didn't want her to go. I even went as far as calling her an "obedient dog". If that's not the lowest of low, I don't know what is.
      After spending 19 years in Coloraska, I decided to fly south to sunny Florida to start a new chapter in this thing we call life. With that said, I turned 20 in January and decided that I don't want to be the intimidating, confrontational Janessa I've been for so long. I texted my ex-bestie and explained how sorry I am for being the world's biggest douche bag. Her boyfriend had her phone at the time but said he would relay my message when she got off work. Shit, I started pouring my heart out to him and apologizing like crazy. He told me what his problem with me was and we both agreed to bury the hatchet. I was ecstatic! I was going to have this balance in my life again. The boyfriend drove to her work and showed her my messages. I looked down at my phone as I received a call from her 15 minutes later.
    "Hey!" I said. There a pause of silence and then I heard an unimpressed, "....hi...."
    More silence
    "So... what's with this? I mean... why now?" she asked in an accusing tone.
    "Oh, uhh, well," I sputtered. "Did you not read the texts? I'm moving in a few weeks and I just didn't want to have, like, bad air back here and stuff, you know?"
    "It's just... last time you stopped talking to me, it took you a few weeks to apologize. This took a year," she pointed out.
  "And, I was thinking about your tweets... And you know I just realized I was being a total psycho and I am just a huge dick," I laughed. Silence.
    "Oh, well, I'm at work. I get off around 9:30ish so maybe we'll talk then," she offered and hung up. An hour later I ended up hanging out with her boyfriend and another mutual friend. He slid into my car and I started, "Uhh, she doesn't really seem interested in making up..."
   "Yaaaaa," he replied. "I don't know. She's weird. I'll try to talk to her for you." I was seriously heart-broken. I'm Janessa. Like, THEE Janessa. I'm funny and outgoing. Why wouldn't someone forgive me??? The girl from the Facebook picture did.
And the guy from the story link? We went on a movie date with our best friends to go see "Catching Fire".
And the girl who I lost over the guy from the story link? We kicked it at that party where I blacked out.
    In the big scheme of life, those are petty offenses. But hurting someone (twice) who you called your sister and who looked up to you? That would be where the tooth paste reference comes into play. Sometimes we say and do shit we just can't take back.
    "So I asked Dustin a couple months ago why no one ever starts shit with him," I announced to three of my guy friends. "It's not fair! I never start shit with people! Well... sometimes I do, but like last June I apologized to Penny—"
   "No, it's because—" my friend Austin started over me.
   "No, last June I apologized to Penny—" I continued in a louder voice.
   "No, no, no. It's because—" Austin yelled.
   "You literally just apologized to me and my girlfriend for starting shit," Grabs laughed.
   "I said sometimes I do. No, but last June I apologized—" I started again.
   "No, Janessa. What you don't understand is: Dustin literally does not start shit with N E ONE," Austin laughed. I was dead quiet. I was so fucking pissed. No but sometimes people I hardly know end up saying stuff about me behind my back, I thought. Deep down in my heart, I knew what he said was the truth, and that's probably why it hit a sore spot. Karma came after me for being a bully to people who didn't deserve it. Dustin literally doesn't start problems so the Universe literally doesn't throw problems back at him.
    So I remain to be in some people's bad graces. Ironically enough, it's the last place I like to be. Because although I radiate confidence, I secretly care about what so many people think about me. I want to be a better person— one that people aren't embarrassed to be associated with. Human beings change one thousand percent from day to day. I hope people believe that I'm not that person I was a yesterday, let alone one year ago.

"There is no sense in punishing your future for the mistakes of your past.

Forgive yourself, grow from it, and then let it go."

Melanie Koulouris