10 years of Taylor Swift; 10 years of me

I did a post earlier this year about how a person should never feel ashamed of liking what they like. (you can read that here, if you would like.)

This hasn't changed, but this post is meant to explain why you should never make a person feel ashamed or go out of your way to slam someone just because you don't like them. Here is my story.

My dad and I used to listen to a lot of country music, it was kind of our thing. We could name any artist of any song at  the time. (This was before Luke Bryan and Kip Moore and FGL., so way back.)

I remember when we heard Tim McGraw for the first time, I was in 5th grade and dad picked me up from school. (He did that a lot because of bus bullies) Dad had it turned up really loud and he told me, "this girl is only SIXTEEN. Can you believe that? Her name is Taylor Swift." I nodded and sang along because it was a sweet song, but an even sweeter moment.

Not long after this I came home to a cd with a girl with crazy hair on it. Dad had bought Taylor Swift's first album because that moment in the car meant a lot to him too and he wanted more.

Flash forward to 8th grade. Eighth grade was terrible. No longer did I have the safety net of childhood friends and I was plagued with hormones and crushes. Crushes that never seemed to reciprocate. I was awkward and outspoken and those two things aren't cool in junior high. I did have Taryn, though and Taryn and I had Taylor Swift.

We would blast You Belong With me about the crushes who "dated" the wrong girls, we would cry to White Horse and the fact that maybe after all we wouldn't be princesses and we became overwhelmed with hope for our future screaming along to Fearless and Change.

That was the year we went to our first concert alone. That was the year that Taylor Swift greeted us by name backstage. That was the year we were made felt like we mattered to someone's accomplishments.

Speak Now came out when I was 16. I was  finally comfortable in my skin. I felt the magic in the world and I had friends that had become sisters. I fell in love with a "band of thieves in ripped up jeans that got to rule the world" when the San Francisco Giants won the 2010 World Series and sparks flew every time I saw him smile. I would scream each one of those 14 songs every time I got in my new car with my new license.

Suddenly everything changed. I lived by myself in a city where I knew no one but somehow fell in love anyway. It was truly miserable and magical at the same time. I had my heart shattered and torn and shipped away and I would lie on the floor listening to the echoes of my pain in All Too Well and Sad, Beautiful Tragic. I would cry in the shower trying to sing Red. Then suddenly I was okay and it all begun again with a blue eyed boy in the back yard of a corner house and I saw the starlight.

It's hard to say what an moment means to you until you are looking back at it. I can't tell you what 1989 has done for me because it's not done doing it yet. Yeah, I know every word and every chord but still every time I listen through, I feel like I'm hearing it for the first time. Like I'm experiencing something new and wonderful and fantastic every single time. It's still telling my I'm healing, it's still telling me to try new things and it's still telling my to stop taking everything so damn personally.

They say you remember the song that's playing in truly important moments. For me, the majority of these moments are instrumented by songs written and sung by a girl who went through similar things. A girl who was brave enough to share them to the world, despite how critical it is back to her, a girl who was courageous enough to grow and evolve and risk losing it all.

I don't respond to Swift critics often but here is what I have to say: If you think that Taylor writes only about love listen to Tied Together With a Smile, if you think Taylor is selfish, check out Swiftmas and the SU2C song Ronan, if you think Taylor is greedy, read the Apple letter.

You don't have to like people, you don't even have to have a reason. However, you do owe people who are trying, who are working hard, who are giving everything they have the respect they deserve.

Music saves people's lives. The idea that someone understands, saves. people's. lives.

 Taylor Swift called 1989 a rebirth. I call it growing up. I call it impressive as hell. I call it fearless.

Be brave, be wild, be you

2014 was hard. 2014 was a time of misery and mishap and magic and clarity. It was a year of devastating heartbreak and an overwhelming sense of renewal.

It was the year I decided I wanted it all and i would be damned if I didn't get it.

It was the year I became my passion.

Heartbreak is an interesting notion. Letting something go for your own good is way harder than I could have ever imagined. Cutting ties is nearly impossible. But, like most things, I was cured by time, by bad movies, drunken nights with my friends, cheesy novels, and mostly, I was cured by me.

In 2014 I became obsessed with me. Overwhelmingly so.

I dived into the world of Beachbody and then squat jumped right on out of it. (great workouts, total rip off, read about that here) I started a wellness blog and began  my lifelong pilgrimage to love my body.

I fully accepted that I love pop music and can equally jam to Taylor Swift and The Replacements circa 1989.

I fell deeply and happily in love and learned that a good, strong love doesn't have to be messy and terrible and heart-wrenching; it can be sweet and lovely and sunlight.

I found myself working with kindergarteners and at the school paper in journalism and became obsessed with both. Two years into college and I still want to do both forever. I'm definitely not ready to choose.

I had the most beautiful summer at home and became utterly enchanted by North Idaho again.

I brought a puppy into my home when everyone told me not to, when I told me not to. It was my best choice all year.

There is this notion that people my age are selfish. That we can't find love or happiness because we want more that we aren't content and that we complain and don't do. I call bullshit. Be selfish. Be selfless. You can do both in a positive way. 18-25 is the time to take and claw and become someone you will be for the rest of your life. Being selfish isn't the same as being a selfish asshole. As Steve Jobs once said, "Stay hungry, stay foolish" 

2014 was a year that I will look back and just shake my head with a smile and tell my kids, "man, that was rough but boy was it magical."

2014 was a year that I spent going 100 mph and had no idea where I was going. I have no longterm goals. I have right-now goals. For the first time in my life the only think I'm looking forward to, is tomorrow.

So 2015, come what may.

I really fu**ing love Taylor Swift

Get over it.

Dave Grohl, an artist we can all agree is an ultimate rocker, said something a few years back that has really resonated with me lately.

“I don’t believe in guilty pleasures. If you fucking like something, like it. That’s what’s wrong with our generation: that residual punk rock guilt, like, “You’re not supposed to like that. That’s not fucking cool.” Don’t fucking think it’s not cool to like Britney Spears’ “Toxic.” It is cool to like Britney Spears’ “Toxic”! Why the fuck not? Fuck you! That’s who I am, goddamn it! That whole guilty pleasure thing is full of fucking shit.”

-Dave Grohl (The Foo Fighters)

We should never, ever feel guilty about  the things we like (unless of course they are harming or potentially could harm someone)

Liking the Pop top 40 does not make a person less of a music aficionado. 

This brings me back to Taylor Swift. As far as role models go, I'm pretty sure I picked a good one when I was 14. Never been arrested, advocates feminism, had really rad character growth, loves cats more than life; I dig that. 

Somehow she always sang about things that I constantly felt and her music has made me happy. Isn't that the point of great  music? To make you feel something? Don't hate something because it's popular or it's everywhere. More than that don't make someone feel bad because they like it. 

My roommate is a diehard One Direction fan. Over the last year I have watched people make so much fun of her iTunes library. "They aren't even a real band". 

Well, they are on route to be one of the most sold albums this year so someone must think they are good.  I love that she is 1D fan. They are fun and gorgeous and we have so much fun in the car belting out along with "The Best Song Ever" and all their other hits (so. freaking. catchy. Come on, give it a try). 

You don't have to like things. It's okay to hate "All About That Bass" (Except, come on,  it's catchy as hell), it's definitely okay to not be on the Bey Train and no one will hate you for not being a Swifty. 

Just please please please don't comment on other people's positivity towards those things to make them sink back into the pit of guilt. 

Who cares if I'm 19 and I still cry along with One Tree Hill repeats and sing my dear heart out to the Jonas Brothers. Both things rock.

Also, if you like Mumford & Sons and Tegan and Sara before everyone else, thanks for sharing them. They are fantastic artists:)

"New York" State of Mind

There's a song. A chilling, heartbreaking, beautiful song. With the strike of the first chord I can become completely lost in this song. Everything in my head just kind of dissipates and I'm left with tears in my eyes and the lyrics pouring through my mind.

I have only had this song for three years yet when it plays I feel as if I'm getting greeted by an old friend. The distant memories of aching pains, obstacles, dogeared book pages, tea getting too cold fill holes I didn't realize I had within me.

I haven't gotten lost in this song-or any song in a long time. Too long. I haven't gotten lost in much of anything in a long time.

Not a book whose words rip me into pieces

Not a movie that has left me speechless

Not a song which filled my bones and my veins and my heart with hope and tragedy.

I miss that. I starve to lay on my floor, completely overwhelmed with words and stories just pouring out of my body, just listening and pondering and hoping.

A few minutes ago I grabbed my old ipod, a tiny little thing whose keys barely work anymore. I scroll and scroll through the millions of playlists I have created for all my experiences. From Morp 2010 to this one, "your life is good."

If you looked at the song you would wonder about this title. In this playlist are some of the most tragic, unrealistically sad ballads of our time. Nothing has ever made me feel more alive then the compilation of these songs. These songs that make me feel in general.

My life has become an automaton of a lifestyle that is missing so much.

I'm desperately homesick. I'm desperately confused about my life and who I am, and I'm desperately uncomfortable in my own skin.

As I sit here, though, sobbing through five minutes and 39 seconds of New York by Blind Pilot I realize that I have been all of these things before. I'll make it, I always make it. In the meantime 187 songs will constantly save my life; my 11th time through  This Side of Paradise will get me through like it always does, and mindlessly watching Gilmore girls will cure my ales once again.









Also, here are my 11 songs that will save your life

1. Here Comes the Regular- The Replacements
2. New York-Blind Pilot
3. Stand By Me-Ben E. King
4. Far More-The Honorary Title
5. Best I Ever Had-Vertical Horizon
6. Missn' You-Tyler HIlton
7. Feel This-Bethany Joy Lenz
8. Your Gaurdian Angel- Red Jumpsuit Apparatus
9. Tickets For Teasing-Le Wrens
10. For Blue Skies-Strays Don't Sleep
11. Dance So Good-Wakey Wakey

I'm Lost and I'm Starving

Lately I have become obsessed with getting a dog; like truly obsessed. Earlier yesterday I came across a 4 year old lab...who was born blind. As I read and read about Moose the lovable, odds defeating, loving dog, my heart ached. I wanted to give him that forever home, I wanted to be the one that gave him all the hope, all the love, all the opportunity in his life. This was how I was raised; to care for things, to take care of things.

A few years ago, I had a horse. His name was Jet and he was truly my guardian angel. I got him in 5th grade, a time when I had never in my life felt so alone. I was uncomfortable in my own skin, in my atmosphere, within my peers. Jet was a stubborn old race horse that wouldn't let me gallop on him for three years. It wasn't until I put a little girl who had been riding her whole life on him and warned her he wouldn't run for her and he started to run within seconds, that I realized he had been protecting me. He always protected me; a safe haven. As I stop

I don't know if it is that atmosphere is what drives me; but boy does it. I starve to provide hope for someone, for something. I know that I have a purpose; I have people who love me. What I thirst for is beyond that.

I can't put a finger on my specific passion. I think I'm trying to hard to figure it out. All I know is I'm in love with the power humans have for compassion. The capacity to save and to help and to overcome. I wan't so badly to be apart of that. For people to see me and feel inspired to do the things I have accomplished. I want a sense of pride when I see something I changed with my heart and soul.

All of this appears in so many different forms; from teaching to activism to volunteering. From animals to homelessness awareness.

I want to provide what Jet provided me. A home. I know now is not the right time to be that home for a dog. However, if something were to happen, I could be the best home. I believe this because I was raised by two of the most compassionate, caring people and I was taught by them to rise to the occasion and love with all my being.

I don't know what my future holds profession wise. Even if I did tell you, I can probably guess I will change my mind. All I know is I care, and shit do I care a lot. I will fight to the end for what I care about.

I'm that girl. 

“Any time you talk to anyone about something that they love, they’re, like, their most beautiful. It’s a cool gift to get to talk to people about what they love.”

—  Amy Poehler (x)

Feminism and Barbie Dolls (Look, parents, I'm learning stuff)

I took an internship at the Gender and Sexuality Equity Center last year. I hated it. I hated basically every last second of it (of interning). My friends looked at me and laughed saying, oh well that's because you aren't actually a feminist. I actually accepted that for awhile. Until, after the sting of the internship wore off and I found myself again and again attracted to activist videos and Upworthy blog posts and tragic images of women being completely victimized.

Disclaimer: I know I offended some people with my stance on the GSEC. I would like to note that they are a great student organization and as I go into it deeper below, they put on great events and are great people. I encourage everyone to attend an event at the least or even intern! It may be a fit for you! For me, in the office, it wasn't a place I fit well which is OK. Check out their facebook HERE

Today in my genders class we learned about all the different labeled kind of feminists: radicals, separatists, lesbian, lesbian radical, powers. I found myself over and over thinking, "oh yea, that's me for sure." It was then when I realized, just like anything, labels don't matter. I'm allowed to take thoughts, ideals, ideas, morals from anywhere to piece together my beliefs.

This brought me back to GSEC. On paper, I loved everything they stood for--equity over equality, safe havens, Take Back the Night. I loved every event they put on and all the services they offered. I also loved each person in there. Individually they were kind, unique, beautiful, intelligent. Unfortunately, for me personally, I didn't feel like they were attracting me to the cause. I don't think the way to get people to use "partner" over "boyfriend" and "girlfriend" is to make them pay when they slip up. I learn by stories, hearing a person say how much it means to them, being exposed to the adversities of others.

There is essentially no reason for anyone to not identify as a feminist anymore. Feminists don't hate all hate men, they aren't forever bitches. Feminists are people, people who are acting on outrage based on the inequalities of others.

Do you support body confidence? feminist
Women should be allowed to play any sports? feminist
Do you support your fellow women? feminist
Are you a woman? Feminist 

Feminists Myths Busted

You hate men

No, I love men. I love people. I love everything. 

You don't shave

My shaved legs on clean sheets? My simple pleasure

Your a lesbian

Hi, six months with my partner. Billy Vedrin. He is adorable and I love him. 

Your a bitch

I can be saucy, but let's be honest, everyone can. 

Feminists are "butch" or "manly"

Yeah, sure some feminists prefer clothes that aren't dresses, high waisted skirts, and boots and rock what they are comfortable in. Personally, I rock the shit out of heels and skirts. 

Feminists are only pissed off women.

Two-parts. Isn't being pissed off what can fuel action and activism? Also,  anyone who supports liberation, equity, and the eradication of opression can be a feminist. Shout out to all the men who are. Like these names: Thank you, Steve Carroll, Seth Meyers, etc (please watch this only 60 seconds)

Men and women are different. Every person is different, that's why equality is impossible. Equity, however, is achievable and worth fighting for. We must fight for every person's needs to be met, as groups of people, as individuals, as cultures, etc.

Now on to barbies

Recently, I learned about a woman who requested that no one bring Barbies to her daughter's birthday because, for obvious reasons, they were trying to teach her about body positivity and realistic standards. 

When it comes to Barbies I think that they are a toy that should be brought in later on; by the child's choice. One thing is for sure, we have to stop forcing kids into gender roles. Buy her some superheroes, leggos and barbies. Mix up the colors in their rooms. One day if your daughter/son comes up to you and asks for barbies with every pink accessory, hell yes, go for it. Sex and gender are different and your child's gender is up to them and about them, not you. 

When your child does ask you for these toys and you look at the doll with the unrealistic proportions you may worry about what it will teach your child about appearance standards. This is true to an extent. However, Barbies and dolls were incredibly important to my development. I was able to create worlds and imagination and I grew to love fashion. My self confidence issues didn't come from Barbie, she was a piece of plastic who constantly stood on her toes. It was the media. It was photoshopped magazine and TV characters who got remade up between every scene. 

Who is your child most likely to want to copy? The plastic doll he/she chopped all the hair off of or the thin, overly made-up 14 year old on Disney Channel? Giving your child these toys is fine, but comes with the responsibility of telling your child what is healthy and what isn't. Closing your kids in boxes has never, and will never work. 

Anyway, those were my thoughts today. I came across this video today and I LOVE it. 

What Guys Look For In Girls

Do you throw like a girl? Um yes.
Throw Like a Girl

Seclusion and being 85

Since I got home from college I have definitely changed my lifestyle. For one, I have an unrealistic amount of time on my hands. Usually my June is filled with camp and trips and Hoopfest and this year I took a step back from most of that. Another thing is that I stay home quite a bit and have stayed pretty close to home.

Basically my life consists of waking up, working out, working for dad, and then sleep. I genuinely enjoy that. Coming back from such a high energy eight months and being around people who are all in basically the same position as me is really hard. The hardest part being that I made the most incredible connections and friendships that were the most meaningful of my life and I had to leave that.

I have never felt as comfortable and like I fit in as much as I do in Chico. Judgements are all fresh and nobody cares about what your last name is or what your gpa was in high school. I fell in love with  responsibility and freedom and though I struggled I found a home.

Idaho will always be home base; especially in the summer. There is nothing that I love more that the green and the water and my friends from different schools finally on the same page as me and the blueberries of course!

Things aren't as I expected, though. I came back and I truly realized that North Idaho is my temporary home. I don't feel like I can be fully me, like I can spread my wings and I feel like I'm in a totally different world than most the people. That's not California talking; that's 16 years of insecurities finally finding words.

I'm very excited for this summer and spending time with the people who will never waver from my heart. I am, however also so excited to return to college and continue my journey and enjoy being young. Nothing changes in North Idaho but it has a way of speeding up adulthood, and this is the time of my life where I completely am focused on me. My mental health, my appearance (hey, check out my new fitness blog), and who I want to be.

Here's to summertime and here's to not worrying about classes and grades and whether or not two hours of sleep over three days is going to get me  to the weekend.

Now because I'm 85 I'm going to eat dinner and probably go to bed by 9.