on soul mates and true love

“Girls are taught a lot of stuff growing up. If a guy punches you he likes you. Never try to trim your own bangs and someday you will meet a wonderful guy and get your very own happy ending. Every movie we see, Every story we’re told implores us to wait for it, the third act twist, the unexpected declaration of love, the exception to the rule. But sometimes we’re so focused on finding our happy ending we don’t learn how to read the signs. How to tell from the ones who want us and the ones who don’t, the ones who will stay and the ones who will leave. And maybe a happy ending doesn’t include a guy, maybe… it’s you, on your own, picking up the pieces and starting over, freeing yourself up for something better in the future. Maybe the happy ending is… just… moving on. Or maybe the happy ending is this, knowing after all the unreturned phone calls, broken-hearts, through the blunders and misread signals, through all the pain and embarrassment you never gave up hope.”

I’m a huge believer in everything happens for a reason and the idea of soul mates.  Four years ago, I met mine.  But it wasn’t as simple as: girl meets boy, girl falls for boy, girl and boy live happily ever after.  It was much more complicated than that.  To the point where we realized that while we are each others soul mates, we may never spend the rest of our lives together.  Wrong time, wrong place.  At least in this life.
In a matter of three short years, we were best friends.  We knew how to make each other laugh, the painful words that would make each other cry and everything in between.  Laughter became memories and along the way, we experienced the good and the bad together.  It was a great relationship, with the exception of not being able to be together.

He moved away last summer to start training for his new job and deep in my heart I knew it would be the last of us. He flew me down to Jacksonville for a weekend and everything seemed so perfect.  So this is what it would be like, I thought to myself, I could get used to this. But boarding that plane back to Philly was the hardest thing I ever had to do.  I had to force the tears from streaming down my face.  Heartache never felt so painful.  That was the last weekend we were us.

The last year has been somewhat of a roller coaster between us.  Just when I was able to “move on” and date someone else, he managed to push his way back into my life.  I kept my distance from him but it ended up backfiring on me in the end.  We emailed our final goodbyes to each other and that was that.

In that time, I decided that I really need to figure out my life.  I knew I had to let him go, despite how painful it was or my selfish opinions.  I needed to learn that live does go on and that I can be much happier without him.  My psychic told me I am confused with my love life.  No truer words have ever been spoken.  Here he was, the love of my life and my best friend, and I let him slip away.  But the most confusing part of it all was that I was trying to hold onto someone and something that I wasn’t able to have.  It’s that whole wanting what you can’t have aspect, I guess. But while I accepted the fact that maybe we’ll never be together, I wasn’t ready to accept the fact that I had once again, lost a best friend.

About a month ago I emailed him, apologizing for the hurtful words I said and the things I did that broke his heart.  I finally reached a point in my own life where I had to accept what I did.  “I miss our friendship, you were my best friend…” was probably the hardest thing to write in that email.  Everything between us has always been so passionate, so meaningful, so… feeling-ful.  This email wasn’t an exception.  It took me weeks to write it – typing out thoughts, but then deleting them because I wasn’t sure I was ready to put myself out there all over again.  I sent it without any expectations of a reply.  About a week and a half later, while I was sitting in the waiting room of the ER for my fractured ankle, my blackberry went off.  There was his email.

Our four-year history has been anything but normal.  I fell in love with a guy who, within a short amount of time, knew me better than myself.  He’s my best friend, for god’s sake.  And now, nearly a year after we crashed and burned, we’re finally on speaking terms again, and I want nothing more than to get that best-friend friendship back, but I know it isn’t going to be that simple.  The truth is, we have a messy and complicated relationship that only makes sense to us … and even now, things are messier than they were a year ago … but forwhatever reason, there’s just something about him and our relationship that makes me hold onto that hope that maybe, just maybe, we’ll have our own happily ever after together.  Forever.

“What if you meet the love of your life, are you supposed to let them pass you by?”

on educating others

FACT:  Human Papallomavirus (HPV) is the most common sexually transmitted disease in the United States.

FACT: In 2008, over 3,700 U.S. women died of cervical cancer — a deadly disease that is 100% preventable.

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Last night I talked to a 25 year old woman who knew practically nothing about HPV and cervical cancer.  She didn’t realize that she should continue getting a Pap, even though she’s engaged and knows her fiance will never cheat.  “But cervical cancer can take years to develop and he could have very well contracted HPV from a girl he slept with prior to you.” She didn’t know what Gardasil was.  And even worse?  She didn’t know the difference between HPV and cervical cancer.  I wanted to slap her across the face cry.

FACT:  An HPV infection can take years or even decades to appear.  Even if you’ve only ever had one partner in your life, you could have been infected by HPV.

It breaks my heard to know that most women are just ignorant towards and uneducated on HPV and cervical cancer.  Even worse, this woman could very well have HPV and not even know it.  Hell, most women out there could have HPV or cervical cancer and not even know it.  Now that’s scary.

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FACT:  Gardasil is the only cervical cancer vaccine that protects against four types of HPV — 2 types that cause 70% of cervical cancer cases and 2 types that cause 90% of genital warts cases.

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There’s big controversy over the Gardasil vaccine recently.  U.S. schools want to mandate that girls 11 and older get vaccinated for HPV and cervical cancer.  Mothers are protesting against this, saying that it isn’t necessary and because the vaccine has dangerous side effects.  Since when did saving your daughters life become unnecessary? As bad as it is to think that your 15 year old daughter could already be sexually active, it would be worse if she was diagnosed with cervical cancer by the time she’s 30. The reasoning behind getting 11 and 12 year old girls get vaccinated is so that the vaccine is already completely in their system by the time they become sexually active later.

GSK has come out with a similar vaccine, Cevarix. And while the FDA hasn’t approved use of it in the States or the UK yet, it’s only a matter of time before it will be.  I can’t wait to see the top two pharmaceutical companies duke it out over a cancer vaccine.   I’m hoping that once Cevarix gets approved here in the States, more girls and young women will get vaccinated.  And maybe more people will support raising awareness for HPV and cervical cancer.

I wish more people knew about this.  I wish more people knew how serious it is.  I wish more people knew how a deadly disease can be completely preventable with proper education, treatment and awareness.  I wish more people cared.

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FACT: 80% of all sexually active women will test positive for HPV by age 50.

It’s a shame there isn’t more awareness and education on HPV and cervical cancer.  But breast and prostate cancer?  It’s all up in your face like a dirty prostitute with syphillis. I wish *Susan G. Komen would take a year off from having stupid races/walks for once.  But I guess that’s what my purpose is, eh.  It starts with awareness and education.  You can’t prevent this from infecting other women if those women (and men) don’t know about it.

So for all you women out there reading this, consider this your educational session on HPV and cervical cancer.  Get tested.  Get PAP’d.  And get vaccined if you are between the ages of 9 and 26 and have not had cervical cancer.

It’s all about being “one less.”

*Susan Komen, if you are reading this, I am kidding really mean it.  Take a break.  You already have enough money to support breast cancer.  How about spreading herpes breast cancer the love, shall we?

wise words:

The truth is painful.  Deep down, nobody wants to hear it, especially when it hits so close to home.  Sometimes we tell the truth because the truth is all we have to give.  Sometimes we tell the truth because we need to say it outloud to hear it ourselves.  And sometimes we tell the truth because we just can’t help ourselves.  Sometimes we tell them because we owe them at least that much.

- Grey's Anatomy -

another post where I quote Grey's Anatomy

We spend our whole lives worrying about the future, planning for the future, trying to predict the future, as if figuring it out will cushion the blow.  But the future is always changing.  The future is the home of our deepest fears and wildest hopes.  But one thing is certain when it finally reveals itself.  The future is never the way we imagined it.

This past weekend was the first time in a very long time when I truly lived in the moment.  It was the first time when I didn’t care what I was doing or who I was with – I just went with the flow of things (and friends) and just did it.  The only thing that mattered was that I was with good people having the time of my life.  One thing is for sure – City Chase was one of the best experiences (and memories) I have of Philadelphia now.
For the longest time I always worried about my future – where I would be, what I would be doing, who I would be sharing it with.  But this past weekend (in between all the craziness of City Chase), I learned that sometimes you have to stop thinking about your future and start living in the moment.

As every new relationship starts to blossom, we tend to get caught up in all of the butterflies and hand-holding and start thinking about the future.  Where is this going? is often the question our minds immediately jump to.  And so we start thinking about all of the possibilities that this new relationship could hold for us – dating turns into exclusivity which turns into moving in together which turns into buying a house together which turns into planning a wedding which turns into planning a future.  That is usually how it happens, right?

For the first time in a long time, I allowed myself to stop thinking about the future of my current relationship and just let it be whatever it is … or whatever it wants to be.  I spend so much time worrying about where the relationship is headed that I forget to take in all of the wonderful feelings of a blossoming relationship.  Does it have any kind of future?  Sure it does.  But I’m not going to rush into it.  I’m not going to let it consume me.  Because the moment I get consumed by it, is the moment it slips away.

We may not be as happy as you always dreamed we would be, but for the first time let’s just allow ourselves to be whatever it is we are and that will be better.

- Garden State -

happiness (for me) is...

…waking up before my alarm goes off and feeling surprisingly refreshed and awake.
…sitting outside in the warm weather with a new(ish) friend and getting to know each other over some cold beers.
…planning road trips to Baltimore, Chicago, and Boston all in the same summer.
…the exciting feeling of said road trips this summer.
…a busy day at work (surprised?)
…butterflies in my stomach.
…being OK with losing a good friend, because I know that it’s not me, it’s them.
…brainstorming ways to re-vamp my blog (because it sucks huge donkey dick right now and I hate it).
…having money in my checking account.
…thinking about a certain boy.
…letting other boys go and actually feeling good about it.
…realizing that certain friends just do not understand the true meaning of friendship.
…realizing how hard I have worked to get where I am at in my life right now.
…believing in: everything happens for a reason, even if no one else does.
…believing that someone could actually, genuinely care about you.
…finding the ability to care about that same person in the same way.
…recovering from a broken heart.
…cooking a delicious meal.
…spending time with good friends, near and far.
…spending quality time with my family when it isn’t over a big holiday.
…planning surprises
…playing soccer and realizing that I worked hard to be this good.
…friends who have the ability to make time for you.
…dinner parties.
…happy hours.
…doing the best I can with what I have.
…feeling needed by someone.
…learning from my mistakes.
…knowing that my parents raise me right.
…knowing that my life isn’t perfect and being perfectly happy with that.