nicole

Lets talk about how hard it is to open up to someone about being sad for no reason. Lets talk about how hard it is to explain to your friends and family that you have this heavy feeling in your chest for no reason. Lets talk about how hard it is to understand why you’re having a panic attack while just taking a walk back home. Lets talk about how hard it is to understand your own self and how scary it is to feel like the whole world is falling on your shoulders and you have no idea why .

you might like getting choked but sea turtles don’t so keep your FUCKIN plastic out of the ocean.

It doesn’t happen like that. You don’t just wake up one day and find that everything has worked itself out. You must get out of bed, morning after morning, and make a conscious effort to control the circumstances of that given day. You must learn to handle your issues with grace because you respect what they are attempting to teach you. You must drown your insecurities slowly, one self-realization at a time. You must allow yourself to feel the fear bubbling just beneath your skin but you must never allow it the satisfaction of crippling you; grit your teeth and march on. You see, they never tell you how hard these things will be. This fight to reclaim yourself is not easy or straightforward but, my god, is it necessary. 

In conversation the other day my mom stopped and asked my dad about what percentage of women he thought had experienced sexual harassment. He said about 20-30% maybe. My mom told him that both of us had been harassed multiple times at work (same goes for both of her sisters) and that she had actually been assaulted by a groper on a public bus. I have never seen anyone’s face go slack so quickly before as he realized that literally every woman in his family had experienced this. And while I’m glad he believed us and has changed his view on that subject I still can’t shake the frustration, the anger, that it required being sat down and spoonfed these incidents that we didn’t particularly wanted to relive. This is something that women have been saying for years, but men just never listen. Not even when they’re forced to sit in mandatory harassment in the workplace training seminars.

this post needs more attention

if you see someone being interrupted in a conversation, acknowledge them, don’t let them be pushed to the side. if you see someone lagging behind, walk beside them. if someone is being ignored, take the step to include them. always remind people of their worth. it hurts when it feels like you’re being forgotten. that small gesture can mean a lot.

I don’t want to date. I just want to magically end up in a long-term and emotionally-secure relationship with someone cute