After my teacher introduced us to this theory, she asked us, “is love a feeling? Or is it a choice?” We were all a bunch of teenagers. Naturally we said it was a feeling. She said that if we clung to that belief, we’d never have a lasting relationship of any sort.

She made us interview a dozen adults who were or had been married and we asked them about their marriages and why it lasted or why it failed. At the end, I asked every single person if love was an emotion or a choice.

Everybody said that it was a choice. It was a conscious commitment. It was something you choose to make work every day with a person who has chosen the same thing. They all said that at one point in their marriage, the “feeling of love” had vanished or faded and they weren’t happy. They said feelings are always changing and you cannot build something that will last on such a shaky foundation.

The married ones said that when things were bad, they chose to open the communication, chose to identify what broke and how to fix it, and chose to recreate something worth falling in love with.

The divorced ones said they chose to walk away.

Ever since that class, since that project, I never looked at relationships the same way. I understood why arranged marriages were successful. I discovered the difference in feelings and commitments. I’ve never gone for the person who makes my heart flutter or my head spin. I’ve chosen the people who were committed to choosing me, dedicated to finding something to adore even on the ugliest days.

Sometimes you try your damnedest to see the stars in the eyes of someone who no longer treats you well. Who’s become bitter. Who’s chosen to let their love for you become dulled and who doesn’t appreciate you. You try therapy. You try date nights. You try shrugging it off, saying you’ll both grow out of it, it’s a phase, all long term relationships go through this. You try to make it work for both of you.

And sometimes, despite all your efforts, despite choosing to love that person, the relationship just does not work. There’s no sense in staying with someone who makes you unhappy because you’ve told yourself you just aren’t working hard enough on it. If you think that you can just choose to work hard at a failing relationship and that will save it, you will stay in a miserable place so much longer than you should.

Sometimes there is no saving it. Sometimes someone makes you miserable, and it’s okay to walk away. Sometimes there’s someone out there that’s better for you. Sometimes you need to stand on your own two feet for a while and find out who you are. Sometimes choosing to love someone is not the answer.

Unknown (via eowyns)

I know this woman; I’ve been this woman.  I am becoming her again…  Funny how things change when the kids leave the nest…

- Coconut oil or shea butter is great for boob sweat smelliness, since it seals in moisture (it works for me, however if you’re protein sensitive or prone to body acne you might not want to do this)

- Diluted essential oils, natural deodorant or shea butter for thigh chafing. I wouldnt recommend antiperspirant cause aluminum and all that jazz.

- Crop tops? WEAR THEM.

- They want you to ride their face but you’re scared? Do it. They’re grown. They will find a way to breathe.  (I mean, make sure you dont cover both their mouth and nose for safety reasons)

- Afraid to have sex with the lights on? Girl, they knew what they signed up for, flaunt them stretch marks. Guarantee you that your confidence will turn them on even more.

- Double chin troubles? Search for contouring videos on youtube

- Having trouble with confidence? Walk with your shoulders back and your head high, I promise you it works

-Scared to eat in fear of judgment? Please eat, they’re probably not paying you any attention and if they are? Fuck em

- Worried about if you could get away with wearing that? Well I’m telling you that you CAN. 

- Friends who make negative comments about your weight are not your friends !!!!

And last but not least important, ALWAYS remember:

A friend of a friend won a free consultation with Clinton Kelly of What Not To Wear, and she was very excited, because she has a plus-size body, and wanted some tips on how to make the most of her wardrobe in a fashion culture which deliberately puts her body at a disadvantage.

Her first question for him was this: how do celebrities make a plain white t-shirt and a pair of weekend jeans look chic?  She always assumed it was because so many celebrities have, by nature or by design, very slender frames, and because they can afford very expensive clothing.  But when she watched What Not To Wear, she noticed that women of all sizes ended up in cute clothes that really fit their bodies and looked great.  She had tried to apply some guidelines from the show into her own wardrobe, but with only mixed success.  So - what gives?

His answer was that everything you will ever see on a celebrity’s body, including their outfits when they’re out and about and they just get caught by a paparazzo, has been tailored, and the same goes for everything on What Not To Wear.  Jeans, blazers, dresses - everything right down to plain t-shirts and camisoles.  He pointed out that historically, up until the last few generations, the vast majority of people either made their own clothing or had their clothing made by tailors and seamstresses.  You had your clothing made to accommodate the measurements of your individual body, and then you moved the fuck on.  Nothing on the show or in People magazine is off the rack and unaltered.  He said that what they do is ignore the actual size numbers on the tags, find something that fits an individual’s widest place, and then have it completely altered to fit.  That’s how celebrities have jeans that magically fit them all over, and the rest of us chumps can’t ever find a pair that doesn’t gape here or ride up or slouch down or have about four yards of extra fabric here and there.

I knew that having dresses and blazers altered was probably something they were doing, but to me, having alterations done generally means having my jeans hemmed and then simply living with the fact that I will always be adjusting my clothing while I’m wearing it because I have curves from here to ya-ya, some things don’t fit right, and the world is just unfair that way.  I didn’t think that having everything tailored was something that people did. 

It’s so obvious, I can’t believe I didn’t know this.  But no one ever told me.  I was told about bikini season and dieting and targeting your “problem areas” and avoiding horizontal stripes.  No one told me that Jennifer Aniston is out there wearing a bigger size of Ralph Lauren t-shirt and having it altered to fit her.

I sat there after I was told this story, and I really thought about how hard I have worked not to care about the number or the letter on the tag of my clothes, how hard I have tried to just love my body the way it is, and where I’ve succeeded and failed.  I thought about all the times I’ve stood in a fitting room and stared up at the lights and bit my lip so hard it bled, just to keep myself from crying about how nothing fits the way it’s supposed to.  No one told me that it wasn’t supposed to.  I guess I just didn’t know.  I was too busy thinking that I was the one that didn’t fit.

I thought about that, and about all the other girls and women out there whose proportions are “wrong,” who can’t find a good pair of work trousers, who can’t fill a sweater, who feel excluded and freakish and sad and frustrated because they have to go up a size, when really the size doesn’t mean anything and it never, ever did, and this is just another bullshit thing thrown in your path to make you feel shitty about yourself.

I thought about all of that, and then I thought that in elementary school, there should be a class for girls where they sit you down and tell you this stuff before you waste years of your life feeling like someone put you together wrong.

I was asked by someone last week if I could tag them when new chapters are posted.  Is anyone else interested in this??? If you are please message me or reblog this post, don’t just like it :-) lol I love seeing the likes but if you really want to be tagged then I need a little more commitment than the like button :-p

Also, just in case, here are the last two chapters posted:

Professor Evans: Chapter 29

#GirlLove Campaign Challenges You To End Girl-On-Girl Hate

YouTuber Lilly Singh wants women to go further than just turning off negativity; she’s asking us to compliment the women we admire. Using the hashtag #GirlLove, she’s encouraging us to call out other women we think deserve to be praised. 

SEE MORE

Foster care Anne who has been shuffled to houses full of people only taking her in for the check before being taken in by Matthew and Marilla, showing up with her things in a garbage bag instead of a carpet bag with a broken handle.

Anne trying to be happy with the thrift store and handmade clothing Marilla gets her instead of the brand name clothing she very much wants.

Anne breaking a iPad over Gilbert’s head when he pulls on her braid and calls her Carrots.

Anne accidentally getting Diana drunk on Marilla’s homemade and county famous Micro Brew.

Anne trying to bottle dye her hair black and getting a shaggy pixie cut because so little of her hair was salvageable from the sick green color.

Anne and Diana forming a small girl gang. Diana having to hold Anne back from fights. Diana going along with Anne’s schemes. Someone starting a rumor that they are lesbians and Anne getting mad not because she wouldn’t date Diana if she turned out to be into girls, but because people don’t appreciate the value of true friendship these days. 

Gilbert still being in school, despite being older, because he had cancer, and refusing to drop out and get his GED because his dad is a farmer, like most of the families in town, and a high school diploma will help him get better scholarships for school than a GED will. 

Ms. Stacey as the AP teacher and SAT prep teacher. Anne and Gilbert tying for the highest score in the county on the SAT that year.

Aunt Jo liking Anne because she hasn’t had that much fun since the 70′s.

Anne doing The Lady of Shalott for the vine.

Gilbert baiting Anne into a date, but then word gets around from someone (it was totally that gossip Rachel Lynde) that she was seen getting out of his car and appeared to be fixing her clothing. It’s not what it looks like, but after a talk with Marilla (who was scared of a teenage pregnancy and asked Anne if she needed to be put on the pill), she still calls it off.

Anne running a Tumblr covered in aesthetic picsets, emo quotes, and meta of her favorite fictional characters. She has a Wattpad account for her writing.

Anne beating Gilbert for Valedictorian.

Gilbert giving up a local internship for Anne, so she can be close to Marilla after Matthew dies.

I am an ER nurse and this is the best description of this event that I have ever heard. 

 FEMALE HEART ATTACKS 

 I was aware that female heart attacks are different, but this is description is so incredibly visceral that I feel like I have an entire new understanding of what it feels like to be living the symptoms on the inside. Women rarely have the same dramatic symptoms that men have… you know, the sudden stabbing pain in the chest, the cold sweat, grabbing the chest & dropping to the floor the we see in movies. Here is the story of one woman’s experience with a heart attack: 

 "I had a heart attack at about 10:30 PM with NO prior exertion, NO prior emotional trauma that one would suspect might have brought it on. I was sitting all snugly & warm on a cold evening, with my purring cat in my lap, reading an interesting story my friend had sent me, and actually thinking, ‘A-A-h, this is the life, all cozy and warm in my soft, cushy Lazy Boy with my feet propped up. A moment later, I felt that awful sensation of indigestion, when you’ve been in a hurry and grabbed a bite of sandwich and washed it down with a dash of water, and that hurried bite seems to feel like you’ve swallowed a golf ball going down the esophagus in slow motion and it is most uncomfortable. You realize you shouldn’t have gulped it down so fast and needed to chew it more thoroughly and this time drink a glass of water to hasten its progress down to the stomach. This was my initial sensation–the only trouble was that I hadn’t taken a bite of anything since about 5:00 p.m. 

After it seemed to subside, the next sensation was like little squeezing motions that seemed to be racing up my SPINE (hind-sight, it was probably my aorta spasms), gaining speed as they continued racing up and under my sternum (breast bone, where one presses rhythmically when administering CPR). This fascinating process continued on into my throat and branched out into both jaws. ‘AHA!! NOW I stopped puzzling about what was happening – we all have read and/or heard about pain in the jaws being one of the signals of an MI happening, haven’t we? I said aloud to myself and the cat, Dear God, I think I’m having a heart attack! I lowered the foot rest dumping the cat from my lap, started to take a step and fell on the floor instead. I thought to myself, If this is a heart attack, I shouldn’t be walking into the next room where the phone is or anywhere else… but, on the other hand, if I don’t, nobody will know that I need help, and if I wait any longer I may not be able to get up in a moment. 

I pulled myself up with the arms of the chair, walked slowly into the next room and dialed the Paramedics… I told her I thought I was having a heart attack due to the pressure building under the sternum and radiating into my jaws. I didn’t feel hysterical or afraid, just stating the facts. She said she was sending the Paramedics over immediately, asked if the front door was near to me, and if so, to un-bolt the door and then lie down on the floor where they could see me when they came in. I unlocked the door and then laid down on the floor as instructed and lost consciousness, as I don’t remember the medics coming in, their examination, lifting me onto a gurney or getting me into their ambulance, or hearing the call they made to St. Jude ER on the way, but I did briefly awaken when we arrived and saw that the radiologist was already there in his surgical blues and cap, helping the medics pull my stretcher out of the ambulance. He was bending over me asking questions (probably something like ‘Have you taken any medications?’) but I couldn’t make my mind interpret what he was saying, or form an answer, and nodded off again, not waking up until the Cardiologist and partner had already threaded the teeny angiogram balloon up my femoral artery into the aorta and into my heart where they installed 2 side by side stints to hold open my right coronary artery. 

I know it sounds like all my thinking and actions at home must have taken at least 20-30 minutes before calling the paramedics, but actually it took perhaps 4-5 minutes before the call, and both the fire station and St Jude are only minutes away from my home, and my Cardiologist was already to go to the OR in his scrubs and get going on restarting my heart (which had stopped somewhere between my arrival and the procedure) and installing the stents. Why have I written all of this to you with so much detail? Because I want all of you who are so important in my life to know what I learned first hand. 

1. Be aware that something very different is happening in your body, not the usual men’s symptoms but inexplicable things happening (until my sternum and jaws got into the act). It is said that many more women than men die of their first (and last) MI because they didn’t know they were having one and commonly mistake it as indigestion, take some Maalox or other anti-heartburn preparation and go to bed, hoping they’ll feel better in the morning when they wake up… which doesn’t happen. My female friends, your symptoms might not be exactly like mine, so I advise you to call the Paramedics if ANYTHING is unpleasantly happening that you’ve not felt before. It is better to have a 'false alarm’ visitation than to risk your life guessing what it might be! 2. Note that I said 'Call the Paramedics.’ And if you can take an aspirin. Ladies, TIME IS OF THE ESSENCE! Do NOT try to drive yourself to the ER - you are a hazard to others on the road. Do NOT have your panicked husband who will be speeding and looking anxiously at what’s happening with you instead of the road. Do NOT call your doctor – he doesn’t know where you live and if it’s at night you won’t reach him anyway, and if it’s daytime, his assistants (or answering service) will tell you to call the Paramedics. He doesn’t carry the equipment in his car that you need to be saved! The Paramedics do, principally OXYGEN that you need ASAP. Your Dr. will be notified later. 3. Don’t assume it couldn’t be a heart attack because you have a normal cholesterol count. Research has discovered that a cholesterol elevated reading is rarely the cause of an MI (unless it’s unbelievably high and/or accompanied by high blood pressure). MIs are usually caused by long-term stress and inflammation in the body, which dumps all sorts of deadly hormones into your system to sludge things up in there. Pain in the jaw can wake you from a sound sleep. Let’s be careful and be aware. The more we know the better chance we could survive to tell the tale.“

 I didn’t know this back in January 2013 when my Mam suffered a heart attack, but luckily she survived (and I believe it was only because like in the story above, in a speeding ambulance the hospital is maybe 10-12 minutes away from our home.) 

She later described to me that she awoke with an extreme pressure upon her chest, as if someone was sitting on her, while she had pains in the left side of her jaw. And as for aspirin, I was told first hand from the nurse that if my Mam ever had those feelings again and was unable to do it for herself that I should instantly dissolve 3-4 aspirin in a small amount of water while we wait for the ambulance to arrive. 

(P.S: I REALLY CAN’T STRESS ENOUGH THE POINT ON ASPIRIN THOUGH. In situations where you may have to deal with a loved one who is possibly having a heart attack it is obviously an extremely panicking situation, especially if you are (A) young (B) it is the first time having to deal with it or ( C ) you and the loved one are not quite sure if what they are experiencing is the onset of a heart attack. (As in my case it was all three of these.)