'F' Is For Friends Who Do Stuff Together

So in light of recent events I have been doing a lot of thinking about friends. Tomorrow a really good friend I met here in Italy is leaving me to go back home to Iceland, and I am really freaking upset about it. I am not one who trusts or makes good friends easily so when I met Lilja it was a surprise for me that I felt so comfortable so fast and that we became so close so fast. I just want to publicly thank her for putting up with my crazy emotional boy crazy nerdy and certifiably insane personality. It means a lot and I am going to have to make a trip to Iceland soon!

Throughout my lifetime I have had a handful of people come into my life that I can genuinely call friends. People who have never made me feel like crap about myself and have been there for me at my best and my worst times, people who have seen me looking like I just crawled out of a grave and haven't run away. Those are the people I consider most important to me.

When you're young you think that the more friends you have the better off you are but no, that is not the case. I had a ton of friends in elementary school and middle school and even in the beginning of high school but that didn't matter, the ones that mattered were the couple of people I kept close to me and knew I could trust completely. Those types of people are few and far between so keep them close if you are able to.

I won't name names because I will inevitably forget someone but I want I want to say thank you to those people I have been able to consider my 'best friends'. Y'all mean the world to me and without you guys I would have been a lot worse of than I was. Thank you for getting me through all my trials and suffering and for being brutally honest with me when I needed to hear it.

I might joke and say that I 'hate everyone' and while that is semi true, I could never hate the small amount of people in my life that have affected me so much. Who mean so much to me and who I will always consider the most important people in my life. This is kind of a sappy post but I want to let the world know I have a handful of amazing friends and I would never trade them in, ever.

Having good people in your life is very important, keep the people who uplift you around and say goodbye to the haters!

 Until next time!

<3

Rachel

Pretending Vs. Being

This one will be a little philosophical, well as philosophical as I am capable of being so bear with me friends! You might look at the title and think 'what the heck is she going to ramble on about this time?' Well, this is something I have struggled with throughout my life and, have just within the past year or so figured out the solution.

Has anyone heard the term 'fake it till you make it'? I have, a lot actually, all my life. Not from my parents or anything but from teachers at school. Fake like you know what you're doing until you actually do know what you're doing. Sounds easy, right? It's really not though, it's hard to 'fake it' sometimes when all you want to do is show the world who you really are and how incapable you are. Personally I have tried this on a lot of things, I faked that I knew how to sight read music until I was getting perfect scores at auditions. I faked being able to play violin at a high school level sophomore year in order to be in the orchestra, turns out I was fairly decent and could pull it off. The biggest thing I did? Faked my emotions. I pretended that I didn't care what people thought, I pretended that the little things didn't tear me apart when really, they did.

From my previous post 'My Favourite Quote' y'all know that I am Bipolar but growing up I didn't know that. I didn't know there was a reason why I was so ridiculously emotional, why I couldn't seem to let the insignificant things pass. I have had 'friends' in the past who all they did was wreak havoc on my self-esteem, telling me I wasn't pretty enough, that my voice wasn't as good as theirs, that I probably wasn't going to do much in life and that, that is hard to hear.

I have since excluded those people from my life as best as I could. I don't need that in my life, no one does. None of your friends should feel the need to belittle you to make themselves feel better. Now that I'm older I recognize that those people obviously had their own personal battles they were going through and, were taking it out on me to make themselves feel better. I'm not saying it's right but now that I recognize this I don't have the same amount of hate for them.

Hating someone is poisonous, a poison that does harm to no one else but yourself. It is like a disease, I have spent a lot of my life harbouring anger and horrid feelings for a handful of people in my life and it is taxing. It doesn't effect them at all, but did It effect me? Yes, horribly so. I was stressed out all the time, it was causing other things in my life to go haywire and it was all because I couldn't make myself forgive people who had wronged me.

About a year or so I went to my mom and told her that I couldn't deal with hating these people anymore and made a decision to just let it all go. Once I did I felt so much better, I could almost physically feel the weight being lifted off of my shoulders. This was the start of a new me, a happy me.

This is where I get to the 'being' bit. For so long I was pretending that I was okay, that I was happy but I never was. I successfully fooled a lot of people that were in my life and I thought this is what I was supposed to do. I was faking it until I finally made it to the end of the rainbow, my 'pot of gold' though wasn't money, it was happiness. Being happy is so much better than pretending, I won't lie and say I'm happy all the time because I am most certainly not. I still get angry, and frustrated and overwhelmed with feelings I can't explain but, as a whole I am in a much better place. I have let go of my anger towards the people who have wronged me and I can finally feel content.

This battle of staying happy and not reverting back to pretending is definitely and uphill one. As I've said before I am not one for physical or mental exertion but this is something that is definitely worth it. If you have ever felt the way that I just rambled on a bit then think about it, is it worth it? I can guarantee that letting stupid and petty drama go and focusing on yourself and how you feel, not what others think, is liberating. Once you love yourself everything else will fall into place!

Sorry for another rambly/preachy post but, sometimes I just want to say things and have nowhere else to get them out! Until next time!

<3

Rachel

I Hate Public Transport.

You know what I'm sick of hearing? How great European public transportation is and how The United States should learn some things from it. No. America stay the way you are because the trains here blow. So hard. The buses are gross too, maybe it's just Italy but no. I can't even deal with the stupidness I dealt with yesterday.

On Saturday I took the train to a beautiful place to visit a friend, I had little to no trouble getting there and minus the fact that it took for-freaking-ever I made it there on time. I had a good time with my friend and blah blah blah it was then time to go home. He took me to the train station and I got on my first train, I got to my first change and the train that pulled up wasn't the usual one which I thought was weird but went with it anyways. The train guy proceeded to tell me since my normal train as striking I had to pay extra to get on this train to take me where I needed to be. Really? I have to pay extra because your coworkers are striking and I can't catch the normal train? How in the world is that my fault? Regardless I had to get where I needed to go so I paid the man and took a seat. I then got to my second change over and that's when all the ridiculousness ensued.

When I got there I couldn't find anyone to help me figure out what train I needed to take so, I ended up going to customer service. They were able to inform me (soooo kindly) that my train was cancelled and, I'd have to buy a new ticket for a different train to take me the long way around. So that annoyed me because I am not made of money and again, how is it my fault that the train workers are striking? I bought a ticket you should get me to my intended freaking destination! I don't know if it was the exhaustion I was experiencing or just the face that I can be a bit of a hot head but, I really felt the need to punch an Italian at this point. I begrudgingly bought another ticket and waited an hour and a half for this train to arrive. TWO minutes before the trains scheduled arrival the intercom informed us the train had been cancelled. I then found other Au Pairs who were having my same issue (and they spoke Italian) so we banded together to figure out what to do. We went back to customer 'service' and the man delightfully informed me that I was stupid for trying to take a train today when I should have known they were striking and that there was no possible way for me to get back to Mantova.

literally my face as she was kicking me out

Real fast I want to interject and tell you what happened at this station in one of their stores when I went to buy credit for my phone. I went into the store, kindly asked the old man working to buy one of the cards with the credit and gave him my money, and he gave me the card. The lady working there had been talking to me in English so I thought I would ask her to help me get the credit on my phone (all the instructions are in Italian). As soon as she realized I didn't speak Italian she did this (I kid you not) she took the card out of my hand, handed me my money and told me to get out of her store. Uhm...excuse me? If you didn't want to help, that's fine I would just find someone who could but I kind of freaking need credit! I was so shocked...like, excuse me lady but there is no need to be an epic biotch!

I then used one of the girls phones because mine was still out of credit and called my host family to figure something out, as I was quite far from home. Ugo told me that if I could get to Verona it would be easier to retrieve me so I tried to see if I could go to Verona. I absolutely refused to buy another ticket though so I waited for the train to Verona and luckily I was able to get on it! I was just waiting for the train man to come check my ticket that didn't exist so I could give him a piece of my mind. I was so pissed, sooooo pissed. Lucky for whoever that man would have been, he never got to meet me so I didn't get to give him a piece of my very angry mind.

My next issue would be finding a train to Mantova once I got to Verona. I happen to be texting Lilja who was also trying to get back to Mantova from Verona so I was able to find out before I even got there that the train was cancelled (surprise surprise). Luckily her family is here from Iceland and after a freaking long day of travel (I left my friend's at 1:24 and got home at 11:30) I was able to get to Levata and Ugo was able to pick me up.

I am not happy and this isn't the first time that the train workers have gone on strike while I've been here but, it is the first time it has effected me so much. Honestly, if I could say anything to the workers is why go on strike for like, a day at a time every once in awhile? If you want to strike for whatever cause it is you think you have, strike until you get what you freaking want.

Ugh. Anywho that was my weekend and it really makes me miss driving. I would like to point out other than the train factor I had a VERY good weekend! That's all for this rant post though, until next time!
<3
Rachel

I Want to Ride my Bicycle

 A week ago I did something insane, I went on a bike ride/tour thing of the area I live in. This is something the entire community partakes in, and for people in shape it is probably a very good time. I'm not saying I hated it, I didn't but, my body hated me for the next few days! The actual event had us travel about 12 km (7.4 mi) but, when you add in travel distance to and from the house to get to the event I biked and walked about 20 km (12.4 mi). Anyone who knows me well knows I do NOT like physical activity, or the outdoors, or bugs. I can honestly say I hadn't ridden a bike since I was about 10 years old, I am now almost 22, that is 12 years guys, 12 years not on a bike. Now this bike adventure wasn't the first time I'd been on one since I got here though, so at least I wasn't completely refreshing my bike riding skills on this long freaking ride.

The ride was actually quite a beautiful and scenic ride, it had us travel through the country areas, farm lands and next to the Po River. There were 8 stops and at each one there were activities and food and drinks, it was really cool! I got to do archery which was really fun, I feel like with some practice I could be the next Katniss ;). At one of the stops (the one with the Archery) they gave us these amazing sausage and onion sandwiches. Guys, they were so good. Literally to die for. Eating was a big mistake though, a BIG one.

As you could probably assume I am not in good shape, at all. I should not have eaten food at every stop while I was exercising at a rate my body is in no way used to. All that food felt like it was going to make itself known to the world again in a way that was not as pleasant as it was when it was going into my stomach. I had to stop a lot and take a breather and bless Lilja, she stuck with me the whole time even when I told her I would be fine alone. At one of the stops the guy handing out water in cups saw I was about to die so he just handed me the entire massive 1 liter bottle of water, he was my saviour of the day. Thank you Italian man, I might be in love with you now.

So what have I learned from this you ask? Rachel needs to exercise more. I may be losing weight but that it no way means I am in shape haha. Anyways, until next time friends!

<3
Rachel

 

(Photo Credit to Lilja)

I Wanna Hold Your Hand

Today I am inspired by an 11 year old close to my heart who is having trouble with love. As I write that I can't help but giggle, I want to be sympathetic to his plight, I really do but as I've gotten older, I have realized how ridiculous it is to be 'dating' or 'in love' at the age of 11. I guess I really should be more sympathetic because I went through similar situations when I was that age, I was madly in love with....well I won't mention names on the off chance that someone who knows him reads this haha, but regardless I was 'in love' with someone I didn't even actually speak to face to face for 7 months of our relationship. Seven months. All we did was email back and forth, when we had classes together we would like, smile and stuff and everyone knew we were together but we never actually spoke to each other. Why is that a thing? I cringe now when I think about it, we didn't actually speak until his birthday, and then we 'broke up' right after that. My second 'boyfriend' (who is still a cool guy) and I got so far as holding hands *dramatic gasp*, I was advanced for my age. I really can't even talk about that anymore, it was ridiculous. (Fun Fact, I have a note from an 'ex' asking me if I still had feelings for another 'ex' and it was okay if I did but he would be heart broken. This specific guy also stole my first kiss with a sneak attack, it was horrible and his lips were chapped. Not okay. Oh the drama of middle school love!)

I guess the point I'm getting at is, even though I hated this rule growing up, there really isn't a point in dating before you're 16. Maybe a little earlier than 16, because let's be honest I'm a rule breaker ;) but really, there is no point. I was so overly stressed out in middle school because of a stupid boy (no offense to said boy, I'm sure you're a lovely person now) and I let it get to me in ways that no 11-13 year old should. We really aren't equipped at that age to deal with 'relationships' no matter how mature we think we are, we aren't. Heck, I know people my age who aren't mature enough to deal with them haha. That being said, hello males of the world I am single and ready to date ;P.

This is hard for me to write because this is showing myself and probably my mom that I have matured a bit. I don't want to mature because that means becoming an adult :'( haha. Even though I hate rules I do feel like I will be implementing the 'no dating until you're 16' thing when I'm a mom, except I'll probably just say until high school. I love how I'm planning my parenting and I'm not even dating anyone, let alone thinking about having a family anytime soon haha.

Moral of today's post-

Dating in your preteen years is stupid and not worth the drama. 

As a special treat on flashback friday. 7th grade Rachel #sexy

Until next time!
<3
Rachel