life hands me lemons I make beef stew

With every mistake and experience we learn. But you can't learn if you aren't experiencing. I don't mean book smarts, anyone can have book smarts, read something, retain it and viola that makes you smart. Not. Life is about experiences, and I never realized that before. In high school I had a quote on my binder, "Life isn't measured by the number of breaths we take, but by the moments that take our breath away." I remember I thought it was so cool. How cool would it be to have so many amazing moments that they literally take your breath away? I realize now good and bad moments can take your breath away. But you can get good out of all your experiences.

Seeing someone for who they really are, seeing the pain someone can cause someone else really can take your breath away. Or literally make you sick. Either way it's not a good feeling. Four months and one week ago I was sitting in a strange bedroom in Jackson, NJ feeling happy, excited, nervous, proud, a little sad, but mostly lucky to have the experiences that the following 6-7 months would bring. And now 4 months and 1 week later I sit in a completely different bedroom, one that I've spent a lot of time in the last 4 months in, but yet it's a bedroom I had yet to really look at. But now I see this room as somewhere safe with people who didn't have to do anything for me are standing up for me like they're my own family. And people who swore they would treat me like their own are trying to slander my name and kicked me out of their house to stand on a dark street at 1am. It's funny how the truth always comes out and peoples true personalities get shown.

If I could redo the last 4 months I would do them a little differently. I wouldn't have gone back home in April, I would have tried to save more money, I would have gone to all the baseball games I wanted to, I would have gone to Maryland and visited J.Lowe and most of all I would have looked for another job sooner. There's nothing I can do that will change what has happened, what's been done is done, what's been said has been said and there's no going back from here. Only moving forward. I wouldn't have changed moving out here though. It's been an amazing experience regardless and I probably wouldn't trade it for anything. I made a mistake and I learned. I grew up a lot by being here and I figured out somethings about myself and the world that I didn't know 4 months and 1 week ago.

I've always been told I had a good judge of character, but I am starting to doubt that with everything I have. I think I have a good enough sense of people in the sense that they won't cause harm to me, physically, or they won't murder me. But I suppose I don't see the lies or dishonesty very well. It was very enlightening to see bi-polar aspects in someone on a day to day basis but then see them in a minute to minute instance. Or maybe she's just a really confused actress. Having someone stand before me, crying, begging me to stay because through everything she still adores me and knows her children do too, and then in the next sentence she's standing there with a smile telling me I'm sick spouting vicious hurtful things to me really shows me who she is.

I was asked in the middle of all this how I always get involved in some sort of drama. And honestly, I don't know. I think people like me enough, and usually most people do. I usually don't have problems with people that come into my life but there have definitely been some trying relationships in the last couple of years. I feel like the people that always say they hate drama and have no room for it are the people that actually feed off of it and live for it, so I'm just going to put this out there now universe, I LOVE drama and want it in my life everyday. [I hope you can see the sarcasm.] The person I have lived with and worked for, in the last 4 months told me right up front that she hates drama and doesn't have time for it, but she's the biggest gossip and loves to over react about everything. She also starts off most sentences with "I'm not judging them, but..." with a really rude judgement about someone's lifestyle following. That's what I don't understand. If you're going to judge someone at least have the decency to own your judgements. I judge people by their shoes all the time. We all make little judgements every single day but most of us can own it because we know they're silly, trivial things that make us laugh or cringe for a brief moment. I'm not judging people because they are raising their kids differently than other parents, or going through divorce, or where they live, or how much money they have, or their parents lifestyles.

But after two long days of back and forth drama between people who had no business being involved in anything that was going on, I have my stuff, my suitcases are packed, I'm staying with a friend and his amazing family and I'm ready for the next learning experience. Whatever that means anymore.