This past Wednesday, I celebrated my 19th birthday. My three best friends decided to blindfold me and take me to surprise destinations. Over the past few weeks, they must have been listening to me and my secret desires because they surely knew where to take me. We started the night at boba (which I am obsessed with), and then they rented a private karaoke room where I lived out my girl group dreams. After, they took me to ride a mechanical bull, which has been on my bucket list for years now. I ended night hanging out with some friends, and I'd be lying if I didn't go to sleep until 3AM, but it was so worth it. So here it is, my birthday:
2. Eating healthy is not a diet; it's a lifestyle. And guess what? It is possible. Stop making excuses!
3. Do not apologize for being an independent, badass bitch. Do you girl, and run this world. 4. Take time for yourself. Pamper yourself. Treat yo' self. 5. Sometimes, you can't always expect people to be perfect. Just like you, they make mistakes. 6. Don't be afraid of being fearless. What is the worst that can happen? I almost find it fun to make fun of myself after I've screwed up. 7. Sometimes you'll work your butt off, and it won't pay off. That's okay. 8. In life, there is no destination; it is all a journey. Sometimes you just have to let things happen. 9. Don't wait for Friday. Don't wait for summer. Don't wait to graduate school. Live in the now, especially if you have a fear of time, like myself. 10. Boba almost always fixes everything, almost. 11. Everything happens when you least expect this. This is so incredibly cliche, but I have waaaay to many experiences to prove it true. Sometimes you just have to forget about stuff, and they will happen at their own pace. 12. Being loved or cared for does not only come in the forms of "I love you" and "I care you." (You can read my last lifestyle post on more insight about that.) 13. It doesn't matter if you wear lots of makeup, or no makeup at all. I always thought it was a sin to wear a lot of makeup, especially during my year long period of really bad acne. I stopped wearing make-up because of the whole "I woke up like this" trend, but hell, I love my foundation to much so screw it. 14. Sometimes a good cry is necessary. It doesn't and shouldn't make you feel powerless. It is you being a human. 15. Speak up. Speak up when your feelings were hurt. Speak up when you feel strongly about something. Speak up when you rather have a chocolate cupcake rather than a vanilla cupcake. You have a voice for a reason. 16. In combination with luck, work hard. While you should let things go with the flow in life in order to find your "destiny," you also need to have goals and ambitions in order to help guide you in finding your destiny. 17. Don't be mean to girls. For crying out loud, men are against us and now even our own type is against us? No wonder there is still a battle against equality for both men and women. 18. Remember the little quirks about people. You can't imagine how happy it makes them when you pick up on the things they do. One of my favorite things I like to hear is when people tell me that they thought of me when they saw something and such. 19. Be kind. This is pretty simple. Yesterday was shitty. Nothing was wrong, yet nothing was necessarily right. You know that feeling when you're not alone, yet you feel so incredibly lonely? I guess that is how I was feeling, and for someone who doesn't really like to talk about her immediate feelings with people, I tend to explode at the last minute, often scaring my friends and having them think that I am an absolute nutcase for crying randomly. I like to compare it to a ticking time bomb, and yesterday, I exploded when I was simply just in a room with my friends.
Growing up, I bounced from friend group to friend group, however my role as the "mom" always stayed the same. However, as I got older, I felt taken advantage of for being to nice or caring. I never felt like the love or care was being 100% reciprocated, which is important in a friendship. An incredibly toxic friendship my senior year of high school made me into someone who always felt like the bad guy in any situation, no matter who was at fault. To this day, it is difficult for me to think about myself first and do what is best for me in trying times between friends. I always thought being loved and cared for came in two forms: "I love you." and "I care you." However, I realized yesterday that being loved and cared is beyond all of that. Being loved and cared for is having your roommate tell you that it pains her to see you upset. Being loved and cared for is having one of my very first friends at Chapman recognize the sadness in my face and suggest to go outside for a walk to talk. Being loved and cared for is having my best guy friend play "Shake It Off" by Taylor Swift on the car ride to boba because he knows that song makes me dance. Being loved and cared for is having my two best girl friends make me laugh until I'm falling off their bed. And everything that just listed happened in a span of two hours, and quite honestly, I can't even comprehend how overwhelming that is to me. There are so many unique ways to say you love or care for someone, and last night, I realized that this is the best I've ever had it. I wanted to keep this short and sweet, but I hope it speaks volume and has taught you something. There are people out there who care for you and love you in more ways than you think. Sometimes being loved and cared for is as sample as being asked "Did you have enough to eat today?" or "I'll call you later so we can catch up." I'd be lying if I said that I am not proud of my content lately. Between school and just feeling a bit uninspired, Mode Maven just isn't living up to what I know I can do. I'd also be lying if I said that there weren't moments where I just felt like quitting, but this just isn't an option for me. Mode Maven is like my baby, and when circumstances change, all you have to do is learn from it and grow up.
I have had my tumblr page since September 2013, which isn't to long, but I have been able to accomplish some incredible things since then. I've been given opportunities to style celebrities for a magazine, go on adventures with friends to shoot new content, and most importantly, get to know you guys. The truth of the matter is, I'm not the same person I was in September 2013. I've grown up a lot. My interests have changed. The people in my life has changed. Almost anything and everything I can think of has changed except for Mode Maven. The format has stayed the same- post a new outfit everyday, hope that people will like it, and repeat. Something I loved, and still love, just never found a moment to progress. Today, I have decided to retire Mode Maven's usual routine of posting a photo everyday. I am graduating to something bigger and better. While providing you guys with content everyday was something unique about me, not only myself, but you guys as well, did not always enjoy my slapdash photo of an outfit that I may have worn on a day where I was just like "screw today!!" Instead of posting everyday on my tumblr, I will be posting twice a week on this site with quality photos, stories, and much more. Of course, I will keep my tumblr account activated to keep you guys alert of when I post new content, and as well as to talk to you guys! That is always one of my favorite things. Interacting with you guys is so much fun, and it will never get old to see a new message on my screen when I sign into tumblr. So please, continue to ask away or just say hello! It truly makes my day. I hope you guys are just as excited as I am to start over and change things up. Life happens, circumstances change, and whole lot in between happens, and I finally figured out what has made me unhappy with my blog. So get ready for some spankin' (yeah, I just said spankin') brand new content, and welcome to Mode Maven grows up. You can ask anybody who knows me- I love to dance. At parties. concerts, or even just in my own room, I will dance until my feet fall off. While I will dance with no music (and I actually had to do that this past weekend because the stereo was broken at the party I was at), I much rather have something to dance to. So here it is, a collection of my favorite songs this February. From pump up jams like "Shut Up and Dance" by Walk the Moon to my newest muse, Sam Smith, I have a lot of different selections for different moods.
Today on Mode Maven, I am going to tackle something a bit less glamorous than fashion or make-up. If you have been reading my blog for a while now, you probably already know that I have been vocal in the past about battling an eating disorder since middle school. As opposed to writing a success story, I've usually covered it as a "this will always be a part of me, but that's okay because I have the power to live with it and find happiness." Instead of writing another post on my eating disorder specifically, I decided to dig a little deeper and talking about something that has been extremely important to me this past year: happiness. In high school, I knew I had it good. Sure, I had bad days just like everyone else, but nothing ever made me incredibly unhappy for a long period of time. However, when I look back at it now, I don't think I really found happiness until the summer before college. After dropping some negative people, changing my diet, and doing a bit of traveling, it's like some kind of change had happened, and I suddenly found happiness. How can you even find happiness? It sure as hell isn't some kind of physical object hiding under your bed; it kind of just happened. I think in the end, I was in this state where I didn't even realize that some people and things were making me unhappy because it was like a routine- it had been going on for so long. As soon as I changed things, I had a plethora of realizations. I think that is kind of how most people find happiness. They don't realize they are unhappy, until life kind of happens and breaks things up or brings stuff together after what feels like a lifetime of the same old shit. As I mentioned before, three major things happened to me the summer before college: I dropped negative relationships, starting taking care of my body, and traveled. I can truly say that put together, these three things are what changed my entire view on life and happiness. While this is what made me happy, it can be completely different for you.
The summer before college is always known as one that tests friendships. Will you guys last when you are miles away? Was your friendship only existent because you had to see eachother every day? After realizing that I was in a toxic friendship with someone who made me feel like the bad guy, I found it hard to let go because I simply though I'd feel alone. Lucky for me, I finally had the strengthen to confront this person, and I can still remember the night I did it. I will never forget the smile on my face when I hung up on the phone. Perhaps it wasn't the most regal ways of ending a friendship, but I felt free. I felt like I had gotten rid of someone who hung on to me in order to make me feel inferior. This was one of those decisions that can be attributed to not only my very own judgment, but as well as life's way of just happening. It was a point in my life where I was going to move away from home in a month, and that meant a time for some "summer cleaning." Now here is where I talk about my eating disorder briefly. I developed a eating disorder in middle school, but I remember being as young as seven and thinking that there was something wrong my body. Today, when I think of seven year old Caroline hating herself, I begin to cry. I don't think I will ever be able to get rid of the psychological effects of it, but I think I am a great example of someone who has been able to find happiness despite being mentally sick. Last May, I decided to take control of what seemed to be my worst enemy, food, and turn it into something that I enjoyed. What some people like to call a diet, I made it my lifestyle. I ate extremely clean, and I never felt or looked better in my entire life. It was a daily effort, and instead of making long term goals, I did it day by day. Three weeks before I left for college, I went to London for eight days with my cousin. This was the best week of my entire life. There was something about being away from home yet feeling like you belong that is so incredible. The culture, the nightlife, the people, even the shopping gave me some kind of new understanding of the world. I remember sitting on the street next to the London Eye, and a group of girls asked me if I had chapstick. Unfortunately, I did not yet these four or five girls and I had started a conversation life we had known eachother our entire lives. They were visiting from Israel, and my cousin and I spent a little under two hours talking to these girls we had just met about life. In high school, I was a friendly and open person, but a part of me was always timid. I like to think that my trip to London helped me become more outcoming, and now you can always find me around campus or at a party being incredibly social and craving the need to get to know someone new. I know this has been incredibly long, and if you have read it all, kudos to you. I guess what I'm trying to get at here is that I never really recognized that I wasn't happy. I found the normalities of life were just that- normal. Sitting in my dorm room as I write this, I can truly say that I am the happiest I've ever been. I've been fortunate that life has thrown such great things my way, but I am even more fortunate that I have been able to make decisions on my own that make me happy each day. I think when you put together your very own will power with the works of life, you will be surprised to see what you can do for yourself and happiness. |
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