I've got a perfect body; though sometimes I can forget it

Think about all of the things you go without acknowledging on a day-to-day basis; for me, this can sometimes include the love of family and friends, the great community I live in and the talents and interests I'm blessed with. It sounds like a load of cheesy crap, but it's true. After you feel all warm and fuzzy for realizing just how lucky you are, you wonder why you were even upset or unsatisfied to begin with. It seems like getting all worked up when so many people have it so much worse makes a mockery both of yourself and of your problems.

To tell the truth though, knowing what you're blessed with and what weighs you down doesn't matter, because in that moment you're hurting and everything sucks. There's this passage in The Perks of Being a Wallflower that I think says it best:

And even if somebody else has it much worse, that doesn't really change the fact that you have what you have. Good and bad. Just like what my sister said when I had been in the hospital for a while. She said that she was really worried about going to college, and considering what I was going through, she felt really dumb about it. But I don't know why she would feel dumb. I'd be worried, too. And really, I don't think I have it any better or worse than she does. I don't know. It's just different. Maybe it's good to put things in perspective, but sometimes, I think that the only perspective is to really be there. Like Sam said. Because it's okay to feel things. And be who you are about them.

I think the last part of the passage is the most important: it's okay to feel things, and be who you are about them. Consequentially, it's also what I have the most trouble with. I can be completely upset with a situation one day and the next know that everything will be okay. I wish I could carry around that feeling all the time, but it just doesn't happen that way, and I guess that's okay too. I don't know. I don't understand how I can flip so dramatically from day-to-day, but I guess feeling constant about something is just a process that takes time, just like anything else. I tend to talk to friends about problems, and though I wish I could deal with them on my own, this is the only way that seems to help. And that's okay.

Disclaimer:

I was thinking about my recent blog post today and thought that maybe, my opinion was not wholly expressed. I worry that it sounds as though I think all boyfriends are disposable when one lives in the world of teenagerdom.

Okay, no, that is not what I think at all. What I meant to write about was the trap so many young, impressionable teenage girls fall in when it comes to boys. They settle for a boy they're less than happy with because they need that feeling of being loved and always having someone to talk to. I think, though, that if you're really honest with yourself, you can tell when you're settling and when you're smitten.

The teenage dating mystery, solved.

I understand now why girls want boyfriends.

Why thirteen-year-olds in braces and too-tight Abercrombie hunger for a smelly boy with shaggy hair.

It could be sex pheromones, yes, and it could be hormones, but most of all... it's loneliness.

Think about the culture teen girls are raised in: from a young age they're bombarded with media stars labeled "too fat" or "too skinny." Over time they learn to hate their bodies. It's almost impossible to love what you're given, because everyone else is telling you not to. Magazines that we grow up thinking are cool talk about boyfriends and parties like that's all there is to life.

Outside of the culturosphere, girls are pitted against one another from such a young age that by the time we're older, we're convinced it's nature and not nurture. I just read an email from my 11-year-old neighbor worrying over the rejection she's receiving from her "friends." Pardon my language, because I usually try to state my opinion without swearing, but this is BULLSHIT. Girls have to put up with so much from the world already: sexism, body hate, boy problems, school problems. With all of the problems we face, you think we'd develop a mutual love and understanding for one another. An "I've got your back if you've got mine" sort of thing. A girl "bro code." Instead we backstab our best friends to win a boy, all in the name of what's natural.

So in the emotionally hostile world girls live in, it's pretty obvious why they want a smelly boy boyfriend. To any girl feeling insecure, a boyfriend provides a steady companion, a guaranteed friday-night hangout. A boyfriend will always be there to watch movies with when you don't feel like talking and walk you around Forever 21. A boyfriend will keep you from feeling like a loser, in short, because while you may have multiple friends, you only have one boyfriend (at least, I hope so.)

Furthermore, this is the reason women stay in relationships after they've been abused. It's because of that feeling of being loved, of being accepted. It's because of the constancy having a boyfriend provides in an upside-down world where nothing is predictable. Boyfriends are safe.

To be completely honest, I still feel some of this girl insecurity from time to time, and I'm happy that I haven't succumbed to having a boyfriend in the past five years because I haven't met anyone I want to spend that much time with. At times, it's hard to fight off. In the end, though, I always cherish quality time I spend with myself over time spent bored with friends, or worst of all... time spent on failed relationships.