Your Boyfriend's Exgirlfriend

Have you ever used Facebook to creep on your ex's new girlfriend or even your boyfriend's exes? I'm guilty of it and I'm sure a lot of you are too. Jake was with his ex for a long time before he met me. She goes to the same school as us and we have some mutual friends. Whenever I see her or a picture of her, I immediately am filled with disgust and anger.

But why?

Is there some unwritten rule that we have to hate each other?

I don't fully understand it. Why do we automatically hate that girl, even if we've never met her? Obviously we have something in common, because at one point, we had similar taste in men. We probably have some other things in common as well. Maybe if we didn't have that one thing in common, we might have even been friends. In fact, we probably would be friends. I'm sure we'd get along great, actually.

I don't know anything about her besides the negative things that Jake has told me and that our mutual friends have told me. I've never heard a positive thing about her. But no girl in her right mind would tell me all these wonderful things about her; it's just not something we do. Girls love drama and gossip and we love rumors. It's just a fact.

But thinking about all of this makes me wonder what would happen if we actually did have a conversation. Would it be filled with rage? Would we act like typical girls and be at each other's throats? That's the first thing that comes to mind. Most girls' first reactions would be ones of anger. But clearly we have things in common. So why can't we be friends, or even just be civil to each other?

I guess the short story is that we don't have to be filled with anger when thinking about awkward situations such as these. Kill 'em with kindness. Be the bigger person and be friendly. Maybe we could start a revolution in girl world.

What it Really Means to Choose Love

Let me start this off by saying that my relationship isn't perfect. We have our many flaws and we may not fight, but we do bicker at times. I am no relationship expert and I don't want to brag about my relationship. But I am happier with Jake than I have ever been with anyone else.

On my Facebook news feed, I see many blog posts and articles about how a marriage or relationship isn't successful because two people fall in love, but how they choose to love each other. Let me explain what I believe the difference between falling in love and choosing to love to be.

Falling in love is the feeling in your heart that tells you that you deeply care about your significant other. It's the feeling of attraction towards that person.

Choosing to love someone is understand that that person has imperfection. It is not looking past them. It is not staying in a relationship that doesn't benefit you because you love that person despite their huge flaws. Choosing to love someone has to be a two-way street. Your significant other must choose to love you too. It's not a difficult task either, it should not make you cry or hurt you.

It's not always an easy road to be with Jake. But our problems are simply circumstantial. They come from outside issues that we can't control and not from personality issues. Yes, he has flaws. But in my eyes, he's as close to perfect as it gets. He tries very hard to be a good person and because of this, I can choose to love him. It's a choice I make every day, but it's a choice I am happy to make.

It Won't Be Like This For Long

I’m just a few months away from embarking on the biggest journey of my life as I know it. I’ll be moving home and living with my parents, not for reasons of laziness but reasons of necessity, and then shortly after that I’ll be starting law school. I don’t know anybody else in my class and I’m leaving behind my boyfriend and best friend in the world. Although he’ll be joining me in less than two years, I know it’s going to a tough two years without him by my side.
However, I don’t want to spend this time in fear of the future. I want to live beautifully.

I want to smile and laugh every day.

I want to dance when it rains on my parade.

I want to spend every moment cherishing my life and the people in it.

Law school is only three years. Before I know it, I’ll be graduating, getting married, and having children. Just because the first day marks a tough and scary time, it doesn’t mean I can’t embrace it. Why can’t I enjoy these three years? After all, I’ll never get them back.

I'll say it...

Girls drive me nuts.

They're catty, rude, and sometimes just downright stupid. But I can't complain because I used to be just like the dumb girls you probably know. That was, until I grew up. And I don't mean "grew up" by turning 22 or starting my senior year of college. I mean I matured. It happened overnight. Seriously. I used to party a lot. I was never a "good girl" in college and I won't lie about it. I drank most nights and I really have no idea how I passed my classes. I made a lot of mistakes. Some of them, I regret. But that's not the point. The point is, I was one of those girls with the jerk boyfriend.

You know, the one who is "in love" with him and can't leave no matter what he does. I'll be honest, there were times I wanted to. There were times I thought about it. God only knows why I didn't just do it, because I really should have. He cheated on me several times for no good reason at all, and the worst part is that I let him. I let him walk all over me. And then one day, it just all fell apart: my fake happy persona, my pretend relationship, my life.
And it took me a long time to get over it. And I mean a LONG time. This is where the mistakes come into play. I made a lot of them. I was a walking disaster. And then something really bad happened. Something I don't really like talking about. But it made me grow up. I spent the whole night crying and wasting perfectly good mascara. The next morning, I woke up and made a promise to myself that I would change for the better.

So I did. I literally grew up overnight. To this day, I don't know how it happened. But I stopped drinking regularly, I stopped acting like I deserved to be treated like a dumb girl, and I started holding my head a little higher. It took me a few months to start believing I deserved better, but eventually something just clicked. And four months later, I returned to the small college town to face my mess and started my senior year of college. I focused on my classes and rarely went out. When I did go out, I went home by myself. And then something amazing happened.

I met the man of my dreams. It's crazy how when you pull yourself together, your life just suddenly starts falling into place. Being in that town was the last place I wanted to be, but all of a sudden, I was happy to be there. I went from the girl with the baggage to the girl with a smile.

So if you're still with me, I'm telling you that you can do it too. If you're that girl with a life like my past and you desperately want to let go, just do it. Jump. I promise it's worth it. It's worth being alone for months and crying yourself to sleep. It's cliché, but they say pain is just weakness leaving the body. I'm pretty sure they're right.

If you're the girl with the crappy boyfriend you just can't seem to lose, I don't want to tell you to dump him, even though I so badly want you to. But I will tell you that feeling alone in a relationship is ten times worse than feeling alone and actually being alone. The relationship that makes you feel alone is the wrong one.

We were never created to be alone. With my whole heart, I believe this. If you've read the Bible at least once in your life, you know that Eve was created from Adam's rib. And she wasn't just created to put up with his crap. Don't believe that joke for a second. She was created to be his companion. And companionship is a two-way street. We were never meant to be alone. You don't have to be. Yes, it's going to suck when you let that relationship go. It's going to hurt. But it's the good kind of hurt. It's the kind of hurt that makes you stronger.

I promise you that there are bigger and better things ahead when you just let go.