First Love & First Kiss (Oo0ooh JUICY)

Ooh, where to start with this one? 
Well, both of these things were with the same person, 10 years ago (it's actually almost 10 years from what would've been our anniversary had we stayed together, haha! I have a very vivid memory). I dated this guy while I was in middle school for almost 2.5 years. I know that people say that relationships from that age don't count but I think when they last that long they should!

My group of friends in middle school, my ex included. I purposely chose a photo where I wasn't next to him to respect his privacy haha.

Anyway, the guy went by Junior, but he goes by a different nickname now to get away from the stigma that can come from being a "junior." For the sake of this post, that's what I'll refer to him as to respect his privacy. 
He was someone I had classes with since 3rd grade. Before we started dating I didn't really have much of a friendship with him, other than the fact that for school dances we were always paired together because we were both the shortest people in our classes, haha. We had almost all of the same friends but just didn't talk so much. 
Then, one day in 6th grade he had admitted to liking me on the playground then ran away. It wasn't until a few days later that I said I felt the same way on the phone so we decided to be boyfriend/girlfriend right then & there. 
Our first kiss was two months later, and it was the day after the last day of school. We both had gone to school with some friends to help our teachers pack up for the summer & at the top of the second story building of my middle school overlooking our hometown, we kissed. It was cute; it was so sweet & simple & innocent.
I call him my first love because he was the first guy I ever said "I love you" to. He was the first person I ever held hands with, and also my first kiss. He also treated me really well. Our relationship was so pure & innocent, & as I look back on it now I see our love more as a puppy love more than a very emotional, over encompassing, forever type of love. & no it's not a bad thing at all in my eyes. We were just younger and simpler. We never fought, everything was so new with us, and I think for the both of us it was about having someone who cares about you and caring for them back. Nothing else. No ulterior motives. No taking advantage of anyone. We just really cared about each other. 
The best way to describe the relationship was "sweet." I only have fond (but sometimes very embarrassing/cringe-worthy on my end, especially with how I looked) memories with him. 

Us all reunited a few years later at my friend's 18th birthday!

Our breakup was initiated by me, but ended up being mutual in the end. We ended up going to different high schools, and at such a young age it would've been difficult to maintain a long-distance (because we had no cars) relationship. 
We are still friends. We are on good terms. We are friends on Facebook, Instagram & Snapchat. Heck, I even danced with him at a friend's 18th birthday a few years ago! He might even come across this post, haha. So if you're reading this, Junior, I hope that you're cringing & smiling at everything from 10 years ago just as much as I am, haha. 
& I also want to say thank you. Thank you for everything you did for me all those years ago. As cheesy as it sounds, I probably wouldn't have had such an optimistic view on relationships if it weren't for you! I hope you're doing well & having so much fun in your last couple of months of undergrad! Your snapchats are always lit haha. 
Anyway, I'm not sure how to end this post! But whoever is reading this I hope you enjoyed reading it as much as I enjoyed thinking back to it. :)

My First Memory of Life

I'll keep this one short because well, my earliest memory is quite faint, but I still remember it decently well, if I say so myself. 

little baby me: I actually look like a little girl here! (most of my baby pictures make me look like a boy)

I was about 3 years old, maybe. I remember it was an early morning, before 10am for sure. The sun was shining and I remember running up to the screen door of the house that I grew up in. I had heard my uncle, grandma, and parents talking about a new puppy we just got! I remember looking out the screen door and seeing her running around the front yard, playing with my uncle or dad (I can't remember who, all I know is that it was a man). I wanted to play with the dog but I was also scared at the same time.
And that's about it! I wish I could remember more but that's about as vivid as I can get for now. 

5 Issues I Have with Social Media

Social media seems to have taken over our lives, whether or not we want to admit it. We are always posting new statuses on Facebook, testing out new filters on Instagram, and retweeting tweets on Twitter. Social media has done a lot of good by being able to spread the word about different causes and issues so quickly and by giving us access to almost all the information in the world, but there are also tons of things wrong with it as well. 

The first day of my 30 day writing challenge is to talk about the 5 issues I have with social media, and here they are: 
1. Feeling like you need to be on all of them.  Now I know tons of people that limit themselves to just Instagram or Facebook and not on Twitter/Snapchat/Tumblr/LinkedIn, etc (not to mention dating apps if you're single too!). & especially if you are a blogger like I am, there is even MORE pressure to download all social media apps to be accessible to all potential followers, which then causes us to obsess over what we post and how and when (see points 2 & 5). 
2. We literally & figuratively "filter" our lives to be better than what they may really be.  I wrote a post on this two years ago. I had gotten so fed up with everyone around me having seemingly "perfect" relationships while Darell & I had a lot of issues that we were working out. But after talking to a professor about it, she helped me realize that people use social media to post the best of their lives most of the time. If they are fighting with their significant others, they are probably not going to post it, and of course that makes sense. With social media, we try to only show the good parts of our lives, fooling the rest of the world into thinking our worlds are more perfect than we see online. 
3. It allows cowards to troll the internet with pointless or hateful comments. Because people have the ability to be anonymous, they think it's okay to comment on social media posts bullying the original poster or being very insensitive/racist/misogynist with their comments. Those people are cowards because in real life, chances are they would never have even said a thing. 
4. It makes for tons of shallow relationships/"friendships."  Instagram and Facebook, it's so easy to add or follow someone after meeting them once, only to never speak to them ever again. Yet they know all about your pregnancy announcement and you know all about their new dog. You know (what can be) some intimate details of these peoples' lives, except that you don't interact with them at all. What makes it more awkward is if you added this person before you guys formally met (yet you both have seen each other before/have hung out in the same group before) & you have to act like you don't even know them. Or if you see them while you're out but you guys have to ignore each other as if you don't know each other! 
5. We don't fully live in the moment. Whether people openly admit it or not, we think about what we want to post next on social media or we want to see what everyone is up to. Some people may say that they're not like that yet you see them on their phones while in a room full of people. I know that because of my blog in the past I have definitely obsessed over social media & was constantly on it, but have since toned it down quite a bit. I'm trying to have a better balance of using social media but staying aware of what's happening around me. 
Surprisingly, it took me a while to come up with these 5 items, simply because a lot of other things were more specific and fell into one or more of these general categories. Now despite this list of course, I still definitely really like and appreciate social media, but with everything there is going to be some negatives. Do you have any other pet peeves with social media? 

Colour Conference 2016 & My Personal Encounter with God

One of the craziest things about attending Hillsong Church while I'm living in Sydney is the opportunity to be part of a growing movement of people who are so genuine and so passionate about what they do in ministry. And that's not to say that there aren't movements like that back home in America, but it is this movement at Hillsong that is paving the way for so many other churches around the world to be empowered in the cause for Christ. 
One of the biggest movements coming out of Hillsong is empowering women in the church, something that has been discouraged in the past in the Christian community. 

source: hillsong.com

Anyway, so every year, Hillsong hosts a women's conference entitled Colour Conference. It is where women from all ages all over the world come together to be inspired and encouraged by some of the world's greatest speakers to just be a women in Christ. We are reminded of our beauty and value and it's just a great time and place to be to gather with thousands of other women literally from all walks of life. 
I first discovered conference back in 2013 when Hillsong Conference was in LA. I had attended with Darell & little did I know how it would be the first of many seeds planted in my heart and spirit about where I would be today. I'll never forget seeing the flyers for Colour in our seats and me turning to Darell and telling him that I wanted to go and that one day, I'll have the chance. 
Fast forward 2.5 years later and here I am, at Colour Conference IN SYDNEY with a very discounted ticket that I bought only the night before. 
It was really great to be at a conference that really is all about the godly woman. Women are so beautiful and valuable and sometimes in the church, that can be forgotten about. The aesthetics were so beautiful to look at. The speakers were hilarious but all so real in the words they preached. It was such a great atmosphere to be in. 
However, even though everything was AMAZING, my biggest and most powerful takeaway from the whole conference was from day 3. & I'll quote it directly from my journal entry the day after conference: 

"The most powerful takeaway from conference was from yesterday's late morning/early afternoon session with Brooke Fraser, Taya Smith, and a few of the other worship leaders/directors. 
I was so overwhelmed by God's love and goodness that at one point I was sobbing on my knees to the song 'Good Father.' I wasn't completely sure why I was crying at first but all I knew to do at that point was to give praises to our God & King. 
Brooke also gave a beautiful tidbit behind the word 'Abba' that really spoke to me.
She explained that a closer English translation of the word is 'Dada.' & when babies use it to call their dads, all they want is to be close to them, which is how we should be as well. She [then] described how God is with us as a dad..." 
With all of that being said, God had also spoken into my spirit Psalm 3:1-4, which talks about people doubting David but that he is protected by God. It was the perfect comfort to where I was in life at that point, that no matter what happens to me and no matter what people think of me, I am protected and cared for by a God greater than anything on this earth. 
I guess with all of this I am trying to encourage whoever is reading this wherever they're at in their personal journey with God. While I think it would be awesome if every woman gets the chance to attend Colour, I also think more than that I want to say that it is possible to have a crazy and overwhelming encounter with God. 
As someone who grew up in the church, I had always dreamed of having an experience with God so overwhelming that I am brought to my knees, and while I have definitely encountered God before, it was never anything like this. He had never spoken to my heart and soul as clearly as he did here. Just be open to it. 
--------------------------------------- Wow, two posts, two days in a row! I am quite proud of myself considering my blog post track record for the last year or so. But anyway, starting tomorrow I'll be starting a 30 day writing challenge to get myself re-aquainted and to reintroduce myself back into the blogging world, and hopefully after that I can get back to posting some really great content again. Welcome back to my world as I try to live & love it one day at a time. ;)

The Habit of that Sydney Livin'

WOW. It's been about a month & a half since I last wrote. SO MUCH has happened since then & I've had so much I've wanted to write about but just haven't. Let's just say that I'm really enjoying being here, and I've gotten into my own little routine every week. I now have a job, take public transit almost daily, and have made some friends outside of Darell's friends that I now call my own. 
The transition to living here was almost seamless for me, even the public transit, despite almost never taking it back home in California. & although I'm just as paranoid as ever for my safety, Australia is generally safer than LA, no doubt. 
I'm having a hard time writing this post because I'm unsure of whether or not to unload on the last month & a half now or putting it into separate posts, but I'm not sure when's the next time I'll be able to write (my schedule is about to get a ton more busy in the next few weeks). 
But let's see... 

In the last 6 weeks I have:

• Seen an opera at the Sydney Opera House
• Started attending a connect/small group at church (something I haven't been able to do in years)
• Worn colored contacts for the first time as a result from work
• Attended the 20th anniversary of Colour Conference for the very first time, and it changed my life. 

Other than that plus random/lazy days with Darell & our friends, I haven't done too many touristy or crazy adventures simply because I've been focusing on work, finding a job, saving money, etc. 

I'm going to be trying out a writing challenge for the month of April on random topics so hopefully it pushes me to just start writing again. I really miss it, and I really miss being in and apart of the blogging world. If I want to someday work remotely, I'm going to have to get used to working from home. 

Boyfriend Appreciation Post: Thank God for Conflict Resolution

Valentine's Day is definitely over, but that's okay because love should be celebrated every day. I think days like Valentine's Day are meant for us to make sure that we take a step back and really acknowledge the love we do have in our lives, but like what most guys (including Darell) tend to say, it really is only just a day. If you're doing it right, you're appreciating your loved ones every day of the year. 
& that's what this post is about. I just want to take some time to appreciate Darell on a normal day for no other reason than "just because." 
Over the last few months while I transitioned from California to here in Australia, I hit a lot of road blocks, but through it all Darell was my biggest supporter, my biggest cheerleader. He always encouraged me to keep fighting the good fight & that everything would pay off in the end. He comforted me the whole way through and always knew that I could make it happen, one way or another. 
I've talked about my relationship on here in the past, but I don't think I talk enough about the struggles with it. Well, we recently got into a really big fight, and our first major fight since being in Sydney and honestly since before Darell moved too. & as I reflected on the last 5.5 years, I've been thinking about everything we've been through & how far we've come. 
Why do I mention our really recent fight? Well, as he & I were talking about what had happened & were trying to work through it, after we had both calmed down from being very angry and sat down to really talk about the root of the problem, I noticed how he handled himself. 
He was very patient with me, and he let me cry out everything I was feeling (he even let me cry onto his shirt & get stuff all over him haha). He was gentle and hugged me in a way that made me feel protected & safe with him. 
You might read that & think, "Well, he should've been like that to begin with!" or "Was he not like that before?!" or something along those lines. But if you look at our relationship, you have to consider the fact that I was 15 & he was 17 when we first started dating. We've come a longgggggg way since then. 
Because Darell grew up around not very many women other than his mom (he has one other brother plus his dad), it took him a very long time to get used to how to care for and even understand the emotional needs of a woman. He definitely grew up in a guys' house. & because of other factors in our lives at the time (another very long story for another day), he & I had a lot of issues in the beginning of our relationship, especially with the way we communicated with each other. It wasn't healthy the way we handled conflict. 
However, as the years went on we both learned how to communicate better & we are both much better at facing conflict head-on. Sometimes, I think he handles conflict better than I do now, haha. 
All that is to say that I'm thankful for him. Lately, he has definitely been my rock through everything that I've been going through. He's kept me level-headed while still encouraging me to keep pushing forward and having faith. Especially in this season of life that I'm in right now, I don't know what I'd do without him. I'm very thankful every day that God has brought him into my life. 
So Darell, I know you're reading this right now because you're always the first to read my new posts, but I just want to tell you thank you for being you. Thank you for your heart, thank you for your willingness & openness to grow & learn, and thank you for your encouragement. I feel at home when I'm with you. I love you. 

Greetings from Sydney || Initial Thoughts

By the time this post is published, I will be in Sydney! I am currently writing this post on my flight while most people are still sleeping around me, but my flight has no wifi, so you guys will be reading this post while I get settled into my new home.

My life since my last blog post has been all over the place, but I guess I’ve been saying that a lot for the past year.

Life is full of surprises. That is one thing that I have learned from this experience and I don’t think I’ll ever fully get over that fact. Another thing that I’ve learned is that God truly moves all of a sudden. I’ve had a lot of things work out unexpectedly or at the last second, and I can’t think of any other way for it to have worked out the way that it did except God.

I’ve also had to really stand firm in my faith, not just in God, but in myself. As with any big decision, this one has come with opposition, with all of it being from people in my family, people so near & dear to me. I understand their concerns completely, but no matter what I say or how many years I’m away, I don’t think they’ll ever fully understand why I decided to pick up & leave when I did and the way I did.

Yes, I want to explore the world and travel and yes, my boyfriend is already here, but what pushed me over the edge to make this decision is bigger than myself. I have a God that calls people out into the unknown, sometimes asking you to take a step when you can’t see anything in front of you.

& trust me, it’s not easy. Regardless of what is motivating you to move forward, it is never easy to not know everything going into it. But at the same time, isn’t that life? When you go to college, you don’t know exactly how things are going to play out. When you get into a relationship, you also don’t know how things are going to play out. When you move anywhere--whether it's to another country or across the street, you don't know how things are going to play out. With anything in life, you really never know. But I think that is the most terrifying & beautiful part.

Okay, so I didn’t mean for this post to get super cheesy & cliché, but at the time that I’m writing this in my seat (I actually have a whole row to myself haha #winning), it still hasn’t completely hit me yet, so I’m reflecting on the last few weeks. They have been so hard and so emotional for me, but God is so faithful. I’m sitting here looking at my tv screen, and I can’t believe that I’m 4 hours away from Sydney at this point. This is of course different than the last time I was heading there because this isn’t a visit or vacation, this will be my new home! The fact that I bought only a one-way ticket and am not completely sure when I’ll be back in LA completely blows my mind.

Anyway, before I start rambling I will leave this at this. As I start figuring out what my next steps will be here, here is a quote from one of my favorite movies, A Cinderella Story:

“Never let the fear of striking out keep you from playing the game”