"Cinderella lost her slipper not her virginity. You don't need to have sex to find your prince."

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"My thoughts tend to sound better in books I didn't write, and in songs I didn't sing. Even then, sometimes there is no piece of literature, no song, no work of art that can really explain the way you feel. There is a double edged comfort in knowing that no one really knows."

Stealing - Gavin Degraw

Cause we had a good time
Then it was sorrow
I call it stealing
You call it borrow
So I want my heart back
If you’re not gonna keep it
If you’ve got no uses
Then I’m gonna need it
And someone else
Is gonna need it too

Times like these...

So I was sitting at my computer, thinking, about my life and my past and how I'm graduating college in less than one month. Whenever I pictured my college graduation, besides my parents and my siblings and people like that I always just wanted one person to be there, my grandfather.

I remember when I met him, I was 19 years old and I was home for Christmas break. He happened to be in the states for vacation and he told my father that he wanted to meet us. I was hoping that when I met him that the images I had of him, him being the devil, wouldn't be broken, I wanted to hate him. Instead, he was wonderful, we had such a great time with him and I really started to love him. Then he left.

I haven't seen my grandfather since that day and I haven't heard from him in over a year. We used to stay in touch through email, but those became less frequent as time went on and eventually stopped.

Though I tell myself that I don't care, and most of the time I don't, it's times like these when events that I always imagined him attending come up and I'm left feeling jaded.

I know that regardless of whether my grandfather is there or not, my graduation day is going to be wonderful. I'm going to walk across a stage and accept a degree that I worked very hard for. Then I'm going to look out into the crowd and see the faces of my parents, sibling, friends and professors...all the people that cared about me enough to attend one of the biggest days of my life.

I won't be upset, nor will I search for a reason for why he doesn't love me. Instead, I'll leave all of that pain behind me and open up a new chapter in my life. With graduation comes forgiveness and with that forgiveness comes the realization that I may never see or talk to my grandfather again and that's fine.

I'm fine. I'm going to be successful and happy and I will have done it with the help of those that matter and that's what's important to me. Those that matter will never leave me and will always be there when I need them. That's what family is for.

...

What to write....what to write....what to write.

My life feels like it's coming together so well lately. I'm always optimistic about life and never let myself become down about situations and things like that. Well, recently I will admit that I've been thinking a lot about my future and feeling as if I just didn't have a plan.

I've always had goals. I'm always so focused on the plan and on what I'm going to accomplish next in order to reach my goals. But for once in my life I actually felt like I wasn't sure what I wanted to accomplish next. I felt as if the goal was unclear and things just didn't make sense, then Disney came along and until January at least I felt like I had something solid to hold on to.

Now other things have surfaced that I'm really excited about and I feel like I'm set on a really steady path. I'm so thankful because God has genuinely made things fall into place for me and it's so reassuring.

Colorado, Florida, California, New York, Europe....who knows where my future will take me. Right now I feel like no matter where or what is in my future it's going to be beautiful and challenging and it'll make me into a better person.

Challenge, prepare to be conquered.

Donald Miller

“No, life cannot be understood flat on a page. It has to be lived; a person has to get out of his head, has to fall in love, has to memorize poems, has to jump off bridges into rivers, has to stand in an empty desert and whisper sonnets under his breath... We get one story, you and I, and one story alone. God has established the elements, the setting and the climax and resolution. It would be a crime not to venture out, wouldn't it?"

City of black and white

"This whole city's black and white. Tell me what is your color? Could it be the same as mine?"

The power that music has is so unreal to me. The way it can fill a room and reach into the core of your being, it's so unbelievable.

Easter

For the first time ever in my entire college career I had to stay on campus for a holiday break because I had too much homework. I knew that if I went home I wouldn't of gotten any of my work done so instead I decided to be super mature and stay at school and work on things.

Lucky for me, my parents really missed me I guess and were kind enough to come visit me at my school on Easter. Yesterday was definitely, hands down the best Easter I've ever had. I got to spend the whole day with my parents just hanging out and talking to them and it was so nice, they're so cool.

I'm glad that I was able to spend such quality time with them since I won't be able to once I move. Love them so much.

Rain..

When I was a little girl I remember that right before a storm when the sky was dark and it looked as if the flood gates could open at any minute my mom would give us a proposition.

She would tell us to try and run out to the fence and back to the house before it started to rain. As silly as it sounds we always would do this with our mother. Sometimes she would run with us and other times she would just stand on the back porch and laugh as we tried to touch the fence and get back into the house.

I'm not sure what reminded me of that just now but I sure do miss those days. Feeling so alive with my siblings, the sky dark and the smell of rain lingering heavy in the air and we're just running, not a care in the world.

A lot of people run from storms but when I was younger I ran towards them. I think it played a large part in the way that I live my life now. I love thunderstorms and I love a lot of other things that people don't really like. That may be why my siblings and I are very adventurous and are open to trying and doing new things.

I want to go back to my old house so that I can wait for a thunderstorm and run again. Wind in my hair, the smell of rain in my nose, and my childhood ringing in my ears, it would be so nice. I can't wait.

I'm begging you to be my escape....

Right leg, left leg, one in front of the other a swift movement to help propel you to a destination. Or maybe, movement that takes you around a circular track, you end right where you began and somehow you feel accomplished.

I run. I wouldn't necessarily consider myself a runner, but I run. I do it for myself, for my health, for my legs. I do it to feel alive. There are times where I need an escape from the world around me, so I lace up my shoes and head out the door. Earphones ready to be placed into my ears and my workout playlist set to shuffle.

Being a Christian I've often heard peoples criticism saying that God should be your only escape, but who's to say that God isn't in the gravel I run on and inside the legs I use to move. God gave me running, he said "This girl needs to run." God knew that I'm the kind of person that instantly feels the need to run away from problems but never does. Instead I just go for runs, I clear my head and then I tackle the problem head on.

Running is more than jut exercise for me, it's my sanity. I feel the need to run right now, but it's 11:35pm and it's not an option for me right now. I ran this afternoon and even though the park was filled with people I felt alone. I felt alone and free. I'm often alone, but never lonely. I'm going to run tomorrow after my last class and when I'm done I might start over and go farther,until peace comes over me and I feel free.

.....Goodnight folks.

Watch this.

http://vimeo.com/5131176

Director: Bram Schouw

Without words, we're left to consider whether love and attraction can break through the impasse of human intolerance.

Trayvon Martin

I don't think the Trayvon Martin issue is a black issue that white people should join...instead I think it's a human issue that anyone who cares should join.

That's all I have to say about that for now.

Interracial dating

Yesterday I came across a blog, don't ask me how I got there because I'm still not sure myself, I won't say the name of the blog but it's all about interracial dating. The person that started the blogs goal is to help people to start dating out of their and show them how it's done.

"Ok, this is just weird," I thought to myself and made the mistake of searching google to see if there were more websites like this, unfortunately there are.

Now don't get me wrong I'm all about dating whoever you want, if you like someone then you should definitely go for it. I don't discriminate, if I like you that's all the matters.

But what really grinds my gears is when people make interracial dating into this huge dramatic debacle. Something that you have to be trained to do in order to make sure you do it the right way and how you need to act in order to captivate and attract someone from another race.

In my honest opinion it's all just a bunch of crap. If you have to change the way you act to attract someone, then guess what, they're not the right person for you. People are people, it doesn't matter what color they are on the outside all that matters is that they bleed red.

I just thought that it was so silly to think that people seriously search out advice and become experts at teaching people how to cross racial barriers when dating. I mean seriously if you see someone you like, talk to them it doesn't matter if their black, white, Asian or whatever.

I grew up around so many different types of people that my whole life race has never really been a factor for me, especially not when it comes to who I want to be with. My sister married a white guy, my older brothers married Native American girls and I still have yet to figure out what the heritage is of my other sister in law but the point is, love is love and it sees no color. You don't need an expert to tell you how to go after the guy you want, just do it.

We make the difference...

"As it gets dark in this house of hallways and no corridor leads to the stairs."

Today I felt like I was working towards something bigger than me. I was reminded of the six months I spent in Up With People, the six months of my life so for that I felt most alive.

I choreographed a piece today and it was beautiful. It's a part of my senior project and it's going to be filmed and shown at my event on April 23rd. I'm so nervous for people to see it, I've been called a few times a rebel without a cause because of my involvement with the Kony 2012 movement, I don't care what people think.

My piece is not only an effort for continued awareness about the LRA and what they're doing to children but it's also wishful thinking in a sense on my part. The second half of the piece depicts the child soldiers as having received their freedom and liberty, something that I hope happens by the end of the year.

Hope is such a beautiful thing. It births so many projects and propels people towards common goals. Even when it comes to something like this where, you can't really see how the end is going to come about. I continuously wake up in the morning hoping to read an article saying that Joseph Kony has been captured, but until that day comes I continue to wake up hopeful.

Hope. It's another one of those four letter words that has so much depth to it.

"Oh I'm hopeful, yes I am...hopeful for today."

Neil Gaiman

“She was beautiful, but she was beautiful in the way a forest fire was beautiful.”

Lets forget the world we left on the ground.

Crazy thing called life...

I was just reading over a lot of my old blog posts and it's interesting to see how my focus in life has changed and just how much I've matured in general. One post that I read was really ironic because it said that I was sitting in my friends room listening to John Mayer and that's exactly what I'm doing right now, in the same friends room.

I've grown up so much. Sometimes life reminds me that I'm now 22 years old and I'm not getting any younger. Believe it or not. I'm proud of the person that I'm turning into. I'm not as insecure as I used to be and I've learned how to walk away from things without feeling like I'm losing a part of myself.

I used to have such a hard time letting people go, I couldn't even stand to be away from people who were hurting me. I just had to have people around, I couldn't be alone. Now I've learned that people who love you don't hurt you and if people hurt you then they don't love you. I've learned that the people who are meant to be there will and the people who aren't will eventually fade away.

I've gone from being perpetually annoyed by my parents to realizing that they're advice is so valuable. I've learned that yes my family will always be there for me but it's time for me to start being there for them too. I will say that I haven't exactly mastered this yet but I'm definitely working on it.

I've learned that people will let you down in life but you have to learn how to forgive them so that when you let someone down they'll forgive you. I've learned that i'm not perfect and I never will be and for the first time in my life I'm ok with that.

I've learned that moving away is not only hard for the people that are left behind but also for the person who leaves. Lately, I've been the person that leaves and it never gets easier.

Life goes on and things get easier and you learn how to handle situations. I've learned how to distinguish between words that I should take as a grain of salt and words that I should really listen to and take to heart.

I'm amazed and blown away by this crazy thing called life and how much mine has changed dramatically in the last four years. I'm excited to see how the next four years go.

Over and out. Nik