I support People Water

Living in a generation full of dissolvable love, where friendship, family and intimate lovers only seem to last until tested, it is arduous to find anything authentic.

For many of us in this era, we are searching for bona fide meaning for our existence. The day to day monotony of simply living has become insufficient. We are searching for something, anything, to aid in finding value in our lives.

As I have felt this way in my own life, I have discovered the key to finding security in happiness and love, today, comes in the shape of giving back.

In a world where cruelty, wars, starvation and illness are growing… it is hard to sit here healthy and not do something. But with a failing economy, where work and stress consumer our lives…. Who has time to spare?

That’s why I fully support People Water, a for profit business… doing SOMETHING and making giving back easy.

People Water’s initiative is to lessen the global water crisis. If you don’t know that is, shame on you.

Most of us have clean water. Not everyone else does. Everytime you take a sip of People Water, you are sharing your access to clean water with someone who doesn’t.

With each purchase of People Water, the same amount is given to someone in need. How simple is that?

I am a firm believer in a sole individual being able to contribute change and with something like the Drop for Drop initiative, creating your personal advocacy for change is only a sip away.

Drink People Water. Buy  it here.

Let it Go

The new balloon theme may seem a little childish, but it has significance. This post is going to be a raw version of my emotions tied to a now past relationship; something I don’t usually get the courage to share. For the past four years, it has been absolutely no secret I have invested a large portion of my energy into a relationship. Sometimes that energy was spent trying to win him back, sometimes it was trying to get over him, sometimes it was trying to make us work and other times it was effortless. Whether together or not, for four years, my life has been consumed by thoughts of him. I have constantly struggled with the thought of not ending up with him at the end of it all. You know, like that first love you have, that you never really can get over. I have fought with my mind for four years. Yes, he’s the one.. No he’s not. As a strong believer in Faith, I prayed about it over and over. I ignored God’s answer time and time again, trying to keep my foot in the door  to leave our relationship propped opened even if God wanted it closed. My stubbornness is solely to blame for my misery.  Yet, God knew that until this past weekend, I wouldn’t let it go. 

You can only fight for something and someone for so long. Your heart can only ignore the pain for so long. Hope has an expiration date. This weekend my hope expired. I made him tell me the words I knew all along. I am sure it can be inferred what I needed to hear. And since then clarity replaced my wonder.

I could sit here and tell you that I regret the relationship, he is a bad person, I hate him, etc…(all things I’ve proclaimed before), but I don’t. Our relationship has gotten me to where I am today. Why would I ever regret that? This four years of back and forth was apart of the path that leads me to where I am meant to be.

I guess that is how you kind of know you are finally letting it go. When you do not find yourself with ill feelings…. He will always have a part of my heart, always. But it is kind of like releasing a balloon into the sky. A small part of you wants to keep it.  For some odd reason, you are hesitant to release it . You debate about keeping it as a memorandum of your special occasion (birthday, wedding, baby shower, etc), but you know if you do, it is eventually going to deflate and you will eventually have to throw it away. As you realize this, you get the sudden urge to let it go. You release to balloon into the sky. You stand there and watch it float away, becoming smaller, until you can’t seen it any longer. Every once in a while, if the event was important enough, you remember that balloon and letting it go…You wonder where it is at, where it ended up and if anyone ever found it.

That is easily a comparison to this past weekend. I released the balloon and now am watching him disappear into the distance. I won’t always see him and I know every once in a while, that moment will cross my mind. I will wonder where he is at, where he ended up and if anyone ever found him.

And so, now you know the reasoning behind my new theme and probably more information about my past relationship than you care to know.

xo,

Shae

Young, single, healthy and the ultimate definition of free

I pulled this from Tuesdays with Morrie, by Mitch Albom. It is a quote that has stuck with me and rather relative to this post.

I have become spoiled by the world’s events falling in my favor. During my undergrad here at West Virginia University the only thing that has ever held me back from accomplishing my own goals was myself. Perhaps that is the biggest reason I am finding the GRE so ruthless. I could rant how I know this exam does not attest to my competence for grad school, but that’s not what this writing is for. It is for a much greater realization this exam has brought me to.

For many students, the only thing that holds them back is themselves.. that is, until you are about to graduate. We students become narcissists, thinking we are the best of the best. We are failed to prepped and compared to students across the country in any aspect of our undergraduate careers. We become so nestled in the schools (i.e. business schools, journalism schools, nursing schools) within our colleges and universities that we fail to remember there are thousands of students as successful as ourselves all over the country. We forget that although we stand out at our university, somewhere someone else is just as up to par as we are. That is, until we face something like the GRE or the job application process as we are about to graduate.

That is where we get our first bitter taste of ‘the real-world’. My most recent nibbling on that taste has proven just how sugar-coated college has been. There is no spontaneity. For four-years, I have had a plan. I have known my next move, the steps needed to get there and have succeeded with little or no need for a back-up plan.

And now, as I realize that the GRE is in fact going to hold me back from furthering my education, nerves override my own zen.

As I have had to face this reality I begin to question why I wanted to go to grad school in the first place. Most often my answer is to “put off the real world.” I apprehended that my own fear of failure and not finding a job is, in fact, one of the main reasons I was considering grad school in the first place. 

For the past couple of months, the stress of the GRE and grad school applications have extinguished any trace of happiness. But lately as I have reweighed my options, I have become more excited by the uncertainty. I refuse to let an exam hold me back from happiness or success. It doesn’t define me as a person or the possibilities in my career as a public relations practioner.

 Now, my life is focused on remaining open to the idea of opportunity and letting life take me where it wants to take me. This is a huge step for me. I have always avoided the fear of the unknown, but now I have to find excitement in it.

And maybe this is God’s own doing. He knows how dependent I have become on me taking control of my own life. Maybe this is his way of making me sit back and see where He wants me to be.

Regardless, there is only one way for me to look at this point in my life… I’m young, single, healthy and the ultimate definition of free. It’s just me and my degree taking on the world and learning what it really means to have faith in the Man up above.

-Shae

Making Strides for a Cure 5k Run/Walk & Flashmob!

I have had a ton of awesome moments happen during my three (going on four) years of college. But, not too many compare to yesterday. I got the opportunity to participate in a flashmob filled with breast cancer survivors. To see these older women celebrate their survival by dancing was awesome! They didn’t care if they missed a beat or even if people were filming them flinging their arms all over the place. They were happy, healthy and alive. I even watched an 80 year-old-woman participate (seen in the front row with gray hair). I had trouble focusing on what I was doing as I teared up watching her dance. She was so careless and free. I thoroughly enjoyed being apart of Breast Cancer Awareness month and celebrating my Mammaw’s own survival of breast cancer by participating in the flashmob. October isn’t over yet. If you haven’t donated, danced, worn pink, etc… I challenge you to do SOMETHING. Together we can find a cure.