That Kind Of Woman

Of late, I have been feeling the urge to sit down at the computer and write to my audience that I have collected here. More recent then not it’s been about relationships or general interactions between people. Forgivable, I think, because what shapes our world every second? Our interactions with others.

Right now I am sitting in the student union building’s computer lab. Four hexagon shaped tables with 6 computers at each one. Students come in and out, occasionally chatting with each other, other times cursing the printer for being out of paper or ink.

I sometimes wonder if my college holds more followers than I expect. My mother came home from the grocery store the other day and saw a girl I went to 3rd grade with. She told my mom that she visits TKoW and thinks it’s wonderful.

It’s bizarre to me that I have such a wide variaty of followers, and people I know. I have friends that follow, yes. However, what about all of you I don’t know. All of you that are out of reach? I mean, in all honesty if one of my followers were in this room I wouldn’t know. I like that.

I like the chance and happenstance of life. Intersecting paths leading you from one thing to the next. Bumping into people who change your path.

I wouldn’t have started TKoW if I hadn’t been in Cape May in the summer of 2009. I certainly wouldn’t have started to sartorially evolve if I hadn’t worked at the Dog Boutique in this small Pennsylvanian town. People like Janna, Amy, Kristen, Maria, and Jen shaped me every day I spent time in their presence and every day I am with them now. People from tumblr shaped me. Almost too many to mention or to reveal. (They are the ones I have met and adored on my Kindred Spirit list).

Negative people also reveal and shape parts of me. It happens. Professors don’t like the way you write, they don’t give you the help you need but that’s not your problem. That’s theirs.

It’s something I am still realizing. When other people don’t like me, or my work, or anything about me; it is not my problem.

I have to stick to what I know best, myself.

I spent years in high school and beginning of college forcing myself to be what I thought others wanted me to be. It backfired in high school.

My mom, again saw someone from my past a girl from high school. She mentioned something to my mother about me. About how she would look up to me because I never let anyone get me down, not the boys that bullied me or the girls whose words cut. Here’s the thing, back in high school I didn’t really care.

I didn’t see it as bullying. Because it’s not unless you let it affect you. This girl let the words of others change her opinions. I didn’t. Sure, I was a stubborn weird kid in high school, but honestly those are the people that come out being original and bringing something different when they become an adult. Not to say that other don’t do the same, it’s just high school is not the peak. It’s not the best years of your life. At least , in my opinion, it shouldn’t be.

We have a lifespan, let’s be hopeful, that is about 90 years. If you peak at 18, I hate to think what those other 72 years are going to be like.

High school doesn’t define you, neither does college, neither does the job you have. You define you. The way you dress, talk and communicate with others, the hobbies you have, what you do for fun.

So, kids -I know I have a large following of young women in their teens- remember, don’t peak too soon. Save some fun. I say eat up the horrible times, keep them. You never know when you might need to break out a story of inspiration for people who were just like you.

Also, don’t be in a rush to grow up. I wouldn’t willingly go back to high school, but being 14, 16, 18 and 20 had their great moments.

(Source: thatkindofwoman)