the first five years

I live in a family of nine; seven children and two parents.  My place in this line is first, leaving me with six younger siblings.  Being the eldest of such a large family, I have felt a sense of responsibility for my siblings from a very young age.  I want them to be happy and healthy in mind, body, and soul. Recently, I have begun to realize what an impossible feat this really is, especially for my sisters.  Maria 14, Melissa -10, and Melena-8 are all growing up in a world where they are demanded to meet impossible standards that are based on physicality.  The definition of beauty that they are learning to model is unrealistic and alarming and as I paged through one of my favorite fashion magazines, I had to come to terms with the problems that this situation poses. Now, more than ever, women are being bombarded with images of perfection: weight standards, hair color, ethnicity, eye color, clothing.  Although the awareness in this...

In addition to being a writer, I consider myself an avid reader.  All of that "intellectual opinion," "educated self-discovery" stuff that I wrote about yesterday, I meant it.  The more you read, the more you think, the more you think, the more you learn.  Every day, I try to take in and retain as much information as I possibly can, and I think the most entertaining way to do this is by reading .    The biggest problem I have with this philosophy is that there is simply too much to read. Newspapers, magazines, classic novels, young adult books (for all you teachers out there), non-fiction; there is an endless amount of material available.  One "solution" to this problem is to simply read as much as we possibly can.  As soon as we finish a book, article, or magazine, pick up the next one and move right along.  But I think that this "solution" makes the problem bigger. In order to really understand what we are reading or expe...

            "After you turn twenty-two, you have nothing to look forward to."             "Things are boring after your twenty-second birthday."      "You really have to start being an adult." "Now you have to be responsible." I know I'm not the only one who has heard at least two of these comments before.  And how depressing is it to constantly hear that our life is over, that we are officially "old?" There are quite a few stages that we pass through to become adult women, and apparently, twenty-one is the "final step." On our thirteenth birthday, we are considered a teenager and enter the category of "young adult."  We are legally allowed to watch PG-13 movies ( FINALLY ) and this usually marks some unpleasant biological changes as well (if you catch my drift). Turning sixteen is the marker of a young girls' coming ...

This is probably one of the most overdone, overused, ordinary blogs in the whole blogging world.  How many potential dancers/teachers/DIY fanatic/fashion-obsessed/bookworm/mid-western-suburban women in their early twenties decide to take their diary to the web in an all-in-one blog?   Probably a lot.  Of course, I am just another one of those women.   Between figuring out who we are, going to school, living on our own, working, and dealing with the ups and downs of what we call "love," it's hard to believe that these are the best years of our lives.  The truth is, these probably are the best years of our lives.  These ten years and the ten after that and the ten after that. This blog is a combination of everything that makes living in your twenties, or living at all, worth...well...living. Between books, beaches, diamonds, and dresses, reminding ourselves of beauty and  finding the positivity in a mundane, fast-paced world is vi...