Remember not to settle...

Original Entry Date:
April 23, 2000
Age: 16
Background: Follows about two weeks after my blog post about rejection.

Dear Diary,
I know I just wrote you and for some reason my junior year I haven't been writing you as often so this is very rare.  But anyways, it is spring break right now and I am NOT having any fun.  I'm stuck here in the good ol suburbs for the first time in 11 years.  Prom is still up and coming.  I am now going to junior prom as well.  I asked Allen Turk, it should be fun.  Yeah well this spring break I was supposed to be hanging out with Kyle and spending quality time with new people I barely ever see. Its been more like Mitch calling me everyday and being the only one I see or talk to.  And track has sucked, its supposed to be more fun with less people!  Hopefully it will get better.  I'm learning to appreciate the things I do have in my life more.  Jackie is the absolute best friend a girl could ask for.  Maybe the one guy I want to be with isn't chasing me but at least some guy is.  I may be on my way to my 17th birthday and still have never had a boyfriend but that's because I'm careful and I'm just waiting for the right boy to come along.  I could go out with Mitch but I will not do that just so I can be with some guy.  And maybe one day I will have feelings for him but right now I do not.  Oh well, Kyle will always hurt me and will never want me.  I just keep wishing that "someday my Prince will come."
Love,
Megs

Dear Megs,
This is another entry that I am quite fond of.  Yes, you started off venting your frustrations of what you were experiencing but then you started to see the good and recognize the positives in your life and the way you were approaching it.  You recognized that you were so fortunate to have a budding friendship who someone was always very kind and encouraging to you.  You also recognized that you didn't want to be in a relationship just to be in a relationship.  You knew that if you were going to be with someone, it would be someone who you were as crazy about as they were about you. You were technically "not settling" for Mitch just to have a boyfriend.

But this entry isn't necessarily about settling for a guy you may not be crazy about.  It is really about never settling for less than you deserve in all of your interactions in life.  Looking back, the "settling" you were doing was having a crush on Kyle to begin with.  Kyle treated you horribly.  He strung you along, hooked up with a "friend" of yours and tried to act like nothing needed to change between you two.  He was not interested in you as a person and was only ever looking to see how far you would let him get.  But for whatever reason that  I can absolutely not understand, you put him up on a pedestal as though he was the best thing to walk into your life.  You let yourself be miserable because he didn't want to be with you.  Mitch on the other hand treated you with nothing but kindness and respect and he in fact, deserved you in return.  Now don't get me wrong, the heart wants what the heart wants and "settling" isn't about settling for an individual per see.  It is about settling for being treated as less than the extraordinary person that you are.  I'm not saying I should have been with Mitch at the time because I didn't have those feelings.  But on the contrary, I also shouldn't have been crazy about Kyle and continued to let him walk all over me.  This is very difficult when the heart is involved as we tend to be blinded to the negative treatment we are receiving.  But allowing your heart to be caught up with someone who doesn't treat you as the incredible individual that you are is in fact... settling.  Allowing a person to be in your life who treats you with disrespect and hurts you consistently is settling. Instead,   only allow yourself to be surrounded by those who enrich your life and make you happy.

This goes the same way with friendships as it does with guys.  Going back to the entry about rejection, I had a group of girls who always treated me as an extra in their lives.  They didn't need me around, they didn't care if I was included in their group or not.  I was just a "clinger" who they felt they had to be nice to but hardly considered me a close friend.  They didn't see the positive in me and my continuing to spend time with perpetuated the issue. I constantly felt bad about myself because deep down, I knew I wasn't really their friend and knowing that fact made me feel like something was wrong with me. However, Jackie, and it took me a long time to realize this, was exactly the friend I was always looking for.  She felt that I added a value in her life and subsequently she added something to mine.  We would have inside jokes, share everything about our struggles and our victories and just love one another for who we were.  She wanted to see me happy and successful and I felt the same for her.  As mentioned in "Casualties of Time", unfortunately the relationship was lost but she was one of the first friendships that I wasn't settling with and that was an extremely important lesson in that time.  We can certainly settle with friendships as well, I think even more often then we do with guys, because we are social beings and we don't want to be alone.  However, if any "friend", doesn't think twice about talking bad about you behind your back or secretly cheers at your failures or does anything along those lines, you are settling by allowing them to be in your life as "friends".  Surround yourself only with people who make you feel good and your life will be more enriched as a result.

So change the way you think about settling.  Know that settling is more so allowing people in your life that fill it and you with nothing but negativity and poison.  The people surrounding you should always build you up and you should always do the same for them. It becomes an even worse situation if you are nothing but kind , giving and sweet and yet these individuals still take advantage of you. You are an incredible and unique individual who anyone would be blessed to have in their life.  So don't let those who don't choose to see the good in you bring you down.  We have every right to only surround ourselves with individuals that make us a better version of ourselves and keep that  beautiful smile on our face.  Those who make you cry don't deserve to be a part of your life so don't let them!  Don't settle, you deserve so much better!