My Rock

Hey guys, This is a story I wrote for my creative non-fiction class. It got positive feedback even though by the time I got around to writing it I was so over school work I barely spent any time on it. It could use some editing this I know, but the grammatical errors won't change the point I make. Hope you all enjoy it. 

I could taste the salt in the air. The breeze it floated on getting stronger by the second. The tide slowly creeping up around the rocks I sat on. My classmates and new found friends surrounded me, all of us silent, our minds in our own thoughts.

We were sitting amongst the thousands of natural octagonal stones that rest in Northern Ireland making up what is known as The Giant’s Causeway. Easily one of the most beautiful sights I’ve seen. But, being there it can become overwhelming. As I crawled over the stones and put my hands in the water I began to wonder how many hands have done the same thing. How many people had sat in this same spot and taken in the beauty? Surely a place this old has seen more action than a hundred college kids that happened to be assaulting it today. This was a place that fights erosion every day. To it we were just mere pimples on a non-important day.

 Sitting as far out as the peninsula would allow I turned to look back at the causeway and suddenly I was a speck. I was an insignificant being made of water, blood, and organs disguised as a fashionable twenty-year old girl sent here to bring her ego back down to size. How many people, just like me, had questioned there existence in this world?  

As I sat on those rocks that were at least two thousand years old, and would certainly be there long after me I wondered about my life and how I had made it here to this whole other country with people I’d never met and my life began playing back like a home movie.

When I was five I said my first cuss word. In the second grade I made my first “real” friend. Then when I was nine my sister moved away to college and left me by myself at night upstairs for the first time. I lost a best friend when I was ten because I refused to grow up too fast. In the seventh grade I was the only girl in my class without boobs, and in the ninth grade I belonged to my first mean girl group.

These pieces of my life swirled around my mind like leaves picked up by the wind. Memories that I had tucked away suddenly brought back by the magnificence of the causeway.

This trip came at a great time. What I needed was 2 ½ weeks in a different country six hours ahead of anyone who would want to talk to me. I needed a break. After several failed attempts at relationships trying to forget one I couldn’t, I needed time alone. My friends, no matter how much I love them, were drinking every night and I couldn’t take it anymore. Life had to offer something else besides beer.

Somewhere between the drinking every night and terrible break up I had gained 30 pounds, an issue I had no idea how to reverse. I was the biggest I had ever been and I never wanted to leave my house. I wasn’t fit for the human eye. Looking in the mirror I saw Pooh Bear with his honey jar.

Suddenly, this rock held all the answers. I am Abbi-Storm, and I would work hard and have the life I wanted. If this rock out here in the middle of nowhere Ireland could survive all these years then I could survive my life.

I could handle the countless rejections. I could handle the constant drinking, and dammit I could handle my weight. This rock had given me a strength that no one else in my life had been able to do.

Maybe it wasn’t just that particular rock. Maybe it was the causeway or maybe it was all of Ireland, but I was empowered. My life was going to change and I was going to be the one who made it. 

Truth Behind Tailgating

    Football. It's a great American past time. It's practically the heartbeat of the south. We are raised to cheer for the SEC no matter what. Rival games are what we live for. Alabama, Auburn, Ole Miss, Mississippi State, LSU the list continues. I personally was raised an Auburn fan something I've struggled with my ENTIRE life. But, it's not just about the love of the game it's about the action before the game. Tailgating.
    The key to football in the South is 

1. Stand by your team no matter the season.
2. Tailgate.

    Both of those things are not easy to accomplish. Standing by your team can become difficult especially with the season Auburn has had this year and the appeal to jump on the bandwagon to Tuscaloosa where they've been delivering national championships. Everyone wants to be a winner, but the true winner is the person that sticks with their team. That's the true fan. 
    Let's get down to the real business, what it takes to tailgate southern style. It's about the food, the tent, and most of all... the outfit. Of course the classic team logo t-shirt is always an acceptable choice. It still represents your team well. The more southern way to fashionably show up to a tailgate is to dress like this football game could quite possibly be the social function of the year. 
     Put on a nice dress or skirt in your teams color. Buy a button and pin it on. Throw on some boots or sandals depending on the season, heels if you think you can handle it. And for god's sake fix your hair. This is the south we don't just wear our hair "down" let's be for real. Sacrifices might have to be mad. You might be hot for a little while or cold by the time the games over. Your feet might hurt when you get home, and the headband you've been wearing might be giving you a headache. A price must be paid for beauty and fashion and comfort is the first to go. 
      Remember ladies we don't dress to impress, we dress to out-dress. 
  So next time you get an opportunity to tailgate at a southern football game make sure you have an appropriate outfit, and for all of our grandmothers sake don't show up without some kind of baked good. Save a little face to your southern counterparts, dress appropriately and NEVER, I mean NEVER take that smile off your face. Doesn't matter how good your outfit is if you start acting a fool and being rude even to the other team's fans. 

Jackie vs. Marilyn

    I know it's been awhile school has been getting the best of me... Hahaha who am I kidding? Partying has been getting the best of me and because of that school has taken a back seat. I spent the last week playing catch-up. 
    So anyway last night while finishing up an art history paper on the fashion of the Roman world one of the greatest movies of all time was on TV. Legally Blonde. Not only is it a great movie, but it is one of the only blonde empowering movies out there and as a bleach blonde myself that's instant brownie points. 
   Most of you probably know the movie and I'm not here to summarize, but in the beginning Warner is breaking up with Elle over dinner and of course she causes a scene. However, it is the reason he gives her that I bring up today.

            He tells her "I need a Jackie not a Marilyn." 

   Of course he is referring to Jackie Onassis and Marilyn Monroe. Two very influential women of their time in two very different ways. One the trophy wife of a Kennedy and the other a movie star known for her various romances. 
     OK fine every one has different taste in women, but to compare them in this manner is seriously upsetting. When our world sinks to comparing these iconic women to every day women we are left we unattainable goals. Not to mention these women had their fair share of problems in their own life. 

   Why must women think the have to live up to the standards of a world that has long ago left us. We longer are forced into the kitchen by the government propaganda  June Cleaver. If we make the men in our life a sandwich it is because we choose to do so. Our free will is present in every decision we make followed by our desire to please our man. These women made their own decisions and stood tall in the eye of the public. The sandwiches they made were for the women who would come after them. 
   We long to be accepted, loved, and appreciated. We want to be like Tammy and stand by our man, like Jackie and be strong, fashionable and face the spot light of scandal with a smile, and most of all like Marilyn we want to be everything a woman is supposed to be and do it while being sexy. 
    The balance is hard but not impossible. Women of the world do not be discouraged your place in society is uniquely yours just as it was Jackie's and Marilyn's.