2/1/11 was my last blog post on here. Not quite sure why I wait so long to write things that are in my head every day, so I am changing that. I will begin updating this once or several times a week. Here’s a new start to what’s Beneath Me.

It’s crazy how we all think we have to be something we’re not to get our family or friends to love us. I know I am going out on a limb here saying that, but we have all done it at least once in our lives. It’s human to get feelings of loneliness or being empty. It’s human to contemplate the love we receive from others and if it’s real or not. I know that I have struggled a time or two in my life with trying to find my place. I think that is one of the toughest things to do.. find your place in a world of billions that you already feel is taken by someone else. Truth is, someone is always going to be on the same paths we are on, but they will never be able to deliver what you can individually. We all were put here to make some kind of difference, some kind of change, and most importantly some kind of impact. 

I used to think that the emptiness I had could be filled by things I was passionate about, but it can’t. Your void for emptiness starts in yourself. You must create the love you want to receive, the dreams you want to chase, the place you want to live, the friends you want to have, the passion that burns deep inside of you, and most importantly the motivation to do all of these things. Life is a dark place without motivation. I know first hand that the darkest place I have been in could have easily been changed around if I had motivation during it.. but I didn’t. It’s normal to lose that UMPH sometimes, just make sure you find it again. We are all so much more than a face in this world. We are gifted with our own talents, blessed with our own blessings, loved with our own loving, and special with our own divine speciality. 

I can’t fathom the dark place that the teenagers were in that committed suicide last year. I can’t fathom a world that refuses to accept, even when they are the ones looking for acceptance. I can’t fathom someone ever thinking that what they are is less than beautiful. There is no possible way to be a perfect person, but there are millions of ways to be a good one. You are a part of a generation that will go down in history one way or another. Our choices along this way are if we want to be remembered for our dedication to bettering the place we live and the people who live with us, or worsening it. Choice is on you. Your decision can impact someone else’s - your voice is valuable. 

I’m here now to tell you that it will be okay. That dark place you’re in, the heart break you are going through, the feeling of being unacceptable, your lonely heart, your search to be loved, your dreams, your finances, your faith.. it will be okay. I have never been in one of those places and not recovered from it. And surprisingly, the most beautiful thing about having those moments is getting out of them. There is nothing more inspiring than overcoming something that once overcame you. 

Life will go on. The time we’re on will never stop, but the casualties will. Learn to grow when you’re being pulled down. Learn to dive into your faith when life is showing you reasons not to. I never really thought I would be one of those people that simply say “Life Goes On,” but it does. We have every chance to make our lives everything we want them to be. Don’t be scared to follow your heart. I was told so many times that my dreams were out of reach and still am told that to this day sometimes, but look at me, I’m still going. Even people close to me don’t see the beauty in my dreams, but that’s okay. They don’t have to see the beauty in MY dreams, because my dreams bring a beauty that no one but myself can see. Same for yours, whatever it is in your life that you are passionate about PURSUE! I had to learn how to be strong when the weak surrounded me. Be strong and pick them up, because they can be strong and pick someone else up.

Everyone has a broken way, but don’t let that way completely break you. When life throws you down, get back up. Battered, bruised, tired.. get back up, because that step back up is one more step towards that destination you want to be at. Remember, life truly is about the beauty in the attempt, and even more so it’s about the beauty waiting to unveil in each one of us. You have what it takes, and I sure hope I can see it one day. 

-LG

It’s funny the role something as simple as music plays in our lives. We hear a song here and there that makes us feel like we were the grand idea behind it. We can’t remember how to perfectly solve an algebraic equation or what President was in office during the first World War, yet we can sing every lyric to a song that has played some sort of feeling in our lives. Maybe it’s the song that makes you cry because you’ve felt love come and go. Maybe it’s the song that makes you dance uncontrollably throughout the living room on a sunny day. Maybe it’s the song you and your best friend chose to be your lifetime friendship song that doesn’t apply anymore. Maybe it’s the song that takes you back to a place you’ve been longing for, or maybe it’s even a song that describes your exact standpoint in life. Moral is, there is a song that fits any mood, feeling, or thing we are going through. The best part about that, is that the person who wrote it, sings it, or composed it felt some sort of similarity in which was their backing for choosing it. That song that brings you to your knees thinking about your first leap into love, and you’re first crash out of it is a song that someone scrapped together out of the same bitterness. 

I have a handful of songs right now that can take me back to the times I felt my best and the times that I felt my worst. The times I didn’t quite feel enough or the times that I felt my worthiness in life was above enough. I’ve got all these different songs and feelings yet they always remain a mystery even to myself. I have yet to figure out how my emotions can already be expressed in a song that was created by a simple soul like mine. I have yet to figure out how when I think that nobody knows - everybody does. It’s beautifully scary I think. It’s beautiful in the sense that at any given point something appears in my life without warning, it has done the same thing in at least one other life. Granted, it’s also scary thinking that a feeling or thought we all get has already occurred within another mind or another heart. I have always loved music for different reasons, but I’ve established the real one behind it: Music cures. Music is the fine line between reality and hypothetical. It soothes and it reminds and it never lets you forget but it soaks up your hardships when applicable. It drives and it motivates and it allows your memories to live on even as they diminish by the years that pass.

We live in a world of right and wrong. There is no grey, and there is no sitting the fence. We live in a world that is struggling, not just in differences and finances or religion and politics, but in ourselves. We all have a struggle built deep down inside, and sometimes it’s truly hard to believe that someone has a burden or a problem that mirrors ours. I heard most of my life that “you are never alone,” yet sometimes I feel alone in a room with ten people standing next to me. Alone is too broad of a topic for me to grasp sometimes though. I think about alone and I think about how you can be alone in many ways other than physically. I think about the kids who took their lives because they felt alone. Sometimes I hear a song and think if only those kids heard this they’d feel like someone understood them…like it would be the reminder that their existence on this earth had meaning.

I got voted “Most Likely To Be Famous” when I was in High School, and I pray daily that the only thing I am famous for is my heart and my words. It’s not about the popularity or the class in which you’re ranked, it’s about being famous in yourself and in a life that you touched deeply. I like to think that I’m a wealthy person.. not in the balance of my banking account or the depths of my closet, but in my ability to comprehend the world and the people on it in many different ways.

We come into the world alone, and we leave the world alone. Truth is, all six billion of us are alone. But the thing that keeps the world together even when it is pieced incorrectly, is that we ARE all alone, and we spend our lives finding things and people that we can be alone TOGETHER with. We are not created with specific edges in which we must find a match to, we are created with those to make each of us distinct and unique. We do find matches along the way in the love of another person or the eyes of a dream, but we are not held to a standard of those things. I guess what I am trying to say is that we’re all created how we are for a reason. Do not hold yourself to an expectation you did not choose. Do not dwell in the failure another person can dish to you. Do not live thoroughly through the words you hear about yourself or your life. We’re all created in our own ways, but we all have the same imperfections. Never let you and who you are fade because of someone and how they are. 

Choose your words wisely. Words are not forgotten, nor do they ever dissolve. Choose your steps carefully, but always take them. Live to your song and accept the reason why you do, don’t dance miserably to someone else’s music.

Rights, wrongs, and simple songs..

It’s what the world is.  

-LG

www.twitter.com/laurengeralds

It’s so hard for me to believe that it is a new year! I remember the anticipation to bring in 2010 and all the things that I was hoping would happen. Here I am, bringing in another year and I can’t help but to think about the expectations that were by far surpassed in 2010! I have had the privilege of meeting so many amazing people and doing so many amazing things, so I thought I would share some of them here:

2010 Highlights: Graduating High School, spending Spring break in Los Angeles with my best friend & lovely followed by heading to the Houston Stock Show for her and Bieber’s show, turning 18, meeting Chad Michael Murray (huge One Tree Hill addict here), getting accepted to FIDM, befriending Sophia Bush and Austin Nichols, expanding my clothing company, MOVING TO LOS ANGELES, creating a non-profit organization, adding another year onto my amazing friendship with Brandon, becoming addicted to the Game Show Network, learning to drive in L.A traffic, meeting even more beyond wonderful people via Twitter and in person, following my dreams, accomplishing my fears and learning to find the best version of myself regardless of any and all circumstances, completing five chapters in my book, and the greatest highlight of 2010 was surviving it to be able to write this. That is only a FEW of the many, many highlights I was fortunate enough to have. I hope that this year brings three times that! 

Though I can reminisce and pull out all of the good that happened last year, there were also some not so great things that came along with it. I said goodbye to a few friends and things that just weren’t working in my life, I was on the verge of deciding to shut down my clothing company before I met all of the people who gave me more than a million reasons not to, I experienced my first heart break and some days am still recovering, I was thrown into the “real world” after graduating scared that what I did my four years in High School wasn’t enough, and I didn’t do EVERYTHING I had promised myself I would do. Granted, these things that didn’t make my highlights are only things that inspired the possibility of the others making it, because if I didn’t get a little bad I wouldn’t know a lot of good. 

I am completely blessed to be able to speak to each one of you via Twitter, E-mails, Facebook, etc each day, and I want you all to know that you’ve touched my life in ways I could never explain. I’ve learned so much about you guys, and I love you for the things I discovered. One of you quote previous words from me weekly, one of you are the kindest person I’ve EVER met, one of you keep me inspired when I don’t quite feel in tip-top shape, one of you tweet me three times a day at least with words of encouragement, one of you e-mail me every single day because your home life isn’t so great and you always end with “You are my lighted escape to a better world.” Seven of you tell me you love me every day, twenty plus of you have made your way into my favorites, fifty two of you have written me letters and I’ve written back, hundreds of you keep my dream and company alive and wear MTCA, eleven of you found your favorite song through me, eleven of you also enjoy One Tree Hill as much as I do.. Four have truly, without a doubt touched my heart in SO many ways, and six of you I will NEVER forget. Moral of all that I mentioned is I pay attention to each of you and am so thankful for the diligent work you put in with me. It’s something as simple as one “tweet” from you that picks up my whole day on some rough occasions. However, I can honestly say that 3,442 of you have made me believe and hope that there is a chance for change in our world. You guys have a faithful and consistent heart and I hope that you always use it for good. I can vividly remember the nights when I would sit at my computer and cry based upon the words that came from your tweets or e-mails. I have gained so much respect for so many of you, that I don’t consider anyone a “stranger” to myself in the world anymore. I’ve learned that we are all the same people with the same common goals. Love is the glue to life, life is the glue to us, and we are the glue to change. It’s a domino affect and always will be. We’ve got to mirror and practice the acts we wish to live upon. To those of you who are much more than a follower or number: I love you. Thank you for never allowing me a day without your kind words. Thank you for allowing me into your beautiful tragedies to try and help. Thank you for trusting me. Thank you for creating a belief for myself that the world can be a better place. To you all I will forever owe a lifetime of gratitude to. 

The new year is here… New chances, new beginnings, new friendships, new places, new loves and heartbreaks, new words, and new ways to apply all of these things to what can be a new world. I hope that 2011 brings an endless supply of happiness and encouragement for everyone. I hope that you take chances, and when you are in the middle of the leap don’t second guess yourself. I hope that you learn at least ten new things about yourself and your life that you didn’t know before because that is nothing you can learn in school. I hope that you take a step back and learn to be a little more accepting, or if you already are put forth effort with someone else who isn’t quite there yet. I hope you mend things you’ve put on the back burner, or I hope you break things that you’ve held together for no reason at all because it is the right thing to do. I hope you find comfort in a song and a relation to that comfort in your life. I hope that those of you who have been bitter to love again because of a heart break decide to give it another chance. I hope those of you who are closed off to love decide to open up. I hope that the dreams that are held so close to your heart come true, and if they don’t I hope you find more reason to try again and again until they do. Most importantly, I hope that you don’t hold back from yourself. Explore the beautiful radiation of the sun or people’s smiles, fathom the endless possibilities that don’t seem so possible, give love away in some sort of form and do not dwell in the hardships that may occur but rather the way you feel when that love is what keeps you alive. Believe in yourself and love who you are, because all of you hold some sort of potential or dream that is going to shape some aspect of the world. May 2011 be the year full of chances to get it right and reasons to never give up.

Happy New Year to all of my friends and family. I hope you know the importance you play in my life, and if you read this and felt at home then you know you belong somewhere deep in the meaning of my words. 

Love is Alive.

-LG

www.twitter.com/LaurenGeralds

ps.

www.laurengeralds.com is coming SOON!