This one's for the girls

You know I love to inspire people.  It's the reason I write this blog and it's one of my main reasons for getting up in the morning. I love making people smile, and I love giving them reasons to keep on with their goals and lives!

Talking to a battle buddy today, she was very upset.  She was upset because her boy left her.  As females, we know how that feels.  We know what it's like to have our heart broken in two and feel like we will NEVER find that special someone.  (I know guys feel that way too, but women tend to wear their emotions on their sleeves more...)   She asked me how I went on, how I stayed strong when my heart was breaking. I told her it takes work, and it does.  But as I was watching the movie I was at, and the lead female needed the male to succeed in her goals, it made me wonder, why do we rely so heavily upon someone else for our happiness and to measure our success?

I know so many males who are content to sit in a room alone for hours, even days if you'd let them.  I was sitting at home today on my couch alone and I felt like the biggest loser ever!  It's silly I know, but for some reason I did.  The way the female mind is wired, I think, is we are at our best when we're multi-tasking and doing more than one thing at a time. We feel we need to be surrounded by people, at least a person, to feel content. (That's just my amateur Freud moment)  The same idea as to why we need to go to the bathroom in pairs!  If we're alone, we must be lonely.

But back to my "for the girls" topic. Ladies, here's the deal.  Since I've been in the Army, I've met some of the most amazing women, ever!  However, I've also met the type that will completely tear you down just to get ahead. We, as a gender, already have a stigma against us.  We're not as capable, we're not as good and we shouldn't be doing a "man's" job.  Okay, there are some jobs more suited towards the male gender, I won't lie. It's simple that males TEND to be stronger than females. However, we get torn down all the time, it's time we start helping each other.  We need to be there for each other, to lift each other up.  We can show the world (again) that we're just as awesome! Stop comparing ourselves, and share our strengths with each other.

As for the male thing that got this started... I'm not turning this into an anti male, go femanazi type blog. Because I like them, okay I love them. I truly believe in soul mates and I believe that having that special someone, really does make us happier.  I'm also a firm believer in being partners in life, rather than subordinates. I believe that we should ride side by side, not one behind each other.  There's the saying "behind every good man, is a good woman." I'm going to beg to differ.  I believe behind a strong man or woman, is a companion who will stand next to them through any situation.

 I also think before we can really love someone, like truly fall in love, we have to fall in love with ourselves. SO cliche, I know, but it's really true.  If you don't learn what your passions are in life, if you keep putting yourself on the back burner, you'll never know what you really need. You need to love yourself!

How do you do that you may ask? Well that one is totally up to you.  Finding out how to love you is an endless battle but one, if you haven't started, I suggest you do it.  For me? I'm going to be on this path for a long time.  Before I started even liking myself, I was struggling.  We all get to that breaking point of  "I need to do something..." For me it was a few weeks ago and life was throwing me a lot of curve balls, knuckles balls and any other awful pitch you can think of.  For about one week, I cried every night. I got mad at the world and I questioned life!  Then the weekend came up and I locked myself in my apartment and prayed really hard.  The following week I realized, I had been living my life to "find a mate" shall we say. I had lost everything I gained before I left for basic training.  I lost my love of fitness, of being healthy, I lost my confidence and simply being positive about life.  I realized that week, I needed to learn to be again. Do what makes ME happy.

Like I said, you have to take your journey. It might be like mine, it might not be, but I do know that as females we love hard.  We take things personally.  We think of every worst senerio possible.  We tend to put ourselves second (or third, or fourth, or fifth!) We think if we're not doing everything perfect, we've failed.  It's time to stop thinking like that.  It's time to find that passion for life again.

My final thought on this matter is don't be afraid to dream big and love deep. We're so afraid to get hurt we hold back.  Live in the moment, we only get so many.

If you take ANYTHING from this, here's what I hope.  I hope you learn to help and love each other, rather than bring each other down. I hope you learn how to love life, how to love yourself. I hope you really appreciate everyday that you wakeup and smile and know the world is a better place because you're in it! (And to the girls with broken hearts, know that you're going to be fine. You're strong, you're capable, you're awesome. If anyone makes you feel otherwise, obviously they weren't right and didn't deserve the love and support you brought. Don't let it get you down!)

An ode to mom and dad (and a sister in there, too.)

So I just wrote a pretty good blog, I won't lie. It was about goals and spring time and all that...stuff. I think it's time to change the tune a little bit.  I love being able to inspire all of you but I thought I'd share with you who inspires me. I get the question "Cara, how do you do it? How do you keep so uplifted all the time?"  Really thinking about this I realized that my biggest source of inspiration and strength comes from my family.

My family is probably the greatest.  Yeah, we have our squables but what family doesn't? Let me start with the two who raised me and my sister. My mom and dad instilled in a us a sense of worth, a sense of pride and personal strength.  They never pointed out our weaknesses, rather brought out our strengths and encouraged us to push our limits, no matter what it was!

My parents believed that my sister and I could do whatever we wanted and be whatever we believed. I remember so many conversations with my mom discussing what my future held. At one point I was determined to be a children's book author. Another time I was going to be an astronomer because we sat for hours outside looking at the constellations. My mom is the type of woman who can be so sweet and the kindest woman EVER.  But if you cross her (like running in the halls at church...oh boy!) then BOOM....that high school English teacher came out like a cat pouncing. It was awesome! I was embarrased at the time, but now I find myself yelling "GENTLEMEN, WALK" when I'm out somewhere! (And yeah, I so got the tone down!)

My Dad.  Some would classify me as a Daddy's girl and they are probably right.  We spent our summers going to see the MN Twins, see movies, going to Valley Fair, hell we even made Grocery shopping an adventure (you should have seen the looks we got going through the frozen sections!)  When I was sick, nothing made me feel better than a daddy hug.  Even though he was a man, he taught me what it meant to be a strong female.  He coached women's basketball, took me to Lynx games, introduced me to women in politics. He wanted me to grow up and knowing that whether it was being a soldier in the military or a stay at home mom, it was because it was my choice to do so, not because society said I had to live a certain way.

Finally, my sister.  Okay, so when we were growing up we didn't get along...at all. I don't think you've met two people more different from the same family.  Even people who meet us now don't think we're sisters.  But I must say, we both have a strong passion for life and love.  We care about the people we meet (sometimes maybe too much!) She chose a different route than I did.  My sister, if I had to say one thing about her that I admire most and would love to learn from, is her mom-ness. When August was born was SO protective of him, and I get why.  But as he's been growing and I've had to watch him grow up from a distance, I'm learning that her heart is SO full of love for that boy. She teaches him about the world. She doesn't hide him from the dark side but she teaches him how to deal with it. I admire everything about my sister. I can only hope someday  to be half the mom and half the woman my sister is.

So...that's my family.  We're weird.  We play crazy games at holidays that sometimes turn violent. We laugh for hours. Our dinners have last WELL into the night simply because we like to sit and talk to each other.  Our family vacations consisted of road trips, lots of fighting, soggy sandwiches, warm fruit and travel BINGO (including birds on a wire and BUFFALO!)

My childhood was typical, but as I meet new people and learn about people's upbringing, I must say, I now know that I was SO lucky in the way I was raised. Two loving parents (who still give up everything for us) and a sister who has become one of my best friends. They say you can't choose your family, but given the chance, I wouldn't change mine in any way!