As I've mentioned before...

this is a personal blog.

I don't write it to inform distant friends and family of recent happenings in my life. (Only one person has actually been given the link to my blog, anyone else reading this has stumbled upon it from stalking, no doubt!) I don't blog to advertise, or publicize. Here, you wont find brilliant vocab or witty remarks. It's just word diarrhea, for lack of a better expression. I write for myself, to hold conversations with the inanimate internet, to talk about life as I see it. And though I've generally associated blogging with venting, I do try to refrain from making this a place to complain (however, I'll admit the uncertainty of my success thus far in such avoidance).

This blog is for me. No one else.

I don't care who reads it. Or who sees the posts. I'm not posting to hurt people. In fact, I've recently discovered my own name- referencing this here Megan Schwartz, not one of the million other Megan Schwartz's out there- on someone else's blog. Someone I have a strong dislike towards- an enemy, perhaps- so obviously there were no good words spoken. I'm not here to call names, or to talk badly about people. I know what slander and rumors will cause, and I wont be one to inflict such pain. I've been hurt before, and broken hearted. I know pain.

I recently read Tuesdays With Morrie, by Mitch Albom, and it was wonderful. On almost every page, there was a quote I could truly appreciate. And among those pages, I learned to accept pain, on top of the myriad of emotions the female species encounters.

"Take any emotion - love for a woman, or grief for a loved one, or what I'm going through, fear and pain from a deadly illness. If you hold back on the emotions - if you don't allow yourself to go all the way through them - you can never get to being detached, you're too busy being afraid. You're afraid of the pain, you're afraid of the grief. You're afraid of the vulnerability that loving entails.

But by throwing yourself into these emotions, by allowing yourself to dive in, all the way, over your head even, you experience them fully and completely. You know what pain is. You know what love is. You know what grief is. And only then can you say, 'All right. I have experienced that emotion. I recognize that emotion. Now I need to detach from that emotion for a moment.'" -pg 103-104

It really struck me, especially with how my life has played out these last few years. It's been difficult for me to move on, and get over the pain. I can detach myself from that emotion, and become invulnerable.

For my 21st birthday, I had finally accumulated enough cash to pay for my first tattoo. On my wrist I have illustrated a broken heart, sewn back together with a needle and thread. I drew it myself and, yes, it is very meaningful to me. My heart once broke, but I fixed it. No one else did, I did. It might have been a shoddy repair, but hey...I can at least go on in life knowing that no matter how hurt I may be, I can always make things better.

1st tattoo, Sep. 2008

Always with Love,
Megan