This past week I was able to sit in the parking lot of the high school I went to and as I sat in my car and hung out with two of my best friend’s, all I could think about was the girl that used to walk the hall inside. The girl that spent SO MANY HOURS in that school and the parking lot we were in. She seems like a shadow now. I thought about some of my favorite memories in that building. The friendships that helped me get through some of the hardest days of my life. The grief I overcame with my kiddos. The teachers/coaches that have changed me for the rest of my life. I also looked back on some of the hard memories. Some of the failures I experienced. Some of the situations I put myself in. The times where I didn’t feel like I was enough. The times I suppressed the way I was feeling to make some of my friends happy. Moments where I didn’t stand up for my friends in the way I should have. I didn’t want to make a scene. I didn’t want to make people uncomfortable. It’s crazy. The amount of things that can change in a year. The amount that you can change in a year. I finish my first year of college this week, and the girl that walked those halls has learned so much about herself and what she believes in. I truly believe now more than I ever have in my life that the people that are meant to be in your life will be. We are meant to meet certain people for a reason, and friendships that help you heal in ways you never thought were possible, are in fact possible. You deserve those friendships. It’s also been a year of reconnecting with some old friendships and I have loved experiencing some of the oldest friendships in my life come full circle. So to all the incredible people I have got to spend time with this year, thank you.

Thank you for making the girl that walked those halls know that she is worth so much more than some of the friendships she experienced. That she NEVER has to suppress the way she is feeling to make her true friends love her. And appreciate her. And cheer her on every single day. Because they will. For the right reasons. And that is truly more than I could have ever asked for. 

With all my love,

Nicky.

Tonight, I talked to one of my closest friends about why me and her have been struggling this week. We were sitting in her car just being honest with one another about some of the curve-balls that life had thrown us the past couple of days and let me tell you that she is one of the most honest and genuinely sincere people I have ever met. She talked a little bit about how her relationship with social media has been toxic recently and how she wants to take a break from it altogether but keeps finding herself bored and scrolling through her feed. All I could do was nod my head because that’s just the dang truth sometimes. I have talked openly on my Instagram about some of my struggles I’ve had with social media in the past, but I have been trying to put my thoughts into words for some time now without any success. I hope you take the time to read what I would have said to myself in September of last year if I had the chance now.

Last year I didn’t even know if I was going to be able to make it a week without social media when I decided I needed a break. I wrote the words “Recently I’ve noticed how bad social media has really been for my self-image. I find myself stressing out about how my actions look from other people’s perspectives when I really need to be focused on how my actions reflect me as a person” on my Instagram.

Instagram has always been a positive experience for me. I have been introduced to all the blogs I read through Instagram, and I have been inspired by so many people sharing the struggles they are facing along with the encouraging messages they have. I have even realized what my passion in life is through some of what I have read, which has even allowed me to choose my major in college (a story for another day). For this reason, it really shocked me when I started to get angry every time I scrolled through my Instagram feed. I found myself continuously wondering why I seemed to be the only one just struggling with life sometimes. I was asking myself when did I start paying attention to the drama that was on my feed? When did I start paying so much attention to other people’s lives, and why did I stop focusing on the good in my own?

I realize now that I had stopped prioritizing myself. I had been focusing so much of my attention on what was making other people happy that I had stopped taking the time to ask myself the same question. I had stopped reminding myself of all the things that make me special. I had been comparing all my talents, my successes, my failures, my personality traits; everything that makes me unique to other people. The worst kind of self- sabotage.

I would recommend taking an extended break from social media to anyone who asks me if they should do it. No hesitation. Just delete it completely off your phone and I can tell you that you may not feel a difference immediately, but you will in time. You may even be stressed out and have no idea what to do with all the free time you just acquired at first, but eventually you will feel like a weight has been lifted off your shoulders. What a huge difference spending some time focusing on yourself can do to your mental health. What change can happen when you stop comparing yourself and your life to other people. What growth can happen when you decide to spend time making yourself happy. I cannot tell you how long you should wait to re-enter the world of social media after this break. I cannot even tell you how long it is going to take you to learn how to take care of yourself and your mental health because every single person is different, but I can tell you that when you think you are ready, jump back in. Not the same way you were before, but with the goal of focusing on the good. Look for the quotes that inspire you to work for your goals. Look for the people supporting other people. Look for the perspectives you’ve never even considered. Look for the stories that make you laugh. They are there. You just may have to do some adjusting to see them clearly.

I can tell every person reading this that I had lost myself last year. I was grasping at straws trying to be everything to everyone and coming up short every time because I wasn’t being me. I read an Instagram post the other day that was talking about social media. “Give people the room to leave and the space to come back if they’d like and attach yourself to none of it because your worth doesn’t live here. KNOW THIS, that the souls who need your light, your love and your you-ness will always be there, cheering you on. Love you just as you are” (@jennaskitchen) and isn’t that just the DANG TRUTH.

So, I ask all of you reading this the same question I needed to be asking myself in September last year; why are you putting yourself on the back-burner? Take a break, focus on yourself for a while, and I promise you will come back a different person.

With all my love,

Nicky

I had to give an English presentation earlier this year about my life. We had to make a poster with a tree on it that explained what we thought, in our own words, were the most important experiences in our life that made us the people we are today, and then present it to the class. When I got up in front of the class to present my tree, my classmates all got strange looks on their faces. The middle of my tree said the words “my kiddos,” and my class had been confused because they all know that I am not a mother; well at least not technically speaking.

I have been an aid in my school’s special need’s classroom for six years now. The amount of lessons I have learned and what I have learned about myself in the process has been an invaluable experience. I have had some of my biggest heartbreak alongside my kiddos, and when I’ve thought that I could not possibly love teaching my kids more, they prove me wrong every time.

One of the things that I get told often by my peers is that I am a very hardworking individual. It is a trait that I pride myself in having, but not a trait that I acquired on my own. I had the best role models to look up to when it came to learn what hard work truly looks like, because no one works as hard as the kids I mentor every day. I often find myself thinking that I am trying my hardest, that I am putting all my effort into something, and then I look at them and realize that I really wasn’t. Not only do they work hard to overcome the mental setbacks that they face; not being able to communicate what they want, struggling to stay focused, or not having the freedom they may want, they also work hard to overcome some of the physical challenges they face; needing help to write, or even having serious medical problems. I am blown away every day how these kids can face everything they have to go through to just live their everyday life, but even more astonished with how they are able to just simply be happy individuals in the process.

I try to be the happiest and most positive version of myself every day, but it honestly takes a lot of work sometimes. Sometimes just finding happiness in a small thing that happens is a win for me that day. Most of the time that small thing happens with my kiddos. I find courage in their kind hearts and the love and acceptance that their personalities radiate. They change my chaotic and stressful life into a new respective for me. A perspective that lets me understand that how I treat, accept, and understand other people is what’s most important. They make me strive to be a better teacher, mentor, and friend, and they give me patience when I think I have none. They make me smile and laugh every day and have made me a better person just for knowing them.

Over three years ago I faced the hardest tragedy that I had ever known up to that point in my life. I was called out of fourth period by the assistant principle of the school and taken to a conference room in the office with a group of my crying peers. One of my kiddos I had been helping for three years had been in the hospital that week. Me and my sister had planned to go visit him in a couple of days to see how he was doing. What I could never have prepared for were hearing the words “he passed away last night we are so sorry.”

The next few weeks I really struggled to go to the special needs room. I wanted to be there for the rest of the kids I mentor, but I honestly didn’t know how to face them some days. They were a daily reminder of the friend I had lost, the friend they had lost too, until one day it wasn’t so hard anymore. I realized that helping his friends every day was reminding me of the beautiful life he lived, and even through the heartache, helping his friends was exactly where I was meant to be. Where I needed to be. I wrote the words “Rest easy until we meet again kid; your bff will miss you like crazy until then. Thanks for all the amazing memories, for being my role model and biggest supporter for the past three years, and for putting a smile on my face every single day since the day I met you,” on my Instagram.

Ever since then I have made it a goal of mine to be the kind of person who makes other people smile. Every. Single. Damn. Day. and I hope that by reading this you can take a page from my kiddos’s book and be the light in someone else’s life (get it… my blog is intothelight… see how that worked out). I was looking at pictures of me and my friend who passed away the other day, and immediately after, I stumbled upon a post that I believe to be the most perfect embodiment of the kids I mentor every day; my friends.
Bianca Sparacino wrote in The Strength in Our Scars,

“Be the person who cares. Be the person who makes the effort, the person who loves without hesitation. Be the person who bares it all, the person who never shies away from the depth of their feeling, or the intensity of their hope. Be the person who believes — in the softness of the world, in the goodness of other people, in the beauty of being open and untethered and trusting. Be the person who takes the chance, who refuses to hide. Be the person who makes people feel seen, the person who shows up. Trust me when I say — be the person who cares. Because the world doesn’t need any more carelessness, any more disregard; because there is nothing stronger than someone who continues to stay soft in a world that hasn’t always been kind to them.”

With all my love,

Nicky

This year has been a year of personal growth for me. While 2018 has been one of the hardest years of my life this far, it has also been one of the most rewarding. I have spent this year trying to focus on becoming the best version of myself; someone who is kind and empathetic 100% of the time, someone who supports and encourages all the people around her, and most importantly, someone who makes a conscious effort to trust in what God has planned for my life.

I am not someone who ever shares very much of my personal life with other people (even some of my closest friends and peers). This is a trait that I have struggled with for years because even though I am an extroverted individual, I do not confide in other people easily. I’m learning that I really can’t solve all my problems by myself, and that I need to trust that every problem that I face will turn out okay in the end. The story that I would like to share today happened in real time almost a year ago but is an event that I haven’t been able to fully understand the importance of until more recently. If any of the people who I’m writing about end up reading this, I want you to know that you have truly been the biggest blessing of 2018, and I wouldn’t trade a minute of the time we have spent together this year. It’s funny how people always say that some of the most important people enter your life when you are least expecting it. Well turns out they’re right (who knew) and that you can meet some of your best friends without even realizing it at the time.

Recently, I read a blog post about a young woman with a life motto of the words “always more” (audreyroloff). These are the words she would write on her hand before every cross-country race she ran, to tell herself that she always had more left to give her race and are the words that she continues to repeat to herself daily. In her words, “These words remind me that there is always more to look forward to, more than what meets the eye, more to someone’s story, more to be thankful for, more to give, more to unearth, more to learn, more blessings to receive, more growth in faith, more peace to experience, more wisdom to gain, and more reason to love.” Just two simple words that hold so much meaning to her.

In my own life, I am involved in many activities. Most of the time you can find me running from one activity to the next without much of a break, but I love all the activities I am involved in, and I enjoy keeping myself busy. Out of all the activities I am in, swim team has easily been one of the most rewarding experiences for me because of everything the sport has taught me. I have faced some of my hardest challenges and have had some of my greatest successes through Grove City’s swim team program. This past year on the swim team, I was named one of the girl team captains (there were two) and to start the season I had never been more excited to start swim season.

This excitement, although it still existed, started to get replaced by fear and a little bit of anger as the season went on. You see, to start the year, I was one of seven girls in the same grade as me, and two of those girls, although they had swam as younger children, they had taken a break from the sport, and just returned to swimming this past year. At the start of the season, the two girls were struggling a little bit because they hadn’t swam in so long, but as they continued to practice, they only got faster and faster. One of the girls didn’t swim the same events as me, so I really didn’t have to compete with her at a competitive level. In high school swimming, swimmers swim two events per meet, and two events at the most important meet we train for the whole year, and the other girl swam the same exact two events that I did.

That meant that me and her would train the whole year together, go against each other at every meet, and at the end of the season there would only be one winner of our two events. This sounds like the kind of situation that would make two people hate each other, right? And although I really believe that I wanted to hate her, because she was my competition and I am a very competitive individual, I ended up loving her as a person, and she turned out to be an amazing teammate. We started hanging out outside of swim team activities, and to this day she is one of my best friends, but the road to acceptance for me was not an easy one.

As soon as she started to get slightly faster than me at some sets we did in practice, I started to get angry. I don’t think I was angry at her, but I was angry with myself for not working hard enough to be faster than her. I was also scared. I was the captain of the team and the person that the younger girls were supposed to look up to. I was scared that I was letting myself down, my team down, and most important to me at the time, my coach down. I have a very close relationship with my swim team coach and she is someone that I go to for advice, and someone that I look up to not just in swim, but in life. I didn’t want to let her down, especially now that she had given me the opportunity to help lead the team. I thought for some time that if I lost the race at the end, at the most important meet of the season, then, I would be letting her down, but this turned out not being true.

You see, my coach, although wants to see me be the most successful I can be, only expects the best from me, and really didn’t care how I swam compared to other people as long as I was competing with myself and getting better/faster. She saw success in me beating myself, not me beating other people. At the end of the season, at the most important meet of the year, me and my friend each ended up winning one of our respective events, and even in the event that I lost, I beat my own personal best and my coach was just as excited for me as she was my competitor and friend.

The more I think back to this year’s swim season I can’t but help think that the lesson I learned from that experience was so so so so important to my growth as a person. I realized that the people who truly love and care about me have the same perspective about my successes that my swim coach had last year. They want to see me be the best version of myself I can possibly be. No exceptions.

Even more so, I saw the way my fleeting hardships ended up becoming a blessing. God had a plan for me all along, even if I couldn’t see it at the time. The more I thought about it, doesn’t God also think the way my swim coach did? God doesn’t care if you are better at sports, or at a job, or smarter than the people around you because he loves and appreciates us for us. I think sometimes we forget that winning at events, activities, or even winning materialistic things is not what is important. Becoming the best version of yourself is most important, because with God, you can possess more kindness, grace, and acceptance then you ever thought was possible, and even in the hardest moments of your life, you know that there will always be more in store for you with god.

There is always more to every situation that happens in our lives. I intend to spend 2019 learning from my mistakes, but most importantly, accepting that my best is ALWAYS good enough in God’s eyes. I hope that anyone who spends the time reading this (I know I’m sorry it’s long) also spends the time being patient with them self this year because as long as you are striving to be the best version of yourself, your best IS ENOUGH and that there is always more in store for you than you can even imagine. Happy New Year.

With all my love,

Nicky

Starting a blog is something I have been thinking about doing for years. Those of you who know me well know that I spend much of my free time reading blogs and I have always looked up to and admired the people who wrote what I have been reading all these years. I’ve decided that I would like the opportunity to try and be the person I have been looking up to for so long for someone else, even if my attempt is a flop. I hope you stick around and see if it is… 

My first actual post is coming January 1, so stay tuned to see what “The biggest lesson I learned in 2018” was. I hope you enjoy what I wrote and I am so excited to be finally making on one of my dreams come true.