GraceMarie's Adventure Blog

Erica glances down at her vibrating phone and opens a message that had just appeared. The text was from the most recent of her boy "friends". Her and Austin had been hanging out for a few months. It didn't seem to be amounting to anything serious. Not that she didn't want that, but he had never brought it up before. She didn't feel comfortable pressing the matter. She had been assertive in past "relationships" if you'd even call them that. For some reason, every guy she hooked up with and spent a significant amount of time with, just wanted to be friends. It was frustrating to Erica, because all she wanted was some type of commitment. Yet, every time she brought it up, the dude ran the other way. Immediately it was this big thing, about how they didn't connect emotionally, or how he just wanted to be friends with benefits, or that he wasn't looking for anything serious. The list of excuses went on and on, Erica had pretty much heard them all....

How do you react under pressure? Is it consistent? Do you like the feeling? Hate it? How do you handle a situation when everything seems to be falling apart around you? What if you're being bombarded by questions from multiple sources? What then? I think we'd all like to say that we are cool under pressure. That we always make the right decisions. That's what is expected out of us, right?

I've always thought of myself as an active person. I played sports throughout my childhood, into high school and throughout college. One thing I still seem to not enjoy is RUNNING. I freaking despise it. I'm pretty sure it hates me. Long distance running is the worst. My problem? I have to start liking it because I will be doing a TON of running at the police academy starting in late November. Seriously, someone send help.

Jaime was a skeptic. She always had been. She had learned from a young age that in order to survive, she would have to be wary of people. She didn't have time to be day dreaming about her prince charming, or how she would wind up in a cute house with a white picket fence and 2 perfect children. Jaime knew that was not going to be her life. Instead, she focused on her studies, her afterschool clubs and sports. She kept her head down, and her drive for success at attention. There wasn't room for anything else. Failure was simply not an option. Simon was a dreamer. He grew up in a family that would go to church every Sunday, who had family pizza and movie night every Friday. His mother engrained in him, from a young age, that nothing was impossible. That he could do anything that he set his mind to, and that if he ever needed any help, that his family would be there for him. The problem was that Simon didn't know what his calling was. He tended to float through school, never...

What does it mean to be completely and unapologetically you to another person? To be open, and vulnerable. Is that asking for trouble and heartbreak? Or is it something to strive to accomplish because there is no other feeling that compares to it? How can we be sure that the outcome will be in our favor? I know we can't. It's a silly question, but one that I find myself asking for the sake of appeasing my wandering thoughts and concerns. It's called biting the bullet. Taking a chance. For something great could come of it.

A lot of times I feel pressured to be doing something every single second of the day, every day of the week. The last three to four months of my life have been extremely boring to be honest. There has been some travel mixed in, quite a bit of physical fitness, but then a whole lot of nothing. Todays entry would have been: I woke up to my annoying alarm that I had intentionally set way too early. My sister and I had decided to go to the Gilbert Farmer's Market that morning. There's been an excessive heat warning in effect the past few days, and today was not an exception. We got to the market around 8am. It was already hot out, and I could feel the sweat dripping from my face before we had even walked around the corner of the first tents. We took a few laps around the market in order to size up possible competition for our money and hungry bellies. We decided to split up and order food from different food trucks, with the intention to split whatever we got. I chose a lemon...

I've honestly done a horrible fucking job keeping this blog updated. Most of my days are boring and repetitive. Like I wrote before, I have no inspiration or motivation. I've been reading a lot lately and going to movies. I used to be able to sit down, and I'd have a free verse poem flow right out of my head and onto the page.

It's funny, I was in the doctors office filling out paperwork this week. I was carefully filling out the boxes with my information. I came upon the box that said employment. I checked the box of unemployed. I've always checked the box of student. In my police interview, I told them I was unemployed. It's weird. I've tried to justify it. I've been traveling, training, and completing the hiring process with the Phoenix Police Department. Honestly, it would be silly to try and get a part time job because I'd just have to quit, with rather short notice. I've passed the background investigation, background interview, polygraph test, and the physical fitness test. It feels pretty fucking good. I've been training for this the past 5 years. I've gotten two degrees just for this job. This is what I want to do. I've been working my ass off in the gym so that I could pass this physical fitness test. It's exciting. But also nerve racking. It'...

I'm waiting for inspiration to hit me. Head on collision, line drive, any and all of that would be sufficient. Like, HELLO?? Maybe, I just have too much time on my hands... Yeah that's probably it.

In my mind, there's nothing better than picking up a good book and spending an entire afternoon reading it from cover to cover. I love to read. I've always loved to read. It's funny, my parents like to tell me this story about when I was younger. I had done something pretty bad to warrant punishment, and my dad was like let's take away her book. At this time, I didn't play on the computer, or really watch that much television. My mom was like, absolutely not. We will not punish this child by not letting her read. This just stands out to me because it's funny, and literally sounds like me.  Another funny story was that my mom used to take us to Barnes and Noble on a pretty regular basis. Obviously, I loved to read and there were so many books here. I'm a fast reader so I would usually devour the book that my mom would buy me within a day or two. My mom had to start limiting me to one book every time we went because she said that it didn't make se...

So Netflix just released this movie. Apparently it's based on a book. I decided to give it a watch, especially since the main character is Asian and I feel as though we are extremely underrepresented in mainstream media. What I didn't expect, was to find it oddly comforting and relatable. Lara Jean is a 16 year old girl who is navigating the high school scene. She's going about her business being invisible, when her younger sister, unbeknownst to Lara Jean, decides to mail out all of the letters she has written to past boys she has liked/loved. Lara Jean has been writing these letters for awhile, and writes down her feelings because they're overwhelming. When pressed about why she isn't in a relationship, she confesses that her romance novels give her an escape, but when it becomes real she gets scared and runs away. She confesses that it is easier to shut people out, so that she won't ever get hurt. Which really isn't realistic, but she has managed to do ...

Sometimes I find myself wondering what our lives, and what this world is really all about. We are born, we (hopefully) live, and then we die. Does what we do really matter? Are the relationships that we form really that important? Does "living in the moment" actually make any sense? Will anyone remember us when we're gone? Obviously, the non-morbid answer to all of these questions would be a definite "yes". But do you ever stop to think about what happens when we die? Have you ever thought about what life was before we were born? What were we? What will be become? Is there an after life? I think that a lot of people look towards religion to answer these questions, as well as to find comfort. Death isn't something we should think about, right? Sometimes I can't help but think that there really is nothing after we die. And if that is true, what should I be doing in the mean time?

In the last year or so, I've been looking for the answer to this question. I have been looking for the answer on a personal level as well as a societal level. I haven't found the answer yet. Let me know if you know of one.

For the past three-ish months, I have been training incredibly hard for the Phoenix Police Department. I've been working out with a trainer twice a week, go to practice physical tests on Thursday mornings, and workout on my own. I typically leave one day for rest day. I have changed my diet to accommodate a healthier lifestyle, and have genuinely put a great effort into getting into shape. I've always been athletic. I played sports all throughout high school, and then went on the play Division 2 Women's Golf for 4 years. Even with all of that preparation, there was nothing really to prepare me for this journey. I knew I had to get into shape, I knew this my sophomore year of college. I wanted to get into really good shape. But something always seemed to get in the way. I'd sometimes go through phases where I'd workout and eat healthy but then I always found myself slipping back into the same routine. I naively thought that I was healthy and that I could eat anything...

The first mobile telephone was used for a call in 1973. The internet came soon after in 1983 (although more recognizable in 1990). From there, technology has exploded. We have information at our fingertips. Social media, and things going "viral" have become norms for our society. My generation has been chastised for much of the attention coming from this kind of technology. I'll be the first to admit that I check my social media accounts every day, and I carefully curate what I am going to put out into the word in terms of content on my various pages. You gotta do it for the gram. We go places to get that perfect picture, with that perfect outfit and pose. Then we publish it. But, that is not a real representation of our lives. I think it is so easy to get caught up in this social media tide. We are so great at showing how "perfect" our lives are, that we ignore the fact that people aren't always flying first class to Paris, or swimming with turtles in Haw...

I've been reading a lot of non-fiction lately! This book is about the Appalachian Trail. More specifically, about a woman named Jennifer Pharr Davis who broke not only the women's speed record, but also the OVERALL speed record for the AT (Appalachian Trail). So basically this woman is a freaking bad ASS. The AT is right around 2,200 miles if you didn't know. Guess how long she took to complete the entire thing? 46 DAYS. She averaged 48 miles PER day. And if you didn't know, that trail has a ton of elevation change. It's not uncommon for thru-hikers to only average 15-20 miles a day on this trail. I enjoyed this book a ton. Her husband actually wrote it. He was a big part of her "Pit Crew" which met her at road crossings, and resupplied her with food and water. There were a ton of people that assisted them throughout this journey. With their help, she was able to break the long distance speed record on the AT. **I actually started writing this awhile a...