HAILEYANELA

c/o:  Sabrina Kellerman Photography I’m guilty of painting pretty pictures. Pictures of how I want my life to be viewed. I want crisp edges and smooth lines, not a defect in sight. A clear and in-focus image that everyone can praise, and my mother can be proud of. A picture that can garner Facebook “likes” and Twitter “retweets”; an image that attains the coveted “Life Goals” hash tag. Because who doesn’t want a life that can be applauded and placed front-and-center on the mantel of self-esteem? As a side effect of this deceptive exhibit of life, is the mass of people that assume they know exactly how you feel simply based off the carefully edited Instagram post. They surmise that the smile means happiness and contentment, and the success equals satisfaction and self-fulfillment. They believe the best, because the best is all that they can see. They view the performance from the front row, completely oblivious to the stress backstage behind the curtain. My frustration ...

A week ago I made the decision to go speak to my bishop concerning the confusion and frustration that I had been feeling for the past week or so. I explained to him that I had felt the need to  come up here to Provo, for some reason unknown to myself, but now I was doubting my decision to move away for the summer. I had many unrealistic expectations that weren't met, so I was frustrated with my situation to say the least. With all this unnecessary pressure building up we decided that I needed to axe a few things in my life. First on my "purge" list was social media. I would like to freely admit that I spend WAY too much time on my phone, bouncing between Facebook, Twitter, and Tumblr, there were so many things I could be doing with that wasted time. So with the determination to relieve myself of inessential burdens, I deleted all three apps from my phone. Okay, so I know I probably should have completely deactivated my accounts, but I wanted to see if I could manage to...

So this morning as I was getting ready for school I was desperately trying to keep my eyes open and awake as I yanked a sweatshirt over my head and hopped into a pair of skinny jeans. I tried to run my fingers through my damp hair in hopes that it would detangle itself and not be knotty. (wow Im so punny) This was all going down as my bread was in the toaster. Remember when you were a kid (or yesterday) and you would see the timer on the microwave tick down and you would try your hardest to get everything done before that annoying beeping started?  Yep that was me. Trying my hardest to get dressed and ready before my soon to be toast popped up. And for those of you that eat toast (I'm assuming probably all of you) know that there is a very small time window in which you have to butter your toast or it will be too cold and then you will be left with a semi warm piece of slightly browned bread with a clump of cold hard butter in the middle. yep it's gross. Because that's exac...