meet monte

You know those weeks where you just feel like no matter what you do you are 2 steps and 15 minutes behind? It has definitely been one of those weeks for me. After a weekend spent with my family in Milwaukee, my monday started off with a lot of tears and even more priorities that I had forgotten about during the weekend. I have spent the last 5 days running around like a crazy person, working ridiculous hours, forgetting about necessities like food and sleep, and trying to catch up even though my efforts sometimes seem futile.Yesterday after I finally got home from a 14 hour long day I sat down at the kitchen counter and within minutes I was surrounded by my 4 best friends, my roommates, asking me how my day way, if they could make me dinner, if I needed any help. As I sat there trying to fight back the inevitable tears, I realized how incredibly lucky I was that these 4 incredible women were brought into my life.

Through my blog you have all heard about my 2 closest and first friends here at Marquette, Catherine and Shannon; the two that have stood by my side through all of my best and worst times. Last year when we decided we wanted to live together, we also chose to live with two girls that Catherine knew, but I didn't very well: Emma and Lauren. While I was a little hesitant at first, looking back on it now it seems silly. These two girls have become some of my favorite people at Marquette and life at Monte is definitely the highlight of my whole college experience thus far. Sometimes I try to imagine what junior year would have been like if we would have decided to find a three bedroom, or if we had chosen two other roomates, but it is honestly something I can't even picture. Between Emma's incredible sense of humor, Shannon's endless hugs and outpouring of love, Lauren's kindness and compassion (and cleanliness :) ), and Catherine's energy and spirit, Monte just seems to work. This year has been filled with so much laughter, impromptu dance parties, snuggle sessions, family dinners, nights out, and memories I will never forget.

Sometimes it is really easy for me to lose sight in all the amazing things in my life. I get so wrapped up in the stress of school and work or the personal things that I am dealing with that I just forget that I have such a happy life. I am so lucky that I get to live with 4 of my best friends, go to a school I adore, work 2 challenging yet rewarding jobs, and have the time of my life as a college dancer. I hate those days where I lose sight of that and have breakdowns sitting at the kitchen counter, so I am even more thankful that I have 4 girls who will put on Beyonce Pandora and gently remind me that I have a really great life.

My upcoming birthday has me a little bit down. I feel like I always have a hard time around holidays or mile stones because it reminds of how much or how little has changed in a year. This year especially with all the ups and downs that have happened in the last 365 days. After last night though I know it is going to be okay, and that this birthday weekend will be one of my best. And I know I can thank Monte for that.

So today I choose joy. Have a wonderful weekend everyone!



why do you wear purple?

I wear purple because the six letter, two syllable 'c' word was enough to change my entire life. and it continues to change others every day.

I wear purple because nobody should have to watch their family, their friends, their neighbors die from cancer.

I wear purple because the words chemotherapy, radiation, oncology, and limited time went from being words that I had to look up in the dictionary to words that I used in everyday conversation. The change happened far too fast, far too young.

I wear purple because I met Anna, because her spirit and strength changed my outlook on pretty much everything, because losing her impacted me in ways that I didn't even think possible.

I wear purple because to this day, almost three years since we lost Anna, I still wear her bracelet. My heart still skips a beat when the clock flashes 12:12, in memory of the prayer I used to say daily that she would get better. I still smile every time I hear the song "Float On" because I know in that moment she is right there beside me. 

I wear purple because the American Cancer Society has become a part of me. The hope and healing that it provides everyday is something I live by and work constantly to spread to others.

I wear purple because last year I watched my best friend ride the roller coaster that is cancer with his mom and ultimately lose her in the end. I wear purple because I would do anything in this world to take his pain away. 

I wear purple because according to the American Cancer Society there is an estimated 1,665,540 people who will hear the words "you have cancer." 585,720 of those people will have family members who get "the call." The one where they have to hear the words that their loved ones are finally without pain and suffering because they have left this earthly life.

I wear purple because I have received that call too many times and people I love have received that call too many times.

I wear purple because cancer sucks.

I wear purple because I have faith that together we can make a difference. Together we can create a world with less cancer. 

Today people unite all across the world on World Cancer Day in order to show their support of those fighting, those who we have lost, and those who have survived this awful disease. We all have different reasons for wearing purple, every cancer story is a little bit different. Why do you wear purple?

If you haven't already, purple you profile by joining the fight with Chevrolet, who will be donating up to $1 million to the American Cancer Society for every social media profile turned purple, the color of cancer survival. 

"Be joyful in hope, patient in affliction, faithful in prayer" Romans 12:12

closer to heaven

Yesterday I was cleaning out my documents folder on my computer and came across an old post I never published that was written at the end of my sophomore year. It is clearly a little outdated, but I decided to still post it for a couple reasons. First, it's always nice to see how far I have come, how different things are after time and distance. And second because it highlights the beginning of my time with Colleges Against Cancer and how much I hoped it would add to my life. Little did I know that the impact CAC had on my life, would be far greater than anything I could have imagined...and Relay isn't even here yet.

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I hate, hate, hate flying. Sitting still for hours on end, being suspended in the air and not really sure what is keeping us from crashing, mixed with the people sitting way to close to me and reclining their chairs so their heads are practically in my lap all add up to be a recipe for disaster for me. I spend the majority of the time I fly praying the rosary and hoping we don’t crash (paranoia problems) or trying to drown out my discomfort with some loud country music. My only hope most flights are that I am so exhausted that I just pass out. Today’s flight unfortunately (or fortunately I guess, depends on how you look at it) was not one of those days.

As much as flying and heights in general make me nervous, there is something so beautiful about being high above the clouds. I love the moment when the plane ascends just high enough that the city below completely disappears into a blanket of clouds. I remember when I was a little girl I used to think that being in the clouds meant you were in heaven, I guess a part of my 20 year old self still really wishes that were true. How great would it be if we were able to just make a quick trip to heaven every now and then? Naturally in my post finals exhaustion and slight delirium this is what I was thinking about 10,000 feet above.

In the past year and a half, I have been looking for ways to feel closer to my lost loved ones, wrestling between moving on and still holding onto memories close. I’ve found it’s a really difficult balance to find. You want so badly to forget sometimes, but then on those really good days you have, there’s always that small part of you that feels bad for being happy without them. And then you just feel ridiculous because eventually you are going to have to find a way to enjoy life again, and before you know it you are in this unending cycle of sadness, happiness, guilt, frustration and so on. Lately my days are easier to get through. My first thought every morning isn’t, “when can I go back to bed.” Smiles and laughter are more genuine, and I’ve really started to love my life again. But I am still constantly looking for something to bring me closer to heaven, closer to those I’ve lost, and closer to the person that I want to be because I was privileged to have them in my life. I want so desperately for my seven-year-old self to be right, and that heaven is a simple plane ride away.

When I lost my second classmate to cancer, my first thought was that I officially knew more people that have died from this disease than have survived it, and that was a really sad moment for me. I had watched my sister get so involved in Relay for Life and I really wanted to believe in the cause as much as she did. Alyson lived and breathed by the American Cancer Society for so long, I wanted that passion and complete faith she had in a cure. Even as I walked in Relay for Life, the selfish and really broken side of me couldn’t wholeheartedly believe that one day this disease would be eradicated like so many had hoped for. That all changed this year when I heard the student speakers at Relay for Life 2013. Students that I had seen walking around campus, living lives completely normally had been battling this unknown battle with family and friends suffering from this disease, and I had no idea. It was an extremely sobering moment for me, one that snapped me out of my self-centered sadness and made me realize that even though my friends died, so many others survived and even if they didn’t, those they left behind were still okay. Life moves on even when we don’t want it to, and in the cancer world, we have the American Cancer Society to thank for a lot of that. I don’t want to sound cliché and say that night changed my life, but it did change a lot of my views on the way I was dealing with things, and it did contribute a lot to my lighter spirits and happiness today.

The American Cancer Society and Marquette’s Colleges Against Cancer have provided me with my newest project and what I am really hoping is my way to grow closer to heaven. As of the beginning of May I have been elected to CAC’s 2013-2014 E-Board and I will be helping in planning Relay for Life 2014. I could not feel more blessed or be more excited about this opportunity. I know that this event means a lot to so many people, and I am thrilled to be playing a bigger role in it this upcoming year. I want nothing more than to honor the lives of my friends in a way that I know will help other people. Already I have been welcomed into the CAC family, a group of people who believe in this cure and cause as much as I do for their own personal reasons. I may have lost my friends, but I find so much comfort in their memory and through other people who are working so hard to fight back against cancer and everything it has taken away from everyone.

I am continuing to look out over my blanket of clouds and unfortunately am not met with the sight of my beautiful angels that I know are watching over me. I may not be able to take a plane ride to heaven to visit, but I know their memories, their spirit, and their love is with me, always. I know that through volunteering and helping the American Cancer Society I will be able to focus my sadness in a constructive way that will hopefully help so that less people feel the need to grow closer to heaven next year. I know that the short time that I had with my lost friends was for a reason. I know that something more is going to come from that, and I know that I am a better person because I knew them. Right now I just need to focus on what I do know because in a world of uncertainty it is really difficult to find meaning and reason. I know Colleges Against Cancer Exec is a really big step in the right direction though, and I could not be happier to join this family.

“but maybe the miracle was even getting one moment with you” –Taylor Swift “Ronan”

breaking the cycle

It always makes me nervous when I go to write a post about how well things are going. It's like I am scared to be truly happy because I am always waiting for the other shoe to drop. It makes me sad that at 20 years old that's the first thing that comes to mind when I realize how well things are going, and it is something that I have thought a lot about these past couple days. 

For the first time in a really long time I know I am exactly where I am supposed to be. I have spent a large part of the last couple years questioning if I was on the right track and doing the right thing. In the past couple weeks though I have realized that I am at a really great point in my life. I have two incredible jobs that not only challenge me, but bring me so much joy. I am dancing with 13 incredible girls and cheering for a team I adore. I am on a sorority high with recruitment right around the corner. I have a boy that makes me smile constantly, a family who supports me in everything I do (who I get to see in less than a month!), and I am living with 4 of my best friends where there is never a dull moment. And so I look around and realize how seriously lucky and blessed I am, but I can't help but look for the thing that's going to come into my life and screw all this happiness up again.

I remember my freshman year when I was in a really dark place a friend of mine told me I had to make sure the grief didn't win. It isn't really something I ever real thought about, I knew grief was temporary and that I would eventually be okay. It wasn't until this week as I was writing about how scared I was that something bad was hiding for me around the corner that I realized I had let the grief win. That famous quote "don't let your struggle become your identity," I let that happen in some ways. I don't know when or how it happened, but by being afraid to be happy, afraid to share how happy I am, I let the grief win.

So I'm done. I'm done being scared. I'm done minimizing my happiness because I feel like I shouldn't get to be that happy. I have a great life and I need to stop denying that for whatever reason I might have. My struggle might not have become my identity completely, but it definitely became a crutch, an excuse. From here on out I am really going to try to break that cycle. I am going to try to stop taking my happiness for granted and really embrace that I am where I am supposed to be right now. There might be something bad waiting for me around the corner, but that shouldn't make me any less happy today. 

what is this master plan anyways?

I didn't know it was possible to physically feel a heart break. I also didn't know that the pain of someone you love hurting was far greater than any pain I would ever come to know on my own. I have learned a lot in the last three years, but nothing could have possibly prepared me for the lessons I learned last night when my best friend told me that his mom lost her battle with cancer, and had passed to be in a better place without pain and suffering. We were states away and I swear with those words I felt the hole ripping through my chest. 

This year my hatred for cancer grew to heights I didn't think it would ever take. This year instead of feeling all the pain that comes with someone you know having this disease firsthand, I knew it all secondhand. This year instead of trying to convince myself that everything was going to be okay, I had to listen to my best friend lose hope and admit to me that he didn't think his mom was going to make it. That hatred and that pain far surpasses anything I have ever felt in my life, and it is something I wish so desperately I could take away. My heart aches for him. Part of me wants this pain I am feeling to go away so badly, but the bigger part of me wants to be able to feel all of his pain for him so that he doesn't have to. I want to be able to go back in time and fix it all for him. I want to be able to hold him together like my family did for me as I fell to pieces in the kitchen last night. I think that's the worst part of all of this. I know there's not a damn thing I can do to make things any better, and if there is one thing I hate more than cancer, its feeling helpless.

My whole life I have heard people tell me that God has this master plan for us, and every hardship we encounter is just preparing us for what God has in store. The last three years have been a real test of faith for me, but this week is by far the biggest one. It's so hard to leave it all up to Him when I want so badly to be able to fix it on my own. I've never been a very trusting person, and trusting someone else to care for the people I love isn't an easy task, even if it is God. I know everything is going to be okay. I am hopeful, and faithful, and I know my friend's mom is in a better place where she is no longer in pain. I know my friend is the strongest human being I know and that he has all the support he needs to get through this. I know that even though I can't see a reason behind all of this right now, there has got to be something. 

I always feel as if I need to find the answers right away. I think that has a lot to do with why I stopped writing for so long, because I was looking for the answers. The truth is, right now I don't have any answers. I know all of these things but I am really struggling to let all these truths I know become bigger than the pain I feel. I know I can't take the pain away from him, but I don't know how to trust God enough to understand that he is still going to get through this. I don't know how to make this aching in my chest go away when I know that his never will. So until I figure this all out, if I even ever do, I will continue to pray and look for the little glimpses of hope in a life that really doesn't make sense to me anymore. For those of you reading that are religious in any way please light candle or say a prayer for a family who lost a mother too soon and a young man who had to grow up far too fast. 

I know I'll see you again - this side or the other

my year of love.

If I could choose one word to describe my year it would be love; finding my way back to love, learning to love myself, choosing to walk away from love, discovering the unconditional love that surrounds me everyday. 2013 was a year full of a lot of ups and downs for me, but through it all, love, in so many different forms, flowed constantly and kept me steady.  

I began the new year on the heels of a year full of healing. 2012 was about finding my way back to the happy go lucky, carefree teenager I was before my freshman year in college. Throughout the year I realized that even if I couldn’t go back, I was finding a new way to deal with it all and finding a new version of myself. My goal for 2013 was to take that healing, take the new Kelsey, and fall back in love with my life. Stop surviving, and start living. I went back to Marquette for my second semester of my sophomore year and things started falling back into place for me. I threw myself into dance, my sorority, being a college student and slowly the days stopped seeming endless. Everyone used to tell me that one day you would wake up and just start feeling better. I called bullshit every single time, until I did. I just woke up one day and realized that I couldn’t remember the last time I had a bad day, which in retrospect is really incredible because there was a long period of time where the dark days far surpassed the good ones. I woke up and I realized that the “new Kelsey” was someone that was so loved, and in turn found a way to love myself again, all the broken pieces included. Slowly loving life and loving myself didn’t seem like such a task, it came easy. And with that loving someone else came easy too.

As cheesy and stereotypical as it sounds, my summer was one filled with the magic of love. I got to spend the summer with my high school sweetheart, my best friend, my first love, and my other half. I spent the entire summer and beginning of my junior year filling in all the broken pieces of my heart with new memories with him. Meeting his family, going on amazing adventures, planning our futures, reminiscing on our past – we crammed it all into an amazing six months. Most of all though, he taught me to believe again; believe that love exists, that it has the power to heal, to change your life for the better and to make you question how you ever survived without it. I got to spend my year in that kind of love, and I wouldn’t trade it for anything in this world. As summer turned to fall and we went back to our respective schools and lives, we both learned the harsh lesson that even the most magical love doesn’t always stand the tests of time and distance, but it doesn’t take away anything from the impact his love had on my life.

By the time the calendar hit November, love had already taken over 2013 and changed pretty much everything. The last couple months I have been pleasantly surprised time and time again when I realize how much love surrounds me everyday. I always knew I had an incredible family who loved me unconditionally, but this year I got to live with my best friends and witness their unconditional love. I took an opportunity and changed pretty much everything I had planned for my future, and when I expected everyone to tell me how crazy I was, I was met only with kindness and support. 

Who knew that in a span of 365 days love could consume my life so much? Falling back in love with my life was definitely not an easy process, but the results are unlike anything I could have imagined. It is such an incredible feeling to read my writing from this time last year and see how much things have changed, in a good way. So here’s to the last 365 days, 12 months, 52 weeks, 529600 minutes. Thanks to the people that have filled my life with so much love and taught me to love in a much better way. I can’t wait to see what 2014 has in store. 

because the sun keeps rising

A little over a year ago, I wrote my first blog post in the hopes that sharing my story would be the first step in healing my very broken heart. I remember writing, and backspacing, and crying, and really having no idea how to convey everything that I was feeling, but I also remember knowing that I had to keep writing, because with each story I told, each post I published, I was taking control of everything that was happening and somehow figuring it all out. My first post was titled "the sun will rise again." Whenever anything bad happened, most people would respond by telling me that tomorrow is a new day, that things would get better. It sounds like good advice, but it's also really hard to take when it seems impossible to get through the next hour- let alone an entire day. Either way though, I knew deep down that things would get better. I would wake up the next morning and little by little things would start looking up, they had to. Sadly in Milwaukee the sun does not shine a whole lot, but it always rises whether or not I see it. The clouds of depression and grief ruined a lot of really sunny days for me, but I knew that one day things would be better. and I held on to that when I couldn't find anything else to hold on to. 

It's kinda surreal to sit in my dorm room a year later and think about everything that happened last year. In a lot of ways it feels like just yesterday, but in others it feels like a lifetime ago. It is so hard to admit sometimes. I love Marquette and my life in Milwaukee, and it is difficult to think about how bad things were freshman year. I wanted so desperately to be a normal college student who moved in on the first day freshman year and had the time of her life, never looking back. Even still I don't know how I let things get so bad, how I let grief get the best of me over and over again. Somehow I made it though. The sun kept rising, and slowly things really did get better and better like everyone told me they would.

I'd like to say I am 100%, but I know I still have a long way to go. I also know that I have incredible people and opportunities in my life, and I have a long list of angels to thank for that, for guiding me along the right path, and for keeping me strong even when I didn't want to be. There are a lot of things I still need to figure out, a lot of unknowns and a lot of growing left to do. But I do know that next year will be better, I know that the sun will keep rising, and I now know that I am strong enough to get through my darkest days.

 In the last year I have spent a lot of days hoping for a better tomorrow, I am happy to say that I think I have finally found it.