Simplicity & Serendipity

Kinda Funny

So this morning I was driving and lately I’ve been streaming a lot of nostalgic playlists like music from the past decade and rediscovering a lot of my old jams. So today I stumbled upon Love The Way You Lie Part II (with Rihanna & Eminem) on a random playlist and I was there like WHAT because I swear I’ve been consistently listening to the original one for the past decade (sorry mom) and was honestly floored that I never knew there was like a sequel song. The point of that backstory is that now I’ve been listening to the part II on repeat all day and I’ll tell you why.

Background Info

For anyone who is unfamiliar with this particular Eminem & Rihanna duo song, the original is in the perspective of an abuser in a physically and emotionally/mentally abusive relationship with the chorus being a hint of the abused partners’ perspective. It turns out the part II of the song is mostly entirely the perspective of the abused woman.

Hit Hard

So, first this morning I was listening to the song and just finding it wild that I had never heard it before. Then after a while I started really taking in the lyrics, as we know I do if you’ve read my previous blogs. I started feeling kind of uncomfortable and a little teary because I found myself relating to the girl in the song. It’s one of those things where when you’re a kid you know that a lot of crappy things happen but you don’t think they’ll ever happen to you. I never thought I’d relate to a song like this. I do think that both of these songs are really interesting and embody what an experience of being in an abusive relationship of any kind can be like. The second one really plays on the emotional and mental part of an abusive relationship.

Some Rocky Stuff

This part is a little hard to put into words and get out what I’m trying to say but I’m going to give it my best shot. So to clarify, I have NEVER been physically abused and would never claim that I have. However, I’ve been in what was meant to be a romantic and loving relationship with a person who said that I was “lucky,” that he never physically hurt me and was emotionally manipulated enough to believe that to be true. I know what it’s like to feel confused about what love is and not knowing how to distribute the weight of the bad and ugly things versus the qualities that I fell in love with. The part of the song that I resonated with the most is a part that says,

“In this tug of war, you’ll always win
Even when I’m right
‘Cause you feed me fables from your head
With violent words and empty threats.”

That part just really speaks to how emotional abuse and manipulation happen, at least in my experience. The manipulator is always winning because they know how to play the game. I feel like something that people ask or wonder a lot about abusive relationships is why the other person stays and lives with the treatment that they are receiving. I can’t speak for everyone, but in my experience I understood the person. I understood what made him the way he was, so for a while I was willing to make excuses for him, even for myself, until I wasn’t. I realized that regardless of what a person has been through, they are still responsible for their own behavior and that it just wasn’t my mess to keep cleaning up.

My Hope for Everyone

Every relationship has ups and downs and nothing is cookie cutter and perfect, that’s part of being human and loving others despite differences, flaws, and imperfections is so beautiful. But there’s a line here. Love shouldn’t hurt. And it definitely shouldn’t hurt more than it heals. Please please please if you or someone you know is experiencing something like that, please feel free to reach out and talk to me about it. I’m not an expert by any means but I will do anything that I can to help someone that is struggling with something that I have. I hope that everyone can find love that heals.

Try Again

If you’ve been through something like this (or not!), it’s super hard and scary jumping back in and giving love another chance, risking being hurt again if you’ve been hurt is so scary. But also really exciting. Even if you’ve been broken by love that hurt, there is love out there that heals and we are here for it. Moving forward, I’m trying my best to give my absolute all and break down the walls and barriers that I have because I think every new opportunity deserves a real, fresh start to love like I’ve never been hurt. Taking what I’ve learned, knowing my worth, not accepting less, and giving my all.

It’s Been a Hot Minute

Hello, me again! I know I shouldn’t have kept you waiting…but I’m here now (read as Britney Spears in Break the Ice). A lot of things have happened in my life since the last time I wrote. Some highly unfortunate, some good, and some phenomenal. I’m living for the phenomenal.

Always Learning

I highly believe that everything happens for a reason and that every person that we let into our lives is meant to teach us something. Sometimes we learn the good things, the things that keep us moving and that give us the drive to get up another day and try again. We learn how it feels to be valued, loved, and immersed in things and people that amplify our sense of self worth. Other times we experience quite the opposite. Since I last wrote I found that I was investing my time, energy, love, body and soul into the wrong place, this place being a person in this circumstance. I realized that over time, I gave this person so much of me, and gave up so much of me, that I didn’t know who I was and I’ve never been more terrified. I felt that the thing standing between the broken, unfamiliar facets of the woman I was, and the whole, beautiful, remarkable woman that was caged under the surface was one toxic person that I gave the power to rule me. And let me tell you what, I will never surrender my power again.

You Have the Key

So, I’m back on my bullshit with the song references, if you happened to read my last blog, I reference song lyrics a lot. A line that I love so much that I just resonate with is from another Eagles song, it goes, “So often times it happens that we live our lives in chains, and we never even know we have the key.” This line speaks to me so much because it just encompasses how only you have the power to change your own life if you’re unfulfilled in the life you’re living. This realization was also kind of a slap in the face for me because I realized that only I could have caused my life to get to a place where I was unrecognizable to myself, because of the ways that I was willing to give up pieces of who I was. Though this part of my story is not my favorite, it’s so important and such a pivotal moment in my life so far. I am so proud to know that I was capable of realizing what I deserve and refusing to continue to accept less, finding out that I held the key and had the power to break through the chains that were limiting me. For what it’s worth to anyone that’s reading, I encourage you to take a step back and think about the fulfillment in your life and consider if you are getting the love, support, happiness, overall satisfaction with the life you are living currently and if not, please know that you hold the key and you have the power to create something better for yourself.

From Scratch

I am currently still building the woman that I want to be from scratch and I am loving her thus far, she’s tough, she’s a fighter, she’s got a positive outlook, she can have a dark sense of humor but we like to think it’s endearing and also a total dork. I have had a few moments in my life where I’ve had to change my idea of what I thought was going to happen or how I thought my life would be and rethink and rebuild under new circumstances. However, this past year has been the big one where I really needed to make more monumental changes in my way of thinking about my expectations. By big changes, I mean throwing my expectations in the garbage and moving forward with a more open mind to letting what is meant for me happen and making improvements to my quality of life in ways that I have control. I made a list a few months ago and it was essentially my action plan for making positive improvements to my life to get myself to a happier place. My list had anywhere from little seemingly silly things to big things that would take time and work. Some things that I’ve been working on are my physical health and overall confidence, I usually have been trying to do something for exercise every day, whatever time allows for any given day, tried yoga for the first time, I’ve gotten on a much better path of eating healthier, buying myself new clothes that make me feel like myself. Another thing I’ve been doing is making sure that I’m making time to do things that I like, so (before the sad weather struck) I was going for lots of hikes and getting myself back into golf. My huge goal was to improve my relationships with my friends and be closer to people who already mean the world to me, and pursue new friendships too. I am so excited with how my friendships have grown and I wouldn’t trade that ever again for the world. I’m in a good place now, and continuing to grow.

So this blog post is sort of about my first tattoo, in a way. I got my first tattoo on my ribcage December of my senior year of high school (2015), a couple months after I turned 18 on a total whim. I had a couple ideas lingering in my head already about what I wanted but wasn’t totally decided yet. Didn’t tell my parents, didn’t tell any of my friends, nothing. I was on a road where I could keep going straight and go home or take a sharp turn and go to the tattoo shop. You can infer where I ended up.

Lyrics

Music lyrics have always meant so so so much to me. I (usually) can’t get into a song unless it speaks to me in some way. I’m super private about the music that I like and have a tendency not to share it with others because I just think of music in a very personal way. So my tattoo is from, Hotel California by the Eagles. I was super into the Eagles at the time and the quote “some dance to remember, some dance to forget,” just spoke to me in a personal way and in my interpretation (the whole song can be interpreted in so many different ways) I felt related to me, in my life, at that time.

2015

Yikes. 2015 is the one specific year in my life that I am least proud of. Bad choices. Desperation. Just worst version of myself all around. Just accepted less because my self worth was that low and felt like I deserved less. Wrong. WRONG. And, what’s that? Wrong again.

Some Dance to Forget

Why did I let this bad year happen? So during my high school years I was experiencing so many changes it was like freaking whip lash. My family was changing every minute (still is, but that’s the new norm), I lost a person who was my absolute best friend and support system, and stemming off of that felt like I must have done something wrong or done something to deserve being left when that just wasn’t true. I still struggle with that loss today. Some dance to forget is the main line I was focusing on for my tattoo, that’s the part that spoke to me. I was having a super hard time trying to forgive and forget the things that had happened in my life that were hard for me to get through. I felt like a lot of people were leaving high school all smiles and dancing to remember the amazing times they had, while I was struggling to forget and move on.

To Be Honest…

Sometimes I honestly regret getting this tattoo when I consider the negative connotation of it and wish I would have permanently stamped myself with something more positive. However, that’s how I was feeling at the time and in a more positive outlook, it reminds me of the person I never want to be again and never to accept less than I deserve.

A New Outlook

So this is my new one. I still need to go in and get it touched up, it’s brand new, just got finished healing, and a little patchy still. It obviously doesn’t have any text, but to me it says, “Sometimes that mountain you’ve been climbing is just a grain of sand.” -Carrie Underwood. It reminds me that sometimes we (especially me) make a problem bigger than it needs to be, and don’t give ourselves enough credit. It reminds me to let go and let God. I’m also trying to think of things as less of things I need to “forget” and think of it more as things that have helped me learn, grow, and ultimately be the person that I am today (still a work in progress, but how boring would it be if I wasn’t?)

So basically I didn’t know what else to title my first blog entry. I thought of on Netflix how every first episode of a series is called “pilot” and that’s the episode that introduces you to the characters and gives you an idea to what the show is going to be about. That’s pretty much how my first blog post is going to go.

Tiny Bit About Me (Me on paper)

Some background on me: my name is Allyson Baetke. I am a soon-to-be senior at Iowa State University, studying Elementary Education. I have one semester of classes left before student teaching. I have two cats (Koda & Paisley). My cat Koda totally loves every human but my Paisley only likes me and that couldn’t delight me more to be honest. I have one younger brother, Conner, (at the end of his 7th grade year) who I love to see grow and learn to be his own person. My whole family dynamic is constantly changing right now and is sometimes hard, but I’ve had a lot of opportunities to consider things from new perspectives which I think has ultimately helped me grow.

Me Behind the Scenes

I’ve struggled with anxiety and depression a lot since probably my sophomore year of high school. I had a lot change that year, and I feel like that year I went from a girl with a happy life, perfect family, perfect boyfriend, perfect friends, etc. to discovering that things don’t always work out the way I want them to and sometimes need to find a new way and make my own happy. I go back and forth being good at that and not and have my ups and downs, but that year in particular changed my life for good (little did I know) and I’m still learning every day.

What I Do

I started at ISU in the School of Design. My goal there was to go into Landscape Architecture where my overall goal was to design golf courses or parks. Within a month of being there, I knew that wasn’t for me, I wasn’t passionate about it and generally didn’t fit in with other students in my class. I wanted to do something where I would feel like I was making a real impact on the lives of people. I ended up switching into Elementary Education which was what I always wanted to do all through high school.

Taking a Leap

Why am I blogging? I have been thinking about writing a blog literally for years. I think I never do it because I don’t think anyone will find me interesting enough to read about and sharing personal thoughts/stories is hard for me, I’m a very private person and keep a lot of baggage underneath the surface. However, I just thought whether people read or not isn’t completely the propose of this blog. I’m a person where my mind is typically somewhere else and I’m always thinking of what I have to say and forming elaborate thoughts but I’ve never been a huge talker and prefer to share my thoughts in writing, somewhere where I have the time to form the right words. So I bring to you, my blog, my baggage, my story.

Simplicity & Serendipity

A little bit about my philosophy on life is that I try never to take myself too seriously. I’m a simple person, I like simply being with my family, finding the little joys in life, being happy with what I have and grateful for what this life has given me. This is where the simplicity in my blog title comes from. Years ago (seems like forever) I heard the word serendipity for the first time and haven’t gotten over the idea of it yet. It pretty much means stumbling along something wonderful by total chance. Kind of like fate, but so much sweeter and fun. I love how serendipitous life can be and how your whole life can change in a blink of an eye just by stumbling along something totally random and wonderful.