The Fault in Our Stars... as it pertains to my life

I saw The Fault in Our Stars... Twice already.
The problem is that I sob uncontrollably at the end.
For those of you who have not read the book or seen the movie, I'm sorry.
It is an amazing story, but it's rough. It's completely beautiful though. It's a book about cancer without being about cancer. It's about the story of a relationship, lives, and struggles that could happen in anyone's lives, but put to two kids with cancer.
Cancer isn't their main flaw even. Hazel is hard to love and tries to push Gus away. She even leads him on while trying to deny her own feelings towards him. She feels like her cancer is why she can't love him, because she is going to die and he will be left here on Earth and it wouldn't be fair. Gus hardly seems to have flaws, but of course he does. He wants this grand life so much that a normal life of only having those close him love him isn't enough. He wants to be widely loved and admired by strangers for being great.
Gus has so much to teach us though.
His cancer scare kind of turned him into this optimistic kid who is "on a roller coaster that only goes up." He refuses to deny himself pleasures in life, such as staring at a beautiful person or saying "I love you." That is a lesson we all could learn or be reminded of. I remember freaking out for about a month before my mouth finally worked before my head and the fated words came out. I was scared of how to say it and when would be a good time. Regardless of his response, it felt really good coming out. Until I began to overthink everything, which made me close up. But regardless of Hazel's silence when he says it, he stays happy. He knows that regardless of the outcome, he loved her, it was his choice, and it was his pleasure. I think when we get dumped or rejected that we forget that the feeling of love itself is a complete pleasure. The pain always outweighs the learning experience and complete euphoria of loving someone, because it seems to linger and build up negative learning experiences rather than good ones. I've had plenty of unfulfilled crushes and all I could think of as the problem was me. Like oh, he doesn't like me because I look this way, or act this way, or this or that. Which isn't true, it just wasn't meant to be. There's never been a particular reason for me not liking someone. There was this guy that I dated like immediately before Sam that I thought I really liked. He looked the part, acted the part, but he wasn't the right person. We didn't have any chemistry and I just didn't like him like that. It wasn't meant to be. I can't tell you how I fell out of liking the guys that I once liked. I just woke up one day and it was done. It was always fun though, having a crush or being in a relationship. Being able to wake up and be excited to see someone and want to share parts of your life with them. It's a rewarding experience. I didn't fully experience it until Sam. I had always had the crushes and those were kind of fun because it was like I was able to kind of admire someone without actually putting myself out there. Not putting myself out there more has to be one of my true regrets in life, because I missed out on an opportunity to have loved someone.
Gus also teaches us that we are going to get hurt, it's inevitable; however, we have the choice in who hurts us. His eulogy to Hazel is by far the most heartbreaking part of the movie, my boyfriend's favorite song was playing over the scene so I imagined Sam reading it to me and I bawled for like twenty minutes after the movie. I honestly can't imagine a world where losing him won't be one of the hardest things I will eventually go through, be it a breakup or death. It is amazing how much that idea resonated with me though. It applies to so much. If you have bad friends then you are choosing to let them hurt you and you should get rid of them. But then you have his concept of the romantic aspect where you get to love someone and then they leave you hurting, but it's a pain that came from so much happiness.
He also teaches us that the world is not a wish granting factory. Life is hard. It's meant to be hard and you're supposed to struggle. Whether that is for natural selection or just because achievements make satisfying lives, doesn't matter. The fact is that this kid who is so optimistic admits that life is hard. Which just makes all of his happiness so much more inspiring. The kid gets that life sucks when it comes down to it, but he makes it great. He makes his own happiness and he doesn't let his fake leg, the fact that Hazel was denying him so fervently, or even the fact that he was dying get him down. That is for the most part. He did break.
Hazel is like looking in a mirror that gives you cancer. She's depressed and lacks the usual spirit that lives within most young girls. She understands that she is dying and she doesn't want to hurt more people than necessary. She is a good teacher for us as well because she narrates all of these things that Gus teaches her as well as us. She shows you the change in her attitude. She even handles his death a hell of a lot better than I would have. For starters, I would have been completely incoherent through the eulogy. She's just very resolved about it all. She knows exactly what to expect and she even kind of sounds more like Gus at the very end. She was content with who broke her heart.
Honestly, the entire book and movie had me crying. When I read the book I didn't cry as much. However, I hadn't experienced love at that point so it was me crying at the death and the desire to have a love so deep. When I reread it and watched the movie, all I could think about was if Sam and I were in that situation. It was completely heartbreaking. I immediately texted him after the movie and was like "listen, you can't get a terminal illness and die because that wouldn't be fair." I see him in Gus. I see his optimism and his lessons in Gus. I see him almost physically in Ansel Elgort. But I definitely see Sam and it makes me really said when I think about how Gus had such a great personality and being and then his life was just taken from him. I was crying at IHOP after the movie and Kelsey was like "he doesn't have cancer and he isn't going to die." That's when I realized that we have such a misconception on life. We think it's going to last so long because we aren't given an exact date to expect. Tragedy happens when it wants to happen, not when we expect it. I value all the time I have with him for that reason. Especially when I've been in car accidents or when I end up in shady situations where I kind of fear for my life. These kids are told that they have a numbered days and Gus acts accordingly. He doesn't waste a single day and he lives without regrets. We think we have so long so we stop having that carefree lifestyle and we worry and over analyze things. We don't think about the good things we have, we think about the things we want. We could all use more of a Gus thought process. He's a fairly knowledgeable fictional character.
Thank you, John Green. You broke my heart, but it was a pleasure to have it broken by such a tragically beautiful love story.

Peers, Family, and Media

Insecurity is something everyone gets. We all have that something that we hate about ourselves. Some have it worse than others and it's fueled by almost everything that occurs in life.

I've struggled for a long time. They say it has to do with your environment, family, peers, and of course, the media. I can only guess where mine comes from.

I didn't have the nicest friends even from a young age. Erin was ruthless. She would exclude people on purpose and very vocally tell you that she dislikes parts of you. She even told me that I both spell and say my name wrong. She would tell me that she was Jamie's friend first and kick me out at recess. I have no idea how I remember that, but it's so vivid in my memory. So I would try to play with anyone else. That's how I became friends with the most ragtag group of people, we played pretend as Buffy the Vampire Slayer just to give you an idea. I also pretended to like Buffy just for the sake of fitting in, even though I had never seen it. To this day I haven't seen a single episode. California was a lot easier and the girls were a little nicer. Deanna and Gabby were two of the nicest girls I had ever met. Hannah wasn't as nice. She was into cheer and was being prepped for high school popularity. I wasn't. I liked to read and I found my way into the nerd herd of a Gifted and Talented students or whatever. She would also find ways to exclude me at recess. I eventually gave up. She wasn't worth the fight. When I got to Texas, I just wanted to be accepted by a vast majority of people. I became friends with Rachel, Nicole, and Kayla all at separate times. Nicole didn't want anything to do with me when Rachel liked me and vice versa. Kayla liked me at all times for the most part. Rachel was the most consistent though, despite our times of struggle. We managed to make it work through fourth grade. Fifth grade was harder for us because we had different interests. We became friends again in middle school. Yet, my friends changed again in seventh grade. It was a power struggle to keep three new friends in a balance. By this point, I desperately wanted normalcy and no more bullying. Yet, I always ended up in the middle of fights and had a hard time dealing with the changes that puberty was starting to bring. High school is what really sent us apart. Girls get worse in high school though. I was finding myself being referred to by people in some really rude ways. I was usually the "other Kara," which hurt because I felt like I was the inferior or less desired Kara. It sounds stupid but not being the original kind of blows. Girls looked at me like I wasn't good enough or pretty enough to be apart of their clique. Guys just didn't look at me in another way besides being their little sister. Most guys scoffed when they were asked if we were dating, which while it was true that we weren't dating, the scoff was uncalled for in all 5 situations. Debate was a monster too. My insecurity showed in every aspect of it. The way I stood, talked, refuted, and even greeted people. That's not even going into the social aspect. I was seeking approval and I got it from an improper gentleman who just wanted me to be there when he was lonely, but got mad when I dropped him when he got a girlfriend. Dating became a thing in high school. One guy tried to let me give him a free pass to date other girls, so I told him up his and that if he wants to date other girls then I would not be in that mix. One of the last guys of high school cheated on me. He even managed to completely hide me on social media and then passive aggressively dumped me by loading his Instagram, Twitter, and Facebook with her. That was a stab right to the chest through the heart and out the back. The next guy seriously dated me for awhile and then broke up with me by just not responding to my text one day and the ignore sesh lasted for 4 months. When I got to college, it didn't get any better. The girls still managed to look down on me like it was their favorite pastime. The guys used me as their make-out stepping stones into relationships. In fact, 4 guys did that.

So I guess family has something to do with it. I want to say that I have always unconditionally loved my family, but the truth is that I have desired to be apart of someone else's family at times. I was kind of a lonely kid through all the moves we made, especially with my mom working all the time. I wasn't involved in anything to really require me to be anywhere or criticized. Yet, I wasn't really praised like some kids are. When I made a B, it was always "why isn't that an A?" The most painful is when I was younger, I held more weight on me. Instead of coaxing me into athletics or some kind of healthy behavior, I had all the adults telling me that I was gaining weight and that I needed to try to get smaller. It didn't seem to be about health at the time. Although, I was already obsessing about how I looked, so I'm sure it was just my perception of how they were talking to me. But I feel like the same chunky 12 year old.

Media just sucks. Everyone is edited in everything and it's hard for people to get a real perception of what people actually look like. Clearly no one is perfect, yet we are exposed to what some arbitrary idea of perfection is. We all have flaws, but the media doesn't want you to think about that. We focus on what we should be instead of embracing what is unique and makes us beautiful. 

You can imagine how these things have affected me throughout the years. I have grown into this heaping pile of insecurity and it effects everything in my life. It effects my performance in school because I get defeated. It turns me into "Crazy Bitch" with my boyfriend because I feel inferior and threatened by the girls in his life. I even turn into just plain bitch who will let no one in to see just how deeply scarred she feels. 

But it needs to change. I just don't know how.