WELCOME!

Hi! I’m Christi, and welcome to my first blog post!

I have a hard time introducing myself. There, I said it. A truth that I have been evading for a long time, finally written in black and white. The thing is, when I’m in social situations I freeze up (unless I have the exact right amount of liquid courage in my bloodstream). For the first ten seconds after someone says “Hi”, I’m stuck sitting there just staring at the other person waiting for what feels like eternity for my brain to do something, literally anything.

You know that scene in Spongebob where he gets overloaded when they turned the Krusty Krab into a high end restaurant and all the little Spongebobs in his brain are running around and everything is on fire? That is exactly how I feel when a stranger says “Hi.”

I never used to be like this. When I was a kid, I used to be fearless. I would walk up to anybody and be able to strike up a conversation. I ended up meeting quite a few interesting people through this method, especially while on vacation trips with my family. One time, I said “Hi” to a boy while on vacation and we ended up singing “Picture” by Sheryl Crow and Kid Rock at karaoke night.

Aside from my social anxiety, my life isn’t really all that bad now. I have a roof over my head, family and friends that I love and cherish, and a dog that I spoil absolutely rotten. I have a stable job that I enjoy (most days). Overall, at (almost) 27, life is pretty good.

But life wasn’t always that way. From a very young age, I knew what a struggle was. At 1 year old, I started a new life in a new country with new people and all the while battling pneumonia. From there, things continued to be chaotic all the way up until I (as my dad would say) get my head out of my ass after college. But through all the craziness, I gained stories one by one. I experienced feelings in ways that some people would never know.

My goal in this blog is to share these stories. I want to share the happy stories with you, the ones that leave you with that warm feeling in your heart. I want to share the sad stories with you, ones that may make you shed a tear. I have stories about grief, love, loss and continuously finding yourself again and again. And the best part about all of these stories? They are all true.

That’s right: all true. I’m sharing the good, the bad, and the ugly in this blog. “Why?” you may ask. Because authenticity is one of my highest values. I am a human, I make mistakes, I overreact and sometimes cry when I get angry, but my mistakes are MY mistakes and I will own them every single time.

So, I share these authentic stories with the hope that one single word resonates with you, the reader. And if they don’t, I would hope that you would share these words with someone who may need them.