The Girl Without a Father

It will not be different at first, or at least you will not realize it is. You will do the things all new couples do, joke, share silly stories. Laugh louder than you ever thought possible. Laugh until your sides hurt. You get high off innocent touches, you get drunk off of her when she lingers on your shoulder for just a second longer. 

She’ll kisses you like you are the first person she has ever kissed. The thought of her will keep you up at night, in the best way possible. Everything is fun and exciting, new! She will do whatever she can to make sure you are having fun. She needs it to be fun because she understands darkness too well.

She will always carefully speak. You may even notice she never says “parents” and she'll look away when someone mentions their father. You get consumed with a strange, irrational guilt when you answer a phone call from your dad. It feels dirty, like a secret that will unravel this ethereal happiness you’ve built together, it won't. Though she envies and will always envy the relationship you have with your father she'll bask in it because she's never had that before. 

She does not even flinch when asked about her family. She has memorized this back and forth. You wonder how many times she has regurgitated the same script. You can picture her standing in front of her mirror, practicing what she will say when someone asks about her dad. You will wonder, was there a time when she couldn’t even spit out the words? Did she choke on her own grief? Are you capable of being with someone so guarded? Someone with so many walls?

As she lets you in she will share small moments with you that do not seem like much of anything to you. She tells you about that one Christmas when her dog drank all the eggnog and didn’t die. She’ll say “My dad was so worried. He let her sleep in the bed just incase anything happened to her.” You will kiss her forehead, and she will direct your hands to hold her. She has never asked to be held. Do not underestimate how monumental this is. This is her slowly lowering the shield she has spent years crafting. This is her trusting you. This is her letting you in. 

As she lets you in she will shy away from discussing problems, any problems. She has learned to walk on eggshells around issues. You don’t understand how someone so feisty, so full of opinions and fire, can go mute when confrontation approaches. She is flight when you would have been sure she’d fight. You get too close, things get too real, and she runs. She has running shoes on stand by at all times.  

A girl without a father does not want to create waves because she has been underwater longer than she cares to admit. She is not a pushover, though you may push and ask why she is so scared of making anyone upset with her. You ask how she can be so brave on paper, but so scared of opening up face-to-face. She will deflect and bite back with sarcasm. She self-deprecates, calls herself messed up like it’s as casual as her first name. You will think maybe this is it. Maybe she will never be honest with you. 

Here is the truth: it should not be surprising that conflict makes her skin crawl. It should not be absurd that she will passively sit by, figure out the best way to avoid saying anything that will put a riff between her and someone she loves, because people fucking leave. And that is terrifying and she learned this lesson at a young age. The only man she ever truly needed left when she was not done needing him, it is fair game for anyone else to decide it’s not worth it.

For anyone else to decide she’s not worth it.  

None of that will spill out very easily. She doesn’t want these labels: The one with abandonment issues. The one who keeps you at a distance. The one looking to fill a void. The fatherless girl. She does not want your pity. 

When you date a girl without a father, you need to understand you will not always understand her, not even close. And if she is worth it, love her anyway. Just love her and let her open up at her own pace, in her own time because she isn’t used to letting people in. 

You are Good Enough

Why do humans have a tendency to look at ourselves through the wrong kind of lens, through these negative, self defeating lenses? Why do we create perceptions of who we are and what we can offer based on a vision of ourselves that is often centred around our faults!

Too often I hear the people around me refer to themselves as not being “good enough”. This deeply saddens me and frustrates me because I believe we are all good enough.

You are good enough! Look at yourself in the mirror right now and tell yourself that you are good enough! Get up from your tablet, phone, computer and tell yourself you are good enough. 

You have a heart that beats and feels without question because if mine does so does yours. 

You are good enough because that beating heart gives you the ability to love someone in the most profound way. Really that is all that matters. Your past does not matter, your faults do not matter – the only thing that matters is the here and now. 

The next time you allow for your mistakes to control how motivated you feel, remember … the honest-to-good people, the ones who aren’t ONLY social acquaintances, the ones who will inspire you and challenge you and uplift you, those people will never see you through the lens of your mistakes. You are the only person who will do that. Those people see you through real living colour life. 

The person who admires you will love you for you who are, mistakes included. Burdens and baggage and insecurity, guess what none of that phases the heart. It only phases the mind. 

The person you think you “aren’t good enough” for will accept in your heart and nothing else; that is what defines you in their eyes. You are good enough to them because you have within you this radiant ability to love. You are good enough to them because you have within you this overwhelming ability to feel. 

Stop using your mind to persuade yourself otherwise and give all of the burden, all of the doubt, all of the judgment to your heart, for it is powerful.

Your heart is more beautiful than your past. Your heart is greater than your doubt. Your heart can carry your baggage on its back and will still run circles around the freckles in the eyes of the person you admire. Your heart is stronger than your mistakes, and it is bigger than your negativity. Your heart is amazing. It is resilient. It will never, ever change, or spoil, or lose its ability to give all of itself to someone. It is capable of love, no matter what, and that is all that someone will see within you – that is all that someone will fall in love in.

Give it freely, for it is good enough

Love Yourself

I used to be the girl who looked at her reflection with an unhappy frown. I think most females have been that girl at some point in their life, but I spent a good majority of my life like this!

If you find yourself doing this please stop!

I’ve been you, you’re looking at your body in the mirror, telling yourself you are not good enough, that you will never be good enough. You've probably heard this from people in your life over and over again. A mom, a friend, a boyfriend. Yourself. You've heard it so much you've began to believe it. 

Maybe you think your nose is too big, or your skin isn’t the right colour or your hair just isn’t straight enough, or you're not thin enough, your legs are too long.. the list is endless...

You are likely standing with the latest issue of Vogue in hand, wondering what you can do to make yourself look like the model on the cover – even though your logical brain knows the model doesn’t look like the model on the cover!

You’re likely thinking of how you can eat less without anyone noticing, or how to go entire days without feeling hungry.  Or how you can purge without your friends hearing.

You don’t have an eating disorder… yet. But you’re on the fast track to one or you do and are in denial. I was about mine, for years, admitting is hard. 

You want to know a small truth, many of us do this. Scrutinize, judge, misunderstand our bodies on such a superficial, skin deep level, that we forget our bodies are collections of amazingness! 

You are made of seven octillion atoms? That’s enough to create a small universe inside you. Your bones are four times stronger than concrete because they are made from the marrow of the stars themselves. Your eyes are the most incredible camera lens man will ever know and your brain works ninety nine percent faster than the most powerful supercomputer on this planet.

The connected neutrons of your brain, are a direct reflection of the universe.

Your body is an incredible cosmic vessel afloat in darkness, though you do not feel at home inside your skin your body has always been your home – a place that has sheltered you and loved you no matter what it has gone through.

Be gentle with your body. It loves you more than anyone or anything in this world. It fixes every cut, every wound, every broken bone, and fights off so many illnesses, sometimes without you even knowing about it. 

Even when you punish it, it is still there for you, struggling to keep you alive, keep you breathing.

Be kind to yourself, love yourself. 

...

I used to think I was abnormal because I was afraid to find love, maybe it’s because I never saw what love looked liked, I didn’t know that love existed and I really enjoy my independence — the ability to do what I want when I want and never have to check in with another person. I grew up too fast for my own good. It is what happens when you grow up in an abusive home. 

It’s an ongoing internal battle between wanting to find that special person and not wanting to compromise my independence. 

Finding balance has never been my strong point, I tend to be all in or all out. Balance is essential to growth. It’s about attaining a level of comfort that doesn’t cause me to be stifled.

For me, my twenties were a constant, tumultuous conflict. Desiring companionship but not wanting to feel smothered. Pulling people in just to push them away!.

I thought I was in a place where I genuinely felt ready to find my person I’m supposed to spend the rest of my life with. But I wasn’t.. oh boy I really wasn’t! I was going through so much. Fighting an eating disorder, battling self doubt. Coming to terms with my majorly failed relationship! 

Then he walked into my life, he was everything I thought I wanted. Tall, athletic, broody - all the girls loved him and all the guys wanted to be him. We had been introduced by friends and he picked me to be his girlfriend, me! He could have had anyone and he wanted me. Being the self conscious girl I was I jumped at the opportunity. 

The next three years of my life became HELL! I cried everyday, for a girl who lacks tear ducts this was really hard on me. The eating disorder I had fought so hard to get control over was furiously taking over again. I woke up every single day feeling less then worthless. I would spend three years of my life never feeling enough. He isolated me from my family and friends. He took away my independence. He took away my self worth.

Those three years taught me that it’s important to be completely solid in your understanding of yourself as a human being before letting someone else into your world because nobody except you can make your world complete. Nobody but Tiara can make Tiara whole.  

I fear give up my independence, I fear giving up me. I fear losing myself. 

I’d like to have that person who makes all of the hardships of being single seem worth it.

I do want a partner in crime; the peanut butter to my jelly; the fruit to my loop.

At the same time, I don’t want to stop being independent. I don’t want to become reliant on another person.

True love is finding someone who is your equal, not your crutch.

As I look back on my last relationship we didn’t really love each other. I was watching Grey’s Anatomy the other day and Callie says “You didn’t love her you just didn’t want to be alone. Or maybe, she was just good for your ego. Or, maybe she made you feel better about your miserable life, but you didn’t love her because you don’t destroy people you love”. Everyday he destroyed me. 

I’ve rebuilt myself from the rubble I was left with. A friend looked at me the other day and said you are so much stronger then you once were, you are a phoenix. 

I want to share my dreams, but I don’t want to give them up. I’m don’t want to give up what I’ve envisioned for myself.  I don’t want to compromise or settle for anything other than what I’ve always wanted.

I want someone to cuddle with, but I don’t want to spend all my time at home. I love the idea of having someone to hold me in the dead of the night. I want someone to keep me warm. I want to lay on your chest and breath you in, content and utterly at peace. 

I want to settle down, but I don’t want to become boring.

I might actually be at a place in my life where I am ready to tie myself to another person. At the same time, I am immeasurably terrified of becoming boring.

If I’m going to find love and finally make a commitment, I want it to make me a better version of myself.

The idea of becoming less representative of myself is enough to make me want to throw out the idea of true love forever.

I want to be a wife, but I also want to be a CEO.

I want to get married, but I, personally, will not be fulfilled as a homemaker. I have dreams of running the world, and I cannot allow another person to quell that vision.

I want to plan my life around someone, but I don’t want to change my plans. I want to find someone who will make plans with me; someone who will travel the world with me; someone who will make my life better simply by being in it. I have plans; I have a vision of my life over the years. I can for the FIRST time in my life imagine altering that plan, to fit you in. Because somehow you just seem to fit.

I want someone to join me on this crazy, beautiful journey of life.

I want to love, but I don’t want to stop loving myself. I can’t do that again. The most terrifying aspect of finding love is the fear of losing the love I have for myself. I’m so sure of myself. I’m proud of myself. I know my single self like the back of my hand. I built myself from ashes.

What I love most about you, is you in a short period of time have helped my self love grow! You have been supportive, you have been more then I could of ever wished for, ever hoped for. You are the puzzle piece that you didn't know was missing but all of a sudden the picture seems clear - this scares me. 

Finding Nemo

You would never know this about me but I can be quite the cynical person. Maybe I like my walls, or maybe all those years my mother suffered in abusive relationships made me cold, or maybe being rejected by my father hurts more than I like to admit. I don’t know, I don’t generally psycho analyze myself. 

I used to think love didn’t exist, at least not for me. Sure I would see cute couples and could see they were in love, but love doesn't exist for someone like me. I know, I’ve been in very serious relationships before but I was never in love with them, I loved both of them in very different fashions but I was never in love. I thought I didn’t deserve to be loved and that was ok with me. I was ok with never finding the, you make my heart skip a beat, I stair longly into your eyes type love. 

One of the hardest challenges in my life is feeling unloved! My father left me when I was a baby I didn’t get the chance to know him, he wanted nothing to do with me and I had no choice in the situation. He walked out on my mom when she got pregnant and never looked back. I’ve lived my entire life feeling like I wasn’t deserving of love. I built walls, walls upon walls, upon walls, and then built a moat and more walls! I didn’t want to let anyone see me, see the real me! I feared if they saw the real me they would turn and run the other direction faster then I could say STOP. I built a Tiara that I project on the world. I let people in just enough to seem normal but not enough that I can get hurt. I let them see a little glimpse of who I am but not enough to really know who I am. 

Sometimes the universe likes to slap you in the face. It’s not very nice of the universe but it happens, I know because it is happening to me! 

I met a guy who makes me smile, who makes me laugh uncontrollably and who is climbing my walls and jumping the moat. It’s scary for me but at the same time I feel so safe! He somehow caught a glimpse of Tiara’s soul and he wasn’t terrified to want to explore more. Instead he has told me he wants to know more, he wants to know Tiara. Nobody really truly knows Tiara, she's kind of a mystery. 

I was once told by a very wise person “Your person is not someone that comes into your life peacefully. Your person comes to make you question things, who changes your reality and they will make a mark on your reality. This person will revolutionize your world in a second”. He did this to me! He made me question everything I always knew. He made me question someone being able to love me, he made me question love. 

I am lost in him but it is the kind of lost that’s exactly like being found. 

Time to Heal

It’s been a long time since I posted.. basically over a year.

I’ve gone through so much this past year. Torn ankle ligament, torn meniscus and torn hip flexor - these injuries have thrown a huge wrench in my training; but my biggest wrench occured In July 2014 - when I was sexually assaulted.

It feels freeing to finally admitted it, finally speak it! I don’t think I’ve actually spoken those words officially since the day I met with the investigator. I think I was so afraid to say them because I would fear people would think differently of me, I feared people would look at me like I was broken, fragile, frail. I want you to know I'm not broken but I'm strong. 

I believe being sexually assaulted prevented me from running more than my injuries did. It hurt more than tearing any ligament in my body. It hurt more than breaking any bone. It hurt my heart and soul.

As you runners understand running is mental; you hit a distance and you get a flood of emotion, you feel every hurt, every up, every down, every tinge of pain. Your emotions are heightened. Feeling this prevented me from running anything more than 4 miles. 

I don’t want to get into all the details. I’m still not ready to talk about that nor do I think I ever will be  fully ready.

What I want to discuss is healing, my healing.

I felt so terribly broken. I felt destroyed. I felt violated. I felt that all the goodness in me had been taken away. I felt so unhappy. Yet I hid this away from the everyone, I put a smile on my face daily and continued life as you all know it but deep inside a darkness was taking over my happy place and making me feel worthless, small.

That day I changed, I became a different person. Someone stole a piece of me I’ll never be able to get back. They stole a happiness that lives in me. They stole my self worth.

One year ago I learned that not all people are good people but there is still good people in the world.

These past few weeks I’ve managed to lace up my running shoes more often and I’ve even tackled a 10 mile run.

I’ve decided it's time to get back out there and I'm currently training for a full marathon .. I’m ready to put this past year behind me and get out on the trails again.

My runs have been nothing less than emotional but in the emotion I'm finding joy. In the pain I'm finding relief. I'm finally starting to admit what happened to me and I truly believe admitting it is the first step in moving past it. 

I am getting back to the person I once was. The happy, determined, fun Tiara. 

Why I Love to Run

I have always been a decent athlete. In high school, I swam competitively and loved it. 

After university, when sports became more of a hobby I stopped being physically active.

One day I realized that I didn't have to sit in a gym crowded gym with broken equipment and people I didn't really like so I took to the pavement. I can’t run the fastest or the farthest and I never will, but I love running, it frees me.

I love that it gives me a chance to be outside on a gorgeous day. After eight hours in the office sitting in a chair all day, I finally get to enjoy the sun and fresh air even if it is for less than an hour. It’s so much better than sitting and watching TV for hours until I go to bed.

I love strapping on my Nike Running watch putting my shoes on and hitting the pavement, it's therapeutic. I get to think about whatever I want. I work out solutions to my problems or just recap my day.

I love that it makes me feel good. Endorphin's are no joke. I always feel a little sad when a run is over but I do feel happier. I catch the runners high about once a week and I chase after that euphoric feeling again and again.

I love the sense of accomplishment after completing a run. Whether it’s after a lunch time jog or a marathon with people cheering you on at the finish line, you got out there and did it. Maybe it wasn't the longest or fastest or farthest you've ever run, but maybe next time will be.

I know I’ll never win a marathon, though it’s no secret I would love to, but who said you have to be the greatest at something to do it? Paint a crappy picture, sing off-key, or dance like a maniac. Don’t do it for the likes on Facebook or to be judged. Do it because it’s what you enjoy. Run because you love it, and because you’re running for yourself. Nobody else. At the end, it’ll always just be you, the road and a good pair of running shoes.