Power Is Intoxicating

So first off I'd like to start off by apologizing for my lack of posts in the last two months. Many of you received a mass email stating that I was starting nursing school in regards to becoming a nurse with further desire to become a nurse practitioner and that I would do my best to keep up with demands. While I have kept my promise to continue to respond to emails I have slacked severely on my posts, for this I deeply apologize. There is not a day that goes by that I do not dwell on the inspiration that my growing fans have brought me, and in this leads me to my first blog of the year: Power is Intoxicating.

As a growing individual in my early twenties, I have discovered that I have very much to learn. As a doctor of philosophy, knowledge of knowledge is an often key aspect of my life, I yearn to never stop learning. I know that knowledge will not make me perfect, intelligent or even literate, but I know that it holds a power that few aim to possess anymore in this world.

Ever since I was a young child, I have been obsessed with comic books, specifically Marvel and DC. The wildly unimaginable stories of heroism and unexplained power always fascinated me. I use to dream of being bitten by a radioactive spider and having the power to swing to wherever I wanted, to climb any height I wanted without worry of falling to my death.

 I would lay in my room at night looking out of my window at glowing stars, imaging I was Superman(girl) and that I could fly as free as any bird that lived without restraint. To be able to fly through the morning fog and dipping my hand in the water of a pond at dawn was the highlight of my imagination.

Tying a blanket around my neck and wielding a plastic light saber, I felt that I was one with the "force" that I could move and manipulate as the earth saw fit within me. Silly, silly dreams that faded with age. But seeking power never left me.

Perhaps that is what Adolf Hitler was seeking as a young child, unimaginable power. I'm currently developing a thesis as I am pursuing another doctorates, this time in Applied Sciences of Nursing. My thesis focuses on the power of healthcare professionals. In it I often wonder aloud if I and any other healthcare professional that seeks the ungodly power to save lives is comparable to Hitler.

Hitler sought to make the ultimate human race, to control every country, to eradicate races and cultures he did not agree with. I asked myself, do I seek such an ungodly power? Of course, the answer is, no.

The power I seek, is a godly one, perhaps that does not make it anymore righteous than Hitler's mission for power. Rather, the power I seek, is out of fascination and appreciation.

Many of us will never know what it feels like to hold another life by the hand as it leaves this world. Many of us will never know the feeling that overwhelms you as you see a newborn child suck in its first breath of life after birth. And sadly many of us will never know the awe-inspiring feeling of restarting a heart that refused to beat.

This is the power I seek. I seek the power of life. All of us seek this same power, many in different ways. Some seek it through electricity, many lineman play roulette with Hades as they seek to control and manipulate a power much greater than them.

We all seek power of some sort. Just one taste is all it takes to intoxicate you. That is where I find myself. Saving lives has become the most important thing in my life. Some may think it is a selfish motive, that I seek to save lives for praise, for recognition or maybe even for money.

However, after hours of reading page after page of my grandfather, Dr. Doyle J. Brewer's medical school journals c.1940-1944 , I realized that life is so incredibly unique. In a world where we can do anything at the tip of our fingertips on a device the size of a checkbook, there is yet so much we do not know and understand about life.

"Life is a gift of power," wrote Dr. Brewer c. 1943.

That statement moved me, but I did not fully understand it until I moved into my first semester of clinicals. You may not understand it now, but someday, someone or something will happen in your life that will humble you in the midst of life itself.

We all posses the power of life, but so little of us wield it with honor. I found that lacking fulfillment in life came from lacking of the power of life. My advice to those of you lacking fulfillment, find the power of life in yourself, use it for the greater good, use it to empower those around you, use it to provide a service to society and if you are like me, use it to save lives.

Power is intoxicating, for some it brings their downfall but for others it makes a positive impact on generations to come. If you choose to drink from the power of life, what will you use it for?
                                                 
DISCLAIMER: I do not claim to follow, admire or seek to follow the actions of Hitler. I am comparing the power that healthcare professionals seek as the direct opposite of Hitler. Healthcare professionals are seeking a great power like Hitler only for the “good” not for “world domination” so to speak. I want to emphasize the impact healthcare professionals have on the world- it is comparable to Hitlers only it is the direct opposite of motive and intention. And I am simply stating depending on views seeking of power in general may not be considered anymore righteous than Hitlers conquest because who am I to judge. I am from the south and do have Confederate flags but I am in no way a condoning hitlers behavior. 

The Heartbreaks Of Our Early Twenties

This world is full of so much pain. It takes even the best of us down. Most of us, by time we reach our early twenties have had very rude awakenings that chew us up and spit us out with nothing left to cry about. These heartbreaks, while damaging, lead us to become the person we are inside. How each and everyone of us handles these individual heartbreaks, lays another stone on the foundation of our being.

These are the heartbreaks of our early twenties:

That moment when you feel so beautiful and alive in your own skin but you realize that your partner does not feel the same about themselves or you. It’s like watching someone scrape glitter off of an art project. You’ve spent so much time and effort building yourselves up only to watch the other person lag behind and find you distasteful because you kept going without them.

A time when you realize you’ve kept yourself somewhere for so long out of obligation to everyone and everything but yourself. You find that your life has become centered around everyone else’s thoughts, actions and ideas. You become a monotone colorless person. Almost like a zombie, just plodding along, doing everyone’s bidding out of robotic habit.

You realize the person you are is not who you want to be. Either you spend too much money, sleep with too many people, go out too much or whatever it may be. You find that the person you have become is wasteful, careless, thoughtless and very in-the-moment. Instead of planning for the future you live for the day and realize you have nothing to show for.

Behind all of the glitz and glam of your early twenties and feeling young and empowered, you find emptiness when your friends go home for the night. You find your soul searching for someone to come home to every night, no matter the circumstances. You find yourself wishing your apartment into a house filled with the sounds of dogs and children running through the hallways. You find yourself crying over the yearning for joyous laughter echoing from your family in the dining room.

There is the moment too when you know deep down you’ve spent too long convincing yourself you love someone when you really don’t. You know it’s true, it doesn’t even pain you to know it but you keep wishing and hoping you will love this person as much as they have loved you. But it just will not happen and you are forced to break their heart in order to save your own.

Or when it’s the other way around and you are absolutely smitten with someone who is in love with another. You hope and hope they will notice you, that they will see you are the one for them. But instead they go their way and you stand there watching as you have your first one-sided heartbreak.

The heartbreak when you miss your family. Even if you live 5 minutes down the road. You’d trade a years salary just to live one more day under your parents roof as a child, during one of the sweet moments- whether it be during the holidays or on family movie night. Just a little crackled break in your heart you get when you miss home.

Death. Death is the hardest heartbreak. Because no one chose to walk away, no one gave up and most likely you didn’t have a chance to say goodbye. The moment it happens you feel like you’ve fallen from 20 stories up and crashed to the ground in a million pieces. The air from your chest has been stolen. Even your tears won’t fall. This is the heartbreak that breaks everything else.

When your pathway is unclear. The heartbreak that comes from having to choose one thing over another. Choose this job so that I may spend more time with my family but less money to spend on them? Do I go to this college far away and leave all of my friends and family behind? Do I choose myself over someone I wanted to spend forever with? Do I go this way or that? Being forced to choose and then wandering if it was the right choice when everything seems to be going wrong

The heartbreak of wondering if all of the previous heartbreaks have been worth it all? Is your life the way you want it to be? The break comes when you say, "I don't know."

10 Things All Real Female Hunters Know To Be True

10 Things All Real Female Hunters Know To Be True:

1. Every girl in our hunting groups and Instagram accounts always post the cutest pictures in their body hugging and figure flattering camo with a perfect face of makeup, while you're over here in 10 layers trying to stay warm, looking like "Blue 42, Blue 42, Hut, Hut, Hike!"

2. Scent away 2 in 1 shampoo/conditioners are a joke. My hair still smells "good" as my boyfriend says after I use the whole shebang of scent-away body wash, shampoo and conditioner. Afterwards your hair feels like a ratted, uncalmable, dry, hot mess. Its just easier to stuff your hair in a face mask and douse it with scent blocker spray.

3. Just because we are women, does not mean we can be used as bait during the rut. Like seriously, no, we are not going to sit 15 yards downwind of you, on the ground, while on our monthly- doused in doe estrus, in order to attract a monster buck for you. Even if we did agree to this, we would shoot it first!

4. We don't waste money on those expensive wicks for dipping into doe urine and tying to a tree. We just go buy the cheapest box of tampons for $2 and cut them down to size, with the string still attached, dip and tie away. Bam! Money saved! But men can't save this money because it's so taboo for them to go buy a box of tampons, LOL!

5. While some huntresses prefer pink camo, you will find a majority of us do not. Like what the heck are we hunting for? Flamingos?

6. Poundage does not measure how big our lady balls are. I cannot tell you how many times a man has asked me how much poundage I'm pulling back on my compound bow. Every time I go to a bow shop, I always hear men boasting about pulling back 70 plus pounds. Now don't get me wrong, I'm strong for someone of my size. I can and have blacked somebody's eye, but if I can kill a deer with 45 pounds, then that's where I'll stay, thank you very much.... Oh and to that guy saying he pulls back 300lbs on his bow- I hope you realize you're making an ass of yourself sweetcheeks!

7. Hot hands are a necessity. I'm a woman of small stature topping out at 5'7 and 120lbs in my hunting gear on a rainy day. I get cold easy, I'm cold inside with a heater and big fluffy house robe. But I'm willing to tough it out, even if I have to stick hot hands down my duck waders to keep my butt cheeks from getting frostbit. So men, when you turn down the hot hands and complain about the cold- shut it, you sound like a sissy.

8. When men find out you are a hunter, you instantly gain 10 more points on their scorecard. It's kind of cute really, because they think it's going to be like skipping through a food plot, blowing grunt calls and shooting deer together forever. Nuh uh honey! When you get into a relationship with a hunter, it's two of everything, it's a fight to the last antler and feather. If you get a new stand, so do I. If you get a new shotgun, so do I. You want the best hunting spot on the food plot, well so do I! And I will fight you for it! But when it's all said and done, I'll still take my clothes off for ya baby.... for you to rub my back after that long walk to the best spot on the food plot!

9. Mason jars are fantastic for long hunts, or pickle jars. When you don't want to get down to pee or you don't want to scent up your hunting spot, peeing in a jar and sealing it with a lid is about the best thing since sliced bread. Pooping is a different story, I personally, will not drop a load of timber into a jar!

10. We women hunters get accused of doing it all wrong. We smell too good. Our faces are too bright. We walked to the stand too loud. We should've waited for something bigger to come along before we took that shot. We get blamed for a lot but at the end of the day, we get it done. We tag our deer and bag our fowl like it's nobody's business. And yes as a matter of fact, I do hunt like a girl!

For more hunting-related Straight Southern posts:
Duckhuntitis
It Bit Me
Becoming A Hunter

10 Things You Learn as a Young Adult

11. The perfect job does not exist.

As a teenager, the “perfect job” doesn’t mean much to you as you are brought up in a world that says college is necessary in order to get your “dream job”. However, I learned as I got older, most precisely now, in what is considered my early twenties, that while you may find a job you love, there are going to be many negative and positive aspects of the job. This is also the point in time when you realize behind every success story are many many hours of hard work. While this can make your work life seem like a mountain you are struggling to climb, it can motivate you to want to prove yourself to go beyond your self-established limits.

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    2. People are replaceable.

As an adult you will become very accustomed to goodbyes because everyone has their own life path and you are not always on that path. I have found many times that when one door closes on a friendship/relationship another one always opens. Of course it always hurts so much when you lose people you love. Eventually though you begin to accept that everyone you lose, is not a loss, because it saves you from a life full of hurt.

    3.  Karma is a bitch.

Karma is a bitch, and let me tell you it is best to be her best friend. Everyone will always get what they deserve, including yourself. I know that whenever I hurt someone, it’s going to come back around and hurt me someday too. In this, you also learn to not take people’s attitudes personally  as you know the universe is going to give them exactly what they deserve. This in turn will make you very self-aware and in the end helps you make better decisions in your own behavior.

  4.  Marriage will not magically fix your life.

Lord have mercy. You all have read my story many times. Marriage is not the key to success or happiness in life. If you have problems before marriage, whether with yourself or life, those problems don’t magically disappear. Sometimes they become worse. Today’s world makes marriage in a life goal that somehow makes your life beautiful and happy in theory. However, I found that marriage is not easy and it’s full of many responsibilities- it’s nothing like the movies. If you get married for the wrong reasons, (for a fairytale life) it will most likely end in disaster. Just do you- someone will come along.

55. Comparing yourself to others doesn’t fix anything either.

Sure comparing your life to others’ lives could be used as a form of self-motivation. In my case, what starts out as self-motivation turns into self-negativity that will grow into a big ugly monster that keeps you up at night, convincing you that you are a failure and will never be anything better. But life isn’t about competing with others. Behind every perfect picture you see on social media of someone’s life you envy, are problems and secrets that would never even cross your mind. “Never judge a book by it’s cover,” has never been more true that when you become an adult.

66. People will always talk to you and about you.

Everyone around you will always offer and sometimes attempt to force their opinions on you because that’s what worked for them or their brother’s wife’s cousin’s uncle. You know your own life and circumstances better than anyone. I’ve found hearing the advice is a good thing but taking every single word to heart is as about as useful as a bible to an atheist. And of course people will always talk about you when you aren’t there. Just remember though, Karma will come around. Your actions effect your life, their words do not.

77. Love at first sight does not exist, except…

I believe that love at first sight does exist in the case of a mother giving birth and seeing her child for the first time. As far as romantic relationships go, it’s no longer a nervous stomach and hormones flying all over the place- which is mistaken as love at first sight. I learned as I stepped into my first 20 year that love is having a relationship with someone that is a good listener when you’ve had a bad day and a good supporter when life has just totally taken a dump on your head. Love is when a person is willing to take time out of their busy life for you. Love is working together as a team. All of this doesn’t come at first sight, but rather after many long moments spend building together.

  8.Ninety percent of the time, people are not sincere.

I learned the hard way that the majority of people are not trustworthy. I have also learned that the will to survive is very strong, and if you are surviving, someone who is not, will find you and attempt to attach themselves to you like a parasite to its host, sucking the life and all of your happiness out of you. People will always hurt you and disappoint you. Someone once told me, “Show someone how to break your heart once, and they will continue to break it many times over.”

  9.You can’t always have what you want.

By now you know, life never goes as planned. Things you so desperately want, are not always what you need. I have had to learn to accept my failures and realize that there is another door open on the other side of the door that just slammed shut in my face. You have to be willing to work for the things you need and then you will find that the things you want come so much easier.

10.  You will have many ugly scars.

The previous nine things will give you so many scars. Learning about them the hard way will cut you open and leave you vulnerable. I have faced so many failures, rejections and negativities already in my young life, I know there will be more to come. I have gotten hurt and lost, but in the end I always find my way back- we all do. The beginning of my adulthood has been one big mess. But I am not afraid of failure and I’ve been told that is a sign of success.

15 Reasons Why Taco Bell is Better Than Bae

https://www.pinterest.com/jodiecook/taco-bell/

So a reader made this request and I couldn't help but find myself laughing at the idea. I couldn't resist fulfilling this request.

Just so everyone knows, Taco Bell is indeed very near and dear to my heart, I could eat their food for breakfast, lunch and dinner for the rest of my life. 

15 Reasons Why Taco Bell is Better Than Bae

1. Burritos before Bros. Ladies you all know that Taco Bell's Beefy 5-Layer Burrito is way more complex than any simple minded man will ever be. With double tortillas this burrito will be sure to catch all of your tears.

2. Speaking of tears, tacos have never made anyone cry, they love you just as much as your taste-buds love them. So order that 12 taco pack with no regret, Taco Bell will not break your heart. 

3. Taco Bell makes for the ultimate affair, you can cheat on your diet with the Bell anytime. You know their doors will always be open. Just imagine Taco Bell singing Take It Out On Me by Florida Georgia Line. That midnight taco run doesn't sound so bad now does it? 

4. You can't fry your man crisp and then cover him in warm nacho cheese, pico de gallo and smother his last words with sourcream and mild sauce like you can Taco Bell's XXL Nachos.

5. Taco Bell will never body shame you. The Bell doesn't care how much you weigh, just as long as you're happy with the tacos in your hands. 

6. You don't have to worry about Taco Bell being a deadbeat dad, it will always be there to feed your food baby for as long as you need.

7. Sharing is caring, you can share your Taco Bell with your best friend without worry. Taco Bell with your bestie will be the ultimate threesome you will never want to get out of.

8. Taco Bell will never bitch at you....for anything....Those gorgeous tacos all safely wrapped up don't care how crazy you drive or how long you take to get ready, at the end of the day, they will still be waiting for you.

9.  You don't have to fight your Taco Bell meal for the remote. Your Gordita Crunches are happy to watch whatever you want on Netflix. 

10. Taco Bells' Cinnabon Delights will be the only balls you ever want to put in your mouth or hold in your hand. Don't even get me started about the landscaping .

11. The Bell can calm all of your worries with  5 little words, "May I take your order?"

12. With Taco Bell you never have to worry about the heat dying down. The Bell keeps things spicy with Diablo 

13. Messy hair, Taco Bell doesn't care.

14. With the Bell's breakfast menu, you never have to spend another Saturday morning curled up alone while ex-bae is out golfing. 

15. TACO BELL IS BAE.

Twenty Something, Twenty Nothing

As a young child, none of us really thought about anything more than going to the park to play and hoping our next meal came from McDonald's. But it seems as an adult, all of our childish aspirations and dreams fade away.

I'm 22 years old, going on 23, going on lost. 

As a child I never worried about where my next meal would come from or if I would have clothes to wear for school. I thought life was good and easy for the most part. My parents were my beloved best friends and I thought they knew everything.

I can remember sitting in the truck on a road trip and giving my mother "hard" multiplication problems to answer because I was awe-inspired that she could do such "hard" math in her head.

"Mama, what's 300 times 20!?" I would say.

"6,000 Kayla," my mother would almost instantly reply.

"Okay, but what is 265 times 91?" I would ask.

"24,115," my mother responded patiently.

"How do you do that!?"

"It just takes practice moving numbers around in your head," my mother would always say.

Or I thought it was amazing that my father took complicated images of peoples heads and "found" cancer and inserted IVs. I wanted to be just like him someday. I use to take every chance I got to go to work with him, I even read his college text books.

Its funny though....how much time has passed. Memories that were clear as day when they were happening but are now fuzzy and fading away with each day.

By the time I reached my teens I realized that my parents were "old" and behind the times. My mother had been using her old Nokia phone to calculate those numbers and my dad was definitely no brain surgeon, besides I was type one diabetic and I inserted my own IVs all the time!

 No one wanted to be like their parents, especially me. I remember thinking how little they really knew about the world. I was it, I was part of the new generation, part of the future! How could they possibly know!?

I felt like everything I did was better done my way, their way was old and out-of-date. I still let them teach me things, but only in vain. I knew I'd have to learn to work, manage my money and do "adult things." But I never really knew what those things entailed. I did not know how much of the world my parents worked hard to keep from getting to me.

When I reached 16, I felt like I was it, I was biting at the bit, just waiting to reach 18, so I could strike out on my own and prove that I knew how to do life better than my parents. I fought them tooth and nail every step of the way. 

As soon as my 18th birthday rolled over, I struck out on my own. And when I say struck out, that's exactly what I did, was struck out....I struck out like the Cardinals playing the Cubs in the bottom of the ninth tied 4 to 4. I thought I had life in the bag until I had the rug ripped right out from underneath my feet.

I struggled up a downward slope that just never seemed to end. But I was convinced that I still knew better.

By 19 years old, I started to think, "Maybe my parents were on to something here. Maybe they really do know a little about life." But of course that wasn't enough for me and I continued on as my parents watched me make their same struggles that they tried to save me from. My nineteenth year in life was the hardest I've ever lived. I hated life at that point.

One day after I turned 20, I woke up and realized I didn't know a damn thing. Already I had spent what seemed like so much of my life struggling while my parents seemed to live happy lives. I started to suddenly appreciate my parents and the things they had to say. And that my dear readers, is when my life started to take a turn for the better.

When 21 rolled around, I knew that my very short and insignificant 21 years of life meant nothing in comparison to my parents 30+ years. Twenty something, means absolutely nothing. I realized the time I had spent thinking I knew it all, was the most miserable I had ever been and time had really seemed to drag on. But now here I was, a young 21 year old surfing my way through the world.

And now, here I am 22 years old, heading towards 23. Every month I spend listening to my parents wisdom seems to fly by faster and faster. I grow older but somehow younger and my parents just seem to grow older but wiser.

This Saturday, August 12th, 2017, I will have been living in Illinois for 2 years. It's crazy for me to ponder that fact. But I know I could've never done it, had I never realized my parents "know-it-all." At times I still feel lost in this world. I've found myself, but sometimes I still find myself searching for my own path. My parents know this and always point me in the best possible direction.

If there is one thing I do know, my time with my parents is ticking down and that's something no one is able to stop. I just hope they are around long enough for me to raise my own twenty something out of twenty nothing.

To my parents, if you are reading this: Thank you for all of your love and support now and times past. Being your daughter is my greatest honor and I just want you all to know this twenty something knows ABSOLUTELY nothing!

~IN LOVING DEDICATION TO: SARA EVANS, JASON BREWER, JAMIE BREWER & JEFF EVANS~

How to Love An Emotionally Scarred Girl

If you clicked on this blog post then you know the type of girl I am talking about. Maybe you are that girl or maybe you are the person trying to love that girl. 

Loving someone who is insecure and scared you are going to leave is not easy. Many times the person trying to love her feels like they are paying for past heartbreaks. It is true, you are, that is why you have so much more to prove to her.

Loving and leaving is an all too familiar feeling to this girl. Her past causes her insecurities to sometimes get the best of her. It's not that she can't move on from the past, but she has deep scars in her emotions to remind her where to never tread again.

The insecure voices in her head from these scars convince her to act and think in ways that are not in her personality. These voices are the same ones to tell her she isn't good enough to be with you, that one day you will wake up and realize you can do better than her.

These scars and voices come from repetitive unfortunate events. To her, every time something in her life is looking up and she is becoming happy, it always comes crashing down. When things are great for her they always end up worse than where they started. She feels like when the going gets good its bound to end. It's your job to show her it doesn't have to end.

This girl is terrified of the feeling of being left, she knows the ugly truth of breakups, it haunts her dreams at night. Because you are not like everyone in her past who has loved and left her she fears you leaving even more, because she feels a deeper connection to you. Somewhere deep inside she knows you won't leave her but the voices inside will make her doubt that for a long time. She knows that if you ever left, she would never be the same. She would eventually pick herself back up and move on, but even then she would have another nasty scar to carry beside the rest.

If you truly love this girl, then the best thing you can do is to love her with all that you are.

Show her love in a way that silences the insecure voices. Don't question her why she has the insecurities, you why they are there, just accept that they are there and love her until she makes them disappear herself. She will say and do many things she doesn't mean, simply out of fear. But so will you. Forgive. Forget. Love like no other.

Show her love in a way that makes this girl know without a doubt that she is enough for you and what she means to you. You will know if you are doing this right because your relationship will blossom and she will begin to reflect true confidence in you, herself and life in general.

Show her love in a way that will give her comfort. Things go wrong in life, that's part of the game, many things we cannot control. But show her you aren't just there for the good times, but the bad times too.

Show her love in a way that let's her know you are there when she needs you. You have to be the person she trusts and can count on to listen to her thoughts. She knows you will not always understand but just listening and being the voice of reason is enough.

If you really love this girl you can do everything mentioned above without trying...Love takes effort at times, but if you have to force yourself to be what she needs, then you do not love her in the way she needs. You have to be different from the others. The ones who tried and failed her, the ones who couldn't appreciate everything she is, the ones who try to love her only to leave her and the ones who wouldn't show her the love she deserves.

When you're loving this girl right, she'll know the only place you plan to be, is by her side.