Letter To My Younger Self

Dear Younger Rebeca. This is you. Rebeca. But at almost 21 years old. I'm still 20.

You have done quite a few of these. Letters to yourself. All of them have been school assignments, and be honest. You never took any of them seriously.

But this is me...writing a letter to you...aka me... No grade in the balance. Just a one on one talk for you and me.

Here we go...

Dear younger self...

Your life right now is going...GREAT. Funny because I'm sure at your age, I didn't think I would even make it to eighteen.

After everything you will be going through/ and have already gone through... your life will get better.

But it will suck a little bit at first. Don't worry though, this is where I come in and say, you will get through it. Hell, I'm living proof of that.

Here's how it's going to go...

You will grow up seeing your parents fight...all the time. It will ruin your perception on love. YOU will fight with your sisters ALL the time, you all have the scars to prove it. It will ruin your relationship with them until you're an adult, but don't worry, your relationship will get way better.

Both of those things will pass, eventually, but it will affect you for the rest of your life, sadly.

Your anxiety starts around four years old, it's minor. Mom and Dad don't think much of it, no one does. But surprise, your anxiety right now is here to stay.

You feel as if you don't belong, even at such a young age, even in your family. But don't worry, one day there will be a time where people accept you BECAUSE you don't fit in.

Your anxiety is tied to the fights in the house, and you start to stay away from people. Including your family. That's when the depression starts.

School is the only time you feel...happy. But even then, with the anxiety, it's hard for you to open up to people, especially strangers. Making friends is hard, so you make acquaintances. Making someone your friend was hard, and it will devastate you when your friendship ends.

You make your first real friend in third grade, the nicest person in class, and you're still friends to this day, even if you don't speak that much anymore.

I'm going to give you some advice that I wish I had back then.

Don't be jealous of your friends. They are all going through their own battles, you don't need to put them up on a pedestal. That is how you end up hurt.

Don't be afraid to feel. Don't be afraid to cry. Don't be afraid to express your feelings and how you're feeling at certain moments.

Who is it doing good if you're keeping everything inside?

You'll have multiple break downs before you're even a teenager... But these breakdowns are secret to everyone else but your family.

It'll all make sense one day...

Middle school was the hard years. Looks meant everything. You put too much powder on your face in sixth grade...You put too much eyeliner in seventh grade. I know you'll think it looks good then, but take this from me, it'll only make your skin worse. Oh. And in eighth grade...DONT GET BANGS.

Thirteen was an extremely hard year.

You will meet who you think will be your best friend forever. But truth is, she will teach you the worst habit of your life. She'll encourage you to hurt yourself, sometimes during class just to get the adrenaline. She'll make it a competition, and you'll soon learn that it's not okay.

You'll know what it is...and I know it will feel good, and almost painless, and you will feel the relief. Just know that it's temporary, and your body doesn't deserve to be covered in scars like that.

This bad habit will go on until the summer after graduating. You graduated three years ago, so you've been three years clean.

Now we're in high school.

A new school puts a strain on friendships, and you grow apart from people you thought you'd know forever. It will break you, for a moment. Then you will meet knew friends, become even closer with people who you didn't let yourself become close with in middle school.

You will go through high school in pain, not just emotionally, but internally. Don't worry, the doctors will EVENTUALLY figure out what it is. You'll end up with a scar on your stomach, and although it looks horrible at first, it will grow on you.

And as for the emotional pain, you'll try and get some help. But after forty minutes of talking, you'll decide that you're just not ready to come to terms with what could be wrong with you. But you'll also learn that it's not your fault.

You will lose friends, people in your class, and it's a specific persons death that forces you to go into out patient treatment for your emotional problems. You will meet people in treatment, including a specific person that you will never see again and miss everyday, she will be your best friend in there, and these people will change your life for the better.

You will miss a month of school, three weeks, and a week of spring break, but you will learn what you have.

And it will all make sense.

When you come back to school, it's like the sun is shining directly at you. And girl, you're getting a tan. The cloud over your head is no longer there.

Though sometimes you feel hurt, and sometimes you will feel depressed, you no longer think of the Last Resort. Because, everything you've been repressing, it's coming out. Including happiness. And all of a sudden, you'll feel happiness like you've never felt it before.

But now you're also feeling sadness, and anger, and so many feelings you didn't know you COULD have. And for once, it's a good thing. Because now you know how to deal with it.

Now you're more outspoken in school and especially at home. Your relationship with your parents will improve significantly, and your younger siblings as well.

Although it's still hard, you manage. At least now you are acknowledging it, it's there, and you're dealing with it.

Dealing with it means that you've pushed the toxic people out of your life. That includes one family member. One that held a lot of resentment over you.

You cut her out of your life. For a year. Then she grew up, she was becoming a mother, and you haven't had a fight since. It makes me want to cry just thinking of all the fighting you used to do, and now you go over to her house all the time, and watch her kids, who you love so much.

You will go to community college for a year...and it will not work out. You leave school to work, and write.

Now you have five books out. The most recent one is doing exceptionally well, and you're very happy about it. This could be the book that gets you noticed.

You are an assistant manager at a pizzeria, and you are thriving there. Although, what you want is to be a writer. And I am working really hard to make that happen.

Things will try to break you, people will try to hurt you, and you will want to wish you were never alive. But you will heal, get strong, and realize that life is precious.

I am twenty years old right now. Four months shy of being 21.

Everything is really great right now, and these are the words I live by:

Everything will be okay in the end, if it's not okay, it's not the end.

I know I could have used those words when I was you, younger Rebeca. Because there were so many times I wished that it was the end, and now I'm so glad that I didn't choose to make it the end.

I love you. Love yourself. I know it's hard, but I know you can do it.

Signed,


            REBECA XX

2016 & Resolutions.

Hello Everyone! It's the second day of 2016. Which is insane because I could have sworn we were just starting 2015!

Here's a recap on what happened in 2015 for me:

• I got promoted at work (Many raises$$(I love my job, don't just do it for the money))
• Released my second book called To Save You!
• Did taxes for the first time by myself!
• Bought my first Polaroid (:
• Had a new niece named Vanessa!
• Saw and met Halsey! Along with camped out on the freezing ground and also saw Sam Miller from Paradise Fears there.
• Became obsessed with the sky. Check out my instagram for the pictures I manage to capture!
• Got my first tattoo!! They're blackbirds, maybe I'll write a post about them soon and what they mean to me. (:
• Turned 20! And had a lot of fun on my birthday with friends and family<3
• Had a fun day playing with my coworkers when the power went out. Which included singing, playing soccer, throwing a football, and drinking Slushees.
• Wrote my third book.
• Released my third book called Broken Pleasure!
• Got my first review!
• Wrote my fourth book.
• Released the fourth book! It's called Broken Perfectly!
• Became friends with authors<3
• Read some really good books! Which I will also be making a post about my favorites.
• Was a Zombie for halloween!
• Opened the store for the first time by myself!
• Started writing my fifth book!(;

Now it's 2016 which means another 366(Leap year) days for 366 new adventures. Not every single day will be exciting, but I will do my best to keep to my resolutions, and have fun, and not stress out as much.

Here are some of my resolutions for the new year!:

• Give up soda entirely. Not caffeine, I can't do it without my occasional teas, plus I don't drink coffee or energy drinks because it makes my stomach upset.
• Start a YouTube channel where I want to weekly vlog.
• Get more people to notice my writing.
• Release a thriller/mystery novel.
• Travel to New York and LA, or Oregon, or Seattle. Maybe even Utah. Or the UK. Just travel! Already planning a trip for my 21st birthday in July!
• Get a new car! It can be used, but just something a little better than my 2000 Ford Focus that is always breaking down and has trouble on the snow.
• Go to a book convention!
• Create more connections in the book world.
• Take a road trip.
• Take more photos of the sky!
• Take photos when I'm with friends, family, or just alone. Take photos and document this year.
• Love.
• Be Happy.
• Be more charitable (already have a few plans for that).
• Be present.
• Eat healthier.
• Give up fast food entirely by the end of the year. Or make it only a treat like one a month.
• Try new foods. I took this quiz on buzzfeed, and I only eat 30 of the 90 foods listed. I am the pickiest of eaters.
• Say yes!
• Keep my car clean.
• Do one thing that scares me everyday.
• Get help for my anxiety.
• Write a few more novels.
• Save money.

And the last thing is a resolution many people have. To exercise. To lose weight.

I am currently very unhappy with the way I look, and with what I weigh. My eating habits are horrendous from barely eating one day to binging the next. And it doesn't make me feel good and I'm sick.
Literally sick. All the time. I can pretend I'm fine, but I can feel my health declining and it's not a good feeling.
I've been a member at a gym for the last six months, but have only gone once. And I was in the hospital yesterday. Since april, I've lost six pounds. Not a lot, nothing at all, but it kind of gave me the push, and the will to say...I can do this.
I want to lose 100 pounds by the end of the year. Thats 365 days from now. I won't beat myself up if I don't make it there. If I can get to under 200 pounds, I will be happy with myself because it's been 3 years since I was that weight.
It's time to put my gym membership to good use. Time to face reality. Time to make some progress, and just stop putting it off and lying to myself.

Anyway, I hope you guys had a good start to the New Year. Make the best of it. <3

-Rebeca xx

Music is the reason I write.

I can remember ever since I was little that I have always loved music. I mean, who didn't?

I grew up in a Mexican household which meant music was always playing when we woke up, when we cleaned, and especially when we had social gatherings. Spanish music always has a story to tell, they were descriptive and allowed my imagination to flow.

I kind of moved away from spanish music, and I started getting into my own music. Kelly Clarkson, Britney Spears, NSYNC, and many more.

In my head, I could create stories, stories I would dream about at night. I liked to sing (even though I was terrible at it) and I liked pretending to be the lead of my stories inside my head. My imagination was wild.

The first time I wrote was after reading Twilight in middle school. I think I was in eighth grade. I wrote and wrote, at least I tried. I wrote in complete silence because that's how my neighbor wrote her amazing stories.

I wanted to write amazing stories, too. Like the ones in my head that I got while listening to music. I didn't write for a long time after that because I thought I wasn't good enough. Every story I tried to write just ended with me saving it and never looking at it again because I got blocked.

One day, while listening to Thriving Ivory, I was driving to my friends house to pick her up to go to class, I just had this story pop in my head. I remember grabbing my phone and opening the voice recording app, and I recorded myself just saying words.

I didn't really have a story. I had an idea. I still remember the words that I thought of that day. Car accident. Coma. Scarred body. College. Unhappiness. Save Me.

I could even imagine the place where the car accident happened, I had a place in my town that inspired it.

This all happened before I wrote my first book. I pushed the idea aside, and I'm glad I did because it really let me think about it for about a year. Scarlett and Ryder talked to me in dreams, they developed and finally I just had to write about them.

I wrote about them with a few songs in mind, including the song Unhappy by Thriving Ivory, one of my favorite bands.

Now I don't write without a music playlist. Music helps my imagination, it helps me write, and I absolutely love it. Sometimes I'll write a scene with one song on repeat just so I don't lose idea in my mind.

Now, talking about Scarlett and Ryder...I released Broken Pleasure last month, and I am very proud of it, though the idea of anybody reading it makes me feel ill. I did get my first review on it a few weeks ago, and you can get it here.

I hope you guys like it(:

xxRebeca

How I Met Your Mother...

I understand this post is 6 months too late, but it's that time of year that all the shows come back on air and I got to thinking about one of my favorite shows to have ever air...How I Met Your Mother. I thought about how it will never come back on CBS, and how I'm so going to binge watch it on Netflix until my eyes are swollen shut from all the crying.

That will be me.
How I Met Your Mother has changed my life. I was sixteen when I started to watch it, I caught it on the hospital TV when I was there for a week for surgery. It was on very late, but from what I saw it was funny and emotional and raw.
It wasn't until my senior year of high school that I really got into it, it was also around the time I got Netflix!
Although I wasn't the age these characters were, I found myself relating to them on many levels. The episode where Lily applies to an art school, and then takes the scholarship, she reminds me so much of me and others.
I'm 19 now and I have no idea what I want to do. I will be dead set on a path, up until I get to the point where I actually have to go through with it. Then I will get worried. Have I taken enough risks in life, or have I played it safe? The next quote is life because I think almost everyone has this moment where they think this.
"Lily: OK, yes it's a mistake. I know it's a mistake, but there are certain things in life where you know it's a mistake but you don't really know it's a mistake because the only way to really know it's a mistake is to make the mistake and look back and say 'yep, that was a mistake.' So really, the bigger mistake would be to not make the mistake, because then you'd go your whole life not knowing if something is a mistake or not. And dammit, I've made no mistakes! I've done all of this; my life, my relationship, my career, mistake-free. Does any of this make sense to you?"
Just take that all in because it will make sense.
I never wanted that… Of course, it’s one thing not to want something; it’s another to be told you can’t have it. I guess it’s just nice knowing that you could someday do it if you change your mind. But now, all of a sudden, that door is closed. Robin
Just reading this quote, it doesn't mention something specific but something comes to mind when you read this.
Robin is talking about having children, it's when she's learned that she can't have any children...ever. 
I cried during this episode. I understood what Robin was thinking, I am not infertile, but if I ever want to have children, it will be extremely difficult. I don't want children, I've never seen myself as the mother-type, but like Robin, it was comforting to know that if I ever changed my mind...

You can’t just skip ahead to where you think your life should be. It doesn’t work that way.

Lily 

True that Lily. We have to go through certain things to get where we are going and everything happens for a reason.

There were a lot of life lessons in HIMYM. It was like a teacher for me and boy did I learn a lot. Here are just a few things I learned...

“But, love doesn’t make sense … You can’t logic your way into or out of it. Love is totally nonsensical. But we have to keep doing it or else we’re lost and love is dead and humanity should just pack it in. Because love is the best thing we do. I know that sounds cheesy but it’s just true.”

You will be shocked kids when you’ll discover how easy it is in life to part ways with people forever. That’s why, when you find someone you wanna keep around, you do something about it.

Future Ted

This is where I'll  leave you, I hope you guys enjoy this post. (:

Four Seconds To Lose by K.A. Tucker

A few days ago, I finished this book. I suffer from severe insomnia, so I usually start reading on my phone, kindle, or just grab an actual book when I can't sleep or get back to sleep.

I had been stuck on Four Seconds to Lose for a few weeks now, and I was about a third into it, so when I woke up at 3 in the morning for no reason, I began to read it. Suddenly it was 7 in the morning, I had to start getting ready so I could get to my summer class on time at my local community college, and I had sixty pages left! I should have felt a need to finish it right away, I was rushing home!


I was freaking out. But I did what I always do when I'm in love with a good book, and judge me, I sure do, I stopped reading for a day! I don't know why I do it, but I did. Once I had a free afternoon, I began to read it again. I was literally screaming when I reached the end (Don't judge, I'm sure I'm not the only one who does that in their home).

K.A. Tucker always keeps me on my toes, I seriously don't know what to expect or if I should even trust my instincts. Usually, I'm wrong, haha.
So this would be my first official review, and I hope you guys like it.

Owning a strip club isn’t the fantasy most guys expect it to be. With long hours, a staff with enough issues to keep a psych ward in business, and the police regularly on his case, twenty-nine-year-old Cain is starting to second guess his unspoken mission to save the women he employs. And then blond, brown-eyed Charlie Rourke walks through his door, and things get really complicated. Cain abides by a strict “no sleeping with the staff” rule. But being around Charlie challenges Cain’s self-control…and it’s been a long time since any woman has done that. 

Twenty-two-year-old Charlie Rourke needs a lot of money, really fast, in order to vanish before it’s too late. Taking her clothes off for men makes her stomach curl but Charlie tells herself that at least she’s putting her acting and dancing skills to good use. And though her fellow dancers seem eager to nab their sexy, sophisticated, and genuinely caring boss, she’s not interested. After all, Charlie Rourke doesn’t really exist—and the girl pretending to be her can't get distracted by romance.

Unfortunately, Charlie soon discovers that developing feelings for Cain is inevitable, and that those feelings may not be unrequited—but losing him when he finds out what she’s involved with will be more painful than any other sentence awaiting her.

This is the third book I've read from K.A. Tucker, and it has all the lovely characters from the past two books. Of course, Charlie Rourke is a new one.
Charlie grew up with her stepfather Sam, and he's not such a nice guy. He's involved Charlie in something bad, and she is going to run. Just one little problem...she needs money.
Come in Cain. He gives her a job at Penny's and their attraction towards each other is very hard to hide! I felt so giddy as I read on and I was rooting for them.
I think my favorite quote was:
I believe second chances exist only in dreams, never in reality.
I believe you don't have years, or months, or weeks to impact a person's life.
You have seconds.
Seconds to win them over, And seconds to lose them.”
It just speaks truths. K.A. Tucker is a writing genius!

This book is about secrets and the past, Cain and Charlie have such horrible pasts and they both suffer immensely. They have trouble feeling good about themselves, but when they're together...the world is right. Forgiveness of someone elses faults and forgiveness for their own faults is a really big theme.
This book will keep you on your toes, and will make your heart swell and break and then swell again!


I hope you guys will read it and love it just like I did! K.A. Tucker is a an amazing author, and her writing style with these books is unique, and one I appreciated.

-Rebeca

Life Ruiners

"Why would she do that?"
"Because she's a life ruiner, she ruins peoples lives."
I have this thought every time I read someones book. I swear EVERY TIME I GET TO THE CLIMAX OF A BOOK.

 Mean Girls is so relatable even when it isn't.

So on Thursday, June 26th, one of my favorite authors K.A. Tucker came by the Book Cellar (Chicago) and had a meet and greet. She was seriously so nice. It was a fun experience and I picked up her fourth book Five Ways to Fall <3. I'm still on her third book Four Seconds To Lose, and seriously I can't.
I love her books DON'T GET ME WRONG, but they just kill me. I seriously cry and scream while reading, and I'm pretty sure my mom is one outburst away from institutionalizing me. I'm being very serious.
K.A. Tucker isn't the only author I've fallen victim to though. There is Abbi Glines, John Green, Gayle Forman, Sara Wolf, J. Lynn, Marata Eros, Jessica Sorensen, Komal Kant, Colleen Hoover, Bennett Madison, and Autumn Doughton, just to name a few life ruiners.
Every single one of those authors have caused me to seriously re-evaluate my life when it comes to reading. Reading has become bittersweet. What am I saying, I love it.

I love the emotion that each book brings out of me. I love that even though this book can break me, it can also make me laugh and smile.

 I also scream out good things and I get all excited for the characters.
It's knowing what feelings these books bring out in me that seriously makes me want to become a serious writer. I want to do what those authors do. Write and have people feel a million different things while reading.
So I want to dedicate this blog to those life ruiners, I will be writing reviews on books that ruin my life and lets see where this takes me. (:
-Rebeca