middle school

Valentine’s Day With You

~ Marie Lorene Hansen ~ 3 Comments

Hello, dear internet friends,

Valentine’s Day is just over two weeks away. Stating the obvious, I suppose; you can hardly go shopping anywhere—online or IRL—without being bombarded by red, pink, and heart-shaped everything. “Bombarded” is a word with a negative flavor, but maybe that’s how you experience the lovey-dovey overload all around us. I’ve certainly been there. As much as I love Valentine’s Day, sometimes this holiday can taste like a chocolate-covered reminder of what you’re missing out on.  

It starts out so simple. When you’re a kid, Valentine’s Day can be like a mini-Halloween, minus the costumes. My elementary school did a classroom party every year.  Everyone brought equal amounts of love (er, candy) for everyone else in the class. I’m sure some people picked out their closest friends’ cards with extra care, giving them their favorite Disney Princess or Nickelodeon character from the pack. But at the end of the day, everyone went home with a full construction-paper-covered shoebox of treats.

Life was good.

Somewhere along the way, though, Valentine’s Day can start to look like a holiday for highlighting the haves over the have-nots. Maybe even before you’re ready to have a real Valentine yourself. For me, that shift happened in middle school. The classroom parties disappeared. Instead, our school had a carnation sale. The way I remember it, if one (or more) of your classmates bought you a flower, you were given a paper slip to go pick it up at the end of the day.

I don’t have strong feelings about carnations. They’re fine. Not my favorite. But oh, how I wanted one that afternoon, watching those fluffy little flower heads bob down the hallway as I walked out of school empty-handed.

I don’t know if I was expecting flowers from anyone. Maybe I sent some to my friends, hoping to do an exchange, but didn’t talk to them in advance about it. Certainly, I secretly wished a crush would send me one, but the hurt I felt wasn’t about that. Feeling left out stings. Understandably so. Still, the disappointment wouldn’t have cut so deep if I hadn’t placed my self-worth outside of myself, where it could be battered by the flimsiest of flower petals.

I’ve been thinking about that a lot this week—self-worth, and how the relationships we have with ourselves affect the tenor of every experience we have. I used to think “relationship” was a funny word to use in relation to our own selves. I mean, relationship implies two people, and as far as I know, none of us have clones. But the more I’ve thought about it, it’s actually a great term to use. Sometimes, the way we approach ourselves—through self-talk, for example—is so automatic we don’t stop to question it. I think we could learn a lot by creating a little space to observe how we treat ourselves.

I also think considering our self-care as a relationship is great because a lot of the things that work in relationships can also help us feel better ourselves. Miley recently reminded us all we can buy our own “Flowers” and also learn to enjoy our own company, which I think might be the best possible place to start. So many of our friendships begin with the simple foundation of liking to spend time with someone, right?

I recently read through some of my journal entries from high school. One rough day when I was 16, I wrote: “My life is just so lame sometimes. It’s a Saturday Night and I’m in my bed at 9:20 watching That’s So Raven.” My first thought when I read that was, that actually sounds pretty great. I don’t mean to diminish how I felt. Feeling lonely and without a place to belong was miserable. But what I see now that I didn’t then is that, at the very least, I would love to hang out with that girl. That me. I’d love to spend a Valentine’s Day with her, watching To All the Boys I’ve Loved Before and picking the vanilla cremes out of the shiny red heart-shaped box. I’ve had plenty of great Valentine’s, but that would be pretty exceptional.

I’m looking forward to exploring this all more with you this year. I think the relationships we have with ourselves are so much richer and more complex than we give them credit for being. They deserve to be held amongst the great love stories of our lives.

I hope you can find a moment to enjoy your own company this Valentine’s Day. Because there’s one person you’ll always get to spend the holiday with: you. How lucky are you?

The luckiest. I can see that. I hope you can, too.

xoxo

Marie

Writing for Girls’ Life: The “Get Inspired” Series

~ Marie Lorene Hansen ~ Leave a comment

Happy holidays, my Internet friends!

Something I am grateful for this year is that I had the opportunity to create a series of articles for the “Get Inspired” section of Girls’ Life‘s website. I interviewed three girls who were State or National Honorees at the Prudential Spirit of Community Awards, a program that recognizes kids and teens for their outstanding community service. Riley Callen is a high school freshman who holds hike-a-thons to raise money and awareness for benign tumor research. Lorelei McIntyre-Brewer is a seventh grader who developed a kid-sized compression heart pillow that she sends to kids all over the world.  Gable Sloan, who is pictured below, is a seventh grader whose bakery has generated thousands of dollars for charity, in addition to funding an annual scholarship. Girls' Life Gable Sloan (2).pngI have worked with and written for Girls’ Life over the past seven years, and I’ve had some really awesome experiences along the way. In 2010, I began as a Blog Moderator for their website, where I not only approved comments but answered advice questions from readers in real-time. As you may imagine, it was really challenging at times—some of their questions warranted a more thorough conversation than we could have in the comments section!—but I was so grateful to get to listen to them, learn from them, and help out where I could. When I became an Online Contributing Writer the following year, I got to write about everything from how to host a “cupcake war” to bringing up tough topics with your parents. One of my favorite tasks though was interviewing awesome girls, including many who had given back in big ways like Riley, Lorelei, and Gable. (All of my Girls’ Life links are available here!)

I am genuinely grateful to get to help share these girls’ stories, because I think it’s incredibly valuable for them to be heard. Whether you’re a kid or an adult, it’s easy to be overwhelmed by what’s going on in the world and wonder what your place in it is. We all have so much power—power to create, power to help others, power to change the world—and sometimes, hearing someone else’s story can inspire us to begin writing our own. In my recent article on BuzzFeed, I mentioned that Deborah Reber’s book In Their Shoes changed my life for the better, and I really meant that. I read that book when I was 16 years old and starting to think about life after high school. After reading the profile on Jess Weiner, who described herself as an “Actionist,” or someone who uses their voice, their career, and their actions to make the world better,  it was like everything clicked into place. I knew what I wanted to do. I wanted to write and create things for girls that would help them navigate the wild ride that is growing up and becoming who you want to be. Granted, the road hasn’t always been smooth, but having that guiding goal has helped me make decisions along the way that could have been a lot more difficult. I am so grateful for Jess, and for Deborah, and for the girls who have let me share their stories in hopes that we can send light and inspiration to someone who needs it.

If you haven’t yet checked out the articles about Riley, Lorelei, and Gable, please do so! Also, if there is someone whose story inspired you in some way, please feel free to tell us about it in the comments below. You never know who you could help inspire.

xoxo

Marie

12 Quotes to Guide You on Your Body Image Journey

~ Marie Lorene Hansen ~ Leave a comment

We all have bodies. Me, you, that person over there reading that other blog. That much is clear-cut. But for at least some of us, that’s about as straightforward as it gets. Having a body, and living life in said body, can be weirdly complicated.

Kari Shea Flower Reflection.jpg
Photo by Kari Shea

My struggles with having a body have revolved around weight and appearance, or rather, my beliefs about those things. Starting around the time I left elementary school, I became convinced that I needed to be thinner to be popular to be happy. Unsurprisingly, that belief had a negative impact on how I treated and felt about myself, body included.

Thankfully, I now know how very wrong I was, about all of it. But still, living in a world where we’re bombarded with images of women’s bodies and messages about them (often not from the woman herself), it’s hard not to feel, at the very least, a little weird about being in your own living, breathing, changing, 3D body. I am at a place where I want to develop a healthy relationship with mine. Where it no longer feels like a strange, sometimes annoying attachment to my brain, and just . . . . feels good. And like me. At least most of the time.

The best thing I have figured out so far is to simply commit, over and over again, to the exploration of what makes me feel whole, good, and like myself. As part of this process, I decided to seek out (and share with you) wonderful words from wise women on beauty and having a body. Some of these quotes are long and can be referred back to as needed, and some are short, so you can repeat them back to yourself in a moment where you need them. To change the soundtrack, if you will. Hopefully, at least one will resonate with you and help you on your own journey.

“People often say that ‘beauty is in the eye of the beholder,’ and I say that the most liberating thing about beauty is realizing that you are the beholder. This empowers us to find beauty in places where others have not dared to look, including inside ourselves.” – Salma Hayek

“I am obsessed with becoming a woman comfortable in her skin.” – Sandra Cisneros

“I felt free once I realized I was never going to fit the narrow mold that society wanted me to fit in.”– Ashley Graham

“You’re a human being—you live once and life is wonderful, so eat the damn red velvet cupcake.” – Emma Stone

“Everybody has a part of her body that she doesn’t like, but I’ve stopped complaining about mine because I don’t want to critique nature’s handiwork . . . My job is simply to allow the light to shine out of the masterpiece.” – Alfre Woodard

“I say if I’m beautiful. I say if I’m strong. You will not determine my story. I will.” – Amy Schumer

“Someone recently asked if I had any dieting tips for other teenage girls. Try and reverse that. ‘Do you have any dieting tips for other teenage boys?’ . . . I mean, come on. I don’t diet! I’m thirteen! Nobody my age should be dieting or trying to change themselves because society says so. And seriously, I’m thirteen!” – Rowan Blanchard

“Body acceptance means, as much as possible, approving of and loving your body, despite its ‘imperfections,’ real or perceived. That means accepting that your body is fatter than some others, or thinner than some others, that your eyes are a little crooked, that you have a disability that makes walking difficult, that you have health concerns that you have to deal with — but that all of that doesn’t mean that you need to be ashamed of your body or try to change it. Body acceptance allows for the fact that there is a diversity of bodies in the world, and that there’s no wrong way to have one.” – Golda Poretsky

“I’m not going to sacrifice my mental health to have the perfect body.” – Demi Lovato

“. . . my mother again would say to me, ‘You can’t eat beauty. It doesn’t feed you.’ And these words plagued and bothered me; I didn’t really understand them until finally I realized that beauty was not a thing that I could acquire or consume, it was something that I just had to be. And what my mother meant when she said you can’t eat beauty was that you can’t rely on how you look to sustain you. What does sustain us . . . what is fundamentally beautiful is compassion for yourself and for those around you. That kind of beauty enflames the heart and enchants the soul.” – Lupita Nyong’o

“If I wasn’t five-foot, I wouldn’t be who I am! My size is a huge part of me. You just have to appreciate those kinds of things. So I wasn’t born with long legs—who cares. You just have to embrace it. Being body positive is really important to your overall happiness.”– Sabrina Carpenter

“It’s important with all of the messages that might tell you otherwise that you have that in yourself to say that ‘I am beautiful. I am smart and I’m amazing.’” – Laverne Cox

If you have any favorite quotes—on body image or anything else!—please feel free to share them in the comments below.

xoxo

Marie

GP Reads—Popular: Vintage Wisdom for a Modern Geek by Maya Van Wagenen

~ Marie Lorene Hansen ~ 1 Comment

Hello, dear internet friends!

One thing I would love to do in my lifetime is write (and then publish) a book. This certainly isn’t a new dream for me; in fact, I spent a good chunk of the summer before I turned 19 putting together a book proposal. That particular project was never fully realized, but I still consider the time well-spent.

Fast-forward to today. I’m at a place now where I’m taking steps to make that dream a reality. Or perhaps I’m taking steps in preparation for taking steps to make that dream a reality. Either way, I decided a comfortable starting place would be to see what related YA/teen nonfiction books had come out since I last looked, as that’s the genre I imagine my future book project would fall under. After I gathered a list, I decided to start working my way through the titles. And then I realized I’d like to share my finds with you, in case you’d find them of interest. So today, I’m sharing with you my first pick, Popular: Vintage Wisdom for a Modern Geek by Maya Van Wagenen.

popular-cropped
Please excuse the barcode covering Maya’s name… Shout out to Lincoln City Libraries for lending this to me!

Popular is the true story of Maya’s eighth grade year, but the inspiration behind it came from a book written—and purchased—long before Maya was even born. That book is Betty Cornell’s Teen-Age Popularity Guide, written by former teen model Betty Cornell and published in 1951. Years later, Maya’s dad purchased the interesting, now-vintage book at a thrift store. Years after that, the book made its way out of storage and into the hands of Maya—and so this journey begins.

At first, Maya simply finds the book “quirky,” but then her mom gives a suggestion: Maya could follow the book’s advice on how to become popular throughout her eighth grade year and write about what happens. Like many a middle schooler given advice by their mother, Maya initially rejects this idea. But Maya, by her account, has never had the experience of being popular; in her ranking of her school’s “popularity scale,” she places herself at “the lowest level of people at school who weren’t paid to be here.” She decides to give the experiment ago.

And go all in she does. Each month, Maya tests out a different category of Betty’s advice. She tries everything from wearing Vaseline on her eyelids to sitting at each table in the cafeteria. Perhaps unsurprisingly, Maya gets mixed results and reactions along the way, but by the end, Maya is transformed—and I’d definitely say that the ending is a happy one.

Maya’s story was very relatable to me. In middle school (and high school), I did have good friends, but I definitely didn’t consider myself popular. And for much of that time, I really, really wanted to be. I thought, misguidedly, that being popular was the key to ultimate happiness.

Looking back on that time in my life gives me a kind of achy feeling. I can’t help but think, Man, with everything I know now, I could do that time so much better. Although I never experienced life on the “popular” side, I can say that over time, that label ceases to matter, but good friendships don’t. Also, the things that help me establish real connections with others—being in the moment, listening, sharing my joy—also make me feel happier, and again, have nothing to do with labels. That all may sound kind of cheesy, but it’s so true, it hurts.

This book definitely ignited that ache, but in a good way. Because—without giving too much away—Maya proves my line of thinking right. She puts the conventional notion of popularity to the test, and in the process, learns what that word really means to her, as well as how she wants to live her life going forward. Which is a lot for any one person to do in a year, let alone someone also navigating the halls of middle school. But Maya does it—and, thankfully, she brings us along on the journey.

So, whether you are a preteen or teen, or you know one, or you just want to vicariously ease your own ache about what might have been, I recommend this book. It’s a pretty quick read—and a powerful one.

xoxo

Marie

P.S. If you have any recommendations for my teen nonfiction reading list, let me know in the comments! Or send me an email at xomarielorene@gmail.com!