What I Learned In 2016 – Mylifeaseva

2016 is finally, finally over (good riddance and peace out). As I can assume through social media, 2016 was kind of a nightmare for everyone. Now I’m not going to lie, 2016 provided many of the best memories of my life! So much happened and so much changed, and sometimes I’d want to cry of happiness and sometimes i’d want to die in a damn hole. But 2016 is over now, so let’s reflect.

2016 was the biggest year of learning in my life, aside from 2012 (in high school), when I learned the important lesson that life isn’t going to hand you anything, and if you want something you better work as hard as you can to get it- on your own.

I thought I’d always known myself.

I did, in a way. I knew who I wanted to become, and I knew when to say no. I knew what I wanted to do and what I didn’t want to do. I knew I didn’t want to do drugs. I knew I didn’t want to sit around. I knew I wanted to someday write a book. I had some things figured out. Decisions seemed relatively easy up until 2016. Before 2016, I was living in Orange County and going to college. Things were on a set track; Go to school, upload weekly, visit your boyfriend who lives down the street and feed your cat.

But then things changed.

I moved to LA, my relationship ended, I finished school and suddenly all I had was my cat.

Living in LA is different than Orange County. Even though I was only 40 miles away my whole life, LA seemed like another planet. The nights started later and went on much longer. The people in LA weren’t like the people at my school in Orange County. Suddenly, me, a girl who had been to maybe four parties her entire life, was sitting in the middle of a dirty old couch in a nearly empty mansion in North Hollywood, surrounded by 14 year olds smoking weed and making out.

This wasn’t me, and I knew it wasn’t where I was supposed to be spending my time. But here I was, my first month in LA, and I almost convinced myself that this was the life I was going to live now. I remember clearly sitting on another one of those countless dirty couches after only two weeks of living in LA and thinking “I’ve never smoked weed before, but maybe I should try it. I live in LA now, and this is what LA people do. I guess this is normal”. A kid passed me a bong and I tried it. I immediately started coughing and thrusted it back. WTF? Eva. This is not you.

Time passed by, and suddenly two weeks turned into 2 months of surfing couches at probably a total of 5 parties I experienced. I saw girls I’d always looked up to on youtube and Instagram fall into the whole “LA lifestyle”. At first I thought they were cool, and I wanted to be like them. I saw them at parties and could never talk to them because I wasn’t in their group, and I wasn’t doing the things they were doing. I knew I didn’t want to do drugs. I didn’t even want to be surrounded by them. It made me feel dark. It made me feel like I was in the slow lane when I had always been in the fast lane, hustling and putting all my love into my youtube channel. Uploading got harder, and something I never thought would happen.

I lost myself.

Almost.

At the time that I moved to LA, Teala and I were just becoming best friends. Her and I would go to the parties together, and we both could tell that we weren’t into them. We were fun, and loved to have a good time- but not like that. We needed something different, we just didn’t know what it was, or how to find it. I think we were looking for a way to have fun on weekends, but parties weren’t the answer. It wasn’t until one night that we saw someone that we knew throw up all over an apartment elevator because of doing too much drugs that we had a serious reality check.

Who were our friends? Who cared and loved for us? Who would be there for us without doing drugs or ubering to parties? It dawned on us that everyone we thought was our friend was really only there for us on weekends to split an uber ride, and even then, we weren’t doing the drugs, so we were always detached.

Thats when we realized the only real friends we had in LA were each other. Teala and I decided to leave the people who only wanted to hang out after 9:30 pm, and suddenly it was just her and I.

Teala and I did everything together. We were all each other had. We took up so many new and cool things. Instead of going to a party on the weekends, we’d play the latest video games and order Veggie Grill. We’d see a movie. We’d get our nails done or go to Wi Spa. We explored LA and made our own fun in so many amazing ways.

Just a few months later, Sierra and Meredith joined us on our quest to finding the good, clean fun in life. I think they too were girls looking for something more than what LA offers on the surface. And so all of us began to take the world by storm together, throwing Disney dates and dinner dates. We spent time together and had more fun than any party could ever offer, and we did it all 100% sober.

The thing I’d always stayed true to myself about was knowing that drugs and alcohol do not make a life fun. You make your life fun. I’d gone all throughout growing up making the most amazing memories sober the whole time, which to some people may think is weird, but to me, I didn’t think anything of it. It wasn’t for any religious reason, and I wasn’t judging anyone that did it differently than me. Just to me, I never bothered to try it. I consider myself pretty crazy and happy all the time, so I didn’t need anything else to make me have a good time somewhere.

Then I get to LA and it’s almost like drugs and alcohol were deemed “necessary” to having a good time. And that was the first time in my life that I’d experienced that. For a second, I almost let it change me. But I didn’t, and neither did the Savage Squad, and I think that’s why were so strong together.

 

2016 taught me that just when you think you have it all figured out, you don’t. You will always be growing and learning. It’s kind of like math class, when your teacher teaches you 1+1=2 and then you look at the test and its 1+1=-54574385973+45*^3 =a +b =c^tan cos 3.

Like no.

But that’s life, and you need to be prepared to stick to what you believe is right for you through it all. I say for you, because you can’t be judging people if their path is different than yours. If 500 kids want to do drugs to have a good time, thats not your problem. Your only problem is you, so take care of yourself and stay true to what you need to do for yourself. Stay healthy, stay motivated and know how to have a good time that’s fueled only on the energy of your closest friends surrounding you. It’s about knowing yourself and what your perfect recipe of good clean fun is. That’s what matters.

But it’s not all about drugs and alcohol. I had other learning experiences in 2016, like dealing with the worlds crappiest boys, attempting to hit on girls and have them take me seriously as being bisexual, and dealing with my second depression.

I don’t want this blog post to get too long, but let me recap and you can maybe tell me in the comments or tweets what you’d love for me to expand on in a bigger story.

In the summer of 2016, I turned into too much of a “yes girl”, where even when I was drowning in work, videos to edit and more, id always say yes to everything because I didn’t want to make anyone mad. When I didn’t have time to see my best friends, I’d make time, which would make me behind on work, which would make people mad. When I needed to work, I couldn’t see my friends, which would scare me that maybe they thought I didn’t care about them. I had too much to do- not enough time, and yet, I tried and I tried to balance it all. It became unhealthy, and I found myself filming new videos every week and never getting around to finishing them, and suddenly,  I didn’t have anything I could gather the strength to finish to upload. I was in a complete mess of a cycle and didn’t know how to fix it. I started to become depressed. When I was with my friends, I felt like I wasn’t even there. It was like my body was there, but no words could come out of my mouth that made sense. I was just present to be somewhere. Meanwhile, I would spend my days not leaving bed until 3 pm. I’d lay in bed all day with no motivation to do anything at all. I was so behind, It gave me anxiety to start anything I needed to do. I couldn’t leave my house, and didn’t even bother to shower. Id cry for no reason. I think it was just because of everything piled on top of me that I didn’t know how to fix.  It was bad, and I’m sure a lot of people never even knew it was happening to me. I started to see a therapist, which helped me get out of my depression, but for the longest time, I wasn’t motivated to do anything.

In 2016, I met a lot of crappy guys, which a lot of fans judged me for, and I’m going to assume they weren’t evanators because evanators don’t talk crap, but I’m glad it happened, because trust me- it will happen to everyone, and despite having run ins with some crazy guys, I also had a ton of fun, and stories that will last a lifetime.

2016 was the first year that I got to be single since I was 17. In my opinion, I feel like relationships are great, but everyone needs a time in their adult life where they experience whats out there in the dating world. It’s the only way to really see what you need in a relationship! I had the best relationship growing up, but it took us breaking up for me to realize so much about myself that I never knew existed.

This year was my trial and error year. You guys don’t know this, but a lot of the guys you shipped me with that never ended up working out often ended because we just weren’t meant to be together! (i.e, supports Donald trump, shoots and kills bears, is secretly dating 4 other girls on the side) yeah, those qualities don’t really sound like they align with me. So I went around this year trying to meet as many people as possible and learn about myself. I learned that a lot of boys (most of them in my case) just want to waste your time and maybe gain a few quick Instagram followers. Isn’t that sad? When you’re in social media, you have to worry about if a guy likes you for you or just for your Instagram followers, because they’ll act like they like you when they may not even find you attractive at all. It sucks.

This year, I got used by boys, I got my time wasted by like 59849743 people, and I hit on girls that most likely never got the hint and thought I was just being “friendly”. It was my first time I learned what the true single life was all about, and I’m glad I experienced heartbreak, betrayal and some pretty great liars because it only made me stronger. Strong AF.

And hey, it all worked out in the end, because just as I had been kicked down for what I thought was the final time I could handle of the year (a guy I really liked told me he didn’t want a girlfriend, then a week later- had a girlfriend, yep), I met Adam.

And I don’t need to say too much about Adam, other than he’s a real one and this is nothing but good, solid, unconditional love.

 

So, 2016, thank you for reminding me of who I am. Thank you for testing me. Thank you for making me stronger. I thought I was strong before 2016, but now I’m ready to take on anything. I know when to say no. I know when to say no, I will not allow you to change my judgement. I will not allow you to take advantage of me. I will not allow you to lie to me, and I will not allow my anxiety to take over my life.

Thanks 2016 for bringing me three other true friends who love me In the daytime. Three friends who are the realest. Three friends who will always have each other’s backs. One Savage Squad.

Thanks 2016 for testing my patience with a bunch of guys who wanted to waste my damn time. Thanks for teaching me my self worth, and for making me learn the hard way how to stick up for myself when people want to do me wrong.

Thanks 2016 for leading me to find my other half. Thank you for giving me someone to inspire me every day, travel with and cuddle with at night. Thank you for giving me someone who truly deserves all the love I can give.

Through all the hard times in 2016, thanks for blessing my family with good health, and keeping my evanators safe and healthy through all of the world’s events.

Life isn’t easy, but it is a beautiful journey, and 2017 is already feeling like its going to be even better.

What did you learn this year??

Love,

Eva

 

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