25 facts~

This tag has been floating around forever, so I thought, hey, why not finally do it? It'll be a quick and easy post, right? Wrong. I'm not a super intriguing person. I'm just a girl with a camera and a need to purge words from my brain via typing. So keep that in mind as you skim over these 25 facts about my small world.

1. I'm a cat lady. I have three. Heidi, Friskey, and Rú. I miss them way too much. They literally make me want to drop out of college and get a job as a stripper just so I can cuddle with them nightly again.

 2. I could live off of chocolate covered strawberries and rose flavored macarons. And also chips and salsa and fried pickles. I like food ok.

3. My all time favorite movie is Breakfast at Tiffany's. Or The Shining. Or 500 Days of Summer. Actually maybe the titanic. I like movies ok. 

4. I'm a phlebotomist. I adore all things blood and gore and veins.

5. I'm in love with Amsterdam and I wouldn't be surprised if I ended up living in The Netherlands for at least a small part of my life.

6. I feel absolutely naked when my nails aren't painted light pink.

7. I'm in a sorority at the University of Kansas. I never expected that to be a part of my life.

8. I have three polaroid cameras and various film cameras because I'm slightly obsessed.

9. Fashion blogger by day- XL t-shirt collector by night.

10. I only write in cursive. The curves and loops mesmerize me.

11. I'm a dancer and I miss my dance studio so.

12. I'm a firm believer that music sounds best on vinyl.

13. Every concert that I've been to has changed my life in some way.

14. I basically want to explore. Places and ideas and people. Curiosity will indeed kill the Chantel.

15. I love sensory a lot. If I could only have one sense, it would be touch. No doubt.

16. Wednesday Addams is my favorite TV character.

17. I have one tattoo- I got it done fairly randomly my last day in Paris.

18. My favorite flowers are daisies and sunflowers.

19. I'm the girliest girl ever, since before I can remember. In kindergarten, I refused to wear anything but dresses to school, even in the snow and I refused to paint my nails anything but pink. Not much has changed.

20. I'm allergic to shellfish. Get dat shrimp away from me.

21. My socks never match. My thigh highs are even slightly different from one another every once in awhile.

22. I tried to hunt once. I wore a pink satin ribbon in my hair and refused to shoot anything.

23. I read too much. Stephen King, Edgar Allan Poe, and Hemingway are my favorite writers. I'm inherently drawn to writing with a slightly existentialist view.

24. I drink more coffee than I should.

25. I've been working on this post for weeks because it's hard to think of facts. I'm not that interesting.

When Peace & Chaos Collide

The moments right before I am fully awake

are my favorite moments.

The ones when I'm simply lying in bed,

not fully conscious,

or fully recovered from the previous night's reveries-

looking out through my seventh floor window

at the blurry neon shirted construction workers

floating around the earth below me

like the butterflies that once inhabited my abdomen.

The moments before I put my glasses on.

Before I can see their faces,

lines drawn in them like stories,

telling me about lovers lost and children grown.

I've always had a secret love for chaos.

Sporadic, enchanting mayhem;

the kind of clutter and confusion that passes me by

too quickly to even form opinions.

I like the moments before anything is real

when I can imagine and be whatever I want.

When the commotion feels orderly enough.

When everything just is.

Guys I made this top and these shorts. For like a total of $10. This is what I do when I'm bored and have spare time. I'm not sure if I'm ready for fall or not. As much as I love layers, hats, and pumpkin spice lattes, I sure am going to miss sundresses, crop tops, and skirts. But, wow, I can't wait to see Lawrence lit up with bright dying leaves and lively anxious souls. I'm already pumped for halloween, honestly. I love creepy, ominous things. Haunted houses, cemeteries, crazy makeup, crazier night skies- it's what I look forward to every year. But then again, every holiday is my fav. Whenever someone asks me what my favorite holiday is, I literally name whichever big calendar date is coming up. What's your favorite holiday? Season? Moment? Tell me things. I love you for sticking with me through my own personal chaos by the way. From overseas trips and fragmented fairytales to moving away from my tiny town and starting over. I just adore you all a lot.

Be Nice

& as they sat together,

sipping black coffee,

spilling white lies,

he romanticized every moment that she refused the chaos of daylight and welcomed the subtle hush of the moon,

until 3am came,

when he slowly came to realize that maybe she didn’t love him at all, but only the quiet stillness of the night.

it didn’t matter. She had let him into her unreachable world.

The one she didn’t allow words to define.

Besides,

how could he be upset,

at a face whose smile only lit up in the darkness?

He cursed himself with immortality the very first time he spoke to her.

His voice cut and her typewriter bled.

I'm in love with where I am,

but sometimes,

I miss my curtains

I miss my cats

I miss big beds and bigger cuddles

I miss my mom

I miss rooftop stars

I miss my suitcase

I miss my fragmented fairytales

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PJs- Forever 21 (similar)

Bow- forever 21

Skirt- ModCloth

University of Flannel

FIRST DAY OF SCHOOL FIRST DAY OF SCHOOL.

I've been so busy with end of summer health issues, sorority recruitment, and moving.

I'm now a member of Alpha Gamma Delta, and I officially live in Lawrence, and I'm beyond psyched. I went from living a  completely anti social life in small town Kansas, to making friends all over the world the past few months, and rooming with the most amazing girls, and adoring every single human being that crosses my path. I'm so in love with this city, this college, and these people. I've already made a ridiculous amount of memories, and this is only the first day. If I could give one piece of advice to you all on the interweb, it would be this: live somewhere you love. Don't settle for simple "acceptance," but rather THRIVE on your surroundings and allow them to shape you into the person you are meant to be. I genuinely hope that your whole year is as lovely as the beginning of mine has been.

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dress: Charlotte Russe

top: JCP

shoes: Charlotte Russe

shoes:

Pearl Dipped, Blonde Curled Doll

bright pink lipped, satin sashed doll,

eternally confined within purple pastel walls.

Pearl dipped, blonde curled doll,

longing for every last brick to fall.

with powder blue heels impatiently tapping,

she dreamed of the walls around her collapsing.

persistent reveries of twirls and laughing,

ceased her waiting and sent her on packing.

she escaped the coldness of the general vicinity,

following wherever the sun shined brilliantly.

in a simple search for new energy and divinity,

she blissfully played and explored for infinity.

I promise I haven't forgotten about you, lovelies. Post-travel depression is a thing, I'm sure of it. I've been reflecting so much, that the present has, on occasion, slipped my mind. I'm just not quite in the swing of things yet- which is a good thing in my opinion. I don't like staying in the same place for too long. I want to be constantly on the move, constantly evolving, and constantly creating. I'm moving away in seventeen days (!!!!!) and I only have thirty billion things left to do. I have so much in the works, it's overwhelming in the absolute best way. The last text I received says "I feel like you're starting to find your passion in life" and in little ways, I suppose I am. But maybe my biggest passion is life. I think that's acceptable. I bought this outfit overseas- the dress in London, the shoes in Paris. I am obsessed with the whole thing. I love white dresses in general, but the lace sleeves and pearl edged neckline sold it for me. I saw the shoes in the sale bin at Zara, and they were actually small enough for me, which never happens. Don't be fooled, my ribbon belt is actually from the silk robe currently hanging in my bathroom.

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Dress: Lily J London

Heels: Zara

Fragmented Fairytales

Once upon a time, there was a girl of merely eighteen, who lived in a great world of abundance. She spent her days spilling her dreams into a leather-bound journal and her nights contently living inside her head. She looked outside her window every morning at the endless rows of wheat, sipping her coffee, wondering silently to herself where those fields ended and where life began.

She left on a Friday, her journal still in hand, her dreams still in head, temporarily trading her world of abundance for a few feet of suitcase and a couple of strange beds. She took a few planes, rising above the veins of her town, watching them mingle and intertwine. The fields of wheat became rows of humbling skyscrapers. The flat, mundane land turned lush and green right before her eyes. On the final plane toward her dream world, she watched the sunrise against the Atlantic ocean while traveling 25,000 feet above it. She wasn't just in the veins of a city anymore, she was in the heart of the world. She suddenly realized, this is where life began.

For the next month, she simply wandered.

Every morning she woke up as if it was for the first time. She looked outside her window at the nearly extraterrestrial world the lay before her, sipping her coffee, wondering silently to herself why she ever counted life in years rather than miles. For the first time, she felt understood. Her lightness was appreciated and her darkness embraced by cities who always left her with more questions than answers. 

Surrounded by languages she knew she would never be able to imitate, she met other travelers in English pubs, all of them intriguing, all of them gone before she had the chance to say goodbye.

Still clutching her train ticket ever-so-nostalgically, she journaled in the famous coffee shops of Amsterdam, watching smoke delicately dance all around, tugging at strangers' lips then disappearing into nothingness, as elusive and unpredictable as her own heart. She tried to tread quietly, knowing this world would soon forget her, but even so, her laughter still mixed with friendly giants and naked bikers in magical parks. Red lights still bounced off her own eyes and reflected into another, eerily familiar set. She soon realized that she didn't know how to feel about leaving the city that had effortlessly and unexpectedly captured her heart, so she simply felt- her salty tears catching on the slight curve of her smile before dropping, permanently etched into the water that absentmindedly flows through the Dutch canals.

In Paris, she observed the city shrinking right along with her ego as a lift casually scaled her up to the top of the Eiffel. Distanced from both earth and reality, her red dress was utterly consumed by the glittering tower. She watched her journey come to an end in The City of Lights, concluding it all with one final act of permanence.

She hoarded memories, selfishly keeping them all for herself, safe in her mind, sharing them only with those present and of course her nearly full journal, knowing the world she was now flying back to would never fully understand or even truly care.

But she cared. And that was enough.