The H8ing Game

Went over to a friend's place yesterday for a jam session last night. We were gifted a li'l beginner guitar recently and my daughter has been learning chords and dear Brittney offered to teach her (yay, friends!) routine is establishing itself in our lives - mostly routine awesomeness. The friends that challenge me to not be stagnant are definitely chipping away at the depression.

I have a problem with being a thing. Like, "comic" or "musician". It comes with preconceived expectations and rules. "Are they funny?" "Can they sing/play?" When the microphone is in my hand I am in therapy, not everyone signed up for this crap. I suppose I'd still call myself an entertainer, as that comes naturally AF.

Out For Drinx

Take a coworker out for a couple drinks after work. They love it. Then go find your favorite face and pull them from their current engagement with five minutes notice and take them home and read silently with them and chuckle independently - be sure to do the laughing together. Knowing they don't care all that much and you don't either and want is a thing of the past, back when heat was too hot and entropy hadn't solidified you coldly in coolness. If you're not settling into a cozy routine, do it. If you've settled into a cozy routine, cut that shit out. Take the concentrated coziness and, with a dropper from a tincture bottle, put 2-3 drops directly into the ocean of hellacious stress. The reaction is astonishing enough that you'll start to appreciate the sea of a workload you've been navigating. It's salt water, don't drink it! Float on it, bitches.

Brothers & Sisters

Lately I've felt the urge to call my friends "brothers" and "sisters". A giant wall comes down mentally for people when you put yourself so close to them in your friendship. When you hug them like family and they don't really know how they deserve it. I take pride in my hugs and the accomplishments of my friends.

Lately I've wanted to say what's on my mind and whether or not I'm judged isn't up to me. Putting in a little extra effort to be kind to people goes a long way. There are people that have given me looks, looks that tell me I'm too forceful. After a few more encounters these same people will now hug me like family. Hell yes, I AM forceful.

Lately I've felt like myself, relearned what I am and do and feel and need. Everyone needs a good cry. Everyone needs to laugh more. Everyone should be a little more comfortable doing either one. Both at the same time is fun.

Last night I spent the night at my cousins place and today we're going to an amusement park! Just another standard, beautiful day. Days like these give me the strength to keep challenging the status quo.

Forceful

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Your sister

Dunking Doughnuts

Hey gang. At the library again. Computer #37. Let me just say: I look great today. Makes me feel great. It's going to be a wonderful week, there have been many wonderful weeks these days - excitement and shared wisdom and enough extraverted communication and deep conversation to keep me stimulated and brimming with bubbly, annoying levels of joy. It's MEEEEEE - APRIIIIIIIL!

Who doesn't love a confident weirdo?! (I know some people don't and I'd really like an explanation.)

Possibilities aplenty. So plentiful it may be hard to focus, especially with this librarian's amazing and stylish ponytail right in front of me, uuugggh cute. Also, there's a dude here with sunglasses on (indoors) that include a frame for his third eye. hahahahaha. haha. ha. WOKE.

The kids being in school is insane to me. What a privilege. They even feed them?! wow. Tonight is the delightful open mic. I've got some phone calls to make and then some driving to do and then some lunch to eat and some life to live and some energy to burn on the stuff I actually CHOOSE to do. Can you tell I'm out from under the heavy weight of depression? It's possible! It's possible and it's HERE! I can achieve success!!! AAAHHH!!!! HAHAHAHAHAHAHA  AAAAHHH!!!! (I guess)

2 Legit 2 B Quiet

I'm gaining the tools to cope with the stress that life brings. There's a ton of anxiety on the planet and when you don't even realize it has an effect on you, you don't even realize you can do anything about it. Excuses get in the way for sure, who really wants to be responsible for preparing for the utter crappiness that inevitably finds us? What if we don't have anyone to explain things to us in a way that makes sense? What if those that want to help us just make assumptions based on their own experiences? What if we think we're crazy? What if we ain't got time? What if we're told not to even have certain thoughts? What if we're told to stop crying or they'll GIVE us something to cry about? What if that same person loves you more than anyone else in the world has loved you?

It sure is difficult to separate the person from the behavior. It sure is difficult to accept that someone you love is not responsible for your happiness. Even with 99.99% good intentions there is a tiny, little bit that is doing it for themselves in some way. They want to prove something. This isn't terribly cynical or unrealistic, folks. Some would rather the person they "love" be forever unsuccessful than to accept that their way doesn't actually help everyone on the planet. Now THAT is unrealistic.

Taking my own mental health seriously has been a wacky journey, as I'm sure most are. Thankfully I have long-established habits that have kept me afloat in extremely rough times. Expressing myself openly, honestly, and creatively has and always will be a part of my life. That doesn't mean I should rant angrily, it doesn't mean I intend to offend, it doesn't mean I'm more important than anyone else. It's just what I do for me. It is always nice when others approve, relate, appreciate and encourage, but even if they didn't I would still do it. Imagine a place where all emotions are expressed in a healthy way. It's helpful to self-validate. There's no one to fight in this place.

Daddy's Issues

Hope - it's what I got. Anger - it's what I'm working so hard to alleviate.

There are folks that can no longer care for their children for one reason or another. Did I have any idea I would marry one of those people? And then have children with them? And then be left a single parent? Here's to hoping it's temporary. Here's to hoping the anger leaves me alone so that if/when the time comes that he is ready to do anything with the children, I will do things right. There is no going back in time anyway and just the ability to fathom time travel is upsetting. A step back eleven years to inform my past self. A peek into the future, to see how things turn out. A waste of the present time, when I could be kicking ass like I know how to do. So well.

Lately I've been working on my passions in life. Comedy, music, drawing, socializing, lots of self-expression. Lots of honesty. It does feel great to not have the heavy issues around, influencing everyone. Threatening everyone. There's no better time than now to start the long, arduous task of sorting through these issues. Many things that were said lead me to believe it is going to take so, so much undoing to get to the point of doing. Learning my personality type has helped me know what my tendencies are: if it isn't done efficiently, GTFO. What a down side! I form a belief and make it come true though, the first thing I said to him was "you're my soulmate". Then when I started to get the gist that he was unhappy and I couldn't do anything about it, that belief faded. Now I'm left with some beautiful and hopefully balanced children and still have the ability to form beliefs and make them come true. Here's something I believe: A certain man will feel free and use that freedom to choose honesty and start enjoying the outcome of his hard work. He will always love his children and won't let his own mind assume I will or even CAN get in the way of that. Perhaps there will be times something comes up and the plans don't work out. Perhaps I should accept reality. No, I should definitely accept reality.

Right now I take each day as it comes and practice, practice, practice living in the moment. I believe it's going to pay off. HUGELY.

Win in Roam

There has come a time where my boundaries were crossed. After making the right decisions, here I was again, faced with the consequences of another's decisions. Taking them upon myself is the wrong decision, always has been. It became habit, perhaps "kept the peace", I thought to myself. No it absolutely did not keep the peace. There is a way to be peaceful about rejecting someone else's consequences, someone else's burden. Respond without anger, but firmly state the line was crossed. Stand your ground and keep your word. Don't give in to fear, don't let them convince you they did nothing, don't believe the invalidating you've trained yourself to gravitate toward. Fair warning isn't even necessary when someone is doing something to you that they would never want done to them. That law is already in them and every time they disregard it, they need to feel it. The universe knows how to take care of it so much better than you. Let it, for the love of all that is good and holy, LET IT! There isn't even a reason for anger or revenge, what poisonous concepts. Does it sound too good to be true? It isn't. It's incredibly difficult for a loving, generous, empathetic person to let someone suffer under the weight of their own misdeeds. Believe me though, it is more loving to let the universe teach them than to shield them any longer. If they're truly willing to accept help, they will get it. There are infinite ways it can reach them and none of those ways include making you feel like total crap on a stick. If they never learn to accept help, it has nothing to do with you.

Letting Goo

As some of you may or may not know, or might have suspected, or had a hunch: I enjoy a good guided meditation. I listen on YouTube to Michael Sealey, mainly. Right now I'm living in Colorado in a rented room with my family (husband and two little kids). We moved here after staying at a homeless shelter for two weeks. Jason-husband inquired on a website if anyone had a spare room and a kind family responded. We met up and had some Dunkin Donuts and our kids all had a blast immediately, they're pretty much the same ages, coincidentally. We've all become such good friends and pretty much needed each other. I now have a karaoke buddy, a great influence, stability, kindness... it's enough to make me cry with appreciation and joy.

Last year was so hard and so educational. We've been in this house for nearly ten months and I've agreed to watch the children over the summer and, in many ways, continue my education. The mutual respect in this house is pure delight! The unnecessary, unimportant, worrisome things are slowly sluffing off of me and my life. The good - things and moments and people - are rising up around me. Meditating has been a very important key to accepting this reality: the world is full of kindness and the universe wants us to succeed. Good wins when we fight alongside it. We may have to fight ourselves intensely too, accept and admit our own not-so-good ways so we can work with what we've got.

Now I have to go help my daughter do some origami!