Count your blessings, name them one by...oh look! A kitty!

Sometimes it is hard to think positive.
My hair is falling out due to stress so when I start to feel overwhelmed I distract myself...

I have an apartment (which is a serious mess).
I have a job (the department is drowning and I am responsible for too much, and accountable for other peoples' mistakes)
Kitties! ( mine won't cutddle, I admire the strays across the street (that need to be TNR'd)
Art (when was the last time I did anything. The gallery is going to drop me. I have too much shit everywhere)
Boyfriend (probably thinks I'm lazy, fat, weird)
Family (I don't see them enough, they spoil me)




I think the worst is when my mind can't connect with my body.

L is for the way you lie to me...

"People say they love you, but what they mean is, they love how loving you makes them feel about themselves. Or they love what they can take from you."
-To the Bone

 I don't love well. I throw money at things. Money I don't have. Debit that I don't care about because it's too scary and I'm pretty sure I'll kill myself by the time I'm sixty. So why fall in love? I can't even be a good friend. I'm actually a pretty terrible friend.

 "Stop waiting for life to be easy. Stop hoping for somebody to save you. You don’t need another person lying to you. Things don’t all add up. But you are resilient. Face some hard facts and you could have an incredible life."

what is force?

 "You're manipulating the situation in a way that gives no one a way out. That's force. Look it up."

Gilmore girls season one, episode 3 "Kill Me Now"
Totally taken out of context but this is my life right now.

Something happened, with a guy...It scared me.
I am fine, I handled it.

But emotionally I'm a little messed up. My recall is fuzzy (screw you angry orchard). On the same night I was an asshole to a guy I am lucky to call a friend. I hate myself for that. I hate that I got myself in this kind of situation.

I said no when it was time...and I physically followed through (hence my soreness). I stood up for myself. I stopped something that could have ended terribly.




I can't deal, but I'm telling everyone I'm ok. I'm a f*#king liar.
I think "call E, go sleep on her couch," but I can't. All I do is sleep.

Story? What Story?

This article explains a lot of what I wish I could say.

"If the situation of our story is historic we may be tempted to shape the story to a presentable narrative arc with redemption and a happy ending which may not represent the reality of the problem for others." 

"While we applaud people for their bravery in sharing their personal stories, we often forget to continue to applaud their bravery for dealing with the results."

I am stuck in the in between.

I am not well, but I am not broken.

I can be paralyzed by a panic attack one day and having a dance party with my cat the next.

I can smile, interact with people, and even be funny. But the truth is, I'd rather not be alive (please understand that this is not the same as being suicidal).

This is my normal, I have trouble understanding why people are afraid to die. I lie awake at night wishing I could take the place of a mom dying of cancer.

So yeah, I want to tell my story, but it isn't finished. But I am more than my dark days.

[as are you]

Out of the Darkness

Today I walked with friends (!!!) for the AFSP Out of the Darkness Walk.

I've participated before, in 2008 with my mom and friend Melissa, and last year...solo.

I wrote the same last year. I'll keep writing it as long as I'm here.

 This is from the 2008 memory wall, this patch means a lot to me. I'd love to high-five the person who wrote it.

I got to write love on my friends' arms today.

Saving Lives

Today I had to refill my anti-depressants. This lady and her daughter were in line ahead of me. The daughter (teenage) started talking about how she wouldn't want to work in a place like this (mental heath clinic), she wanted to save lives. 
Her mom replied, "You don't think these people save lives?"
For her sake, I hope she never has to find out just how life saving these doctors and medicines are.

burnt

Twice in two weeks I've been asked abut my scars...
...the sketchy, ugly ones...

 After explaining I "got burned," I'm asked, "3rd degree?"
Yeah, like I know. If you repeatedly hold an iron to your skin you don't exactly rush to the ER.

I'm not proud of my scars or actions, but I wish I could own them without scaring people. How can I make my story matter if it scares everyone?

Thoughts Now That I'm Old

I frequently think "I wish I could move to Orlando and be a part of City Beautiful...or Chicago with Jarrett Stevens...Especially my second fam and One...

But maybe I'm here for a reason. Ten-ish years ago I was planning for a future in France with a dog.  But after puking my guts out in a hotel in Paris I had doubts. A few years later I got sicker than a dog in Indonesia.

A professor wisely told me "If God calls you, he calls your stomach too."


After college my world fell apart.


So I'm here...recovering from and fighting against depression. Trying not to take a blade to my skin. Trying (and failing) not to isolate.

I want to help people. I want to love people. But I also want to be alone. My introversion is ridiculous. And I hate it. I feel so guilty because I feel called to connect with other hurting people...but mostly I just want to hide.

I keep thinking about the phrase "The road to hell is paved with good intentions." It's not exactly hell I'm afraid of, it's missing my purpose because I'm too wrapped up in myself. I don't want my broken mind and soul to stop me from spreading the love that I know exists, even when I don't feel it.

year. in. review.

The end of a year...another year. A year I tried to ignore. To simply survive. I suppose I did that [we'll see in a few days I suppose].

My year started off on a high note with my niece seeing my name on the "Armstrongs" wall at my old gym and being pretty impressed. I think I did like 70 push-ups to get my name on that wall. To be fair, I was 12 and like 80 lbs. [Currently in early 2013 I was at my max weight due to, well, weight gain, and medicine changes that seriously added to that gain-age]

Then, for the second time ever, I ate a salad. And liked it. Thus began the year of Arby's grilled chicken, no tomatoes, with balsamic vinaigrette salads.

THEN...I decided to get a kitten, but wrecked my car instead.
A short time later, my sister was in a wreck. Despite having talked about possibly giving her car to me, my mom and dad decided to give her car to my sister. I understood...she had a proper life,Despite rolling the sucker they were able to make it drivable...just not-so-much desirable. It doesn't lock so it get's broken into fairly often and I'm quite certain it's been slept in a few times.

In April...I QUIT DR PEPPER.
To be fair, it wasn't by choice. I was prescribed a medicine that's side effect was unfortunately making carbonated beverages tastes horrible. So, after 6-7 year of guzzling this stuff, it was no longer appealing. I mean wow. Darkie Pepper, R.I.P.

The bigger news I suppose, was that I quit drinking...
     like...alcohol...
     It had gotten pretty bad. Worse than I would admit to just about anyone. And it'd been like that for awhile. The booze was behind so many of the bad decisions I'd made the past year or three. I knew it worried my mum. Maybe that was what inspired the change. I honestly don't know. One day, at 11am, instead of vodka, I decided to drink water.
This was honestly the biggest turning point in my year.
        {I didn't quit drinking entirely...just as a lifeline. I drink occasionally, on weekends...when the time is right}

But wait! I got a job!
Apparently even the " mentally interesting" are good for something...and but "something" I mean "retail."

At some point mid-summer I began taking this medicine that soldiers with PTSD take...because my dreams are so whacked.

Jars of Clay came to LR are were AMAZING.

I randomly began to puke. A stress reaction perhaps?...about 4 months later and I still don't know.

Then I hung out with the ex-boyfriend's ex-boyfriend. Confused? Just go with it...


And now?

Yeah...
About that...
I am SERIOUSLY in denial...
...about my age.
...about my "career," ha!
...about the future.
...about just about everything including who I am and who I should have been...

Scar tissue that I wish you saw? Not so much...

I have scars.  Mistakes? Expressions.
Lots on my thighs. *Sigh.*
Many, mostly faded, on my inner left arm (thank you summer '08).

Then there are there recent ones. The ones that still feel like friends.  Friends who made mistakes, who I'd like to hug and comfort, and say, "try again."
My angry broken window mistake...

That mistake that cost me so much, but showed me how far people would go to care for me. I don't deserve them.  My mom.  An angel.  I could never compare to her.  She started out wanting to be the best, to do the best, to do RIGHT. And she did. It's unspeakably brilliant and selfless and Christ-like and I couldn't ask for a better example.

Now how about the left arm? The arm that met the fate of the iron in a dismal fit of self loathing.

This is the real crowd pleaser it seems.  Children cry "a boo-boo!" I say yes, "a boo-boo..." Sigh.

Oddly enough, plenty of adults mention my scar as well.  

One woman asked if it was a spider bite, as it resembled her friend's reaction to a spider bite.

 Others just ask what happened.  I suppose some would consider this rude, but I've been so desensitized to such thing I don't even recognize it.

Today, a couple in my line mentioned my scar.  I continued going through the motions, but he said something shocking..."I know you went through something bad, but now they're like fallen flower petals."

Through pain comes strength, and strength is beautiful.

Truth

Confessions:

1. I can be horrible, even more so to my friends.
2. I avoid things I fear or that appear difficult.
3. I text too much and call too little.
4. I punch holes in walls and commit other destructive acts when I let my anger rule me.
5. I expect too much.
6. I expect too little.
7. I judge people based on personalized license plates.

Me too.

ASBO Jesus

undeserving, again

As much as I've failed and betrayed, I am astonished by the ideals of Truth that remain in my brain and heart, and the chances I get to share them.

Sail and Sailing, Hopeless and Hoping

God, Devil, Self

I never thought of it like that, but yeah.

Somewhere along the way I heard someone speak about the devil using selfishness as a way to attack us, and I totally agree.  So, putting both ideas together kinda explains our ridiculous drive to rock it out on our own and never ask for help, and also our struggle to be happy with ourselves.

More than anything or anyone, I want to be friends with myself...
Why is that so hard?

really, it does...

The shadow really does prove the sunshine...

Bend your elbows, lower your arms. . .

For the most part this is how I live:


I wish I could say that the "breastplate of righteousness" or something else armor-of-God-ish, but that would be an obvious lie.

I find myself constantly on the guarding myself, against anything and everything, including God.

Believe me, I know how ridiculous that is. But there's something so hard about surrender.

Letting go. . .

Its not directly an issue of doubt, I don't think. Its more about fear, and my inability to differentiate between trusting people and trusting God.


Oh but grace. . .

Faith is a code to accept that Jesus knows my whole life story, every skeleton in my closet, every moment of sin, shame, dishonesty, degradedness darkening my past. Right now he knows my shallow faith, my feeble prayer life, my inconsistent discipleship, and he comes beside me and he says, I dare you to trust. I dare you to trust that I love you, just as you are and not as you should be, because you're never going to be as you should be.

-Brennan Manning

Exposing myself

I have pride issues.
A lot.

Some are obvious (I don't like boys taking heavy things away from me), other are less obvious. Some are even unknown to me. But I think its important to understand why we do the things we do, and self awareness* is a never ending journey towards truth. (*I define self-awareness as who and how we are in light of who and how we were created to be)

In the more recent part of my own journey I've thought a lot about community, and why I seem to repel it. Things are becoming a little clearer, but in the words of Will Durant, "Education is a progressive discovery of our own ignorance."

I need give-and-take relationships. I'm ok being on the "giving" side the majority of the time, but if I start to feel like I'm continuously taking, I can't handle it. I feel like that makes me weak and inferior.

I've survived by hiding things, pretending I don't need help when I do, trying to seem just as strong (ok, maybe stronger) than the other person. When I start to see an imbalance and feel weak, I run. I hide. I deal with it myself, because "help" is a four letter word.

After awhile the running and hiding became natural behavior. Now I've built walls I don't know how to tear down. I've held everyone at a distance for so long that no one knows how badly I need them to break inside.

Somehow in all of this I managed to push God away as well. It hasn't been intentional, I've never tried to hide my junk from Him. I've embraced my weaknesses and failures and struggled over the idea of grace. But still, our closeness has been affected by my lack of honest and real human relationships. I think this reveals something about the way we're created. Yes, I know we all say "we're created for relationship," but would you go so far as to say that the quality or our lack of community hinders our personal connection to God?

things are wrong and the breaks are beating the boys

So, uh, February...
I want my money back.

I won't say it was all bad; my physical health is improving, I'm more nocturnal than narcoleptic lately, which isn't "normal," but really, it is. But while my physical health was improving, my mental/emotional health took a nose-dive. I didn't really admit it until after I'd taken inventory of my medicine cabinet and spent awhile pondering if the various remainders in those seven or eight bottles would be enough or if I'd just end up stuck with a ridiculous hospital bill (that possibility was more of a deterrent than anything else).

Life is hard enough when I'm doing well, but when things get dark and life gets complicated, its nearly impossible. Its during these times that Romans 8:26 becomes so real:

We do not know what we ought to pray for, but the Spirit himself intercedes for us with groans that words cannot express.

I haven't been a fun person to be around in awhile, but I now know who my wheat is. And even though I'm disappointed to discover that some are more like chaff, I'm also more aware of my own tendency to let relationships drift when they aren't fun or personally beneficial to me. Community comes through action, refusing to settle into the passive "out of sight, out of mind" attitude that comes naturally. I'm learning that this thing we call Christianity isn't a before-and-after deal, but thats how we want to portray it. "Oh, I have Jesus, everything is fine now." That's such a lie, completely denying the need for a continuous relationship with the One who gives the grace. This journey, the process of becoming, that is where we live.

"I do not at all understand the mystery of grace - only that it meets us where we are but does not leave us where it found us."
-Anne Lamott

"We will mess up, we will hold on when we should have let go. We will walk when we should have ran, We will go when we should have stayed. We will hurt others when we should have loved, but God forgives, He forgets and best of all, He restores.”

hand cramp, lotsa postage...oh my...

I started a list of things to write my parents 'thank you' notes for. . . BAD IDEA!
I may never finish. . .



[I almost wish I hadn't asked them to quit reading my blog now.  Of course they obliged, because they are ridiculously amazing.]