In Which We Must Not Be Silent

I know it’s contrary to popular theme, but this post is not about Martin Luther King Jr.  This is not to say that I don’t celebrate Dr. King (because I do. I’m not here for this Robert E. Lee Day ordeal that Mississippi is trying to pull, but I’m trying to be on good behavior so we’ll forgo speaking about it). But as you all may or may not know Bishop Eddie Long has passed away.  If you are unfamiliar with the bishop then who are you? Patrick Star? I’m just going to advise you to google. His name pops up pretty quick once you key in a few letters so it’s pretty easy. Anyway, as I scroll through my social media there are mixed reactions to the death. There is pity for the family/church, mourning due to the loss of a shepherd of God’s flock, and outright joy that the man is dead.  Of course, people are clashing because they feel differently and one of the things I have noticed is that many non-Christians (some Christians as well) are upset that the church is completely glossing over the fact that Long was accused of sexual assault by multiple young men/boys.  To be honest, I’m leaning towards the side of the non-Christians. I too believe that the church has some answering to do for their lack of response and action when sexual abuse is pretty rampant. Bishop Long is not the first sex offender in the church. He also will not be the last.  We’ve seen cases in the Catholic Church about rape/sexual assault as well.  So this is nothing new nor is it something unusual, unfortunately.  I have attended a church in which the Pastor was accused of making sexual advances towards a woman (whether she attended the church or not, I’m not sure. We had not been attending the church long since we had just moved).It was also discovered that he was embezzling money so it was a complex issue. Once the head bishop found out he replaced the pastor along with his staff and severed church ties with the pastor. While many people were angry others stood with the ex-pastor and followed him to his new church that he later opened. I have nothing to say about either of those decisions as that was their choice to make.  I just wanted to show how common immoral/dangerous behavior is in the church.

The issue the church has is that they choose to use their faith as an excuse to not speak out against this behavior.  We have been conditioned to fear voicing any opposition to our spiritual leaders, even if they may say/do something wrong.  I grew up in a Baptist church and all of the older people at the church would make sure that they stressed to us kiddos to not speak poorly of the pastor.  They termed it “putting your mouth on a man of God.”  We’d be told the story of the Elisha and the bears (2 Kings 2:23-25) to emphasize the need of holding our tongues.  If you put your mouth on a pastor, in the hypothetical sense, you were inviting death and destruction into your life.  It not only made us afraid that we were going to get mauled by bears if we spoke ill of the reverend. And I’m not even sure if Mississippi has bears. We were even scared to point out that the pastor was bald. This ideology also placed Pastors/ministers on a pedestal.  We grow to fear/respect man as much as we fear/respect God. Now there is a thin line between fear and respect.  While we acknowledge the power of God and fear that power we also note that God has established a new covenant with us through Christ which leads us from a fearful relationship into one of reverence and love. God is the same God in the new covenant as he is from the old covenant. But our relationship with him and what we must do to have that relationship is different. That’s just a side diddy.  While our pastors and leaders are put over us to lead/teach us, they are NOT on the same level as God.

The bible blatantly states that God expects more from our leaders than he does from the congregation. Why? Because we look to them for guidance so if they are not doing whats right they jeopardize the spiritual health/growth of the flock.  So they’re not supposed to be let off the hook because of their anointing. They are to be more responsible because of it.  Paul tells us that it is the job of the brothers to let one another know when they aren’t doing right and to help them get on the right path. The church isn’t supposed to turn a blind eye to the inner workings of the church, regardless of status, title, or position.  We get it, respect your leader and forgive. We know. But this does not translate into silence and acceptance.

We also have a duty to protect our children.  Remember what Jesus said about it being better for a man to throw himself into the sea with a stone around his neck than causing a child to fall into sin/to stumble? God does not play about kids.  There are a number of kids being abused/assaulted not just by a pastor, but in general in the church, whatever denomination. And this is not acceptable. And its funny that this is a subject hardly touched upon even though its important.  The first time I heard a pastor actually speak on sexual abuse in the church was when I was in my late teens, probably 18 or 19. Pastor Johnson. He was also the first I had heard speak on domestic violence.He was the replacement pastor following the scandal at the church mentioned earlier.  He spoke on it frequently and angrily because it upset him that it was all too common in the church. Other than that I had never heard it being addressed.  Why? Why isn’t this discussed more? People pick and choose what they want to focus in on. If it makes them squirm and uncomfortable they want to leave it unaddressed. Sexual abuse is like taboo because it has been sort of adopted into our culture.  Many people were abused as children, but were shunned when they spoke out about it. It tainted their reputations. It made them look attention hungry or as though they were “hot in the pants.” They were blamed and lashed out against. It was and is rare for the actual abuser to face the consequences of their offenses. Those sitting in pews don’t want to think about predatory behavior that many of them have witnessed, if not committed. It’s hush hush. They can tell you to put on some more clothes when grown men come in the house, but they can’t discuss the fact that the adults shouldn’t look children sexually in the first place. When you read or hear of accounts of kids being sexualized, spoken to sexually, touched, groped, etc you know that it’s common so speaking about it should be even MORE common.

People think that because you speak about it you’re trying to tarnish the church or the pastors. If there is sexual abuse happening in the church or a pastor is engaging in sexual abuse they are tarnishing themselves. They don’t need any help looking bad.  The church does not get a pass because we believe in God. God extends forgiveness, but he also addresses our sins. And you hate to say it (well I do, Lord forgive me), but according to the bible and the mercy  of God if Bishop Long asked for forgiveness he is forgiven by God. I know I’m not alone in thinking that’s unfair. He violated the innocence of helpless kids. They carry the scars and the burdens. They carry the shame that isn’t theirs. So excuse me for being upset about it. But don’t be mistaken, the forgiveness of God does not exempt you from answering to Earthly repercussions. The fact that forgiveness is readily available also shouldn’t be used to plead silence either. When the situation arose it was still the duty of the Church to let the victims know they empathized with them and would do what they needed to do to help them on their path to healing.  Instead what you got was people running around yelling that only God could judge him and that it’s all up to God. Telling you not to say anything because he’s God’s anointed. Basically they’re just really throwing God in there to excuse their negligence. And it ends up looking like you’re giving him a pass.  When it appears that you’re patting the abuser on the back, especially if they are in a position of power, the victim feels like they are to blame.  “If that person is not responsible for my abuse, then I must be.”  That’s the culture that is built and solidified. If someone of no religion or of another religion came and abused one of their children the reaction would have been more severe. Why? Because that person does not have the protection of a pulpit, a robe, a bible, etc.  God’s grace is not a ticket to do whatever you want because you know that God is forgiving/merciful.  God’s grace will call you to be Holy and give you strength to not behave in a way contradictory to that holiness.  What will the church do to protect the flock from harm from within? Will they do anything? Or will they continue to sweep these things under the rug? And the church can’t be mad that it’s looked at with contempt because people feel as though it provides no safety and no accountability.

Do I feel for Bishop Long’s family? Yes. Because they are not guilty of his sins and they still have the right to mourn.  Do I wish hell and fire on Bishop Long? No. As much as I sometimes want to wish damnation on people I know that I can’t and shouldn’t. And he’s dead now. There’s nothing more that can be done about him. But the issue still exists. The church must step up to the plate and quit excusing hateful/sinful/immoral behavior. We live in a society that is rampant with rape culture. It’s obvious that those who internalize this culture will carry it will them into church thus it cannot go unaddressed. Instead of policing people in order to protect themselves, address the perpetrators instead.  It’s not a child’s job to dress and act a certain way so that they won’t be victimized.  It’s not a woman’s job to wear a floor length dress to keep men from sinning. It’s not a little boy’s job to be strong and “manly” in order to protect himself. That’s shifting responsibility. Call a spade a spade. If you touch that man/woman or act inappropriately with that child you are in the wrong. And it’s time for the church to let the guilty know that they won’t accept it.

In Which I’m Learning to Continue

I tell you one thing about depression/anxiety: they truly do make you feel like you have missed out on a chunk of your life.  There will be moments in which you question if some memory of your is accurate or being altered by mental illness stained glasses.  There will also be times where you try to recall who you were before they developed or if the personality traits you have now are actually yours.  In the end you sort of get this feeling that you have to start all over again. Like, “Nope. Scratch that. *balls up life in a wad* Time for a new start.”  Then when you realize that this is COMPLETELY impossible you feel stuck and disappointed.  There’s also the burden of shame that comes along with it because some of the things you said/did during your lowest moments are things you want to erase.  I remember when I was a little kid, probably 7 or 8, I borrowed a stuffed reindeer from my friend. That’s right. I used to borrow stuffed animals from people. AIN’T NO SHAME IN MY HUSTLE!!! But my friend actually brought it with her to school one day and I liked it so much that I asked if I could take it home with me.  She consented to the slumber party and parted ways with her reindeer for the night.  Well I promise I have absolutely no idea how it happened (swuuuuurrrr I do not) but some time between getting home from school and going to bible study one of the antlers came clean off. I mean I have no idea what ever happened to it. The whole antler disappeared. I felt so guilty about breaking her precious toy that at night when I went to bed and said my prayers I secretly prayed for the day to start all over.  The prayer went a bit like this: “Dear Jesus. Please send me back in time. When I wake up in the morning let it be today again. Amen.”  I was sure that I was going to wake up and start that day completely over.  You couldn’t tell me that it was going to be a new day…until the next morning when it was in fact a new day.  It was then I learned that it’s not possible to go back and start over all of the time. It’s possible to go back and right a wrong sometimes.  It’s possible to pack up your bags and just leave everything. But it’s still impossible to completely start over. At the end of the day you’ll still be you and what has happened will still have happened.

In society we like the idea of new. Feeling brand new, buying brand new, being brand new.  We don’t really feel comfortable with continuing past/through the present. Especially when the situation is uncomfortable or upsetting. But much of life is uncomfortable and upsetting. The first day of daycare/kindergarten.  Taking the exam for your license.  Moving into your own home. Breaking up with someone.  Losing a friend.  Losing a loved one. Starting a new job.  It’s inevitable that things will occur that we have to endure instead of enjoy.  And in the process of living you’re going to make a mistake, so you’ve got that to deal with on top of everything.  It can be an overwhelming feeling that just makes you want a re-do button or an emergency exit. In fact you can feel pressured into believing that you have to restart in order to make it. I’m learning now that it’s really okay to just continue.  Even if you’ve made the mistake or a couple. Just keep going (don’t keep making the mistake but don’t quit either).  We’re also put in a position of having to meet certain goals by certain times (like getting married by a certain age or completing school by a certain age) and if you don’t reach that goal in that time frame people will express to you that you should just quit. Find something new.  You truly have to know what’s right for you. If that goal is still your goal then continue.  Hell, if you reach the goal you still have to continue on to the next goal. Life isn’t stationary nor is it reversible.  You can stop. You can try to turn around, but your days are still going to tick on regardless of your own direction.

I always get mixed up somewhere in these posts and I’m pretty sure I did in that second paragraph. So I’ll give an example from something recent to help tie my loose ends.  I decided to enter a lyric competition just to get my feet wet. I’m not saying that I’m….I don’t know any super songwriters that you guys may also like but I’m going to say Lianne La Havas because the woman is a queen with impeccable writing abilities. But I figured it would be worth a try to shake things up, I guess.  Well I already prepared myself to not win because for one I’m an amateur writer who needs to improve upon my skills. Regardless of my lowered expectations I was still disappointed that I didn’t win (like how you Saints fans feel. Y’all should just accept that the Saints haven’t gotten it together since that superbowl win…..).  You may be like “Amber this example is terrible. What’s the point if you didn’t have expectations?” Oddly enough, I expected not to win so I already asked myself what I planned to do if I didn’t. I wondered would I just give up? Say writing isn’t for me? Take the loss and cry about it then decide on another path?  Then I remembered how I got started writing lyrics. The summer that I dropped out of college I was lost in the sauce. I was struggling with the idea of having a future and a purpose.  Earlier that year I had stumbled across the video for “Ghost of You” by MCR (and if you haven’t seen it you should because I cried real tears after watching it. REAL TEARS).  After falling in love with the song and video I started to listen to their other music. Then I would read their interviews and magazine articles because they are hilarious. And I ended up reading the story behind the song “The Jetset Life is Gonna Kill You” which I won’t fully detail but the song is based off of Gerard Way’s drug addiction. After I read that I could not listen to that song. I just could not do it. Only after 4 years could I listen to it without dying. Weird, I know. But his whole story about his struggle with depression and drugs and how he was a complete mess when they first started the band almost killed me.  In fact in one of their movies where they revealed a little of their tour life Gerard collapsed under the influence of drugs and had to be helped up by a band mate. When he got up he said in this slurred drug/alcohol induced voice, “I’m going to be alright.” And you know I cried like Prince said doves do. Because he survived and he began to use his platform to address his past and help others who had similar struggles. It was then that I decided I wanted to write songs. I’m not a musical protegee. I was in band and took piano, but I’m not…Beethoven or anyone. I still play piano at an intermediate level after SEVEN YEARS! But I want to write because I want to share a message with people.  Not one of judgement or hatred or even pity. But I wanted to be like, “It’s okay to feel this way. You’re not alone. You’re not broken,” because at that time I felt alone and broken. And here’s this alternative rock dude in a group of dudes who almost all did drugs (I think Ray was the only one who didn’t) whose telling kids to live on. So I didn’t win the competition, but I know what I want. And therefore I will continue.

I used to have the quitter syndrome. When things got tough or didn’t go my way then I would just quit. Throw in the towel. Throw in two towels. Throw out the towels with the bath water and the baby. Then these past few weeks I started to watch Steven Furtick online because I work every Sunday so I don’t get to go to church. My attitude had gotten extremely rotten especially after it was revealed to me that two coworkers were speaking poorly about me when I wasn’t around.  It was to the point where I was using verbal profanity which as you know is not my thing.  Then it clicked in my head that getting mad was not helping. I wanted to quit that job but what then? So I decided to turn back to Jesus. I backslid on backsliding. Jesus had to be a fence. He had to be the whole darned house with the way I was feeling.  And one of the sermons Pastor Furtick taught was about chasing your purpose. Then another one was about Jonah and the whale. And the two meshed together for me because the sermon about Jonah taught that God’s provision is not always our preference.  And the one about purpose taught that purpose is not stationary; we have to chase it.  So now I’m thinking that there’s a time for everything. It may not be my time, but my purpose is still the same. This may not be exactly what I want right now because I would prefer to have a stable career, a Jeep Wrangler, my own house, etc but my needs are met. My bills are never past due.  My family helps look out for me even though I don’t deserve it and didn’t earn it. And it’s okay. I see some of my peers doing really well in school or on their jobs and I start to feel bad that that’s not me. Like they need to have a recall on Amber’s because I’m not functioning properly, but I have to remind myself that we all move at our own pace. I’m probably moving slower because I’ve accumulated some baggage on the way, but I’m learning to drop a piece of luggage here and there to lighten my load. It is legitimately okay.  Another point Pastor Furtick made was that we can’t tell our stories too soon because if we tell them too early we’ll only be able to tell of the pain, but not the purpose/provision. And I realize I have been trying to tell my story completely too early.  When it’s storming all you can see is the rain and wind. All you can speak on is the storm so it starts to feel like there will never be any sunshine. But if you wait until after the storm, when the sun is out, you can speak on the rain, the wind, the sun, everything. That’s why I say it’s okay to continue.  You can be Gerard speaking about addiction after he overcame it. You can be like Maya Angelou or Viola Davis. Like Oprah. If you feel like you can’t start over, it’s all good. If you feel like some screw up and you’ve messed up opportunities you’ve had you don’t have to have a redo. Continue.  Because there really is someone out there like you who could use you to share your story. To inspire them. To remind them that they can make it. Just keep going.

PS: I never did tell my friend about that reindeer. I guess she forgot about it or she just let me have it. In fact, it’s at my house right now…..With one antler……And I still haven’t forgiven My Chemical Romance for making us believe they were getting back together.  Fallout Boy did it. Why can’t y’all!?!?!

In Which I am Lukewarm

First name Luke; Last name Warm.  Middle Name…me. Actually that really wouldn’t make very much sense.  Scratch that.  When you want something in life and you try to get it only to fail, you probably will make another attempt.  If you fail three times you may just give up.  If you’re persistent, unlike myself, you’ll keep pushing regardless of the past failures.  You could be like Abraham Lincoln and his numerous presidency attempts. Or like Steve Jobs who got fired from his own company.  You could be like those people, but this post is about someone who isn’t like those people. This post is about me. That’s right; everything is about me. ME ME ME ME! Scratch that as well. Very little in this world is about me, but due to this blog being an extension of my conscious thoughts then this post is about…well, me.

I wish that I could say that I am not an one hitter quitter. To some degree I can truthfully say that.  I’m more like a two hitter quitter; I don’t even make it to fully being out before I toss down my bat and trot off the field. But oddly enough I’m the person who commits this same act for a good twelve to twenty times and it annoys me to no end.  I hate to be stuck in the middle of a feeling.  If I fail I want to give up, but I also want to try again and it creates a revenue of internal tension.  I tend to chastise myself for not succeeding, but then I’ll chastise myself for thinking that I was going to succeed in the first place.  I most often wish that I could happily succeed or remain content with failure instead of teetering back and forth.  Some days I’ll have these extreme episodes of mania in which everyone is great, I’m hopeful for the future, and things are looking up.  Other days everyone is trash, the future is trash, and things are looking trashy. It’s predictably tiring being inconsistent. Imagine hopping a fence every few minutes.  At some point you just want to stick to one side instead of constantly climbing, jumping, landing, and repeating.  I relate this analogy with failure/success, but what I really mean is happiness/unhappiness. These four factors intertwine so it’s a pick and choose sorta thing. I either want to be completely content with not being happy or just be happy.  I hate being so up and down because it makes me feel unstable.  Am I pessimistic or optimistic?  Am I hopeful or not?  I’ve learned the best way to describe myself is an optimist with depression because that best explains my ability to see the silver lining in a cloud or the rain in the rainbow.

You’re never going to meet someone who is full of sunshine 100% of the time.  You’re guaranteed to meet someone who sees darkness in everything, though.  Why is this?  Because we all face disappointments. Whether we meet disappointing people or end up with disappointing results. People who never see the good in anything are people who have looked for the good only to have the bad poke their eyes out.  If you get let down too many times you’re not even going to get your hopes up about the next time because disappointment in an inexplicable feeling.  It’s almost worse than anger or fear.  Remember those television shows where the teenage son/daughter sneaks out of the house to go to a rave?  When they end up getting caught their actor/actress parent shakes his/her head in disbelief and with puppy dog eyes says, “I’m just so disappointed in you.”  And that just breaks little Susie’s heart. Frankly, my mother did not believe in disappointment. She believed in the rod. But there are times when I know that I have disappointed her because I can read it in her eyes when she’s lecturing me.  It’s not anger, which I would honestly prefer.  It’s a sadness that goes beyond her ability to just say she’s sad.  She’s disappointed.  Disappointment hurts because it means that we had expectations. You’re already investing your emotions into a situation or a person.  When things go sour it stings a little less when you weren’t hopeful about the outcome, but disappointment means you were really shooting for the best.  I dislike disappointment; who doesn’t?  But when I get disappointed I blame myself because I almost feel like I could have saved myself by not even getting my hopes up in the first place.  As a result, I just don’t even want to get my hopes up. I look at every possible opportunity as likely to fall through because thoughts of what could have been will bury you alive. When I received a call back from a job that I applied for I was elated. It paid more. It was at home which meant that I could travel a bit more as long as I had my laptop.  And it wouldn’t involve the drama that accompanies an office/location setting.  I had already gotten to the drug test part of the prerequisites when I received another call letting me know the position had been rescinded.  To say that I was heartbroken would be an understatement.  I think I sat in the tub until the water got cold and my skin got wrinkly just wondering what went wrong.  I was…..DISAPPOINTED. In that same way I hate days of mania because it feels great to be overly excited and bubbly about today, tomorrow, and Tuesday.  But I know that this feeling will pass, and at some point I will have a day of overwhelming darkness that I can barely crawl out of.

I’m doing this thing now where I’m just ignoring virtually every text message that comes to my phone.  Mostly because for the past couple of years I’ve been telling my family members that I don’t celebrate birthdays and just forget about sending me any birthday messages.  And yet no one listened to me. NO ONE. Like come on guys. It’s not that difficult to treat this as a regular day at my request. Some people literally did it just because I specifically asked them not to. Which I would say frustrated me, but it did more than frustrated me. I don’t think I’ve ever wanted to use profanity more.  And as surprising as it may be I don’t curse aloud or at people. I tend to use profanity strictly in my writing. Oh the hypocrisy.  Then when I told them how much I think my birthday is garbage I get these essay long messages about God and being special and I just really don’t care. I don’t want your sugar coated messages and your sympathy because I question all sympathy to a certain degree.  Are you truly listening to and understanding what I am saying prior to sympathizing or are you just sympathizing because that’s what you know to do? If it’s the latter, which a predominate amount of it is, then just leave me alone. Simple as that. My temperament is one that calms as I am left on my own.  If you’ve upset me then it’s best just to let me take time by myself to forgive/forget. If you’re constantly in my face about whatever the situation is then you’re serving as a reminder of what has upset me and I just get more annoyed. I literally just need a nap to calm down. I’m worse than the little kids who get grouchy so you force them to go to sleep, which is all they ever needed.  And I am aware that as a Christian I should care about what God says about me, but right now I don’t. That sounds terrible, I know.  I’ll do a separate post on that at a later time.  Right now I just want everyone to leave me be because if you tell me all these great things about myself, regardless of whether you mean it or not, when the world shows/tells me differently I get…..DISAPPOINTED. (I promise that’s my last time doing that). And I get sick of being disappointed.

There are a couple of great phrases that teachers hang in their classrooms and hipsters use in their description boxes.  One of these is one we’re all familiar with: “What doesn’t kill you makes you stronger.”  I’d be lying if I said that this phrase holds absolutely no grain of truth, but I believe it depends on what didn’t kill you. Some things don’t kill you, but make you regret that they didn’t.  Others maim, bruise, and break you.  A few will leave you in a comatose state.  It’s true that disappointment and trials build character, but it is also true that these things can break character as well.  One of the things about going to school, public or private, is that is universalizes the world for you.  To your mother you’re the best thing since indoor plumbing and for years she will tell you so. But when you get to grade school you’ll realize that everyone’s mother thinks they’re the most special human to breathe air so now you’re stuck in a bit of a rut.  You can break free from this by finding what makes you individually special. You can settle into in by going with the crowd and getting lost in the shuffle of things. Or you can have someone throw some dirt over you in the rut because now you’re feeling like you’re not special at all.  We’re all built differently so we will all respond differently.  If something like this fractures a bone as you are pelted with more and more similar situations then you’ll have a full blown break.  And not a clean break either.  True, you must apply pressure to coal to make a diamond, but as has been seen by the influx of coal sales at Lowes in this barbecue season not all coals turn to diamonds.  And some coal won’t even make it to the grill. It’ll be fine dust blowing in the wind somewhere.  People glorify tribulations and disappointments to a certain degree, but we all wish that we could achieve and receive without those things.  No one likes to be disappointed.

I’m really hoping I didn’t make too many errors in this post.  I looked at my last post and almost flipped my computer over. I’ve really got to start proofreading more.  With that being said, I’m off to watch ID and do my songwriting course.

 

In Which I Haven’t Been Reading DM

That’s right. I’ve been slipping. I’m not even going to lie.  BUT…well, I have nothing to add behind that. I’m working on a project at the moment so my mind is elsewhere.  As a result of me not reading DM at the moment, I’m going to do a separate post. Yep. I’m stating the obvious.

My birthday was this past weekend and though I do not celebrate it, I do use it as an excuse to treat myself to something. “TREAT YO SELF!” I’m not even going to admit that I habitually treat myself regardless of the occasion. I am a recovering online shopping addict. Nope; let’s not admit it.  Since I was scheduled to work on my actual birthday I went last Friday and got my tattoo. Well, actually I just half of it done because I refused to pay $400 to have the whole thing done.  Like who would evaaaaaaaaaaa….The original idea was to have the design layered on my left wrist to resemble bangles. It would be black bars and floral vines alternating: three black lines and two vines equating to five total because five is symbolic for grace.  Anyway I ended up with two black lines and one vine because Jesus said, “nah son.” Well my frugality said that, but Jesus probably agreed.  So right now I’m just going to say it means the holy trinity. I plan to get the rest finished later this month though. I have one other tattoo on my inner forearm: a sword with wings. I’ve already told what that tattoo means so I’ll spare the details on it.  I remember when I first got my tattoo with two of my friends.  Everybody told me that anxiety before getting the tat would be worse than the actual pain which is absolutely true.  To say that getting a tattoo is not painful would be false. It does hurt, but depending on your tolerance for pain it will range from “wow this is so annoying. Please hurry up!” to “Lawd, I’m dying. Take me now, lawd. TAKE ME NOW!”  My friend Bianca was the latter. She got a cross on her ankle and we had to literally close her mouth to keep her from screaming out loud.  It was entertaining because she thought the process would be like someone drawing a stick cross with a pencil, but boy was she in for a shock.  On the other hand the pain registers to me as absolutely annoying.  So while Jeff the artist was digging into my poor flesh while trap music played in the background I was outdone. Like come on, Jeff. What are you doing? You need to be tattooing me with three needles at one time to hurry this shading along.  It took roughly around an hour for him to complete and I love it especially because it’s permanent (at this point, I have no choice but to love it) but I honestly love tattoos. I only have two right now because I’m not wealthy enough to spend my funds every time I get an idea for a new one, but if I did I would probably have my left arm sleeve complete by now.  I believe that tattoos, for me at least, are symbolic to healing after something.

I don’t like my brother in law to know that he’s right about something because he went to Ole Miss.  If he went to MSU I’d probably say he was right about everything but he wasted that opportunity now, didn’t he?  HAIL STATE! *clears throat* But my bro in law told me that he used to get tattoos as a form of therapy.  He specifically meant the process in which the tattoo heals because he felt that as it healed he did as well. When I told him that I wanted to get some new ink he immediately knew why. He asked, “What are you going through?” Probably because he’s nosy, but I’ll give him an A+ for his intuitiveness. Now, I don’t particularly look at the healing process as much as I do the initial pain and the final result. Everything in-between is just a necessary evil.  If you’ve got a tattoo then you’re familiar with the entire process; from the actual “needling” to the last day of the two week healing time so you’re aware of what I mean. Well, I’m getting a bit ahead of myself so let me backtrack a little.  I get tattoos as a substitute to self harm.  I’m the type of person who harms and wants to see a physical result of the harm so that I don’t forget. Forget what? I have no idea. I just like to see a mark of some sort.  I decided to translate my more creative thoughts into tattoos so that I can focus on something that would turn out beautiful and still have a story behind it. Maybe that’s why I like self harm to leave marks because then I have a visible remnant of that current moment in my story (HA! Still managed to sneak some story metaphors in. High fives myself).  Moving on.  When I get the strongest urges to self harm I think about tattoo ideas instead.  People ask me all the time why I get tattoos, but I don’t disclose this information to them.  If they choose to see me as a sacrilegious hipster then I let them have that assumption. I reveal myself as I see fit.  This time when I got my ink I bled quite a bit. And my wrist was swollen for three days. The swelling is just now letting up enough to where it doesn’t look like I’m wearing a compression garment on my forearm.  Now I’m in the healing stage in which the top layer of skin is peeling and itches like crazy. I mean like crazy. I forgot how much these things itch.  Thankfully, the time the week is up the damaged skin will have fully peeled away and all that will be left is the new layer of inked skin underneath.

Much of life of is like getting a tattoo. Its initially painful, then uncomfortable, and if you make it through these two phases then you’ll be completely healed and left with something amazing that you’ll keep forever.  There are short cuts to tattoos such a henna and temporary tattoos that wash off after a week or two, but you don’t have as great as a reward if you go the easy route.  I’m literally enjoying the fact that my wrist is rubbing against the side of my laptop because I’m not actually scratching it, but this is as close to scratching as I can get.  I’m fighting the urge to not claw my arm off right now.  But because I don’t want to possibly interfere with the finished product then I’m just bearing through it.  I wish I could skip the pain and the itch and just end up with the tattoo, but it’s not possible.  The same way that much of the goals that I want to attain require that I suffer a while to reach them.  And no one likes suffering.  When I’m suffering I like to sleep all day and give people the side eye when they speak to me. I don’t deal well with suffering even though I am quite used to suffering. It’s also important to remember to clean your tattoo and keep it moisturized to ensure that it heals properly.  In the same way that you need to take very good care of yourself to be sure that you come out on the other side with all your limbs intact.  Have you seen an infected tattoo? It’s beyond description. Google it. (I’m too much like my Sociology teacher. I’ll tell you something is gross and then force you to google it.)  If you don’t follow proper care procedures then you’ll only add to your trauma and risk your own demise.  If  you don’t eat properly when shit hits the fan or you’re not taking your meds then you’re only adding to your burden. It’s not what you want to hear, but it’s what you need to hear. (All notes to self because I’m guilty of both of those things….)

Our pastor likes to speak about holding out through trials and tribulations with the analogy of a pregnant woman. She told the congregation when she was pregnant that she was tired all of the time. Her back would hurt, she had heartburn, and her feet stayed swollen.  All she could think about was life prior to being pregnant. It’s like when your allergies or your sinuses start to wreak havoc in your life and you lose the ability to breathe through both nostrils. It’s only then that you think about life before being stopped up. “Why didn’t I breathe that air a little more happily? Why didn’t I smell the flowers more often???”   Then to make matters worse she was in labor for a long period of time.  And we’ve all seen a movie or television show scene of a woman in labor.  I was in the room with my sister when she was in labor with my nephew and she was high as a kite so she was doing A-okay BUT the lady who came in after her was yelling so loud that I’m sure her baby went deaf for a good two hours.  She sounded like someone was digging a knife into her side for twenty straight minutes.  But after all the pain that she went through she was holding a wrinkly little bundle of joy in her arms.  Even though all babies look like aliens when they’re first born. In the words of my mother: “Jamison came out looking like, ‘take me to your leader.'”  It took me ten minutes to understand what she meant. I can’t wait until Jamison is in his teens so that I can tell him about that. The analogy all boils down to the fact that you have to go through some hurtful situations before you can reap your blessings. Well, I hate to say it but I feel like I’ve been labor for a really really really really long time.  Like, my baby is literally overdue. A good ten years overdue. Like come on dude. Get a move on, kid.  Even with me saying that I know that most good things don’t come easy.  As I said no one like suffering. I’m not a masochist. I don’t get my kicks from being hurt.  But I’ve been sowing things I would like to reap and this growth process is garbage.  Life ain’t fair, but it is what it is.

Anyway I’m off to put some lotion on this thing because I feel like my wrist is not even mine any longer. Who do you belong to? Someone with poison ivy? Jesus be some Calamine lotion…..

 

 

 

Stories Pt. 5

I’m not entirely sure when I will finish this “series” but I’m starting to feel like having a part five is really pushing it now. But I’ll try to follow through until I’ve finished the book in it’s entirety. Jesus be a fence.

In one of my recent whine posts I shared that I was just in Florida this past weekend for my sister’s wedding ceremony.  She was already married, but she wanted to do the destination wedding so the family packed our bags and coasted six long hours and two states away.  I’ve read before in some obscure article that it’s important to take a vacation  to get a break away from the humdrum of regular life.  Vacations/staycations tend to revitalize us from all the draining facets of responsibility, respectability, and all those other r-bilities out there.  But in a way these “tions” help to gauge how unhappy we are with our current stories.  Repetitive enough as it is it for me to say (because I can’t remember all that I put on here, but I’m sure I’ve said it before along with a million other people) we tend to get complacent with life as it comes to us.  There are jobs, significant others, cars, etc that come pretty easy.  I don’t mean that they we don’t have to apply for them or work for them, but I mean that they come easier than what we might truly want.  One of my current coworkers started college with the hopes of becoming a nurse.  After a rocky break up with her boyfriend, who was her ride to school, she had to drop out and find an “ends meet” job. She was unable to reach her ultimate goal because it seemed out of reach.  With no ride to school her dreams were put on hold.  Obstacles are often in the path of our true desires so we kind of get stuck with what’s available at the time.  After a while we become comfortable with “as is” and therefore we settle.  As we become more and more settled into our new niches we just get…stuck, for lack of a better word.  It’s like we are lulled deeper into complacency until we have no drive or energy to move.  When you finally do break away for a moment in time you are often so shaken up that you can’t imagine settling back into that niche, but for a time you have to.  Donald Miller refers to the shake up as an inciting incident.  It’s not the inciting incident that gets our story started, but the incident does wake us up enough to make us ask, “is the time now?”

Sunday evening when my brother pulled back into my grandmother’s yard to drop me off I went from level 99 to level sub-zero. It’s easier to accept that I’m not where I want to be after I’ve been in the same place for a week or two. At that point I just become numb.  But once my daily routine is thrown off, my whole life gets thrown out of whack.  Growing up in Mississippi is great. Contrary to popular belief we are a beautiful and cultured state.  We do have our setbacks and our downfalls such as our garbage wages and our poo education system, but we are hospitable, creative, and intelligent.  Where there are many trees whether they be plum, peach, or magnolia there is much adventure.  Even more than that, I grew up in a poverty line home raised by a single mother.  My mom did the best she could for us along with the assistance of my grandparents and my uncles/aunts.  Because we didn’t have a lot of money, we had a lot of imagination.  We lived in a trailer with the A/C vents on the floor and if you know nothing else about trailers please know that they get hot as hell during the summer and cold as…opposite hell during the winter.  During the summer time we would sprawl out on the carpet in the den and build tents over the vents with those floral sheets that nobody but Granny bought.  If we were feeling crafty enough we would tie some to chairs and dressers and make a sheet mansion.  I’m not sure if we invented this game, but I’m sure no one else has played it.  We would stand in the ditches on the edge of the road and whenever a car came we would hurry and duck down. This game was called “Drive by.” What kind of hoodlums…..If we got a bicycle it would last us for years. Once you outgrew it, you passed it down.  I did have a go-kart that my father bought me prior to his passing so we would take turns ripping and running in the dirt field across from my grandma’s house. It’s how I learned to drive. I still drive with two feet actually. I’m used to what would be called humble living.  Our cousins from Detroit and Japan were the only ones we knew who were used to seeing more and getting out more.  But as we got older my brother and my Uncle Dexter both emphasized the need to leave the state and explore our options.  It’s okay to choose to stay around a small town with a lower pay job if that’s what you want.  It doesn’t make you any less important or successful.  But don’t feel like you HAVE to stick around.  If that’s not what you want then don’t settle.  The importance of seeing the world (or even another state) is that it shows you a different scenery that you may want to live in.  It’s not all cotton fields, pick up trucks, and small town living.

Would I like to live in Destin, Florida? Probably not.  The traffic is ten times terrible, but the shrimp was the boooooomb. Would I like to be able to visit more often? Sure.  I just want to get out there and explore. But the job I have now doesn’t allot me much money to explore too often and afford my braces. Sorry J. Cole, I’m tired of my crooked teeth. I need these braces, mane. The perks of the trip was that I got to see my sister walk down a sandy aisle of roses and say “I do” to her husband who looked like Keith Sweat standing up there in white linen with his shirt unbuttoned.  But another perk was that it slapped me in the face and reminded me that what I have now is not what I want.  Now, please don’t be one of those people who says, “you gotta be grateful! BE GRATEFUL! People have it worse than you,” because DUUUUHHH, Dr. Phil. But that doesn’t mean I can’t dream or plan to achieve more.  I look up to my brother because he was raised in a single home, his dad didn’t want to be involved in his life, and he went to school on a whim and a prayer but he made it.  He told me about the fact that at one point he couldn’t afford to pay his tuition and live in his apartment any longer.  He had been praying about finances because with him being in the master’s program and with his only mode of transportation being a bike he didn’t have a job.  Sometime later a professor of his stopped him on his way to class and offered him an additional scholarship plum out of the blue.  And to think that he started out not knowing how he would afford school at all or how he would finish.  My old coworker Nita is another person I admire because she started out as a single mom to two boys interning at the medical supply store I worked at.  After her internship was complete she was hired full time at the job, but months later.  She started working under the medical biller, and quickly branched out into learning the laws of insurance on her own.  She started billing officially on her own, but the store owner didn’t want to pay her more than a penny for her work.  She applied for an out of state job and was awarded double her salary and moved on to a better opportunity.  She told me that at one point she was living in a women’s shelter, and that many of her family members were rooting for her to fail.  She came to work crying one day asking why couldn’t her family, who are the main ones who should support you, didn’t believe in her. But I look at where she is now and I’m proud of her.  Your current story doesn’t have to be your forever story.  Not to downplay the individual struggles of anyone out there.  Speaking about writing a better story is much easier than actually writing a better story. You see me. I’ve been talking about wanting better for what, a year now? But I end up backsliding and getting back into my old destructive thoughts and behavior.  If you find yourself getting stuck or complacent, you’re not alone. I’s here.  We can shoot for the stars together, fall flat on our faces together, and start again together. A Berklee professor said that we don’t start out with masterpieces.  Often times our beginning work is crap. But he also said that we shouldn’t look at it as just crap; instead we should say, “ah, crap” because after all, crap is fertilizer.

Steven Furtick had a sermon not that long ago titled “Don’t Miss Your Turn.” I’m trying not to miss my turn. These past few days have felt hopeless. I’m not going to lie. I don’t like internal conflict. I don’t like the fact that an inciting incident isn’t a sign that its going to be easy breezy beautiful cover girl to change.  It all very…sucky.  But it is what it is.  And I’m trying to change the “is” to “what I want it to be.”  I’m uncomfortable with the idea of breaking out of my little protective shell and subjecting myself to possible rejection. I don’t like the idea of making mistakes or looking like an idiot.  But I’m already clumsy so I tend to look like an idiot on a daily basis.  Cliche cliche cliche BUT everything takes time. I won’t finish at the same rate as someone else. That’s why I deactivated my Facebook page; I know that I’ll get caught up in seeing someone else’s success as my failure so I’m just taking a break for the moment while I work towards my own goals.

This post sounded pretty boring while I was writing it. I’m pretty sure you fell asleep a couple of times. But….hey…I gotta write something. So wake up, wipe the drool from your face, and…..do something. I dunno….

 

Stories Pt. 4

I’ve been peeking into Donald Miller just a tad bit, but I admit that I am guilty of reading another book at the moment.  I’m easily distracted; what can I say? But I’m going to push through my muddled commitments and do a post on stories because I have to dedicate myself to something.  I can’t always quit half way through my plans, ya know.

My last post about stories (or the post before that…who knows) delved into the inclusion of other characters to make for a better story.  But I got thinking about what happens when there is the loss of a major character in your story?  I think about books like “The Book Thief” and “Harry Potter” or even anime (since they specialize in killing people off) such as Naruto and Hunter X Hunter. These all involve a plot line that eventually involves the death of a character to further the storyline.  Unless we’re talking about Naruto in which every single person dies. Not really; that’s a reach, but if you watch the show you know my pain. I haven’t forgiven them for Jiraya yet. Naruto already lost his parents, guys. How could they kill off his mentor like that? HOOOWWWW!?!? Anyway. I specifically mean stories that are going good and then bam, the antagonist dies.  I even consider people who are living pretty terrible stories in which they are fairly villainous and yet continue to live on with no qualms.  It’s entirely intriguing how things pan out in life and almost how unfair life often is.

Back when I moved to Jackson in the eighth grade I started out being very lonely because in those grades, people tend to already have cliqued up.  Since I was the newbie I had to find my place among preformed groups.  One particular group I was invited into involved a guy named Brian who was very laid back, but whenever he spoke it was usually comedy gold.  I ended up taking art class with Brian junior year of high school and our friendship grew because we saw each other more often.  We started a group in the class called LME which stood for the Lame Crew because all of us were corny. It was corny within itself.  I am a thousand percent sure it was my idea because only I could come up with something so idiotic.  But everyone gained a nickname in the group and Brian’s was Rev because he was very much like a pastor in his quiet demeanor, but his vast humor.  Brian also had this bad habit of telling you things about yourself that you needed to hear, but really didn’t want to hear. “Amber, did you know you have cankles?  Your legs are jiggly. Your boobs are sagging.”  And let me tell you, I appreciate him on the boob thing because I was a size C wearing bras with no underwire and that was like wearing no bra at all.  Thanks a lot, Ma. You really didn’t care about me, did you!?!?  But Brian was a gentleman. He always walked my friend Rocky (she had that nickname before the group was formed) and me to class. He would wait for us even if that meant that he might be late for his next class. He made sure no one said anything disrespectful about us or put their hands on us in any intrusive way. If someone tried to grab our legs or some other body part he would step in and say, “Aye, don’t touch them like that. You don’t know her like that.”  After we graduated I went to Mississippi College which wasn’t too far from Jackson, but Brian ended up going to a school miles away though still in the state.  Since we were no longer seeing each other daily we didn’t talk as often.  When I say we didn’t talk as often I meant we didn’t talk at all.  I was caught up in surviving Western Civilization and hanging with new friends I had met in my dorm.  I honestly didn’t think about Brian at all except when he popped up on my Facebook timeline or my twitter feed.  Less than half way through the year I got a message from him asking me how everything was going.  I told him it was all fine other than suffering through Chapel and New Testament (the most boring class I have ever taken to date). I’m used to Brian being a listening ear so I’m droning on about school and how I don’t really like it. I’m sorry, but I talk about things I know best and I know nothing better than myself.  It’s a terrible habit. After my long drawn out complaint, I hit him with the usual “How about you?” You know. You can’t talk about yourself all the time (note to self).  He then told me that his cancer had returned and that not too long after he had moved into his dorm he had to be hospitalized.  I was never aware that he had any form of cancer so I was at a complete loss to hear that he was even further away in St. Jude Hospital.  He of course tried to stay positive by saying that they he had been doing alright and that he had gotten to meet the Memphis Grizzlies. You know when you’re young, you don’t think that people your age die, especially from cancer.  A classmate had passed junior year after a car accident and it was terrible going to school the next day. His closest friends were in the halls screaming because his desk was empty in art class that day.  The grief counselors could only do so much.  But you think of that as a once in a lifetime incident.  Like no one else is going to die until we’re old and crusty.  So as Brian spoke to me about how things were going good, I took him at his word.  In my mind he’s going to do  his treatments and be out of the hospital in a month or two.

Around January we text again and I ask how he’s doing. He tells me he’s still in the hospital, but that everything is fairly okay.  I then ask how he’s doing emotionally and mentally because I know he was excited to start college and that he had to be disappointed because he was spending his freshman year laying in a hospital bed.  “It’s hard. I can’t walk on my own anymore.  I got to go home for Christmas, but I had to come right back.  I’m always tired.  It’s just hard.” (please note it may have been Thanksgiving when he got to go home. I won’t lie and say that I remember which holiday.)  And what do you say to that? No one wants to hear any cliche statements about “it’ll all get better” from someone who still has full functionality in their limbs.  I flat out told him I didn’t have the words to say and that I didn’t know what to say.  He accepted my admission with a deeply understanding kindness.  That’s the last I remember speaking to him. Sometimes in the next couple of weeks I kept thinking to text him, but I got caught up in my self and I never did.  I won’t deny my thoughtlessness in the situation. I should have just picked up the phone and sent a simple text, but I didn’t.  Not long after that I saw a post on FB stating that he had died due to the cancer.  And all I could think about was him laying in a hospital bed, unable to walk, and tired. Until he took his last breath. And that’s just as messed up as it can get.

I find it funny that I’m still kicking around God’s green Earth when I can barely get myself to not sleep the day away, but people like Brian who had real goals and had a real impact on people have their stories end abruptly. Sometimes I start plotting on ways to end my story and yet I wake up another day unlike many around me. The classmate, Chris, who died in the car accident was the same way.  He was a star athlete at the school, his mother’s only child, and an extremely cool person.  He had the status of popularity in school, but he was humble beyond comparison.  He always made our class laugh or smile.  I remember the day after his death I had to go to art class, which was the class I took with him.  I already dreaded what that would be like because the school was already deathly quiet that day and I imagined that class would be worse.  When I say we all were crying, we were all crying. Those of us who weren’t crying were damn close to crying.  Finally after the grief counselors calmed some of the students down and we all sat muddling in our individual grief for about thirty minutes another classmate who had been close to Chris finally said, “Why we crying? Chris would roast us for this. He wouldn’t want us to be in here crying, man.” To which we all laughed because it was true. Chris was king of roasting people about their outfits or something they said so we knew that he wouldn’t want us to spend our whole day in a cloud of sadness. It helped to lift our spirits even though we could all see the empty desk that belonged to him, and we all knew that he would never get a chance to sit in it again.  Stories don’t always end like they’re supposed to.  I wish I could explain why and how, but I can’t.  When his mom got up to speak to the school I wish I could tell her why her son was the only one in the car to die. I bet his best friend, who happened to be the one driving, could explain what happened.  I bet he wished that he knew why his friend was thrown out of the window of the car he was driving. How he was at the wheel, but it wasn’t him who lay in the street dying while a nurse tried to get him to hold on. Yea, it ended up coming down to the message “Don’t speed. Don’t skip school. Wear your seat belt.” But plenty of people speed. I’ve skipped school before. My stepsister to this day STILL doesn’t wear a seat belt. So the question of why still exists.  You know they always say the good die young. I’m not sure how much I support that statement, but I do feel like a lot of good stories end entirely too soon.

I go back and forth with myself about my own life story and about furthering the plot, developing my character, and getting past the conflict.  I have a hard time doing any of that. I mean ANY of it.  You’ve read my whine posts on here. I’m constantly alternating between optimism and depression. But I also think about people who had good stories and didn’t get to finish them and how that’s bullshit on my part because I choose not to live a good story when they didn’t get a chance too.  Now, I do acknowledge that I can’t control how another person’s story ends so if it ends abruptly I literally can’t do anything about that. But I can do something about my own story. And even with those people being characters in my own story I know how much impact they had. They helped push my story along in great ways, so I kind of want to honor them by making sure it doesn’t go to shit in a shoot.  It also makes me wonder about what kind of character I am in other peoples’ stories.  Will they say, “Amber was an asshat” or “I used to cheat off Amber in class” (which is probably true because I’ve been told blatantly that I’ve been cheated off of….like…why….)?  My current job is working in laundry at a hotel. It’s not glamorous and I didn’t even really want the job, but it’s a long story how that all went down.  For a while our housekeepers were short staffed beyond belief and they would get stuck doing 20 rooms each some days.  After I learned how to make beds I went around and helped make up beds in between loads of laundry or at the end of the day.  I still try to help even though they’ve hired some additional help.  Yesterday one of the housekeepers had to leave early for training at her new job.  To make matters worse one of her rooms checked out a day early so she had an additional room to do.  I asked her did she need me to help, and even though she told me she thought she could handle it I went ahead and made up her beds in that room.  She told me she wanted to put my name down for employee of the month for helping her, but I could much less give a fuck about employee of the month.  I want people to say, “Amber really helped me when I needed it,” whenever I do get a new job and leave. To be honest, they don’t even have to acknowledge that I’ve helped at all. As much as they can talk about my hair or my glasses or my annoying laugh they can’t say I didn’t help without it being untrue. One of my coworkers told me that another worker talked about how slow I move when I’m picking up laundry on the floor. And I could give air to a fish for how much I cared. Because for what someone says negative about me, I ensure they can say something positive. I’m not really doing much, but I’m trying to do something because I hate not to leave a footprint. And I’d really hate to be an useless character in someone’s story.  See guys, I’m not as anal and asshattish as I sound on here.

As I end this, my cousin texted me and told me that he was watching an anime and how it didn’t look like it would have a happy ending. And let me just say Anime is the devil, Naruto is trash, and I am sick of being treated this way!  Also that in reference to my last post about being broken I’m doing better, but I’m still sleeping too much and not eating right now.  I’ve learned to just take a hot shower whenever I think about self harm and I’m supposed to be going to get a tattoo on Friday to help divert my attention from it. So bear with me. I’m trying not to get on here and go into a full blown depressive rant, but we know how that goes.

 

Broken Vessels

Contradictory to what it looks like, I have been reading “A Million Miles in a Thousand Years.” I’m doing another post unrelated to stories because I feel like whining tonight. I kid, I kid. I’ve just had a couple of things on my mind and I wanted to explore these thoughts a bit more.

When I think about the way I respond to imagined or real discomfort I feel ashamed. I won’t get too into the details because that would be repetitive, but I will say that most of my methods are unhealthy.  Then I began to consider how some of my peers deal with their issues and how their methods can also be unhealthy. So now I’m thinking, “what the deuce is wrong with us?!?” I used to be quite judgmental towards drug addicts, sexual deviants (what I mean are people who engage in culturally sexually deviant behavior. Like having multiple sexual partners is socially seen as deviant behavior. Or someone who engages in unprotected sex), and the like. I was always thinking what was the deal with those folks. How could you ever do drugs? How could you sleep with so many people? I don’t get it.  How could you even  consider killing yourself? That’s cowardly.  To me those things were so foreign that I thought whoever engaged in related behavior was flat out crazy.  My friends and I would talk about those kind of people.  They would be the butt of our jokes and even the thought of being grouped into those categories was an insult.  I admit that I was a little douchebag in my younger years (whose to say I’m not now….).  After my depression/GAD started to develop I began to engage in self-destructive behavior.  I stopped eating and lost over twenty pounds in the process. I might snack just to rid of the urge to vomit that came with prolonged hunger, but the act of eating seemed like a weak humanly need.  Almost animalistic.  I scratched myself. Wrote insults on hidden body spaces where they couldn’t be seen.  I stopped speaking to friends/family without explanation. I slept like sleep was going out of style.  I would spend some of my summers days in bed until three in the afternoon.   And when I look at these habits that I still sometimes indulge in I’m just like, “Amber, you boob….this is ridiculous. Grow up!” It seemed like I should know what I was doing wasn’t right and that I should just stop. But I was struggling to stop and this was inexcusable.  I studied Sociology for a semester and one of the things I remember from the class was that there is no such thing as common sense because many of our behaviors/beliefs differ per group.  AKA we all have different cultures.  I believe that those of us with mental illness, who have experienced traumatic experiences, who have been bullied, who are sick, etc have created our own subculture: the broken vessel subgroup.

I step back and consider how I feel like I’m broken. I never feel like I have anything together or anchored down.  I’m always looking for the greener side of the grass. I’m consistently unhappy. I’m not taking my antidepressants because that seems like work and I hate the fact that I have to work and fight to think like a regular person. Each time I ponder a solution I always assume that I can only achieve peace through death.  I just feel like everything about me is broken.  Then I look at how I respond to these feelings and I realize that I’m just doing the best I can to self-destruct at a slower rate.  I’m trying to fix myself the best way I know how, but the ways that I know aren’t very sufficient.  So now I’m thinking about people who do drugs, starve themselves, have willing unprotected sex, etc and I’m like they’re broken people trying to fix themselves too.  If you’re unhappy, you may try to solve that with cocaine or ecstasy (if you’re unhappy and rich mostly as those are drugs higher on the rung).  If you feel too fat because you’ve been ridiculed for your size then you’ll throw up all of your meals.  If you’ve been told you’re unattractive or worthless you may engage in sex with multiple partners.  These are some seriously broad generalizations, but you get what I’m going at.  You’ve established that something is wrong with you (broken) so you’re trying to right that wrong (self repair).

I also think to myself that I pity those around me because they’re dealing with a broken vessel that they have no idea how to repair.  And the more I try to fix myself, the more I push away from them because I don’t want them to help me in the repair process. I want to fix myself. I want to believe that I’m not THAT weak to where I can’t solve my own problems.  And as we know we cannot handle everything on our own and that’s perfectly fine. Even though I know this, it feels far from fine.  I have a difficult time accepting help. I don’t want people to know I’m broken because what do most people do with broken things? They throw them in the trash.  So I’m sitting around trying to glue all of my shards back together and it’s just a hot ass mess. And when the feeling is painfully acute I feel like I can implode. It’s unbearable.  Some things I say and do I just feel like an idiot for and I want to take all of those things back and tell people, “I’m sorry I’m a work in progress. I’m honestly doing the best I can.  Don’t leave.” And other times I want to shove them out of my personal bubble so that I can prevent them from leaving; I just eliminate them first.  It’s greatly frustrating and I wish I could better explain, but emotions are hard to pen into words.  Being broken is hurtful because we want others to help fix us, but we don’t want them to know we’re broken.  If you admit that you need help then you’re subliminally admitting that something is not right about you.  People don’t want projects for friends or spouses.  They want completion. And you’re trying to get there on your own due to fear and it’s just a vicious cycle that’s consuming every bit of energy you have.

I was exhausted at work today.  I really wanted to just get in my car and drive to no man’s land.  Somewhere in the hills where the goats mysteriously climb mountains (really, how do they get up there…).  I didn’t want to speak to anyone. I didn’t want to laugh at anything. I just wanted everyone to leave me alone.  I think I was reminded how unhappy I am when I returned from Florida because the drive back was like awaiting a prison sentence.  It’s back to work. Back to responsibility. Back to aimlessly wandering in this world.  The weight was so obvious that my coworkers kept asking me what was wrong. To which I wanted to reply, “GET OUT OF MY FACE!” and then I would run away and never return….Donald Miller said he believed that there is a force in the world that doesn’t want us to have beautiful stories so it wears us down until it has us questioning the reason for living. My brother in law says that he believes that when it gets darkest in our lives this means that a breakthrough is coming; we’ve just got to hold on until the breakthrough comes. And I’m wondering if I’m the only person whose sick of holding on. Why me?! I’m a genuinely caring person. I help those around me. I encourage my friends. I don’t set fire to people’s homes or rob the elderly. Why am I on the brink of self-destructing at every moment? Why can’t I get a win in for once? I’m tired of being in the loser’s circle. I can’t imagine how people who have terminal illness or are constantly in pain deal with continuing to live. When I say that I am barely making it, I mean that I am BARELY making it. Then I consider telling someone about the thin thread I’m living on and the only way I can describe the feeling is shooting myself in the foot.  And don’t get me started on praying about it. I’m just….ugh. That’s as much as I can say on that.

I try to be forgiving with myself as I further understand why I do what I do. I really am just trying to survive.  A comic on tumblr said that we start out as mushy things.  Then we face rejection and so we build this protective shell to keep ourselves safe from from the pain of the rejection.  So in the end we’re just metal shells being run by mushy things.  I think that best describes what it’s like to be broken.  We’re just patching ourselves up to save/protect ourselves and we’re still just broken people on the inside.  It’s very interesting to think about.

Thus my nightly whine is complete. I am now off to watch Golden Girls and sip cranberry juice.

Throwing People

I’m stepping away from my story “series” for this post because I haven’t had time to read these past few days.  I don’t want to backtrack unless I’m adding additional information so I’m just going to do a personal post tonight.  Not that those weren’t personal, but they felt more formal than I plan for this to be.  My sister had her marital ceremony today and it was beautiful. It was hot. I’m pretty sure I got sweaty and musty at some point from being in the sun, but as her ceremony is not about me one sweaty, musty monkey don’t stop no show.  As we are still in Florida for the night she decided to have dinner following the wedding. They didn’t have a reception because some of the family said that they would prefer not to attend a reception (like it was their decision to make).  Now, my sister’s dad and my mom are divorced and have both remarried.  So there is her dad’s side and my mom’s side.  Much of my mom’s side of the family could not attend the wedding due to the cost of the staying in the area and the distance. So my brother really wanted us to pull together to go to the dinner. I, on the other hand, did not want to go.  It’s enough pressure on my usual limitations to attend the wedding. I’m not great at small talk and I do best by myself (for reasons frequently stated in my posts). So I definitely did not want to attend the dinner with her dad’s side of the family because they are very close to one another and I always feel like the odd man out even with just my family.  It’s a crowded restaurant with people I am not close to who are extremely connected. That’s like a buffet for self-criticism and anxiety and I’m already not taking my AD’s so I declined my invitation.  Now, my brother and parents are not one hundred percent familiar with how I am or how I feel because I don’t disclose this information to them.  I’d prefer not to have anyone I am close to or related to know any of my personal feelings on anything.  They may know which football teams I despise (Ole Miss, New Orleans Saints, Auburn….). They know I don’t like people touching my feet. But they don’t know how I feel about life in general.  My brother discussed being open and not being isolated. He wanted me to know that he didn’t want to pressure me into attending the dinner, but I felt really bad because I wanted to tell him that I could much less give a flying duck and a partridge in a pear tree about what he wanted me to do. I’m not really keen on considering my family’s feelings towards me. I love them dearly, but I prefer that we don’t be close.  It’s terrible, I know. But I’m not comfortable with them knowing what makes me glad or sad. I don’t like to tell them when I’m down. I don’t like to tell them when I have something good going for myself.  I sometimes slip up and disclose information and the regret is immediate.  The saying, “can’t trust them far as I can throw them” pertains to how I feel. And I don’t have much upper body strength. I can only throw babies, and I prefer not to throw them because…that’s immoral, inhumane, and probably illegal too…..

It’s difficult for me to say that I don’t care about what my brother wants me to do because I look up to my brother the most out of everyone I know.  I admire his honesty, his drive, his humility, and his humor.  Back when I was knee high to an adult (because who has ever been knee high to a grasshopper….) I was afraid of the dark.  I would fall asleep with my light on and Ma would come later and turn it off once I was out. Oddly enough now I can’t sleep with any light on. The light from the DVR box annoys me to no end. I have to turn the whole box off or it will irk my very soul.  It’s probably a result of the emo phase I went through. I blame My Chemical Romance. (I’m kidding, I never went emo. I just really like the color black and Coheed and Cambria…) I used to ask to sleep with ma if I woke up during the night, which was literally every night.  After I turned seven years old Ma flat out kicked me out.  It was actually storming to high hell the night she kicked me out, too. And I was sleeping on her FLOOR so I wasn’t even in her space. The lady is heartless. I ended up asking my brother to let me sleep in his room, and it was perfectly fine with him because he sleeps heavily anyway. He wouldn’t have even noticed me if I didn’t wake him to ask. After that, I was like his shadow. He liked video games then I got into them.  He like car shows so I got into them. Now I admit that I genuinely like these things, but I didn’t even show interest in them until after he did. So it’s not that I don’t genuinely care about him. I just don’t care that he cares about me, if that makes any sense.

I’m very defensive about myself. I may not think much of myself, but I do what I can to protect myself. Unfortunately, I tend to protect myself in unhealthy ways. I resort to isolation and silence.  If you ask how I’m doing I’m going to say that I’m fine even if I’m not. Why? Because I don’t trust you to know that I’m feeling pretty shitty. In my mind I’m wondering what you plan to do with that information. Then I’m assuming that whatever you plan to do with it is going to be disappointing to me so there’s no need in even revealing anything to you.  It never fails that I never get the response I ever want when I speak about my actual feelings.  People mean well so I don’t fully fault them.  People struggle to respond to what they can’t relate to so I don’t even count on them to be my “savior” or confidante.  I hate to say it, but I don’t have a three strike rule.  I have an one strike rule. You have one time…ONE TIME to disappoint my feelings and after that I feel like I can tell you nothing at all. Needless to say, I tell no one anything.  I don’t speak with my family/friends about how I feel about the recent police shootings. We don’t discuss politics. We don’t talk about mental health. Unless they read what I write on here they won’t know what I think about much. Even then, I’d probably act like I didn’t know what they were talking about if it came up for discussion. It doesn’t matter what my brother says about openness; I prefer to keep it that way.  I don’t want the hugs or the high fives. I just want you to leave me to my destructive devices.  If you don’t think we’re close, that’s great! That spares me from probable disappointment.

This is the reason why I get that funny look when people ask when I plan to get married. That really funny look. I mean it’s not funny but it’s funny. Who would evaaaaaaaa marry me? What kind of next level desperation…. I go through brief moments of wanting people in my space and in my circle. But I don’t know how well I would do with it being constant.  I’d have to work on my personal issues prior to getting in a relationship because that would be unfair to a spouse. I get shifty eyed enough being in shared spaces with my family for prolonged periods of time.  I’m barely hanging on with staying with my granny even though its to help out. I just like to be by myself. I probably wouldn’t be saying that if this were the end of the world and I had no choice but to be alone.  But people are exhausting. Just as with the dinner tonight. By the time we’d left the wedding I was already starting a mental list of things I did wrong. It’s exhausting, but rewarding but exhausting.  And it rarely feels rewarding.

Don’t get me wrong. I still care for people, but just from a distance.  When one of my brothers on my dad’s side of the family went to the pokey I didn’t reach out to him. In my defense, it was hard to reach out to him.  I’m not at all close to his mom so I wasn’t up to date with where he was or how he was doing. Plus, I was living 200 miles away at that time.  But I did consistently watch his brother’s facebook page for updates and checked the newspaper.  Him and I were never chummy so it’s not like either of us were itching to communicate. But once he was released he did contact me which made me seriously uncomfortable. I told ya, I’m more comfortable with emotional distance. God, I’m going to end up with a house full of hedgehogs. I would say cats but cats are the kind of pets who plot to kill you in your sleep so I’ll settle for some good old hedgehogs. I’m the person who wishes the best for you, but will never tell you.  I’m like a ball of “what the fuck.”

So I’m done with my rant. I would say, “don’t judge me” but I realize that my habits are entirely unhealthy and irregular so if you did then there’s not much I could say. I would say that I’m going to post tomorrow night, but I’d probably be lying because we’ll be heading back to Mississippi tomorrow. So uhhhhh, monday…..yea….

 

Stories Pt. 3

I am extremely late in sitting down and beginning this post. My sister is getting married this weekend so I’ve been racing around trying to pack and prepare. I’m one of those people who has to pack “just in case” clothes and shoes.  It may be cold at the restaurant so better pack some long jeans just in case.  Maybe they want to do fancy dinner so I should pack a fancy shirt just in case.  That plan sort of backfired when I couldn’t fit my suitcase in my brother’s trunk so my just in case supplies dwindled to “just enough.” I also haven’t had time to read anymore of “A Million Miles in a Thousand Years” so I’m going to go off the top of my head with some thoughts I had last night.

My last post was about characters and character development.  Well, it was partly about that. I tend to veer off the path quite frequently so it turns into a smorgasbord of random corny jokes.  While I was waiting to drift off to sleep I thought about how Donald wrote about experiencing life and when he was writing about it he sorta pointed out that a life story tends to be better when there are multiple characters.  As I have gotten older and I am no longer in school I find myself being alone more.  I still speak with my friends, but I don’t make a conscious effort to spend time with them or visit them.  The friends who are also my coworkers see and spend time with me, but only during the work day.  So I’ve realized that I’m just a bit of a loner.  I do not really go through periods of loneliness but this is mostly due to the fact that I do not feel like I can open myself to those around me.  But whenever I feel lonely it’s an intensely acute loneliness. It’s almost a physical sort of loneliness. I’m the type of person who is more likely to confide in a stranger than a friend because a friend already has a fixed conception about me whereas a complete stranger wouldn’t know me from Sally Sue the Seamstress so their perception of me wouldn’t change.  They may go home and tell their spouses, “Ya know, I talked to a really crazy girl in Wal-Mart today who told me that she likes to eat viennas with hot sauce,” but a year from now they likely wouldn’t recall anything about me.

There are only four girls on my mother’s side of the family: my sister, my two cousins, and myself.  With the age difference between myself and the other three girls I was more likely to hang with my male cousins who were around the same age.  As a result I am not very close with the other females in my family.  While the girls tended to be a trio, I just hung out with my brother/cousins. Aside from that my male cousins all lived out of town so I was left to my own devices most of the time. This kind of turned out to be to my advantage because it never failed that the trio would fall victim to drama within their rank.  If two were getting along, the remaining one would be on the out and out.  As they have grown older this STILL has not changed.  I find out things about one from another that I am one thousand percent sure I would never find out from the one. Like, really guys?  It’s not even that serious. If someone hasn’t told me something they probably do not want me to know so I don’t feel comfortable with anyone else telling me outside information.  I have just gotten to the point where I am complacent with being cool with them, but never close.  I prefer to keep the details of my life to myself.  It’s best not to tell someone anything once you have established them as a grapevine unless you want the whole vineyard to know. Now I look at everyone in the light of “nope, can’t trust em!”  On top of that, depression/anxiety makes me feel like absolutely none of my peers understand me.  Some of my acquaintances talk about people who self harm in a condescending manner.  It’s like “How can they be that stupid? Why would you ever?” And I’m over in the corner like, “Uhhhh hello. I just burned myself with a fork for pressure relief last week.”  It’s a very uncomfortable position.  I either exclude myself or I push others away as a means to protect myself.  Now I’m 23/24 and my friend list has plummeted. I’m attempting to write a good story with one character which will not work.

Have you ever read a book or seen a movie with one sole character? I Am Legend doesn’t count because…it just doesn’t count. Don’t ask me why.  But most stories you see and hear involve other people.  It’s funny that I float through life alone but I have the absolute belief that we are designed to enjoy companionship.  People don’t mind being alone but no one wants to feel lonely.  I read a quote somewhere that basically said that the only reason people enjoy being alone is because they have tried companionship but it has failed. That’s the paraphrased version. I never write down the literal version because that would be too much like right.  As kids we look for friends with common likes/dislikes.  We may not have a clique, but we have at least one sole partner in crime.  Many of us look for significant others and feel like the odd man out when we go through prolonged periods of time without one.  We like other people’s approval and opinion.  We desire commonality with those around us, and we feel frustrated when we never experience a personal connection. Maybe I’ve just been socialized to think that. You may feel perfectly content with being alone until you get crows feet and your nipples touch your knee caps. But a story is more likely to spark our interest if it has multiple people. So why do so many of us attempt to live ours out with the characters Me, Myself, and I?

Unfortunately, every character in your story may not be great. In fact, some of them may be downright terrible.  They can be hateful, abusive, and destructive.  These are not the characters that we want, but that we are often warranted.  It’s perfectly fine to write these characters out of your story.  It can also be possible that it’s NOT possible to write them out.  Sometimes this character is your parent, your child, your boss, etc.  It’s important to know that they don’t have to rule your story.  It sounds selfish to say it but it remains true: your story is about you. This doesn’t mean that it’s ALL about you, but it is about you. It’s about your purpose, your growth, your journey, your happiness, your health. If you build your story around those around you then you’ll end up writing yourself out.  It’s all about balance; checks and balances.  Thanks, Mrs. Walters. I may not remember 90% of what you said in US Government but I do remember that. In fact, I’m not even sure if your name really is Mrs. Walters….but you’re probably never going to read this so that’s beside the point…..Do not compromise yourself and your well being for someone else. If you have no choice but to be around someone who isn’t the best for you, try to limit the interaction. If you have to take care of an elderly parent and you are burned out, take a break.  If you are a single parent and your kids run your life, take a break.  It’s okay to take a break. It’s important to take a break.

Companionship is important, but it’s also difficult to find.  As we age, our social circles shrink.  We aren’t in class with these people anymore so we don’t see them everyday.  Our personal lives are time and attention consuming so we have less to extend to our peers.  We grow more and more isolated. Try not to stay isolated.  Go out with a coworker or old friend.  Make a play date with another mom/dad.  Download Pokemon Go and join a team. There are bound to be some other trainers at the park or the store that you can talk to. You’ve already got something in common.  It may be hard and uncomfortable but it’s a good investment with a great return.  I’m not going to offer that advice without taking it.  I’m also going to try to socialize more. I just can’t imagine growing old with a house full of cats. I don’t even like cats. They’re too sneaky. I’d probably get a bunch of tamagotchis and raise little alien children. Let me not even say that…..

Anyway this post was extremely boring, but I have to write something because if I don’t…then….I won’t…. Yea. That made total sense. Til tomorrow when I shall be writing from ye ole Florida.

Stories Pt. 2

I know I’m posting much earlier than I usually do, but I’m one thousand percent sure that if I don’t write now then I’m going to have a brain fart and my post will end up all over the place. I’m random enough as it is so I shouldn’t add to it.  I’ve made it to chapter some number of the Donald Miller book, and I decided to take a different approach to reading today. I usually read and then make mental notes of the little gems I find so that I can write about them later. Why I do this I have no idea because I never remember what I thought was a gem.  It’s like throwing a diamond in the hay to come back for later.  Then I’ve got to dig through all that hay to find it and I end up with a big mess…and a diamond. I have really got to work on these terrible analogies I come up with.  In this particular chapter of the book Donald writes about another revelation he has on viewing life as a story.  A story is all about character transformation (thus life is) and that a character IS what he DOES.

I’m sure this sounds a bit like “you are what you eat” and I guess it kinda is the same thing.  I’m not going to expound on how they are possibly the same because then I’d have to think about it and I don’t want to think about it because then I’d have to admit that I have no idea how they’re the same thing.  Moving on.  One of the things that bothers Donald about this epiphany is that he daydreams a lot so his character isn’t transforming and his life is not really progressing.  Think about it.  If he had been doing all the things he thought to do…then he’d be…doing them.  I’m trying to figure out a good way to word this.  It’s difficult to develop character through inaction. Unlike a book, our characters in our personal lives are seen through what we do and say.  In a book we may read a person’s thoughts and their feeling, but in reality we are unable to do those things.  We need people to SHOW us and TELL us so that we know.  In the same way that we must reveal ourselves to others for them to know us.  You ever met someone who you wanted to just throw a cup of water in their faces because they act like they know you, but they haven’t been around you enough to know you from a plank in a park bench?  That’s the new trend, throwing liquids in people’s faces as seen on reality television.  I get this all the time from people because I wear glasses and I have natural hair: “You don’t look like you listen to rap music.” How does someone who listens to rap music look?  What do I look like I listen to? Chants of Buddhist monks? Actually, I do listen to those on Pandora. It’s very comforting when one is studying or reading. I almost said, “what do I look like I listen to?  Shakespeare?” and then I came to my senses. That’s one of those brain farts I was talking about. I always get off track and then have to find my way back to my point.  If you always live in your head, but not through your active life then your character becomes stagnant and stale. Once a character in a story gets stale the story dries up.  No one reads a book with garbage characters. That throws the WHOLE book off.  We are meant to grow and move forward.  Our bodies and brains develop as we age which insinuates that our lives are meant to progress as well.  Donald also touches on that point through referencing his friend’s art thesis.   Daydreaming isn’t bad, but if you dedicate all of your energy towards thinking about what you want without actually getting it then….what’s the use?

One bad habit I have is daydreaming. I’ve always daydreamed ever since I was little.  The only way I can go to sleep at night is to daydream until I drift off.  I daydream so much that my tumblr is called Cloud Kissing because I keep my head in the clouds.  Later on I felt like that sorta made me sound like a pot head.  One reason I daydream is because I’ve always read books so I liked to imagine myself being in the stories I  was reading. How would it feel to be sent to disciplinarian camp and dig holes all day?  How would it feel to get a letter from a school of magic?  Then I got into anime and I wanted to know how it would be to have superhuman strength and grow blonde hair at an inhumane rate.  I maintained by habit of dreaming due to unhappiness with who I was.  If you get picked on for having crooked teeth then you’ll comfort yourself by thinking about life without crooked teeth.  Its become a defense mechanism, but when I daydream I go into the deep end. My Uncle Justin who is an ex marine came down to visit for July Fourth last year, and we were talking about wanting things in life.  He was telling me that my cousins were not focused on reaching a goal in life.  They kind of knew what they wanted but were going about reaching their goals in a scattered way.  Both of my cousins are good artists and want to start an anime, manga, or comic book project.  But while they are both attending school to finish their prerequisites prior to going to an art school they’re getting sidetracked by things like work, video games, work, work, and work.  The free time they have they are not dedicating towards art and school is fading into work’s background noise.  They’re getting older and have more responsibilities now so that’s understandable, but my uncle just did not want them to lose sight of what they really wanted. “I support anything they do.  I don’t want them to get stuck working a desk job for some other guy, unless they’re making at least $15 an hour.  If they want to cook I support that. If they want to open a business I support that. Okay, you want to be an artist? Fine. But show me that you mean it.”  I confessed to him that I too am scattered brain and that if I daydream long enough about being a lyricist, then I’m satisfied.  At this point my character has become stagnant. Instead of funneling my desires into my actions I let my imagination run wild and then I’m like, “Wow that would really be nice. This is amazing. I think I’ll dream about it again.”  The solution would be to go, “Wow that would really be nice. Now I’ve got to get off my ass and get it.”

We sometimes get this idea that people who live “ordinary lives” are living “boring lives.” We find ourselves saying that that’s not the kind of life we would want. A person who waits tables at a restaurant, goes home to their families, and spends time watching their kids grow or cuddling with their spouse on the couch have good stories.  It may not be the story that we want, but that doesn’t negate that it is good. A person who sits all day thinking about what they want and how life would be if they got it are not living very good stories.  Maybe someone travels a predominate amount of the time and photographs the different places they have been. They could be living out of their suitcase with no home since they’re always in the road.  They’re living a better story than someone who has a family and a home but is not invested in their family.  How? Because they’re actively involved in the progress of their story.  If you’re around the dinner table with the kids and you’re thinking about how it’d be if your house was bigger or maybe if you would have married Susan instead then a story is being built around you but not with you.  I hope that doesn’t sound confusing. It’s so much clearer in my head.

I mentioned earlier that I daydream about being a lyricist. That’s literally something I want to to do. I love music and I love writing so…yay combination!  I’m at a point now where I’m not really sure how to pursue this venture so I’ve just settled into dreaming about what that would be like.  I’d get to travel and have people listen to my songs.  And if they’d play them backwards they’d hear a message from the devil. No not really….You know that was a big thing for a while though.  I want to learn to play guitar to be able to add the melody to lyrics, but I’ve gotten lax in that too.  Mr. Victor, sweet Victor, bought me a guitar to encourage me to keep pressing. Unfortunately, I’ve been pussyfooting around and it stinks because he’s invested in my story.  How can someone else believe in a good story for me when I can’t even get past the cover page?   I’ve considered returning to school for creative writing, but ask me what I’ve done about that. Don’t ask me that. Then I’d have to answer.  Daydreaming is good in that it zeroes in on what you want. But daydreaming is bad in that it may end there. Daydreaming is a road you take until you reach the the turn you actually need to make. But if you keep going on that road you’ll end up at a dead end.  It’s like too much of a good thing. Too many white chocolate macadamia nut cookies results in six cavities.  Six cavities results in a high dentist bill. I’ll be linking my paypal account later so that you can help a cookie loving girl from Mississippi get her cavities filled…..

I always end up feeling like I’m writing an essay. Like I said, I’m not the best at putting feelings and thoughts on paper…or on computer.  They flow so much easier in my brain then they just get lost in translation on the way out.  Plus the light from my laptop is starting to make my head hurt.  I feel like I’m looking into the light they tell you not to go towards. Y’all probably are like, “Praise the Lordt because she was getting long winded. And I’m not really sure what she was talking about.” It’s okay. I’ll relieve you now by going to eat a cucumber. I have to lay off of the cookies. Til tomorrow….Actually I may be posting something else tonight not related to stories. We’ll see…..