Everyone is going through their own experience, doing the best that they can do with what they’ve got.  Some people are more ingenuitive, some are more creative, and some have the advantage of a free-spirited attitude that allows them to do whatever they need to do with what they’ve got.

It’s easy to forget this because we can quickly become caught up in the emotions of our daily existence… emotions are great, and they enhance the experience; however, they also cloud logic, rationality, and, frequently, common sense and empathy… Emotions are good, but they cloud.  It’s much easier to remind yourself that all people are going through their own challenges if you are not emotionally involved. 

Truly, I believe it’s the most important time to remind yourself this is as a response to a strong emotional experience– rather than choosing to become carried away by the drama and the noise that accompanies thick emotion. 

All people are also going through their own challenges, doing the best they can do. Empathy comes easily to me.  I have no difficulties putting myself into another person’s shoes and going through the gamut of possible emotions they could be experiencing.  I can understand how one could feel, given a certain set of circumstances and emotions. 

Along with empathy, though, is a necessary boundary… a necessary line to be drawn in the sand that says, “I feel your emotion, but I do not allow myself to become caught up in the clouding that you might experience by being right in the middle of the circumstances.”

It must be frustrating to have me do this. Fortunately for me, I am okay with this.   I’m certainly not perfect at defining and upholding the boundary, but I’m getting better at it.  Practice makes perfect, right?

I hope that you, too, can do the same for me… acknowledging that I, too, am going through my own challenges, doing the best I can do with what I’ve got.   I feel confident that I’m doing alright… of course, I’m in the middle of my very own emotional experience.  And that’s beautiful and good and all those things that they can be…

I have decided that everything is my canvas…
my home,
my behaviors,
my body,
and my everything.

The beauty you surround yourself with (your body included) is a reflection of what you think about.

Try THAT one on for size, baby.

Eeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee!

General Chemistry II                A
General Chemistry Lab            A
College Trigonometry              A
Psych of Communication         A

*squeal*

Yay!!!!!  Now I’m also a Senior… with a 3.83 GPA. 
*raisin the roof*

Okay, must shower. 

(rockstar!)

There’s a difference between feeling bad and feeling pain.

Pain can be very good. It can be necessary for healing, necessary for understanding the contrast, and in some cases can be quite pleasurable. Pain is healthy, in moderation. Feeling bad on the other hand, is unnecessary. It’s not useful, and unless you find a way to work with the experience, and ultimately learn from it, it serves very little purpose. Some examples of feeling bad are: generally having a yucky feeling, feeling guilty, jealous, or insecure, and over all feeling the opposite of good. You can feel good and experience pain. You can be sad, you can mourn, and you can experience loss– even heartbreak– and still feel good. You can know there is goodness to be had from your own life, and you can be comfortable knowing that the temporary discomfort is useful somehow– useful in a way that brings forth more good, rather than feeling bad.

My latest definition of health: health is when, for every single negative experience, you have two or three positive experiences… this can be actual situations you walk through, this can be things you say about yourself or others, or this can even be merely thoughts that flee through your mind… for every single negative, you can come up with two or three positives. That, my friends, is HEALTH. It includes emotional, spiritual, physical and mental health… all of these facets should have two or three goods for every single bad…

How healthy are you?

I do believe that all emotions are valid… and all experiences are worthy of experiencing simply because you have opportunities to go through them– learn about yourself through them, and to come out a more wise person in the end: knowing how to handle them the next time you are presented with such experiences (and you will be). I do believe negative emotions are valid, but I also believe that what you emit is what you emote– what you talk about affects the feelings of the people around you, and it affects you directly. It’s important to be cognizant of your thoughts and what you “put out there” because not only is it causing you to experience what you’re putting out, but you’re causing other people to experience it as well.

As a responsible, affective, affecting human being, it should be within your priority to be conscious and aware of what emotions you are experiencing, and what you are reflecting to others.

So… these are my response to “it’s okay to feel bad.” I don’t know that it’s wrong, really. But it just doesn’t seem right. When there are so many other ways to use your energy, I feel like using it in a way that is conducive to health would be the better way. *shrug*

Or maybe I’m just some silly hippie.

So, check it out.

It has been days since I last wrote you all.  I’ve been thinking.  And recovering from this semester. First, I must tell you that I have two certain A’s.  The two certainties are in Chemistry II and Chemistry Lab.  I’m pretty much absolutely positive those were tough classes, so I am damn proud of myself.  And I should be!  I busted my ass on a subject that doesn’t come easily to me.  I’m very excited to see how I do in my next main attractions: Child Psychology and Intro to Physics… but not as eager as I am to see how well I do in Organic Chemistry I and O Chem Lab…  I’ve got a connection who is an organic chemist, though, and he believes in me, so I’m pretty sure I’ll do juuuust fine. 

Today was great.  Today, I spent the day in the office, working with my doctor, and we are doing well as a team.  I can tell he appreciates my positive attitude, and I’ve decided that there’s a nurse there who I can really relate to– because she has a good attitude, too!  

fter I got home, I was running a little late getting started in the garden.  Landon was helping me, and we had gotten as far as tilling up the soil before a storm began rolling in.  Honestly, it came in so quickly that I felt the intense drop in barometric pressure in my ears… it came on so fast I was concerned there was going to be a tornado or other strange act of gaia– so I sprinted for the house, yelling for everyone to go into the basement!  It was crazy– my ears are pretty sensitive to pressure and such, it totally freaked me out!    It was brilliant though… as soon as I realized that the pressure changed because of the low fast moving clouds and not a tornado, I resorted to sitting on my covered patio, watching the rain come down in sheets… then in hail… and then hard hail… If I had been on time with the garden, my plants would have been destroyed by the hail.  Thank goddess for simple blessings, huh?

So, while it poured, we ate some leftover grilled chicken (mmm, thank you Juan) and grilled vegetables.  Yum.  (I know, I’m drooling thinking about it, too.)  I love me some covered porches.  *wink*

Before the storm, Landon had laid out several bags of fresh soil and grass seed on the patchy hill along the front porch… which would have been perfect except that it flooded out and a good portion of this soil was washed down the stairs and into the street.  D’oh!!!!  I laughed at it… I could tell that he was irritated by it, but to me, that’s not such a big deal.  So the rain washed away some of the new soil– not such a great travesty… I ran in my head through a number of much more horrible things going on in people’s experiences and figured that if washed away soil was the worst thing we could worry about, we were doing alllllright.   You know? 

We separated out some peppermint and spearmint from the clumps we dug up from my garden… and if you want some spearmint or peppermint plants, I need you to come over– armed with a clay pot!  I’ll also be sharing marigold plants this season, too.  In fact, if you’re lucky, I might give you a pot-o-marigold late this summer.   Then, you, too, can have marigolds take over YOUR garden.  They’re actually fabulous to have around– they ward off pests, you know. 

Oh, here’s something funny!  I have my doctor saying things like “fabulous” and “faaaaaantastic.”  It’s so funny to hear people pick up my words– for instance the young kids I’m around, or the people who I guess I don’t realize actually notice (at least enough to repeat) what I say– like my doctor.  *grin*   I wrote him an email reminding him to enter orders for a procedure for this patient… so he did, and he tells me that he wrote the orders, so that I can schedule the surgery… well, he emails me back, and writes,
“CCW: The orders for so and so are in system.
AB: Fan-tastic”

I giggled.  That’s funny to me.  Faaaaaantastic.   Come on, say it with me.   

Hmmm… What else?   Oh, I’ve come across some pretty great ideas recently– great ideas regarding health and feeling good versus feeling bad… I got a little more work to do on them before I blog them here, but they’re in progress, so I suppose you all will hear about them before long…I think that’s it for now… Thought I would check in with you all so you know that I’m doing well.  I’m so happy this semester is finished.  I am super excited to get my garden going… I’m stoked to finish painting the kitchen and getting the other miscellaneous things done around the house. It’s always a good time, yo.

Lassitude.  Complete and utter exhaustion…I recall this feeling… Between working full time and school full time, by the end of the semester, I’m freakin BEAT. I love it, though.  I love my job, which is strenuous and crazy.  I thrive there.  I love my classes, which push me beyond all of my limits: via what I’m learning and the people I’m learning it from.  Even the ridiculously stupid lab teacher has been good for me.  I’ve learned a lot this semester:

• -Eat plenty of fiber.  Regularity is priceless.
• -Love yourself. 
• -Be honest with yourself.
• -Give 110%.  It’s totally worth it.
• -Either you know it or you don’t.  You won’t learn it in a week.
• -Pick your battles.  You can’t fight with someone who isn’t on the same playing field.
• -Allergies are treatable.
• -Things that test your patience are not always bad.
• -Rather than feeling overwhelmed, keep putting one foot in front of the other.
• -Make mistakes.  Make them boldly.  Take responsibility from them and Learn from them.
• -Chemistry doesn’t have to suck.  Pick your attitude, and pick it carefully.

Fuck, I’m so tired.  I need to get away from this stupid computer and look at my notes for tomorrow.   I had an exhausting day. …but I’ll have you know, that for not studying a lick for that Chemistry exam, I think I did alright.

I have never seen myself so clearly. JZ posted several videos from our youth.  In one of them, was me.
The first few times I watched it, I was embarrassed, a little saddened by my inability to dress myself in a fashion that would not leave me red in the face at a later time. Honestly, my first thought was that I looked fat… which really didn’t make much sense to me, because at the time of the video, I wasn’t eating. I have seen pictures of myself as a non-eater. And in other pictures, I look quite the opposite of fat… I look sickly…skinny.

I want to tell you something about me… I’ve been thinking of how I was going to present this to you, and I could never quite find the words to embrace it. Now I understand, clearly.

When I was about twelve years old, I decided that I wanted to disappear.  I wasn’t quite suicidal, but I was definitely feeling very low about myself.  Instead of the more gruesome alternatives, I decided to starve myself.

I figured that the best case scenario was that I would become skinny and beautiful. Instead, I was wasting away.  I didn’t feel beautiful.  I didn’t feel lovely.  I felt like I needed other people– specifically men– to tell me who I was.  I needed validation, definition, molding… from these men that I loved.

I was anorexic.  I didn’t like me.  And I didn’t know who I was. (more…)

*grinning* 

It’s the day before finals week. 
I have a Trigonometry test on Monday, a Chemistry exam on Wednesday, a Chemistry Lab exam and a   Psychology of Communications exam on Thursday.   After that, I’m done with this semester.   I need an 83% on my Trig test to get an A in Trig. 
I need an 82% on the Chemistry exam.  (more…)

Through my eyes, the line between dreams and reality is a slight one.  Sometimes it is nearly impossible for me to tell the difference. This is frightening to me because the inability to decipher reality is an indication of psychosis.   Not to say I suspect I’m psychotic, but what I’m saying sounds fairly psychotic. What I mean to say is this:  When life becomes so magical, so powerful, so intense, so perfect, it seems only reasonable to question it.  It seems only reasonable that I might suspect that there is some alternate explanation… (more…)