Life Holds Onto You If You Let It

This is my second to last day of undergrad. Tomorrow I use what knowledge I have in my head and force it down on two finals. My mind hasn't really stopped racing, it started racing about a month and half ago. I am thankful that today I don't have a final instead I can study my brains out and focus. Although my focusing has been a bit sidetracked lately.
Mother's Day really through me off. It came out of no where and it was like I was running into a wall with a blind fold on. I didn't even leave the house that day because I was studying but leaving would be too much work. Normally days like this aren't the worse but I usually prepare for them.
Today is a weird day. I'm exhausted from sleeping? I have no idea but I am so exhausted. Last night my brother texted and told me that my niece, Alaina, was sick and had to go to the ER. ER...I hate those letters so much. To some it might seem has refuge or a career but to me it is just another word for bad. Also today it is my brother Brent's birthday. He passed away when he was 4 but I wasn't alive to know him. I think he would of been 29 or 30. I'm not too sure. The list just keeps growing!

Yea all this stuff is hard, it has to happen during finals week of my last year of undergrad. Although as I look back on the last 4 years I have had a lot harder times. I have conquered so much in such a small time frame. Yes, I know my grades aren't the best. But I was also dealing with a whole lot at that time of my life.

I have changed a lot since that first year. I feel more confident. I have more to say and I say it when I feel like it. I guess in a lot of ways I have found myself. I talked to or had flings with guys...but never completely dated someone in college. I didn't get my MRS degree. I didn't want to. I couldn't of...I was too busy finding myself.

I could say that this week is bullshit and I hate it. I wish I could skip this coming weekend and just ignore it. However, I can't. This week means a lot to me...this weekend means a lot to me. When my mom was dying I had made a few promises to her. I already fulfilled one of those promises. The second promise was to graduate from college. I'm doing it mom. I'm graduating. Every part of me wishes you were here. I wish I could hold your hand again and compare how similar our hands are. I wish you could meet my friends...the ones that helped me so much...but you can't. And because you can't...I have become a more independent, caring, thoughtful, and loving person. I wish I could of done it with you here but that is ok, its ok now.

Life holds onto you if you let it. It will drag you down so far. You have to learn to shake it off...and move past it. Learning to live seems like an easy thing in life...but I think it's actually pretty hard. Learning to live is a hard challenge because if you let the hard stuff control and run your life...you will get nowhere. The only destination you will arrive at is misery.

Sometimes I want to give up because it would be easier than trying. However lately its been harder to give up because trying is easier.

I have no choice but to hug life right back

I haven't written something thought provoking in awhile. I have settled for things that I have just repeated time and time again. However in this moment of time I am ready to unload some things. In a better sense document what I have been going through.

For the last month I have been struggling. Struggling in a new sense though. My stress has overtaken my thoughts and the way I am perceiving. I feel now that I have some type of hold on it. In a few weeks I will be graduating from college. I suppose this is some kind of life changing event...

The work load I have been given and taken on is a lot. Papers, projects, relationships, shifts in life, and new issues have been rising to the surface of my life. Lately, I have also realized how similar I am to my dad. We seem to be dealing with the same prohibiting personality traits at the same time. For the first time in a long time I feel as though he is taking care of me and I am not taking care of him.

I'm a perfectionist. I do not have this type A personality per se but I am a perfectionist in my own life. I want to control what goes on in my life in my way. My way isn't the best way but I like it. As you might have realized is that this way of being promotes some hardships.

I like to put my whole self into things...school doesn't allow me to do that. I have to spread myself from subject to class to home. Only parts of me are available. And guess what? I have so much going on in my life right now that I can only give a few percents of myself to each thing.

This results in me not sleeping. At first I wouldn't fall asleep until 5 in the morning...the next day. As you can imagine this through me off from everything, to my relationships to attending classes. It was hard to focus and it was hard to be there for people because I wasn't there for myself. I have changed some things...

I have changed or in the process of changing how I feel, think, and act. One of the biggest things I had to change and probably the most protruding...is my mom. This 'issue' that keeps coming up in my life no matter what. My mom won't be at my graduation. She won't be there when I get my dress. She won't be there holding my hand. She won't be there to take a picture with me in the scorching heat. She won't be there.

Sometimes I feel like a kid whose parent is in jail or something. How they could of been there if....fill in the blank...but they won't be. There could be possibility but they chose not to come. That is a thought I have changed. She won't be there because she is dead. However if she wasn't she would be there...and she would probably stress me out with choices and obligations. I would have to take out my lip ring and the plugs in my ears. I would of had to choose a dress that we both like...oh my gawd...I would of gone crazy.

I am not a motherless woman. I am woman that has a mother, she is dead. I am still me and I am still great. I have flaws, flaws that I work on. I struggle through life like anyone else. I relate with people who have lost a parent. I relate to people who have had grief in their life.

I am going through a life change. A change in my life that is real and there. I am not a copy of someone else but I am me. I struggle...but I make it worth while. This is life and once again it is opening it's arms wide and embracing me.....and I have no choice but to hug life right back.

I need to be honest because at this point honesty hurts way less than hiding it.

Prime stress.
4 papers and little time to complete all 4. Stresses of life settling their way into my cracks. Abundant things in every corner.

Though the cool thing about this is getting to really know yourself. I have molded and developed into a different person since my freshman year of college. Comparing the two side by side, is unreal to me to think about. I'm just so different. I've tried to find myself and it didn't really work out well. So I just went with the flow and natural I started to come to the surface.

When high stress periods come now I am starting to realize who I am through them. It is very interesting. I turn aggressive and lose a bit of my kindness along the way. Strangely, I don't even try to do this. It just kind of happens. My energy gets absorbed by the papers and the projects. There just isn't enough emotions to pass around or so it seems.

I have to set aside my stress and frustrations. I have to put them in boxes no matter how big they are or how small they are. They have their space...and their space isn't taped shut or even exposed. It is just in it's spot. Because once that all gets tangled with other unrelated things; trouble has started.

For some reason I snapped at some people that I love in the past few days. It is as though I have lost some control for some brief seconds and the beast is released. I don't know. But that is what it feels like.

So in these moments I realize who I am in certain scenarios. When some one is neurotic or has some sort of pathology...they act the same in every place you put them. They act the same at a party, coffee break, hanging out, being around friends, etc. Their response to situations they are put in or put themselves in are the same. That used to be the case for me...but now it is different.

For the last year or so I have been experiencing a new me. At times it is very exciting and other times it is very frustrating. Because it is like getting to know myself all over again. I suppose this is the traditional way of growing up, I am not sure. I am sure that I feel like I have a pile of clay in front of me...and it is my job to decide what I want to remove or shape. Decision making, it is a very interesting topic. We make decisions every day from the clothes we wear to the statements we say to friends. Our world around us has the power to manipulate us or bring us closer to the truth.

When my stress is very high, it interferes with my sleep. that is the point when I know that my stress is bad. It has to be dealt with. This is the point where I need to be honest because at this point honesty hurts way less than hiding it.

I see my life and I see how it affects the people around me. I don't know what to do and I am stuck. So I pull out of my shell and express that today kinda sucks and I'm stressed out. I need some comfort.
The hardest part of growing up is when you have to ask for help. When you have to ask for comfort it is like the walls are caving in.

I'm only confident in the things that I was forced to be confident in. I'm only confident in the things that were forced to grow up inside of me. I'm subconscious in the things that I have time and time again made mistakes in. I've never been good at stress. In fact I have always kinda handled it badly. But if I'm not confident in over coming this stress, I will never over come this stress.

Stress shall have no hold on me in a negative way. I will not submit to stress factors. Some stresses are good and can motivate you to succeed but once they start tearing you down...it is negative.

that special connection and it has a twist of intimacy attached to it

I've become the person who is able to put things in boxes and then think about them when I choose to open them. Although, when the boxes seem to be over flowing because too many things are happening...I explode.

I think I have had anxiety most of my life. I was an anxious child. I don't think my parents caught on to it because I would keep a lot of things inside and not disclose much to anyone. I remember having these mini panic attacks when I was little. Bedtime would come and I would start having anxiety of being alone. I didn't understand it. And the moment I would sneak into my parents room, I would fall asleep instantly. Around that time my mom was battling more cancer...

This feeling of being alone/lonely has been very exposed in my life. A lot of Christians say that pray to God because with him you are never alone. This was after my mom passed away. I suffered from depression, anxiety, and overwhelming thoughts and hurts.

I was told to just dive into God because he is all source of comfort. Because God is Almighty and cures all. What I wasn't told was that God doesn't just answer your prayer like a genie. He also doesn't always answer. He also answers on his time.

Another thing I wasn't told is that sometimes you have to perceive God as an Anti-depressant. Anti-depressants do not get rid of depression or anxiety. But they help you think clearly so you can cope and understand what is going on. It is there to help you sort out the overwhelming confusions.

God isn't a fix it bottom. I cannot just read a verse and be fixed. I can pray all I want it isn't a one sided relationship.

When I was depressed I have never felt so alone/lonely before in my life. I would cry in most of my prayers. I would sob for salvation from this life. I pushed myself as hard as I could go.

But what I needed to understand is that I needed to just deal with the depression, untangle the spagetti.

After saying that, I have been feeling alone. I have mentioned this type of alone before. I feel alone in the sense that I want to have an intimate relationship with someone. Though I'm not really searching. Available but not searching. It isn't so much as a selfish desire but it is a yearning to connect on a different level.

There is a certain kind of comfort that happens in a certain situation with a certain person. This comfort is acceptance from a human being. An act of God. A character trait of God. This comfort is awesome. I have this with somebody but that somebody is of the same sex and unfortunately I'm not gay.

Its that moment when you realize that the lights do not have to be off for you to confide your secrets in that person. That you can look your worse and in the daylight and offer your heart.

Its that moment when you find that special connection and it has a twist of intimacy attached to it.

I have learned the difference of being alone versus lonely. I'm not lonely right now. I feel as though lonely has bad connotations rather than alone. I can be alone...but i can desire more. I cannot be lonely...because I'm desperate for more.

Letting life be life and fiction lay on the ground

As I watched you lay eyes on me, I pretended that I didn't. I pretended that I didn't because I knew what you were going to say. You were going to ask me if I was ok. The phrase that I hear often and maybe too much then I should. The moment you ask me, I lie every single time. It is hard to accept when you know that someone knows you. Not in a sense of name and face but in a sense that they can depict how you act when you are sad, happy, annoyed, and etc. They then, see you. They see you for who you are and what you really are. So I lied. Because I have been found out. I feel sad and you have found me out. I feel mad and you have found me out. I do not understand how you have found me. I do not understand how you know me, but you do. I find it beautiful but oh so raw at the same time. It's surprising to me because I thought I was a wall. I wanted to be a wall. If I was wall then you wouldn't see the ugliness that I have in me. If I was a wall then I could hide from the truth. At my darkest days you expose the truth. At the days where I just don't want to...you ask if I am ok.

I'm a wall to many. Though I never seemed to be a wall to you. Or maybe I never wanted to be a wall with you, however I was in the beginning, a wall. I haven't told you all my secrets though. I have a few hidden. Not because I try to hide them but they are mine and I'm not willing to share. But you ask why I am not willing to share? Because then maybe you won't like me anymore or you will get bored because you have found every little intimate part of my being.

There are some days were I wish you were of the opposite sex because I know it could work in this weird way. And then I reject it because I like us how we are now. I like us how we are and how we found each other.

You asked me if I was ok. And I lied the first time. I never told you the answer the second time. I told you the answer over text the third time. I whispered it to you the fourth time because it would hurt less. And the fifth time I told you right after I brushed my teeth.

This time I told you and I expressed how fearful I was. How scared I felt and then I said to much. Because what I was most fearful of...was the reaction you had later. I woke up distraught the next day and wanted to escape far away.

There are times where I want to hear just the words I love you. Not in the way when you say a goodbye. The way when it is unexpected and most needed. Because then you know its real and still true.

I will only let a few in to the deepest parts of me. I will only let you in for now and maybe for them will be later. Because right now I feel secure.

I fight it and so do you. I feel equal. I feel equal for the first time in my life and I am not letting go of that. Don't let me let go of that. I'm letting life be life and I am letting fiction lay on the ground until it goes to sleep...so that I can live.

I have breath to question and struggle.

I think I know. But then I realize I didn't.
I've been having these amazing talks with my other half for some time now. They have certainly evolved over time. The talks began has figuring out life but sort of bashing people who think differently than us. Now it has turned into something more than that. Taking a step back and looking at the human experience. Understand how someone could of hurt us the way they have. Listen to the other person vent in totally confidentiality. Though the main point of it all is to lean on someone and be strong enough to let them lean on you.

As we have fumbled through life and keep fumbling I have uncovered the things I tend to cling onto more. I have found the things I have believed in and don't mind someone knowing. This has been apart of me changing and maturing although it has also been apart of me searching for the answers. I have found answers through my studies and constant readings. Learning to dig deep and not being afraid of the answer has seem to be the key.

There is something that I have almost refused to dig deep in. Not because I am afraid of the answer but because it as allowed me to actually find that answer while searching other things. Every since I went to Spain I have put God aside. Was this risky? Yes I believe it was risky. Though if He is real and an actually god then I knew I would come back. I didn't stop believing in Him or refuse to believe in Him. I did however stop believing that the churches I have been attending were Him.

There is a saying that going to church isn't what makes you a Christian. I heard that and listened to it. Why have I walked away from the church for a bit? Because I didn't feel welcomed. I didn't feel at home. I actually felt like I didn't belong. I have always felt this though. I have just felt it deeper. Most Christians are conservative republicans. Most, if not all, Christian Reformed churches are conservative republicans. I thought I was too. Until I looked at problems or concerns in the world from a different angle and then looking at all evidence.

I found out one thing. I can finally breath. I have breath to question and struggle. I have the chance to actually look at a human being and not judge them by how they look or act. I remember coming home one time from Michigan. I went to college group one night. There was a kid seating beside me. My friend leans over and whispers, "Watch out. He gets weird and dances everywhere. Its really annoying." So I did watch out...I saw how awesome he was. The songs played and so did his heart.

Whenever I go to church and its during the worship time....I sometimes get nervous. How are other people acting. How does this church worship. How should I act? When I'm with my friends at a dance party...I don't even care who watches me. I'm going to jump, scream the lyrics, go buckwild, I'm going dance like I just don't care, I'm going to be free. Why can't we do that in church? Why can't I worship God like that at church without looking like I'm psychotic? The pressures are so great to not look like that.

I could go on and on about the pressures I feel from the church or being in the church. I can go on and on about how they make me feel sad and not accepted. I can. But I won't for now. Instead I will pray for something. I haven't really prayed in a long time. I have a shitty but also beautiful reason for this.

I wanted and want to see the rawness in humans. How some friends are there to the point you have to tell them to back off. Or their are some friends that actually try to understand, others that don't, and some that are plain mean.

I have a group of friends. We have never been to church together. Some go and some don't. But the thing is I have never felt more loved. We are way too real. Others can't really handle it. We have accepted our rawness because we have all seen each other at our worse. There are times when we only see each other at our worse. I've never felt this before. I have never felt this from the church. I have never felt like I could come as I am into the church. To God...yes I have but not the church.

But I think its time to pray again...not for others. but for myself. Because i finally feel like I'm not in a competition anymore to be the "best" christian. I was so tired of it.

What I have learned though is that God hears you. I'm not sure how or even why but he does. Things are complex and when you try to simplify Christianity...it ends up not making sense. The world isn't black and white from the flowers popping out of the ground to the identity of sexual orientation you perceive to be you.

So I have decided I am going to pray. Pray for change, understanding, open minds, and the hearts of people to be open.

.

I think of all things great

Later in the day I was beginning to feel a lot of sadness. It was overwhelming so I decided to talk about it. I did and I have realized a lot of things. Things that I'm not sure I have ever vocalized. Or maybe I have I just can't remember.
It's Valentine's Day. A day to celebrate love. A day to have any excuse to tell your crush you like them. A day to be dramatic. A day of forever alone. The national single awareness day. The list goes on whether it is bad or good. My week days are boring. There isn't a lot of exciting things that happen anymore in the week. Most of my friends have graduated which doesn't leave a lot of friends to hang out with while I am at school. This results in me being alone most of the day besides seeing my classmates.
Today I just had enough by the time I knew I was going to be alone for several hours. I have actually learned how to take care of this and have a different mindset when I approach these kinds of days. It has happen so many times that I am in a habit of it. Although, today was just different. I started to miss the way my mom celebrated stupid holidays like this one. We, her kids, would have gift baskets of treats and/or a new clothing item. This happened on Easter, sometimes St. Patrick's day, and all the other minor holidays. Then my train of thought drifted to the fact that my mom is dead and I'm going to spend the rest of the day alone.
I know that sounds so morbid but once you have someone extremely close to you that affected your daily life...you will understand. My mind just started to drift to a black hole. Once it got there I was terrified...
I was depressed for awhile a year ago. My mind started to think about that and I started to cry. I have no intentions of every letting myself get to that point again.

So this is what I did. I talked it out. I learned that my closest friends really know how to make me feel important. They make me feel sane. They make me feel like a person. A person who is broken just like them.

I also thought about my mom who had a chronic illness. She also was on the Price is Right. She was on the talk show Montel Williams. She was on the News and talked to while walking for the cure for breast cancer. She did make up for plays. She came to everyone of my home games even if she was sick and in a wheelchair. She made my lunch every morning until she physically couldn't anymore.

I think it is hard to picture Jesus on the cross. Or I think its hard to see a human being selfless and give unconditional love.

But I think of my mom. I think about the ways in which leaped over cancer and crushed it's painful consequences. My mom wasn't perfect. Far from it. But to me she was. Because she is my Valentine...she achieved so much and in the worse parts of her life. How do you do that??!?!?!

When i get sad I let myself get sad. Then I think of things I'm grateful for. The things I'm good at. The things I love and the people I love. I think of all things great.