Life.....

Our lives are spent searching for what makes us whole, for the things that make surviving worthwhile.
-Karen White

It sucks to no end to have the things you thought made you whole and that you thought were the most important things in your life taken from you.

But what if you are supposed to be in a certain place living a certain life and the only way the world will ever get you there is by taking away the things making you stay in the wrong place for you?

Pictures

It really feels like I'm never going to be through with going through all of the picture albums, getting the pictures I want to keep out, and putting them in their storage boxes I bought at The Container Store.  I see I'm probably going to end up buying a whole lot more of those storage containers.  

Why's this my job?  Well there were two of us who would have done this.  One could have cared less and that leaves me.  I'm just now getting to the point where I realize I actually should and can throw a lot of these pictures away.....the ones that are too dark or blurry or of scenery that isn't that great and you don't know where it was taken.  I have all the albums in a closet downstairs and just went to look at how many more were left to do and I promptly got very discouraged.  I see myself buying who knows how many more of those picture boxes and spending many more hours getting the pics into the boxes.  

During this process I have come across a whole lot of pictures of times and people I'd rather just not think about anymore.  A lot of these pictures went in the trash.  Makes you wonder why we bother taking all of these pictures when they aren't ending up anywhere but the trash or a storage box.  Just sitting....and what will happen to them when I'm gone??  They'll all end up in the trash because there won't even be anyone left to get the pictures.  We are all immortal and that means when we're gone and there is no one left who remembers us, all of our belongings won't go anywhere but the trash.  Sad thoughts I guess.  But what is even more sad is how many of those pictures I chose to throw away because I just don't what to remember those people or times anymore.  The times were all lies and the people were mostly all liars or just people I don't know anymore and don't want to either. 

You know....

When you realize you hate everything about it then you get really motivated to do whatever you have to do to get out of it!!  Three hours later.....that is finished!

Tattoos & Tragedies & Strength

Turns out I like tattoos.  I REALLY like tattoos.  I love getting them and I love looking at and hearing about the ones others have that actually have some meaning.  Seems like there are two types of tattooed people out there.  Those that just want to be covered in tattoos and those that have carefully thought out and planned the tattoos they have......tattoos that have personal meaning to them.  I'm the second. 

More than just having the tattoos I have, I LOVE the feeling of getting a tattoo.  I remember my first.  I was scared and nervous all day long thinking I wouldn't go through with it.  I couldn't do it.  But from the first touch, I absolutely loved the feeling.  It was exactly what the people I know who are passionate about them said it would be like.  The "pain" of it (I don't think it is painful at all) is cathartic.  I'm in that group that thinks through the feeling of it or "pain" as some say, the pain inside of you comes out.  It is like a release of what you hold inside out into the world where it can't bother you anymore for a strength that comes in.  

That was my first tattoo.  The Hawaii state flower and a hawaiian word that has special meaning to me.  I still love it more than anything and I still remember the feeling of getting it.  It was an experience never to be forgotten.  Reminded me of the strong girl I am.  That one who sticks her tongue out at the world on a regular basis just to say, "I don't care!".

 Then this past year my best friend lost her battle to depression and anxiety and snapped.  Unfortunately, that means I lost her.  It got too bad and she gave into it.  I'll never understand.  I was the last person to talk to her before. I'm never going to get past that one.  I miss her so.  

Fourteen long years of craziness and fun and laughter and we even had some disagreements. But no matter what we always were there for each other.  So, there were three of us.  I spent last Thanksgiving with the third musketeer and somehow we went to talking about how we were going to honor Dee to talking tattoos to talking how many years we'd known each other to going to a tattoo place just to see how much the tattoo we wanted would cost to signing that paperwork and paying to sitting in that chair and then it was a done deal and I have my second tattoo I didn't even know I was going to get an hour beforehand.  We got them done at the exact same time listening to what brought us together.....a band.  

It means strength.  It is celtic and we added the 14 for 14 years of friendship.  

We did not know a couple of days before when I got there to her house on a little island in South Carolina that we'd be getting a tattoo. 

Then there is this girl who fights her way to the top. 

No matter what. I will succeed in my latest endeavor.  I will.  It might be hard at first, it already is stressful, crazy busy, full of the unknown and problems but I don't give up!!

100 Matchbooks

100 Matchbooks

Can't miss them.  Buy a case of 100 matchbooks and you're not going to need matches for a very long time.  You find matchbooks in places you don't even know how they got where you found them.  I remember buying that pack of shrink wrapped 100 matchbooks in a Piggly Wiggly in the mountains when all you wanted was one matchbook or a lighter to light a fire in the fireplace in the cabin you were staying in......with your best friend.   That person you thought would always be there because they always had been.....your entire life.  You played together as babies.  Then the day you both left the cabin in the mountains you split the 100 matchbooks so each had half and laughed about those matchbooks for years.Who ever would have thought the 100 matchbooks would still be around and she wouldn't anymore.  Guess I need to add that is her choice.  A weird choice I will not understand. You don't throw the baby out with the bathwater and your solution to your best friend just needing to talk to you about something bothering them is not to walk away but then change your mind the next day.  Too late.  Damage done.  One more person who just walked away without a reason.  

Last night I had a dream about another person who just walked away.  I don't even remember it now and I'm sure that is my mind's doing.....helping me out because it is bad enough just dreaming about them.  But things like that get me to the place of throwing away reminders of them I think about throwing away but don't.....just in case.  But really.....almost three years or four months going on five.  Doesn't matter because both are too long.  Fact is they shouldn't walk away at all and I for sure need to stop being so sentimental and thinking "what if". So, I stop it more and more as time goes by.  I cleaned out and threw away a red purse and matching red wallet today after only keeping four things that were in it.  That trash bag is already in the trash can in the garage.  It isn't coming out.  The pictures of kids shared have long been thrown away.  The pictures along with the baby book went in the trash today too.  Probably the last thing to go......the hardest thing to go.  

I wish I could stop being overwhelmed by what I have to do and doubting my decision because every time I get that feeling, life comes along and screws with me again.  Makes me glad I'm doing it......motivates me to work on getting ready.  Makes me glad there is only 13 Fridays to work left.  Gets me over that scared feeling of what will I do? I wish I could disappear now with no one knowing where I went but the handful of people left who never even thought of walking away.  Surely, no one else will do that.  Surely.  But then I wasn't expecting anyone to but they did......without reason. 

How can you still love someone despite all that has happened?  Why not everyone?  Why just that one person? With no way ever to let them know.  It has to come from them and who knows what goes through their mind......too convinced I'm the worse person in the world because I gave as good as I got, too screwed up, too focused on what they are going through right now, too proud?  I won't know ever know most likely.  There are more things I don't understand than I ever will understand.  But that's okay....once I leave, I'm not looking back on any of this anymore.  There will be a wall between the past and the present and it is not crossable.  You've got a few months left to fix it but I know you won't. Than I'm gone.....hard, challenging, stressful.....whatever it may be like.  There is really no challenge I can meet or no problem I can't fix.  You don't make it through what I've been through not to know that one. 

Memories Are Just Where You Leave Them

One of my favorite lines from a favorite song.....memories are just where you leave them.  And I am hoping so badly that when I leave (because I am) that they stay right here where they belong.  

All the memories......the good ones and the bad ones.  Maybe one day the good ones won't be as painful as the bad ones and I'll be able to enjoy them the way I did my whole life.....until it changed.  But right now the good ones might be even more painful than the bad ones. Maybe it is because I don't get to add to them anymore or because now they seem like some cruel lie I believed my life was about. 

So, I talked myself out of leaving.....making excuses really.  But then three people that could and did give me good advice about why I was doing that and why I was leaving gave me a good talking to.  They didn't just say the cliche things everyone else was saying like you know you can do it, etc. Then it was back on.  I accept that I have to make sacrifices.  I can't take everything I do like about my life here (which is very little and mostly material) with me.  I have to accept a new life that might not have the things I take for granted here, however the benefits of it are probably going to outweigh the things I give up.  I don't see how they wouldn't.  Doesn't mean I'm still not worried about that very important thing.....a job.  Ultimately, I know God is in control and will lead me to what I need there.  

So, I made that first step yesterday. I also planned the whole thing out in a notebook to help me make sure I take care of everything.  One problem is my energy is zapped and I don't even know why.  Emotions? Winter? Health? Medicines? Who knows.  I don't know what happened to it.  It was there.  But it is keeping me from doing what I need to do.  I've got to push through anyway.  

Back to those memories.....

I won't miss the people I run into here that I never ever want to see.  

I won't miss the possibility of running into someone I never want to see again.

I won't miss driving by places that have memories I'd rather not remember.  

I won't miss being slammed in the face by some memory that comes up just because I'm in a place that holds memories that were good.  

I won't miss the feeling that my whole life was a lie because I think about the memories that were good and I realize they have been soured now just because of the way the people in them turned out to be. 

I won't miss the feeling of not understanding why things have turned out the way they have.  

And I pray that none of those feelings go with me......that this truly is a new start for me.  I can be a new person without all that baggage.  

And I don't want these people I'm leaving behind to know where I am or even be able to get in touch with me again.  

And if that isn't far enough away then there are other places further away but I think I'm going exactly where I need to be.  Things will work out.  Even if I don't fill my life up with new people not like the old ones I still can be there....my spiritual place I'm supposed to be in that makes me happy.  That place where being alone is okay.  But I already have friends there waiting for me to get moved  that want me to buy the condo across the parking lot from them. :)

Ahhhhh, the unknown.  The wonderment of not knowing what my life will be like in six months or a year.  

Mad Is Just Sad's Bodyguard

It bears talking about that once again someone I concentrated and focused on got his karma.  Took almost two years but he got it.  Shouldn't have done the things he did or treated me the way he did. Yet, I still wish things had been different....that he could have seen the real me that I just don't show to those I don't trust.  When you keep letting someone down and doing things that are hurtful to them, you will never truly get in to their inner self where they trust you completely. I wish he could have seen the truth or treated me the way I need to be treated to be able to share it all. That's just me.....most just take that chance anyway despite how someone has treated them.  Most of all I wish he could see that the anger was just a coverup for the sadness.  The anger is awful and I hate it but can't really help it.  It is like something just snaps and the anger is truly a defense mechanism.  If you are mad then you can't be sad right then......it is there though.

 Now I have hope that the others I'm focusing on will get their's.  You just have to be patient.  It comes.......