Up

The process of always being up is exhausting. We are awake, or "up" all day and it makes our body so tired that we have to go to sleep, we need sleep to restore our body, give our mind a break. It's as essential to our well being as eating, breathing, drinking. We would wear down and literally die from lack of sleep. It's been proven that a person who is overly tired and lacking in sleep drives as though they have been drinking, and tired driving is just as bad as drunk driving. Our mind needs a break. But not just being physically up is exhausting, but emotionally up. Making do with a Mary Poppins attitude on a day to day basis is just as daunting. There has to be a breaking point in everyone who tries to be the good person, doing what others need, and being others oriented. Eventually they have to be self oriented, selfish, and self centered, and bring their emotional strength back to them. There is only so much that anyone can give to others without it eventually imploding. I imploded yesterday. Even as I knew I was falling, and struggling to keep myself up, I was falling and falling and falling. I felt like the loose end of the rope and I could see myself grasping at the threads only for them to break. Eyes wide and tearing, nose dripping, and shaking.. I fell, I imploded. I failed to keep UP. It was OK. I've seen it happen a few times to other people, and having the been there done that perspective of it, I empathize. Always seemingly foolish on the imploding end of my own self, I know it's not perceived as someone having a fit.. It's just the product of someone not being able to keep UP.

Ch Ch Ch Changes..

I've bought several books by Chuck Klosterman. I really like what he writes, and how his essays are a clear thought that also makes the reader think. Rather than just being entertained, I want to ponder and think about what I just read, especially if it is a new concept to my way of thinking, or perceiving something. The first thing that I read in his Eating the Dinosaur that really struck me was about time travel. It's not so much in the whole idea of time travel, as I don't ever see a possibility of it happening, or that of my ability to participate in it, it's the why of traveling through time that has always struck me as odd, without my being able to answer that for my own self, Chuck has been able to; "People who want to travel through time are both (a) unhappy and (b) unwilling to compromise anything about who they are. They would rather change every element of society except themselves." I had to wholeheartedly agree with him. I also wonder if these would be time travelers could in fact change things to make it better for them in the present sense. As Marty McFly did for him in Back to the Future. I wouldn't want to change time, to go back and examine the minute details of when there was a chance to make a difference, as the timing would have to be precise. Regardless of being able to warn myself to not do something, or to encourage myself to do something, I had to go through those things to be the person I am today. And I like the today me. The second thing he wrote that got my attention was about football, not insomuch as the game, but the whole process of coming from 19th Century football, to what we have now. "how thinking slightly differently can have exponential consequences, particularly when applied to an activity that's assumed to be inflexible" This can be brought to so many aspects in life. I at times view how things are unable to change, but when I look at it in a different way, and think about the possibilities, change does come about. I guess it really comes down to what David Bowie was talking about with Changes. "Just gonna have to be a different man, time may change me, but I can't trace time"

This is what I do

I work all day, I come home to find out that my neighbor is having issues with her son, who lives in her house still, and his on and off again relationship with a woman "J". I was asked by my neighbor "D", who happens to be in Illinois at this time working, if I could get J out of her house. As J is a little crazy and hooked on dusters and makes her son "R" nutty. D wires me some money to get J a room for the week. I tell them I have the money, I can do what ever needs to be done, just had to wait it out to see when one was ready to get rid of the other. This relationship is like fire and gasoline.. just bad, burning, angry fire. J knocks on my door, I go and get her stuff and take her to a hotel. She has freezer burns on her face from the duster cans, such a pretty girl and she looks like someone poured battery acid on her face. I don't judge people, we all have problems, some are just more severe than others. So we chat a bit and I drop her off, I pay for the room and she will be there for a week. I go back home, and R comes to talk to me, and I tell him of the conversation that J and I had. She claims to love him, but I told her love is kind, gentle, caring, not hurtful, and they have a lifetime of hurts that would take another lifetime to heal. When talking to my neighbor D, I told her the only thing I notice with these two people is that they think their issues are bigger and different than anyone else and that nobody understand them, or what they have been through. I have learned that we all have stories, we all have problems, and there isn't anything unique about the human condition, it's just what we decided to do with it that matters.

FFS and no more face book

Two days ago I deactivated my face book, again. Each time I have done this it's out of just being inundated with too much. I know of all the world social ills because of FB, I know what my friends kid ate for lunch because of FB. I know who's child is in the process of potty training, as they even post pictures of the successful potty bowl movement! Seriously for goodness sakes, I don't want to know that much. There has to be a limit to what others share, or how others post and respond. To think that kids are being bullied on FB and some so much so that they have committed suicide. Or how about the fb activists. In all their pride and glory they post about every thing that they are for, or against, sans their laptop, probably while lying in bed. Now I do know there are things that happen because of fb and the ability for people to communicate on there, such as the uprising in Egypt, the fund raising pages, groups and other active organizations who are able to share what they are doing thanks to fb. I'm still not convinced that fb is a positive thing. I have a mere 180 friends, all of only three or four I actually talk to on the phone, or go and do things with. A few are just family, who are out of town, and it's nice to see what's going on with them. And then the work group, which I somewhat regret ever adding anyone I work with to my facebook, when they get fired it's the awkward "do I unfriend them" thing. And yes, I do. But I always like my break, I tend to do more positive things in my life, and occasionally while I am on my hiatus I will do something really cool and think "gee, I should post this" but who cares anyway. So I get three likes and my cousin in Boise Idaho might actually notice and like it. Chances are nobody cares what I'm doing, and they are liking my picture because they like me as a person, and want me to notice them. So really, liking is self directed. So, I don't really care what I'm missing while being off of fb, I'm sure not much will change, or many will notice I'm gone, and if they unfriend me during my hiatus, it's probably doing me a favor.

Uno

I used to write, often and with great clarity. I had a lapse in this writing for others and started to write for myself, journaling and being open with myself in a creative process. It was necessary therapy for me during my most difficult times of my life, it was when living didn't seem worth any effort, my world was crumbling around me and I didn't know what to do. I couldn't share what was going on without feeling as though I would have any kind of scrutiny, and I sure didn't want pity, so I didn't write. My last post blog was over three years ago. And even then it was just a little blurb noticing it had been a year that I had posted something, as it truly had been four years ago when that rug was pulled out from under me, and I caved into myself. So what has happened in the last four years that I stopped writing, blogging, or getting my thoughts out in an open forum? My husband and I divorced. We've only been divorced for two years, however, usually it's bad for several years prior to the divorce, and ours was bad for three years prior, really bad for two. He lost his mind in a bottle of pills and liquor. I tried to maintain the peace, but the pieces fell apart in my hands. My oldest son, being an adult, was in and out of jail, mostly petty things. My teenage son was in and out of juvenile detention, and was sent to a program 250 miles away for four months, and we could only talk on the phone once a week and was only allowed one visit. Before my son went to program my husband was sent to rehab, and then lived in a halfway house during his post recovery. By this time I had fallen out of love, and was done with the relationship. He was not welcome back, and I filed for a divorce. I had no money, my mortgage was more than what I made a month, I was applying for food stamps, and was trying to keep myself together, with four boys in tow. I did receive two miracles, my interest rate was changed and my mortgage was cut in half, and my boys were chosen to participate in a program that would send food for the weekends in back packs home every Friday. Things were starting to come into place and I was feeling like I had made the right decision. I was happier, and the kids were too, but it wasn't without some major pitfalls, emotional roller coasters, and just feeling unworthy. I've made it through.. However, I'm struggling again. I'm not struggling financially, in fact, that's something I don't have to struggle with. I'm not struggling with the kids, they are doing rather well, and I'm thankful for that. I'm struggling because I'm not sure what I want with the rest of my life. I'm being made to feel as though searing for a new great love is supposed to be the main focus on my life, and I hate it. So I'm going to end it there.. I've dated, I've been on dating sites, I've been that woman who's tried. I'm not giving up, I just think doing it in a more unconventional kind of way is what I hope will work for me. Here's hoping. And the rest is yet to come...