Fear of meaning

My psychologist sat across from me in his office and he stated, “I don’t know what scares you more…the thought that life has no meaning or that everything in life has a meaning?”  The icy realization flooded into my brain as if I had been submerged into a frozen lake.  He is right (he is always right).  For so long, I fought with myself to find the meaning in every aspect of life.  I was convinced that even the most mundane of events happened for a reason.  Although, I did not (and still do not) believe in a God so it was difficult for me to truly believe that without a divine interference, something as meaningless as finding a penny on the ground could, for example, lead to the death of your mother.  However, for years I tried to cram my life and every event into this type of belief system.

As I grew older and experienced more cruelty from the world, I began to loose faith in my faithless lack of coincidences.  The jading set in.  I refused to believe that something as horrific as a woman being raped would have any positive purpose.  “Oh but maybe she will become an advocate for women’s safety!”  Regardless of how much positivity she has been able to contrive out of the trauma, I am willing to venture that any woman who has suffered such a thing would not hesitate to completely erase that incident from her life.  To believe that the decimation of her very being happened for a reason, is a heinous thought.  A thought that makes the world an even more heartless place.

As I wrote in an earlier post (An existential new year), stripping life of any and all predetermined purpose, creates a world void of divine and intentional cruelty.  It helps the jaded shadows in my heart to come back to reality with less hatred.  So yes, I am more terrified by the idea that everything happens for a purpose and has a meaning.  Meaningless hate should not have meaning but the same standard would have to apply to love.  Hard to stomach.  Believe it or not, I would like to once again have faith in people.  But I have learned that I cannot trust that much without hurting exponentially more.  I select my friends wisely and slowly.

It has been difficult for me to abandon the idea of everything happening for a reason.  For example, a friend’s father is an ardent pilot who frequently attends airshows with a few of his fellow pilot friends.  One weekend when another obligation kept him and his friends away from the show, a plane crashed directly into their usual seats.  Of course had they been there, they would have been obliterated.  A part of me screams, that of course…the fluke of an obligation happened so that he would miss that show and not die!  But I cannot pick and choose which events happen for a specific reason and which ones do not.  Other people died that day.  Perhaps some of them had never been to an airshow before.  For me, it causes less inner turbulence and turmoil to leave life blank of meaning and seek it out from a clean canvas.

I have to make sense of the random.  Unless otherwise clearly evident, I strive to create meaning out of mundane, instead of the mundane imposing meaning on me.  This is a sentiment that I also discuss in the post I have linked above.  I realize that I continue to come back to the topic of Existentialism but it is such a fascinating and fulfilling philosophy.  Dr. Daine explained that because Existentialists believe in self-responsibility, if ever they find themselves unhappy, it is their responsibility to change the situation.  Laying blame is not an option.  Of course when I believed that everything happened for a reason, it was far more easy to say “oh, well I am unhappy now because of blah, blah, blah but if I wait for the Universe to unveil my destiny, I should be happy again.”  “The Universe got me into this, it has to get me out.”  It is a terribly lazy way of being!  I wish someone would have slapped me out of such nonsense much sooner.

So why am I so unhappy now and how can I change it?  I am unhappy because I work a job that does not satisfy me.  How can I change that?  Throw myself into my writing.  And that’s what I am doing.  Or at least attempting to do.  I would absolutely love getting paid to write.  Part of writing for the masses is providing hope.  I have a difficult time providing hope since I am a rather hopeless creature and writing heart-felt sentiments about the “light at the end of the tunnel”  feels forced.  How, then, can I give people hope?  How can I positively influence people?

Perhaps I can start by saying that I am not the only one who has these internal wars.  I am aware that some may not want to publicly discuss these issues or are not comfortable confronting them.  I still have a horrid time when I venture to that avenue of my brain.  But the further I venture and the more honest that I am with myself and everyone I interact with, the better.  I am the Queen of the tw0-faced but am trying to relinquish my crown.

Hope, hope, hope.  How to give hope.  There are wonderful mental health professionals out there!  Never, ever be timid to seek out help.  Be open to the reality that therapy might first tear you apart.  Then, be ready to heal.  Avoid complacency.  Do not allow yourself to become stagnant.  Even those few sentences feel fake when I re-read them.  I suppose I am not done being torn apart.

I will continue my writing in the hopes that I can make a career out of it.  Anyone want to hire a great writer?

Pile O’ wood

When I asked Travis what I should write about, he paused.  He then said “why don’t you write about this giant pile of wood?”  No, he wasn’t referring to the wood in his pants…keep it clean, people (pfff…yeah right, like I can do that).  He was talking about the literal pile of wood that is currently stacked up in our dinning room.  It is not fire wood, it is hundreds of pounds of wood flooring.  “That’s close to $12,000 of wood!”  He shrieked when he learned that his parents were going to redo their wood floors.  He excitedly loaded up half of the Amazon forest in the back of his pickup after his parents were finished pulling it up from their house.  Now, here it sits…in our dining room.  Looking like drift wood clogging up the feng shui of the damn house!

Travis is in between jobs so naturally, being the busy little North Dakotan beaver that he is, he has to have projects going to occupy his days.  So this opportunity to rip up our nice, soft, warm, cushy carpeting is perfect for him!  Except for the fact that he has about 10,500 other projects in the works.  He will start his new job soon.  The Christmas tree hasn’t even been taken down because Mount Wood is overflowing into the necessary work space to take fragile ornaments down.  Our dinning room table has been dashed aside and now sits at an awkward angle up against a wall so only one person at a time can sit.  Oh, but we have $12,000 of wood.  Mind you, that word is warped and will need to be sanded and refinished.  Did I mention that he will start his new job soon?  Yeah, I’m feeling like a sour patch kid right now…bitter.  But if by some miracle, he does finish this monstrous project, I will be sweet.  Except for the fact that wood floors hurt my knees and I hate having to sweep every single fucking day.  Soooo…just bitter.

I’m sure it will look lovely when he does manage to finish said project.  But until then, there is a pile of wood in the dinning room…I can’t even vacuum over there.  It is killing all my will power to keep the house clean.  It is making it impossible to take the tree down, so there are pine needles everywhere because the cats still like to play with the tree, but I can’t maneuver the vacuum in that area of timber-fallout so why even bother vacuuming the rest of the house?!  And then I can’t justify sweeping because the debris from the carpet will just be tracked into the kitchen where it will get stuck in my socks and poke my toes.  And then when I go to try and remove the debris from my toe, Spartacus will want to rub up against my leg while I am perched like a Flammingo on one foot, which will throw my balance completely off, causing me to execute a running-in-place-on-top-of-a-pile-of-loose-marbles-type-thing while Spartacus gets sucked into the vortex of my whirling legs, throwing me even more off balance.  I step on his tail, then his face, this his abdomen, then I fall backwards at the perfect angle to break my neck on the counter.  I would then probably become comatose.  And WHY?  Because there is a pile of wood in the dinning room.

So after you have written out your “get better” cards to me and are reading them to my corpse of a body being operated by life-support, make sure you point your fingers of shame at Travis and then give him a business card for a guy you know who installs wood floors.

Yes, I am being a princess.  Yes, I am bitter that my motivation to keep house has been killed by a stack of wood.  Yes, I am being dramatic.  But goddamn…I needed to vent.  Yes, I love Travis.  The floor will look beautiful…it will, it will, it will.  Until then, I will continue to be bitter and curse that pile of wood.  It is literally going to kill me.  You heard it here first.

P.S. That bit about Spartacus getting caught up in between my legs and nearly killing me actually happened…I did almost fall on my face.  It was traumatizing.

Misheard lyrics

Here is something that everyone can identify with!  You are driving down the road listening to your stereo, bopping along, “singing” all the words to the song like you own that bitch when all of a sudden, you hit a patch of words that you just can’t hear so you mumble through that line…coming out strong on the other side.  “Bye, bye Miss American Pie…Now, for ten years we’ve been on our own, and moss grows, fat on a rolling stone, but, that’s not how it used to be.  Ohhhh ba the jester lala da ma ta for the King and queen in a blah, rah, pah, from James Dean, and a voice that came from you and me.”  Something like that.  Here is a list of my favorite misheard lyrics.

1.)  Weezer’s “Sweater Song:” in high school, my friends and I were driving around listening to the radio when this song came on.  We all started singing along and once we hit the chorus, we were going strong!  And then…Megan sang “I don’t care what you say about my sister!”    We all fell silent and our quizzical looks most have been enough to turn poor Megan a shade of red not yet identified by man.  Really, the lyrics are “If you want to destroy my sweater…”  I’m not positive that she will ever live that one down.  She also provides the next funny on my list.

2.) No Doubt’s “Don’t Speak:”  also in high school.  I think maybe even right after the sister and sweater mix up.  Megan admits that she always thought the lyrics to the chorus were “Don’t tugs and hugs it hurts!”  In actuality, they lyrics are “Don’t tell me ’cause it hurts!”  Just take a second and replace the lyrics…let it sink it.  Sometimes I wish I could take credit.

3.) I am not very familiar with this song but the monumental fuck up of the lyrics is pretty good.  The song…”Love Comes in Spurts” by Richard Hell and the Voidoids.  It is a suggestive title.  Here is my interpretation of the above lyrics: “Blow jobs in space.”  Yes, that’s right, you actually heard me correctly…I, however, did not hear that song correctly.  How one manages to hear “Blow jobs in space” versus “Love comes in spurts,” is far beyond me.  I blame it on the background noise of the round battling for my attention when I listen to music in the car.

4.) This one just makes no sense either.  It is funny how one little misunderstanding can change the entire context of the song.  Especially when said song is death metal.  The song: “Inflikted” by Cavalera Conspiracy.  The actual lyric: “Muthafuckin’ wicked.”  My understanding (or rather misunderstanding): “Muthafuckin’ weekend.”  Because every death metal band just loves to sing about the weekend in the middle of their angry song.  “Unleash the wicked/this hate is self-inflikted/deliver this torment/upon your final judgement/follow the storm/in the land of no return/it’s you, the scum/we’ll kill until it’s done/inflikted/show no mercy/muthafuckin’ wicked.”  Voila!  It goes from a song about self-loathing and torment to a party anthem about the weekend.  Not so much.

5.) After doing some research on the good old Google, I found out that next misheard lyric is a very common one!  The song: “The Stranger” by A Perfect Circle.  The actual line: “Fuck your tornado.”  90% of the population hears: “Fuck your tomato.”  That’s right, Maynard!  Fuck those pretentious people and their fucking tomatoes!  Always drying them out in the sun and sprinkling them in with your spaghetti sauce.  Pfffhhh.  I don’t need your damn toma….oh wait, tornado.  You mean tornado.  Well that changes things.  But with Maynard, you never really know.  Hell, he sings about shitting the bed.  What’s to stop him from fucking your tomatoes?

6.) My last beautiful gem of misunderstanding comes not from a song but from a movie.  The movie, a cult classic: Evil Dead.  The actual line (muttered out by a haggish old demon-lady):  “Someone’s in my fruit cellar!”  This is what my friends and I heard: “Someone’s in my fruit salad!”  But with that movie, fucking anything is possible.  Maybe Bruce Campbell actually was in the old living-dead lady’s fruit salad?  Well that would have to have been Evil Dead 2, when Ash was cursed and manifested multiple tiny little evil clones of himself.  Now those itsy bitsy bastards could fit in a fruit salad.  I would be vexed, too.

If you have any fabulously misheard lyrics, do share!  I have millions more but the number is so large that it would take far too long to list and describe them all.  Keep on listening and don’t let that road noise cloud your ears.

You know you are a CNA when…(explicit…kind of)

1.) Your motto in life quickly becomes “urine is sterile, urine is sterile.”  You have to adapt this dogma if you want to survive in the healthcare industry.  I have had urine splashed on me in more ways than I can even remember.  The incident where it managed to get in my shoe at the beginning of a crazy-ass, hectic, chaotic, hell in a wheelchair eight hour shift is probably the most memorable.  I still shudder when I think about the sound my poor foot made all night as I squished through the halls.  Ewwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwww.

2.)  Smells no longer phase you in the least.  I have smelt everything from a deep GI bleed to vomit that looks as if it came straight out of someone’s asshole.  So when our identical neighbor cat managed to get captured and thrown into our house because someone thought that this cat was Spartacus (my little black and white cat), I had no problems at all scrubbing and scrubbing the cat shit off the walls and out of the carpet for a good hour.  Bret, the poor neighbor cat has been trapped in our house twice now!  He always gets the anxiety shits.  During this second imprisonment, Bret had exploded out of his ass and Travis sat on the couch across the room making faces that little girls make when they see a frog.  This lack of caring about smell also greatly behooves Travis.  That boy unleashes some of the most noise hair-curling, brow-furrowing, room-evacuating farts in the history of all of mankind.  Shit.  I can keep resting my head on his lap.  I’m not bothered.

3.)  You have been in a physical alteration with an elderly person…and they started it.  This is an occupational risk they do NOT teach you about in school.  They teach you “go along with the patient’s delusion, if they want to be the king of England for dinner then let them.”  They do not however tell you what to do when your patient, who is a wickedly strong old farmer, comes after you with a fire of destruction burning in his soul.  Never before have I been so frustrated.  My natural instincts were to fight back but ethics get shady when the RN has to break up a fight between the CNA and one of her patients.  The best you can do is make sure they aren’t about to fall on their face and simply walk away.  Yes, I have come home with teeth marks on my arm, scratch marks on my face, and the imprint of a foot on my chest.  These are just the more memorable injuries.  Deadliest Catch?  Yeah, right…more like Deadliest Elders.

4.)  No one wants to hear your work stories over dinner…or ever.  But if you have read this far, then you have been submitted to a few of them.  I forget that people genuinely do not want to hear about the literal shit storm that I encountered at work.  Yes, a literal shit storm.  Probably should have just burned that bathroom to the ground.

5.)  People die on your watch.  It is the nature of the job.  You grow an immunity to death and dying.  I will admit, this sensation has struck me deeper than it does most CNA’s but it usually works to my advantage.  My hall partners were usually the more sensitive ones which made for a perfect pair when it came to dealing with death.  I took care of the bodily aspects and they dealt with the family.  Voila!  Oh, gallows humor.  My good friend.

I could continue listing the disgusting nature of being a CNA but I will stop torturing you…if you are still reading.  Sometimes you just need to share your work/war stories.  Thank you for coming along with me on this “journey.”  If you ever had questions about entering healthcare, now you have an inkling of an idea of what you are in for.

 

P.S.  Don’t call CNA’s “angels of mercy,” we don’t appreciate it.  And not all CNA’s are equal!  Some of us are poor souls working in an industry that they can’t simply walk away from even to achieve their goal of being a writer for a living.

The trials and tribulations of being super tall

Before my readers who consider themselves to be short get all huffy puffy, let their panties get in a twist, and try to punch me in the face (if they could reach it…ha!), let me explain that just as being short has its own set of problems, so does being tall.  So just relax.  I love being tall and I would not want to take off any height but it can be problematic being the Jolly Green Giant.

1.)  Here is an obvious one, jeans!  I cannot find jeans that are long enough for me.  Whenever I sit in a chair, my paints ride up my calves giving me the “Abraham Lincoln Syndrome.”  That poor guy was a giant of his time.  As am I.  When I ride my horse bareback (don’t get all sexual with that, people), my pant legs slowly work their way up and around my legs so that by the time I am done, I look like I am ready to go clam digging in the Mariana Trench!  This is very annoying.  Oh so very, very annoying.  If I want a pair of jeans that actually fit me in the legs, the ass, and the waist, I have to pay $80 +.  Through my thorough search for jeans, I have noticed that most manufacturers design jeans with a long inseam to fit a girl with a tiny, teeny little ass or a monstrously large one.  It is unfathomable that a woman of my size could have a nice normal rear and a normal waist.  I think it must be a plot by the high end designers to keep women like me coming back exclusively to them.  They pay off brands such as Levi’s to give me the shaft.  This has been a problem of mine ever since I started to grow taller than my peers.  My mom would buy me a pair of jeans and the next month, they would no longer fit.  Arrrggghhh!  I must have made some girls very happy when they brought my old brand new jeans home from ARC.  At least my height benefits someone.  Not even jeans from White House Black Market fit me.  Think about that.

2.)  Dating.  I have been rather fortunate in this arena but the first boy that I fell in love with was 5’6″…I am 5’11″.  Pushing on 6″.  I did love him dearly (even though now I wish him nothing but acid rain, doom, and castration), but it was never comforting to rest my head on top of his head.  Or have to bend down to kiss him.  It doesn’t really lend itself to feeling like a girl.  I felt like the yeti.  He wore my sweatshirts.  I stretched out his shirts.  I couldn’t put anything in the highest cupboards because he couldn’t reach them.  Needless to say, it was a pain in my high off the ground ass.  The next man I fell in love with was blissfully tall.  It was such a wonderful feeling to be able to rest my head on his chest and wear his sweatshirts.  It made me feel like a girl.  Travis is a perfect height for me!  Just a few inches taller than me and muscled.  I could put him a burrito and eat him.  But if he were shorter than me, I probably never would have dated him to begin with.  Sorry, short guys.  Yes, I would have resigned myself to a life sans Travis if he had been taller than me.  Maybe…

3.)  Higher center of gravity.  Admittedly, I am not the most graceful person by any fucking stretch of the imagination.  I do, however, posses ninja-like reflexes but it is only because I am perpetually dropping things and tripping all over myself.  I drop things with such skill that it would amaze even someone with literal butter-fingers (take a second to imagine that in your head, go on…greasy, huh?).  While being a world champion klutz doesn’t strictly depend on my height, my extremely high center of gravity puts me at a disadvantage when it comes to walking and existing.  Most definitely when it comes to playing King of the Log.  One of my best friends who happens to be 4’11″ whooped my ass at that game!  I thought for certain that I had her beat…straddle a log that is raised horizontally off of the ground a few feet and beat the crap out of each other with a pillow until one of you falls off.  I was dead in the water.  My friend wailed on me with the strength and fury that women exert when they smash ungodly spiders with the closest object.  Annnddd….over I went.  Had I been shorter, I could have beat her little ass.  But alas, my stature cursed me.  Plus, a fall to the ground from such great heights can be lethal.

 

4.)  Pictures.  Again, I look like a yeti.

Yeti-beth

Pretty much spot on.  Even the distractingly large bellybutton.

 

5.)  Finding a saddle that fits my legs!  I can’t even begin to describe how annoying this is.  Even the $3,000 Rodrigo Pessoa saddle that I worked my face off to buy isn’t a perfect fit for my legs…and it has an extra long flap.  Sheeesh.  I would probably require a custom made saddle which would cost more than I can even fathom.

I am done bitching about being tall.  But remember, one woman’s envy is another woman’s pain the ass!   But seriously, I love being tall.  I just hate jeans…a lot.  Not even my PJ’s are long enough.  Abraham Lincoln syndrome, Abraham Lincoln.

WHAT THE FUCK?!  I just looked up a picture of Abe so I could insert it here and show you all what I mean and guess what?  His fucking pants fit him.

What the deuce?!

Well I suppose I should rename it “Elizabeth Heckmann Syndrome.”  Damn.

 

 

The curse of the underdog

Have you ever noticed that in the movies, literature, and any other mediums telling stories of human interactions the underdog is always the hero of the story?  Always!  So technically, the underdog character is in fact not the underdog.  They get the girl/boy, they get the job, they get the money, and the bully is humiliated in public and stripped of their ego.  I think that this would make the popular, arrogant, snobby characters the underdogs.  Not that they should garner any sympathy…we should simply change the definition of the word “underdog.”

Was it ever popular to be “popular?”  If we are taking our social cues from movies then definitely not.  It is true that in high school, the cool and popular kids were usually also the mean and cruel kids.  They were outnumbered by the quiet, nerdy, awkward, nice kids.  I understand that being quiet, nerdy, awkward, and nice did put me and the mass of kids at a disadvantage (the relative definition of “underdog”) during high school.  Why though?  If we outnumbered the popular kids, what gave them the advantage?  I suppose it was their grotesque ability to belittle the masses.  Their hormones drove them to act wildly, like arrogant, cheeky stallions.  They represent the age old dilemma of a lack of confidence compensated by cruelness to mask their emotional shortcomings.  Hence, the arrogant, grotesque, cheeky necessity to belittle the masses.

However, most “underdogs” realize that they are eventually going to have a stereotypically better life than the popular kids.  They strive for jobs that tend to pay more money due to their demanding nature.  All flavors of engineers, doctors, lawyers, inventors, computer gurus, and all nerdlinger related professions.   More money in this society equals a higher social status, a more attractive mate, and more luxuries of life.  Having spent my entire life with these types of people, I can confidently state that these kids know in their heart of hearts that they are better than the popular clique.  They harbor a secret arrogance of their own.  I know, I harbor my own secret arrogance.

I recognized that in order to survive the death gantlet of high school, I had to work harder at every endeavor.  What are we taught in this society?  Hard work makes you a better person…not an underdog.  In America, working hard technically does not put you at a disadvantage, and us underlings know that.  We know that it makes us superior people.  While we wallow away in our misery of braces, acne, glasses, used clothes, and an absurd amount of book knowledge, we are secretly bolstering our egos.  While the popular kids are trying to devastate our egos, we are reinforcing them with heat treated steel, anger, and knowledge.

I say there is a curse of the underdog because of the secret ego.  A secret ego is almost more appalling than I blatant, obvious ego.  We refuse to express our egos for fear of becoming one of the evil popular kids who tormented us.  We have no idea what is a healthy display of ego.  The confusion of contradicting agendas is a curse.  Embrace the ego and potentially become like one of the popular kids or condemn the ego and confine yourself to a life of inner conflict?  Dun, dun, DUUUNNN!!!

  An old video  but applicable.

If the original underdogs end up with sex, money, and happiness, then I feel as though the popular kids, who usually do NOT outnumber the meek and have tendencies to end up leading a life void of accomplishments, should be named the new underdogs.  They are fewer in ranks, have more confidence issues, work less, make less money, and therefore, put themselves at a disadvantage.

I think it is due time that us nerdlingers embrace our egos and fucking own it!  Of course, I have very little money and I have emotional issues up the wazoo but  I most definitely do not identify with the new underdogs/the popular kids.  I identify with the tormented geniuses.  However, I am no genius.  Just smart…smarter than the popular kids.

Soooo, I am better than them?  I will own it.  I will look down my nose at them.  I’m tall enough.  Won’t you be my nerd neighbor?

Echoes

This is a piece that my psychologist prompted me to write about.  It was inspired by his new office.  It is in an old building with high ceilings that allow for an echo.  This made me very uncomfortable.  Yes, I am weird.

 

An echo is a reflection of the voice.  The voice is a conduit for the emotions that stir within.  An echo is a reflection of emotions.  Within my head, there is such traffic that there is no room for an echo.  A single emotion will pound its fists on the inside of my brain in a desperate attempt to scream loud enough to resonate within the confines of my skull.  Unfortunately, it will usually go unheard.  The turmoil of a mass of emotions pleading for attention creates such a tangled jumble of noise that eventually, all I hear is a static.

Every now and then, my mind will tune into a single thought long enough and clearly enough to decipher a single feeling and make sense of it.  Often, when my mind attempts this fine tuning, the jumble will interfere.  A precise S.O.S tapped out in a cerebral Morse code is quickly hijacked by the mess of dots and dashes that have become ensnared with each other.  My message is lost.  My emotions are lost.  My voice has no clear echo.

The euphoria of nothing is something to be coveted.  Once my mind and my brain are empty and quiet enough, my voice can echo.  Even if the echo is something that I am afraid to hear…a message from my heart to my mind.  My heart screams at my mind to pay attention, to pull itself out of the abyss and bliss of love and protect the rest of my body.  On good days, I am able to receive this echo loud and clear.  These are the days when the inner turbulence is still and thoughts can linger in peace, or unrest.  The most painful feeling is when I am able to process a message that screams to about a love into which I have given myself completely that is destined to fail.  And soon.

The most distal aspect of my stomach becomes a vice.  The sensation of utter lose creeps up through the rest of my body…my throat catches, my breathing becomes shallow and rapid, my neck stiffens, my eyes swell, my tongue quivers with the onset of tears, my lips part, my voice breaks through with such remorse that it could drown even the hardiest of water dwellers.  My words trickle out, echoing the life-consuming depression from within.  This is one of the echoes that I dread.  In the quiet, it will come and cause unrest.

Perhaps I avoid such stillness so as to avoid this cautionary message that only eviscerates my heart and rips me apart limb from limb.  The only euphoric feelings and echoes I have received from within occurred when I lost consciousness.  I went from standing, oriented, and alert to falling through the air headed towards the ground.  My mind was black.  There was nothing but the most pleasant feeling of freedom.  In a nihilistic manner, everything was nothing and it was amazing.  However hard I strive to achieve that feeling again, I am afraid it will never happen.  Unless I force my body back into these specific physical circumstances, which would ultimately be detrimental to my brain.  So it is not an option.

Life was so quiet that any hint of emotion could have echoed out of my being and just continued on and on into the void.  It was beautiful.  Nothing had ever been so clear and so quiet.  No fear of what was screaming within to be found there.  It was as pristine as a forest under a fresh bed of snow glistening and reflecting the perfectness of a full moon.  Untouched.  No distortion or twisting of echoes.  If I was able to go back to that place, every single emotion would have its own time and own message so that the quiet wouldn’t be as dangerous.  Every feeling would be allowed to resonate with perfect pitch, no matter how ugly the information is that is carries.

As I already longingly stated, this is not physically possible unless I want to harm my poor body more than I already have.  So, what can I do?  Meditate?  No, the emotions are too impatient, too powerful, and too chaotic to allow that.  This is where my army of Synapse Swallows would be absolutely perfect.  Little armor-coated birds to fly through the mess and pick out individual echoes that need to be interpreted and processed.  If only!  I will have to settle for medications, therapy, inner wars, and jumbled defenses to try and decode all of my echoes and cries as they come screaming to the surface.  I never have been comfortable settling.

Rent a pup

I have the next million dollar idea in mental health care….rent a puppy.  Last Saturday, I was miserable.  My friend who suffers from severe depression was also miserable.  We had been exchanging texts all day about how horrid we were feeling.  We were two miserable peas in a dismal pod and we were not coming out!  You could not have dragged us out by our feet because our misery was so deeply rooted.  As I trudged through the day with a permanent scowl on my face and my phone clutched in my hands, thumbs flitting over the keyboard while expressing and sharing my anguish with my friend, I found myself become more and more cranky.  I didn’t even want to ride my horse <—–that’s a big deal.  However, I did need to go buy a bag of grain for my horse so Travis drug my mopey ass to the feed store.  This is when my depression was kicked in the teeth, a la Chuck Norris round house style.

Upon entering the feed store (one of my favorite places), we were greeted by lovely little husky, pointer mix.  It is impossible for me to stay stern with a dog vying for my attention.  As my grumbling slowly changed into high pitched cooing that was predominated by vowel sounds “eeeeaaaaaooooooiiiaaeeaaaa”, my eyes fixed on the most adorable puppy in…the…world.  He was sitting on the bottom of a shelf amidst some random merchandise.  He had his little puppy feet together  in front of his little puppy body and was sitting so cutely that I almost died.  He was a pointer, aussie, most-adorable-thing-ever mix.  My cooing then reached pitches unheard by the human ear.  As the tough, young, manly cowboys who run the feed store tried to take my order, I could feel their eyes fixed on my shameless display of girlishness while they were trying to avert their ears.  I managed to peel myself away from the puppy just long enough to squeak out what kind of feed I needed and then immediately melted back down to the floor where the little baby puppy was sitting with his freaking adorable little face and his tired little puppy eyes.

He had the soft fur that just makes you want to stroke them until they go bald.  His innocence and helplessness are they qualities that fill you so full with love and joy that you might just die.  You find yourself clenching your teeth together so as not to squish the puppy’s head off with joy.  Why is it that when people find animals so adorable, they have an urge to smash them?  All I wanted to do was pick up the puppy and squeeze him until his sweet little head popped off.  I could literally feel the cute building behind my chest, I was positive that my heart was going to burst.  It was a welcome change to the absolute depression that had overtaken my entire body, making my heart barely flutter…”like a pigeon having a heart attack” (Elvis [played by Bruce Campbell] in the movie Bubba Ho-Tep).

The young man who rung me up informed me that if I had come one hour earlier, I could have seen all seven, yes SEVEN puppies that were for sale!!  If that had happened, I most likely would have walked in, dropped my purse, and rolled onto my back on the dusty floor so that the puppies could have frolicked around me while I lay on the ground with a shit eating grin spreading from ear to ear and giggling like I used to when someone would tickle me to the point where I couldn’t breathe.  I also would have tried to nag Travis to the point where he would have wanted to throw one of the puppies at me so that I would stop begging him to let me bring one home.  Travis is very particular about his dogs, no puppy from a feed store will do.  Pretty much any puppy ever makes me happy.

As I left the feed store, I was blissful with the air of puppy clinging to my heart strings.  I whipped out my phone and immediately texted my depressed friend that we needed to open up our own Rent a Puppy business.  People couldn’t necessarily take the puppies off of the property, but they could pay for a specific amount of time to come and just immerse themselves with the preciousness that comes with laying on the ground surrounded by puppies.  You literally cannot stay grumpy when surrounded by such angels of ridiculous cuteness.  No longer will you be deeply rooted in your pea pod of despair.  I dare you, try it.

Just look at this photo and see if you can’t keep from reverting back to cooing and getting all ooey gooey over “da wittle baby PUPPY!!!  Oh my gwaaadd!!!”

Awwwwwwwwwwwwwwww!

 

You are welcome.

Antiques Road Show vs. Football

It should be no surprise that someone of my cynicism dislikes football.  Just in case you had any doubts, I do, in fact loath football.  I like hockey and soccer.  I think it is the perpetual amount of play time that is able to draw me in and keep focused on the action.  In football, someone takes a damn step forward and the refs blow the whistle and throw one of those weighted flags on the field….”Excessive use of the right foot!”  At least in hockey, you can watch some good fights.  However, more superior to all sports, most definitely football, is Antiques Road Show.  Even if I had cable, I would still watch ARS.  Below is a list of reasons why ARS is better than football:

1.) ARS is by far more suspenseful than football!  People bring in their cherished antiques with hopeful anticipation that they will be the person who brings “the antique.”  They find an old sock at a garage sale and cross their fingers that it was Napoleon’s sock and will sell for $8,000,000.  But before the professional gives the antique owner an appraisal, we have to sit through a thorough explanation of how said sock was sewn and with which specific type of needles were used to create this masterpiece.  We get a detailed examination of the skin follicles left in the sock and then learn that Napoleon had tertiary Syphilis when he was wearing said sock.  After the appraiser whips out his text book about 19th century STDs in France, we can finally stop biting our cuticles off because the price is about to be revealed!  Yes!  This sock is worth…$8,000,000!  Oh man!  I thought for sure it was rubbish!  The owner starts crying and you can almost see the visions of swimming pools, new cars, a mansion, and designer clothing floating around their head.  <—- You can’t get this shit out of football.  Throw the ball, stop, run two yards, stop, kick the ball, stop, etc.  Whoopty fucking doo.

2.)  While watching ARS, you are not submitted to watching grown men wiggle around in spandex.  And when I say “wiggle,” I mean writhe around in a disgusting manner.  It is so awkward.  It is as if someone has packed a maximum load of jell-o into a zip lock bag and left it on the ground during a 6.8 earthquake on the Richter scale.  There is a physical repulsion while watching thighs, bellies, and asses wobble around underneath their spandex prison.  The worst part?  Slow motion replays.  There are ass-shots galore and I can’t help but vomit in my mouth…in slow motion.  It is perhaps one of the most uncomfortable experiences in life.  <—  You will never suffer through such unspeakable travesties while watching Antiques Road Show…ever.

3.)  ARS is both exciting and educational!  I don’t feel that is necessary to go into great depth about why football is not as education as ARS.  However, learning about the individual players’ lives remind me of those old shows on MTV about “scaring a kid straight.”  They are wonderful examples of the exact opposite of how one should direct their lives.  Remember, when packing heat in your pants…no I’m not talking about your genitals…I’m talking about a gun, check your safeties first!  I remember a news story about a player (he might have been a basketball player but basketball is just as deplorable as football) who kept his loaded gun down the front of his pants and ended up literally shooting himself in the foot.  I know people probably make idiotic mistakes like this everyday but come the fuck on!  Hopefully next time, you hit your genitals.  <—I’m going to venture to say that the majority of people watching and attending Antiques Road Show are smart enough not to shoot themselves.  A valuable thing to learn.

4.)  Antiques Road Show is not corrupt!  Touching on this subject could end up consuming me so completely that I will never stop ranting about how money is the devil.  Yes, ARS has the potential to corrupt people with the money that they could earn from selling their antique but thankfully, most of the attendees are of humble nature.  Yes, this is a mass generalization but would Antiques Road Show be on PBS if it were a multi million affair?  I think not.  Money aside, the sport of football lays claim to some of the most porky “athletes”  outside of Sumo Wrestling.  These men are paid an outrageous amount of money to stay fat!  Maybe if football legalized fighting, the players wouldn’t have to tackle each other.  They could kick each other in the faces, punch each other in the kidneys and then run off with the ball.  If you watch the following video at around 2:15, you will see what I have mind.

Annihilation.  Football is the debil!

5.)  The primary reason why Antiques Road Show is superior to football is because ARS is not the most annoying thing on the face of the earth.  ARS does not dominate every aspect of life when it is on air.  You don’t see people updating their status to read “YAY!!!” or “WOOOOO HOOOO!” or “GOOO ‘insert team name!’” when someone finds out that a ring they have been wearing for years is worth $200,000 +…even though they should be.  Shiiiiit.  That’s a lot of cash.  And it is sentimental.  I would be pissing my pants if someone told me that my favorite piece of jewelry is worth thousands of dollars.  I could afford a new pair of jeans.

Clearly, I hate football.  But I do love Antiques Road Show!  Give me a mint condition Civil War uniform over an OT 100 yard, touch pass, throw, kick, drive, tackle, possession, hail Mary thing any day!  It is days like today that make me glad that I don’t have cable.  At least that is one avenue in which I can completely avoid football.  Whew!  Antiques Road Show, holla!  Appraise my shit!

One more downer…

This is a piece that was inspired by a therapy session…surprise, surprise.  My psychologist asked me to write a letter to my depression.  The following is what I was able to spit out.  I promise, this will be my last uber depressing post for a while!!  I try not to be Debbie Downer but I’m not perfect.  I just have to ride out this wave of unhappiness.  I will write about something cheerful tomorrow!  Like how Rocky Balboa and I are actually the same person.

To try and probe into the depths of my depression would be similar to driving down the world’s most dangerous road with the steepest grade at three in the morning on the darkest of nights with only one wavering headlight and failing brakes.  To try and talk to my depression would be like attempting to talk to a person who has had their tongue ripped out, both hands severed completely off and their jaw wired shut.  The phrase “cat’s got your tongue?” comes to mind but it is more along the lines of “lion ripped your tongue out?”  Why does my depression hold me back in these ways?  Why does it paralyze me and drag me down a long, steep dangerous road?

Because I allow it to do so.  I think I have become so complacent and so comfortable with my depression that I know no other way of operating.  It is an overwhelming presence in my mind and body.  It feels as if my limbs have been cut open, all the contents scooped out and replaced with wet sand.  It is not so much that it is holding on to me but that I am holding on to it.  I know that a portion of my depression can’t be ignored because of my bipolar disorder and it will be a rather permanent fixture in my life.  I suppose this is where the psychiatric medications come into play.  They act as a shield between my over-reactive brain and the soul-consuming depression.

When asked if I feel happy, I have to answer honestly and say that I feel happiness in spurts throughout the day; mainly when I am with my horse, riding him, feeding him, brushing him, and just generally loving him.  He is the one constant in my life that I know from the inside out without any doubts.  Other than these cherished moments, I really can’t qualify any extended amounts of happiness.

Why is this?  Is this due to my complacency?  Is this due to my bipolar disorder?  Is this due to a deep, festering narcissism that I can’t control?  This is when the breaks on my one-head light vehicle start to fail and I lose control…flying off the road and becoming submerged in a tumultuous ocean of upheaval.  The best I can do before I lose sight of the road in the dark is anchor my conclusions on the inkling of an idea that my depression does in fact hold onto me like a squid does to its prey.  It does this because I have become complacent and have accepted depression as status quo.

I am an existential baby, and trying to question the normality of life is a dangerous thing for me pursue.  My newfound existential battle axe wants to decimate the idea that being happy and content with life is normal.  Should I be yielding my axe against my depression?  What does my depression want from me?  It is selfish.  It is narcissistic.  The narcissism of self-loathing is just as vial and potent as the narcissism of vanity and overly zealous ignorance.  So, it would seem that my depression wants attention.  I allow it to wallow and hold onto me so it can get the attention it wants.  It wants to be loved and held and taken care of.

All this time I have felt like depression has been an evil side effect of my environment, which can be true to a certain degree, but it is actually an evil manifestation of my self-righteous tendencies.  These tendencies are fed and fueled by my mood disorder.  I must use my existential battle axe to demolish my egotistic depression and then, without even stopping to wipe the blood off, turn my axe upon my bipolar disorder.  I will use it with the finesse of a surgeon.  I will accept medication.  I will accept that I need to strive for more happiness.  I will strive for more happiness in a world that is unfair but that has, in the past fed my egocentric depression.  I will accept and move past the disillusionment that I have become so ensnared in.  I will have the knowledge of what I need in my life to be happy and joyous while living free of disillusions.  I will not settle.  Even is a world that is saturated in shit.