A Little Reality Check, Because Life Really Can Be A Mess

Life can be a mess sometimes.

Life can be confusing, scary, misleading, unexpected, and just plain bat-shit crazy.

We are all so unique, our experiences and responses, our lessons and opinions, our morals and values; our souls are all so beautifully different.

Whether it appears so or not, we are all walking our own special little walk, down our own road. No one else will ever walk exactly where and how you are walking right now. Ever.

We can only observe what our fellow humans are going through. We can listen, if the option is available, but mostly we can only see. 

But oh how little we really do see. 

Even the people closest to you, how little they can see by merely looking.

Most times, people put on masks to hide what they are really struggling with. To be exposed to the world would only make things that much harder. Sure, you may look better on the outside, but that could be a false indicator of the reality occurring below the surface.

We want to be strong.

We want to make others proud.

We don’t want to bring others down.

We don’t want to reveal our brokenness to the world.

Sometimes we cant even look inside ourselves, much less allow anyone else to.

It’s too painful. It’s too complex. It’s too personal. It’s too sacred to the shaping of our souls. 

It’s too vulnerable, fragile, precious, and beautiful even in its most repulsive ugliness.

When there is so much going on below the surface, in our minds, our hearts, our emotions, all of our body’s energy is going into what cannot be seen. What we can’t see, what no one can see. 

It’s pretty difficult to even grasp, much less explain, all that we are experiencing that cant be see.

How can you say ‘I’m sick’ without having a temperature, without being in a hospital bed? 

How can you say, seven months later, ‘I’m still sick’ when you look fine, you’ve made visible progress, but inside you know things are still majorly healing?

How can you rip open your chest, show all the damage your heart has undergone, point and say ‘Look! See! Understand!’?

Even if you could, there’s no guarantee understanding would follow anyways.

Life is a mess.

We are all battling our own messes.

We are all struggling and fighting, and it looks different for everyone.

Just because things look fine on the surface that does not mean a battle isn’t still raging below.

Struggling with the intangible, the unseen, the invisible, the personal emotional experiences of our souls, has no time limit. 

There is no formula, there is no set of rules or steps that will guarantee a healing time you can mark on your calendar. There is no prescribed amount of strength, patience, healing, or searching that will automatically make you better.

It’s a process.

It’s a journey,

And it’s yours.   

So be patient with your fellow man and woman. Swallow another dose of compassion, and take a few more moments of thought before you assume ‘It can’t be that hard’….because it really just might be.

Think about that person’s heart, because more than likely it is bleeding. More than likely it is injured. More than likely it is struggling to hold on to hope, it is simply trying to take life one moment at a time. 

We don’t know the ghosts that haunt even our loved ones.

We don’t know the whispers of pain and betrayal that still sneak up on them.

We cannot peer deep inside them in order to understand them. No. No, we cant.

If you have a loved one who you know, or think, might be struggling just try to show them that you are there – even if you don’t understand what they might be going through, and despite what you might be seeing from them, don’t forget there is always more than meets the eye.

I know I probably sound like a broken record, I know all of this sounds cliché, but there is a reason these things have been said countless times.

LOVE EACH OTHER.

Honestly, that’s all that matters.

Just return to love. At the end of the day, just remember to love.

Be gentle, be kind, be warm, be helpful, be there, and love.

LOVE. LOVE. LOVE.

ALWAYS.

And of course….

Keep on truckin’

C.M.S

Words and Silence.

Words.

I’m thinking about words this morning.

There’s a lot to think about when it comes to words.

Here’s what I’ve got so far:

Everyone always says: “Actions speak louder than words” (including myself).

BUT I think as humans we tend to latch onto words much more than actions.

Our first response to something is generally with words. Actions usually follow what the words meant…or sometimes didn’t mean.

Words may not have any direct physical power, they are intangible, they are inanimate, and yet words can kill. Words are lethal. Words are dangerous, and their effects can be much more lasting, and impressionable than any physical action.

WORDS   MOVE   US.

We are surrounded by words. Our world is made of them.

Tree. Sun. Sky. Umbrella. Deck. Table. Chair. Napkin. Tile. Plant. Lazy Suzan. Counter. Granite. Cookie Jar. Cookies. Yum. Yes. Please. Thank you. Grass. Cotton. Allergies. Sneeze. Bless you. Bless you. Bless you. Allergies. Spatula. Wooden Spoon. Run. Laugh. Silly. Fun. Chair. Kleenex. Exhaustion. Tears. Sad. Frustration. Hurt. Pain. Hope.

Road. Drive. Plane. Fly. Escape. Grow. Heal. Love.

Red. Cow. Up. Left. Cat. Purple. Angel. Brass. Dirt.

We create spaces with our words. We can tell stories, we can tell jokes, we can say meaningless things just because we feel like it. We like to define ourselves with words. Songs, scripts, plays, books, monologues, quotes, signs, blogs, journals, social media posts, letters, emails, notes, lists, planners, phone calls, text messages, any kind of messages, and face to face conversations. We are using our words to shape, define, and fill our world and those who are, or are not, in it.

A life lived in fear is a life half lived.

To have loved and lost is better than to not have loved at all.

I have a dream

A divided house cannot stand

Change is coming

With every door that closes, a window opens

Love comes when you least expect it

A dream is a wish your heart makes

I pledge allegiance to the flag

Oh say can you see

Let it be

All you need is love

Keep calm and….whatever

It has been my experience however, that most times it is not the words that can hurt us the most, but the lack of words. The silence. The stillness. The frozen space of time. The nothing.

This is when our souls can ache most of all, when our hearts can hold on for so long until they finally break. This is the arena of exhausted hope, of determination’s death, of ghosts and hauntings, of nightmares and desperate wishes, of anger and longing, of betrayal.

Silence.

Whether it’s the extended and unknown silence of an old friend, the hurt and stubborn silence of a lover, the defiant silence of a teenager, the silence that is occasionally broken by ill attempts of reconciliation, the silence within a family fractured by anger, the silence of defeat, the silence in the truth behind lies, the silence of astonishment, the silence of death, or the silence of final and ultimate betrayal…silence slices through us in a way its counterpart, words, cannot.

Silence.

Shhhh….can you hear it?

I can.

If I am still long enough, and focus hard enough on the silence, I can tell you exactly what I hear. I can tell you exactly what I feel. I can feel the silence moving, after all even silence has substance.

In fact I could take you directly back to the most profound moment of silence I have yet to experience. The defining moment, the most significant, the most powerful of silences…the silence that trumps it all…the Great Silence, one could say.

Do any of you have places like that?

Do they inhibit any of the rooms in your heart, in your mind, in your soul?

Do they haunt you?

Does the silence keep you looking over your shoulder as you walk through the streets, making sure there’s no chance for it to be broken, because it has turned into your shield, your protection…even your strength?

Has your silence been by choice, or by exile?

Whether you chose this silence for yourself, or others inflicted it upon you…what words are you holding back?

What story are you keeping to yourself?

What voice is hiding within you, waiting for its time to be heard?

That’s the tricky thing about silence, it can only last for so long…sooner or later your story has to be heard…sooner or later the words will come…sooner or later the words will arise…sooner or later the weight of the silence will burn away, you will stand upon your renewed strength, you will stand upon your words, and you will find your voice.

Words.

Words are dangerous. They can give. They can take. They can be manipulated and skewed. They can be used. They can be flung and thrown, they can direct and create, they are living all around us waiting for our mouths or our fingers to push them into action.

Words, they can crush. And even worse, waiting on words that never come, drowning in silence, can completely destroy.

Silence. This kind of silence, it preys on those thrown down, it lies with injustice and it laughs at accountability. It is very aware of its power.

It’s the kind of silence that kept Edmond Dantès wrongfully incarcerated in the Château D’If for more than two decades (The Count of Monte Cristo by Alexandre Dumas).

It’s the kind of silence that blackmails, that threatens, that smiles manically at defeat.

But.

Only because of this silence is Edmond Dantès motivated to learn to fight, to become educated, to execute his own escape from prison, and to exact his revenge.

This is the silence that comes before justice, before man is called to move in all his greatness, swiftly and confidently towards his deliverance.

This is the silence before the underdog takes it all, before the downtrodden find their voices, before “Do you hear the people sing?” is sung (Les Misérables by Victor Hugo), before the rebellion has begun, before the revolution explodes…

This is the silence that, when it ends, the noise it creates, the shouting voice it expels, and the words, which explode from within, will never let you forget it.  

Keep on truckin'

C.M.S 

*If having difficulty posting comments please do so under 'Anonymous' and just leave your name within the comment itself. Thank you! 

Dr. Pepper and French Butterflies

Depression sucks. But French, now French is awesome.

Before, in my past life (so to speak), I had taken seven and a half years of French.

When I got into college I started over at French I due to poor teaching in the years before (pretty typical story, we watched Adam Sandler movies w French subtitles in our French IV class). I was lucky enough to have a phenomenal teacher my first two semesters (which are basically high school French on steroids, where one semester equals one year of French at the high school level) and in French III my teacher was wonderful as well.

As fate would have it, just as I was reaching the very end of French III and really latching onto the language, depression struck.

So here I am, however many months, however many hours of exhausted and dream tormented sleep, however many re-watches of The Emperors New Grove and Tarzan later, sitting on the carpeted floor in my office surrounded by pillows, two notebooks, tons of papers, and a few massive French books and (lets not forget the bowl of popcorn and my trusty Dr. Pepper) I am in a bubble of complete and simple happiness.

I wont attempt at the moment to explain the way clinical depression literally zaps yours brain (and seeing as by the time I got diagnosed by brain was already pretty fried so…you get the picture) but what I will say is that because of it I am now re discovering French in an entirely new light.

I am really only into a few minutes of studying and already I feel this cool wave of joy rushing through my brain. I am saying these French words in my head, I know what they mean, and I am telling myself “Christina all you are really saying are grammatical terms, technically all you just said is ‘Past Tense’ in French (Passé Composé)” but still I am simply ecstatic.

I am finding myself getting lost in the flow of the words, the accents, the rhythm of this language that, like an old friend who has been missing for too long, has finally come back.

“Toutes les temps pour l’examen”

I write at the top of my yellow legal pad.

I don’t even care if its spelled 100% correct with the right accents or the write grammatical positioning. Who cares?! I don’t! Look at it, its beautiful!!

(By the way, literally all that phrase says is ‘All the tenses for the exam’….I know, riveting, right?!).

Hell, I’m even happy to see all ten tenses that I am going to have to re learn and rememorize and re conjugate in!

I am looking around me and French words are everywhere, I feel like I should be eating un pain du chocolate and walking around Le Tour Eiffel listening to French music and chasing butterflies! Ok, maybe not the butterfly part but hey, I’m in France, in the middle of Paris, why the hell not? Butterflies come at me!

Regardless of whether or not I am chasing butterflies in my fantasized French world, all I can say is that it feels amazing to be surrounded by French again. And the sheer fact that it feels such is not only a huge relief, but an enormous blessing as well.

I don’t care if you’ve never spoken a word of French in your life or not, make it your goal to say some French words today! Marvel in the wonders and mysteries (and challenges) of another language. Embrace the fact that it does NOT sound like English (and if it does you’re saying it wrong ;). Language is a beautiful thing, it opens doors to other cultures, other people, other experiences, and most important of all, it opens beautiful doors into ourselves.

So, go chase some pretty French butterflies and be thankful your brain is fully functional and not having to re boot itself like mine…..

Actually, now that I think about it, this is a pretty awesome experience. After all, I would have never approached studying like this before…maybe it’s not so bad getting a fresh start after all.

Enjoy your brain, embrace this world, and have fun!!

Keep on truckin’

C.M.S

***** By the way, if you would like to leave comments (which I would love to receive) and you do not have a Google account please choose “Anonymous” under the drop list that appears under your comment box before you post, and then just leave your name in your comment.

This is the easiest way I know how for people to comment, if anyone knows otherwise please, please let me know! Hang in there with me, I am still new at this!

And of course, thanks for stopping by, and stay classy San Diego! (yes, I am very excited for Anchorman 2)  

A Beginning of Sorts

Alright....so, I am actually doing this.

Please feel free to leave comments and enjoy. I have never had a blog before so this should be an interesting relationship!

Now, I cant promise anything...I have no idea how often I will post or of what profound significance the posts will be. I can most likely guarantee there will be typos, misspelled words, uncorrect grammar, and some rants. There most certainly will be no humor. None. Whatsoever. No matter what. Ever.

Just want to thank all my amazing family and friends who have been such incredible angels to me, who have supported and loved me (and continue to do so) right on through this crazy journey. I wouldn't be doing this without out you.

Grandma, this is all for you.

Lets love with some courage now, and keep on truckin'!

Keep on truckin'
C.M.S

Potatoes, Water, and Chapstick

Alright, so here it goes.... (how many blogs must start like that)

After precisely 6 months and 10 days of clinical depression and recovery I am...blogging. Writing. Confessing. Sharing....Attempting to  make a baked potato in the oven. 

I know, I know everyone tells me that baked potatoes are not that hard to make, that in fact they are supper easy! I, however, would argue the contrary....and just trust me when I say, when it comes to bad kitchen mishaps, I would know. 
For example, another incredibly easy dish to make (or so they say) is stir fry. Well, last time I attempted to make stir fry my small apartment smelled like soy sauce for days, the veggies and chicken ended up in the trash, and after some thorough cursing, I went and had a chocolate shake for dinner instead. 

Anyways, we shall see how this baked potato goes. At least I am in a much larger kitchen now. The least of things that have changed since my last cooking adventure. In fact, that seems like years and years ago...an entire life ago. Im sure young people like me say that all the time and it drives our grandparents and older friends nuts but hey, thats what we are here for! Right....? 

Talking about this potato so much makes me nervous....hold on....
Ok, so I have no clue what good it does to check the oven when you are baking a potato, but for me the fact that they are still inside the oven (instead of blown up or perhaps scheming to sprout legs and run around the house tormenting my dog) makes me feel much, much better. 

Ok. So enough about the darn potato (just to be specific, there are actually two potatoes in the oven....aw! ok so does anyone else remember the talking muffin joke?? It was around in like middle school...I really did not find it funny at the time but I think it is firkin hilarious now! In case you need a refresher: 
Two muffins are sitting in an oven. 
One muffin says to the other: “Man its hot in here”
The other muffin says: “Oh my god its a talking muffin!” 
*Cue: Laughter. 
My peers who were much more comedic than I back in the day must excuse me of any inaccuracies, this is simply how I remember it and for some unknown reason my seasoned brain of twenty-two (after sitting through lectures, exams, and various life lessons) finds this joke hilarious. I mean, come on? Whats better than talking muffins after a long day of trigonometry, or research, meetings, running, working, or baking potatoes? I think I will take the talking muffins.) 

Do any of you guys ever think about how incredibly important water is? Aren't we made up mostly of water? And isn't this world make up of mostly water? I think it is. Yea I am pretty sure it is. But no, I am not going to google it to find out the percentages. I don't know why I never thought about it very much before (well yes I did, I was incredibly busy thinking about other things) but seriously, we should think about water way more. Its one thing that can come from above or below us, outside or inside us, around us, it can save us, it can kill us, its like the ultimate double edged sword....except when you are crazy thirsty, your mouth is dry as a leaf, and you take a nice cool drink of water...there is nothing better than that, no negative side to that. 

There are so many small things that I never thought about before. “Before” meaning...before depression, before immense change, before my biggest struggles, before I was granted a second chance....”before” meaning before. In my other life, my other choices, my other realm. I cant say my other soul, because as much as I feel separated from this “before” I know it is still a part of me, a very big part. But it is not now...it is, it was, before now. 

One thing I did always think about was Chapstick. Holy cow, do not ask me why, but I firkin love Chapstick. Actually you can ask me why, I remember why. It is incredibly silly, but just goes to show there are certain things we do not forget! When I was in 8th grade I was ‘dating’ (ha) this boy named Danny (yes, of course there is a boy involved!) Anyways after we had spent time together, movie-going and walking to Tae Kwon Do from Walgreens together (yes, it was oh so romantic under the glow of street lights and into the smell of sweat, B.O, and the romantic soundtrack of “hi yah!”) I asked him why he had not kissed me yet. His eloquent answer: “Your lips looked so chapped I thought they would cut mine if I tried.” 
Yea. Awesome. Thus begins my slightly obsessive relationship with Chapstick which still exists almost a decade later, and you can bet my lips are now lusciously soft, so take that Mr. Dried Lips!! 

Water, Chapstick...they are both pretty small things to think about in the grand scheme of things. I don't know many people who ponder very long about either of those things unless its a thought like “Where the hell did I put that damn water bottle now? Ok! Who stole my water bottle? Come on!” or “Where is the Chapstick? Like, seriously, I put it right in this specific pocket in my purse and now it is not here...what are the chances any of these other pockets are going to have the Chapstick?! It is not here! Ugh! I have to go to Target now. Yea! I do love Target. I mean seriously, who doesn't?” 
Yea, so you get my point...they are pretty simple things in the big picture of our every day lives. I mean unless you have to pee desperately, or you just ate a hot wing and your lips are on fire, chances are you wont be running around crazily ranting about either of the two. 
Despite their size and traditional place in the back of our minds throughout our daily routines, I would argue it might do us some good to think about these small things every once in a while. No I don't expect you to go write paragraphs about water, Chapstick, or even baked potatoes, I mean only a crazy nutso person would do that, but I would argue that reflecting on the simple things in life might do us some good. 
Lets try it. 
Water, it keeps us alive. We drink it. Most of us (unless we possess cat like genes) enjoy it in the form of pools, oceans, ponds, lakes, streams....water parks etc. There are like a million (and zero calorie!) ways to flavor it and keep it exciting. We really like it a lot after physical exertion. We bathe in it, shower in it, gargle salt water with it when we have a sore throat....ok so you get the picture...we use it a lot. 
But, I mean Im just wondering here, can you recall the sensation of taking just one drink of water? Have you ever slowed down just to enjoy the way it makes your body feel to have a nice little sip of water in the middle of your day? I don't know if I ever would have paid attention to that. Or really even cared to. But, if you feel like trying it, its pretty cool. I guess I just wouldn't want to get to the end of my life and not be able to say that I’ve really, thoroughly enjoyed a glass of water. 
As for Chapstick though, now that I can say I have enjoyed many times. 
Enjoy your water. 


Keep on truckin'
C.M.S