The Xfiles : Call Me Crazy

 Somewhere out there, there is a truth bigger than us all. One that we as human beings cannot possibly fathom. I don't think any of us know what this truth is, or how it came to be. I think thats the beauty of it. Once something is discovered, its innocence is taken. Its beauty fades. Think about it, we all believe in something bigger than ourselves. Perhaps that of a higher power, in whatever shape or form it may take. We are all down here on earth, living our lives, both happy and sad. Some of us think we know the answers, some of us are completely lost. Others may be blind to truth that is standing right in front of them. And maybe theres a reason for that. Maybe they're not supposed to see it. Maybe we are all not supposed to see it. And that brings me to the part where I may be judged. I may be questioned of my sanity, and questioned on the topic of how a TV show changed my outlook on life. Some years ago, I discovered The Xfiles. Thats right. Scully, Mulder, David and Gillian. I was completely enamored. It was never just a TV show to me. It was life. It is life. It was my admiration for two wonderful characters, and two amazing actors. I devoured it. Its twists and turns, its answers and its questions. Besides igniting a childlike fire in me, The Xfiles started to teach me something, and began to give me a hope I had never felt before. Since my illness emerged, I lost my ability to believe. What did I believe? In God? Evolution? The devil for giving me what he did? Or just in the simple fact that I was the offspring of a scientific and genetic disorder, passed down to me by my biological father. I guess I still really don't know. But the very idea that I don't know, maybe thats okay. Maybe I am okay knowing that there is a bigger truth out there that I may never find. The cure for my illness that I may never experience. The reason of why I was given this disease. Maybe I simply don't want to believe in anything anymore. Perhaps we must accept the unknown and appreciate it for what it is. To me, The Xfiles convey that. It conveys the idea of whenever you may think you have figured something out, life takes another turn and knocks you back on your feet. Now call me crazy, but this TV show has helped me to see that. That we are all just waiting for answers, and something bigger than ourselves. But at the same time, while we reside here and do that, we confide in the fact that we will probably never know, and thats okay. Its okay to not know. Its okay that life will take us for just one more ride that we never planned on. Its okay to go through these life experiences, thinking that we know but really we know nothing at all. Because maybe one day, when we have gone through our lives, after all of the searching, and we have reached the end of our days, just maybe, the truth will be revealed to us. Because my friends, it is out there.  

Just So Tired

That "Im just so tired" feeling. That feeling that your soul is being drained faster than you can fill it. Your overwhelming emotions are taking you for a ride. Your stress inhibitors just can't take it anymore. Work, job interviews, customers, roommates, money, therapy, medication, family struggles, world problems on every news outlet. These things take their tole, and it quickly becomes huge. Some people have the ability to take on a bigger stress load. They don't crack under pressure. They take it by the balls and get it done, and at the end of the day, they unwind, destress, and wake up in the morning ready to do it again. 
I have never been this way. Since childhood, I was always overwhelmed with even the smallest things. Someone would scold me and I would cry for an hour. Homework would pile up and I would give up. Something would get hard and I would throw in the towel. Everyday was a pool of anxiety, stomach knots and lumps in my throat. Everyday at school I would have multiple panic attacks, have to call my mom at least 5 times, and usually go home early. My first day of Kindergarten was when I first experienced a panic attack. I cried the entire day with a whole tissue box to myself. My mom had to come to class with me. Unfortunately diagnosing a mental illness in a child is extremely difficult and in those days simply not done. I thought that the pain and agony I was going through was normal. I wondered why other kids could feel this too and yet they stayed at school and made friends. Little did I know most of those kids didn't have those feelings. They wanted to be there. Little things didn't phase them. Simple things didn't unroot them. 
I look at myself then, and it all makes sense. The anxiety, the panic attacks, the constant feeling of doom and despair, the need to cling to my mom every single hour of every single day for all the years of my life. I would cry at the drop of a hat. I would get angry within an instant. Everyone wondered why I was the way I was. We had no answers until I turned 18. 
Now I know what was "wrong" with me. Ive been to hell and back. Ive dealt with an immense amount of emotion, and the reasons why I am the way I am. I know the tricks, I have the tools, and I've read the book numerous times over. But it still gets to me. A bad day at work is like a bad year at work. An insult from someone unkind eats away at me and makes me second guess myself and my entire life. Applying for jobs and going on even one interview sets me over the edge, leaving me bawling my eyes out on the drive home, even if it went well. Its hard to explain, the amount of emotion that gets stirred up from just the simplest things. You can say something to me in the wrong tone and I immediately take it to heart and turn on the defense. Im a ball of emotion. I feel more than most people feel. I cry more than most cry. I get angry at the smallest of things. 
All of these traits stop me from doing things, stop me from experiencing life. I shield myself and my emotions, letting very little people in, doing very little activities. I'm afraid to get out of bed in the morning. Im afraid of love, because I know it would emotionally destroy me and possibly land me back in the hospital. Many people with mental illness go through a break up and snap, and have to be hospitalized. That unfortunately would be me. I want to experience all of these things, see all of these places, feel all of these feelings, but I feel as if I can't. Not without an overload. Not without a breakdown. Not without once again burdening my family with the many problems of me. I want to study so many things, but have a learning disability and can't keep up with the pace of school.I have to try extra hard at anything in order to barely make it by. I have to try extra hard at work to be acceptable to customers and barely have my boss say that I am moderately meeting standard. Nothing has ever come easy. I have always had to try 1000% in order to maybe reach only 95. I want to be all of these things. I want to do all of these things. But tell me, is it worth it?

Seriously. Whats the Point?

Bare with me. Its about to get real skeptical up in here. 
Honestly, why do I even bother? It never amounts to anything. So why do I keep trying? To maybe find someone one day who actually has legitimate feelings for me, we fall in love and get married. Maybe pop out a few kids. Then my vag stretches out, I won't do anal, and my husband holds a lover on the side. I find out and our relationship that we worked so hard for falls apart into a hideous divorce. Who knows where the kids will go. Maybe half to their cheating father, and half to their wide hipped undesirable mother. Meanwhile he spends a few nights in jail for not paying child support, until a family member bails him out. I find his mugshot on the internet, and all of our friends and family soon know everything about our personal life. Our reputation as a "beautiful family" is ruined. Our kids grow up to be broken and lost souls who struggle with drug addiction and are in and out of rehab, not to mention seeing a therapist twice a week with little to no result. Don't even get me started on the minimum wage job I barely hold down at a Joanne Fabrics, just to keep some food on the table. My sexuality and self esteem wither away and I finally invest in a minivan. Which means I lose my ability to drive like a proper human being. I grow old in the same old musty house that I got to keep in the divorce. The kids come and go, make families of their own, go on and off of drugs and alcohol, ruin their kids lives, and I on my dying bed lay. Only a few relatives come to watch me pass, probably because they know all of the gambling money I saved from my numerous pathetic single old woman trips to Vegas is going to them. And then thats it. Its all over. All of this, because I took the time to care in the beginning, and actually thought that someone would want to spend the rest of their life with me. Why did I bother? 

Keep in mind this is Miss Yadda Yadda talking. 

Secrets Uncovered

When you think you want to know something, but when you finally find out, all you wish is to rewind and make them to stop before they tell you... But now you can never go back.  

All of my life I have wanted to know more about my Fathers side of the family. Since the day he left I have felt very distant from him, and distant from the real truth. I felt that I deserved a right to know. Anytime I saw my Grandparents after that, which I could  only count on one hand, I would try to get as much information as possible. Not about my father though. I didn't want to know anything about him. He made his own bed in what he did, and I wanted nothing to do with him or his new family. Plus I knew too much about him already, and most of it was ugly.  

No. The things I wanted to know about were only these two. More about my Native American heritage, which my Grandmother really knew nothing about, and also of what my Uncle was like. Before he killed himself. I was five years old when my parents got the call. I cant even imagine what my father was feeling after just finding out that his identical twin brother shot himself in the head while in the shower. I remember my mom telling me that when he heard, he laid his face in both of his palms and hunched over in great emotional and physical pain. I can vividly picture what that must have looked like. 

Since then, I always wanted to know more about who my uncle was. My Grandma on my moms side describes him as being the "nicer twin", my father I guess having more of a spunk to him. I also know that he was a lumber jack. I remember very plainly watching images of him cutting down trees. These videos were on slide shows, so they looked especially vintage, and his face was hard to make out. I knew it was him though, because he always had a mustache, and my father didn't. My father did however grow my uncles signature mustache after he died. You can imagine how confusing this was to a young child. My father would walk through the door and I would think it was my Uncle. But how could it be? He was dead. And I wondered why we didn't visit him anymore. I didn't understand. 

My father quickly took on his twins persona. He grew the mustache, adopted his music taste, bought drums and taught himself to play, as my uncle must have done, and he even bought an old Ford Ranger and had the license plate bare his brothers name. Aside from these things, the only other things I knew of my uncle, were the teddy bear that he gave me close to when he died, and the straw hat that my father had for a long time until my brother inherited it. I still have the bear. He sleeps on my bed every night, as he is right now sitting on my right. Whenever I want to feel close to my uncle, I hug my bear and say a prayer, and even talk straight to my uncle, like maybe he can hear me somewhere up there. 

I constantly wonder what life would have been like, had he not committed suicide. Would my father still have gone off the deep end? Would I have actually had an uncle who cared enough to be in our lives, unlike my fathers other brother, who couldn't give two shits about us kids, and never did. In my heart of hearts, I feel that my uncle who passed would have been a wonderful person to have in our lives. One early memory, and one of my only memories I have of him, was when my brother, father, uncle and I were camping somewhere in Washington State. I was very little, and we had to cross a strong river. My uncle hoisted me up on his shoulder and carried me across like the river didn't even phase him. I looked up to him as being strong and unstoppable. On the same trip I remember him and my father pushing down rotten trees with their bare hands, then climbing the massive trunks. I didn't know that the trees had died, and thought they were both strong enough to push down trees at their own will. As a kid, I was in awe of both of them.

I have fuzzy memories here and there, but I doubt any of them are correct. I wish they were, but I for now can live off of the memories I do have. And to have my teddy bear, is like having a physical and emotional part of him. I can feel his presence. Not in a scary ghostly way, but in a peaceful way. I have created what his presence must have felt like and have put that onto my childhood toy. No matter what, to this day I can hug my bear and feel an immediate sense of relief. I even had him with me in the Mental Hospital, but after a while the nurses told my mom I was too old for a toy to comfort me, and they made my mom take him home while I stayed in the hospital. That was a low blow in my opinion. But thats beside the point. 

Everything that I have known about my uncle has been good. I don't know what any of his faults must have been. Obviously I know that he was hurting very bad to have done what he did. I can't say I understand what he was going through, but I too have hurt so bad I just wanted to end it all. An unfortunate truth just came out to me today. I learned from my father, that my uncle was molested as a child, by my great grandfather... I was absolutely disgusted by this fact. From what I understand, it was a continuous thing. I wanted to immediately rewind and never learn of this. Because now I feel that icky feeling, the one I can't quite explain. And now my heart hurts even more for the uncle that I can never reach out to and try to comfort. I feel like he is still in pain, despite being gone. I feel like there was such an injustice done to him, that the memory of him may never be peacefully laid to rest. How could it be? 

Immediately my mind started to race, started blaming and wondering what the hell my grandparents could have done to have prevented this. I know they are not the most functional people in the world. In fact they are the most dysfunctional people I have ever known. And somewhere in their dysfunction, a helpless boy was being sexually abused and they were too blind to see it. I also wonder what they must feel like now. Do they feel like failures as parents? I suppose I pity them given that fact. I always thought my uncle took his own life because he was depressed, and because his wife cheated on him, but never could I think of something so dark and ugly happening to him. I want to go back in time and prevent this from happening, from completely changing the fate of an entire generation, and also an entire generation after that. Or maybe I should go back and strangle the man responsible for all of this pain. Does God punish these people for what they have done? Is there really even a God up there? Its hard to believe in him, especially when he allows for such mortifying behavior.

I may never know much more about my uncles past, and that may be because I don't want to know. I feel that I just want to remember him the way that I have created through the years. I don't know what more detail would do to me emotionally. Should I know everything for the sake of his memory? Should I learn about it to honor him, or should I only allow for the good memories to be shared? These are some things that I may never know the answer to. And maybe thats okay. It has taken such an emotional toll to learn such a deep and dark secret. One that I never thought would plague my family. 

To my uncle Marv. I love you. As a child, you were like superman to me. So strong, manly, kind, even my savior when you saved me from the rivers current that one summer day. I looked up to you, not more than my father, but in a different way. I always wanted to be around you and know more about you. And I am heartbroken that I never really got to. I will forever cherish your memory, even if those memories are something I falsely created as a child. Whenever I want to feel close to you, I will hug my bear, think of you, and say a long prayer in honor of you. Rivers will always make me think of you, and old two tone brown Ford Rangers will always be something I look out for, hoping that maybe it says Marvmbile on the license plate. I am sorry for the pain that you had to go through, and how alone you must have felt in those last hours of your life. I wish you could have gotten help, and maybe even had a family that talked about their problems, and didn't stuff them down inside. It is my believe that you deserved much better, but you were unfortunately never even given a chance. I hope that one day, somehow I will see you again, and wrap my arms around you, and give you the comfort that I so very badly want to give you now. May you rest in peace and happiness. To say that you are greatly missed is a tremendous understatement. My heart is broken for you, but I will keep on praying, as long as I'm alive, you will live within my soul, and I will try to live a better life for the both of us. If only it worked that way. In the name of Rush, your favorite band, "Fly by night away from here". Goodnight uncle Marv. 

Regrets

No Ragrets? Really? Not even one letter?

Ah yes. The nights where you ruminate over every single decision, every word, and everything you have ever done in the eternity of forever. 2:00am and you're wired awake by something you said to a very unimportant person 6 years ago. The time when the last thing you said to the first guy you ever dated was "live long and prosper", as you idiotically held up your Klingon hand and gave a Vulcan salute while walking away. Yeah, that wasn't horribly dorky or painfully embarrassing. "Thanks for the sex, don't get killed out in space!" I would like to say that I don't have any regrets. That I believe that everything happens for a reason. But sometimes, some things just happen and they fucking suck.  They didn't necessarily have anything to do with anything. As a wanna-be comedian, I try to hold onto these embarrassing moments, because at some point they are going to make a damn good joke. So I literally shit my pants one day after work in 2014. So I thought when Trump said he wanted to drain the swamps, I literally thought for a good amount of time that there were literally swamps surrounding the White House and he literally wanted to drain the water out of them. So I once believed that I couldn't lie about my weight at the DMV because they would see my real weight on my birth certificate. And yeah, that one time in band camp... See what I'm getting at? Some things are embarrassing, but seriously like WTF, you actually did that? There are those stories, the ones that can get the laughs, and then there are the stories that are much more private. The ones that you completely want to forget about and pretend like never even happened. The stories that not even a comedian will dare share. How much sanity do I want to keep? Do I even give this one credit and share with a close friend? Or do I keep it bottled up for fear that it will come back to haunt me and the shame will never go away? Now, most would say I am a very open person. Sometimes too open, whatever that means... I mean can you really be too open? Yeah, I suppose in some cases you can. I have yet to figure out what those cases are however.
The regrets that I truly have, and ruminate on, those are the ones that hit home. Those are the ones that I am truly ashamed of. The times where you finally go out on a limb, and get totally and utterly rejected. When you finally get the courage to ask that guy out, and the feelings are not even close to being mutual, and you say something stupid like, "just kidding! Don't worry, Im asexual. I don't actually have normal human emotion. Gotcha!"
My biggest regret? Reading into everything. Thinking that I know whats going on and that I can read minds. Thinking that I know how other people are feeling and are acting a certain way towards me for a reason. Like how in the hell are you supposed to tell if someone is into? I sure as hell don't have that one even slightly figured out. "Oh he agreed with me on something? I know we've only known each other for five minutes, but we're probably getting married."
IDIOT! You think you know these things. You think you read all of the signs right. You think that there were even "signs" to begin with. You thought he was into you, you acted on it, and none of what you thought even existed in the first place. Excuse my while I go crawl into a hole and die...
Usually at this point I would come up with some great realization or epiphany. I would tell you what all of this really means, and what things you should actually be focusing on, but I'm afraid that I cannot do that. I posses neither the knowledge nor the wisdom that it takes to understand these things. I can tell you numerous things about mental health. How to take care of yourself, and how to be an overall good human being. I can share some pretty great morals, and beliefs to abide by. I pretty much have that all figured out. But when it comes to matters of the heart, I can not even begin to tell you one single thing.
So while you lay awake at night, ruminating over a guy, a girl, or a guy/girl, and are wondering what those "signs" meant, don't ask me because I too have absolutely no fucking clue...
Now get out there, live long and prosper!

Dismal

Under moonlit skies, I find myself once again. Sitting on the ocean wall, my hands resting and experiencing the roughness of the cold cement beneath them. My feet dangling over the edge, swinging back and forth with no ground to comfortably rest upon. The intensity of the waves below dare to consume me with one swift movement. In and out, the tide arrives, then flees just as fast as it once came. I wonder as I watch the water sway back and forth, will the ocean ever make up its mind? All of this rising and falling, does it ever grow weary? Does it ever want to stand still for just a moment? At the surface it seems like it only inhibits two sides. The high and the low, the meek and the wicked. I suppose in a sense one could call the sea "Bipolar". In high tide, all of the rocks, creatures, shells, and the clutter is hidden beneath the surface. It has a calm and docile tone. You can not see the muddle nor the confining dissaray underneath. In low tide, it reveals the horde of the phantoms below. living things wedged halfway in the sand, each squirming in the blaring sunlight, desolately struggling for their fragile lives. Many may think, "how could one see the ocean in such a dismal way?" Well I can. Because I know both sides in rather a mundane manner. I have been to the depths of the ocean, and I have seen the other side.   

Societal "Norms"

Being a "human" in a society that expects you to be an "adult". In my opinion the two are very different from each other. I am definitely not one for societal norms. I have to tried to abide by them my entire life. Honestly it has never worked for me. My life has not allowed for the typical American culture of growing up. In the past I have tried my hardest to follow the "normal" path. Not once did it go the way I thought it should have. The most normal thing that has ever happened to me was graduating High School. But even then life didn't allow for me to stay in college for more than 72 hours. I barely even made it to my first class. No, life had something completely different planned for me. I look back on it now and think that if I would have known what was coming, I would have probably ended my life. I do not believe that ending it is the answer, but thats how severe the circumstances had been. Am I glad that I am alive and well? Of course! I thank my lucky stars for the space that I am in at this present moment. I have been blessed in more ways than one. It took a lot to get here, and when I say a lot, I mean it took every ounce of my being to even stay alive. For me to be alive and mentally sound right now is quite a miracle. I consider myself as being a miracle, and feel that I have been given a second chance at life. I am glad that I have gone through the things that I have gone through. They made me wake up real fast. They also required me to grow up at a rapid rate. I have better self awareness than most people in their 50s. And I credit that to the years and years of self work I have had to do. Whether I liked it or not, that was what I had to do, and is what I continue to do. The road of thy self is never a finished one. In a way that is terrifying, but also extremely exciting. I wonder where I would be if none of this had ever happened to me. Where would I be if I was able to stay in school, graduate college, moved out at 18, dated like a "normal" teenager, didn't have divorced parents, didn't have a mental illness. Would I have been better off? Or am I better off because I was not able to have all of those things? In a way I am almost grateful that I was given a "disease". It has made me so strong, so appreciative, and greatly compassionate. I know myself very well. I know what I do and do not want. I know the kind of people that I will allow in my life. I am aware of the things that I need and the things that I choose to avoid. I haven't gotten it all figured out, but I have a good idea of who I want to be, and how I want to be remembered when I do leave this world, hopefully at a very old age. I feel that I know more than your average 25 year old (almost 26). I am an old soul, and I have done nothing by the book, even though when I was younger, that was all I ever wanted. Now I am realizing that it may not be the case. Maybe I want a few normal things, but what is normal really? Why would we all strive to take the same path? How boring is that? There are so many different possibilities in the world. Why not explore them from all different avenues? I'm not saying the average path of life is a bad or boring thing. If you have gone to college, had a family, own a home, and have a great job, then that is amazing! You worked very hard for that and you should be given credit for putting in the time to achieve those things. But for me, I believe now that I was born a different kind of soul. I wasn't meant to arrive at societal norms in an ordinary fashion. When everyone veered right, I veered left. And might I say, its scary over here, but its also pretty damn great. 

Journey Of Wellness

On this journey of wellness, I have been given many things. Without going into detail and listing everything off in a monotonous tone, let me focus in on one of the most important things that I have come across and continue to strive towards. A sense of self. To this day, I have never felt more sure of who I am than I do right now. We go through life in a series of stages. With each stage we arrive at, we think "Oh! Maybe this is it. Maybe this is who I am." We become sure of it. How could it not be? And who's to say that its not? It may be who we really are for that moment in time. Don't discount it. We are given these moments of realization for a reason, and these moments add up. Its when they start to add up in great numbers that we start to see where we are actually headed. No one person looks at one single thing and thinks "that defines me wholeheartedly." How boring would that be? Luckily it doesn't work that way. Not to quote the greatest American film of all time, Shrek, but we human beings are made up of layers. Deciphering what each layer means is the business of life. Each layer is as beautiful as the next. One may be completely different from another, but they are equally as important. Even the negative layers help define us. But they do not not solely define us. For example, yes, I have Bipolar Disorder. But does that define me? Hell no! It may be a part of me, but its only one small thing in the mix of many others. The beauty of it is, we get to choose which layers we accentuate. Every now and then a layer I do not want may creep in, but I know how to put it on the back burner and not let it ruin my day. I often ask myself, what defines Laney? Sometimes I do not know the answer to this. It is after all a very broad question to have to ask in such a simple way. But even if I don't know how to answer the question, I do subconsciously know the answer. I always have it within me. In the past when I have been in the hospital or just going through a hard time, I may have felt like I completely had lost my way, but in reality I was still there. I still knew who I was. I may not have known where I was going but I feel that knowing who you are in the moment is better than knowing where you are going next. It is not what we have gone through that defines us, but how we have reacted to the given situation. Did I handle it with grace, determination, and drive? Did I give it the justice that it needed at the time? Did I sit in the hospital and numerous PHP programs and give it my all every second of every day? If yes to any of these, well then damn! Kudos to Laney! I am looking forward to the future, and to building my layers. Until then, I proudly live with the ones that I have already created for myself.    

Oh Love...

I almost don't want it to happen. Its too painful, every single time. I want to protect myself as much as I possibly can. To allow someone to love you is a very scary and brave thing. You spend so much time looking for it, and never finding it. Then when you are not seeking it and let it be, maybe someone does come along. Still you can't tell their intentions. And thats frightening. You don't want to jump to conclusions. You don't want to fantasize in your head, but while you're driving down a long stretch of road, before you know it you've gone 10 miles and don't remember a single one of them, all because "he" has been on your mind He has worked his way into your subconscious. You literally shake it off starting with your head and traveling down to your body, then say to yourself, "let it go! Knock it off! This is going to do you no good." In the past I have been too hopeful. Too optimistic I suppose. I was given signs from men, only to find that those signs meant nothing and they were only just messing with my head in order to make them feel better about themselves. You had fallen into the trap many times. And who could blame you? He shamelessly flirted with you, called you by a cute nickname, invited you over to his house, then when you finally made a move he told you he "just wanted to be left alone". You think that you will never make this mistake again, but the manipulation coming from this person continues. You begin to second guess yourself. You feel that maybe you are not good enough to be given a real chance. Somewhere deep down you know this is not true, but the trials you have gone through test your thinking and mess with your thought process. I know that love and lust is not supposed to be easy. Its one of the most difficult things people go through. Somehow throughout the years, you have settled for less than perfect. You have been disappointed enough to give up and gladly accept that its just not in the cards. Some people will find love, but not you. Maybe its the way the stars are aligned. But maybe its just something as  simple as the nature of your being. I hate to doubt myself so much. I don't mean it to find people to pity me. I want no pity. I am a multiply talented and caring woman. I don't believe that I have it all, but I do believe that I have some good qualities. I suppose love however, is not something that I can see myself finding. I don't know whether that is from past experience, or if thats just my gut instinct, which is unfortunate because my gut is usually always right. People talk of natural sympathies. I feel that I have run into this in some form or another. But is it enough? People also talk about how one day you will meet someone who finds you to be more than enough. Maybe I don't feel love is in the cards for me simply because I have not found it yet. That has yet to be decided. Until then, if it actually exists for me, I will go about my life, be the best person I can be, be kind towards others in need, believe in the qualities that I do have, and hope in the meantime that he is smitten enough to try for my affection. If not, I will stick with friendship. Sometimes friendship is more important than romantic relationships. Being okay with being single will be an awfully big adventure, but I believe that I am finally getting there. I am getting closer with each day to being okay with "flying solo". Have adventures with yourself, then the rest will follow. He will come along, but in the meantime just focus on continuing to become the best person you can possibly be. Have enough respect to adore yourself. The rest is in the hands of my higher power, whomever that may be. 

Innocence

Innocence. What a perfectly blind thing. We were all children once. We all had that innocence in us, telling us that everything was going to be okay. That the world was a flawless place. You had no care in the world. You never fathomed that someone could be mean. No one could do any wrong. No one would get sick. Nothing would ever disfigure the world. No one would harm an animal. Mom was happy, and Dad would never leave. 
  
  Everything existed only for the good of the world. I remember being a young girl, and playing in the forest on the Washington Peninsula. My cousins and I would dress up in capes and run through the moss covered evergreens. Dodging branches and drinking in the feeling of the wind whipping our capes behind us. Our wide childlike eyes taking everything in without judgement. The air was brisk, but we were Washington raised. Our skin could take the cold. In fact we preferred it that way. It was on my cousins farm that we would roam the deep forest. We would catch frogs on the pond, and see how many we could keep in the boat at one time. We made hay forts in the loft of the barn so our parents couldn't find us. We stayed in those forts all day, telling ghost stories at night while braving the dark. Digging for clay in the rain. Riding horses on the rural backroads. Building teepees by the creek. Gathering berries and vegetables. Eating sour apples from their tree by the porch. Gathering eggs from the chicken coup. Sleeping outside in the back of my cousins old Ford Ranger. Cowboy boots. Muddy jeans. Berry stained fingers. Everything was perfect.

  And then we grew up. The forests where we once roamed, now empty of the sound of children's laughter. The pond still as glass. The hay unmoved, with no hidden caverns or tunnels. The apples unpicked. Capes unworn and collecting dust. Our fingers clean from blackberry stains. When was it that we stopped believing that the world was enchanting? At what point did we hang up our innocence? Now we are grown, and our minds are flooded with the troubles of the world. We see the bad. We feel the hurt. Life experience has left us untrusting and cautious. Childhood friends have moved on. Cousins have moved away. Animals have passed. Trees have fallen. Trucks have broken down and rusted. The sounds of bluegrass have faded. And Dad really did leave.