Sinking

There are times in life when you feel like you have a problem that you can trust no one with. You fear the judgement, you fear how someone might think differently of you, you fear that you could even lose friends. Most of these fears feed on your silence. A struggle that is common or even totally normal, will begin to seem much worse than it is. Shame will grow in this silence too. Shame tries to take your light, but you know your light is your gift and you need it to keep going. So you start fighting for your light, but shining becomes exhausting because you are in this constant battle. So when you have the strength you find yourself sending out pleadings to God. Pathetic little whispers for help, for guidance, for anything really. Just something to give you a break. Then a person starts coming to mind, every time you are struggling. And so you start to think maybe you should tell them, for whatever reason, maybe they would understand. Then one night after an exceptionally long battle within yourself, fighting to keep shining, you just go for it. Send out a quick S.O.S, just getting straight to the point. You take the leap and brace for the landing, hoping it's a soft one. Then as you wait for the response you find that you aren't sinking anymore, that the weight pulling you down has lessened just by putting it out there, just by saying I'm having a hard time and I need someone there has been a relief. So you are there still under everything that has been drowning you, but no longer sinking and there is a strange sense of peace there. Then the response comes and it is filled with grace and love and even a complete understanding. True understanding because the one you reached out to has been where you are. They truly know. So the weights just keep falling off, and you start swimming up, because there is encouragement in having a someone on your side, telling you that you can do this. Finally you break the surface and oh the relief of that first gasp of air that comes from having it all out there. All exposed. So now you are treading water which is still hard work and it will exhaust you too, but your head is above it all and you can breathe again. But even better still, you can speak again. And so begins the journey back to land, where that beautiful friend is waiting with open arms.

beautiful mess

Happiness comes too easily for me.
By this I don't mean that I never have lows, or that I'm never in a funk that I just can't seem to shake. Oh trust me I have shit days, and shit moods, and shit feelings too. What I mean is that it's not very hard for me to find happiness around me. I can find pleasure in simple things, I'm pretty low maintenance when it comes to being entertained. Give me someone to talk to, or even not talk just to sit with, that I enjoy and I am quite content. Spontaneous adventures thrill me, and I seem to have a knack for making simple things like a trip to the store an adventure. I'm not fickle when it comes to things that can make me happy. I truly take joy in tiny little gifts that only people looking for them will receive. Even then most people probably wouldn't even understand why something like gusts of breath-taking wind would make my heart race. But I love it.
The point of all this rambling? Mostly just to say that while it can be a nice character trait to possess, it can also be exhausting. You see I'm a "what-if'er" and I have a big imagination. So I get caught up quite easily in imaginings of possibilities of what if's and wondering "would I have been happy?". Problem is my reaction usually to these wanderings of the mind are "I probably could have". I realize that happiness isn't hard for me. Which leads to "Should I have done this or that? I could have been happy either way so how do I know it was the right choice?".
For this reason lately I find myself wishing I was harder to please. Then maybe it would be easier to dismiss possibilities or chances missed because I would be easier able to say "Oh no way, I would have been so unhappy". Even so as I type that out it sounds ridiculous.

It's really just a mess, a mess of too many beautiful possibilities.

My type of reckless...

I have a rebellious streak.
I realize people say this a lot. The same people who say this a lot also like to say "I know people say this a lot but I actually really do". So who am I? Really I could just be one of them. I know several people, including my Mother and the man I married who would tell you that I most definitely have one. After all I get it from my mother. But neither of them are here to confirm it. Honestly I don't really care if whoever reads this takes it seriously. I know I have a "problem". My rebellion though, it's usually just sort of weird. It's not the stereo-typical movie type rebellion. It's my own quirky form. I will oppose something just because people want me to agree for instance. Just because I find pleasure in even the smallest ways of going against the flow. There are a bunch of different ways I could explain it but it really doesn't matter and would probably just sound so bizarre. But the thing that I'm getting to, is it gets ridiculous. When I get restless, I get the desire to rebel. And let me tell you I am restless today. I'm annoying myself for goodness sake. So my desire to rebel is pretty strong. And the first and easiest thing I can think of is to dye my hair. There is a problem though...I'm sort of terrified to use a box dye on my hair. Salon you suggest? Well that would take more time than I'm patient enough to deal with right now. Oh and then there is the fact that I live in Japan now. JAPAN. Where people have straight smooth hair. Not super thick, crazy curly, rebellious hair. They won't know how to cut this, and my color. Oh lord I want to stay red. But with a language barrier, highly intimidating. Plus I've been researching, reading reviews, for the past several days. And it just isn't promising. Plus it's SO expensive. So I'm HIGHLY tempted to just run over to the store on my bike, pick a cute cheap box of color and go for it. I could do it tonight and potentially satisfy my desires to do something ANYTHING different. Or it could be a tragedy. I could be ruined.
Or I could just go dark....very dark.....

New Beginning

A few friends in the past month have asked and/or told me to start blogging again.
To be totally honest, now that things have finally started to settle down, I had been thinking about it already. But I guess the fact that people I know want me to do it was what gave me the final push to just do it.
So here it is, no explanations of where I've been, no attempts at writing a huge post to catch up on everything. Just a start over. I'll write from where I am right now, no trying to go over the gap of time where I wasn't writing. Because frankly, I would give up. So if you are willing to join me, I am willing to share. It's pretty exciting times around here lately. I moved to Japan! So there are lots of adventures to be had.

More to come! I'm off to get inspired.