Greatest Fear

My greatest fear in life is looking back on my life when I am older and realizing that I didn't do anything that I wanted to do. That I spent my entire life on nothing. I have so many things that I want to do with my life, things I want see, things I want to do, and my greatest fear is that I wont ever actually do any of them; that I will spend my life just going in circles and never truly moving forward. So to combat this fear I have started to envision myself accomplishing my goals. I have started telling myself that I can and will do what I want. I work towards it, plan everything out like it actually going to happen, preparing for things that I don't have yet. Often depression makes everything seem impossible, that there is no chance for anything, no light at the end of the tunnel. Its as though my goals are just to far away to reach, I can see others making it but not me. So I've started trying to create my own paths. Some days it does seem impossible and other days I can see the end. I just have to remember to remind myself that if I truly want something I have to truly believe that it will actually happen.

On repeat

I apologize for the language but this song has been on repeat for the past week. There is so much power behind the words. For a lot of my life I have tried to be normal, to fit in with the crowd, which eventually lead to my down fall. I always felt so ashamed of my depression like it meant that I wasn't strong enough to keep it together. But one day I just reached the point of realizing that I was tired of being "normal". I started telling people my story and accepting myself the way I was, crazy, broken, and beautiful. I stopped fighting myself and allowed myself to be me instead who society wanted me to be and that's where I am now. I still find myself living my life for others and trying to be who they want me but I am getting better at just allowing me to be me.

Scars

Wounded

A bruise is tender

but it does not last,

it leaves me as

I always was.

But a wound I take

much more to heart,

for a scar will always

leave its mark.

And if you should ask me

which you are,

my answer is-

you are my scar.

~Lang Leav

I recently found this poem and it has just stuck with me. I actually made it my background on my tablet so that I see it everyday. It serves to remind me that no matter what we do people are going to scar us. As I said in my earlier post people leave us all the time; there is not one person who is going to stay in your life forever. Some times when they leave they bruise you in the process. These are the people that it hurts to see go but you get over it. They don't shake your world as they make their exit. Other people cut you as they go leaving behind a scar that never truly fades away. These are the people that you invested deeply in, they are the person you called late at night when you felt alone, the one who knows your fears and dreams. This is someone that you loved. This is your best friend who decided that they wanted to move on, the person you thought you'd be with forever, a parent that dies or leaves. They each held a part of your life and a part of your heart and they take it with them as they go. They become the memories that are bittersweet to remember. People like this are impossible to avoid. There will come a time that we trust the wrong people or that fall in love with people that don't love us back or just love people in general. No matter how much you think that you can close yourself off to others, there is always going to be that one person that you let in. For most of my life I have been afraid of these scars because they hurt. I tried to hide from the world, avoided letting people know what was going on inside of my head, how I felt. But I couldn't keep everyone out, there have been people who have made it into my heart and many of them have given me the scars that I had always feared. But the thing is that we shouldn't be afraid of the scars. Scars mean that we have lived. Yes, scars hurt, it hurts to lose people but they also tell a story. Think about the physical scars that we have. They hurt when we got them but they also hold memories for us painful as they may have been. They are stories of what we have been through, what we have done, the type of people we are. Same goes for the scars that we receive from other people. These scars show that you loved, that you cared, that you are a person. They remind us of mistakes we made and of good times that we had. When they are healing sometimes it can be painful but after it heals it can become something beautiful. Scars are important. They are teaching tools and reminders of what we have been through and who we are. Inside of hiding our scars and shutting the world out we need to look at them with love and remember the good that came from the people that gave them to us. People will come and go, they will bruise or scar and we need to accept that this is the way of life instead of hiding from it. I try to no longer hide from my scars, they make me who I am today. Instead I try to embrace them as a part of me. I try not to hide from people in fear of being hurt, I try to just love unconditional, let people in to see my scars because I am my scars and my scars are me.    

Living with depression

I recently watched a clip on what it's like to live with depression and parts of it were spot on. Now I understand that not everyones expirence with depression is the same but for me depression is the voice in the back of your mind saying just go back to sleep, it's not worth getting up, no one will understand what's going on. It makes life so difficult because it makes it seem like you are stuck, that life will never change and never get better. What's the point of getting up when life is just going to be that same as yesterday? One thing they didn't touch on in the video is that sometimes it isn't a quiet little voice in your head telling you to stay. Sometimes it is a screaming, yelling voice telling you how worthless you are. It tells you how no one loves you, points out all of your flaws, tells you that you will never be enough. It becomes that bully that tells you to just kill yourself because you are stupid or ugly or just generally not good enough. It reminds you of all the times that you have failed. It reminds you of all the other people who said the same to you. It reminds you of how people have left and it must have been because you weren't good enough for them to want to stay. The worst thing about depression is that it's not someone else who is telling you this, this is you. No matter what other people say to you or how much they tell you how great you are, your voice tells you that you arent. This is you. It tells you, "I know what you have done. No one could ever love you because you are such a failure." It comes to the point where you are afraid to be alone, afraid to be quiet because its in those moments that the voice starts up again. I find myself often becoming anxious when I am alone because I am afraid of myself. I can't trust myself to be alone and not self destruct. The worst thing about depression though is the fact that it never really goes away, it lives with you constantly. You never truly escape it, you can manage it but never get rid of it. It's always there in the back of your mind just waiting for the right moment to attack once again. This is not something that people can just snap out of, it requires time for people to actually be able to manage. Sometime the only thing you can do for a person who has depression is to just be there. Just hold them. Don't promise that it will be better, don't promise to never leave, don't just tell them how amazing that they are because when you are depressed it doesn't feel like it will ever get and better, you don't feel amazing. You don't need someone to tell you how to fix it. What you really need is for someone just to be there, to have something solid to hold onto while the battle rages on inside of your head. Someone to just remind them that people exist. Life when you are depressed is a constant stuggle no matter what it does to you. It makes it difficult to enjoy what you have around you. It's a constant haze. Depression sucks. So just remember this if you ever have a friend who struggles with it. Sometimes the only thing you can do is be there, so be there.

Empty Promises

So there are couple things that truly bother me. One of these are empty promises. Now it's important for people to understand that promises are not something to be thrown around.
There are few promises that one should never ever make and the biggest one that people have made to me and shouldn't have is the promise to never leave. People never ever ever promises someone that you wouldn't leave them because you will. You can't promises to always be around because there is no possible way for you to actually fulfill this promises. Life happens, you will realize that their problems are to great for you to handle or that they themselves are to much to handle. Or your life will have an unexpected catastrophe or ___________________. You can't do it and people can only take so much dissapoinment before they shut down completely. Now some people are like me and are still completely naive and still believe those promises when they are made but someday after enough falls even I will stop believing it. So people I'm begging you don't ever make this type of promises to others. It is an empty promise that no one will ever be able to fill. The only promise you can make is to be there right now in this minute. Don't promise tomorrow or next month, promise now.

The Yellow Birds

Now many of you many or may not know that I love to read books and seeing as how I promised to keep you updated with everything that goes on I guess I should let you all know what I have doing recently with my time. So recently a close friend of mine lent me a book called The Yellow Birds by Kevin Powers and guys it was excellent. It is a powerful and compelling read that gives you a brief view into the life of a soldier in Iraq. Kevin Powers himself served in Iraq and this is his first novel. I'll tell you all a little about it but not to much in case any of you decide to pick it up. It follows the adventures of Private Bartle who struggles with the failure to keep a promise that no one should ever make, the promise to keep someone else alive, and with the after effects of killing and watching men, women, and children die. I seriously recommend that everyone at least attempt to read the book. It is so well done and such an honest interpretation of what soldiers go through.

Life in the past few days

The past few days have been really great! Things have been just getting better and better. The world seems to finally all fall into place and things are just looking up. The past few moths have been rough but with the help of good friends I feel that I am finally starting to move past this period of sorrow and depression. Things that I have accomplished lately include:
- Going to the gym: I was never really a gym person (or gym rat as some people like to call them) so I never really stuck with actually going daily, but recently with the help of friends (seriously friends can be really great if you find some good ones) I've been going at leat 4 times a week. I feel better and definitely look better.
-I've gained weight: Which is a good thing  I was kind of under weight for a while and not very healthy. I wasn't eating and wasn't getting hungry (Yay depression) so now since the gym started happening regularly I have been eat more and better foods.
-I've cut negative people out of my life: Now I'm not advocating that we cut all the people out that bother us or make us angry from time to time, but if you can not have a conversation with someone without honestly being angry with them (I don't mean the playful "how dare you not like my favorite band." I mean the I'm so mad it ruins the rest of my day and most of the the next day as well) it's time for them to leave. There is nothing good coming from that relationship what so ever. If you find yourself changing to be someone you're not for them, not worth it.
-Started planning a road trip: Now this might not seem like an accomplishment to most people but this is really big thing for me. I don't plan things out very well and I usually don't finish big projects that I start. This road trip will be one of the first trips I plan and take myself. It's just a very good feeling like I'm taking control of my own life.

Like I said before life is looking up. Might just be for this week but I'll take what I can get. Life has its ups and downs and sometimes you just need to ride them out. I hope that all of you are having wonderful weeks/days/lives!