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“All I have for the moment is a song to pass the time,
A melody to keep me from worrying
Yeah, some simple progression to keep my
Fingers busy
And words that are sure to come back to me…”
I’ve always been a really good sleeper. I’d read for a while and fall asleep… and I’d do my best to get seven or eight hours a night.
These days I don’t sleep well at all. Sometimes I wake up and feel like I didn’t sleep at all. A lot of times I just plain can’t sleep.
“So there still is hope,
Yes I can be healed
There is someone looking for what I’ve concealed
In my secret drawers, in my pockets deep,
You will find the reasons that I can’t sleep
And you will still want me…
Will you still want me?”
I’ve been doing a lot better since I wrote my last post. I still need to get my life in order and work to make more and more progress… but I’m going in the right direction.
It’s so important to look at your life, figure out what you can and can’t control, and try to make good decisions.
Good decisions…
I’ve been doing okay with that the last few months. I did make a lot of horrible decisions before I came back here though… with effects that I still feel every day.
I’m adjusting to this new way of life… learning to live again. Learning a lot about love.
It’s hard…
but still so worth it. Love.
The way you think… the way you feel… it controls so many things. I know that if I don’t BELIEVE I can get better, I won’t. I know that if I don’t fight the anxiety, the thoughts… they’ll beat me every time. Sometimes they’ll beat me even when I do fight… but I’ll keep fighting anyway.
“So hold up your fist
To the flame in the sky
To block out the light
That’s reaching for our eyes
Cause it would blind us…”
-Bright Eyes
Two sides to every story… cliche right? Just the first title that came to mind, I guess.
I tend to see things in spectrum. I believe that black and white do exist, but most things fall in between.
I have made so much progress since the beginning of February. I can’t lose sight of that. Yet… the last couple weeks have been pretty rough.
I think a good part of it has to do with the added stress of having lost my job. Not only does that make the money situation ultra-stressful, but it was also just good for me to be working every day. Now it’s a mad rush to get another job.
Right after I lost my job, I went up to Michigan. I thought it would be really good for me, but I think that in a way it was the opposite. I used to sort of joke about having post traumatic stress disorder when I would try to explain how I feel sometimes (not that having PTSD is funny, but joke as in I didn’t think I actually had it.) My sister actually did have it and while I was talking to her about how I feel she said that it does sound a lot like it’s possible that I have it. My reason for saying that is that being up in Michigan was hard because everything there reminded me of those three horrible months when everything just slipped away from me. I kept having flashbacks and it really just offset me.
And since then I’ve just been feeling like I’ve been slightly regressing. It’s really hard because ever since I started being able to function (work, play music, leave the house at night,) it seems sort of like everyone thinks that I’m back to normal or that everything is better. Things will never be “back to normal” and everything is definitely not better yet. Things are a lot better than they were in February, but I have a long ways to go.
Yeah. Things have been harder the last couple of weeks. I’ve been crying a lot.
However… the other side of the story is that:
-I started writing music again.
-I have a lot of fun playing in the band.
-I played solo in a show tonight and it went really well. I had a lot of fun.
-Although I still don’t hang out with a lot of different people (which is really different for me,) I have met quite a few people and feel ready to start doing that a little more.
-I’m really looking forward to being back in school this fall.
It’s really hard to even compare now to when I first moved back here. At night I couldn’t even leave the house or be alone. I literally felt like a zombie. I still had no appetite or hunger and avoided everyone other than in my immediate family. I felt a lot of anxiety all day every day. Things were very, very bad.
So I have come a long way… a very long way. I really want to stay focused on that. I know that I simply won’t get better if I don’t believe that I will get better.
And.. I also realize that I’m very blessed with a lot of different things.
I went to open mic night again last night. There is this guy- who I’ll call Travis- who hangs out around the cafe a lot.
Most performers at open mic get up with an acoustic guitar and sing songs. It’s always sort of refreshing when someone does something different.
Travis got up with a notebook and began to read a poem. Before he even started, I grimaced a little because I could only imagine what it could contain. Travis isn’t especially well-liked around this cafe. He hits on all the girls, acts pretty obnoxiously, and offends many people up and down.
I have to admit that his poem was pretty good- but very inappropriate for the setting. This cafe is a family establishment and he’s been banned before.
His poem was basically a hate and anger letter to God and the Christian religion. Although the words themselves were well written and the questions reflected thoughts of men and women throughout the ages, they also showed his misunderstanding of much of Christianity. The worst part about it was the arrogance in which he delivered his words with, as if he were smarter than those who believe in Christianity. I respected him for putting these questions out there, but he did it in the wrong place and with the completely wrong attitude. Although many of the things he said sounded good and convincing at first, if you really thought about it on a much deeper level what he was saying didn’t make sense. For example, he kept calling God a fool. By definition, God simply can’t be a fool. He said if God is loving and omnipotent (which he pronounced wrong,) why is there pain in the world? Yet he went on to criticize that God punished his supposed son who lived perfectly.
My response is not a defense of Christianity. It is just a criticism of what he was saying, as well as where and how he was saying it.
This young man was full of such anger and hate! I feel a lot of compassion for him… as well as frustration because of him.
What I’m also getting at is that there are two types of non-Christians. There are those that harbor a lot of anger and resentment towards the God they don’t believe in and the people who do, and then there are those who are at peace with what they believe (and don’t believe) in. I’ve been burned by churches. I’ve been burned by Christians. I’ve been angry at God. I do not call myself a Christian, but I do not harbor such huge amounts of anger and hate at God or Christians in general. I believe in the things I believe in because of logic, reason, experience, and simply what my heart says, NOT because I am angry at the “God I don’t believe in.” I find such freedom in that.
When I was in the hospital, my dad kept telling me about this metaphor of a bridge somewhere out east. Apparently the tunnel is a few miles long and has a curve somewhere in the middle. Until you go around the curve you literally can’t even see the light at the end of the tunnel… but it’s there.
I lost my job. I’ll save the details of that for another post, but let me say that it was no fault of my own nor was it a layoff. I spoke up for myself and got fired for it. At first I wasn’t really upset about it because I felt good that I had said what I wanted to say (and what others are too afraid to say.) Then I left to go to the U.P. for a week and sort of forgot about it. Now that I’m back at home I’m realizing that not only is it the expected stress of financial burden and whatnot, but it’s also really not good for me that I have now lost the sense of routine that was really helping me make progress.
Feeling the way I did in the U.P… it really made me sort of second-guess how far I’ve come. I know that’s stupid… but it just made me feel really weak. One of the hardest things for me to face is the fact that during high school I had struggled a LOT, but I felt I had overcome and gotten through that “tunnel.” I feel like I just lost all of that.
Which isn’t true. I still draw on things that I learned through that ordeal when I’m trying to pull myself out of this “thing.” And honestly without the things I learned then I don’t know if I could have gotten through this.
So.. I guess my tunnel has more than one curve. Because right now it’s hard for me to see the light at the end of it again. I know it’s there.. but sometimes it’s hard to feel it.
OK, quick life update:
-Lost my job
-Been playing more and more music
-I still play music with those guys where we do a lot of folk.. we have a gig every Thursday before this music festival that happens every Thursday here in the summer. That’s been going really well.
I miss all of you from the WordPress world and really want to make an effort to post more. It’s helped me a lot throughout my time here and I really appreciate you all for your support and advice!!
It has been way too long, my friends.
This time my absence has mostly been a sign of positive growth. I’ve been busy with work, music, and my boyfriend.
For those of you who have been keeping up with my blog, there is a lot I could update you on, but for now I’d rather just write about where I’m at… right now.
I’m back in upper Michigan with my sister and brother.
The last time I was here was pretty much right before I hit rock bottom. It was when I first began trying to pull myself out of the hole I had fallen (and also jumped) into. And although last time I was here I felt joy for the first time in quite a while, I also realized that getting better was going to be a fight.
That was in the Porcupine Mountains. Right now the part of the UP I’m in is a couple hours east of that. I came here a lot during the winter months with my friend. In a way… it’s really painful to be here. And frustrating. It’s like no matter where I go these memories haunt me. They claw at me, tearing away pieces of the stability I have tried to rebuild.
I guess I have a lot of thoughts right now- too many to really focus on to write a good post. I hope you all are well… and I will most surely post again before leaving here.
Learning to Live 