Category Archives: Life

There is this 30 days of letters blog meme going around. It requires you to write a letter to someone, once a day. One of those requirements is to write a letter to your best friend. The truth is, that’s really hard for me to do. I have so many amazing friends that I cannot help but give more than one of them the title “best.”

My primary best friend is one Ashley and she has held the title since middle school. The thing that I love about our friendship is that she will always hold the title, even if we haven’t spoken in weeks. And sometimes, when we do speak, we can just settle into comfortable silence. It rocks.

Then there’s Dez. We ran in the same circles for years before we began to talk to each other but now we talk to each other pretty much every day. I would be lying if I said she isn’t one of the reasons that I wake up. Truth be told, I can’t remember just when it was that I realized that I need her in my life but I do. We can be silly. We help eachother with websites and ideas. Yet she’s just as good at being my shoulder to cry on when I need her to.

Ashe and I haven’t always been friends. Or even had the best friendship ever. We’re both pretty stubborn when it comes to things. We can both be emotional. But we can discuss things of a serious matter or that are completely nonsensical, too. I enjoy that.

Even those people who aren’t quite my best friends are too awesome for words. Where would I be if Jenn hadn’t taken me in and spread her amazing positivity all over the place? What kind of person would I be if I hadn’t met her little boy? I honestly shudder to think of the thought.

And two people I could never forget to mention: Lars and Christie. Lars is my Dutch friend who is funny and silly and listens to my crap even when I don’t want anyone to have to listen to is. Christie makes me laugh and smile and..despite the fact that we met using pseudonyms, she has quickly become a friend of the real me, too.

Lately, I’ve (re)started talking to two people whom I feel belong in this post but may not even read it. One of them is my friend Giles. He’s been on my MSN list forever, I don’t even know how we met but I do remember that he’s half Irish. Our conversations are always so entertaining. I can be so stupidly funny (or maybe just stupid) with him and it’s great.

And there’s miss Loony, another one of those folks who I knew of but never talked to. Not any more. We’ve chatted quite frequently, often being ridiculously silly. She went me a message one day when we hadn’t talked about how she missed me which was crazy because I’d missed her, too, and it was great knowing that.. I mattered in someone’s life.

You might ask how I gathered all these awesome friends. You might be surprised to hear that this list barely covers my awesome friends. Honestly, I feel awful for leaving people out of this post but, if I didn’t, it would literally never end.

The truth is, I’m really lucky to have my amazing friends but I think part of the reason that I have amazing friends is because I am a pretty good friend myself. That’s definitely one of the things that I have pride about. It’s one of those things that maybe I didn’t intend to do but now I never intend to stop. Quite frankly, if I died and the only good thing people could say about me is that I’m a good friend, then my life will have been well worth it.

I would like to think that I am on the road to mental recovery, even if I didn’t even realize I wasn’t mentally awesome before. One side effect of this is the tendency to want to apply these newfound lessons to others around me. I am hyper-aware of the negative attitudes they are still perpetuating because I am trying to unlearn those same attitudes. And, sometimes I am able to share the lessons I’ve been learning with them. Still, it’s a little depressing because I’ve come to realize just how many mentally unhealthy people are close to me. I don’t know if it’s just because most people could use a little help in that department or if I attracted these people for some reason. To make matters even scarier, I can see how many people I know and love have no desire at all to be better than what they are. Maybe it’s not my place but I want to help them and I know that sometimes you just can’t. Some days.. I just want to cut all these negative people out of my life but then.. then I’d have no one.

The thing that I see on a daily basis is how much the people who I call my loved ones play the victim, blame others. They bitch. They want change but they do nothing to make it happen. They ask advice but they don’t listen or they come to me wanting to vent and wanting me to coddle them and when I want to give them advice instead, they become angry.

I guess that I just want everyone else to grow up with me. Not because I’m super controlling. Not because I think it’s unfair but because I know it will do them good to own their feelings and take responsibility for their situations. And because growing up feels really good even if it’s the hardest thing I’ve ever had to do. Sometimes we get so caught up in what is normal for us, never realizing that our normal is absolutely unhealthy. We don’t realize it because it’s just how we think. We’ve always done it that way but sometimes that’s not a good enough reason to keep doing it that way. Now that I see that, I just want everyone else to as well. I know it’s key to.. everything.

Last night (well, technically the night before by now), Ryan and I went to a WNBA (that’s women’s basketball for you!) game. It’s really not something we would have done had the opportunity not arisen (I got the tickets for free from a review network!) but I am glad we did. I have had a history of not trying new things because I get so nervous over being in unknown situations and not having control. I have been working through that, however, and try to remind myself that while the initial moments may be uncomfortable, that usually fades pretty quickly.

For instance, I didn’t know the layout of the venue but Ryan did and I was over my initial unease in 5 minutes (if it even took that long!). I thought about skipping out on the autograph session for that same reason but wound up going, anyway, and now my sister will have her very own Silver Stars t-shirt with an autograph! In the end, the perceived discomfort was far greater than the actual discomfort but I could have let that perception prevent me from doing something new. In hindsight, that’s a bad habit to develop.

There is nothing I like more than falling asleep easily or waking up feeling restful. However, this rarely happens. The other day, I was so tired I fell asleep watching TV and I woke up a bit later, thinking “Wow, I never fall asleep without realizing it anymore.” And it’s true.

Yesterday, I spent 5 hours lying in bed (and sometimes on the couch), trying to fall asleep. I took some melatonin, which did me no good. Mostly, I lie awake worrying about things that have happened, things that will happen. My mind keeps running even if my body is completely exhausted. It can be painful to keep my eyes open, yet my heart pounds and, in my brain, I’m thinking all sorts of things: ideas for blog posts and forum threads, layout designs, what I’ll eat the next day, how I’ll form an article for Demand Studios, whether I need to do any chores, what time I need to wake up to perform activity X. It just doesn’t stop.

I know I’m not alone and that makes me feel better but it doesn’t help, exactly. And neither do the cats who will paw at the walls, beat on the mirror, meow out the window, chase one another and claw at the carpet. I’ve been keeping a bottle of water on the night stand to spray at Goliath when he’s naughty (he’ll run at the sight of it, some mornings) but it’s so incredibly hard to fall asleep.

Or stay asleep. I’ll wake after a few fitful minutes of sleep and start back at square one. I’ll do this 5 or 6 times a night, some nights. It’s horrible. i’m sure the stress of my life makes it worse but, the truth is, I’ve always had trouble sleeping but I haven’t always realized it. Sometimes, we don’t realize that what we accept as “normal” is, in reality, unhealthy.

I know it now, but I’m still stumped. It seems like the effectiveness of my relaxation CD has worn off and I’ll have to look for a new solution.

Most people are so afraid ore rejection. They are afraid to ask because they don’t want to hear the word “No.” As if those two letters, side by side, are the end of the world. They’re not really. Few things can be answered by “No” that promise to be horrendous. Perhaps “Doctor, will I live to see Christmas?” but most people really won’t be any worse off if they receive a negative response.

And let’s not forget that even if something is a “no” now, doesn’t mean it always will be. People can change their minds. Circumstances change. “No” can become “yes” before you realize it.

And, while it’s not the focus of my thoughts at the moment, sometimes “No” can be what we need even when we don’t realize it.

But the thing is, if you don’t ask, you won’t eve get a “Yes.” If you want someone to do something with or for you, they probably won’t unless you give them the idea in the first place. If you don’t put yourself out there and take that risk, the risk that is almost always much smaller than we convince ourselves, you won’t ever reap the benefits. You will be causing the very thing you fear.

I used to do that a lot.I would want to do things and not tell Ryan and the day would pass and we wouldn’t do things and I’d be all pissed off at the universe for not letting me do something or at Ryan for not being a mind reader when, really, all I had to do was ask. Wow! What a run-on sentence. Ryan might say “No” or he may say “Yes.” He may say “Maybe later” and we’d find a happy medium if he really isn’t interested in what I want.

The thing is, I cannot possibly know until I ask and to become frustrated over something that I caused myself, something that I may be partially inventing in my head? Does no one any good.

Sometimes I will take a risk. Sometimes I will be shut down. Then I’ll try again. It’s the only way to really get a “Yes,” though.