This was how I wanted to remember her. Even though, at so and so years old, wanting to run off and play. Freezing for a dozen pictures sounded more like torture than a distant memory that I would cherish. A memory that I coddle like Teeny the tiny hamster, perched upon my palms. A moment that I prepared to lunge and grab if it came too close to scurrying away. I hope that the eye rolls and the whining, while she squinted to get the picture just right translated in some way to “I Love You’s”. I hope that all the groans and rushing off to someone else translated in some way to “I never want to lose you” and that she knew that I loved her with all my heart.
As the years passed by, the squinting progressed into an honest inability to see. Her fingers no longer had the dexterity to push the buttons on that darn camera. It was too late to teach her to use a smart phone and standing long enough to herd us all together for a picture was practically an impossible feat.
In less time than I realized, I became the one that wanted to capture every moment together. I was the one that pushed her to smile for my camera, who recorded all of our adventures, even if it only took place in the comfort of our living room.
In less time than I realized, the circle of life had made its complete circle. I was making jokes and tricks to try and get her to eat as much nourishment as possible. I was changing her soiled clothing. I was comforting her when she was having a tantrum.
I loved her even more then. In all those moments, I realized how unconditional love can really be. How much of the extra means nothing, when you are focused on the happiness and well being of the people you hold dear.
But, this is how I really want to remember her. Chasing us around to capture a glimpse of our happiness. The love in her effort. The care in her intent. Squinting to get the picture just right. Standing strong for all of us to remember.
Again, it’s impossible to get anyone to understand what anxiety feels like, when you don’t suffer from it yourself. This is my struggle with anxiety, with the evil whispers that anxiety likes to speak on a daily basis and the fight to keep my anxiety under control.
My attempt at doing the impossible, getting people that don’t have anxiety or panic attacks, to understand what it may feel like. Especially since so many people that suffer with anxiety have the capability to appear completely fine, while they struggle within.
I was struggling here lol but ….. Love the song .. so .. eh… here it is …
All I ask – Adele
There are so many things in this life that I’d love to do, but feel so shy to do, scared to do, timid to do. Little by little I have broken through small hurdles.. and today, I wanna try to jump over another one.
All my life, I have loved singing. I would sing karaoke through the night, as long as I thought no one could hear me. As soon as I heard a door creak, my throat would close, and I couldn’t get a note out. I would say, the only person that has heard me sing at the top of my lungs is my partner. Thank goodness, 🙏 he allows me to sing through all the road trips, through all the cleaning days without judging me, without complaining that I’m an ear sore 😝.
He make me feel so comfortable to be my 100% true self. Open, vulnerable, raw. I am in no way, a great singer lol, but I love to sing, I love listening to the passions in others’ voices and I wish that for myself. My partner encourages me to love myself and my passions, he is super supportive with the things I do end up trying.
Anyway… Here I am, working up the courage to do something I’m afraid of. I still feel shy recording myself singing, I’m terrified to make it public lol. But …. why not… live my life, love myself, and stop holding back.
Sometimes, we feel like we have been through so much in our life that we broken.
Sometimes, we meet that person that wants to be there to hold your hand while you heal
and sometimes, I think we worry that those burdens are just way too much for our loved ones to hold on to with you and in reality, it isn’t anyone else’s responsibility to heal you.
but sometimes we meet that person that wants to hold your hand while you heal despite the difficulties, despite tears, because they love you.
He listened to her intently as the tears fell from her cheeks
He stared at her bewildered as she gasped for breaths between words
Had he known that his choices at the precipice of her love would break her even 20 years into the future, he might have chosen differently
.
.
But would he really?
.
.
As she lay, curled into the blanket, limbs writhing from the pain radiating from her heart, from the memories of her past, he stood there, mouth gaping wide
.
.
How could he have been so careless?
How could he take her gentle soul and defame it ?
How could he take all the love she gave him and set it down as if it wasn’t the most precious gift she could have offered?
.
.
“Your love traumatized me” she wailed
“I gave you every part of me” she groaned
.
.
As she doubled over in pain, in weakness, in horror
There was nothing he could do but place a hand on her shoulder for comfort
.
.
She was right
.
.
Every way that he had fractured her heart initiated the deep cracks that still find themselves way too difficult to heal
.
.
No matter what she did to smooth out the edges, fill in the holes
No matter what man came to her with love and praise and affection
.
.
She was never able to satiate the ache her heart felt
.
.
His words echoed in every future relationship
His doubt and hesitation manifested into her fear for the future
.
.
And with each failed love story, she felt increasingly defeated
.
.
A little more hopeless
A little more helpless
A little more pessimistic
.
.
But his love story, their love story
Will always be the love story that broke her
.
.
Their love story will always be the one that started it all
Their love story will always be the one that took her gentle soul, her innocent love, and her forgiving heart and crushed it, demolished it, tarnished it
.
.
He wished with every fiber of his being that he could rewrite their love story
That he could erase the pain
That he could heal her broken parts
.
.
But a love story cannot be rewritten, it cannot be unwritten
She just has to find a way to give herself the happy ending that she knows she deserves on her own
There are so many things in this life that I’d love to do, but feel so shy to do, scared to do, timid to do. Little by little I have broken through small hurdles.. and today, I wanna try to jump over another one.
All my life, I have loved singing. I would sing karaoke through the night, as long as I thought no one could hear me. As soon as I heard a door creak, my throat would close, and I couldn’t get a note out. I would say, the only person that has heard me sing at the top of my lungs is my partner. Thank goodness, 🙏 he allows me to sing through all the road trips, through all the cleaning days without judging me, without complaining that I’m an ear sore 😝.
He make me feel so comfortable to be my 100% true self. Open, vulnerable, raw. I am in no way, a great singer lol, but I love to sing, I love listening to the passions in others’ voices and I wish that for myself. My partner encourages me to love myself and my passions, he is super supportive with the things I do end up trying.
Anyway… Here I am, working up the courage to do something I’m afraid of. I still feel shy recording myself singing, I’m terrified to make it public lol. But …. why not… live my life, love myself, and stop holding back.
People cross our paths every day whether it’s a lasting relationship, first and only impression, or a person meant to change our route and walk away. We never know what someone else is going through. The least we can offer anyone in this world, is compassion. We need to have love, spread love, give love, to be able to be someone that is capable of receiving love in return.
Just a poem about a woman who lost her son in one of the most unimaginable heartbreaking ways and the way that she still smiles toward the world and tries to carry on with her life. We never know the hurt that is going on within someone else. So, let’s all please be kind, love, allow yourself to be loved, and ask for the help when you need it. ❤️
There are so many things in this life that I’d love to do, but feel so shy to do, scared to do, timid to do. Little by little I have broken through small hurdles.. and today, I wanna try to jump over another one.
All my life, I have loved singing. I would sing karaoke through the night, as long as I thought no one could hear me. As soon as I heard a door creak, my throat would close, and I couldn’t get a note out. I would say, the only person that has heard me sing at the top of my lungs is my partner. Thank goodness, 🙏 he allows me to sing through all the road trips, through all the cleaning days without judging me, without complaining that I’m an ear sore 😝.
He makes me feel so comfortable to be my 100% true self. Open, vulnerable, raw. I am in no way, a great singer lol, but I love to sing, I love listening to the passions in others’ voices and I wish that for myself. My partner encourages me to love myself and my passions, he is super supportive with the things I do end up trying.
Anyway… Here I am, working up the courage to do something I’m afraid of. I still feel shy recording myself singing, I’m terrified to make it public lol. But …. why not… live my life, love myself, and stop holding back.
I wrote this poem back in 2016, after moving to LA from Northern California. I came here for Nursing School and I made the move all alone. I walked away from a long term relationship because he wasn’t ready to make the move with me and that left me feeling very confused. I was proud of myself for making the move, for my future, for my well being. I was excited because I was beginning this new chapter of my life filled with growth and it was a road I knew without a doubt that I wanted to take, but walking away from someone that I had spent the last 6 years with in the same breath, was heartbreaking. The first year or two in LA was a time for rediscovery. I was learning how to live my life for myself and not having to worry about another persons needs. For the first time in my life, I was only needing to care about what I wanted and what I needed. But I was left with insecurities that ran deep into my childhood and were reinforced by a relationship that didn’t work. That’s when I found my passion in dancing again and I realized within those years how much dancing filled me with happiness, and confidence. It took time before I was able to slowly break free from some of the constraints I had within myself, but I owe all of it to music, dance, and a special someone that never gave up on me. In the moments that I was at my lowest, I had someone new in my life that never let me feel the insecurities that weighed me down. When I didn’t have the confidence to shake the thoughts off, he was there to remind me of how amazing he thought I was. Eventually, I began to believe it.
It’s amazingly true, that positive affirmations can change your mindset and change your life. Even when I struggled to believe ALL the things, he pushed me to say them over and over again. He made me believe them, and eventually I rediscovered the love that I had for myself.
I still struggle on a daily with insecurities, with anxiety. I still question myself and have doubts. I still keep myself in a bubble and shy away from things that I enjoy because of my own fears of letting loose. But I work on it every day as well. I have a supportive partner that encourages me to love myself and reminds me of all my potential. Every day, I hope to rediscover more about myself, love more about myself, and break away from the bubble I keep myself in. Every day is a new chance for change and growth that I hope to continue for the rest of my life.
I’ve always LOVED listening to spoken word. Some really amazing poets have made me cry my eyes out with their beautiful words and the way that they convey those emotions in spoken word. I have been shy my entire life and things that I am passionate about are things that I find difficult to be open and vulnerable in. I decided to start recording my poems starting from the first one I have posted here on my blog.
I have always been super uncomfortable on camera especially on video, but I want to start breaking out of my little shy bubble and trying different things for my own self growth and self love.
This is my first time recording a poem like this, so please be gentle. One day I hope to be able to not be so shy and perform my poetry with the emotions that I feel with them…. until then… here I go…..
A lot happened in the short amount of time between when my grandma got sick and when I lost her. The timeline is something that I feel like I will forever hold dear. In my last full conversation with my grandmother, she spontaneously called my sister and I on video chat and she talked to us while I was on my way to work. She spoke of all the things she normally mentioned, we said our goodbyes, we told her we loved her and that we would talk to her later.
The thing that I thought was odd about that goodbye, was that she asked me to call her on my break. She never asked me to call her that quickly. She would usually say something to the effect of “call me later, talk to you soon” but she never told me to call her on my lunch break. I didn’t think too much of it, but the next time I was able to really talk to her, she was on oxygen. We spoke for a moment, she was able to talk to me, but I could tell it was hard for her to speak for very long, so I told her to rest and that I would call her again soon. She gained her wings a few days after that.
I fight tears typing this memory of my last moments with my Grandma because, like everyone I know that has lost a loved one, we wish we had more time, we wish the phone call was longer, we wish we could have visited one last time. I know that I called my grandma often, I know that I always made sure I told her how much I loved her, and how much I missed her, but I wish I could have done more.
She helped raise me my entire life. My memories of her are all good ones; rocking me on her legs when I was sick, hanging out with me at the mall. She would always stop at McDonald’s and get a fish filet with fries and no salt with a Diet Coke. It wasn’t until I became an adult that I realized it was never called a fish filet, and that it was called “filet of fish”. She would walk me to the library as a kid and feed my love of books. We would go to random stores and she would ask me to pick something out that I wanted, and I was always browsing book stores for my next favorite read. We would sing karaoke together as my Grandpa would say we were out of tune 😂. I would help her with her little yard sales and packing her balikbayan boxes.
My Grandma held one of the biggest parts of my heart and losing her was something I feared for forever.
ANYWAY
The point of my post was not to reminisce about my Grandma, but to tell you about a dream I had after she passed away.
Whatever your spiritual or religious beliefs are, I have to say, there is definitely a common thread between people that have lost loved ones, and then dreaming of their loved ones saying goodbye.
A few days after losing my Grandma, I had a dream. I was being driven by someone on the backroad of somewhere. It was evening it seemed like. looked like a storm was coming but it wasn’t raining yet. I was thinking that I needed to find my Grandma because I knew she was leaving and I needed to see her before she left. I ended up catching her going in the opposite direction as I was on the road, and we flipped a U-turn and met up with my Grandma in some garage. We both got out of the car and hugged each other super tight. We were both crying and I was telling her
“I don’t want you to go home yet, I don’t want you to go”
and my Grandma replied “I have to go”
It was then that I woke up and I was balling my eyes out. The rest of that day was a hard day. But I knew that she was telling me goodbye. She was giving my soul a last hug from her. She was letting me know that everything was going to be okay.
I heard somewhere that when we lose loved ones, we are so saddened by that loss, we are sad for them. The reality is, when our loved ones gain their wings, they are at peace. They are surrounded by their lost loved ones. They are happy. The reason why we are so saddened is because we are sad for the moments we won’t have with them, the moments we will miss them, the moments we want them to have with us.
I am sure that our loved ones are sad to leave our physical world. but once they gain their wings, they can be with us always. They will be with us in all those moments, they are beside us when we need them most.
Maybe you don’t believe in the afterlife. Maybe you don’t believe in spirits or them being able to visit after death. But for me, I find comfort in knowing my Grandma reached out to me. She gave me a hug before she left. We cried together, we said goodbye. And she waits in heaven with Grandpa and her siblings, for the day that we are all together again.
For anyone that knew my during all my prerequisites in college, this EXACTLY what I looked like on the couch studying. Every single day.
This book had been on my shelf for years now. I’ve meant to read it, and started it a few times. It wasn’t for lack lack on interest that I didn’t read it, I just found myself too busy to dive into an 800+ page book. Based in 1870s London, it is about a 19 year old whore working her way up in society. I can’t wait to finally get to finish it. Anyone what wants to read along with me… I’d love to Have you 💋
*fun fact : this was the book Emily Gilmore mentions in an episode of Gilmore Girls lol
A few months ago, I started a book club, on FB called NEVER SILENCE THE MAD READER. As I was reading this particular book, our first book of the club, I realized it had so many large words that I had to look up. This was a very discouraging realization because in high school, I had so much pride in myself for being an avid reader. As an adult, I didn’t get the chance to read as much, but I didn’t think my vocabulary was as limited as it was. By the end of the first book, I chalked it up to the book itself. I mean, it was called “Special Topics in Calamity physics”, what else was I going to expect?
LOL a bunch of hard words…..
turns out…. It wasn’t the book, because come Decembers book, and I’m still writing down a long list of words I do not know hahaha
Anyway, I decided to write poems for each word to help me ingrain the definition into my mind. I thought it would help expand my apparently minuscule pool of vernacular. Once I started doing this, I thought, hey! why not start a poetry group and post poetry prompts, I’m already “prompting” myself, I’ll just share it, and others can join if they want to.
I started a poetry group on FB called NEVER SILENCE THE MAD POET and I began posting my word of the week or poetry prompts. I recently decided, I’ll try sharing it on here as well and 🙏 would love it if anyone would like to participate and tag their ping backs to #NSTMPP
This weeks poetry prompt will be the word “Asinine”
according to Merriam-webster:
1: extremely or utterly foolish or silly an asinine excuse
First, I want to say that, I have always loved reading. In high school I was always walking around with a book in my hand. A lot of times, I wasn’t paying attention in class because I was busy getting whisked away in another land. Falling in love with the characters in these books. As I got older, I found it harder and harder to read for pleasure. I was always busy studying and reading a textbook. This year is probably the year that I’ve read the most since high school and I am so proud of myself lol. I have “traveled” to New Orleans, Nigeria, New Salem. I have been shocked by family secrets, rooted for the underdog, and felt empowered by women and their magic. I have never done book reviews, so this will be a really rough summery of the books I’ve read this year, but I do hope to do this more often. So here it goes…..
IRON LACE
by Emilie Richards
This book weaves together two different generations, two different lifetimes, two different stories. We are introduced to our central character, Phillip Benedict. He’s a journalist that resides in Los Angeles, if you can call a studio with a hotplate, ‘residing’. He comes to New Orleans to visit his mother, a pretty well known Jazz singer in those parts. He has somewhat of a relationship with a beautiful woman named Belinda, but it is pretty obvious that commitment within many things aspects of his life is a difficult thing. Aurore Gerritsen, seeks out Phillip to get him to write her life story for her. She chose him for reasons that will eventually be revealed. She begins her story before she is even able to walk, and it already involved a love triangle, illegitimate children, and murder. It takes the entire book to unwind all of the lives that have been twisted together, all of the loss and the hurt. But in the end, there is relief that the truth is out there and hope that a family once torn apart, can be one day united.
I actually read this book in HS and loved it back then. I decided to reread it before I read the sequel. It is crazy how different you interpret things or how much more you understand from the characters, once you are an adult. I loved this book because it starts off with the drama and then builds the story around it. I love that the overall theme of this story is to take away segregation and unite as a family, no matter what the color of your skin is. There is a lot of history in this story about the riots and war on color at that time. Also, there is an undertone of coming up from nothing to being someone successful, none of which is determined by the amount of money that you make. One of the major loves, in my opinion is Aurore and Rafe. They did a lot to hurt each other, but underneath it all, it was misunderstandings and secrets that broke them. They really loved each other and it kills me even now, to think of how their story ended. There really is a lot more depth here than I am able to speak on. There is racism and sexism and clear segregation of society. It is a lot to unpack, but I did enjoy the book then and I enjoyed it again this year.
Rising Tides
by Emile Richards
Rising Tides begins with the death of Aurore Gerritsen and the reading of her will. She left specific rules to be carried out, everyone listed in the will must stay to hear the entire will over the course of four days and stay together at her summer house in Louisiana or else they will not receive their share. During these four days, more secrets are revealed, relationships patched, marriages broken.
We see Phillip Benedict again, as well as his mother Nicky and her partner. Aurora’s son with his wife and daughter were there although, he really didn’t want to be. I don’t have too much to say about book. I loved it because it was a continuation of Iron Lace, but I wasn’t as emotionally invested as I was in Iron Lace. We get a deeper dive into Nicky’s life after her and Clarence ran away for safety, her struggle coming up in the world and her struggle with love. We get introduced to Dawn, Aurore’s granddaughter and learn of their love for each other and her strained relationship with her dad and bond with her uncle. It is an eye opening story in relation to history, being able to see from our character’s eyes, the hardships they faced with racism and segregation, the war, and the underground ways people were trying to fight for their freedoms. It was a dangerous time to put your foot down and stand your ground. I loved being able to close the circle from Aurore’s life, but I think my heart will always belong to her and Rafe.
Special Topics in Calamity Physics
by Marisha Pessl
This one really had my mind going in circles, in a good way and in an eye opening way. This was the first book in my book club and I felt so bad because I feared the title would scare people away. I always prefaced the introduction with ‘it’s a murder mystery, it’s not what it sounds like’. The book itself is structured very interestingly; each chapter is a name of a book, and I started to panic that I needed to have read these books to get some inside joke, but that panic faded away after the first few chapters. We meet Blue Van Meer and right off the bat, she’t extremely intelligent, well rounded. She narrates this story citing multiple works of literature which also made me panic that I had to read this also or at least look up what these books were, but no need to fear, it is not that serious. I felt like I was getting slapped in the face and reminded that my vocabulary is definitely not up to par. Which, in reality was a good thing because it made me step up my game and work on it. I did have to look up a lot of words while reading this book, but that was MY fault and not the fault of the book itself. Well, we learn right away that Blue has not lived a normal life. She has suffered loss, which I think her emotions seemed kind of detached from, and we are told, that she suffers more as the book goes on. She lived a very nomadic life with her father, changing schools very often, never really living in a place that she could really call HOME. She was already accustomed to not getting too attached to her friends at school. She does eventually become friends with a group at her new school called the BLUEBLOODS, mostly because her teacher Hannah Schneider invited her into it. I don’t want to say too much and spoil the storyline, but for me, the book felt very drawn out for most if it. Events happened that made you question everything, and then all of a sudden, you are rushed within a few chapters with information that came from almost nowhere. It’s like in the movies where they do a sudden reveal, and then go back and show you clips from certain parts of the movie, and it makes you go “ooooh”.
Overall, I enjoyed the book. I with that the big reveal was more than the rush of information in the end that we have to piece together, but I guess that is how most mystery plots go. I really wanted more for Blue, and I expected more from her father, but the rest is left to our imagination to hope.
The Girl with The Louding Voice
by Abi Dare
The main character of this story is Adunni, a 14 year old girl, facing the reality of her life in Nigeria. She lost her mom a while back, and is now finding herself being married off for money. She is the girl with the “louding voice” because she doesn’t want to just accept the marriage and bare children, she wants an education, she wants independence. This is a great story on women empowerment and fighting with every bone in your body for your dreams. Adunni gets away from her husband who is trying to force her to have his baby, he is abusive and she fears for her life. She finds herself an escape, where she is again in another abusive household, practically working as a servant to survive. She becomes friends with another woman there that has the same values as she does and wants her to succeed. She helps Adunni out the situation she is in and we are then left to dream of the great things that Adunni will undoubtedly accomplish.
This is a very straightforward story of a girl that is willing to fight for her dreams, even with the world is against her. With an eye opening look at culture in certain areas of Nigeria.
The Once and Future Witches
by Alix E. Harrow
Another book about women empowerment. This book is centered around 3 sisters during a time where magic had become a thing of the past. Magic was more like whispers in the darkness, rather than the powerful being that it was. From beginning to end, this story is all about growth between these sisters. Growth in their bond, growth in themselves as women. There are a lot of underlying themes of needing to burst through confinement, push through being held down and to accept and love who you are. There is love, loss, battles. One of my favorite books of 2020 probably.
So, for my first book review post, I’d like to apologize for it lol . It had been a long time since I read some of them, and I have never written book reviews before, but I was proud of what I read in 2020 and I wanted to share. I’m hoping to improve my future book reviews and not rush it like I did with this.
A few months ago, I started a book club, on FB called NEVER SILENCE THE MAD READER. As I was reading this particular book, our first book of the club, I realized it had so many large words that I had to look up. This was a very discouraging realization because in high school, I had so much pride in myself for being an avid reader. As an adult, I didn’t get the chance to read as much, but I didn’t think my vocabulary was as limited as it was. By the end of the first book, I chalked it up to the book itself. I mean, it was called “Special Topics in Calamity physics”, what else was I going to expect?
LOL a bunch of hard words…..
turns out…. It wasn’t the book, because come Decembers book, and I’m still writing down a long list of words I do not know hahaha
Anyway, I decided to write poems for each word to help me engrain the definition into my mind. I thought it would help expand my apparently minuscule pool of vernacular. Once I started doing this, I thought, hey! why not start a poetry group and post poetry prompts, I’m already “prompting” myself, I’ll just share it, and others can join if they want to.
I started a poetry group on FB called NEVER SILENCE THE MAD POET and I began posting my word of the week or poetry prompts. I recently decided, I’ll try sharing it on here as well and 🙏 would love it if anyone would like to participate and tag their ping backs to #NSTMPP
This weeks poetry prompt will be the word “IMPLACABLE”
according to Merriam-Webster dictionary :
: not placable : not capable of being appeased, significantly changed, or mitigated an implacable enemy
1. used to describe (someone who has) strong opinions or feelings that are impossible to change
A few months ago, I started a book club in Facebook called NEVER SILENCE THE MAD READER. I decided I’d extend it to my blog and post the books, just in case anyone would like to join along. Feel free to join the FB group to participate in the discussions, but I will also post the discussions here in the comments ( I think that is how I will do this anyway, still figuring it out ).
For January we are going to read The Invisible Life of Addie Larue by V.E. Schwab. January 1 lands on a Friday, so what better day than to just start there.
week 1 : part 1+2
week 2 : part 3+4
week 3 : part 5
week 4 : part 6+7
My goal will be to post the discussion questions by that Friday after reading.
A few months ago, I started a book club, on FB called NEVER SILENCE THE MAD READER. As I was reading this particular book, our first book of the club, I realized it had so many large words that I had to look up. This was a very discouraging realization because in high school, I had so much pride in myself for being an avid reader. As an adult, I didn’t get the chance to read as much, but I didn’t think my vocabulary was as limited as it was. By the end of the first book, I chalked it up to the book itself. I mean, it was called “Special Topics in Calamity physics”, what else was I going to expect?
LOL a bunch of hard words…..
turns out…. It wasn’t the book, because come Decembers book, and I’m still writing down a long list of words I do not know hahaha
Anyway, I decided to write poems for each word to help me engrain the definition into my mind. I thought it would help expand my apparently minuscule pool of vernacular. Once I started doing this, I thought, hey! why not start a poetry group and post poetry prompts, I’m already “prompting” myself, I’ll just share it, and others can join if they want to.
I started a poetry group on FB called NEVER SILENCE THE MAD POET and I began posting my word of the week or poetry prompts. I recently decided, I’ll try sharing it on here as well and 🙏 would love it if anyone would like to participate and tag their ping backs to #NSTMPP
This weeks poetry prompt will be the word “ERUDITE”
according to dictionary.com it is an adjective meaning “characterized by great knowledge; learned or scholarly: an erudite professor; an erudite commentary.“
It’s a wave of distrust in the people that I love the most.
It’s a moment of suspicion that grew from the seed of the most mundane moment.
Sometimes, it’s the inability to be truly happy.
Sometimes, it’s a sadness that has no reason.
It’s being afraid that one wrong glance can make someone hate you.
It’s worrying that one missed call means that you are no longer loved.
I wish that I could describe it to you in a way that you could read and simultaneously feel, just to understand what a person with anxiety goes through.
Sometimes, behind the silence and the smile, there is an entire hurricane going on inside. At times, it is in the mind. At times, it is in the heart. In the worst moments, it is in both.
It can feel like being short of breath accompanied by the ability to breathe.
It can feel like being tachycardic, but a glance at your heart rate tells you that you are just fine.
It can feel like you are in “fight or flight” mode for hours on end with nothing to fight and nothing to run from.
It can be days of negativity and anger when all you want is to feel love.
I catch glimpses of her sometimes …..
The girl behind the anxiety.
Usually it’s within a candid photograph or mistaken video.
I see her laugh
-minus the insecurities -minus the doubt -minus the worry -minus the fear -minus the overthinking
And she is beautiful.
I don’t want you to read this and think…
Less of me
Worry for me
Sadness for me
Annoyance toward me
Because the way that I see it…
People that go through this world battling anxiety and still
-get up every morning
-want to be the best version of themselves
-have hope for the present and future
-want to spread love and happiness
-go to work in stressful challenging environments
-encourage and uplift
-LOVE
Are some of the strongest and most compassionate people that I have ever met.
We go through this world with love and understanding, with empathy and hope. Even though our moments can be harder to get through than some.
We can comprehend your hurt, but we can also be your rock, because we have already faced a million thunderstorms within us and we know how to stand strong.
I guess what I am trying to say, is that I am PROUD of the woman I am. I am thankful for the things that have made me become that woman I am today.
But I also catch glimpses of the girl behind the Anxiety sometimes.
Never Silence the Madness 