Riding the Waves part 2: songwriting

here you are again

tossing and turning

voices inside your head

keeping you up, not letting you sleep

going over every last detail

and every mistake you’ve ever made

that’s when you find out

you can be your own worst enemy

but darling look to the stars

that’s when you’ll see

something worth living for

i hope you know that you’re worth it

i hope you know that you’re loved

even on the darkest nights, storms a brewing

sunny skies are just above

so please just hold on

don’t give up the fight

it only gets better

you only get stronger

your future can be bright

if only you hold on, please hold on tonight

i hope you know that you’re worth it

i hope you know you are loved

even on the darkest nights

sunny skies are up above

it’s all about riding the wave through the storm we call life

sometimes, sometimes the waves are little

but sometimes, it’s a hurricane

so get your life jacket on

let’s put up a fight

don’t give up on yourself

you’re more than strong enough

but when life gets rough

please remember

you know that you are worth it

you know that you are loved

you know that you are tough

you know that life is good

Riding the Waves

A common theme in my life this year has been riding the waves. I've learned more about the balance and accepting that waves come. Sometimes, they are calm. Sometimes, they can be a hurricane. Regardless of what waves you go through, they must alway break. Sunny skies are just ahead. 

I was reading some of my posts from last year, specifically the end of the year ones. I had high hopes for this year, but by June, I was already ready for it to be 2018. Here we are, one month to go. Now I'm ready to enjoy the last month of this wavy year with my family. I've learned that some years aren't easy. Some like to really test you. However, I've learned all waves will break. For every rough patch, there's a calm sea. Every wave makes you stronger. I've managed to keep my head above water despite the tragedies, despite the unexpected, despite the tsunamis that crashed into me like bricks. There were times I definitely got knocked down, but here I am on my feet.
Looking back at this year, I don't know how I managed to grow more than I did in previous years. I don't know how the chain of events occurred or led to one another. I know this year was mainly rough and wavy, but there were a few good times. I can't let the waves make me forget those. I don't want to forget the waves either. Important people in my life are no longer here. They watch from above as we continue to navigate our way. They became our angels. Closure slowly begins to happen. They are always with us. 
it's funny (in an ironic way). Each time something bad happened, I thought to myself, "What's next?" Boy, did I learn to not ask myself that question again. Through each rough streak, I found myself surrounded by people who cared about me and wouldn't let me drown. In the past, I would easily let myself shut down to everyone else or just pretend nothing was wrong until I just broke. This time, I opened up. This time, i allowed myself to feel. I also challenged myself to remember the good and to embrace how the ones I loved, lived. They lived with adventure and wanted everyone around them to have a great time and a day/moment to remember. 
I'm reminded that days are not unlimited. I'm reminded that life is to be lived. Sometimes, you're hit by a wave you didn't see coming, and then you're repeatedly knocked down by the ones that follow while you still try to regain your footing. Don't be scared of those waves. Don't let them rule your life. If you're always scared of what's next, you won't be able to live in the moment. You won't be able to live your life in a way that results in happiness. 
I'm not saying, don't be upset or grieve. What I'm saying is don't let your grief or uncertainty control you. If I did that, I'd never leave my bed in the morning. I wouldn't have gone paddleboarding. I wouldn't have driven to Washington. I wouldn't have started working on films. I just wouldn't have. 
My life has been a series of waves in different aspects. As you know from previous posts, I have the fun things called anxiety and depression. With these two things, waves can easily turn into tsunamis. But, Through therapy, medication, and a good support system I've built throughout the years, I've ridden the waves from those and managed to keep most relatively small. This year especially, waves have been huge. Learning to ride those waves has been an important thing in my overall wellbeing. I've accepted them. I've reminded myself time after time that waves will break. Calmer seas are on the horizon. If you can get through one wave, you can get through the next. It might be a different beast. some waves come at you from both sides, some just pass through. Regardless, you survived. You rode the wave and made it to shore. 
Why am I sharing all of this? Does any of it make sense to you? I don't know. It makes sense in my mind. I hope by sharing more of how my brain operates might help someone else struggling through.

Through an outlet and upon recent events, i finally put words back into song. If you look at this post, you can read it. 

Up next: post of events from this year.

2017 has been a wavy year. I'm not setting up too much hope for a calm 2018, but I am ready to swim. 

Happy Thanksgiving

first off, Happy thanksgiving! 🦃

I guess this time of year is when we start the end of year reflection. Or at least I do anyway. This year has been one of the harder years in my life so far and the first year since 2008 I’ve really experienced loss. It’s been a year of up and downs and a few twists and turns and spirals. This year has taught how to ride the wave. With every up, there is a down. Every down is followed by an up. This year has challenged me unexpectedly with a few deaths of people (and pets) who are very important to me and my family. Being on the other side of the country was not the easiest thing and closure was hard to come by. Everything linked in some way. I’ve realized growing up entails growing through hard times and learning how to keep getting out of bed after something happens as your life feels like it is paused and everyone around is in fast forward. Eventually, you catch back up. Growing up means growing. It means coping. It means living through each wave. It means continuing to learn and continuing to take risks. I’ve learned you have to remain optimistic  but also allow yourself to grieve and to feel emotions. You can’t brush it under a rug. You have to deal with it. Grieving includes learning how to allow yourself to have Happy moments and enjoy the memories and not feel guilty for happy days shortly after a death.  I feel as though I’ve grown more this year than I have in recent years. 

When I started this post, I didn’t really know what I would write completely. How did I get from happy thanksgiving to here? Every challenge I’ve faced, every wave I’ve ridden have taught me how important it is to appreciate those around you. I’ve opened up where I haven’t before. I have let people in, and I have strengthened relationships with people who will be in my life for years to come. I am thankful to have the time I have to spend with my family (immediate and extended), my friends, and my dog. Really, those are all the same; they’re all family. This Thanksgiving, I am thankful for my life and those in it.

A happy pill

Unless you're living in the world of no social media, I'm sure you've heard of Chester Bennington's death by suicide. Every time there is a celebrity suicide, it's all over the news. People talk about it for a day and then move forward with their lives. But then there's people who can't shake it. Why? Suicide and mental Heath are touchy subjects. People don't want to bring in it up in fear of judgement or maybe glorifying it. This is a conversation that needs to happen. We need to talk. We need to destigmatize suicide (and mental health related illnesses). Maybe if there wasn't such a stigma, people wouldn't feel so ashamed admitting they want to take their own life or don't have a will to live anymore. The problem is, for those saying he had so much going for him or what about all his fans and those who loved him? You think he didn't think about them? Wrong. When a person is suicidal, they don't think about who loves them as much or cares about them or what could happen. There's a pain larger and stronger than anything else. There's a voice that can never be silenced. Or so it seems at the time. If we could start the conversation, maybe it would be easier to learn how to support someone feeling this way instead of changing the subject or staying quiet. 

And even in treatment of mental illnesses, we need to destigmatize it. I'm not saying medication is right for everyone. I'm not saying it's easy to make the choice to begin medication or that it will fix everything all of a sudden. We need to stop thinking medication isn't an option. I may be lucky because when I went on medication for depression and anxiety, we got the right mix on the second try. Some people take longer to find the right mix. All I'm saying is, medication has helped me live a "normal" life. When I began medication 4 1/2 years ago, I literally told my college roommates, I'm taking happy pills. I made a joke because I didn't want it to be awkward or for them to not know what to say. Medication has helped me avoid the above. Medication has helped me get out of bed. Medication hasn't put me in a fog or made me feel not myself. My brain is wired differently. I'm not ashamed of that. Me taking my daily dose is like someone taking insulin. 
Although this isn't easy for me to share with everyone or to bring up often, it's important for conversations like these to be started. It's important for people to know life can turn around. It's important for people to know it's perfectly fine to reach out for help. To start medication, to start therapy, to admit they don't have the will or strength in them to keep going, to continue to survive. It's important we don't let this conversation end tomorrow. It's important we continue to destigmatize mental health and not be afraid to bring up different topics and subjects in normal conversation, in television, in movies, in books. It's important to know you're not alone and you're not the only one. 

Life can turn around and be a beautiful thing. Stick around to see it blossom and to learn to appreciate the waves.

Peace.love.happiness.

the world keeps turning

I think it's important to remember the sun rises and the sun sets every day. If you can remember those two things, you can remember no matter what happens, life continues. All the good, all the bad. Each day is  an opportunity to start again. It holds the possibility to have tragic days and glorious days. There will be sunsets you can't wait for because the day has been too hard or maybe the week or month. But you need to remember the beauty in each day and each sunrise. No matter what happens, the world revolving, and we keep going.
This week is a particularly interesting week. Today marks two months since Uncle David passed away unexpectedly. Tomorrow marks nine years since Babcia passed away, and Monday marks three years since I made the move to Los Angeles. To think back two months to three years to nine years, I can tell you each time I couldn't wait for the sun to set, I always saw the sun rise the following day. For each time I wished the sunset could be delayed, it set. Life is a balance. When you can't wait for the sun to set, you need to remember those days you wished it would never set or those day you were too excited for the next sunrise.
Every bad day or week you've ever had, you have survived. Every good day has proven that good days and moments will always lie ahead. Reflecting over these few days, I've found I'm not the same I was 9 years ago, 3 years ago, and barely even two months ago. I've found strength where I've struggled before. I found comfort in remembering. I've found confidence facing the unknown. I know life can be dark, I know life can be bright. I know the two will always go together because they make you appreciate and recognize one another.

Remember, the world will keep in turning. Embrace the sunrise and the sunset each day.

Progress

We're all caught up in each other's lives, we forgot to live our own lives.

Every day, we wake up and look at our phones. If you're like me and set your alarm to the last possible minute, you probably skip the social media scroll. On the days with no alarm

Or a delayed waking up because I don't go to work at 5, you end up starting your day with Facebook and Twitter and probably snapchat and Instagram. We've become obsessed with seeing what everyone else is doing and either being mad because they're doing better than us or happy we're doing better than them. We scroll through our Facebook and Instagram feeds and roll our eyes at the ones complaining about everything, like the latest engagement or pregnancy, and get caught up in the latest political argument. We edit picture posts to make ourselves look that best or if we are a little insecure, put a funny face up instead of the generic smile. But when did we become so concerned with letting people know every bit of our lives or judge how much people accept what we're doing by "likes"? We seek every bit of approval, from anywhere, regardless if its approval of our happiness or approval of our complaint. We scroll past the latest news stories, most sad or videos of things happening thousands of miles away that we have no control over that show homeless people or the latest rebel or the war we can't stop. We see posts that start with TW (trigger warning) because we can't stand to see something that might offend us because we've been coddled or think we deserve to live in a sheltered world from anything evil and need a safe space for everything. (Disclaimer, safe spaces are good for things like people praying or for privacy, but trigger warnings for day to day things, not so much. We like to control others more than we should)

We've become an overly sensitive, overly validated, overly argumentative society without trying to. Sometimes I think we share too much online, yet here I am writing a blog. Sometimes I think we need a break from social media and need to learn to take down the filter of our lives and just live our own lives. With social media, we no longer have a break from the outside world. With email on our phones, we no longer have a break from work. With the overwhelming sense of being watched or that people are lurking around the corner waiting to wreak havoc and chaos, we no longer feel safe to do the things we once did, like play outside or let kids play outside by themselves or go somewhere within a phone because you don't know what might happen. 

With all our sensitivity, we still don't teach do no harm, we teach how not to get harmed or what to do if something happens. Bejng prepared isn't bad, but how many people do you know who have pepper spray or know how to hold their keys in their hand as a weapon just in case? 

This post went in a few different directions (thank you stream of consciousness.. Also people don't know how to spell things anymore and phones just enable that more than they should), but my overall point is let's stop being so obsessed with everyone else's lives and opinions and stop comparing where we're at in life compared to others. Let's turn back the dial a bit on technology and take a break from looking at a screen all day and start getting outside more (germs build

Immunity). I think it's time we take a few lessons from 20 years ago.

It's time to regress in technology and progress in society. We need to evolve our generations and fix ourselves as a whole and be more open minded in regards to seeing both sides and take a lesson from when we were 5 and work together. 

Dear Men

let me start off by saying, yes, I am a feminist, but not the type who hates men. I respect a lot of men, but those who give a reason for it. The ones I don't respect are the ones who don't respect me back. Let me tell you, that list tends to grow day by day unfortunately. It seems that men (just for times sake, I really mean some men, not all when I say men) don't quite get when they're being a little too friendly or a little too blunt.
For example, today we had a repair man come in at work. He started off by calling me "dear". I am not your dear. As soon as you said that, you already put me underneath you. You already took away any respect and any power I have because that term can kind of belittle someone. Same with sweetie, honey, lovely, babe etc. next, he proceeded to over explain where the leak was coming from, literally telling me the same thing 7 times (at least) without me even asking. I told him okay, I see it. I got it. Not, please tell me again the same thing over and over when I have a store to run. Then when I offered him coffee, it was like, oh, now's my chance to flirt. No. I run a coffee shop. Every tech/repair / or whatever service based job it is to work on the store in some way gets the same offer.
Later on in the night, a guest came up to the window and literally said, hi lovely.
He was twice my age at least and I wasn't even at the order window, I was at the pick up window.. Which no, is not to pick someone up.

I'm tired of being nice and that being taken as flirting. I'm tired of smiling and that being taken as flirting. I'm tired of being called dear it sweetie or baby or honey by men I don't know who, 75% of the time, are twice my age. You are not my boyfriend, family, close friend, or even someone I know. Stop. Would you want some complete stranger calling your daughter honey or sweetie or baby or lovely? Would you want your daughter feeling uncomfortable knowing she was just checked out by some stranger and they didn't even try to hide it? Or when a girl goes out, and a guy just keeps trying even after the girl says no or that she's in a relationship or makes up something. The fact that we have to lie just to get you to go away is stupid in itself. Or when you have to pull the shade down at work because men are staring at your female employees while they bend down or stretch to get donuts or whatever and make them so uncomfortable, you literally have them stay in the back for a bit while you send a guy on register to shoo the creepers away.
I understand we currently have a misogynist as our president, but come on. Get a clue and keep your comments to yourself. Just because you are a man doesn't give you the right to treat women as objects and keep trying after they've said no or just call women terms of endearment when you don't know them or even if you do. It's just as bad when you work with them because all respect goes out the window. Just by calling someone "sweetie" in a work environment, you're asserting your dominance. The worst part is women have just learned to shrug it off because why are we making a big deal, we should be flattered. No. Change your way of thinking.
It's not fair when you're just as strong or independent as your counterpart, but you have to double check when you go outside at night that no ones around or that you walk outside in a safe area and you still have to be alert.

Guys, you're not all bad, but if you have a friend you know is like one described above, talk to him because you know women deserve respect (just like men). You don't talk to your sister, your mom, your grandmother that way, don't talk to a complete stranger that way.
It's already hard enough being a girl. Don't make it harder.

That concludes my rant. Normally I just shrug it off, but sometimes you have to speak up. I enjoy being independent and strong, but I'm reminded more and more these days that I am a girl, and I only fear it will get worse as Trump gets more comfortable in his presidency and becomes more of misogynist than he already is.

Meeka.

If you want the truth, I don't really know what I'm feeling right now. Two days ago, we were faced with a difficult choice; to put down our almost 12 year old Meeka or to let her die at home on her own. We chose to put her down, as she would only get worse and she could barely walk already. Meeka isn't just a dog to me or my family. She is part of the family and has been since Easter of March 2005 (the 26th to be exact is the day she came to live with us). I was 12 years old. Half of a lifetime has been filled with moments and memories I'll always cherish. Meeks helped me get over my fear of thunderstorms. No matter how many times I left or how long I left, she always greeted me with a wagging tail and wouldn't leave my side. My little queen. I'm sorry I didn't get to say bye in person or be there for your final moments. I'm sorry my goodbye was only over the phone but am happy you recognized my voice when we put the phone to your ear that night. Meeka, I couldn't have asked for a better dog to take up my childhood and growing years. You were there when I had knee surgery, you were there on some of the hardest days, you were there for the happy ones too. From the times you got out and just casually walked yourself but came running back (using the crosswalk might I add) when we called, to the time you ran so fast we couldn't see your legs, to the time we found you under the basement stairs covered in cobwebs, to the time you started lifting your leg when we scratched your hip, to the times you slept on the couch as I slept on the floor, to the times you stayed by my side during a storm, to the times you would listen when I was upset, to the times you'd let me actually pick you up, to chasing bugs and catching them on occasion, to blending into the floor, to always being happy when we were home. I love you my little queen. Just because I have Dottie doesn't mean I'm replacing you. A new dog never replaces an old dog, it only expands your heart. She has helped me cope with losing you, Meeka. You will never be replaced, you will always hold a piece of my heart. I love you. Thank you.
Enjoy thyour unlimited sunbathing and comfy blankets, Meeka.

1/29/05-1/11/17