Ending it.

So I've been trying to decide how to end the blog. It was only supposed to be over the course of a year, a take-down of my life as I tried to regain some sort of control over my own future. Instead of going to California, I ended up staying in Florida until August and, in August, moved to a state that I only thought about when watching 'Pocahantas' - a cold state, filled with horrible traffic and not a single person I knew.

While here, I grabbed a job, I made friends. Good friends, I think. I realized just how much I still had to learn about myself and that in order to do it, I have to step away from the familiar. For the first time in a long time, I finally began to grow up, whether or not anyone could see it, myself included.

When January rolled around and time to end the blog came, I tried to figure out how to end it all. January 2nd was going to be the last day, my 24th birthday. It happened to be the single most miserable birthday I've ever experienced, and I'm including the ones from 9-19 when I was an undiagnosed bipolar disordered person.

I posted nothing, because I couldn't decide what to say. This blog was never popular, only one or two people reading when I made a new post, and that never bothered me. The purpose of this, other than documenting it for myself, was to keep my family in touch with what I was doing in this new place, and how I was doing - Mom, especially, and Ashley.

Mid-January rolled around, and along came the birthday of my best friends late-father, Mr. Larry. He once told me that life itself is an adventure, and that while he loved me, I was doing no one any favors by holing myself up from the world. He said, I was the best friend his daughter had (because boys who were friends would later leave for other girls), I needed to encourage her to grow up along with me, and she would do the same.

He passed away when I was in the depths of my depression, on the verge of suicide. I didn't make it to his funeral, so consumed by my own grief of his passing, and my inability to cope with anything beyond lying in bed, staring at the ceiling. I've never forgiven myself for that.

I like to think Mr. Larry has. Forgiven me, that is. I hope my friend has; we rarely talk about him.

On his birthday, I realized I wasn't ready to put away this blog; it contained a turbulent year of my life, something outside of the depression and the small bubble I kept myself in. Things happened, things changed, I got caught up on bills, of all things. I may be moving out, depending on work circumstances - I may be moving back to Florida, or Wisconsin, or to anywhere I damn well feel like going.

This year is a changing year for reasons outside of last year. My 23rd year on this Earth was taken up by discovery of, damn, I can do things. My 24th started off horribly, and I'm hoping will be filled with discoveries of myself, not just being able to complete things in my life.

So, O Reader(s), there will be another year of this blog. I'm hoping to update more frequently, with more things now going on in my life. Fingers crossed that this year will improve the same way that last year did (Car accident = no Cali = Virginia, Horrible birthday = GOOD YEAR, darnit).

Until next time, with new updates, with new awesome.

Yours.

Bull, Horns, Ect,.

A good portion of people think horoscopes are full of bullshit. They're generalized, they don't really work, how can the planets say something about you, personally, etc., and it's come to my attention that I don't give a flying butt on what other people think of them. For myself, I believe in horoscopes, Tarot cards, the whole she-bang. Ninety-nine percent of psychics are fraud but then again, I told a kid someone was dying when his mother had just been diagnosed with terminal cancer in the eighth grade because the cards told me. I had never seen the boy before.

Lately, my horoscopes and Tarot cards have been giving me a rather specific message: get your life together and DO something about it.

On behalf of the Tarot cards, I asked them a while back the typical single-girl question of "Give me the low down on my lack of love life, please?". Usually when I ask things about myself, they like to tell me to go figure out myself, bugger off, and stop asking questions. That particular time, they told me that I am going to be alone for quite a while, go through a time filled with darkness and pain all alone and lost even when surrounded by people, and in the end it would leave me happy with a lot of paths opening up to me. I'm pretty sure this is the time of alone and lost and darkness because, whoo, my brain is not exactly the nicest place in existence but it gives hope that the crap times will end at some point.

The horoscope's have been telling me I've stopped taking control of my life and falling complacent. Too true - being laid off and strung along by the jobs (oh yeah, both of them) threw me into a clusterfuck of 'what now'. The only physical thing in life keeping me grounded right now is karate and when my three paid months come to an end in August, I don't know if I'll be able to afford more. That'll be super fun.

Every sign I'm getting says I have to DO something, CHANGE something. I have to find something to jump at and do it. Problem is that whatever's out there, I totally don't see it. The plan has been to move in with Dad but he doesn't have his own place in Virginia yet and I have about two hundred and fifty dollars in the bank period, with an insurance payment coming out in two weeks and another car payment coming up. Can't move anywhere, there are no job opportunities in this freaking place anywhere. What, exactly, am I supposed to do?

The more I write this the more I realize this is the talk of someone whose worst choices came from within and not from an outside source. So many people don't have choices on what drastic things change in their life, either from being thrown out of their homes, fired without notice, or, hell, shot in the back of the head when things get nasty. My problems have all stemmed from mental illnesses and if not for the support of those around me, I wouldn't be here anymore. There's no background, to me, on what to do or how to say it.

Maybe I'll edit a story of mine, throw it out there to see if anyone in interested. Kelly is ten times more talented than myself but seeing someone I know (and adore dearly, major hearts for Kelly) get published and go out there again is inspiration. Maybe I'll go to Virginia and chill out with Dad in his hotel, find a job there doing something. Maybe Vancouver, although I can't get any jobs out there just yet.

Maybe in learning Japanese, I'll meet a nice person from Japan and be whisked away to Tokyo or a small town or something. Who knows.

Nothing will get done unless I DO something, right? Right. Until next time!

T-Minus Forty Four Days

Every so often, a person has a breakdown. I'm not talking of the sort of breakdown that leads to slit wrists and emo tears that leave black, black tear trails as dark as your soul. Those breakdowns don't lead to revelations and thoughts that make a person try to think of things that are beyond their normal conventions.

I believe, truly, that these things have a reason behind them. A rational man will never be able to accuse me of being a religious person; my system of belief doesn't exactly match with those of mainstream religions. 'Dogma' may have been a satire but in that spoof of modern thought processes there is a jewel of wisdom: You can change an idea. Changing a belief is trickier.

It's true. I like to think of an idea as something formless but still necessary to life, like oxygen. Everyone has ideas, don't you think? Even the most straight laced of Christians have their own ideas and interpretations of the Bible whether they admit it or not.

When beliefs come into play, it tends to come across like a hurricane that fails to die after it leaves the water and goes onto land. They rip down anything in their paths, fully visible to the naked eye and terrifying those who don't go with it. It is terribly, horribly dangerous to go and throw everything that is you into the hurricane. The sheer force will rip you apart.

Then, sometimes, just sometimes, there can be a change in the air. I don't want to say that it's exactly an idea becoming a belief so much as an idea becoming more visible, a strong breeze in the middle of the forest whipping through the leaves just quick enough for you to think you may have seen the light blue of it all.

Never say you can't see the invisible! Just because oxygen doesn't show up when you breathe (winter aside) it doesn't mean that you can't see it. Pretending that the lack of evidence means that the item in question does not exist is simply stupid. There are too many things out there that are unexplainable and unattainable to brush off.

Revelations and breakdowns have a lot in common. Both of them come with emotional walls being kicked down, quite possibly with tears and screaming involved. This isn't always the case, as long as we keep Siddhartha in mind, but they always have a purpose. It can be as simple as the need to vent, to release stress in a manner that doesn't hurt yourself. Other times, it's a way to get in touch with what may or may not be important to you through prayer, pain, pleasure, or any other ways to center a person.

When those breakdowns come, one shouldn't assume they're crazy. Take faith in what your ideas/beliefs may be. Whatever is felt is genuine. Embrace the 'crazy', my loves.

Something good is going to happen.