Angels Among Us

I wrote this one the other night and I don’t want to edit it because everything about it is so raw and emotional:

I’m not sure how to wrap my head around this yet. I’m out at the bar and went outside for a smoke (I know) and this older man approached my friends and I asking for one. I didn’t have another on me but my friend gave him one. He was pushing a bike so I asked him his name and what he’s up to tonight. He told me that I ask a lot of questions (sup Chicago) and then asked me why. So I said, “I don’t know, you’re just a man who interacted with us and so I wanted to know about who you are. I don’t mean anything by it except what it is.” He just stopped and thanked me for taking the time to care and he told me that my inner beauty far outshines my outward beauty and that he could tell that I am anointed with the spirit of God. We kept chatting and eventually he told me that upon moving to Chicago 10 years ago someone had watched him park his car, broke in, and planted a lot of drugs in it, which he went to prison for. He has been out for three weeks and told me something about the system not providing a promised train pass for his family. It’s $18.50.

I’ve been swindled for money before but something about this man told me that he was an angel, not a con man. My friend had long since gone inside, so I asked the man if I could go inside and get him $20.

I ended up taking out $40 and gave it to him without him knowing there was extra. Then I asked him if we could pray together. We stood on the sidewalk holding hands as I prayed for him and his family and then he jumped in as a total prayer warrior and prayed over me in a way that brought me to tears.

When we were finished praying he told me that I had touched his heart and to never stop loving with my whole heart. That he was proud to know me and that I was a divine intervention in his life for not seeing a racial barrier between us.

We exchanged numbers and he told me to call him if I ever need to pray and to keep letting the light of God shine through me. We parted on his words that my life was about to change. I feel like I just met an angel. I don’t know how else to describe it….

I Am Worthy

So I’ve been reading this book lately upon a friend’s recommendation called “The Untethered Soul.” When she suggested it she said, “Look, it’s like, ooey-gooey cheesy okay? But you should read it.”

She wasn’t kidding. It’s super gooey. The thing I’ve taken away from it so far is learning how to acknowledge the running commentary in my brain. You know the one. The voice that would be a REALLY annoying friend if it just poofed into existence one day.

“Oh my god look at her pants. Those pants are way too red. Like, REALLY red. And I even like red. I think red used to be my favorite. I used to have red towels in college. Shit, I gotta wash my towels… Seriously. Those pants though.”

I’ve been practicing paying attention to what the commentary is saying. Tonight in the shower it was saying,

“I am worthy. I am worthy. I am worthy.” Okay real talk, I was singing it and there was a moment where I went all Adele on that shit and belted out, “I promise I’m worrrrthy to hold in your aaaaaarms!!”

And then I heard myself and started reflecting on the subject of Worthiness. How often do we tell ourselves that we are worthy? Worthy of love? Worthy of respect? Worthy of admiration? Happiness? Affection?

Probably not very often. Or at least not as often as we should. And we SHOULD! We are all worthy of those things! Right?

… Right?

I started thinking about this moment of prayer I had last year that shook me to my core. I don’t know how long I prayed and I don’t remember all of my words with God, but I came out of that prayer in tears. What I do remember was finally acknowledging, understanding, and telling God that I didn’t deserve His love, but He gives it anyway and I was ready to accept it.

So I stood there in the shower wondering, “Wait… How can I be Worthy AND Undeserving? Are Worthy and Deserving the same? Am I repeating a mantra that’s false? Am I NOT Worthy? Damnit. What’s the definition of Worthy?”

I have this love affair with my dictionary, so I quickly turned the water off, wrapped myself in towels and made a path of puddley footsteps right over to my bookcase. I found one fundamental difference between Worthy and Deserving:

Deserving means “to be qualified for or have claim to because of actions, qualities, or situation.”

Worthy means “to be good or important enough.” Period.

Worthy just means that you simply are good enough. NOT because you’ve done something to earn whatever it is being bestowed upon you.

So friends, I urge and encourage you to take some time tonight to be kind to yourself; to pick one of these things (or ALL of the things!!) and repeat it to yourself until it makes you smile:

“I am worthy of being loved.”
“I am worthy of other people’s respect.”
“I am worthy of happiness.”
“I am worthy of receiving affection.”
“I am worthy of kindness.”

I. AM. WORTHY.

Mania

I am so energized and motivated today. It feels good since I was stuck in bed and slept 90% of the day yesterday. However, I am simultaneously so infuriated! It’s like this:

Today I woke up with the goal of getting out of bed and starting a pot of coffee. Mission: Accomplished. I then logged on to Facebook to a plethora of posts about my favorite presidential candidate, Senator Bernie Sanders. He happened to be speaking live at that moment at Liberty University in Lynchburg, Virginia. I turned it on and listened while I milled about the house doing morning things. At the end of the broadcast all the of students in the auditorium, the senator, and me as an at-home viewer bowed our heads in prayer for change in the United States to benefit the lives of all. I felt inspired and uplifted.

I saw some meme about Republican candidate, Ted Cruz, wanting to shut down Planned Parenthood, repeal the Affordable Care Act (ACA), and oppose equal pay for women. Anger. I felt so angry. I shared it. A friend of mine posed some questions to me and we engaged in a friendly political discussion. That made me feel happy. I love a good open, honest discussion about political issues. 

During said conversation, my friend asked me how I felt about the government telling “citizens that they’re required to buy a product from a private company.” He said this in reference to the ACA, but it made me think about Monsanto – a seed company that forces farmers into buying and using their genetically engineered seeds that kill plant diversity (I loathe Monsanto and I could dedicate an entire post to this, so I will stop on this subject here for today). I feel encouraged to do something to stop Monsanto in any way I can. It made me think about planting my own seeds on the side of my balcony, or reaching out to a girlfriend of mine who works in a community garden to see when she’s going out there next and if I could go with her to learn some things.

So I went to her Facebook page to see if I could find the old post she made about when she goes to the garden. I noticed that she used to work at Whole Foods. I thought to myself, “Oh! There’s a Whole Foods not too far from my apartment! Maybe it would be good to try and get hired there during the mornings and early afternoons before my waitressing shifts.” So I go onto the Whole Foods website and start researching job openings.

I stumble over to Twitter to start reading about today’s news (the only source of news I sort of trust anymore – crowd sourcing). I notice that Brandon Marshall’s Project375 has posted something about Monday Motivation and I’m like, “Yeah! I’m feeling motivated today! Hell yeah!” So I click onto the Project375 Twitter feed. Before I know it I’m looking on the Project375 website to see if I can figure out what 375 stands for, and I find myself on the volunteer page. I see that they have an office in Chicago and think, “Hey, maybe I could volunteer a few hours a week to working on mental health awareness and advocacy! Wouldn’t THAT be awesome?”

And it would be…. except, how can I sign up for anything knowing that I also have days like yesterday. I mean, the NFL started up again and I couldn’t budge from bed to watch even one game. Fantasy football could not motivate me, folks. There was some pretty serious apathy for all things ‘life’ yesterday.

I have such a difficult time reconciling days like yesterday with days like today. How am I the same person? How can I do the things I want to do? How come I want to do so many things today and I didn’t want to do ANYTHING yesterday? Will I still have the energy to even THINK about ONE of these things tomorrow? The next day? Probably not. It’s just infuriating and makes me feel handcuffed and frustrated.

Some days I can totally own my disabilities. Today they’re making me so angry.

How do you reconcile your deeply depressed days with the days you want to do everything?

Wanderlusting

Some mornings I wake up with dreamlike visions of foreign countries stuck to the sleep in my eyes. I’ve been a serious wanderluster for as long as I can remember. Always drifting away to places I’ve never visited. The more of the world I visit, the worse it gets. This morning I’ve been dreaming of relocating to the south of France. Baguettes, fresh fruit, flowers, beautiful weather, rolling landscapes. Sigh.

There are times when the stressful culture of the United States is just too much for me and my depression to handle. I moved to the city of Chicago a year and a half ago and have defended city culture every day since. I do love it here, but sometimes I wish for something much simpler.

Approximately five more sighs have escaped my lips since I started writing this. Off to seriously peruse some ex-pat forums.

Any ex-pats out there with advice?

Smoke and Scars

Tonight I was brought to tears. NOT the normal depression tears. Not normal depression tears by any stretch of the imagination. No, tonight my tears were for another soul. And they were tears of faith. Tears that fell for a night long ago, brought to fruition in a simple comment,

“Thank you. You were always amazing to me.”

I remember that night vividly now. I hadn’t thought of it in years. We were sitting on a park bench outside our building. Maybe it was drizzling or snowing lightly – it wasn’t warm. We both had lit cigarettes dangling loosely between our lips or fingertips. Tears streaming from her face, and concern showing on mine.

She was showing me the scars on her arms. I was taking in the dark circles under her eyes, the tangles in her unwashed hair, and the poorly applied makeup – or maybe it was leftover from the day before. Somehow through all of it, listening to her story, all I could see was her beautiful soul.

I told her that she mattered and how much all of our friends loved her. I told her that I would always be there for her if there should come a time in the future when she needed someone who understood her pain. My cigarette had long since extinguished itself. I threw it into the snow and hugged her before she pulled down her sleeves and we walked back inside.

Tonight, years later, she came out publicly as a recovering addict. My heart swelled simultaneously with sadness and pride. I told her how brave she was for admitting it to the world. She replied,

“Thank you. You were always amazing to me.”

Writing. Actually writing.

 

I’ve been learning how to code in computer programming languages over the past month. I am doing it partially because I find writing code to be immensely satisfying and interesting, and partially because I was told there are not so many girls in the IT world and I could make a pretty decent living doing so. Judge me.

Anyway, tonight I was taking some programming notes and had scooped my notes up to my face while I was reading my lesson on the screen. (We all do weird things when we’re alone okay?) As I tapped my notes against my nose I got a whiff of the fresh ink and got insanely distracted for at least two full minutes.

You know how sometimes a smell can take you somewhere else? Somewhere in your distant memory? Maybe a perfume, or the smell of fresh air on someone. That’s what this ink did to me tonight. It took me back to a time in my life where I used to sprawl out on my stomach with my cheek pressed to the covers of my bed, endlessly writing in my notebooks, my face so close to the pages that I could always smell the ink.

Momentarily I thought, “I should start writing again,” but the thought was fleeting. I shrugged it off because I do write. I write this blog. I write as a consultant. I write all the time.

Hours later I was discussing the merits of psychology’s nurture vs. nature debate with a colleague and she asked me, “Have you ever kept a diary about your feelings and tried to evaluate what triggers your depression?” No. I have not. Immediately I felt like a hypocrite because I always suggest to people that they should write, yet somehow I have utterly failed to take my own advice. Such is human nature, I suppose.

That said, I am holding myself publicly accountable for putting ink to paper again. I will start journaling my feelings and evaluating them as they pertain to my mental illnesses.

Do you write? How does it help you, or does it?

Girl in the Mirror

It’s irrational, depression. And it’s infuriating because you’re competent enough at least to know that it’s irrational. It’s just that you’re defeated enough to be incapable of doing anything about it except cry.

I have also found that people with depression are some of the strongest-willed people I’ve ever met. I am certainly stubborn and strong-willed. It’s even more maddening to me that all I can do is cry sometimes because I know somewhere in the middle of all this sadness is a fierce woman who is brave enough to move halfway across the country on my own to a city with absolutely no familiar faces.

Where is THAT girl? Where IS she!? Why did she leave me…?

I was out tonight having a really good time with my boyfriend at a fundraiser. I managed to put on pants for the first time in about five days. Fixed my hair. Put on makeup. I felt like a beautiful woman again. I haven’t felt beautiful in… I don’t know. Weeks? Months maybe. We went out to one of our favorite pubs afterward for the burger special.

After dinner when he was dropping me off at my house we sat in the car and talked for a while. I’ve been really sick for a week or two, so it was nice to just sit somewhere quiet and just be with my best friend chatting. But then he said something… I don’t know what it was. Probably something harmless. Depression doesn’t make sense, you know? Whatever it was, I understood that my disease has been hurting him.

That’s the worst feeling. It’s worse than when you’re alone and crying for no reason. It’s worse than when you just can’t get out of bed even though all you want is a glass of water. Seeing that something you have absolutely no control over hurting someone you love is the worst pain that your own depression could smack you over the head with.

I started to go into a panic attack, but somehow managed to divert my attention. My stomach started to cramp. I thought I might throw up. I said goodbye and came inside.

I passed by my closet. It has mirrors on the outside of the doors. As I passed I caught a glimpse of my reflection. I wish I only saw the same thing that I’ve been seeing for weeks: a girl crying.

Something different happened this time. Something that has never happened to me before tonight. I wish so badly that it hadn’t happened.

I walked right up close to the mirror and looked her in the eyes. I saw the watery green poking out from behind smudged eyeliner and running masacara. I ripped the pearls out my ears. I tore down the bobby pins I had so diligently secured hours earlier. I didn’t deserve to be so dressed up anyway.

And then shockingly, she looked back at me. She saw what I was – a pathetic mess of a girl that was trying so desperately to be happy for one night but couldn’t even manage it. She was disgusted that I was crying. Again. She snarled and looked me back in the eyes…

… and all I saw was hate. Pure, unadulterated hate. There isn’t anything in the world so terrifying as hate that comes out of your own soul and goes directly back into it.

She haunts me every time I close my eyes since. I just want back the girl who used to see boldness, bravery, beauty, strength, and happiness. Why did she leave me…?

Gypsy Soul

Today is one of the bad days. You know, the ones where you can’t get out of bed no matter how badly you’d like to get dressed. The days when you cry for no reason and nothing makes sense. When everything takes ten times the amount of effort that it should take. It’s one of those.

Sometimes I get this reoccurring dream that I meet a band of gypsies and am interested in buying one of their wagons. It’s a small wagon and you have to crawl through a small opening in the back to get inside. Once inside there are two “floors.” There’s a bench along the right wall and a rug where I can take off my shoes. In the rear there are curtains and pillows and lights strung about. There is a small sink and a counter for prepping meals. Above there is a loft with a sleeping area.

It smells of incense and there are trinkets everywhere. There is always a woman inside and she beckons me to come in. The charms that dangle from her wrist clink together in a beautiful melodic sound and it enchants me. The wagon is larger on the inside than it appears from the outside and it feels like home. It feels like there was no place on earth that I was meant to be more than inside that wagon. I easily tell her that I will buy it and she disappears. It is mine.

Then the dream ends. I wake up in my small studio apartment in the middle of the city. Sirens sound, traffic rushes by, the train shakes my building, bass wobbles from the apartment upstairs and dogs bark in the alley.

On the bad days I try to imagine what it would be like to wander about the country freely. Just me, my pets, and my trailer. If it wouldn’t cost me anything I think I would pack up and go in an instant – no questions. Today, I will cling onto the beautiful images in my head as hope and a daydream that will help pull me out of today’s slump.

Waiting In The Wings

When I was a little girl I started taking ballet classes and I continued to pursue ballet until I left for college. I’ve been grateful for dance over the years for so many different reasons: discipline, teamwork, self-expression. This morning I got into a situation where I learned that I was grateful to ballet for teaching me humility and poise. Last week I applied for a job that I know my skills are perfectly aligned with. Earlier this week I followed up, as I promised I would in my carefully crafted cover letter, and received an invitation to chat in a phone interview.

The phone… It triggers my anxiety. I order pizza online rather than by phone just to avoid talking to someone. I Facebook with my family because I can’t even talk to my loved ones on the phone. I cringe every time my boyfriend calls me rather than texts, even though once I’m on the phone with him conversation flows just as easily as it does in person. I’m not sure what it is exactly about the phone that makes me freeze on the inside, but it does. The thought of going into the office for a face-to-face interview gives me less anxiety than a phone interview does.

There is this moment just before a ballerina takes the stage where her stomach won’t stop turning, her heart flutters wildly, and she wonders if she’s ready for this performance. She can feel the energy pouring onto the stage from all the eyes in the audience. If her dance is the first in a show, she stares into the darkness waiting to take her mark before the curtains rise. If her dance follows another, she catches glimpses of the full house and watches her fellow dancers execute their performance with perfection. She takes deep breaths. Shakes out her legs, arms, and neck. Wipes the sweat from her palms.

Suddenly, it’s time. She takes her place on stage and strikes her opening pose. Her stomach is taking center stage and she worries it won’t stop in time. It’s all she can think about. She tries to shoo the feeling away, tilts her head to the side and smiles widely because here are the lights and 5… 6… 7… 8… her musical cue has arrived!

“Hello?” he answers.

“Hi, I’m calling for our phone interview. Is this still a good time to talk?”

“Wonderful! I’m so glad you called.”

The music takes over and she executes her performance flawlessly. Whether she gives herself credit for it or not, she knows herself. She knows every move from rehearsing them for months, years even, and she doesn’t have to struggle to remember them as she did two minutes ago. Her stomach settles and she moves across the stage with ease and fluidity.

He laughs at a joke I made and asks if I have any questions about the company. Indeed I do, because I spent hours researching the firm and have genuine curiosity about the ways this new role will fit into the larger picture. The questions spill out naturally and he provides satisfying answers. I know this job is a perfect fit.

…The music reaches the last measures of the score and she strikes her final pose. The audience is absolutely dazzled and got exactly what they paid their money to see. They stand and applaud loudly. She takes a deep bow and breathes a sigh of relief. Another performance has gone well and the adrenaline feels wonderful!

“Thank you for your time this morning. We will be in touch with you very soon!”

Blank Canvas

A fresh blog is like a blank canvas – there are so many opportunities that could fill it up, but I have to pick what speaks to me and then just dive in! So here we are at the very beginning where anything is possible. I’ve had personal blogs before, but I’ve outgrown them and I wanted to start something that was very true to me as an adult in my late-twenties. So what am I going to talk about here and why should you care?

Much like a job description, I want a guided structure for what this blog is about – but of course, it’s brand new and it should grow as I grow. So here is sort of a loose idea of some “included-but-not-limited-to” things that I am absurdly passionate about and want to fill these pages with:

• Mental Health Advocacy and Personal Well-Being
  • This speaks to me so personally and I am finally ready to speak out on it. Our society carries a stigma around invisible illnesses and it’s time we start working to erode that stigma. I don’t have all the answers, but I’d sure like to investigate! I will not provide medical advice, as I am not a doctor and would hate to be responsible for putting someone into a dangerous situation. I simply seek to find ways that I can speak out about mental health, change the way businesses respond to employees with mental illnesses, and promote general well-being and happiness.

• Politics
  • Nobody ever wants to talk politics with me, but I think it’s so much fun! Again, there’s a stigma around politics that we shouldn’t talk about them. But we SHOULD talk about them because it matters! Politicians make decisions all the time that affect our lives personally and we have to start caring enough to get involved rather than just complain about the problems. You might agree with my views and you might really disagree with them, but please try to stay respectfully engaged.

• Feminism
  • What a tough topic. Somehow there’s this idea floating around that feminism = man-hating. Ouch. I’d like to break that idea into a million pieces, but it doesn’t happen overnight. We have to have open-minded discussions about feminism in order to understand it and make social progress! Feminism is about equality, not superiority. It matters, and it matters to me that people understand it properly.

• Leadership
  • I am always interested in articles and workshops/seminars that teach people how to develop leadership skills. Even if you have no one to lead, these are great skills to have! I will use this blog as an outlet to share the things I come across and to share anything I might learn at any workshops I attend.

• History
  • At my second college, I became a history student. People always asked me what I was planning to do with that degree. I always had a million and one answers. I’m not doing any of those things. So, I’ll write about history here so it doesn’t feel like a complete waste of time and then I can finally say, “HA! I AM doing something with my degree!”

• Lifelong Education
  • No matter how old we get, we should keep learning. Continuing education turns us into people who are more understand and compassionate toward one another. It helps erase ignorance and shatter pre-conceived notions. It helps us develop new skills and brush up on old ones. The world is always changing – don’t get left behind! I am always trying to better myself and would love to have a space to share the things I learn as well as to tell others how they can get their hands on some new educational materials.

Some of these topics may slide off of my radar as new ones slide in, but that’s growth. I’m looking for a space where I can share my ideas and interact with others who may or may not agree in a respectful environment. That being said, please feel free to make comments on my posts!

I would love to hear from you and know what your thoughts are on the issues that are near and dear to my heart! Which of these topics are you passionate about? Also, be sure to check out my About Page to really get the scoop on who I am and where these ideas came from.