To Muse and Be Amused

Today, as I sat sobbing cross-legged on the floor in my bathroom--exhausted from working a straight ten-hour shift broken up by a single 20-minute meal in the middle, emotionally drained from agonizing over the feelings of coworkers, frustrated with my husband for not taking out the garbage or doing the dishes, and angry with my daughter for drawing on her furniture yet again--I found myself overwhelmed by the crippling devastation of neglected emotions.  I had locked the door and put on headphones so I wouldn't be able to hear my husband knocking, and I had turned the music up loud enough to drown out the sound of my breathing. If the music was loud enough to do that, then it was loud enough to drown out my thoughts, and let's be honest; Sometimes, we just don't have the strength to deal with those anymore. So, I mindlessly scrolled through Facebook, waiting for the feelings of anger and frustration, impatience and self-loathing, unexplainable melancholy and anxiety to pas...

So, just to premise this a bit, I wrote this blog several months ago and never got around to finishing it, but I wanted to share anyway. Fair warning, there is seriously WAY TOO MUCH INFORMATION in this post. I do not recommend a guy read this if he wants to maintain any sort of romanticism about the female body. There is also plenty of expletive in here, so if language offends you, avert your eyes. Otherwise, enjoy! Sympathize. And hopefully we can all bond over a mutual understanding of what women go through on their period. For the past six years, I have been blissfully out of touch with my "time of the month". No visits from Aunt Flo. No crimson tides filling these shores. No rides on the cotton pony. No shark week for this lady business, no ma'am! For the last 25% of my life, I have been a distinctly non-suffering woman, thanks to a high school pregnancy, Jesus, and modern medicine. Did you know that an IUD is a more effective method of birth control than getting y...

Society: Now serving gourmet bullshit! We hear pretty lies, sugar-coated to be easier to swallow, and we're popping them like Xanax. Gluttonous and insatiable, we devour half-truths, alternative facts, and straight up falsehoods, Eager to excuse our own fat faces by pointing shit-covered fingers in the direction of others. Glass screens are the plates we eat off of, taking full advantage of bottomless information, Filling our heads and stomachs with synthetic realities. Who appointed the media to be our server? Someone get the manager, because THIS is not what I ordered. I asked for truth, and got excuses. I wanted news, and got distractions. Please ma'am, I'm just the waiter here, let me send this back and get it redone for you. Yes, do that, because I never saw "half-baked, biased opinion" on the menu. Why is everything we hear and see and taste being digested as truth, When we haven't even taken the time to read the ingredients? We're gree...

So alike we are. So alike we are, we say. We smile, staring, unmoving. And we say no more. Because we wonder, If maybe we are so alike, That we don't want to know. Because behind the smiles, Lurk the demons, And we wonder. But dare not say. How alike we are. -Elle. February 19th, 2017

She was staring at the marker with glazed eyes and a dead face, still as a statue for what felt like hours. I knew what she was feeling. I knew that all she wanted in that moment was to curl up in her daughter's grave and die, to be with her forever. She wasn't just hurting; she was experiencing the most excruciating pain a human being can suffer, mentally or physically. Someone had squeezed all the air out of her lungs, ripped her heart from her chest, stirred her insides with despair and heartache, and forever changed the essence of her humanity. And that someone was me. I didn't choose to be Death. I was gifted with and cursed by it. Taking lives against my will, being given to me by someone else, sometimes done as an act of mercy, other times as an act of vengeance. I'm used to this. I'm used to all of this. I'm used to seeing the effects of my handiwork in the hearts and faces of loved ones, so much so that I've been hardened by it. Less by the genuin...

I work in a clinic that manages patients who use blood thinners. I see a versatile demographic of people from young to elderly, rich to poor, thin to obese, etc. The one thing I've thought of in earnest recently is people's hands. I know it's a silly thing to think about really, but I find them truly mesmerizing. There's a lifetime of stories in people's hands and when you think about it, that's amazing. There is literally a lifetime of memories right there on two palms and ten fingers. I look at my hands and I see the scars from the number of cuts I've gotten over the years. Cuts suffered from running through thick brush during summers spent at my grandparents. Cuts from handling wood without gloves. A scar from the single stitch I needed in the skin that stretches between my middle and ring fingers when I tried to core an apple with a steak knife... while it was sitting in my hand. I have scars from burns, evidence of a childhood I spent in the kitche...

In Spokane Valley, Washington, the air smells like Earth. It smells like rain and grass and dirt, all mixed into a glorious aroma that smells somewhat like the coming of fall. Last week we had about a whole week of pure rain and we thought it was the end of summer for good. But, alas, it nears October and the sun has graced us with her presence yet again. These past two days have been a joyous occasion. As I walked home from school yesterday, I felt overwhelmed witht the beauty I saw. I could smell the sweet perfume of long grass and ripe apples being played about on the light breeze. I could feel the sun shining onto my face. I could hear the trees dancing above my head, their leaves still clinging to their green coloration for just a moment longer. I could see the mountains, purple and green in all their majesty, watching over the valley as though guarding us from anything daring to ruin the serenity of our oasis. I wanted to be a tree for just 10 seconds, so I could reach up and pla...

We can change the world... With one act of kindness to another, we can make the difference. We can change our home, with the spreading of love instead of violence. With hostility challenged by peace, we can change the fate of human kind. We can change the world, with love replacing anger in the mind. We can change the world... With an act of conservation, we can make a stand. We can save our planet, with the spreading of awareness through the land. With saving instead of taking, we can preserve our precious earth. We can change the world, with embracing our home's true worth. With our hands joined in hopeful happiness, we can change the world...

Oh, I have so many wishes running round inside my head. So many thoughts and goals and feelings that fill my heart with dread. My wishes are the product of things that will never be. And it eats a hole inside my heart, as they slip away from me. I wish for love inside my home; for joy, for love, for peace. I wish for things i cannot grasp; for things beyond my reach. I wish my sister loved me too, and that she would believe, That I love her and that I hope she'll reach her hopes and dreams. I wish my mom understood my heart and what I feel inside. It seems so hard, to say the least, to tell her what's on my mind. I wish my dad didn't work so hard; that he didn't strain his will. He seems so overwhelmed, sometimes, that his energy is hard to fill. I wish we were united by our hearts, our hands, our minds. But what's the point of wishing if wishing stays behind the lines? Oh, I wish my friends were different; That they didn't live in the dark. But I am not my frie...

My family and I watched the new movie, Secretariat , a few weeks ago and I was moved like never before. The movie opened with a verse out of the book of Job and I wanted to share it with you... "Do you give the horse his strength or clothe his neck with a flowing mane? Do you make him leap like a locust, striking terror with his proud snorting? He paws fiercely, rejoicing in his strength, and charges into the fray. He laughs at fear. afraid of nothing; he does not shy away from the sword. The quiver rattles at his side, along with the flashing spear and lance. In frenzied excitement he eats up the ground; he cannot stand still when the trumpet sounds..." -Job 39:19-24 What is it in this verse that gives me goose bumps? Is it the power? Or the simple reminder in it? How is it that God was able to give such a powerful message to Job in the simplest of forms using one of His most simple creatures? But then again, we are human, and God is superior to us beyond our wildest imagina...

Dear Pressure, Since you seem to have a lot of time to intrude on my life, I thought I'd drop you a line on how it's going. Then you don't have to work so hard to try to be sneaky about whatever it is you plan to do next. I'd like to say that you are everywhere. I see you in the hallways, outside in the parking lot, in the cafeteria, in my classes, on the sidewalk, and even in my own house. You are not very subtle. Sometimes you come forcefully, and other times you are quite gentle. Either way, you are very powerful. It's not hard to see. I have many friends who have gotten pregnant because of you. Others, who have gotten drunk or smoked some weed or stolen something from a local store. No matter where I go, you are there too. Pressure here. Pressure there. See Pressure talk. See Pressure lie. See Pressure run. No one escapes you, do they? But through all my observations, I noticed that you take a most common form of people. You could be a gir...

Have you ever noticed that when you stare at the sand in an hourglass as it pours from one end to the other, it doesn't appear to be making a difference? I mean, the sand is moving and the grains of sand in each end are changing, but it doesn't actually seem like it. And suddenly, you notice that the sand is pooled in the bottom of the hourglass and movement of the sand has ceased. It is completely still in the hourglass. I thought this was a great analogy for life in some cases. It starts so quickly and inevitably. It pours and pours. The bottom of the hourglass is always changing shape and form with the addition of each grain of sand. The new grains cover the old and, new ones continue to cover those as well. When you stop looking at the glass for a while, then look back, you notice it's changed. You notice the difference. And if you keep switching glances, you'll look back one time and notice that the sand has almost run out. And you'll anticipate the end of the ...

" I didn't say it would be easy... I only said it would be worth it I was at a friends house when I saw this quote hanging on her wall. It had a picture of Jesus reaching out to a little boy who was curled up in a corner with bruises on his legs and tears running down his face. The image of God helping a person ,who fell on the ground as a little boy and was picked up by Jesus as a strong man, popped into my head. The idea is that no matter what we go through, no matter how hard we fall, no matter who tries to drag us down, if we stick through it and trust in God's love, it will be worth it in the end. God is great and he can reach us wherever we are. If we have him, we have everything. And though the road is long, and growing more narrow every second, it is going to be worth it.

When we were kids, we had everyone else do stuff for us. We still do! But when did we cross that line between walking on crutches and standing on our own two feet? I haven't yet. My parents still pay for my shelter, food, education, (I can't say clothing because I have recently bought all my clothes) and transportation. I owe my place in our class system to them for the some hundred thousands of dollars they have spent on me in my lifetime. When I can get a job and can live on my own, I will start over again. So when do we stop walking on the support (crutches) God has provided for us? When we are old enough? When we deserve it? Does God ever really let us go? I quote from my profile, "When I am walking down the path, he is telling my feet where to go, but not really moving them for me, that is my job. And though I stray from the path all the time, He is there to set me straight again." I think God does let us go, eventually, when we are strong enough to support ours...

Have you ever wondered why the bad things in life happen? I have. In fact, I blame ALL the things that happen on the people around me and I don't like doing so. How can we blame a bad grade on our sisters or something. I didn't kind it ridiculous until much later, but growing up, I did. Our life in the world is like a test. We go through life making mistakes and learnign from them, but those are called quizzes. Tests are the real things, like deciding whether or not to get married or whether or not to have children. Those are the things that stick with you for life. The things that you really can't undo, sure you can get divorced and remarry, sure you can put the child up for adoption (and that is not something I would recommend doing) but they are the things that you will never forget or undo. In school, you make a mistake and you try again the next day. If you fail your drivers ed. test, you can take it again next week. But when you hit the real world, and you get into a ...