Sometimes the best things come in the worst packages

Dear Diary,

I originally intended on starting this post emphasizing how awful my days was but something amazing happened. As you know I started an insane babysitting job today, and I knew it was going to be hard but it has less to do with the responsibility of watching 5 children all under 5 and more to do with the way I handled myself. By the end of the day I seriously hated my life and wanted to run away and hide in a deep closet somewhere and forget everything I thought I wanted.

I have to go back a day to make this make sense. Yesterday I was talking to a friend of mine that told me not to rely on emotion but on your deep feelings. I heard it and it made sense however I didn't know what the difference was. What is the difference between emotion and deep feeling? I had always thought that they were pretty much the same thing. So yesterday I asked that question aloud, "what is the difference" and today I learned. Had I acted on my emotion I would have crawled into that closet and never come out, I would have given up my dream of being in Germany in August and I would have decided that I was far too affected to go back to any job ever.

I also realized the importance of my friends and the people that I love. I realized what it is like to have people of many different personalities in my life and how important it is that they're not all the same. I have people who let me talk without saying anything or easily back away when I express too much anxiety. I have people who remind me what it means to desire something and what it is to learn and grow. There are others who will agree with anything I say, regardless of how true it actually is, and still those who just know, those who provoke questions. I need all of those things at some time or another.

My day was intense and difficult in so many ways and I am not looking forward to tomorrow but at least for this moment I am moving on my deep feelings. I know why I am doing this, I know that it's not going to be easy in any way but I want it. The day I got the job the timing was perfect and that wasn't something I could ignore, this is the way I am supposed to go and I have to remember that. Life is about making decisions and those decisions lead to more decisions that lead you where you want to go. Right now when I think about how badly I hate doing this job and how I wish I wasn't doing it, the only thing that comes back in my mind is "what are you willing to do to get it? How important is this to you?"

I had a feeling today that I needed to wait to decide what I was going to do until I had a conversation with a particular person and I am so happy that I followed that feeling because it was this conversation that cleared my mind. When I came home today I asked for confirmation that I was doing the right thing and that confirmation came in the form of a phone call.

This is going to be crazy! Perhaps tomorrow I will write in the heat of my freak out and we can see the difference.

Dear Diary

I got a feeling that today would be a good day to start a diary and I thought it might be fun to share it here.

Dear Diary,

Something incredible happened today, I made a decision that has changed my life. I have been living for so long sheltered and held back because I'm afraid of pretty much everything and today I decided to take a leap of faith. Now this isn't a hopscotch kind of leap, it's a close-your-eyes-and-jump-off-of-the-mountain kind of leap and it makes me sick to my stomach.
There are so many things that I want in this life and I like to bitch about it when I can't have them. I am like a small child taking a temper tantrum because there is always something that stops me from getting these things. It is always somebody else's fault and I have given up power of my own life to circumstance, and we all know what a bad idea that is. I have always been satisfied just thinking about what I want and then getting mad that I don't have it and letting that ridiculous circle continue. That changed today and I'm really hoping that it will last longer than a day. Another thing that I'm big on is getting really excited about something and making the plan of the century to accomplish whatever that something happens to be, but that has never lasted longer than a couple of days.
So what all of this is leading up to is that I am going to Germany in August. I don't have my passport and I have no money but I'm going. I made that decision yesterday, I mean I really made that decision, it was a declaration; I AM GOING TO GERMANY IN AUGUST!
In order to do this I realized that I had better get a job, actually I didn't realize that a friend helped me figure it out. Anybody that has read anything I have written previously knows that I am not currently employed because I have issues with anxiety specifically social anxiety so in any case I would rather shoot myself in the foot than go to work.
When thinking and panicking about the idea of having to go back to work I knew that this trip would be far more rewarding if I was able to do it knowing that I earned it. I am tired of expecting things to happen without any real effort on my part. I want to be challenged and I am so blessed to know people who do that, people that wont let me rest comfortably in my pile of self loathing.
The very same day that I made that declaration I came home and decided it was time to start looking because the longer I wait the less I'll have, I only have three months to save. I found an add for a babysitter needed desperately and thought that was right up my alley, I have kids of my own so really it would just be adding another person to my day. It was perfect, the hours, the pay everything was perfect for me and then... Twin 14 month old boys and a four year old boy plus my own four year old, it is across town and I have to be there every morning at 7:30 am. I kind of started to freak out when I started thinking about it to the point that I was mad at everything.
It was beautiful timing and encouraging words that helped me find peace. Sure I will be underpaid considering the job, I will be tired and I will probably be on a murderous rampage for the first couple of days and it wont be easy, but what am I willing to do to get what I want? Doing this job will give me exactly what I need, no more and no less, not only will I get the money I need but it is going to push me to grow.
I don't start until Monday so I have a couple of days left to really think about how crazy I actually am.
Know what? I'm not even going to proof read this. The end.

Reality is in the eye of the beholder

These posts are really becoming less and less and I think I know why. I may have said this before but it is easiest to be honest about things when you're being honest about things that aren't really a big deal. I can tell you that I am a coward and I'm ok with that, I can tell you that sometimes I hate looking at my own face and I'm ok with that. The reason I'm ok with that is because I am sure that most people on this earth feel the same at one time or another.

Here is something that I have learned in this process of self discovery, it sucks. Self discovery for me isn't all zen and peaceful, it is violent and scary. I haven't really discussed it with many people so I'm not sure of the way others experience this but it is definitely something that would be easier to give up. Let me try to illustrate how this feels, I have written this before, it feels like I'm standing in a room full of people who are all trying to talk to me at once. I have no idea what anybody is trying to say because I can't hear them, if everyone would just stop talking and sit down then we could get to these things one at a time. But this isn't the way things are working here, everything wants to be heard so desperately that they are all crawling on top of each other to get to the front of the line which only makes things worse.

These days at best I am sketchy, confused, irritated and ultimately broken, but it's not all bad.
With the help of some people that I love very dearly I also know what makes me good, well they tell me and I try to believe them. I'm not ready to talk about the good things quite yet. Isn't it sad that so many of us have been convinced that speaking highly of yourself means that you are conceited? I don't know many people who willingly accept compliments even if they do believe them.

I am in a constant state of panic, worried about being loved, giving love, giving too little or giving too much. When I speak am I really me or am I one of my many versions of me? There are so many things flying around my mind right now that I can't grasp anything. I feel like a dog walking in circles looking for a place to sleep but I never find it. Right this very second I have realized something else, when I think about things that make me uncomfortable or sad or inappropriate I start humming. I am completely aware and actually distracting myself so I don't think about it. I'm sure that's not really helping anything.

That is why I am finding it harder and harder to write, I can't even find my thoughts. I am so busy distracting them that most of me is numb to most things, except love which is also becoming increasingly more difficult. I don't know how to love without desperation or panic, at least I don't think I do.
Welcome to the ramblings of a crazy person.
Here is what I do know, I love music, I know I love laughing, I know I love good conversation. The hard part about the things I love is that it makes me high maintenance. I need love, excitement, emotion, romance and tragedy to feel worth something and that is an expectation I can't put on anybody else, not if I'm being fair. Let's face it, fair isn't one of my strongest points. I could, and do, spend entire days buried in music but because no one can match my passion I choose to do it alone. Laughing is pretty amazing, I know some of the funniest people and I am easily amused so I can watch the same part in Step Brothers a million times over and still laugh until I cry. As for conversation, my friends know that I have no problem talking or listening but my imagination takes me to a new world where conversation is about art and dreaming. It is very rare that I talk about anything serious, unless we're counting my days of pure self obsession. I like to talk about what it would feel like to stand on the highest peak of the highest mountain and scream or what it might be like to fly on the back of an eagle and feel the wind in your face. I have very obvious issues with reality but I'm not even sure if it is reality or everyone else's idea of reality. Now I'm confused again.
All I know is that when I am resting on these crazy notions or when I am in my music, I am free from everything. My mind tells a story and I let it flow. It may not be reality on the outside but it is reality on the inside and I think that's what I want.

In closing, I am nuts.

P.S. I hate caring about grammar and punctuation.

Have I mentioned that this is crap?

It's been a long time since I've written anything. I thought it was because there was nothing worthy happening, but then I realized that there has been so much that I wouldn't even know where to begin. Do you want to know where that got me? In a big heap, falling to pieces on the living room floor.

I thought that I was feeling better and that I didn't need to do this anymore, I thought that I had experienced some form of transcendence that brought me above my problems. In part that was true, I was above my problems and I could see them but what I didn't know was that I wasn't going to stay up there forever. I landed hard, and immediately got confused. I had spent so much time living in another place that I had forgotten my "real" life, my physical life. It has always been my thing to often find myself in a dream like state, pondering life's mysteries, not life as a global existence but my life as my own self absorbed place of being. When I take off into that place I am always the most important and everything revolves around my feelings. I don't know why this happens but I have a few theories; I am addicted to heart ache, pain in the heart is the only true sign of life and this is what I am sure to experience every time I come back down. I don't want to face real life, life doesn't like me and I'm really not very fond of it most of the time. Perhaps I have suffered so much self neglect in this life that I actually need to do these things, I just haven't figured out how to merge everything together into one life.

It has also been difficult and rather amusing for me because I have been expanding my boundaries and let me tell you how hard that is. Most of the time I don't even want to open up to myself let alone someone I have just met, but I want to so I try. Now here is the amusing part, when I try I act like a crazy person. For so long I have kept myself guarded for fear of so many things that I wouldn't even know how to begin explaining them. Until one day recently I was out for coffee and during an amazing conversation I realized a gift is no good if it's never given. We in ourselves as people are the greatest gift we can give each other; kindness, support, love, honesty are our heartbeats in this ever changing world. I was pumped because in theory, this was amazing news, I was free to share. So I did, I opened myself and said here it is, the good the bad and the ugly, I have been attempting that here for awhile, but it's different when it's not actually at someone. Open, honest, true and amazing and then it hit me, intense panic and pain the likes of which I have never known. I couldn't understand what I was doing. On the surface I'm pretty good, I'm a go with the flow, roll with the punches kind of girl but once the shell has been removed everything is soft and tender and unknown for the most part. This is where the crazy person comes in because now that I'm out I can't find my way back in so I'm running in circles not sure what to do, so I keep sharing. The pain is so intense, when you are this vulnerable everything hurts a lot.

I don't want to stop sharing and I am so lucky to have people willing to put up with me and my ever changing madness. To those of you who are know me and have been crazy enough to stick it out, I am so grateful for you and the happiness you bring. For those of you that don't know me and still find me even a little bit interesting, thank you for being here.

I have a feeling that over the next few weeks things are going to get interesting.

I would also like to acknowledge that this writing is crap and every time I have tried for the past few weeks all I keep saying to myself is, this is crap, so I delete and move on. I have to do this, crap or not. I have to remind myself why I started in the first place, and because I am so self obsessed at the moment I think that everyone will think this is crap. So there you have it.