Love I've Only Just Begun to Feel

So a little over two months ago this little man came into my life. I will never forget the day he arrived. I was getting text updates at every step. The moment I got the final text I cried. My heart flooded with love and joy. To this day I am convinced that he decided to come because he knew I was in town. I think about him a lot. He is so special to me. I felt so blessed to have been asked to do his latest photo shoot. And boy did he LOVE the camera. My little nephew has invaded my heart. :)

Dirty Thirty

As of this very moment, 138 Days, 2 hours, 42 minutes until what might be one of the worst birthdays ever. I really want to be good humored about turning 30. I try really hard to laugh at the jokes people make about me getting old and all that. But not far from the surface is my shudder of terror. The "Oh my freaking god I am going to be 30!" feeling. Where I recall all the things I wanted to do in my life before this time and almost none of them have been completed. I have no children, I didn't travel more and see Europe, and really all I've got to show for this 30 years of living is college loan debt and a job that doesn't pay near enough.

Okay that's not entirely true. I do have more to show for it. Just ten years ago I was a very different person. I was 100% insecure about EVERYTHING. I was mean, angry, bitter, and really unhappy. I carried a lot of baggage, most of which I have successfully let go of. I'm still somewhat insecure, especially about my physical appearance, but I am no where near the "crying in front of the mirror every day" girl that I once was. And heck, I can run a mile now and sometimes more! That's something to me.

So why am I so unhappy about this number? Society tells us that 30 is basically the end of your life. After this you are considered old. But I don't feel old, I don't look old (contrary to what some rude people might say to me), and heck 30 isn't even half my life (hopefully). So why am I so upset?

Perhaps it has more to do with feeling like I have failed at some of the things I wished for by now. Mostly the whole baby thing. For years I have watched people around me having babies and creating little families. I have longed for that for years. I feel kind of like Monica from Friends...you know, the one who is already a mom, but without a baby (okay for some of you that might be from another generation). I feel a little emptiness inside me. I feel like I should have this by now. And I have to wonder if it will ever happen for me. People keep telling me to be patient, it'll happen, blah blah. But they don't know. They can't predict the future. All they're doing is saying positive things that, for me, don't really encourage me in the least bit. Because again, they don't know! What if there is something wrong and we can't have kids. There are lots of people in this world who can't have children. What if we are one of those couples? It's not as easy to procreate as everyone has led us to believe. Not to mention it's very expensive. And I planned to have gone to college so I could get a good job and be able to provide for a family in ways that my parents never did. But financially I feel like I am still in college. The more money I make the more expensive everything becomes so I only break even, never coming out on top. It's so frustrating.

On a positive thought again, I can say that getting to this age has helped me discover the value of family and friends. It has enabled me to mature to a point where I find having good relationships is one of the most important things in life and that being close to family is vital. If I ever do have those little babies (or baby) I dream of, I want them to know a large family. I want them to know their aunts and uncles, grandparents, and cousins. I want family to be family, not strangers.

Vivid dreams can be haunting

I went to bed last night with much fear and sadness in my heart. I can only blame myself as I was obsessively keeping up on the news about what happened in an Aurora, Colorado movie theater earlier yesterday morning. I find myself both disgusted and fascinated by events like this. Disgusted, well need I explain why really? Fascinated because the psychologist in me wants to understand the thinking behind such actions.

So I thought I was okay, but apparently my subconscious was deeply disturbed. Without having been there (and thankfully so) I am left to my imagination of what transpired. I will tell you that my imagination is a vivid and horrid thing sometimes. My dreams then express those things and I am awaken with a heart full of terror. Last night I was ripped from my slumber. I ripped myself awake. In my dream I knew it had to be a dream because it was just too horrific to be real. I dreamed that I was at the movies. I was me and with me. The other me was pregnant and I had gone to the bathroom before the movie started. I stood in the bathroom looking in the mirror when suddenly I heard this "pop, pop, pop". My heart sank and I ran out of the bathroom to see what was going on. As I exited the bathroom I ran into my pregnant self. My pregnant self was in a panic and holding her belly. She appeared to be in pain but there were no signs of injury. I asked what happened and pregnant me said that someone just started shooting a gun in the theater so she ran out, but then started feeling like she was going into labor. It was far too early in the pregnancy to be going into labor so I hurried her to the car to rush her to the hospital. Upon starting to drive I realized that I didn't know where the hospital was, so I tried using my gps to get us there. It was dark and the air was thick so the windshield kept fogging up. I kept having to spray windshield washer fluid on it to clear it. Then it became extremely windy and rainy. I realized we had just went outside in a terrible storm. So, my gps would not work. It was like a hurricane sort of. The wind was so strong it was just ripping giant trees out of the ground. People were not prepared for the storm so they were driving frantically to get to a safe place, but the trees kept blowing all over, smashing into cars and crashing across the roads. I ended up having to turn around in the middle of the road because I reached an area littered with trees. There were police cars and an ambulance there too so I said to myself "I don't think we should go this way." So I turned around only to come up behind a van that had been hit by a flying tree. Standing in the middle of the road staring at the car was a little boy. His face had no expression. He just stared at the van. Behind him an older woman, likely his mother, was screaming and crying, pleading for him to get out of the road. She kept trying to get him to move, but he was frozen there staring at the van. The van he stared at had been smashed on one side. The passenger door in the front was flung open, flapping in the strong gusts of wind. Embedded in the side of the door, was the head of a little girl. Her body dangled limp in the air, her face clung to the car door. It was a horrific sight. So I woke myself up. I lay there in a panic, my heart pounding, jumping inside at every little bump in the night. I was so tired, but terrified to go back to sleep. I didn't want to go back to that dream. I hate it when I have dreams like that. I can't get the images out of my head.

*sigh...Anyway...I'm sure I will never really understand what moves people to commit such atrocities as what happened in Colorado. (And in hundreds of other places all over the world basically every single day) I can't even kill an animal let alone a human being. And I was already fairly afraid of the world. Now maybe more so. I work in a school and every day I have this thought in the back of my mind about being a victim of a school shooting. And this kind of thing could really happen anywhere. At the same time I don't want to be so afraid that I never live my life. It is short enough as it is.

I suppose that's why it's called a Cliché

I find myself living many cliches in life. This post will illustrate yet another I have discovered.

My elders always seemed to tell me that I should appreciate family. That I should want to be near to them. For much of my life I fought this notion. I wanted to be far away. Perhaps maybe I mostly wanted to be far away from the sadness that was our small little immediate family. But things have changed now. We've all grown up..well most of us. Mom and Dad are now divorced and living in different states. And as much as I love my Dad there is something very obvious in his absence and that is...no drama. My dad is one of those kind of people who sit in a room and you can feel it: the simmer, the sense of some unpredictable force that might, at any moment, break loose, and do something terrible. We don't have to worry about that anymore. I feel a tingle of awful inside me saying this, but I am thankful. We all deserve better. He does too, but he won't do it for himself. 


Anyway...as I have grown older I have found a love for family that I never thought I would have. An unconditional love. In the past I used to want this picture perfect family, but knew deep down it would never be real. It's still not...but that's okay. My family is beautiful the way it is. My brother's are wonderful people who I adore with every sliver of my soul. I love them more than words can say or gestures can express. And then I got married and with that came more love. More people to learn to love. haha But in the end here I am almost 30 and thinking to myself...I can't get enough of them. I want to be with them as much as possible. Being 5 hours away from them is far too far. I don't like it one little bit. I used to want to me a million miles away. Now I want to be right there. 


I could give quite a bit of credit to the birth of my first nephew. Ever since I heard about his existence I have been in love with him. Perhaps a lot of that has to do with the fact that I have a strong desire to have babies of my own but haven't yet been lucky enough to have happy accident or anything of that nature. So I live vicariously through my brother and his wife, a little bit. But mostly I just love like that. I feel like my heart is always bursting with more and more love to give. I can never give enough. There's always more behind it. 


Overall, I have learned that my need to be close to family is extremely strong. So if I were the sort to pray I would pray that I get a job soon somewhere close to my family. I am tired of being so far away from people who light up my life. I hope with all my soul that things work out. My heart aches every day. I want it to stop. 

With technology increasing the ease to connect with others, we tend to disconnect even more

I've been thinking about this kind of as a self-reflection. This year in my personal life and at work I've really become aware of my intense fear of face-to-face communication with others. It intrigues me to notice this in myself and I have to wonder where it came from.

When I recall my younger years...back when there were no cell phones or internet connections to speak of...I talked on the phone with my friends and family whenever I got the chance. I would get so excited when the phone rang, thinking "Who could it be?!" "Is it for me?!". I would talk for hours and hours with my BFF about really nothing at all, probably boys mostly. But that DID happen.

And now, I have email, instant messaging, and a personal cell phone. All of which were designed to enable closer, more frequent, and more availability in communication with others, yet I find myself more disconnected than ever before. I feel an instant shudder of fear when my phone rings now. I wonder, "Who is it?" "Why would someone be calling me?" Sometimes I see who it is and I AM excited to talk to them. I think, "Oh wow they thought of me enough to call!". Some people simply get declined on a regular basis because I cannot overcome the fear of talking to them, hearing their voice, or have much to say really. And it's worse with the older generation who still have not embraced the beauty of email or texting...worse for me anyway.

Perhaps it is because I have become accustomed to the ability to think before responding. With that I can come across as being more witty, wise, or intelligent. I am not burdened by my inability to think on my feet or say something I shouldn't out of anger or irritation. With text or email I can really put thought into what I say. It keeps me safe and in control.

Or maybe that's it right there! CONTROL! I can't even remember a time in my life where I wasn't trying to gain control over something that seemed uncontrollable. In childhood it was my temper, it was my parents, my siblings, my friends, my life, my looks, my weight...and not much has changed. At least now my control is used in an attempt to make peace among others and encourage those around me to love one another and be happy. So I suppose that's good....but I digress.

Back to the subject here. I really started thinking about this more lately when a relative was telling me about her 10-year-old daughter being bullied through text message on her cell phone. My first thought really was...Why the heck does a 10-year-old have their own cell phone and that much communicative freedom? Talking to my husband about this I realize I am perhaps already out of touch. I think kids should be getting permission to call their friends, to communicate with them, because that's how it was when I was a kid. But back then we had one family phone, which we all shared. We asked permission to use it and we asked permission to visit a friend. I think kids still ask for permission to physically visit a friend, but nowadays with kids having their own personal phones their communication is open. I'm not saying that bullying wouldn't happen if these kids didn't have cell phones. I don't think that at all. Bullying has always existed and probably always will, it's just that the new technology allowing us to communicate more freely has also given way to alternative methods of negative interaction as well. It's an inevitable result in any advance in technology I suppose. Where good can be done, so can evil.

So, I find it very interesting how advancements in technology meant to bring us closer together have actually set forth some invisible boundaries that we tend to cling to. Perhaps we need the safety of distance to communicate with others, the sense of security when speaking ones mind to another, the anonymity that text can provide in some situations, and a sense of control over our communication experiences. Are these a bad thing? I suppose it could be see in many ways. In some ways I do think it's bad simply because it has created distance among people and physical interaction with communication. We are somewhat perpetually lonely individuals isolating ourselves physically and communicating only through technology. But at the same time it doesn't HAVE to be that way. We can all choose to use the myriad of technology around us to be MORE connected. Heck you can Skype for free and actually SEE the person you are speaking with. This would be awesome for me personally if my family would get on board. Then I could call up and see them via the computer and it wouldn't feel like we're so far apart!

In the end, I'm still not entirely certain where this fear came from, but I have some ideas. For me, personally I think it's my overwhelming expectation to strive for being perfect and in control. I don't like to look the fool so I enjoy planning my conversational responses to others. I don't think well on my feet, especially when extremely anxious, and I have a strong desire to have control over any and everything possible. I guess that probably comes from my childhood where I felt like I had zero control so now as an adult I still long for that. While my mom was very encouraging, my father was not so much. He always had a way of taking you down a couple notches if you found yourself filled with even an ounce of confidence. Even if you were really good at something, there was always something to be found that was imperfect. Having that pointed out to one on a regular basis tends to make a person focus on the negative aspects of everything! I've worked hard to get away from that kind of thinking, but it still creeps in a lot of the time.

Anyway...so something to think about. Something for all of us to think about. How do we connect with the people we love and care for? Do we connect at all or enough? And when/if I become a mom someday, will I let my own child have their own cell phone before they are 13 or older?! I honestly don't know!

Serenity

Boredom is the feeling that anything unentertaining is a waste of time, an irritation for lack of stimulation. But if we stop for a minute or two to breathe and recognize the beauty that surrounds us in our everyday lives perhaps we can all find a bit of peace. Even if just for a moment.

Much of my time I find myself seeking silence. Hushing the talking heads surrounding me that inundate my mind with rubbish and angst. I'd rather wallow in the beautiful sounds of silence...the birds chirping elatedly about their day, the wind breezing through my hair...the rustling of the leaves in the trees...breathe deeply and exhale.

I hear the rush of cars passing by...

children laughing as they play blocks away from me...

a dog barking in the distance...

When I allow myself to simply sit in this santuary we call Earth, my heart swells with peacefulness. All the stress of daily life is pushed out.

You ought to try it sometime.  

My mom always told me that saying I hated someone meant that I wanted them to die.
I never thought I would be a person capable of hate...by that definition at least.
But I find myself very close to that edge if not over it...
What does that mean?