Sarah Lesson #87: My ideas, my Feelings, interpret your own and leave mine alone.

It angers me so much when someone tries to tell me how I feel or what I mean. You can take what I say however you please, but when you try and tell me how I feel about something, that is completely ignorant. When I say something, I generally have a reason to say it, even if it is because I am acting on emotion. Usually I try and refrain from saying anything too important when under the influence of extreme emotion. When I feel a certain way about something, I have certain reasons as to why I feel that way. (Using my head to think and heart to feel for 18 years now, I think I have pretty good knowledge about myself)I have those reasons, you don't get to choose what they are just to send me on a guilt trip, change my mind, or make me sound awful. Putting words in to my mouth, thoughts in my head and feelings in my heart is one way to get  on my bad side. If you would like to be a friend of mine, that is a good lesson to learn.

Time for Healing

In the process of emotional or even physical healing, the one aspect you absolutely need is time. Sure, other things will help and make the process a little less painful(although the phrase "no pain, no gain" cannot be forgotten). Without allowing for time, you can never heal. Everything else that feels necessary, those are just catalysts for the process. Love, therapy, medicine, dialogue...

Time can be a test in your process though, and you need certain things to withstand that test. Emotional strength, patience, trust, an outlet or someone to confide in are things to help you survive the time it takes for healing. You need to be able to remain stable emotionally and mentally, you need to let the time go by and relax, you need to trust that healing will come. Your outlet or source of confidence can be a pen and piece of paper, prayer, even your cat if you don't have anyone to talk to. Bottling up emotions over time is  counter-productive to the time given for healing.

Even if it seems like the healing will never be complete, and you will never be ok, be patient and strong. Time will bring peace and healing.

Bliss is a Mask of an Ignorant lifestyle.

Reality is painful but you cannot just run away. By running away and living life in a fantasy world, you will only cause the pain to worsen once the harsh reality sets in. When I tackle a to-do list, I do one thing at a time to slowly get it done. I don't ignore the reality of what needs to be done and let things pile up. You cannot sit in the happy corner of your brain and live ignorantly forever. Eventually the problems you've been blissfully ignoring will pile up and when the time comes, you will not be able to handle them.

Living ignorantly is self-destructive behavior masked by bliss.

Time: The Blessing Turned to a Curse

Time is one of those things that is just so complex and yet so simple, so important and yet so silly, so perfect and yet we hate it. I was told once that you know something is important to a culture when there are so many words for it, or ways to describe it. Time is so important to modern, especially American society. We are always worrying about what time it is, when we will do something, how fast or slow our day seems to be going, how we plan out our time, how long it takes for something to happen. We worry about timing, or lack there-of, and everyone, myself included, is so extremely impatient. Other cultures take time for daily siesta or self-reflection time, while us Americans refuse to give up our precious time for anything that seems 'unimportant'.

Has no one come to the conclusion that all of this worrying and thinking about our time, is actually taking up more time than taking the time to relax and do nothing? We are only given so much time of this earth. We are blessed with a mere average of 70-some years, we curse ourselves with constant business and monotony. What is the problem with taking a moment to just enjoy something whether it be nature, thoughts, the company of another, time to pray or meditate, or even a little extra sleep? Sure it takes time away from, 'important' things, but in the end, what is 'important?

I feel terribly hypocritical writing this, because I am the most guilty person I know when it comes to being busy, scheduling every moment of my life, never being spontaneous or choosing enjoying myself over 'important' things. But I am not writing just to other people or American society, I am also writing to  myself. Taking leisure time and stopping hustle-and-bustle is a lesson I, most of all, need to learn. Scheduling, planing and organizing, (three of my favorite every-day words) will help me be successful, but will it help me be truly happy? The funny thing about that is, as I write I argue with myself, saying, "I am happy when I schedule, plan and get things done! I get a thrill from it!", and sure I do enjoy those things, but my happiness lacks the simplistic, fun, spontaneous, warmth that comes from doing something unexpected, relaxing, and enjoying life as is.

So Much in So Little Time

It has been about 3 weeks since I have last written, and I can hardly believe how much has happened in that short amount of time. Yes, in comparison to how often I usually write, that is a long time, but the amount of things that have happened, both good and bad, seems like it should have been a year. To fill you in, I even need to take out my planner to remind myself and get the timeline straight!

1. Senioritis is worse than ever. I find reasons to NOT do everything... I have zero patience for immaturity, stupidity, high school, or anything for that matter. I long for college. I can hardly stand the amount of wait I still have.

2. I feel like with certain friends with whom I thought I was drifting from, things are getting better. I have had chances to hang out, we talk a lot more and do a lot more. I think we have all sort of realize the slowly dwindling amount of time we have left with each other and we are learning to cherish it.

3. College decision is close, I can feel it. I have gotten all of my scholarship offers and after this week will have experienced a little bit more of some schools. I cannot wait to send in those papers and be able to answer the commonly asked question: "Where are you going to college?". That will be one of the biggest reliefs I have ever felt.

4. I am surprised I did not write last weekend. I was more frustrated than I have ever been. I got my wisdom teeth out, was in so much pain, could not eat anything, and on top of that I was the most emotionally stressed I have ever been. I guess it was too much to write and the situation was still developing, and I did a lot of sitting and thinking and took lots of medicine. I now can eat normal foods, now I only wait to play the clarinet again! It is driving me mad.

5. I learned A LOT over the last few weeks. I learned that friendship is one of the most important things you can have. I learned that texting is not proper communication. I learned that without face to face conversation, our generation doesn't know how to properly communicate. I learned that you need to get past reputations and accept people for who they are and what they mean to you. I learned that the phrase 'I Love You' is scary and gets tossed around way too much. I learned that I panic easily. I learned that relationships and commitment scare me. I learned that I am an indecisive person. I learned that sometimes  planning ends up in disappointment. I learned that you shouldn't just act on raw emotion. I learned that you shouldn't over analyze feelings either. I learned that there are certain people I need to be more thankful for. I learned that crying can be good. I learned that I am not a great friend. I learned that I take advantage of certain friends. I learned that emotional situations can do bad things and good things.

Regardless of the crazy, emotional, stressful, hard, awful things that happened this week, I will take so much from it and grow as a person and mostly as a friend. 


Thank you, you know who you are.

A Nation of Frustration

I have been so frustrated lately, with so many things, large and small and so many people, close and irrelevant. What is happening in our state now that Senate Bill 5 is on its way to being passed, important aspects of education that discourage my future are being demolished, I am being kept from doing what I want, I cannot make a decision to save my life, no matter what I do, I am constantly tired, I feel a little bit jiped in my senior year, certain people continue to get on my last nerve and get what I want, people are just doing little things, that frustrate me in a BIG way. I guess I just love to complain and maybe I am looking for things to complain about so the frustrating things are extremely evident to me. Maybe I am just upset because things do not go my way, and I am a control freak... I just had to vent. What's new?

Letters

In case you haven't noticed, I failed the letter project. I am so far behind I would have to write about 3 letters a week to catch up. I have come to the conclusion that the letter project was draining to my creativity. I have almost every aspect and moment of my life planned out..It is how I am. I need to loosen up a bit and I figure, why should my creative outlet be planned and organized? Creativity cannot be planned or structured, it is full of spontaneity. So I will discontinue the letter project for now. I may use a few of the prompts in the coming months as graduation approaches. There are some good ones I was saving for last.

Conflict

I feel like every influence, thought, and part of my life is in conflict with eachother. It isn't that anything is wrong or bad, but I just feel like I am being told different things. It all mostly relates to this whole college thing. I have gone to many people for advice. I have asked directors, teachers, parents and peers about what they think... Top answers include: Make a pros and cons chart, Go by who has the best _____, I would pick _____, then of course there is the ever so popular: Go with your gut. Well I started out with the pros and cons chart. This was an extremely detailed and organized pros and cons chart of epic proportions. Any category you could think to rate a college on, it was there. I was proud of my work until I added everything up... It wasn't very helpful. Different people told me to base my choice off of different things, and each of those conflicted. One college has my favorite clarinet professer, the other my favorite music program, another has the best price, the other has the best location... and the categories go on and continue to conflict. So the most popular answer... Go with your gut, listen to your heart, trust in your instinct. I am convinced I do not have a gut. There is no organ inside of me that holds unconcious secret truths that I actually know, but don't know I know... Yeah that sounds clear right? Another problem with that decision making process... When did I become a college expert? How do I know where the best place is? I do not exactly feel qualified to be trusted to make the perfect decision. That is just it, whichever college I choose won't be the perfect choice. There is no perfect choice, no matter where I pick, I am going to have reasons I could have and should have picked another college. I will just have to be happy with whatever I end up with and find the positive in that choice. I will be fine once the choice is made and the next chapter starts... but getting there is the hardest part. I probably stress over this more than I should. I have said it before, I am too planned out and organized, I can't handle being spontaneous or living  without my choices and future completely planned out. That is something I am going to need to grow out of... I would be less uptight and less of a perfectionist too.

Gotta love a good Sunday night rant to start the week...

Targeting Built-up Frustration and it's Source

In a bad situation, it is usually easy to know who you are angry with. Sometimes, it isn't so easy to discern between who you choose to direct your anger to and who you should direct your anger to. Many times, this is because it is hard to be angry with the person you should be angry with, but being angry with someone else is easy, especially when justifiable. If you're angry, you'd think it is easy to be angry with anyone involved, but that is not the case. When someone you love, look up to, respect and care for is who you should be angry with, you don't want to be angry, so you direct your anger elsewhere. If someone you've never liked, who has wronged you time and time again and has many times before been the source of your anger is part of the situation, they become a very easy target. One would read this and think, why just not be angry? If it is harder to be angry and the 'culprit' then why redirect it and be angry at all? Answer: I am human. The anger and frustration has to come out somehow and if I don't care how much my relationship with the target crumbles, then why not? It isn't like I act out irrationally in anger, or cause any harm. I just personally relieve stress and frustration to myself. No harm, no foul