Overcoming All

I saw the above quote this morning while attempting to find inspiration to handle my current challenge in life with aplomb. I have to admit, I haven't been big with the graceful handling of life lately. I get angry because I feel like everything is a personal attack on my life and my character instead of seeing it as an opportunity to grow, handle the moment with calm dignity, and remember that I have a choice how I view it and deal with it.

Whenever something big has gone down in my life, I've been asked "How do you get through it? How are you handling this so well?" I never understand that question, because, well, how else am I supposed to handle it? However, when the little stuff hits, watch out world. I'm going to handle it like a two year-old. Throw a fit, cry, rage, wish it would go away, despair that it will ever get better, and basically hope someone else would handle all of life's challenges for me. It's almost as if the big things are easier to handle because the answers are so much more obvious. It's not like curling up into a little ball and just letting the world go on around me was ever an option for me. I'm WAY too stubborn for that. When little challenges hit, there are so many possibilities of how to handle it, and none of them really within my grasp 99% of the time, that I feel like my head is spinning. I feel like it will spin right off the screw that keeps it on my shoulders and roll away, just like in that Shel Silverstein poem.

"Mama said I'd lose my head

If it wasn't fastened on.

Today I guess it wasn't

Cause while playing with my cousin

It fell off and rolled away

And now it's gone.

And I can't look for it

Cause my eyes are in it,

And I can't call to it

Cause my mouth is on it

(couldn't hear me anyway

Cause my ears are on it),

Can't even think about it

Cause my brain is in it.

So I guess I'll sit down

On this rock

And rest for just a minute..."

So, someday, when you see me sitting on my head at the park, know it's because I finally lost my head. I forgot in all of life's everyday little challenges that I have a choice how to handle the situation. Just stand me up, put my head back where it belongs, and show me this blog. Remind me that it's okay to lose it for a minute or two, it's okay to cry and get upset, it's okay to not know what to do, but it's never okay to give up and just stop trying to figure it out. Partly because I'm a grown up and that's the way things are, partly because the world won't stop spinning just because I wish it would, but mostly because I'm better than that and far too stubborn to forgive myself if I were to one day just sit on a "rock" and stop trying to take care of myself.

Can I Skip Sleep, and Just Do it All?

It's hard to be at a point in your life where you know you are capable of taking care of something, but you don't have the tools to take care of it. It feels like I've been there in one way or another for the last several years.  I know there are things I can take care of at work if I only had the time. I know I can make my own garb for Ren Fest if I only had the material. I know I could fix my car if I only had the place. I know I can defeat the depression and anxiety with the right counseling if I only had the money for a counselor. I know I could remember my life if I only had access to the people who know about those times my family and closest friends aren't as familiar with. I know I could do everything I ever wanted to do if only I didn't have to waste 6 hours a day sleeping.

It's all pretty crazy.

There is More....I Just Don't Remember it Yet

Over the last few years, I've concentrated a lot on getting to know who I am. I started out getting to know who I was, then I moved on to understanding why I was that person, and most recently I've concentrated on who I've become/want to be. All of this was wonderful, until I came home from work last night and decided to go through some boxes in my closet.

It would make sense to thing that there are no more boxes, journals, pictures, or anything of the kind left that I haven't already gone through or thoroughly examined to understand everything about my life before amnesia. That would also be a wrong assumption. I know it's been three years, but some things I just brushed over and some things I unintentionally ignored. After going through stuff last night, I realize how much is still missing. These are things that can't be filled in my my brain when mine isn't working, my most amazing of best friends, Runt. These are things no one currently in my life really knows about me. These are the things that made me realize how much of me is still missing.

Lately, I've been on this kick about wanting to learn as much about the world I live in and the country I reside in as possible. The library is my best friend in this endeavor. As strange of a mood as I was in when I wrote my last post, what I said there is true. I do wish I had the means and time to travel and connect on some level to the world outside of books.

The above paragraphs seem very disconnected until you consider the following.....I've been places that are just vague shadowy memories or only "memories" in the sense that someone else filled in the gap, my history tells me I lived somewhere, or I read a journal entry about it. If I could reconnect to those places, what are the possibilities of filling in those gaps, or making those shadows real? If I connected to the world around me, how much of what I learned growing up and into adulthood would I regain?

People don't usually realize, I didn't just lose my history, I lost almost everything. I struggled with reading and writing at first (not like a child learning for the first time, more like someone struggling to remember how to do something they hadn't done in a long time.) I had to re-read history books and watch things on the history channel to remember history lessons from my childhood. I had to relearn different maths and sciences. I even had to/still have to relearn pop culture. People will make references to something I haven't re-watched and I have no idea what they're talking about, but they just expect that I do.

I desperately crave and need opportunities to connect on a level to the world that will likely never be presented to me. I have to create these opportunities for myself. I had a thought that made me laugh, because I always assume any idea I have will fail, and made me wonder, because it would be awesome (for me anyway.) What if I pitched An Amnesiac's Journey as a documentary series to The Discover Channel or something. A physical journey to follow someone on a road of rediscovery of herself and the world around her.  Pretty easy to flesh out, visiting places I've lived, visited, worked, and then expanding on that, places in my family's history that could help me on my road to rediscovery.

Of course, I wouldn't even know where to start to pitch an idea like that, so it's a thought that died almost as quickly as it was born.

What if I've Already Done That

Please do not judge too harshly while reading this. I wrote this mostly on Saturday and last week I worked 41.95 hours in 4 days. Blech!! However, I had to post it as it is. Partly because I always swore that's how I'd roll with this blog and because, well going back and re-reading this made me giggle a lot! Enjoy!
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A strange thought flew into my head last night while I was at work. Mind you, work is so crazy busy lately, the ability to have an errant thought is an accomplishment in and of itself, but I digress. A friend of mine said, "You really need to come out to Washington and see us" to which my response was "I really want to, I've never been to Washington." (No mother, not DC. I know I've been there. This is about the state of Washington. And who thought it was a good idea to name the nation's capital AND a state after our first president? Did they really not consider how confusing that would be? Or, were they just being jerks about it? Like, the thought process was, "Let's name this place on the opposite side of the nation the same thing as the capital, then sit back and laugh at all the confusion. It will last for decades at the very least. Hahahahahahaha!!!!" No, this is not the thought I had last night.....don't judge me for being easily distracted today. I'm tired.) Then, I found myself thinking, But what if I have?

What if I've already been to all of these places I desperately want to visit and see, and I just don't remember? What if I've been to the Louisiana Bayou, the Statue of Liberty, the Grand Canyon, the Hoover Dam, etc, etc, etc? What if in those 3 1/2 weeks I had the most amazing adventures, and I just don't remember? I haven't been this haunted by these thoughts in a long while. Partly because I've been working 2 jobs and too tired for thoughts to even really exist in any substantial form, and party because, now that I'm down to 1 job again, I have time to build my bucket list, but no money to live it.

It's a horrible catch-22. You either work too hard to enjoy life, but have the money to do so if you desire (not that it worked out that way for me, since I have bills coming out of my ears that will never get paid off at this rate) or you have enough time to do the things you really want to do and live a life outside of the experience books an provide you.

On a side note (yes, I know, another one. I said don't judge), I went to the library this week for the first time in.....well.....I don't know how long and two people at work walked by my desk, saw my library book, and said "I didn't know libraries still existed." Such a sad commentary on society today. Just sayin'!

So I'm seeking help. I need to find inexpensive ways to travel. looking for suggestions. I want to go places I know I've been to try to trigger memories, and go to places I don't think I've been to see if the same happens (and if not, still get a thrilling moment out of it.) I want to start crossing things off my bucket list. Obviously not as fast as I'm adding things to it, but still cross some things off.

No, I'm not dying. Don't be melodramatic. I just want to live ever day remembering that today could easily be my last.


*I actually had to go back and reread everything not in parenthesis multiple times while writing this to remember what I was talking about.