Finding light in life

‘If you don't like something, change it. If you can't change it, change your attitude. Don't complain.’ -Maya Angelou 


Every so often, I think a person should take a step back and take a good look at the life they are living. The most important thing to ask yourself is, 'Am I happy with the life I am living?' 


This blog will not relate to everyone, it isn't a breakthrough on how to achieve all of your goals or how to live a perfectly happy life. 


It is simply my story, my questioning of my own happiness. It may help you, or you might not get through the whole story. My only hope is that you understand that everyone is accountable for the things they can control, and the smallest change can mean a world of difference. 


I just want to start off saying that I am very happy with many aspects of my life. I have a home, great friends and a very healthy relationship. The one struggle that I have, is the relationship I have with myself. I am very hard on myself, because I want to be the change I want to see in the world. Very cliche, I know, but It is pretty much the secret to life. It is so hard, and lately I feel just like some of my light is dwindling, and I want to shine again. 


So, lately I have been taking a step back to review my situation, and I realize I need to take care of myself on an emotional level, in order to service others in a better way. 


Working in the psych field is not easy, it is emotionally draining, often times unrewarding, and almost always makes you long for the simple pleasure of solitude. I watch people hit rock bottom, I watch people who don't realize they have hit rock bottom, and I watch people struggle to simply live, love and enjoy the life that was dealt to them. 


It is exhausting, it is sad at times, it humbles you, bur it can also make you really bitchy. 

Going through school you learn about mental illness but you never really understand it until you watch someone whose life was literally taken from them. When one day the reality that they thought they knew was snatched from under them. Mental illness is just a few words printed in text books until you experience what it can do to a person and their families. 


Working in the mental health field is absolutely the hardest thing I have ever done, not because of their behaviors, their outburst or their confusion. It is hard on me because I feel so helpless at times, I feel like I can't relate, I feel like my life is so less difficult. 




I want to change something, just a minuet second in someone's life where they can feel the clarification that they haven't had in years. I want to watch someone's face light up as they hold on to a tiny glimpse of hope. I want to do more; I want to help people change their lives.  


I learn every day working in this field. I am constantly changing; changing my ideas of how I think the world works, changing my ideas of the human race, and changing my ideas of who I am and where I fit in this world. 


I am very hard on myself, and I admit, I get burnt out from certain obstacles that I face at work. Some days it is hard to understand the people I work with, but it makes me want to delve deeper into the field. 


I strive in difficult situations, the more difficult something is to obtain, the more I want it, the more I need to learn about it. 


I am not at the place in my career right now that I would like to be at, but I know that I have the desire to learn, the desire to grow as a person and the desire to help others in any way I can. 


If you don't like something, change it. 


If you can't change it, change your attitude.  


It is so easy to say those words, it is so easy to preach to people to be happy and to smile and to accept the life that God has dealt them. 

But is that real? How much can life throw at a person before it is just too hard to keep going?


I am not sure, all that l I know is that I like to teach people how to smile despite the shit that is thrown at them. I know that I want to help others find happiness. I want to grow enough as a person to be someone's light in a room full of darkness. 


I am human, I get frustrated, I don't by any means have unbending patience. But I realize that, and if I don't like something, I do everything to change anything I can. Whether it be my situation in life, or just my attitude. 


I realize that in order to help change someone's situation, I have to change my attitude. If I don't I am just going to continue to feel burnt out and tired. 


So here is to change, whatever it may be. 

History Repeats Itself

In an ideal world, we would learn our lesson the first time we make a mistake. Not all of us our blessed with this will power. Some of us, me personally, need to have a few more blows until we finally move on and say, "enough is enough."

Unfortunately, when it comes to relationships many find themselves falling back into the same patterns, and nothing is ever learned. Instead, the warning signs are dismissed as we bask in the bliss of a new relationship. Everything goes beautifully for a while, until... it doesn't. Then, the blindfold is removed and you realize that you just dated the same guy or girl, again. 

For me, history has repeated itself a plethora of times. Each time, the relationship starts off too romantic for words. The love is so overpowering, that you feel as if your heart is a volcano ready to erupt at any moment. Slowly, the heat starts to dwindle, the temperate drops and I am left freezing. Crack, another guy just cracked my heart with an ice pick.  

Why do so many of us find ourselves falling for the same person over and over again? There are billions of men and women out there yet I have already dated the same guy three times... what are the odds? 

Do you find yourself dismissing the seemingly gentleman for a guy that is always a bit out of reach? Do you love the girls that drive you mad with jealousy, when you have a sweet girl next door that is dying to love you? 

Are all of our repeated endeavors a sign that we just aren't ready to commit, or is there something else going on here that we cannot explain?

"Whatever our souls are made of, his and mine are the same," Catherine Earnshaw uttered as she confessed her unremitting love for Heathcliff in Wuthering Heights. Although her suiter, Edgar Linton was intelligent, rich, the ideal mate, she could not quite understand why she could not love him like the dark Heathcliffe. 

She denied herself powerful love when she went against nature's course, marrying Linton. 

She also welcomed eternal heartbreak and suffering. 

That quote says everything about love and life, we continue to love the same men and women because something inside us is the same, no matter how much you want to deny it, how much you want to hate the other person. Whatever their soul is made of, your internal self is more similar than you want to admit. 

Then why don't you end up with your first Zach, or Derek, Alicia or Katie? 

Well, I believe that destiny and the supernatural can only take a person so far. You have to go into a relationship with logic and experience as well. My first Zach, I was too naive to realize why our souls connected at such an intense level. What I thought was love, was in fact manipulation. We shared a strong spiritual bond, but our values we too contradictory to really establish a lasting bond. 

The second Zach, well... I should have noticed the signs right away. Love is patient, love is kind, but unfortunately, love is blind. 

Presently, my soul is swimming, the world has stopped, the lava is bubbling and I am ready to pop. Sorry, I really had to rhyme.

He is nothing like the two previous but I can't deny that there are some similarities. He seems to posses all of the best qualities of the former two. It is eerie how it works, that a soul can be the same, but it is true and you cannot deny it. 

Why else do we dismiss men and women that seem so perfect? What one might call chemistry, I call destiny. 

So my advice to the men and women that seem to date the same person despite their better judgement, stop blaming yourself and start embracing love and learning from it. One day you will find yourself falling in love with someone that is perfect for you because you are smart enough to know how to really love. 

Never give up on love. 

On to the next!

A kiss is just a kiss, a fuck is just a fuck... until you finally find someone you care about. Then somehow every kiss means something, every embrace leaves you breathless, and the fucking.... well it's the bomb

I really never understood relationships before, as you can see from all of my previous posts. I was probably more anti-relationship than anything else because I had been in so many this past year. I was a straight-up habitual dater, it was kind of what I needed after being drowned in a three-year disaster of a relationship.

I tested the waters with all types of guys: college guys, guys with their shit together, guys who had no idea what they were doing, single guys, not so single guys, ex boyfriends, new friends, old friends. Okay, seriously, I am not sure what I thought I was doing but eventually I had enough of dating. None of these guys seemed to have what I needed, and the kisses well they just fell so flat... and we all know that a kiss tells it all.

After all of these failed attempts at love, I began to think there was something really wrong with me. I really cared for some of the guys I dated this year, but I got over all of them, and no guys seemed to interest me at all. Everyone always asked me why I was single. I never understood why it was so hard to believe. Like there was something wrong with getting to do whatever the fuck you wanted, when you wanted to, I always thought.  I didn't understand why you would sacrifice your freedom just to have a steady... um... kiss.

 I really just didn't get it. I was so unhappy in my past relationships; I felt suffocated, I felt like I couldn't be myself and I was constantly being picked apart. I was happy with who I was. It was these ass holes that made me feel like I shouldn't be content being Ashley. I could write a list of insults that I was given over the year. I am so fucking nice to my boyfriends, Karma is a bitch boys, you're fucking screwed... you know who you are.  The word relationship left a sour taste in my mouth and it honestly gave me an anxiety attack. Relationship was synonymous with prison. I wanted my freedom, damn it.

 By October, I was SOoOoO over dating, and I was more excited to see how awesome I could be single.   I was really working hard to get my life on track: I started a job that I loved, I got a new apartment and I was moving in with my best friend. Life was perfect, and I didn't even think that anything could top this. I didn't realize I was missing anything.

Boom! I met someone that completely made me contradict my prior feelings about my life and relationships. Something was missing after all, and i know it now because something inside me has been filled up in the last month.

It is true what they say, you find a guy when you least expect it or need it. I didn't feel like I needed a guy but I met someone that made me want to say goodbye to my single days and habits.

In the last month, I am beginning to understand why people are monogamous. I kind of thought I lacked that pattern of thinking, but the reality is, I was forcing myself to settle for people that I just wasn't into, who were not right for me.

Compatibility is everything, and the more people I have dated the more I have realized what I like in a guy and what I dislike. This year of nexts actually greatly improved my quality of life, and definitely increased my standards in a mate.  

I am absolutely, positively overjoyed that I am dating, what I feel like is my perfect match. Its freaky, scary, how in-sync we are. He makes me feel normal and overjoyed with happiness because I know he is adding to my life, not taking my life away.

I am not afraid to be tied down because I am in a big girl relationship where you don't tie your partner down, you trust that they will make decisions that will not hurt either of you. It feels right, and because of that, no other guy matters. Now, a relationship no longer means that I am serving a life sentence, and it can only get better from here. I am lucky, and it worked out because I stopped worrying about finding someone, and I started worrying about finding myself.

I took the time to do me, and I am better for it, but now I am going to do me with someone else, and as long as I don't lose sight of my future, I'll keep him around.

I have shared my story, now I am going to share my two cents.

• If you are dating a guy that you don't have enough in common to hold an absurd conversation with... MOVE ON TO THE NEXT
• If you are out with your girls and find yourself more worried about what guys are in the room... MOVE ON TO THE NEXT
• If your significant other cannot hang out with your friends...MOVE ON TO THE NEXT
• If your bf/gf makes you feel like you are not the person you think you are... MOVE ON TO THE NEXT
• If you don't have your shit together and you are relying on another person for happiness.... MOVE ON TO THE NEXT
• If you don't know who you are outside of a relationship... MOVE ON AND BE SINGLE!
• If you have never been single... YOU ARE AN IDIOT 
• If you are boring together, there is no excitement.. MOVE ON TO THE NEXT
• If your boyfriend/girlfriend is not who you want them to be, or who they used to be.. LET IT GO

And we all fall down

Running, running... if you are not running you are falling behind. They will leave you behind. 

Who would you rather be? 

Lately, I have been watching people, the people that are running, and the people that are left behind. The people that have everything, and the people that have exhausted all of their options.  

God, which would I rather be? 

I don't feel like I am either, but I feel further away from the runners. Why? Because whatever our souls are made of, mine is the same as the fallen. No matter how much I learn, no matter how much I think I know... I am humbled all the time. That is something the runners lack and the lost ones redeeming quality. Those that hit rock bottom accept those for who they are. The runners judge, they don't take a second to look around them, they don't watch, so they will never understand. 

 

How can you walk through life without feeling, without taking the time to see? If you are running, you aren't living. You are alone out there on the track. At least the fallen ones have slowed down enough to have each other. 

I watch the patients at my job. Some of them are so far gone, many have slept through life and now they finally are waking up. That is really scary to me. To wake up after years and have to learn who you really are. For many, there is no hope of a "normal life." For others, there is a minute light at the end of the tunnel.  There is nothing left for them to do but live, or wait to die, give up or push though.

 Yet, these people smile, they talk about love, their hope, their fears. They take of each other, it isn't me against you, its us against our disease. They cry, they don't give a fuck anymore about putting other people down because all their energy is exhausted on living the best life they can. To be in their place is terrifying, yet some are so strong, strong enough to live life when everything seems like shit. 

I don't know if I could ever do it, I have been down but I have never been that far down... how do you pick yourself up when up is a runners lowest low? 

Oh the runners... why are you running? Why do you suck so much? 

Look at these people who are smiling, who are saying good morning. You have more than the fallen will ever have yet you complain, you bitch about other people, you dwell on the mediocrity of it all. Must you be fallen to finally feel? 

I am tired. I am exhausted with the negativity. It hurts, it pains me to be around it. I feel... too much, I absorb the energy and it is becoming a burden to block it out. 

What is the middle way to live? How can we try to understand the beauty of life without destroying ourselves? I am searching for it, I am checking my attitude at the door. 

Can everyone be the change?

Please, tomorrow smile at a stranger, say good morning to the guy who makes your coffee. Just stop running... there is no trophy at the end of the race, we all get there eventually and the same prize is the same for each one of us. Just live. 

Live the best life you can. 

Truly Lovely

Anything worth having doesn't come easy. 

It has been over a year since everything I thought I knew and wanted was ripped out from underneath me. For three years I had someone to pick me up when I was down, share my heartaches, and hold me while I soaked his clothes with tears.

I felt safe, I felt normal and strong and that I could get through life solely because I had someone else to share my griefs with. Everything was going according to plan, I graduated from college, I was with someone I thought I would marry, and all I needed was a job... simple, right?

BOOM... that bubble burst really fast.

Personally, I thought that if you survived college with your significant other, that was the biggest obstacle you would face. A silly thought, but college is a time of temptation, personal growth, and you change big time. If you can grow with that person when the rate of change is so rapid, well, you can do anything.

That wasn't the case, everything seemed to fall apart when both of our college trains were derailed.

Instead of one person struggling financially, stuck living at home because of this bogus economy... we were both prisoners of poverty, which meant that none of us were moving out anytime soon. The distance grew. Inevitably, the relationship crashed and burned. I was ostracized into this unknown land of independence and it was terrifying.

If you watched a movie of our relationship, you could see where it ended long before I received my overpriced piece of paper... but that is not the point of this blog.

The point of this blog is to praise myself for all of the hardships that I have overcome this year. Emotionally, I barely survived. But right now, I know I can make it on my own, and I am much stronger than the person I was yesterday. I am still growing, I will always be growing, but I am so happy to finally be over that hump.

After all of these struggles I learned to appreciate my life, and I began to work towards the things I wanted, the things I could obtain right now. Instead of taking a huge leap, I started taking baby steps... which works better for me. Eventually I will be strong enough to take bigger steps.

I remind myself every day that life is what you make of it. If you are positive, loving and don't dwell on things that really don't matter, then you will get positive things back. If you respect yourself and love yourself, well you will find love and respect from people that deserve that love.

This change in mentality has impacted my life dramatically. All of a sudden all these good things are happening and It is like God is really seeing how much effort I am putting in to being a person evoking change. I love my job, I love my friends and most importantly, I love the woman that I am becoming.

A year ago, my life was too wrapped up dwelling on the things I couldn't change... how sad. I wont get that year back, but I am okay with that because that one year changed my whole life.

I am not saying that life will always be rainbows and unicorns... but if you are able to look back at the difficult times and see that you are better for them, well that is truly lovely.

Moving on

- Forgiveness is letting go of the hope that the past can be changed. 

How do people move on? I envy those that can be close to a person and then so easily just forget their existence, disregard their feelings, or that they ever cared at all. I wasn't wired that way. Even when i am busy, with barely enough time to think, something will remind me of a person that I no longer am able to talk to, or trust and I will pray that their lives are well. It makes me want to call them up and fix things, but not everything can be fixed. 

This is what I struggle with every day... not being able to fix something or let someone know how they have affected me. Mostly, I just hate the thought that they really don't care. Because my downfall is that I always care, I always forgive, and people take advantage of that. 

Why is it that I am so easily replaceable, or so easy to forget? Even in the craziness of every day life, one day out of 100, you would think I would come across your mind. It really breaks my heart, because I try so hard to treat people how I want to be treated, to show people I care... and some people really just don't deserve it.

What sprung this thought up today, was an incident that happened at work. Some words got misconstrued, and I hurt a friend. I hurt him and he said, "I just thought you were better than that." 

That stung, that really stung, because I am a good person... and this person has hurt me in the past, and yet... I forgave them. I didn't judge their very being on one incident... I looked past it. 

I feel like there are a million words to be said, and it would make me feel a ton better to just get them off my chest, but the words would be in vain, because this person doesn't care about what I have to say. 

And that is where it gets difficult. Because, you have to respect a person's desire to be left alone, and to cope with your feelings in a new way. 

For me, it is writing. I feel better just by getting this down. Maybe it will help someone else...

I am hurting, but the pain will subside. I just know I will not forget this person for a long time. I am however, done forgiving. Ever chapter must come to an end. 

So the moral of this story is, be careful with who you let into your life because each person takes a piece of you, and losing friends is a terrible feeling. Always confront the person before you assume anything. And most of all forgive a person until they no longer give you a reason to forgive. 

Live Your Best Life!

Every single morning, I start the day with a smile on my face and a vigor for life that seems unbending... I remember that this day will get me to the next day and the next, and with each I am one step closer to where I want to be. Every SINGLE DAY, something happens and I have to recheck my attitude, put that smile back on my face and take another step. Life is about living in the now, making the best out of today, BUT WITH YOUR FUTURE IN MIND.

If you follow that one bit of advice, you will be absolutely happy you did. That capitalized clause will be the determiner of you waking up tomorrow with or without regrets.

This doesn't mean to work your life away, because your job is not who you are... it is WHAT YOU DO! Please never forget that. It means enjoy the now and let go of the baggage that is holding you back... because in a month, year, five years... it will not matter at all. That baggage is what is going to hold you back. Let go of the baggage that you can, and accept the baggage that will forever be lugging on your back. If you are grateful for the life you have, and work with what you have, good things will come, I promise.

I have been struggling since I graduated from college, this transition... it was just difficult for me. I was not ready to grow up and be thrown into the wolves, and I made a ton of mistakes that I really let weigh me down. For an entire 6 months, I pined over a guy who I really shouldn't have been with, I wasted 6 months worrying about that instead of worrying about myself.

I made mistakes that I dwelled on, I worried constantly instead of really fixing the problems. One day I woke up and I said, why am I worrying about what I cannot change... I am going to work on what I can, and enjoy all of the wonderful things in my life that I have.

Let go of the baggage... man, it is hard but when you finally do... you can gracefully dance through life.

I still have anxiety, I still worry once in a while, but I am working on healthier ways to cope with my anxieties, like exercising and breathing exercises. It is very important to understand your body and how you handle stress.

The next step in my journey through life will be to find an apartment; I would love to live with a roommate that shares my interests. For a few months I am going to be saving every penny, I constantly fall off this wagon, but this blog helps me to remember the important things in life. I am going to continue to keep close relationships with my friends, tutoring, and planning on how I can get to where I want to be.

Take a few seconds to think about what you are doing today, and what you want to be doing tomorrow and work on that ever day. You will be happy you did.