It's Not All Bad

One of my favorite quotes from my all time favorite movie, "The Princess Bride," which rings true regularly is, "Life is pain, highness, anyone who says differently is selling something."

I think we can all agree that life is hard. EVERYONE has completely different challenges, trials and things that make it difficult for them. Everyone handles those difficulties differently. There is physical pain, mental pain, people being a pain. Everyone has something different that makes life a little harder.

I've started to wish that I was brave enough to just lay it all out for the world to see, like "Okay, this is what has actually, truly, legitimately been going on, and it's kind of been really shitty." But that unashamed honesty can be unwelcome and it definitely can give you quite the stigma, or so I have experienced previously. 

With my last two jobs I felt emotionally cornered into making unfair choices. A lot of this came from really difficult personal life circumstances, but in both cases, rather than fight for something I was unsure of and lay all my cards out on the table, I just decided to fold and take the loss. I wish I could have had a heart to heart with each employer and apologized for my home life affecting my work, but I also think I wasn't meant to stay in those positions long term anyway so I kind of let life just figure that one out and did what I could with what I had. 

That is my exact coping mechanism I may have just mastered; when you can control almost nothing and the decisions have been made without you, you have to make the best of what's in front of you. It's all we can do, right?

I think admitting that life is really rough, and that sometimes bad things just happen, is something we don't want to say out loud for fear of coming across as weak or unable to handle things, or maybe that's just me. I've said time and time again, I pride myself on my ability to keep it together and never let them see me break. I may have a good late night cry, or even a lunch time car cry session, but I always pull myself together before I'm back in the public view.

It would be nice if "mental health days" were a real thing and we could call our bosses and say, "I really need to color, take a nap, and watch 4 hours of Friends today, I'll be back in tomorrow." But, for now, we kick up our self care and coping mechanisms and remind ourselves "it's not all bad." It's actually not ALL bad. So much of life is a blessing, but I also don't want to take away from the fact that we all have real, personal, and sometimes unfair turmoil going on.

With that, I wish we could be kinder to each other. About 4 months ago, in what I consider to be an "anxious relapse," I let myself get talked into a tizzy over something really stupid. It felt huge at the time, but it really was dumb. You see, I'm that person that works diligently on being unconditionally understanding. People have real lives and a million things going on and it's not for me to add anything to anyone else's plate, I'm just there to offer for whatever they may need. But I let myself take things too personally as though, the lack of responsiveness was due to "hating me," "ghosting me" or "un-friending me." 

In my experience, when people are going through rough times, the best thing you can do is listen to their answer and asking "how can I help?" Then find some way to do it. Maybe it's a ride somewhere, a gift certificate to Publix, money for pizza or leaving their favorite beer in their fridge when you stop by to check in. Sometimes it's a card that says, "you're doing awesome considering things kinda suck right now" or other times it's a simple text of "I know how busy you are, but I'm here if you have time to chat or to schedule time to hang out."

The thing is, and I think even Taylor Swift sang it once, "That you don't know, what you don't know." So I think we should all work harder to be a little kinder and gentler to people. I post a lot on Instagram pictures of quotes, inspirational words and even just phrases that affect me in some way. Sometimes they say "Hey I'm having a bad day," others signify, "Been there before;" some are funny, some are dark, and rarely I'll even sneak an inside joke in there. 

Everyone has their shit, I like to say. But at the end of the day, life isn't all bad, and we need to remind each other of that when we are struggling. I have found myself getting caught up in technological whirlwinds of never returned text messages, unresponsiveness or miscommunication and taking a big step back from it all has made me feel more receptive to essentially being a better friend and person. 

It's really easy to see all the happy posts and cute pictures and write people off as having "perfect lives," "perfect vacations," and "better circumstances," or "easier lives" than yourself. You never see pictures of the bad times, right? I had to work really hard on not succumbing to those negative twinges and now thinking, "Wow, that looks awesome, good for them!" Because I never got anything from feeling like life was all bad, but I get everything from appreciating more and more that everyone deserves to enjoy a little good.

I've paid close attention to people recently and I am consistently in awe of our capacity to persevere. We are a resilient bunch, especially us wives and mothers, in my humble opinion. It takes a lot for us to really speak enough to be heard and it takes even more to be loud enough for things to resonate but when we do, we make waves. As someone who generally believes women don't think much of her, I've found in motherhood that we are far more similar than we are different, and when we open up and let our guards down a little, we get even stronger as a bunch.

When I've been at my lowest, I've had plenty of people remind me, it's not all bad, and I'll be damned if I don't do the same thing for them. Because the thing that makes it worse, is when we try and push through it alone. The Beatles didn't write all those hits about love and togetherness for us to learn nothing. So if you start your week with this, let us remember to get "By with a little help from my friends," and encourage them when they are feeling immersed in the darkness, that it's not all bad after all. 

The Soundtrack Of Our Lives

I'm one of those people who believes that "music is the soundtrack of our lives." I can remember an exact moment when a song was everything to me, and silly moments around music too, yet somehow I forget why I walked into the room and sometime, just to eat lunch. This is my ridiculous truth.

This morning I had to switch cars with my husband. His is, as I so lovingly put it, "A beater car," with an old 6-CD changer. So he has since raided our CD cases and snuck in some memorable classics for my commute.

Years ago for Valentine's day I made him a mix. That thing might be 14 years old but it has so many of "our songs." What's funny is just the other day I was listening to a song by Coldplay and was immediately taken back to sneaking out of the house for a "walk" with my walkman-discman thingy and going under this HUGE willow tree to sneak cigarettes when I was still living with my dad.

So when my husband perfectly planted this mix to play, I totally had all the flash backs and all the feels. Mostly because music is so versatile. If you put on an album you were obsessed with 15 years ago, I guarantee it will speak to new levels and old if you rock on with it today. Some things are timeless.

Now I'm also that person whose love for music is far more lyric-based than melody based. I legitimately feel that Simon and Garfunkel is serious poetry and, although I love the melody and beats also, the words are everything to me. This often gets me a bad rap for loving all the "sad" or "weird" songs.

As much as I wanted to be a Punk Rock Princess in my late teens, I was far too little to get beat up in the most pits and living in the Pacific Northwest at the time left me ripe for the Indie music scene. So, with my punk rock buddies and boyfriends, I was always the girl exposing the new indie talents to them, whether they liked it or not.

I made my then-boyfriend-now-husband appreciate Death Cab for Cutie on an entirely different level. To this day we still see them live and can always agree on listening to their albums if we can agree on nothing else that day. Our big wedding song was "I Will Follow You Into The Dark," most likely their most infamous hit.

Most people complain that this is a "depressing" song but hubby and I agreed it was darkly gorgeous, succinct and real. Both of us have struggled and will always struggle with our faith and to us, this song was just raw truth in love and partnership. Of course this song made the mix and I listened to it on the drive in this morning, singing right along.

Music will always be my most wonderful and faithful companion and spans so many genres for me. Hubby also unearthed an old mix from an ex-roommate and I instantly remembered the origin of it and how much I loved it from the moment when it was burned onto that CD.

Among other CDs available for me to listen were Matchbook Romance, which made me want my old pink "Chucks" on, and the soundtrack to Across The Universe, an epic movie set to Beatles Music, followed by the ever amazing band, Cake. 

It's so wonderfully funny when you hear certain music and think "I completely forgot about this band, song, album, mix, etc!" I slowed down and just remembered all the moments associated with the tunes and felt grateful for the soundtrack.

Hubby and I have the 10 year mark looming for our engagement and wedding anniversary, but I'm not going to sit here and act like it's been cupcakes and rainbows. Sometimes it's music like the songs on the mix that remind you of how far we've come and what we can push through. Musical reminders are super important, in my humble opinion.

There are some tried and true musicians that have kept me sane over the years, no doubt about that, but any band that I love is definitely part of my life's soundtrack, my story and probably contributed some kind of theme song to my days.

I have made friends through music in more ways than one. I have kept close friendships through music as well and I seriously wish I could be a professional concert-goer and make money from it. One of the best times of my life was writing reviews for Creative Loafing and getting to go to free shows. I saw so many bands I would have never been able to afford and had a blast taking it all in.

For me, music is the soundtrack of my life through the good memories and the bad. It has gotten me through the best of times and the worst of times and is an epic anti-depressant, therapeutic healer, and friend for the lonely times. I'll probably write about this over and over, but to me, it cannot be stressed, exclaimed and explained enough! Rock on, readers!