Tag: depression

Day Twenty Three

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rsd blog

Once again I know I’m late getting this posted but whatever. I thought of my post all day so that still counts right? If not, too bad. Here goes.

This was a day of many many firsts. So many awesome firsts in fact that I’m not so sure I can do them all justice in this post.

For starters, today was Record Store Day 2014; the seventh RSD and with seven being one of my new lucky numbers – I feel like that was a good sign from the start. This seventh RSD my love and I started early from our Nashville hotel (we were on the seventh floor btw) to make our way to Third Man Records. We arrived to see a fairly large crowd queuing for their copy of The World’s Fastest Record and for the ten o’clock show we ourselves had two tickets for. Once we’d queued for about an hour we were shuffled in to the Blue Room sound studio to settle in for our first time seeing Jack White together.

The show was amazing, there are few words for what an outstanding showman, guitarist, singer et al he really is. Mr. White and his band warmed us up with a live version of High Ball Stepper before jamming out the live recorded direct to acetate versions of Lazareto and Elvis’ Power of My Love that were whisked away for pressing. We were treated to an hour long show spanning White Stripes hits Dead Leaves and the Dirty Ground, Hello Operator & Hotel Yorba to tracks from Blunderbuss (Freedom at 21, Weep Themselves to Sleep and Love Interruption) and a few new songs off his upcoming album. It was our first time hearing Three Women, Just One Drink and Would You Fight for My Love. We were twenty feet from the man himself and I don’t think we will quickly forget how lucky we were to be there today.

We left the show, grabbed a free free beers in the courtyard courtesy of Yazoo Brewing, grabbed some delicious iced tea and strawberry mint lemonade from Bang Candy Company and waited a bit to get into the TMR store to buy some sweet swag. While in line we spotted a dude from Criminal Minds – I don’t really know who but I know my mom watches that show and will be pumped to hear we spotted him. We even got a few goodies from the TMR Rolling Record Store.

Our next first came before we went in for our second show of the day. I met Terry Richardson it was awkward because he didn’t even try to sleep with me, but I met him and grabbed a picture too. The last first I will write of today was seeing and hearing Whirlwind Heat for the first time. Holy sh%t have I been missing an awesome band. They tore up the stage, my ears and my musical heart. It was like listening to an early, visceral White Stripes.

As we reluctantly left the Blue Room for the second and last time today we grabbed our copies of the World’s Fastest Record and the re-release of Do Rabbits Wonder? by Whirlwind Heat. Such an awesome day of firsts.

There will be more to come tomorrow from the road home. For now, goodnight from Nashville.

 

RSD14 aka Best Day Ever Track-List:

High Ball Stepper

Lazaretto

Power of My Love

Dead Leaves and the Dirty Ground

Freedom at 21

Three Women

Weep Themselves to Sleep

Love Interruption

Hello Operator

Just One Drink

Hotel Yorba

Would You Fight for My Love

Day Twenty Two

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Tn

So today’s post is way behind. I get it. But it’s the first thought up and written from the road – so give me a break! Nashville has been kind so far – 2/$3.50 Yuengling tall boys. Do you understand how lucky you are Yuengling states!?! Ugh!!! Any way; we checked in and settled in and are super pumped for the Bug show tomorrow. RSD14!!!!

First time eating at a Loving Hut in the US. Only other time was in Paris – super delicious and the cheesecake alone is worth a trip to Cincinnati just in case anyone is wondering. Don’t even get me started on the vegan mac’n’cheese I wanted to bathe in.

Day Twenty One

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hhdl

Packing today for our trip to Nashville. Super pumped for it, so get ready for some major boners the next few days over traveling with my love, seeing Jack White perform, shiny new vinyl records, exploring Nashville, enjoying delicious vegan food and more. Not today though. Today I want to pontificate a little about beliefs.

For the first time on this blog/exercise in avoiding therapy, whatever you want to call it, I will talk about religion and my beliefs. I was raised catholic, which of course means that I have since become alienated from the church and have no real interest in organized religion. When raised in the catholic faith you either get confirmed and move on once you’ve satisfied the parent(s) or you stick it out showing up late to mass and putting money in the basket every week for the rest of your life. That being said, I have always been interested in studying various religions, belief-systems, theologies and philosophies.

Overall, I can’t chose just one system that works for me. I pick and choose what helps me to explain the existence of space, time, us, the universe and life. I believe in karma, nothing is without consequences, you reap what you sow and you better sow some love or you will end up drowning in hate. I believe in the power of love and compassion. We can all be better people, we just need to work at it. We can all be happy, we need to work at that too. I wear my mala beads everyday because they are a talisman that remind me of what weights I carry, what I have to let go of and what I have to live for. I believe in the power of meditation and enlightening your mind to better understand your strengths and limitations. Enlightenment is truly something to work towards. We all need to help each other, and look out for other people.

I believe that I need to remind myself of the importance of compassion everyday and remember to practice it. We are all works in progress, perfection is unattainable and that is all part of the journey of life.

 

 

There is no need for temples, no need for complicated philosophies. My brain and my heart are my temples; my philosphy is kindness.

His Holiness the Dalai Lama

 

 

Life is beauty through and through
Life is sunny, life is cool
Life is even easy too
But if my word is to be true
Life is something to behold
But if the truth is to be told
Let us not leave out any part
Do not fear, it’s safe to say it here
You will not be called a weakling nor a fraud
For feeling the pain of the whole wide world
You want to help but can’t help the feeling you cannot
And it’s killing you while you’re just trying to smile from your heart
So go on, say it, on the same knees you’re praying
Yes, life is hard

Come celebrate
Life is hard
Come celebrate Life is hard
Our life is all we are

Celebrate it in the sun, promenade it with everyone
Elevate it in a song
And I’ll be there to play it, don’t get me wrong
When I feel like dying and being gone
When life is hard
There’s just one thing, let’s not forget
Yes! life is it!
Life is it, life is it, it’s where it’s at
It’s getting skinny, getting fat
It’s falling deep into a love,
It’s getting crushed just like a bug
Life there’s no love, it’s getting beat into the ground
It’s getting lost and getting found,
To growing up and getting round
It’s feeling silence, feeling sound
It’s feeling lonely, feeling full
It’s feeling oh so beautiful!
Yes!

Come celebrate
Life is hard
Come celebrate
Life is hard
Our life is all we are

Life is Hard

Edward Sharpe and the Magnetic Zeros

Day Twenty

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sb

Whoa! Made it to the big 2-0. Sooo…..yeah.

I actually had a fairly meaningful conversation with a coworker today about life and accomplishments. Mostly he talked, but I enjoyed listening. He spoke of regrets. Spending so many years of his life spoiling the wrong people, living for the wrong people. All he wants is his youth back, and all those years back, so he could have them now with his current wife. He loves her, he worships her, he wishes he could give her more, spoil her more, treat her to a better life now that he has her. He said he looks back at his almost 51 years and regrets that he hasn’t accomplished more – not so much for his own selfish reasons – but so he could have more of everything to share with his wife.

That is how I feel about my husband. I love him, I worship him, he deserves so much in and from life, he deserves to be spoiled. And I don’t mean materially. He deserves trips, time to do what he wants to do, to study what he wants to learn, he deserves the best of everything. I want so much to build a life worth living, that is meaningful and positive, a life that contributes towards a better world. I want to be successful so my husband and I can spend time living our lives together. Take trips, go to dinners and concerts and movies, adopt teenagers and help them through college and navigate life, treat friends and family to these luxuries, basically – just live. I mean everyone works to put food on the table, to pay the bills, to provide. But is that living? Or surviving?

Either way, it was the first time I have had a conversation like that with anyone other then my husband – and maybe my mom. Never have I discussed this with friends or family or anyone really. That kind of haunts me a little to think of it now. But at the same time – it was the first time I felt “outside” validation in wanting. It felt good.

In light of today’s discussion and ensuing afternoon of thought; I feel like I need to start working on a personal mission statement.

That sounds totally creepy and Joel Osteen-y. I hate that guy.

Okay, I digress. If I attempt to lay it all out in one sentence it would read as follows.

I want to build a successful business(es) in which I can hire friends and family that want the jobs, help support those that want to create their own, and foster an environment around me at all times that is centered on creating a more compassionate world through open-minded education, travel, giving of time and money, exploring and loving.

Kind of a run-on isn’t it? I need to work on that – but I think I just wrote out, for the first time, a mission statement for my life.

 

Random Thought of the Day: There is a group of theoretical physicists that suppose the birth of the universe could have occured after a four-dimensional star collapsed into a black hole and ejected debris. There is another group that believes our universe actually is existing inside of a black hole. And here I sit trying to figure out how f#%&ed up I am before I turn thirty. Certainly puts a different spin on things.

Day Nineteen

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bloodmn

I think I have a cold. It is the first day of illness this year. Blech!

Last night was the first of four blood moon eclipses we will be able to see over the next eighteen months. We didn’t see it, however, because it was snowing. That’s right; today Detroit woke up to 3 inches of snow – on f#%&ing April 15th – and that means we set the record for the snowiest winter season ever. We are number one! FML. Why is that a point of pride for people? Just because we didn’t break the record before last night’s snow – doesn’t mean no one would have believed us that this winter sucked a$$. Can’t we just remember that it sucked for a lot of people the world over? Never.

I swear, waking up on tax day (which really means nothing to me since I did ours like two months ago), seeing three inches of snow, the temperature outside being 42° less than 24 hours ago and feeling like slow moving crap all day at work, you’d think I would fall apart in my fragile mental state. Right? Well I didn’t. It doesn’t really work like that. Today was a pretty good day despite all the cold and a strengthening cold.

I’ve been adding items to my bucket list. I hate that phrase – it makes me think of that horrible Tim Allen movie. Isn’t that who stars in it? I mean, I never saw it but ya know. That’s what pops in my head. I’ll start calling it my life list. Things to look forward to living for.

Day Eighteen

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lilyofthevalley

This is the first day I have not wanted to write my daily first. There have been days of reluctance, laziness and embarrassment (on the account of less than exciting firsts to report). But today, I am just not up for it.

The past few days I have had a sense of foreboding. It’s familiar – it happens several times a year. It feels like I am on the edge of my seat, waiting for the other shoe to drop. Waiting for something to happen. I never quite know if it is going to be good or bad, to dread it or look forward to it. Does that make sense? I am super excited for the upcoming trip to Nashville. I have spring fever like I’m a high schooler.

Day Seventeen

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apartment

This was a crazy weekend. I feel like so many of my weeks blur together and I’m not really sure what day it is. Today felt like a Sunday – and it was. It was a beautiful day here. Sunny, slightly breezy, a bit of cloud cover to keep the temperature moderate and a first taste of that famous humidity that plagues so many summer days in Michigan. For maybe a week or more I have been picturing very clearly a future home for my husband and I. Just a very specific section of a living room. I don’t know if it’s in Portland or Paris or London or Tokyo or even somewhere in the Maldives. I just know that it feels like home. I am happy and comfortable picturing it and I want to be there.

This is the first time in my memorable past (aka maybe ten-fifteen years) that I have so vividly pictured a future for myself that it feels like I am there. Like it is tactile, already my reality and I have lived it. There’s a fuzzy feeling of contentment that feels right. Maybe it was just a dream that I am remembering. Maybe my subconscious is sapping this vision from a movie or show or an immersive description in a book. But it doesn’t feel like that. It feels original, and all my own. It feels so good to be able to claim a vision of my future life. It just feels great to want a future at all.

Suicide has such an awful stigma attached to it. Unfortunately that stigma makes it hard for me to even write that I have contemplated suicide as much as I have these past few years. The first reaction of some family and friends (the grand total is eight btw) that I have spoken to is anger. A “how dare you” attitude that only compounds how shitty and nervous I feel about talking to anyone (let alone a friend who claims to love me) about these thoughts and feelings. Another reaction is disbelief – “really? you? you always have it together though. you’re so strong.” Like this is something I would lie about. If you know me enough to think me strong and together – then know me enough to believe what I am saying to you right now. One of the hardest parts when telling family and friends is you can practically feel the crazy brand being burned into your forehead. Never again do they seem to ask “how are you?” and really mean it. The questions are always direct; “how is your mom doing? how is your husband? how is your work going?” A truly, deep-down heartfelt “how are you?”  seems to be off the menu. You know what I mean right? Someone asks you something they might know the answer to but they just really want you to honestly talk to them – and whatever you say they will hear it and love you the same at the end of your answer as they did eight months ago before you branded your forehead with i’m a f#%&ing crazy mess.

I am a f#%&ing crazy mess – a fistful of it. But I also have a really clear picture of a home I want to create and exist in. I want that future and that is a really f#%&ing great first for today.