Let Me By Myself

3 Doors Down has always been one of my favorite bands. Their lyrics have always inexplicably paralleled my life, leaving me feeling reassured that someone else (or a group of someone else's) identifies with me and my feelings. Their latest hit Let Me Be Myself is the epitome of what I have been feeling lately.

I tried to kill the pain,
But nothing ever helps,
I left myself behind,
Somewhere along the way,
Hoping to come back around to find myself someday.

Their introductory verse hits me hard and center. I've had these weird feelings lately, whereas I'm usually so sure of myself; what I want, need and wish for, lately, I've been uneasy and insecure. I've felt lost and confused and unstable. Feelings I've NEVER truly felt for longer than a few hours. It rocked me a bit, and I'll be honest and say I'm not entirely sure I've re-stabilized.

This song really explains the words I haven't been able to convey. I've given up a large part of myself by living a life I didn't want, a life I threw myself into without thinking it through. I made friends with a lot of people I shouldn't have, wasted my time caring about people who didn't care about me. I did things I would never have done otherwise. I made my mistakes, they weakened me, the person I should have been. From then on, my life has been intensively harder for no apparent reason. My core was shaken, displaced and I was left in unknown territory, expected to make do. Thankfully I have made do.

That all seems fine and wondrous, so what's the problem? I constantly question whether my current life is only the best I can achieve because I messed up or is this the best of what I was meant to experience? I don't understand why, when and how I got here and whether this is where I should truly be. Did I leave myself behind, somewhere along the way, hoping to come around and find myself someday?

How Do I Measure a Year in the Life

I assumed I'd be a better blogger this week due to the insane amounts of free time I'd have, but instead I've actually been pretty busy.. which is nice in some ways and not so good in others. Keeping busy usually means my mind is off its one track and allows me to be a pretty normal person. That's obviously the good... the bad though is that I'm keeping busy with family, and it's always a false sense of security because the second shoe is always about to drop an explosive bomb when it comes to my family. There's always, without fail, some major blow out about eating - food, dinner, where, when and time. There's always a fight about who sleeping arrangements - with who, what bed, in which house. There's always an argument about someone' decision - should the 8 month old baby go or not go to the Dominican Republic because of the non-purified water. Everything turns into a fight and everyone has to give an opinion or get completely involved. It's absolutely mindboggling. So no kidding I'm not thinking about my own shtick, I've got 24 other people's shtick all up in my face.

And being who I am... everyone else comes before me. Everyone else's problems are more worthy than my own. Everyone else's drama must come before mine. That way... I can distract myself from my own drama, my own BS, my own problems... by focusing on theirs. It's a great strategy I've used for years now. Unfortunately though, it doesn't exactly come with great benefit to me. It doesn't in any way help in the long run.

Lately I've been thinking about RENT. Unlike 50% of the American population, I'm not worried about how to pay it, how to make it, or how to even get a place to rent. I'm talking about the play/movie and the one song that always made me really THINK. That song, naturally, being "Seasons of Love". Namely the lyric "how do you measure a year in the life?" There's always been something in that question that's seemed so powerful, so inspiring, so thought-provoking...I've never taken the time to figure it out but that's pretty much my Pre-New Years Goal. I want to measure my last year. Especially Jan-August in comparison to September-December, I know that there's an uneven balance in that, but that's when my life changed and seemingly went downhill with slight upturns, so I need to figure out how to improve on it. More importantly, I ~WANT~ to improve on it. Especially since Psych Warden asked me to make a list of things I want to improve and work on for the next little bit in the Ward. So hard.

I've officially got:

Anyways, I'll get on with that. In the meantime I found this video and thought it was pretty amazing, powerful and thought-provoking. ENJOY.

My One and Only

Cause nobody wants to be the last one there

Cause everyone wants to feel like someone cares

Someone to love with my life in their hands

There's gotta be somebody for me like that

'Cause nobody wants to go it on their own

And everyone wants to know they're not alone

There's somebody else that feels the same somewhere

There's gotta be somebody for me out there.

- Nickelback - Gotta Be Somebody

Alright... so you're probably thinking this is going to be a boring post about how I wish I had a girlfriend or something, but you're  WRONG, muahaha epic fail for you.

Really... I've always believed the Canadian rock band Nickelback has seriously been underrated for years! I've loved them for a couple cds now and they never fail to come out with at least one decent top 40 chart song that I never get bored of. 

The powerful lyrics, packaged nicely with a strong rock beat that is soothing enough to impact everyone is what gets me each and every time. 

These lyrics, however, strike a rather atypical chord this time around (obviously they hit home, and HARD like a concrete wall, hard) but that's not what I'm talking about.

These lyrics remind me of my grandma, (for those who dont know, my only living grandparent and my maternal grandmother at that). Now for those of you who dont know Grandma Helen, as she is affectionately referred to in our family, she is by far the most sinister, cynical, negative, pessimistic, hilarious and sarcastic individual you have EVER met. This combination however makes her so undeniably lovable and hilarious that I often find myself in awe of how she hasn't been gunned down like Fitty. 

Honestly though, my grams has serious reason to be the way she is. Growing up on a successful farm in New Brunswick, can you say BOOORING? Her family moved to Montreal, where my great grandfather did something real estate related and was fairly successful. Along the lines she met my grandfather who had a successful job that apparently had no ceiling effect because he just kept cashing in. She then gave birth to 4 children, my aunt Carla who was a miserable child and hated everyone and everything unless it was ugly - she loved ugliness lol - go figure, she's supa classy now though, so it all worked out. My aunt Bernette Jane Krane - the ultimate spaz, how could she not be with a rhyming name? We call her Bonnie to make her feel better - or I call her Aunt B, for Aunt Bitch, can't stand the fucker. Then there's my mom, and my Uncle Steven, who if you don't know about Stevie then you haven't quite laughed hard enough to pee your pants. He is possibly the most ridiculous person you've EVER met. All about jokes and games, he happens to be a brilliant entrepreneur and company start-up, he's gotta crazy ADHD which is pretty much why he just does the start-up, follow through on anything but a joke, is not for him.

Anyways, that all sounds fine and dandy, which it is, except that my super successful grandfather died of Cancer about 23 years ago, leaving my grandmother utterly alone in this pretty depressing world... She obviously loved my grandfather very much cause she only dated one other person, who by the way had a heart attack during their date, and she then resolved to never dating ever, ever, ever again. And has stuck to that since. She's been alone for 23 years now.

Now my grandmother is a remarkable woman. She raised four children who love her to the ends of the world and back. She has 8 biological grandchildren, 1 step-grandchild, and 1 grandchildren-in law, 1 step-grandchild-in lawas well as 1 biological great grandchild and 1 step-great grandchild who all love her dearly and would do just about anything in the world for her.

When Aunt B divorced Husband #1, grandma took in her daughter, my cousin, Jennifer and raised her for 3 years. If that isn't love, I dont know what is.

My grandmother is a determined, stubborn and compassionate person. She volunteered at the Golden Age for nearly 15 years, golf was her passion until the back pain set in.

Everything my grandmother loves has been taken away from her except her children and their children and their children. Her husband, her love of golf, her love of sculpting, her love of volunteering, even her health (diabetic, lactose intolerant, high blood pressure, cataracts, arthritis, etc.) Yet, somehow, every day she wakes up and manages to get through life. Pessimism, cynicism, and negativity aside, my grandmother is amazing and I love her for every part of it. 

As hard as it would have been to accept, I sometimes wish that she had found someone to be by her side for the past 23 years of her life. It must have been awfully lonely for her and I'm pained each day when I think of how difficult life must be to wake up, live each day, and go to bed utterly alone.

It's heart warming to know that my grandmother loved my grandfather so much that she was willing to give up the better years of her life alone as a testament of her true love... it just breaks my heart knowing that she was probably miserable because of it.

I guess it explains why I've tried my absolute best to be there for her, to remind her how much she's loved and cherished by her family and to ensure that a day doesnt go by that she feels so alone. 

So thank you Nickelback for putting into words the way I feel for my grandmother, until now I've never been able to capture them so perfectly.

Thanks To All My People, You Know Who You Are!

Long car rides tend to get me thinking, 5 hours each way to Boston back and forth, was more than plenty of time for the mechanics in my brain to get the machines all fired up. A song I listened to tonight struck a chord inside:

I used to think that I could not go on

And life was nothing but an awful song

But now I know the meaning of true love

I'm leaning on the everlasting arms

See I was on the verge of breaking down

Some times silence can seem so loud

There are miracles in life I must achieve

But first I know it starts inside of me

For so many years, I felt alone, lost and confused. Friends seemed to come and go like my daily change of underwear, forcing me to constantly re-evaluate my ideals, my beliefs, my expectations. I always wondered if it was me, what did I do wrong? Was it some odd personality thing that pushed people away? What was it about me that was so friend-repulsant? That was all until I found friendship, in the most unlikely of people, in the most unlikely of places, under the most unlikely of circumstances. 

That's when I began to feel loved, to feel accepted, to feel wanted, to feel important, to feel like I mattered to someone, somewhere, in some place. There's really no feeling in the world, like feeling that you make a difference to someone, that by simply existing, you make someone's world a little brighter, a little more special, a little more worth living. And finally, I had found the people that did that for me. 

I was so set for so long on the idea that it was me who was at fault that I felt alone, so utterly alone, like a piercing silence that screams at you like a tornado slicing a house apart. A silence, so unbearably loud, that it yelled in your face with nasty breath every chance it could get. It was brutal and I'm honestly so glad to say it's been over since then, without a chance of returning. 

Now that I'm older, more confident in who I am, set in my ways and more sure than myself than is probably acceptable, I no longer worry about being alone in this world, I know that I can make new friends, try and improve on the old relationships and work hard to cultivate new ones. It's up to me to take a stand on my own life, not anyone else, that's a lesson I learned the hard way, but one that I'm nevertheless glad I learned in good time.

So here's a thank you to my friends, the one's who keep me sane, smiling and complete. You all know who you are.

99 Problems, But A Bitch Ain't One

1.     Best friend number 1 left me to go to school in Boston and I can’t live without her.

2.     Best friend number 2 left me to go to school in London and I have no one to talk to.

3.     My passport expires soon and the pressure of getting a new picture is unbearable.

4.     The amount of reading I have to do each week for school is getting out of control.

5.     I can never find my spare set of car keys when I bury my main set under a bunch of papers.

6.     My desk never stays clean, no matter how long I spend cleaning it.

7.     No matter how many times I shorten my pants, I never like the length of them.

8.     No matter how hard I try, I can’t find a perfect fitting t-shirt.

9.     My hair is never perfectly straight.

10.  I always kill jokes.

11.  My sister drives me insane.

12.  I need to clean my room and I have no time.

13.  I have a Nike Low Dunk obsession that I can’t kick.

14.  I have a spending problem that I just can’t curb.

15.  I have bad eating habits that I can’t control.

16.  I watch so much TV that I don’t have enough time for schoolwork

17.  I am lonely sometimes.

18.  I am supremely bored with life.

19.  I have too many credit card bills to pay.

20.  I like junk food.

21.  I love my cats too much.

22.  I don’t care about my appearance.

23.  I over-commit myself.

24.  I love driving at the sacrifice of gas prices.

25.  I often feel unloved.

26.  I have undiagnosed asthma and I’m just too lazy to get tested.

27.  I have chronic pain in my legs.

28.  Messes don’t bother me, but I like being clean.

29.  I both love and hate my job simultaneously.

30.  I sometimes despise certain friends.

31.  I can’t handle the thoughts inside my own head.

32.  I get too hyper.

33.  I don’t always smile enough.

34.  I wish I had a creative talent.

35.  I wish I didn’t run out of energy so quickly.

36.  I miss the good parts of my childhood.

37.  I hate my program.

38.  I feel the need to keep up with technology.

39.  I buy unnecessary things.

40.  I am compulsive to no end.

41.  I overreact.

42.  I over-invest myself for the sake of appearance.

43.  I like reading but I never have time.

44.  My sweet tooth often gets the best of me.

45.  I need to be more accepting of who I am.

46.  I need to become something more in life than an average nobody.

47.  I’m a computer nerd.

48.  I’m always over exhausted.

49.  I love sleep but I rarely get enough of it.

50.  I love the sound of beaches but I hate sand between my toes.

51.  I like showering but I hate being wet afterwards.

52.  I love art but I can’t afford any of it on my own.

53.  I need to move out but I can’t afford it.

54.  I want to travel and see the world but I can’t afford it.

55.  I want to move but I don’t know where to go.

56.  I’m finally happy, but now I’m just bored with life.

57.  I like getting good grades, but I hate putting in the work.

58.  I am extremely lazy.

59.  I bite off more than I can chew.

60.  I overeat.

61.  I like buying other people presents too often.

62.  I have a major greeting card purchasing problem.

63.  I am too sensitive.

64.  I am overly emotional about unemotional things.

65.  I care too much.

66.  I am an eternal optimist.

67.  I like the smell of a burnt out match and may potentially burn my house down.

68.  I wish I was really great at something.

69.  I want to be a better athlete.

70.  I want to be appreciated and loved.

71.  It doesn’t seem as if life is working out the way I planned.

72.  I need a better life plan.

73.  Clothes don’t fit me nicely.

74.  I miss my best friend.

75.  I want life to improve.

76.  I need to get over things more quickly and stop dwelling on the past.

77.  I need to move forward with my life.

78.  I need to find ways to channel my feelings.

79.  I want to make a change in this world.

80.  I wish I was more charitable.

81.  I expect too much.

82.  I often have a reality over-sight.

83.  I make too many mistakes.

84.  I wish I could fix my past.

85.  I want to be more important.

86.  I give in too easily.

87.  I need to forgive myself for all the hurt I’ve caused.

88.  I need to stop being so last minute.

89.  I need better lighting in my room.

90.  I have attachment problems.

91.  I invest too much of myself into my friendships.

92.  I stay up to ridiculous hours at the sacrifice of sleep, for no apparent reason

93.  I am obsessed with pictures.

94.  I am technology freak.

95.  I like stupid t-shirts.

96.  I have work tomorrow and a hockey game to go to.

97.  I’d do anything for my friends.

98.  I love writing, but I can’t keep a diary.

99.  I wish my life were a little more exciting.

 

I’ve got 99 problems but a bitch ain’t one. I guess sometimes I wish a girl would be one of my problems.