How Six Minutes Can Affect Your Life Part 4: Feeling Alive & Love

After my jump, I felt nothing for the next few days, maybe a week.  I mean, I was proud of what I did considering I had been waiting a long time to accomplish this goal, but emotionally...complete nothingness.  It was the feeling you get after something amazing like a good movie or book and your heart just drops because...it's done.  I anticipated the probability of skydiving many years ago.  This goal then became a focus of mine that only intensified after my life was threatened because I had so much to accomplish.

After I scheduled my jump something changed in my mind.  You know those dreams you get as a child where you are flying, you are invincible, and nothing can hurt you?  I dreamt about that for about thirty days.  The feeling of suspended tranquility, unbelievable admiration, and a somehow mildly empowering feeling of accomplishment. 

Freedom.....
......complete......and utter
Freedom.

It was a place similar to what I would call limbo considering I was neither here nor there.  It is a place you may find when swimming under water or, I have been told, when doing a suspension (hanging from fish hooks?).

And then it was gone.

It was so surreal and I felt apathetic.  I felt as though I was a failure.  In the different aspects of my passed.  What did I do wrong that I ended up here with ...nothing? 

This took me awhile to adjust. I thought I was to feel alive after all that excitement and I felt dead.  I could not figure out what was wrong with me.  Then something clicked.  To many of you this will sound weird if not trite, but I had felt something I had not felt in years.  Love in its purest form.  The type you might have towards a new born child.  Do not get me wrong, I love my family and friends dearly.  I also love people in that "this is a person.  Why do you need to hurt this person?  Why does a person deserve punishment for being different than you?" type of way (too bad you cannot just stick an adult in a corner some days :P).  I had something for a bleak moment and it was gone like that.

So a part of me is lost in that at the moment.  I accept that though.  If I am patient and behave, I might get a chance to figure it out.  Love is a bit complex to figure out in one night anyway.  In the mean time, my writing has increased tremendously making me wonder if the extra oxygen levels cleared a few things or just added more air to my head for ideas to move around instead of bang into each other.  Maybe this was a process of rebirth. Pushing the "reset" button on my life? Adding more perspective because I have too much to experience yet and I just won't know it until I get there.

Making the Most of a New Year: 2016

In the last twenty-four hours millions of people have been rehashing the choices made or the actions taken during the past year or 2015, which is a pretty typical thing to do during the turning of a new year.  I, for a good reading laugh, did not, like last year, spend the turning of the new year in the bathroom.  (I know, you all smile at that in a 'palm to forehead' moment).  

While people reflect back, they begin to make plans on improvements upon how to make the next year better by creating "resolutions". This year I did some reflecting, but with one change of only making one resolution, to not make any resolutions. (Ironic not?)  Instead, this coming new year I am going to be pushing for something a bit more.  I am going to push for accomplishing goals and ones that can potentially be achievable.

So I have the typical school and work (boy, do I sound like a boring adult), but then there is the goal to improve my health even further than the year before.  I may not be getting any younger, even though I am technically not THAT old, but I do not ever want to really feel "old," however that may feel exactly.  I want to run further, walk faster, breathe easier, and lift more than I did before.  I do not want to become big beefy looking lady, not that it is bad, it is just not what I desire.  I am proud that in leaving 2015 I have, however, been able to lift/press/push half my weight with my upper body and arms while going beyond my own weight using my legs.  Considering past years I feel this is an accomplishment that can only grow allowing me to, hopefully, this year run a 5K, Mudrun, or some sort of physical test of accomplishment that will allow me to progress to the next level.  (Whatever I decide that to be).

Another goal this  year is to try new things, one every week if possible.  Yes, this is vague and open, but that is done on purpose.  I am currently in a new town and still able to explore, so there are restaurants that I have not tried, events I MUST attend, and people I NEED to meet.  For instance, if finances allow, I want to go sky-diving.  Ok, everyone who shriveled up inside themselves can come out now.  I want to fly, to spread my arms and feel the air rush around me and through my hair.  I want this feeling of accomplishment as I face a fear proving that some part of me is invincible even if it is just my spirit...as I could break a leg during the course of my landing.  The point is, I am not going to sit here and ask the 'what if' questions anymore.  Instead of wasting time pondering I plan to make choices. Go left or right? Right.  Black or white? White.  To wait for an answer or move on? Move on.  If I have to waste time pondering, then I really did not want the answer I am pondering over.  Sometimes these answers are stronger than us and we need to just accept them and run, run wild and free.

What concerns me at times is when a person says that he/she is making every living minute of his/her life count, but then when you see them later on whether it be a few minutes, hours, months, or years, that person still has not DONE anything of substance.  I have, oddly enough, found some of these people sitting on the couch drinking a beer while laughing at some odd thing on TV.  I agree on the concept of wanting to make every minute count, but that includes those moments where I STILL need to learn to relax, to not think and just...be.  I may not know the 'true meaning of [my] existence' although I would like to explore something more that I have to offer.  I want to present something creatively, but while doing my own thing, I also want to explore the ideas and concepts of others.  I want to see the world through someone else's eyes and not as a negative form, but with the idea that there are POSSIBILITIES.  With this in mind, I want to spend more time helping others.  I have, in the past, been a person who seems to be a stepping stone for others to achieve greatness and now I want to be...a bigger stone?  I know it sounds a bit silly, although the more I help the stronger I can make the world around me.

Hmm....I seem to have stumbled across something, how strength is a bigger part of me as a person.  I do not know how many of you have read past posts, which reflect many different trials and tribulations, which offer much to be viewed on what can define strength.

So what does this year hold for me personally?
-Strength
-Facing of fears
-A bit of carelessness (within reason I suppose since I am 'a responsible adult')
-Experience
-To embrace that idea that I did something with my life instead of waste it

With that all said and done, I offer to any of you reading this to join me, even if you are just watching me from the sidelines as I smash into a tree on my sky-diving landing (this would be just my luck).  I welcome anyone who, like me, is passionate about wanting the most from live.....and then some. :-D

2015 New Year Tolerance

The new year has started and I feel as though I am letting people down since I am not jumping off the ceiling happy-go-lucky over the increase of a number.  I will admit that I am a numbers person when I keep track of things or record things like money, pounds lost, inches of muscle, credit score, and funds for bills, but I have never felt the stereotypical ditzy blonde feeling of a new year.  This does not mean that I do not make a few common resolutions as I am in support of improving one's self; however, that happens about once a month for me instead of every year. (Actually it happens about once a week now that I think about it).

So this past New Year's Eve, I went out with a great friend who I knew understood that 2014 was not the easiest of years, for either of us, but that did not take away from our positive attitudes that life gets better and it did not change that we are both purely awesome people to whom it would be a privilege to meet.  I was not able to break in the new year with this friend, as I went home a bit early to nurture a major headache. I actually started the new year in the most appropriate place, in the restroom.  I know, minor TMI moment, but if you think about it, metaphorically perfect in that since 2014 sucked for me, it is positive that I trash it/flush it and move on.  I'm so sorry, but I laugh every time I think of that moment because who does that unless they are bowing to the porcelain god from over drinking of alcoholic beverages. That was not my reasoning at all.

My first day of the year was spent lounging around relaxing to collect all my thoughts realizing that my biggest survival kit was all the new people I had met this past year.  Signifies a very 'out with the old, in with the new' type of moment of reflection.  I have not seen many of these people lately, due to a goal I have set for this year.  My one and only goal: move away from where I currently live.  For the last month, I have worked two part time jobs, one full time job, and gone to school with a small ability to go to the gym every now and then.  It is a huge sacrifice of time, but I feel sacrifice makes everything worth the trouble.  However, there are those people in my life who are concerned for my sacrifice that loosing that much time will exhaust me without time for my personal battery to reset and that I might sever some connections with certain people.

I laugh at these two concerns because one: I have always had more than one task/job since I was 14 years old, so I am accustom to being busy and if something/someone is valuable to me I make the time.  Two: I do not leave good friends, valued friends, those people who you know your life would change for the worse if they were gone.  I will say I am glad social media exists for this reason as I am able to see what is new in other's lives or obtain inspiration through the small things in life they do without them realizing they made an impact on my life.  Then I reflect back and realize how hard of a task this is for me.

In 2014 I joined the YMCA to basically disappear in a crowd the same way people do on a New York city street, but somehow I ended up standing out.  Part of me wanted to run after this realization while something held me back and it was not until I received an email today that I realized that all the bumps, bruises, and scarring in my life do not necessary mean that you are healed properly enough to function.  I know that sounds very harsh, but I am referring to connections.  I did a favor for a friend to review a written piece of work for him only to get the most business like formatted 'thank you' email.  I chuckled a bit because this friend has complained how businesses send out rejection letters that are impersonal and here the friend sends me, his actual friend a similarly formatted email.  My response acknowledged how ' [the email] reflects the cookie cutter impersonal type business type letter that distinctly annihilates any connection.'  I know....a bit harsh, but true.  It made me understand how there are people in my life who I am scared to lose as well, so my response is to run and sever any ties or connections with the thought that 'well, if this is the last time I see you then it won't hurt as much because we left on my terms, my choice.'  Silly thought, huh? [Silly ol' bear].

With the idea of improving and it only being the second day of 2015, I want to improve upon my patience for myself and tolerate the steps I take to improve my mental traps that keep me from depending on only myself when I should be able to trust another.  I understand that people are not in your life forever, but I do believe they should be there until you are both ready to let go, but maybe I need to stop mutilating connections where I would need to suppress pain and learn to embrace a bit of pain.  Maybe 2015 is a year for me to redeem all my scarring.

For the rest of you out there reading this, I hope for a happy new year, one of pain and sorrow to appreciate those joyous moments in our lives.  I pray for growth in any aspect of your lives, but with the gift of something/someone to keep you grounded. Finally, I pray for more reading enjoyment from this blog that makes you smirk out the side of your mouth whispering in your head, "I.V, you dork"  Happy New Year!!

Statement of Fear

Today I was thinking about all the different things I could be doing other than being at work, like laundry, dishes, and there was the thought of my statement of purpose for grad school.  It will sound silly to most of you who read this because the piece is required to have 200-500 words explaining 'why me?' for this program.  I will say it also took me awhile to figure out what piece of my personal writing to submit also, which I did find after some inspiration reflecting that I understand fiction and can analyze it.

I still have a little time before my statement of purpose it due, still I am afraid that what I write will not be 'good enough.'  Yes, I will say I am a verbal artist even though for this piece I am utterly...speechless? wordless? artistically useless?  I want to express how every day I wake up wanting to put a pen in my hand and watch the ink bleed into the paper creating an imaginative world with adventures and journeys outside of reality or that I crave the smooth water-like feeling of computer keys against my figures as the words visually create brush strokes with no brush.  How do I express something I am so passionate about that if it does not exist I would feel a part of me died as this if my first thought in the morning and my last thought before I go to bed?  I keep writing this piece to submit over and over because I do not think what I am writing is 'good enough,' even by my own standard, then again I am a perfectionist who fears failure.

This week I realized my statement of purpose is not my only fear in relation to writing.  Winter is among us and my hands hurt to the point of tears, at least lately.  Within the last year I saw a rheumatologist who told me that I have Psoriatic Arthritis, which affects my skin and my joints.  A long time ago, sometime after my siblings and I had lice, I saw a doctor who told me I had Psoriasis, which is a skin disease where my skin cells develop faster than normal that eventually create itchy scaly patches in specific parts of my body.  Psoriasis is an autoimmune disease, meaning my body is basically attacking itself. (Side note from my morbid sense of humor: Could this be considered an uncontrollable type of suicide?-I apologize if that is not funny to you, but I am not a serious persona at heart).  The arthritis that is developed in people who have Psoriasis is also autoimmune mainly in the joints, leaving them swollen and sometimes a bit unmanageable.

Are you wondering why I told you all this yet?  If you must know, I am a very independent person to the point that sometimes I believe it is better to just depend on yourself so that no one else can hurt you or let you down.  With this theory in mind, I am scared that someday my hands will let me down and I will have to be on some form of disability, unable to write or express all the passion I have inside for things in life.  This is my weakness and I am not meant to be weak!  

I understand there are worse things out there, diseases more severe that take away pieces of people, but that does not necessarily make my fear or their fear any different  because these things take away a piece of the people they inhabit.  Now, I feel for those people, I really do, but for the purpose of this entry I am telling my story from my point of view knowing that somewhere someone has similar feelings and they are not alone.  Each moment my fingers grow cold, swell up more than usual, or just become utterly painful I do cry because I am not only losing my fingers, but an entity of me and I have already lost myself once in my lifetime.  That, however, is another story, but I am not going to end this post on a 'woe is me note,' because that is not me.  

I have learned, in the last couple years, that the things we fear the most are the things we want/need the most.  I want to write and I need to write because I cannot... no...I will not let a piece of me die.  So like any other strong person facing an obstacle, I prolong the inevitable as long as I can through the use of medication, keeping my hands warm, exercising regularly to keep my blood flowing properly like I did with my knees, and continue to write what I can.  I guess you could almost compare this to the saying of 'it is better to loved and lost, than to have never loved at all' because as long as I do what I love, I cannot feel lost. (Excuse me, time to warm up the hands :P)