I have the next three days off. I requested today off because I won’t be off on Thanksgiving and so my mom threw an early Thanksgiving today. My brother, my cousin, his wife, their kid, my aunt, my uncle, and my mom were at this. It was overall pretty nice. I still always feel a little out of place because I’m significantly different from most of them. My uncle and my aunt who were there (very affluent people), spent a lot of time telling stories of their own success but also of how to be successful. It was more about how you can achieve your dreams and live the life you want to live. I wasn’t totally receptive to it because money is a huge factor in that (something they have never struggled with) coming to fruition. They don’t seem to understand the limits of barely having any money just living in your current situation, never mind having any way of saving money in order to do something drastic like move far away to a place you want to live.

I’m a pretty idealistic person so I never really meet my own standards. I have come to love myself though and I am proud of the person that I am now. I still always want to improve myself. I do want to become more disciplined in pursuing my passions such as writing, hiking, drawing, reading, and meditating. They did make a good point about how your thoughts formulate your reality. I already knew this to be true but it was interesting to actually hear that from older adults. It’s very true that what you think about and how you feel about things completely creates your perspective on life and the choices that you make. It’s hard to try to keep away negative or self-limiting thoughts but it helps to at least become aware of them and try to reduce them.

I have always been obsessed with the idea of balance in general. In this context when they were talking about these things I agreed with their general point(s), but then my mind was kind of questioning it too. I am definitely careful to never completely open up to someone else’s advice for how I should live my life, because no one knows that better than you do.

I found myself being skeptical of the people these words of advice were coming from. The reason for that is that like I said before, they are rich and they have *never* had problems with money. Therefore, anywhere they want to live or any life they want to live is realistically available. When you don’t have to struggle to financially survive things must be really different. I found myself questioning the source because these two really have no idea what it is to have a difficult upbringing, a lack of money, a lack of income, huge amounts of debt, serious family problems or mental illness, etc. I don’t completely absorb what they say because they have never had to really overcome any serious difficulties. They can do whatever they want, whenever they want because money is not a problem for them. So when someone like that tells you that you can definitely and very quickly move far away and achieve your dreams, I can’t take it seriously. They are leaving out a lot of details and the many roadblocks that get in the way when you don’t have any money to spare.

It also makes me question their motives because they were giving this advice to my brother and I without us asking for it, and of course they are coming from a place of viewing themselves as successful and living a great life to be the ones saying these things to us. They kept referring to their own lives and the only problems they’ve had is which house to live in and what location, how to sell a few of the houses they already owned in various states, etc. Their reality is entirely different from my own. I don’t like when people preach like that extensively because it’s also assuming that you need this information and that they are above you. It’s very ego based when you analyze it, although on the surface it looks like it’s coming only from a place of caring. I’m not saying they don’t care, I’m just saying I know the real reason(s) behind their fixation on constantly talking about their successes and possessions, whenever I actually do see them.

To me honesty and being humble are qualities that I value the most in other people. Being around my aunt and uncle and listening to their stories actually made me miss my dad and my other uncle. The two of them have more obvious personality flaws and can be really harsh, but at least they are sincere people. I know without question that when I’m taking to either one of them that they are down to earth and there is no bullshit involved. They don’t fake things and are brutally honest. I prefer that because insincerity is a deceptive trait and it’s often used to manipulate others. I also know that my dad and his brother grew up in near poverty, and have had many struggles to overcome in their lives. I take their advice or words of wisdom much more seriously because I know they are street smart and know a lot about life.

I’m trying not to judge my aunt and uncle but they kind of make it easy. They are people that I’d prefer to only see once every few years like it has been. They could never truly understand me and I could never truly understand them. We’re like a different breed of people almost. I’m trying not to by cynical or skeptical. I know this post may come across that way but really I’m just highly analytical when it comes to people, their personalities, their motives, etc. I can’t really help it. It was an interesting experience none the less, and at least the content of what they were saying was very positive and encouraging.

When I left I didn’t feel energized or like I was going to be able to change my life from what they said or something, because I have my own thoughts and feelings and I trust those more than anything else. I guess what I would prefer in terms of receiving positive conversation/advice is a balanced exchange between people that talks about the good things in life and in people, and where the people would exchange their thoughts and feelings about things like philosophy, art, music, etc. That would feel honest to me and balanced because it’s not done in the attempt to “teach” someone else and it’s not coming from a place of perceived superiority. People should treat others as equals whether or not they have different circumstances, are in different economic classes, or just have different upbringings. I do believe all people and living things are of equal value and that no one is truly above or below anyone else. We all just have very different experiences and backgrounds and thus we become different people who live different lives. At the core of it all we are all the same and we are all one.

I have so many damn thoughts in my head all the time I most definitely should be writing them down daily, not once every several months. I don’t even remember the last time I posted on here.

This is probably going to be very random because that’s another thing that happens often in my brain–random and intense thoughts and realizations. It’s not like I can’t focus or something, because once I’m on a certain topic I think about it until there is no more thinking to be done. Then I move on to whatever the next random thing is.

The past couple of days I’ve been reading a lot about/thinking a lot about spirit animals, i.e. totem animals. Most people think it’s total bullshit but I know it isn’t. Plus I don’t care if people think it is or not so I don’t know why I’m even bringing that up. Anywho, there’s also a difference between your spirit animal and your spirit messenger. I believe I have multiple spirit animals, and I think most people do. Any one person is too complex to only have one. Right now mine is a fox. I’m going back and forth in my head about whether or not this is my actual spirit animal or if it’s a spirit messenger for this point in time. I’m starting to lean towards the former. I’ve come to remember that I have seen foxes randomly much more than any other animal. I can think of several specific times when I’ve seen them and where that was as well. What’s making me more certain about this is that for the past two days I have seen a fox in the daytime. They typically aren’t about during the day. So that makes it unusual right there. Also, today when I saw a fox, I was literally 20 feet away from it and I was on foot. I was JUST thinking about the whole spirit animal thing too, while on my walk. I casually happen to look over to my left and I see a fox slowly running in the other direction. I was so close to it. Yesterday I saw one right at dusk, and it had run across the road. I saw it when I was driving. Last week, I saw a fox too. I was driving down the highway, and it was around dusk. The fox ran right across the highway, which is also a pretty rare thing (usually it’d be a different type of animal like a raccoon or a possum). I remember seeing foxes frequently around the place I grew up.

The one unpleasant experience I had with foxes was when I hit one with my car It was about 2:30 AM. I was driving back home from my brother’s house, and I was going over this part of the road that has a big hill in the middle of it. Right after the hill the road goes downhill. When you are approaching the uphill and the whole time you are on it, you can’t see the rest of the road ahead of you. This time TWO baby foxes were just playing right in the middle of the road. Since I couldn’t see the part of the road where they were at and I was going somewhere around 40 miles/hour (speed limit on that road), I saw them too late to miss them. Also, what was even more weird, was that they each ran in opposite directions. The left one was able to run out of the way, but the one that ran right wasn’t so lucky. I had slammed on my brakes, but I have an old car and the brakes aren’t great. I was able to slow down to like 20 miles/hour, but my car hit the fox that was running to the right. I felt SO horrible. It was so weird that this happened. It didn’t make sense. Why were they playing in the road that late at night? Why wouldn’t they be playing in the tall grasses and fields that were on both sides of them? Also, I’ve never come across multiple animals while driving that were simply just playing on the road. Almost always they are trying to get to the other side and they notice the car coming towards them too late. It just crushed me that this happened. I am an avid animal lover. I am hurt so much by seeing or hearing any animal in pain. Why did it have to be the largest type of animal and one that I love as well? The answer I’m realizing now, is because the fox is my spirit animal. It has showed up in my life on several different occasions, and it’s rare to come across a fox anyways.

I’ve been reading so much about spirit animals. It fascinates me and I wholeheartedly believe what I’ve read. The Native Americans were very wise and I believe they were spot on about what’s to be valued in life. Native American beliefs don’t sound odd or nonsensical to me at all, unlike for most people. I love that they would use every single part of an animal after they killed it. They knew they had to kill animals to survive but they also knew just how sacred animals are, and so they made sure not to waste any part of them. I really wish people would still be that way. I hate the idea of hunting. The fact that people consider it a sport, the fact that most people hunt simply for enjoyment. They cut off the heads of their kills and mount them on walls. They take pictures of them grinning next to the animal they killed. They act like this animal is a conquest of theirs and it is utterly sickening to me. This kind of behavior would never be accepted if it involved only people, i.e. people hunting other people just for fun. I hate that so many people believe that animals are inferior to humans. I hate that people forget we are animals as well. I hate that people believe animals don’t have emotions and that they aren’t capable of thought. What is the basis of this? People need to learn that just because something isn’t glaringly obvious to you or shown right to your face does not mean that it doesn’t exist. There are so many things about life and all that it contains that cannot be seen, heard or put in words. There are so many experiences that different species have that are not the same for other species.

Anyways, I’m so glad that I have my own beliefs and thoughts. I’m so glad that I haven’t fallen victim to other people’s belief systems and I’m so glad that I question everything. I’m glad that I want to understand as much as I can, and I’m glad that I’m also able to withstand being around people or groups that have values that are the opposite of mine without starting an argument with one of them. I cherish my inner world and it has guided me more than anything else. I spent so much of my life having no choice but to have a constant earful of unwanted advice and lectures from my parents. Yes I am opinionated but not in the same way that my parents were–to the point where they were completely closed off from considering different points of view. They were so damn inflexible and close-minded.

I’m glad that I now know that I am the key determinate of my own life. No longer am I a part of the crowd that believes external forces are in control of our lives. No longer am I stagnant in my beliefs and mindsets. Now I am so interested in change. I love change. I love transformation. I find that most of the time it’s positive. I do believe that when you are a kind person and when you keep an open-mind, life will reward you. I’m also glad that I’m not jaded into an imbalanced point of view on the positive end of things. I don’t think that people are bad for doing bad things or that “bad” things are to be completely rid of. Bad things are there for a reason. If we didn’t have the bad we wouldn’t learn about the importance of change or about just how great the good is when we experience it. There are so many people that believe the world is mostly comprised of bad things and that some things/people are just plain evil. I know that the key to enjoying life is to always try to keep it balanced. I believe there are just as many good things in life as there are bad, and that each requires the other to exist. I believe that people are mostly good but I’m also aware that everyone has the ability to do evil/to be a bad person. The thing that I’m getting at is that I believe there is always choice involved. I believe in free will. I believe that the individual has a lot more control over their life and how it turns out than what the media and other people have lead them to believe. I believe that there are some conditions and disorders that will never go away, but I also believe that there’s a lot people can do to cope with these things. I believe there is always room for improvement, but I also believe that some things just plateau and that that’s OK too. No one is perfect, and everyone has a reason for being the way that they are.

I am much more interested in dissecting the factors that lead to someone becoming a certain way and in being empathetic about that, than in fixating on the negative behaviors this person has had in the past or still has now. Everybody has a need for acceptance and love. I believe having a lack of that, and people growing up without having consistent and unconditional love, are the ones who come out damaged. I think that’s the fundamental cause of disorders. I don’t blame the individual. I do think the individual needs to take responsibility for their wrongdoings and needs to try to be better, but I don’t expect the individual to completely eliminate that behavior. As much as I hate when people say this, it makes sense to say now. It’s not realistic to think that people will completely eliminate certain parts of themselves that are there because of some deep rooted issues. I believe that if you give everyone a chance when you first meet them, if you are immediately friendly or atleast nice to a new person, it sets a good foundation. Not only does that person feel comfortable around you and feel warmth coming from you, but typically that person will also show the better sides of themselves to you. I know I’m getting vague here, but I don’t want to go into the details now. I’m interested in the bigger picture of life, but I also knows how important the details are as well. Nothing is to be discarded. OK end philosophical grandiose post HA.

I can’t really even remember the last time I posted or what it was about but, a lot has changed in the past couple of months. A lot of good changes. A lot of changes that have been needing to happen for a long time.

On the last day of June I moved out of my mom’s house (finally!) and into my boyfriend’s apartment. So I’ve been living here with him and his brother for a few months now. It’s been pretty great for the most part, other than being really overdue on electric and internet bills and other than all of us being broke and not being able to buy much food. Outside of those things it’s still oodles better than living with my mother and being utterly miserable, feeling like I’d never move out of Granby and like I’d never progress from where I was at. I now have a good job, which I’ve been working at for about two weeks now. It is SO different from all of the other jobs I’ve had, and though it is a lot more demanding in ways that are different than my other jobs, it is demanding in exactly the kinds of ways that I want to be challenged. It is mentally demanding and a bit physically demanding too. I’m the best at mental/emotional work anyways, and I could certainly use some improvements in the physical realm of my body/life, so it’s all good.

I also have a car now, too. I owe my mom a lot of money, as she bought the car outright for me and so I owe her half of what she paid. So I owe her about a grand and a half, and I owe her 50 something monthly for insurance. That is all ok because I’m making good money now. I got my first paycheck last Friday and it was like $330. Of course I ended up going on a shopping spree right after and didn’t realize I’d end up spending $145 in the first couple of hours after I cashed my check, but oh well. I REALLY needed a lot of the clothes I was finally able to buy, after being utterly broke for so damn long. I also contributed a big chunk of cash towards an overdue electric bill that we had. At this new job I make $11.40/hr. It’s pretty awesome, especially considering the fact that I was unemployed for the past two years before that, and even the last time that I was employed I only made $8/hr to do a really shitty food service job. We get paid bi-weekly at my new job, which is one downside if you don’t budget your paychecks very well (which I obviously didn’t this first time around, but I’ll learn). The next time I’ll get paid is this coming Friday. It’ll be a pretty nice check though.

Another good thing about this job is that it’s a set schedule of hours. Every week I work Sundays from 7 am-11 pm (yikes, 16 hours), Mondays 3-11 pm, Tuesdays 4-10 pm, Wednesdays I’m off except we have a 2 hour meeting each Wednesday, Thursdays 3-11 pm, then I’m off every Friday and Saturday. The 16 hour shift is a bit nuts but luckily the job is pretty balanced in terms of what is required throughout the shift. I’d say about half of the time there isn’t much to do and you can somewhat chill. The other half of the time you have to balance helping four different women who have brain injuries and spend most of their time in wheelchairs. All of them need help going to the bathroom (basically being transferred from their wheelchair to the special toilet chair things they use, and then back to their wheelchairs afterwards). Many of them need help to actually pull their pants down and we even have to wipe them sometimes too. This kind of help is the worst part of the job though, and it’s actually not so bad. All of them are pretty interesting people and they all have their own little quirky traits.

I’m developing friendships with all except one of them, the one who is the most disabled mentally and physically. The other women can hold their own weight if they have a bar or walker to hold on to at times, and they can communicate ok, even if it is hard to understand at times. The woman that is the worst off is extremely underweight and cannot hold herself up at all. She needs assistance to do everything. She needs a lot of help to get out of bed and into her chair, and it’s extremely hard to get her seated in it right because she also is very tense muscularly because of her condition. Often she is not seated right because it’s so hard to get her back right up against the back of the chair, and every time we have to help her do this she gets very upset too, so we don’t do extra adjusting because it would make her even more upset. I feel very badly for her, but at the same time she is a very finicky person and she essentially will not let us learn how to help her in the ways she wants/needs to be helped. We have to feed her, and she has trouble swallowing so if she is not fed in a very particular/careful way, she starts to cough for a long time and it’s scary. She is vegetarian and VERY particular about the foods/drinks she will ingest, and so for every meal a special meal has to be made for her. Luckily one of of my coworkers is just as particular/healthy food obsessed as she is, so she knows best how to placate her.

I have made friends with all of the other women easily because they are easy going and not super hard to please. Sometimes they are demanding but they are generally ok to be around. The other woman really makes it clear that she is not willing to be flexible in terms of how we can help her. She makes it really clear that it is unacceptable for us to have trouble understanding what she is saying, that it is unacceptable for us to ask her to clarify often, it is unacceptable for us to switch up who helps her, it is unacceptable for us to explain things to her that she has actually previously asked for us to explain. She is the only one that truly depresses me to be around. It’s not because she is the most disabled, it’s because she is a difficult person to please or get along with. I know what happened to her is a part of why she has become this way, but her behavior seems to be a deeply rooted thing that I am pretty sure was already there before she got sick. It’s just upsetting to be around her because it seems like she is actually trying to make it more difficult for us, in that no matter what we do it’s still not good enough or even mildly ok for her. She constantly does this verbal grunt thing when she gets upset, and she crosses her arms and closes her eyes and starts to cry or almost cry. It takes not much at all to make her get this way, and once she gets this way it’s even harder to help her. She is already being selective in who she wants help from too. She expressed the other night that she wanted to be fed by the same person and that she didn’t want it to keep switching. We explained to her that we had to switch up which coworkers help her because we have to make sure it’s  balanced and we all have to learn how to help her and how to help each individual in the house. This explanation was just disregarded by her and she just said it was not working for her. I totally understand that she is extremely unhappy and her quality of life is very poor. What I can’t be super understanding about is how she persistently lets it be known that she is only thinking of herself and she wants everything to perfectly appease her and her wants/needs. She refuses to bend at all and she refuses to take part in anything that isn’t within her fixed opinions/beliefs. Disabled or not, no one has the right to be that selfish or to expect that someone change everything to be just how they want it to be without considering the fact that there are several other people around that have individual wants/needs as well that are not the same as theirs. 

The newest woman to move in is definitely the sweetest, most appreciative resident in the house. She doesn’t ask for much, and whenever she does ask for help and we help her, she thanks us a lot and says she appreciates it very much. She is so polite and I could tell that from the minute I met her. I first noticed it just through her eyes. She has eyes that are not only pretty but they also emanate how good of a heart she has and how sweet she is. I’m so thankful for her presence in the house. I wasn’t sure how the four and final resident would be but now that I have met her I am so relieved to know that she will actually be the easiest resident to help. It’s really great that she has such a good attitude and she treats people very well, and that she is aware of the fact that the employees are here only to help her and that we care about people very much. The fact that she acknowledges this awareness and expresses it to us makes me feel good. She is essentially bed-ridden but she is still such a sweetheart. She talks like she is from a really rural area and I can relate to that. Her and I have talked about a mutual appreciation for nature and serenity. She has said many nice things about people she has known before and she has expressed her understanding and empathy for others.

I realize that talking about this woman in this way right after talking about the woman on the other end of the spectrum is an example of cognitive “splitting”, but I don’t mean to do that. I have just really noticed how different these two women are in terms of how they treat people and interact with them. Their life perspective seems to be very different as well, and I can’t help but notice and think of how one is the most difficult/hardest resident to help and the other is the easiest/most enjoyable resident to help. I’ve been working a lot, and this job/the residents are certainly taking over my mind a lot. I think about the residents a lot. I suppose I may be obsessing them a bit but I don’t see how I couldn’t when this is the first time I am working a job that heavily involves what I believe to be my best strengths/strongest interests. The core of my being and what it consists of is actually being used in a practical manner, and for the first time that is happening in a more appropriate place/with more appropriate people. For the first time I am helping people in need who I am not related to, friends with, or dating. The job is very interesting and I feel like I am finally succeeding in a job and it is the right fit for me. It certainly could be more psychologically based to be even more suitable to my strengths and would then fit me even more, but regardless this job is still the closest I have ever been to using my skills. It is very rewarding and challenging, and it is also varies between being enjoyable and being difficult.

Anyways I did not intend to write a gigantic post that is almost entirely about my new job, but apparently that is what my mind has been focused on and most affected by in terms of the new changes in my life. On a few different occasions in the past week or so I had a few realizations. One time I was driving and all of the sudden I thought, “Wow I have all of the things I thought I’d never have before. I have a good job, a car, and am living independently from my family”. Another time as I was coming back home from work I thought “You know I have it pretty good”.

This job and the changes in my life have put A LOT of things into perspective for me, and it has hardly been overwhelming to me in the way that I thought it would be. I was afraid of all of these changes before and how they might go, I didn’t believe I could handle them, I didn’t believe I was able to maintain these things never mind actually achieve them at all. Everything has transitioned pretty damn smoothly. I’m not saying it hasn’t been hard at times, or that I haven’t been really tired from it all. I’m just saying that things have finally changed for the better and that all in all I really like change. It has proved to be positive to me in the grand scheme of things.