‘This kid’s gonna be the best kid in the world. This kid’s gonna be somebody better than anybody I ever knew.’ And you grew up good and wonderful. It was great just watchin’ you, every day was like a privilege. Then the time come for you to be your own man and take on the world, and you did. But somewhere along the line, you changed. You stopped being you. You let people stick a finger in your face and tell you you’re no good. And when things got hard, you started lookin’ for something to blame, like a big shadow.
Let me tell you something you already know.
The world ain’t all sunshine and rainbows. It’s a very mean and nasty place, and I don’t care how tough you are, it will beat you to your knees and keep you there permanently if you let it. You, me or nobody is gonna hit as hard as life. But it ain’t about how hard you hit, it’s about how hard you can get hit and keep moving forward. How much you can take and keep moving forward. That’s how winning is done!
Now if you know what you’re worth, then go out and get what you’re worth. But ya gotta be willing to take the hits, and not pointing fingers saying you ain’t where you wanna be because of him, or her, or anybody! Cowards do that and that ain’t you! You’re better than that! I’m always gonna love you no matter what. No matter what happens. You’re my son and you’re my blood. You’re the best thing in my life. But until you start believing in yourself, ya ain’t gonna have a life.
Why do we speak to ourself in ways that we can’t imagine speaking to others?
How many times do we look in a mirror and say the meanest things we can think of to the reflection?
I go about living life again until I see a picture of myself, or a sudden mirrored surface shows me myself and that’s all it takes. Suddenly the self hate returns, vile and inconceivable things.
No one could ever hate me as much as I hate myself, okay? So any mean things someone’s gonna think of to say about me, I’ve already said to me, about me, probably in the last few hours.
Between the looks in the mirror and unfaltering doubt I have in my own abilities, it sure leaves a lot of self hate to swim in.
All I ever wanted was to be someone else
At some point I knew that I was going to have to change the perogative to be able to keep from drowning.
This has to be one of the hardest things in life to do since it is never ending. Every day I have to push the positive thought line, multiple times a day if I am honest. I started with just one or two, and have progressed to forcing a positive thought pretty much every time I have a negative thought.
This doesn’t always work I need to be honest. Just like everyone else I have down days that just can’t be talked out of. I receive phone calls with bad news, or I wake up on the wrong side of the bed. My family is amazing at dealing with me through these days, so I consider myself to be one of the lucky ones. Most don’t it seems.
Stay positive. The world isn’t gonna get better being negative about it. There are two sides to life. You choose which one you wanna live.
Breath and remember that you have been in the place before.
You’ve been this uncomfortable, anxious and scared; you survived it.
Breathe, and know that you can survive this too.
These feelings can’t break you.
They’re painful and debilitating, but you can sit with them and eventually, they will pass.
Maybe not immediately, but sometime soon, they are going to fade. When they do you will look back at this moment and laugh for having doubted your own resilience.
I know it feels unbearable right now but keep breathing.
I can’t stop the tears these days after gun violence has rocked America yet again. Nineteen fourth graders dead. 19 families having their whole world rocked. 19 tiny caskets will be buried, most likely before their parents, maybe even before their Grandparents. 19 final outfits picked, final pictures blasted all over the news, and final memories to gut those closest to them for many years to come.
The two teachers that were gunned down did everything they could to save those children but were never given a fair chance. They died hero’s even if they will never know that. One of them had been married to her high school sweetheart, having had four children with her in that time. Two days later, her husband has a heart attack, likely from a broken heart, and leaves those children parentless.
The amount of children with horror stories that will rival anyone they will ever meet is mind-blowing. Children talking about laying on top of their dead school mates to keep them off the floor, or the fact that a flimsy curtain that hung around the area that they were hiding was enough to keep them alive.
As a country we already fail at handing PTSD in out Veterans.
As a country we are also already failing at understanding and handling mental health any better.
This isn’t political and shame on you and anyone else for hiding behind that sentence to make them feel better about doing nothing. There are some things that needs laws to change, however there are many things that can be done on a personal level, through volunteer services and creative thinking.
These minds will be now dealing with the traumatic repercussions that we see our wartime soldiers deal with, except they are 9 and 10 years old. I am not sure where the other grade levels were in the building but that doesn’t discredit their trauma either.
I am so angry. Heartbroken. Gutted even.
I know we all feel it. I know we all struggled to absorb the details and hear the ways it was mishandled so far. We all flash back to any other school/mass shooting that we last felt this way about. My flashback went straight to Sandy Hook since it was also young children, but quickly followed by so many others. Every one of us know what it’s like to be a young innocent child. We know what it’s like to be emotionally attached to other humans, knowing that we would never wish upon them the trauma of having anything to do with these shootings.
I am not political. I am unsure where I land on gun control. My world has been rocked at a insanely stupid age by gun violence, just like so many other have as well. However it is also correct that banning guns will not keep them out of criminals hands. This post has NOTHING to do with conversations about guns whatsoever. I will leave that conversation to people who have more at stake with this, and maybe not so negatively affected by gun violence.
Please spend time looking around to find ways to volunteer to help your local areas. America or not, we all need people. We all need mental health help, we all need to help our Veteran, our homeless, our sick and lonely neighbors.
You never know what’s going on behind someones eyes or what they are planning. Evil will always be evil, but perhaps reaching out in any way you can think may make them realize that kindness will always win. Even if evil will steal all the attention on the news.
Little Sara, you’re a diamond in the rough And I know that you don’t hear this all enough And I’m sure that’s why your wrists have tons of cuts And I’m sure that’s why you think you’re not enough On your nineteenth birthday you thought that you were done Tons of people in your home, but it only felt like one ‘Cause your brain can only think about the waiting loaded gun But your friends are all still here, so pretend you’re having fun All your friends they wanna drink ’cause it’s your birthday But you’ve been drinking straight probably since last Thursday Drinking is the only thing that makes you feel just okay It keeps the trigger finger off the trigger and at bay Your mind can only think about the things it shouldn’t Your brain is filled with thoughts of wishing that ya didn’t Little Sarah, perk your ears up try to listen But she can’t hear a sound because she’s locked in a prison
She can barely see the pavement, she can barely read the signs People think she’s complicated but never wanna look inside ‘Cause she’s a little too R-rated and they’re a little too damn blind She’s just looking for her angels, but they’re a little hard to find
Mm, mm, mm
Little Sara, you’ve been skipping out in class And any minute now your friends are gonna ask Why the hell you’re always acting sorta sad Why the hell your weed just never seems to last But the truth is you don’t wanna let your secret out ‘Cause they think it’s wrong for you to take a different route All except your mom too bad that she’s just not around And don’t get me wrong those words you’ve tried to get them out But their views been skewed by their plastic news from their plasma tubes So they won’t fit in your shoes Except for Sunday blues, but you got Monday blues You got Tuesday blues, damn every day ya might lose All your friends they wanna smoke ’cause it’s a Friday But you’ve been smoking straight probably since last Sunday I know you know you shouldn’t say that you are okay But you still look ’em in the eye and lie then go to use your ashtray
She can barely see the pavement, she can barely read the signs People think she’s complicated but never wanna look inside ‘Cause she’s a little too R-rated and they’re a little too damn blind She’s just looking for her angels, but they’re a little hard to find
Mm, mm, mm
Little Sarah, last night you got it bad In that moment you could barely even add up two or three reasons why you’re glad And I guess that’s why you grabbed your pen and pad It was 6:14 and you could barely even read All the words you’d written down of why it was time for you to leave Your phone was on the ground and you could barely hear it ring Couldn’t even hear a sound, couldn’t feel a single thing Now, it’s 6:15 and you’re on your knees, blood is on your sleeves And your lungs won’t breathe, eyes are watering, body’s shivering And you’re wondering what is happening Now, it’s 6:23, and they’re on their knees, begging Jesus please Can you make her breathe ‘Cause they finally see what was happening underneath their nose And underneath your sleeves
Mm
She can barely see the pavement, she can barely read the signs People think she’s complicated but never wanna look inside ‘Cause she’s a little too R-rated and they’re a little too damn blind She’s just looking for her angels, but they’re a little hard to find
Today I met a woman who was an emotional wreck and trying too hard to keep it under wraps. Her family seemed to have no idea how much she was struggling so I walked up to her when she had stepped off to the side and introduced myself. She was trying so hard to not cry that the second I spoke to her the thin wall broke and she started sobbing. I grabbed this stranger in a gigantic hug because I knew she needed it and somehow she knew that she could trust me.
I held her as she sobbed, letting her tears soak my shoulder. I let her break in the way that she needed but was scared to show her family. I let her deplete the tank that she had overstuffed with emotions without asking any question. When she was finished I didn’t demand strength, I instead offered the tissues out of my pocket. Slowly she started to explain to me that her oldest child was moving away and she didn’t know how to process it. She had gone through massive trauma directly before having this child and likely had an unhealthy bond to him, but knew that she couldn’t hold him back to keep her whole. I told her that unhealthy bond or not, the first child leaving is never easy for anyone.
There is a helplessness that happens when you know they are facing daunting tasks and you can’t be with them. You hear parents talk about this all the time when their child is sick and they can’t fix it, no matter how old they are.
Parents come to me and talk about the depression and heartbreak with children moving out and I offer them all the same sentence.
No one teaches us what to do when they spread their wings and fly. It’s a blank manuscript. You get to fill in the pages. Just like they get to fill theirs.
No one has the answers.
So I gave her my number and told her I was always willing to talk to her. Hell, I was always going to have a shoulder to offer without judgement or demands. I led her to the bathroom for her to put herself together again before she walked back over to her beautiful family. As I watched her go I had a moment where I just knew that this happened to open my eyes to what comes next. Every stage that you are aggravated with your children for will pass. It will shift into something else, sometimes more aggravating if we’re honest. However, it will be over before we know it. They will get big enough to not need to live with us anymore, and we won’t see them daily. They may move next door or they may move hours away.
The end result is always the same.
Emotional parents watching their child’s back as the walk away from us.
Live life lightly 