Everyone said that I would get over it.
They said give it some time.
The feelings would fade.
Well I have news for them.
It’s not fading.
I am completely and utterly….
Obsessed with F.R.I.E.N.D.S.
I still miss you
No matter how much changes in this life I will always miss you.
No matter how happy I become, how much I love my life now,or how much I love the people I chose to surround myself with…. I will always miss you.
It doesnt matter how long its been. It doesn’t matter if everything I kept to remind me of you is gone. It doesnt matter if I have forgotten the sound of your voice, or the exact mannerism you used to posess…. I will always miss you.
I closed the chapter. I opened another. I cherish every part to do with my life now. I still miss you.
Now I wonder if the version of you in my head is real or if its shifted into what I want to remember versus what I don’t want to, but I still miss you.
You live on. Even if you didn’t want to.
Most days we break
Most days I can take the good’s and the bad’s without blinking an eye.
Other day’s I find myself crying the second I see tears in anyone else’s eyes.
Today is one of those days that the tears just don’t seem to want to stop.
I have always known that I don’t handle sick kids very well. I can’t watch things (shows, movies, the news) that kids are sick or being hurt. That one is an obvious one for me.
Recently I have realized that cancer is another hot spot with me. The more people around me that get diagnosed, the more emotional and aggravated I get.
Cancer has been around forever it seems, and touches everyone in some way or another.
Logically, I understand that.
Realistically I find myself going thru serious rounds of resentment and bitterness. Everytime someone around me gets diagnosed or tells me their story, it starts again.
The empath side of me forces me to stay away from as much of it as possible. The medical side of me laughs at the the silliness of that.
Every one of my patients stories gets to me. When they leave me after the original diagnosis with so much sadness, and then everytime they come back looking lost and frail. The hope gets depleted, the fight leaving them.
We can’t lose that hope for them, because when we do it affects how we care for them. We can’t close our hearts to them, falling a bit in love with every one of them as they come and go. We cry with them and their loved ones because we can’t figure out how to treat with empathy and not actually have our hearts broken for them.
Other times we hold a strong front in place to help them be strong, be it cancer or any other illness. Sometimes it is much more work to hide it.
What makes me stay? They still deserve that respect and empathy at every turn of their journey. Sick, scared, dying. They deserve the respect, and I can’t gaurentee that they will get that if I am not there.
So days like this I work extra hard to suck it up. There is plenty of time later for me to deal with those tears.
#fuckcancer
Live in the moments you have
Happy Independence Day Chicago!
*not my picture*
Growing thru the process
Its amazing how our mental health levels can be affected by even the smallest change around us.
So many people discuss mental health as if it is nonexistant, or something to be talked about behind closed doors. However I have never noticed it to be any different then any other organ in our body.
When our pancreas can’t make insulin for us, we accept that it needs medicine and training without convincing them that they are just making it up.
And yet mental health, which affects every single one of us in its own way, gets judged.
My mental health journey is like a never ending roller coaster. Sometimes I’m coasting a straight(ish) line where everything stays pretty even keeled.
Then there are the sharp curves that you are moving too fast to be able to predict, or change. It doesnt matter which way it curves since it keeps you on the same level plane but it sure does make you scream and tense up.
Inevitably there are the build ups and quick falls. Those are the true tests in my opinion. Those are the things that determine what type of grit you are made of.
There is not one person alive that can say that they don’t feel the changes in their mental health from time to time.
Sure some handle it calmly and can keep it to themselves but it doesnt make them better in any way. The world is meant to be made up of unique souls so its nothing to be ashamed of.
Honestly learning how to handle yourself in these tests is the real fight. No I don’t mean learning how to HIDE them.
How to HANDLE them.
How to grow BECAUSE of them.
How to handle others around us going thru them.
How to realize that just because we can’t always SEE them, does not give us reason to not believe they are there.
Live life lightly 