Life

Why do I still get depressed? Why do I still get anxious? Why do I still worry? How can I make it stop? I mean, basically things are pretty good, so why is this happening? I sometimes feel like when things are bad I'm more concerned with making them better, which takes a higher priority than getting depressed.

By the way, the cold doesn't help. It's supposed to be warm. It just was warm. At least here it was. Now it's cold...cold and windy. The cold dampness seeps through my thin socks from the hard wood floors.

A Few Simple Things to Help the Environment

Here are a few things you can do:

1) Use canvas bags at the grocery store. I am guessing that much less than 1% of people actually do this! It makes it much easier to carry things, the bags will never break, and you do not have to worry about trying to recycle the plastic or paper bags that you get. And remember to put the canvas bags back in the trunk of your vehicle so you will always have them when you go to the store.

2) Stop going out for coffee if you do not have your own cup! This is something I definitely need to work on. I get coffee out maybe once or twice a week, and I am always given a to-go cup. This adds up to a lot of wasted cups over time, especially since most people in the US (and other parts of the world) are just like me!

3) Reuse small plastic lunch bags. I put pretzels or nuts or cereal in those small zip-lock bags, and I reuse the same bags for weeks and weeks on end!

4) If you are going out to eat, bring a container to use in case you have leftovers. Even if you don't, maybe somebody else you are with can use it. In fact, just keep a few small containers in the trunk of your car, or one in your purse or backpack, so you will always have one available if needed.

5) Fill up your Nalgene bottle with filtered water instead of buying all of those plastic water bottles!

6) This one probably does not apply to many people, but if you are a runner and icing your legs on a regular basis like I do, dump the ice outside instead of putting it down the drain. This is only a small thing, but very useful to the vegetation right outside of your house/apt., especially in time of drought.

7) Get your name on the "Don't send me credit card offers" list. It's just more junk mail that you do not need. Also try to stop getting other types of junk mail, such as catalogs. You shouldn't be spending a ton of money anyways!

8) Donate your old shoes, especially your old running shoes! There are definitely people out there who would love to have them, even if they already have a few hundred miles on them.

Hopefully I can add more to this list later...

The Scary Case of Mom Traveling Overseas

So right now the units are out of the country. The idea of not being able to contact my mom via phone scares both me and my sisters. Strangely this did not seem too bad until we all admitted to each other that mom being so far away was something we were not looking forward to. This apparently also worried my mother, as she asked her sister to play the role of surrogate mother for the week, and to call my one sister who has mental problems worse than me on a daily basis. My aunt also called my other sister to make sure she got home ok the other day. My aunt has not called me, but I am the one person who is actually able to contact my units via phone (if they are ever actually there when I call, which I'm beginning to think is unlikely).

I guess extended family and even friends take on roles as "family members" at times. I know that while living with a past roommate for several years, we often played the role of "sister" to each other, especially when things were not going well for one or both of us. This was a big help, as each of us was not always able to contact our biological sister or sisters who were many states away.

Sleep

How I long to forever escape the world through sleep! Wouldn't it be nice to stop time and take a few days to snooze? I know I'm supposed to live in the present, but if time could be stopped, then I still would be in the present, right?

Attitude

Why are there so many people who have such a negative attitude? Your attitude is contagious, and I personally want to be around positive people, or at least people who can occassionally laugh or see at least a few good things in their life that they are thankful for. Talking to a negative person (I won't mention any names but this person is close to my age and very closely related to me) is just mentally draining, and you can only try to help a person like this for so long. If that person is unwilling to be helped, it seems like there is nothing you can do except keep trying and risk bringing yourself further and further down by association. If you have never have a problem being positive yourself then by all means, help that other person. However, if you think it could have a drastic effect on your own self, confidence, attitude, life, then is it really worth trying to help such a negative person for years on end?

My Mind

I control my mind. My mind does not control me.

Now

I have changed my view, and do not agree with my last entry. There is no time, there is only now.

Time

It seems like tasks take me longer than I want them to, and usually longer than I estimate that they will take. This can get frustrating for anyone in this situation, especially if you are very much a "to-do-list" type person, as I am.

When I think of time I sometimes get sad. If I really wanted something (of reasonable price), I could save money and buy the item. Even if it was something I may never be able to afford, there would always be a chance that I could have that much money some day. But with time, we only have so much. With time, we don't know how much we have, but there is a pretty clear upper limit which we know we will not survive beyond. So although it's nice to have money, we can always have more money, but we will at some point arrive at the day in which we will no longer have time. And speaking of money and time, we can always earn more money after we have spent money, but once we've used up time, we can never get that time back. OK, this is getting too depressing, so I'm going to end this here. I'm sure I'll post again in no time at all (meaning soon).

Motivation

I wish I had a motivation pill. Maybe I should take a walk so that I can see the sky and get some coffee. Not having a window can be depressing...

St. Jude

If you know me fairly well, then you probably know that my favorite Saint is St. Jude. As usual, I would like to give a shout out to the intervening power of St. Jude Thaddeus. Severe depression and anxiety can be almost unbearable to live with at times, and I believe that St. Jude has helped me to get through the last few weeks.

Hair

Hair is dead, yet we place so much emphasis on it. It seems somewhat of a cruel world when people, particularly men, start loosing their hair in large amounts at such a young age. However, when a man is loosing his hair, this doesn't mean that the man is unhealthy, it just means that genetics is taking over. A decade or more down the road there could be a cure to prevent premature hair loss, but it's not a life or death situation. And in fact, quite a large number of celebrities have already had hair transplanted from the back of their head to the top of their head, in the pursuit of looking forever young.

A somewhat more disturbing thing regarding hair loss is when a female, particularly a young female, has to deal with this. In many instances this is due to poor diet and nutrition. It's sad that some people are willing to give up beautiful healthy hair in order to wear tiny jeans. And sometimes a person is willing to give up healthy hair for not-so-healthy hair, but if this continues for years on end, this not-so-healthy hair becomes extremely unhealthy and noticeable unhealthy. I know such a person, and hopefully she is now at the point where she will get help.

Introduction

I have very little need for the past, and I rarely think about. However, I did discover a couple of poems I wrote a long while ago, so I decided to post them below.

LIFE is:
Love
Intensity
Force
Energy

The brilliant shades of small bright lights glare at my eyes.
I stare back.
A lifeless feeling.
Why?
Answers only to be found within?
When?
Simply another question.
Again unanswerable.