52 Lists, Week 6

Happy Monday! Welcome to my 52 Lists Project, wherein I feature one list every week for 2015. To join in with your own list, scroll down to the link at the bottom, print out your own list, and then share it however you wish!

Week 6: List the Ways in Which You Can Love Others

This list is far from complete but these are some of the concrete ways I am trying to be more loving this year. I should probably hang copies of this list in strategic locations to remind myself of them...

• Be more patient
• Be encouraging - the world has enough critics already
• Try to see the positives, especially when I don't feel like it
• Leave lovely comments on my favorite blogs
• Be sincere when asking, "How are you?"
• Give gifts just because
• Send greeting cards just because
• Remember birthdays with snail mail birthday cards
• Send flowers to Mom
• Be a useful, patient employee to Dad
• Listen more, talk less
• Be gracious
• Dress to impress
• Speak kindly
• Give the benefit of the doubt
• Be generous
• Be hospitable
• Give my full attention
• Don't complain - be grateful
• Write thank you notes for little things
• Show up for work in a good mood and ready to get work done
• Take sisters on coffee dates
• Pray for people who piss me off
• Smile and say "Hi!"

These are the attitudes I'm trying to implement that make me remember to be love at all times. I'm far from perfect and being a positive person is something I really struggle with, so this is a good list for me to be focusing on.

What about you? How do you show people you care? What are some ways you can be a little more loving every day? Let me know in comments or with a list of your own!


Love, love, love

Willow

For more fun with 52 Lists, click down on "52 Lists" in the little categories section at the bottom of the post, and go over to Moorea Seal's site to see more!

Check out Moorea Seal's entire project at her blog below:
http://www.moorea-seal.com/p/52-lists.html  

Adventures in Online Dating

I can't believe I just typed that title. Here we go...

This is a stupidly long post so I've broken it up with funny pictures from my Pinterest. Some of them are relevant and some of them are totally not. I've sourced below each pic.

Out of the Darkness

Alright, folks, I've got some big news. I've been kind of secretive for the last year, but I've been looking for a cause. Yes, yes, I'm a Free Hugger, but that's not really a "cause" so much as it's a movement and I don't feel about getting into the discussion of those differences. What I'm saying is, I've found it, and I'm stunned at how perfect it is.

As someone who's been living with diagnosed depression for over 2 years now (not to mention living with it undiagnosed for almost 12 years) and gone through the hospitalization and medication and therapy and blah blah blah, I'm kind of shocked how long it took me to find this organization - especially when I've been directly & indirectly benefiting from their influence for the duration of my treatment.

May I introduce: Out of the Darkness: The Overnight. 18 miles through the streets of San Francisco in one night. We're walking for the people we love who struggle with depression, the ones we've lost to suicide, and every single soul that resists the temptation to give up every day. I cried when I found this, because it reminded me that I am not the only one who struggles and that there is an army of people out there who come together to offer each other support.

SO! I'm taking donations. It costs $1000 to participate as a walker (I even joined a team! Team Death is No Parenthesis - from the e.e. cummings poem) plus the registration fee and airfare to get up to San Francisco in the first place. That said, I've been using my position as the Free Hugs Girl to further my cause. I'm there every Sunday anyway, and I have a modest following already, so I might as well commandeer their assistance. Drumroll!

Day 1 in Claremont and the conclusion of my first week of fundraising has elicited a total of: $54.52!!! I've committed myself to $20 a week and all the change I collect to this project, so the total donations I've received from strangers comes to $30.98, which is still awesome! As soon as I register I'll have an online donor page, and I know some of you have already made pledges to my cause, but every little bit helps! This cause has become so important to me in the last couple of weeks... It's put on by the American Foundation for Suicide Prevention, which is an organization that supports programs like the Trevor Project, clinics and early-diagnosis centers at universities across America, and various other programs that save lives every single day.

I'll be posting more next week, with an update on my fundraising status and all the ways I'm getting ready for this. I have 14 weeks until the walk, which is June 9-10. Until then, anyone have any fundraising ideas for me???

February 15th

So I was going to do one of two things tonight:

1.) Post a blog about how important love is and use a bunch of lovey-dovey quotes that I've spent years collecting along with a bunch of pretty pictures about people's shadows holding hands and rant about how I still believe in love and that I'm not jaded or bitter about the fact that I'm single.

or...

2.) Post a blog about how stupid this Hallmark Holiday is and how it's stupid to focus on showing how much you love someone on one day as opposed to every other day of the year and how this is a scam on the part of greeting card companies, florists, and candymakers designed to make millions of dollars and make single people miserable.

BUT

Instead I'm knitting and reading fanfiction and eating Cheez-Its and letting myself be okay with my alone-ness. Because even without the over-use of hearts in the world today, this day really sucked. So I'll blog tomorrow.


Cheers,

Willow

Touch

After months (November 20th to January 20th is 2 months, right? God, it feels like so much longer...) of tooling around feeling sorry for myself, I finally have a word for the emotion that's been plaguing me for weeks, and it's a scary one: I'm lonely. Lonely! Me! Can you believe it? Me neither...

I'm starved for attention, affection, and touch. I like to think that I'm comfortable with myself, that I'm not a total attention whore, but... My only real companion these days is a 50 year old man who - while usually very sweet - is far from my ideal conversation partner. I've recently added an adolescent cat to my list of companions, but again: he's a sweetie, but not the best conversationalist.

My uncle is painfully awkward, though we manage to get along. I found earlier, though, while he was (awkwardly) rubbing my shoulder what I've been missing so much. I haven't been touched very much this year. Make whatever sexual innuendos out of that you will, but I'm serious. Ever since I left school the first time and went to the hospital... Ever since that awful night my heart broke for the last time and I spent the night curled up next to An-----, I haven't exactly enjoyed a whole lot of human physical contact. I mean, it's one thing to be sexually frustrated to the point of distraction, but pushed to tears by a simple hand on my shoulder? I'm the fucking Free Hugs Girl for crying out loud! Of course part of why I hug is because I know what it's like to go so long without a comforting touch, but... I'm so, so lonely these days.

I talk to my friends, though. I make the effort to see them and spend time with them. It's just... They're busy living their lives and I'm back to square one with mine. Again. R--- is working two jobs and going to school full time, K---- is studying to get into law school and trying to find a job (and has a family she spends lots of time with), and everyone else isn't exactly local. A lot of it has to do with going from a university setting where I was constantly surrounded by people and the ebb and flow of conversation and then getting dumped into borderline solitary confinement.

And I've been dreaming about HIM again. Simple things, like the two of us sitting on the couch curled up watching a movie, or walking to the beach from his house holding hands. And last week really hurt... I was driving to work, minding my own business, and there was a couple around my age in the car in front of me. At the stop light, the driver leaned across to his girlfriend in the passenger seat and kissed her. I had to pull over because it made me dizzy to remember how many times I'd been in the passenger seat, or the driver's seat. I'm feeling a little dizzy now even... But I don't miss him. I miss having him. Does that make sense? I mean, I just want someone in my life who understands how much I need to be reassured. I don't think very highly of myself, you know. It took 2 years for R------ to convince me I was pretty, let alone anyone worth kissing. It's this:

“What I want is to be needed. What I need is to be indispensable to somebody. Who I need is somebody that will eat up all my free time, my ego, my attention. Somebody addicted to me. A mutual addiction.”

—	Chuck Palahniuk

My personal insecurities aside, it doesn't change the fact that I'm so, so lonely.

I mean, the other day, my therapist made a comment about my lack of social interaction. He asked how my social anxiety has been and I admitted that I still panic a little when I see strangers in my usual solitary haunts. I have to talk myself into going to Knit Night at the yarn store on Thursdays. I have to convince myself that it's alright to accept the occasional offer from my friends when they want to hang out. My doctor said I should find more social outlets. He said, "Well, you used to dance, right? I'm assuming you took lessons, and those had to be local, right? That would be a great way for you to meet other people that aren't ladies in their 40s and older from your knitting group. Guys, too, if you think you're ready to start casually dating again." Dancing? Again? Me? It's one thing to go back to my old salsa routines in my living room as a form of exercise every morning but... Going back to classes? When I know my dance teacher will wonder why he hasn't seen me in almost 5 years? No thanks. Then he asked if my church had a young adult program (I swear he's been talking to my mother cuz she suggested that last week), which it does, but honestly? It took everything I had not to scream, especially because God and I aren't exactly on speaking terms these days. But that he noticed and acknowledged that I'm a sad, lonely, socially-deprived mess was kind of...disheartening.

“In the New Year, may your right hand always be stretched out in friendship, but never in want.”
~Irish Toast

The above is especially disheartening. Because I've stretched out in the past but... I'm always left wanting.

So I suppose this could be interpreted as a cry for attention. And I won't say it's not, because it probably is. I'm just hoping someone out there in the universe will do what I've tried doing as a Free Hugger. I want someone to see the void in my life and make some effort to fill it. And I realize that's asking a lot - I feel like I'm always asking for so much in the last year - but why is it so hard to put my voice to how much I need this?

“And if you want to know the feeling I’m talking about, run your own fingers slowly through your hair, and pretend they’re someone else’s.”
-- I Wrote This For You: The Feeling of Someone Drawing You

New Year, New You

Should old acquaintance be forgot,
and never brought to mind?
Should old acquaintance be forgot,
and old lang syne?

Fir ald lang syn, ma jo,
fir ald lang syn...
we'll take a cup o' kindness yet,
fir ald lang syn..."

"Sometimes you hit a point where you either change or self-destruct."
- Sam Stevens

In no particular order:

• keep better track of my income and expenses, including balancing my checkbook regularly and saving my pennies
• write every day (“For last year’s words belong to last year’s language. And next year’s words await another voice. And to make an end is to make a beginning.” - T.S. Eliot)
• completely clean and organize my room by May (including all papers and crafts) [This is actually a huge undertaking, but I plan to chip away at it a little each day until it's done, dammit]
• finish (properly) 1 big writing project
• eat and take my meds/vitamins every day (I really need to work on eating)
• have a real-life adventure (not quite sure what this one means, but I wrote it down, so I must mean it)
• start Free Hugging again
• take better care of my car (and stop living out of it)
• get a full-time job
• do one thing each day for my own enjoyment, just for me
• fill a jar of happy thoughts
• exercise daily
• blog regularly
• write lots of book reviews
• be patient with my uncle and avoid homicide in his area
• keep track of the books I read (and reread)
• put daily effort into my appearance (i.e., put myself together in the morning)
• wear sunscreen
• get back to journaling
• spend time with Kenzie, teaching her how to be a kid
• devote a little more attention to the Kenzie blog
• start writing letters to the people I write letters to again
• try not to be so lonely all the time
• LIVE

So these are mostly things that normal people do anyway, and I don't really think of them as "New Year's Resolutions" so much as I think of them as things I've been needing to do and might as well use the new year as a good place to start myself in a new routine. Just saying. Because Resolutions are just promises we all make to ourselves after Christmas and forget before Valentine's day. I intend to hold myself accountable to...myself. Because I deserve these things. I deserve to write and play with my niece and do things that make me happy and to not be as lonely as I've been in the last 3 months. Don't I? I think I do, and tonight, my opinion matters.
Champagne and Big Bang Theory DVDs at Belinda's house with her boyfriend, Dana, and Courtney, then a slumber party with Court. That was my exciting New Year's Eve. But it's so much better than last New Year's Eve, sitting on the couch with my brother and a drink I didn't even finish. Courtney and I spent almost 2 hours sitting at my kitchen table talking about literature and books and poetry and things we loved. It's becoming like that, my kitchen table. I'll write more on that later, I think. She remembered to write to her husband before bed like she does every night, and then I remembered my own private tradition.
I pulled up youtube and played my favorite version of "Auld Lang Syne" and wrote in my journal for the first time in 14 months. My last entry was the 6 pages I spent writing out my first speech to tell my parents I was leaving LMU the first time. Of course, I didn't get more than 3 sentences into that speech, but it's in there, all the words I meant to say. I only gave myself time to scribble a few brief sentences, but I realized that I didn't do it last year and I felt awful. I don't feel a whole lot...better?...after having written those few, brief awkward lines, but I did it and I'll be doing more soon.

“Think back and replay your year; if it doesn’t bring you tears of either joy or sadness, consider it wasted."
~Ally McBeal

I'll try to remember to keep y'all updated on the status of my "resolutions" as time passes, and hopefully I'll have a nice little daily routine going by Valentine's Day.

Until then, ma jo's.....
"Sometimes I can hear my bones straining under the weight of all the lives I'm not living."
~Jonathan Safran Foer
But not anymore.
~Willow