Cupids, candy, and all that other crap

OK, so here's another veering off of the main topic I've been writing about. But I really need to talk about...Valentine's Day.

I have several issue with VD as I like to call it. Maybe such issues stem from bad experiences in the past (there were certainly enough bad relationships to create such an outlook), or maybe it's because I detest the color pink. Both are true, but I think that, specifically, I don't see a point in such nonsense. Now I'm a passionate and fairly romantic woman, but if my man has to show me he loves me in a big way on VD to prove he really does love me (or me him), then there is a problem in the relationship.

Having said that, there is a part of me that would be thrilled to death to receive a big bundle of flowers on VD. I must admit...but less thrilled than to receive a big bundle on just an ordinary every day, day.

I don't know. Every year I have this anxiousness that builds during the first days of February. Last February my guy and I were breaking up, so that might contribute to my anxiousness, but I really think it's more than that. I think that we put expectations on things and then are fearful that those expectations won't be fulfilled. We don't want to be disappointed in the other person for not following through on something we keep telling ourselves is not important. OK not "we". Maybe just "me". Hmmm. Anybody confused here?

Bottom line. If he loves me, he loves me, whether my girlfriends receive diamonds and roses, while I get a verbal, "I love you baby." Is that really the bottom line? Is that what really matters to me?

My mom said something profound the other day...she often does...she said that she sometimes has to look at my dad and then at what she wants from him and decipher if he can give her what she is wanting. If he is incapable of giving what she wants, can she accept that she won't get it, and be willing to take what he can give? I love that. My answer is that as long as my guy is loving me from the heart, all the rest if superfluous, and that includes VD.

Making mental healthy...6

This one may seem quite simple but is very important in the grand scheme of maintaining a healthy mind. Look for beauty.

Life is so hectic. Time is in demand; our time. Putting the head down and plowing through a day sometimes seems the only way to get through it. Here's a tip. Look up, even if for just a moment. Look for something to make a smile come to life.

I discovered, while dealing with the severe depressions of bipolar, that I needed to fine beauty for my life. I needed to make certain my favorite color and then apply it somewhere in my life. I found I love butterflies and their whole evolution. I love dirt and balloons make me smile. I began to look for things to smile about and then I wrote them down because sometimes when I am very sick with the darkness of bipolar, I forget that I love rain and how it feels on my skin. I forget how much I enjoy looking for the "perfect" tree.

Look for beauty. Look for a smile. Practicing this in times when smiles come easy, helps the practice during times when they don't. Balance. This practice helps balance out gray times...if only a little.
L

Making mental healthy...5

So back to my little list of things to do to make the brain healthier.

This time of year, depending on where you live, vitamin D may be lacking because sunlight is lacking. So consider a supplement if you find yourself dragging as if trying to move through cement.

Depression is a common thing. Where you fall on the spectrum of depression is what makes a difference between needing psychiatric care and needing some modification to beat the winter blues.

Another easy and very effective idea for beating depression during the winter is to add bulbs that are especially for increased "sun" exposure. I had a light box that was wonderful for me if I could get my two cats away from it long enough to get some exposure for myself. My brother-in-law recently got some bulbs for that purpose and put them in his work room. The change in his morning manner was drastic.

So, another relatively easy incorporation into the schedule that will help increase mental health.
L

Beautiful

Pardon the veering off from the mentally healthy thing...I need a creative moment.

I've got Daughtry pounding through my head phones and I feel the need to simply expound from the outside, heart-side up, rather than the intellectual stuff I've been pontificating about. One thing I learned by pursing all the psychology education was that a total disconnect from my imagination is a deadly thing. I end up in so many pieces, dead leaves, laying around in the space of my life. So...for balance.

I am looking to keep up on the rubble accumulating inside. The thing is that no matter how much information I put into my brain, I still have to have meaning. I've met many who do not need that link. I do. Maybe it is that mental illness has simply knocked down the walls that separate all the colors of my life until they simply swirl around in a dark chasm.

I have changed so much in the past six years. I hardly recognize myself sometimes. The changes are much good of bad. But as I mentioned to my cousin earlier, shining moments are so important. I love it when I shine. I'll take shining of simple pleasantness any day...but what goes up must come down. Ah, the paradox. I am destined to forever be tied to extremes. God directs me to balance, but lately I'm thinking maybe He applauds some of the extreme in me. I can work with that.

I am happy to know who I am. And when I find myself turning away from the flaws and dark shadows I never seem to shake, I know it is time for little diatribes like this one. I once asked God what He calls me...what my name is. He told me He calls me beautiful. Wow. At a time when I was the ugliest I had ever been, failed in every circuit, and a world disaster, He said I was beautiful. One might say hearing such a thing is virtually impossible...no...believing it is.

I am not a product of my generation, friends, family, or even that man whom I love better than myself. I am a product of God's grace moving in my life, fluid and electric...shocking me into the reality that I am all things in Him, rainbow and light in His shelter, dark and night outside of it.

We talk of blessings from God as though they are small parcels of choice meat dropped off with a card and no return address. Today God touched me in a gentle caress, paving the way through my panicked mind and heart, afraid of having been forgotten on the grand scale of things. He, forgave my absentmindedness at having lost my wallet and all that identifies me as me. He put the people in my life who were prepared to make a difference in my life, and then He went a step further, giving me laughter as the ribbon on the package. He then admonished me to forgive myself for my humanness....grace...flowing in and around me causing such peace and relief tears could only express reciprocation for such a tender love for me. No one loves me like He does.

It is a scary thing to lose identity in the world that requires it in the smallest of places and experiences. To know you are in fact in existence but unable to prove it is a very humbling thing. I have learned so much from this experience. How ironic. I go to Phoenix to be with all these intellectuals, which was wonderful, but the lesson I learned most and biggest was the one about how much I strength I posses in spite of mental fracture, God's guidance in spite of my railing, and my John's wonderful and enduring love for me that sustained me (by God's direction, I'm certain) in just the way I needed, loving me no matter how neurotic I became (and I can DO neurotic).

So, may I not forget who I am, no matter what I posses to identify me...challenged, smart, neurotic, emphatic, eloquent, opinionated, questioning, weak, broken, deep, in love, loved, perfectionistic, obtuse, stubborn, reclusive, empathetic, fragile....beautiful. My name is Beautiful...