Snake Bites

I sat alone in my apartment this Friday evening. I had mixed feelings as I felt my free night from work was wasted to apartment cleaning and movies alone on the couch. Yet this night in solitude also allowed me to relax and think about being single, relationships, and how interesting it all is to me.

It seems to me that a relationship with a significant other is the most complicated, frustrating thing on the face of the planet we all walk on. It causes the most and deepest pains imaginable, but yet provides the most happiness. It's completely ambiguous. I do have to say that I am well acquainted with loneliness. I think it is funny that I know loneliness so well. It would be a lie to say that I don't get offers to dinner, to movies, for long walks, or drinks. Yet I find myself alone on a Friday night. My heart must be very fickle.

I know when I fall, I fall hard. It's a rare thing for someone to get past all my safeguards and lower the walls around my heart. It's rare that I allow this to happen because when I do, I usually scrape my knees and the palms of my hands on the sidewalk. It usually takes me a while to get back up, and when I do I am ready for the world again, only to find myself tripping and finding those familiar scabs. The crazy part of relationships is that it doesn't matter what I want. Yes, that's what I wrote. It does not matter what I want. If the other person doesn't want to be in the relationship then they won't be in it, and there I am as helpless as can be. There I am on the sidewalk inspecting my wounds looking for the person who was supposed to catch me as I fell. I think I could describe it as seeing the fireplace but being unable to feel it's warmth, or reaching into the darkness to feel nothing but air.

But like I said, love is ambiguous. When found, it's a natural high. It's being oblivious to the world around me because I am lost in that person's eyes. It's giving my heart away carelessly because in that moment I feel invincible and immune to all pain. When love leaves, I can usually feel the icy ghost of it caress my cheek in the dead of night reminding me of the warmth that was once there. I find myself so paralyzed by it like a snake bite, when all I can do is helplessly take one breath at a time and pray that my heart doesn't stop beating. That's how love is. I can be warned. I can be cautious. I can prepare myself all I want. When the snake strikes it's quick and unexpected in spite of all previous experience. And once bitten, there is nothing I can do is hope my heart doesn't stop.

"The worst things in life are to try to please and please not; to be in bed and sleep not; and to want for one who comes not." I'm not sure who wrote this, but I find it very true for I have experienced all three. The only anecdote I have found is breathing. Breathing is like time. As long as you are breathing time is moving. They say time heals all wounds. I disagree. Like the integrity of the skin, once the skin has been broken by a cut, laceration, or scrape...scar or no scar the integrity of the skin is never the same. The same is true of our relationships. No matter what we do, we are never the same once someone has placed footprints in our life. Whether they have walked miles or only a few steps we are affected and changed by them regardless of whether or not we want them to change us.

To be in love and be loved is the most perfect feeling in the world, and when taken away is the most heart-wrenching. However, without feeling the heartache we would never feel the warmth of love for there must be opposition in all things. It would be so nice to just feel the sweet love of another, however after being so acquainted with loneliness I know that I will never take the love in my life for granted. I know too well the pain of watching someone's back as they walk away and the distance between us increased. I have felt the hot tears stream down my cheek and I have faced several lonely nights. I have awaken in the night to a sinking feeling of coming to the reality that my dream was not real. I have felt my heart ripped clean from my chest and been driven to my knees countless times. It never gets easier, and each time seems to require a longer healing process. I look at the green grass of my neighbor's lawn and think to myself that the grass truly is greener on the other side. I feel all the water and lawn fertilizer in the world could not give me a lawn as beautiful as theirs, however I also know that this is foolish thinking. The key is being satisfied with my own lawn.

Innocence

As the semester is now in full swing, my days are becoming less and less bearable and I seem to be Ms. Cranky Pants as I drive down I-25 towards Pueblo, Colorado and the Colorado Mental Health Hospital. It is my first clinical day and I have no idea what to expect. The day started off with a bang as we quickly went to our locations and were split into groups to our separate units.

The hospital looked nothing like what I had expected. In my mind I had visions of people crawling on all fours down long brick corridors chanting some ancient voodoo and thinking that these were the people I was going to have a conversation with. To my surprise the exact opposite was true. The hospital is about 3 football fields long, and beautifully designed with a lot of natural light and windows. Once in our unit, my fellow nursing student and I stuck closely together as our nerves were ready to burst at any moment. Apparently she had the same visions I had while driving today.

Gratefully, there weren't many patients in the common area today, however as time wore on more and more began emerging from their separate rooms. Today, my partner and I, were going to accompany a small group of patients to a group therapy session to help their cognitive skills. I thought this was going to be interesting as I didn't know what to expect.

We followed the group into a smaller room down the hall in which four tables were set up. The hospital techs quickly pulled out model airplanes colored pencils and paint by numbers for the patients who had obviously had been previously working on these. The patient who sat across from me had a color page.

Now, in accordance with HIPPA, I can't disclose anything about the nature of our conversation nor the reason they were present in the hospital, however, it was amazing to me to see this individual and their innocence in coloring the picture. They truly thought they were doing a work of art. In my head, I was thinking "Uh...you realize that you are supposed to stay in the lines?" and "It really doesn't matter what color the damn flower is so just pick a color!!" But I know that in my busy schedule I often don't take time to appreciate all the little things in my life.

I do take a lot of things in my life for granted and that it is so very easy to get caught up in my selfish ways. As I take a step back and take a look at my life I realize that I have a huge ego and most often live life for me. Maybe if I take a little time to slow down and really look at things I can appreciate the little things better. It does matter what color that flower is and maybe going outside the lines isn't the disaster we always make it out to be. The pride that began to beam from this patient's face when I complimented their coloring radiated throughout the room. I saw a completely innocent side to someone who had committed crimes that landed them in the very position that they were in. I do think that we have a little childish innocence in us, and no matter where our lives lead us, whether by choice or not, we shouldn't loose it.

I'll still be dancing...

As I watch the number increase as the bookstore clerk continues to ring up the necessary texts for this semesters classes, I wonder if the Mental Health class I am enrolled in will reveal the necessary mental health needed to maintain my current course towards obtaining a nursing degree. It definitely isn't motivating to know will be paying over $500 for books this semester. However, as the syllabus' stack up and the increasing obligation of school work rises, I attempt to see the good things in my life. It's not easy to be in a grateful mood as the bookstore clerk swiped my credit card, however upon signing the receipt I didn't hesitate to put the bookstore pen in my purse. I just gave them this months rent, I think they can afford to loose a pen. How's that for being grateful?

This weekend I will be in San Diego. I can hardly contain my excitement and stay focused on the required chapter readings this week, and am even less concentrated while serving drinks at work. It seems that although I do know there is a long road ahead of me for the time being in several aspects, I do see the light at the end of the tunnel. My only hope is that that light is not an oncoming train to turn my world upside down again. Regardless, the sun is shining.

These last few weeks were a whirlwind of several emotions. Hell, stress, obliviously happy, comforted, hopelessness, and motivated are just a few to name. Exhaustion took it's toll for a while, in which I developed a pretty bad cold and stayed home from classes for two days this week (skipping class and it's only the second week of school). Now feeling refreshed and ready to conquer most of the world, I come to realize that trials really do last only for a moment or so.

It's our trials in life that make us who we are. As always, a quote that I try to keep on the forefront of my mind when I come across trails is, "A strand of spider's web is as strong as the mightiest cable if there is no wind." At least it is something similar to that. An even better one, "A kite flies against the wind, not with it." Therefore, in our adversities, we are molded. We are tested. We are refined. It is in our darkest hour that we are pushed the hardest and driven to the very edge of sanity, and if we survive we are all the better for it. We can look back in hindsight and say, "look at what I have achieved." I will not lie though, it is much easier said than done while in the moment of adversity and while in that moment, if you're anything like me, you don't want to hear that your trial will be for but a moment.

I wrote a poem a while back about the trials in life. I wrote it with the vision of a young person dancing in the rain when everything else around her was crashing down. Her life, her school, her job, her friends, her family, none of it mattered as this particular moment. The only thing that mattered to her was dancing. She was happy because she was dancing regardless of the rest. I often think of it through my hard times. I just remember to dance through it all. I hope you enjoy.

I'll still be dancing when the sun goes down,

I'll still be dancing when all my friends are gone,

I'll be dancing the day it rains,

I'll be dancing when life's all wrong.

I'll still be dancing the day my heart breaks,

I'll still be dancing when my lonely tears fall,

I'll be dancing although betrayed,

I'll be dancing through it all.

As I must get back to my books now, and prepare for my short vacation to San Diego, California I will keep that image of the girl dancing in middle of the street in a thunderstorm when nothing else in her life matters. I am sure I will write another blog and include pictures of San Diego when I return, until then, dance.