Fear is a Photograph

Fear.

F. E. A. R.

Face Everything And Rise.

Forget Everything and Run.

A lot of my life has revolved around those four simple letters. From an early age, fear and I were well acquainted. I have had nightmares and night terrors throughout my life (still do from time to time), and I constantly struggle with a fear of failure, a fear of change. I could write a book (haha! Shameless plug to read my book Nemesis: The Diary of Jared Donovan. It's on Amazon).

This is not to say I have allowed those four letters to control me completely; I am lucky enough to have had parents who could both comfort me on the bad moments and empower me to find ways to take control of my fears. I am married to an incredibly strong woman who can quiet my proverbial hurricane as needed and creates a stable, solid foundation to build my life around. My siblings are phenomenal, I have great friends, and I am stubborn enough to fight my way through most hardships. Along my journey, I have found the best weapon I have against fear is what I do to overcome them. Exercise, writing, music...whatever it takes.

And yet, the last year has been imbued with a frightening new pulse of fear. Fear of the unknown, fear of failure, fear of a lack of control...oh yeah, and that whole Corona Virus thing...we'll get to that.

I lost a job I considered a life calling last summer, due to the massage school closing. A place I had carved out a niche for over ten years, gone in a matter of weeks. I spiraled into a dark place, as dark as I can remember since high school (story for another day). It continued day to day, month to month, seemingly hollowing out my very soul. I have had no idea what to do with this next chapter of my life, and I am still figuring it out. But the fear of life without teaching has been dissipating. Slowly, but it is dissipating.

Later last year, I was given the most potent dose of fear yet. My 18 month (now 2 years) old son had a seizure in the middle of the night. At 4:30 A.M, I awoke to an odd sound coming through our baby monitor. My stomach dropped, and my wife and I closed the distance to our children's room in record time. After a few moments, we took him to the emergency room.

He came to on the way to the hospital, and eventually fully came out of it. After an exhausting and agonizing few hours, we were discharged with a new pathological term, and, a new name for fear: Febrile Seizure (basically, a seizure caused by a spike in a fever). Febrile seizures are somewhat common, and the seizure itself isn't overly worrisome unless it's longer than 10 minutes (his was about 6 minutes of hell). Up until about the age of 5, we will have to watch him closely if he gets a fever.

The reason I mention this experience is simply for context. My son is doing well.

Since that night, I have been working on this post. Up until recently, I haven't had the ability to properly frame it. This is my best shot.

Even though it's been almost 6 months, I can still remember how he looked, how he smelled, which pajamas he was wearing...I remember the exact sounds he was making. I have never been so scared in my entire life. I can't remember what I had for breakfast today or where I leave my damn phone on the daily, but I can tell you every detail about that night.

Fear is a photograph. Some of the edges blur in time, but the subject matter is captured eternally. I can remember the panic. I can remember the pain on my wife's face as she tried to be strong in those moments. I remember my stomach tying in knots as the doctors checked on my little boy. I remember the 3 times I almost vomited from the suffocating feeling of waiting for his temperature to drop. I remember how scared I was to go to sleep that night, afraid he'd have another one.

Fear is a photograph. Every time I think about that night, it's like looking at a Polaroid. It is a visceral, sobering feeling. But that fear I felt frames the reality of what happened that night. It is the fear that makes me check on my son and daughter as they sleep, to check the temperature anytime I think they might feel warm, to focus on keeping them well.

Over time, I check the monitor less, worry less...but the memory of that night will forever be frozen in time in my memory.

Fear is a photograph. Don't believe me? Have you been to Walmart or Costco lately? How many of you have seen pictures of empty shelves on social media? How many of us drove out to our local stores only to find things we didn't think would be hard to find (i.e. toilet paper, hand sanitizer).

 Anyone wake up to an earthquake and panic-call or text pretty much everyone you know? Check up on the food storage you have/wish you had?

I am not one to judge what people do when they are afraid. Like I said, I do some fairly obsessive things too. The fight-or-flight kicks in, and people go full Walking Dead mode. It turns into survival. People get primal when that adrenaline kicks in. I get it. I wish there was more TP around, but I get it.

The point is, all of us are afraid. Whether you think this is the end of the world, Mother Nature unleashing her wrath, or simply just a trainwreck of a year so far, fear is floating around like a thundercloud and man, it is pouring right now.

A quarantine/social distance is not great for anyone in the bodywork or service field, let alone for us small business owners. Numerous dear friends have lost their jobs at spas, clinics, and offices across the state. The fear of the unknown is absolutely suffocating for so many of us. Flattening the curve is terrifying when you know that if you don't work, you don't get paid. And yet, to slow down the spread of the virus, it is necessary.

Today, my wife and I made an incredibly painful decision to close up and not see clients for a few weeks (hopefully) to do our part. We are doing it to protect our family, our friends, our clients, and hopefully, to resolve this virus business as soon as possible. We will be ok, but it was one of the hardest things I've ever done.

I am not arrogant enough to think that I am immune to the virus or that I am young and strong enough to survive it; it's not about me. It's about me being the common denominator between the virus and everything I have built my life around. It's about the people I care about. It's about my photograph.

Look closer at your own personal photograph. What do you see? I see my family. I see my clients. I see my future, my kids' future. I see my parents. I see my nieces and nephews. I see my friends.

The things we focus on in our respective photographs are the most important things in the world. I am guilty at times of losing that perspective, of focusing too much on work or other trivial things. Of rolling my eyes when my daughter wants to show me her 13,000th drawing of a cheetah on a given day. Or preferring to turn on the tv or scroll social media rather than cherish the little things.

Fear makes us see what life would be like without what's in that photograph.

When all of this is over, we will all have a choice. We can go back to where we were before COVID-19, or we can see things a little more sharply, a little more clearly. Our grandkids will ask us about it with interest, like some of us did about the Great Depression, Woodstock, Pearl Harbor, or even 9/11.

One day, we will have to field the hard questions, and I intend to answer that I did everything I could to help. Shutting down for this time period is terrifying. I have more trepidation about it than I can convey here with mere words, but I intend to be able to look back at my photograph, fuzzier than it once was, and be able to give as much detail as I can about the reality of these scary times and what I did to contribute.   

In closing, even though we all hold our photographs close and will do anything to protect them, we all must realize that the fear will pass. But I guarantee we will all remember it. When the fear is gone, it's up to us what the lasting effect is. This fear is not going to last forever, but the lessons we learn from it very well could. 

In the meantime, embrace what you see in your personal polaroid. Call your loved ones. Hold your kids close. Cherish the little things. Share your toilet paper (if you have it to spare). Take care of the people in your lives in need. Be human. Do what you can. 

Be good to each other. See you on the other side of the quarantine.

sb

Purgatory

I didn't think it'd be easy. I didn't think it would be this hard. In my head, I guess I just thought it would feel like every other transitional period I've gone through. But it doesn't.

Sometimes, just for a minute, I find peace. Then, reality and doubt collide, and I'm left to pick up the pieces and try to hold it together, swimming through this limbo summer the best I can. I feel like a part of me, the strongest part, is missing. Just, gone. Feel free to reference a Thanos snap if you want.

It's been almost 4 months since I found out I was losing my teaching job. A lot of things have happened, including witnessing some incredible people overcoming an impossible situation. I was able to do my part, to finish my own story in those halls and classrooms. It was an amazing sacrifice, an unrivaled experience, and it's over. I no longer am an instructor at my alma mater.

And it hurts.

Truth be told, a lot of things are better since the end of that chapter. I get to see my kids every day, get to tuck them in bed almost every night, and I get to choose when I work. I have more time for my clients, and I have been filling my time with as many clients as I can. I get to watch my daughter play her soccer games (which is hysterical), go on walks with my family, go to pretty much any concert I want to without conflict, and am dangerously close to having a routine.

Sounds pretty great, right? For the most part, it is pretty awesome. My kids love it, my wife loves it, and I...well, love most of it.

And yet, this gaping hole in my heart seems to drain, or at least siphon the joy that I feel. I'm not one to feel satisfied normally, so it's not a surprise that I don't feel content. But I do feel like I should be feeling some sense of peace, some sense of belonging with what I'm doing. My passion seems to be ebbing out, dulling the joy that I always thought I would feel doing all of these things.

This is all starting to sound like a setup for a Dashboard Confessional record.

Let me clarify.

I don't want to go back to working weird hours, being away from my family, having no time for anything else. What I am really trying to get around to saying is that I miss the strength I got from those things. When I was in the classroom, I knew exactly what needed to be done, what I wanted to do, what I needed to do, and I could look in the mirror and know who I was. I gained a lot of strength knowing my mission, knowing that I could complete it, and knowing that I could repeat it.

And now, a big part of that strength has been removed. The mission, the purpose; it feels different. It feels like everything I am doing is for survival, and not for the bigger picture.

It's like I am reading the Lord of the Rings, but starting with Return of the King instead of Fellowship of the Ring. The gist is there, and you kind of get what's going on, but trying to fill in the holes is difficult and tenuous at best. I know what I should feel, what I should see, but it's hard to make sense of it. I'm also no Frodo.

When I'm not working on a client or spending time with my family, it's in the quiet moments that the emptiness creeps in. Driving home from work. Quietly laying in bed. Even on a family camping trip, the free time became my own prison, my own personal purgatory. In large part, I find myself horribly distracted by this chasm I keep falling in to. This distraction creates a HUGE wave of apathy or papercuts of sorrow.

It's these in-betweens that are killing me. It's in the in-betweens I see my school family all moving on and excelling in new ways in new places (I am so proud of all of you), and yet I am still grieving, still suffering. Trying to decide who I want to be or who I should be in those moments stings with every second that slips by.

I feel like I am caught in a daily loop, going through the same cycle day to day. I am who I am at home; I am who I am at work. But who is in-between? This cycle is like tripping on the same step day after day, or slipping on the same patch of ice over and over again.

The issue here, like I said, isn't truly about teaching. If that was it, I would just find somewhere else to teach.

As I said, it's not about teaching. That's just the proverbial name on the grave. For me, I think, my problem stems from a sense of belonging, from a sense of purpose. Identity.

You know me. Some of you better than others, but still. We all know I'm not exactly an orthodox person. I have spent the majority of my life looking for a place to call my own, a place that I fit, somewhere I belong. The school was the first place that felt like it could be that place.

In a lot of ways, I found myself during my years there. I didn't have to be anything other than me to have a place there. Maybe it was my coworkers, my friends, my students...I don't know. But I belonged there.

So if I truly did find myself there, why would my sense of belonging disappear without it? Wouldn't it become a part of me? That I belong to myself?

From a rational place, this would be the part where I say that I belong where I am: as a father, as a husband, as a bodyworker. And I do. I love being a dad, and I love the work that I do. But outside of those occupied moments, the in-betweens take their toll.

I know who I am as a father, as the head of my little family.
I know who I am when I am working on my clients.
I can see the overall composition of what this puzzle creates, but it's like I am missing a single piece.

This is the part where some people start thinking "Wow, mental health much?" To which I say, always, and also, dead wrong.

My mind has its issues, but it's my soul looking for comfort right now. There aren't pills you can take to give you a sense of direction or belonging. There isn't really a way to sit on a couch and talk to someone enough to fill in what feels like anti-matter in your sense of identity.

What I am looking for is still the same thing that I've always looked for; my own place in this world. Not as a father, not as a bodyworker, or a musician, an author, or anything else that I do. It's about who I am as a human being.

I belong to my family.
I belong in my field.
I belong in my passions.
Why don't I feel like I belong to myself?

This all feels very trivial to me. I am irritated with myself as I read over these words because I know how they sound. "What the hell does it matter who you are on your drive home from work? Aren't you the same all the time?"

And that, my friends, is the point. Without that sense of identity in the in-between moments, I don't feel complete in all of the identity-solid ones. These holes reduce the stability of the other moments, preventing the feeling of being whole.

I get it. Everyone goes through times of questioning who they are and who they want to be. I'm not vain enough to think that this hard time makes me different than anyone else. But I don't live anyone else's life. I live mine. And right now, I am trying to live it the best way that I can. My life belongs to me, but I am struggling because I don't feel like I belong to my life.

This summer has been truly difficult. I will find my way through the dark days, as I have done my whole life. I will find my way out of Purgatory and back to the land of the living. I will do what I do best; put my head down and go to work. That's the easy part. I will either find the missing piece or carve a new one. These things take time. But today, I will ask questions that may not have answers.

Thank you so much to everyone who has reached out to me over the last few months, shared their love, or just taken the time to check up on me. I have amazing friends. You all mean the world to me. I am so lucky to have you in my life.


Sb.

Broken Arrow

Warning: This is gonna be a heavy one, folks. This is the way a writer processes...well, everything.

There aren't many things on my mind these days. A lot of the day to day feels trivial and unimportant. As I scroll mindlessly through my social media feeds, most of it just glosses past my inner sight and I can't even remember what it is that I've been reading. As the rains have fallen, it feels as if my soul has gone to a screensaver, a perpetual motion machine that I can't seem to stop watching.

This isn't all that uncommon for me. Bipolar/depression//insomnia make ugly bedfellows, but that is something I have dealt with my whole life. What is different is the feeling that fills in the real moments, the ones when the screensaver is turned off.

As some of you know, I'm losing my teaching career in June. I use the word losing because I am not leaving the school intentionally; it was announced that our company was purchased and that all the western schools would be shutting down. My administrators and coworkers (my 2nd family) will all be losing our livelihoods when summer hits. To boot, some of my beloved students will have their educations left incomplete with few options to finish other than transferring. Our staff and students are doing what we can, but it's a raw deal to say the least for all of us involved.

Processing the thought of not teaching anymore has been devastating. I'm still not there. We are talking about the last twelve years of my life learning, practicing, developing, mastering, and falling in love with what I went to school to do. I have poured my life into those walls, spilling literal drops of my own blood (due to an unfortunate whiteboard mishap), crying more tears over successes and failures, over personal trauma and professional anxieties, and I have left everything I have in those classrooms.

I have seen hundreds of students during my time as a Teaching Assistant and as an Instructor. I have had sleepless nights and restless days. I have met some of the most amazing people, some of which have become my dearest friends.

I have taught consecutive days of 13+ hours and worked an insane schedule. I have learned techniques and modalities that may have been teaching a goldfish to climb a damn tree and still found a way to enjoy it. I have studied my ass off to make sure I knew how to answer the student in the back with the piercing questions that I hadn't thought until the query was posited. I have missed reunions, weddings, funerals, birthdays, bedtimes, and all of the other cliches.

And I have LOVED it. And in two months, it will all be ashes, a memory. In a few years, few will remember what happened in those halls. For someone who cherishes legacy the way that I do, it's a bitter pill to swallow.

I always thought when I left the school, it would be on my terms. It would be because I knew that my work was done, that I was satisfied. I have given

My heart is broken. I don't know how else to put it. I have cried more in the last week than I have in the last decade combined. I have seen the light, the fire in my students eyes extinguish, and I know that they see it in mine. Grief and despair are ripping my soul into pieces, and I feel like I am burying myself alive.

And still it's somehow worse, seeing what it is doing to my second family; the faculty and my students.

This is the part where many say "When one door closes, another opens" and "Maybe this is to set you up for something better." Great sentiments, but they don't float right now. I appreciate the intent. However, the thought that keeps coming back to me is that no opportunity will truly fill the void that will be left. It feels like a book that is ending without the last few chapters.

I get it. There are other schools and other places I can teach or work, and I'm well aware of all of that. I'm a talented dude and I know how to put my head down and grind.

The thing is, I'm not really worried about the financial/employment side of things. I'm not stressed about picking up more clients and filling in the holes with writing/music/continuing education/whatever. That was all part of the eventual plan anyway.

It's hard to truly put into characters how I feel about all of this. I'll say it this way: I am good at a lot of things in my life. There are very few that I can say I am great at. I am a great teacher. I love teaching. But the thing I love the most was that I was teaching the same thing that changed me as a person and changed my life into something I am proud of.

I teach people more than just bodywork. I teach them to embrace their passion, to chase the things that set them on fire, and to never take no for an answer. I teach them to prove everybody wrong who doubts them, and to love what they do and why they do it. I teach them the same things that my mentors taught me, with a little style, sarcasm, and a badass hairstyle that has changed more times over the last 12 years that I've lost count. I try to show them that there is a place in this world for everyone if you are bold enough to fight for it.

So, as these tears run down my face, I leave this promise: I am going to give everything I have left to the next 2 months. I will pour all of my anger, my grief, and my passion for what I do into every class until Judgment Day. I will do my best to make my mentors proud, and to give my students the best of what I can do. To make sure that what I have sacrificed so much for over the last decade meant something.

I'm going to be ok. I know that. But it's like the ultimate breakup. Like a death in the family, even. I will move on to something new and do what I have to do. But tonight, I mourn. The tunnel is dark, but I will find my way out. I don't need a light at the end; my fire will burn bright enough.

I would be remiss to leave this without a little gratitude. Thank you to my family and friends who reached out, for your kind and supportive words. They mean the world, even if you spoke/texted them without a response. I will find my way through; thank you for your support. There isn't much anyone can do, save referring a client or two or coming to get a session or even a word or two of encouragement now and then. Any help is appreciated, but we will find our way through.

My wife Keisha has been incredible. I think she is the only one who knows just how much of myself I give to my work. Thanks to my sweet daughter, who does everything a four year old can (including bringing me her teddy bear and blanket) to remove the sting of her daddy's pain. Thanks to my little boy, who is the sweetest and naughtiest little destroyer I've ever seen, but always brings a smile to my face with those big brown eyes and crooked smile (just like mine).

Thank you to everyone who has touched my life over the last 12 years. Alisha Sabin, Nicolle Buchanan, Char (K) Olenik, Jake Jarman, Devin Mitchell, Katy Spencer, Eric Jemison, Heidi Pepinos, Piikea McVey, Jeannette Green, Ronda Tracy, Kristie Kearl, Tanika and Caleb Larsen, Dexter Nye, Cori Halterman, Jessie Tucker, Heather Johnson, Meggie Moe; every single one of you mean the absolute world to me. It was an honor to learn from and work with you.

Jennifer Jones, Melanie Tomco, Cherie Julander, Taylor Boone, Gio Rodriguez, Julianna Boulter, Catherine Bennett, Amber Jensen, Scott Davis, Taylor Lamont, MaKenna Turner, Nicole Wilkey, Crystal Pehrson,  Mckenzie Robinson, Don Liufau, Andrea Alleman, Clairise Casper, Erin Price, Cassie Webb, Nicole Bell, Emma Raynor, Nana Silva,  Emily Powell, Alysia Byington, and anyone I missed (I am so sorry if I did), I love all of you so much. Thank you for being a part of this incredible journey.

Those names are forever engraved on my soul. I can't even begin to list names of my students and colleagues, but I love all of you so much. Here's to us. I will make you proud, one way or another.

I usually end my graduation speeches with a quote from my favorite book series by Terry Goodkind: "Your life is yours, and yours alone. Rise up and live it."

Now it's my turn.

Dear Mykayla

Dear Mykayla,

For 8 years now, I have waited for you.

I have sold guitars, healed injured muscles, graduated college, climbed mountains, written novels, run races, carried burdens, cried rivers, and overcome obstacle after obstacle, all in hope that you would soon arrive. All of this, to ensure that you would have a safe, secure place to call home and a father you could be proud of.

Your mother has waited her whole life for you.

She has worked tirelessly to build a foundation for you. In her own superhuman way, she has built a system of organization and precision that will allow you to have anything you want, if you are willing to follow her lead. She has chased her dreams, and only one has escaped her.

You.

Your mother and I have ached to see your face, to hold your tiny hands, to hear your sweet little voice. We have longed to hold you close when you are scared, to sing you to sleep when you have bad dreams.

For 9 months now, we have expected you.

From a single cell to the size of a watermelon, we've seen you grow. We've told you stories and played you songs. Our thoughts are always with you and being the best parents that we can be.

Little Love, you are the stars in the sky. Your time is coming soon, and we will love you to the moon and back.

Sleep well, little one. Tomorrow is yours for the taking. Or any day after you choose to make your birthday.

And you must never forget
your daddy will always love you.

Always.

New Years Day

Well kids, we did it...The world did not blow up, there was no zombie apocalypse (honestly I'm a little disappointed. I even got a hatchet for Christmas!), and the end of all things did not fall upon us yet. So be it.

Before I get to what I want to write, I thought I would post an update for the few of you who actually know what The Nemesis Diary is...80,000 words, 50 chapters, and more than 250 pages later, it's still not done. What I can tell you is that it will be shortly. Stay tuned. Those of you who don't know what this is, feel free to bounce over to http://thenemesisdiary.blogspot.com and introduce yourself. No, Jared Donovan is not based on me.

Now that all of that business is out of the way, let's talk about what everyone talks about at this time of year: trivial and well-intentioned goals for the next calendar year. Let's spend more time with family. Let's fall in love! Let's lose weight! Let's be a better friend! Let's write a novel!!! (Easy, Steve...you're getting awfully close to something there...)

Yep, it's going to be one of those kind of posts...

For all the good intentions that we have, most of us tend to pick goals that are very difficult to be accountable for. Is there an imaginary bucket somewhere that every time I'm a 'better friend' I get a quarter? Is there a special Tootsie Roll fairy that leaves me treats when I have spent enough time with my family?

In most cases, I don't think there is a Tootsie Roll fairy (although there should be. I'd be a lot nicer I think). I don't think there is a bucket waiting for me to finish being a good friend. What there is and isn't aren't really what I'm looking for anyway. What I am looking for now is purpose. It doesn't matter what the goals we choose are, only that we pursue them to the best of our ability and be accountable for them.

Si vis pacum, parabellum. Latin, for 'If you wish for peace, prepare for war.' I was watching some movies the other night that inspired me to write this. The first film I watched was The Punisher, which is where I got the Latin. Not a surprising choice, I've watched it a lot over the years. I love superhero movies and I also love revenge stories (again, see The Nemesis Diary). But when I heard that phrase, it resonated for the first time. A call to arms of a sort...The next film I watched was Wanted, which is a great show also. But it ends with something that gave me the chills. It ends with the main character saying: I'm taking back power of my own life...what have you done lately?" Goosebumps, kids.

The reason this seemingly random-placed paragraph is in this post is because it is the filter through which I am viewing 2013. What have I done lately? That's what resolutions are all about!

I've failed miserably at some of my previous resolutions, and I'm sure I'll fail again. What I can tell you is that I will not stop trying. This is my word, this is my promise. The Steve you know is changing, evolving, and will not stop until my resolutions...not resolutions, promises are fulfilled. This is my call to arms, even if I am the only one who hears it.

So choose the favorite resolutions. Be vague, and follow through to the best of your ability. That's what most of us do. .

But...remember that you are accountable to yourself, and the only one who will know whether you kept your resolution is you.

But I'm taking back the power of my own life. No excuses; I intend to succeed. And 365 days from right now, I'm going to ask myself one question: What have you done lately?

Let's Hear It for the End of the World!

Well kids, the world is ending in 2 days. Doomsday is upon us. Does that freak you out?

In case you don't know, I have a mild fascination with the idea of the world ending. Don't freak. Call it a social observation. People all react differently to the idea of it, and everyone seems to know how it's going to happen. Macabre as it sounds, it has always been very interesting to me to see how people think it all unfolds.

One of my favorite movies/series is The Terminator, because technology becoming self-aware is awfully good watching. Resident Evil, Zombieland, and The Walking Dead have all made a lot of money based on a zombie apocalypse. You can't go anywhere without seeing something about frickin' zombies these days.

Think of all of the freaky possibilities we have in front of us. The Mayan calendar that has been crazy accurate abruptly ends at 12/21/12. The I Ching prophecy from ancient China (circa 5,000 years old) has an odd pattern in its sequencing that was mapped out in the late 1980s ends on the same date.

Ever read The Bible? It doesn't point at the date, but I can't even tell you how many people have related the Book of Revelations to modern times to me. I've had people tell me that the Antichrist is everyone from Tom Cruise to Obama to Bono from U2. I even heard somone accuse Miley Cyrus. Hannah. Freakin. Montana. Crazy?

How about how the Oracle at Delphi and The Sybill from Ancient Greece have all related apocalyptic endings to the world with oddly familiar characteristics and time? You'll never guess the date they picked.

Not only that, we have astronomers predicting a polar shift at some point, potentially when the Earth is in perfect alignment with the other planets and the sun that only happens once every 25,800 years. Yep, I watch a lot of the Discovery and History Channels...But these are all real things I've seen on the 21 Days of Armageddon (I've DVR'd the crap out of this month...told you I'm fascinated).

That means if you want a scientific explanation, it's out there. If you want religion, that can be found as well. Go figure that they would finally agree on something then the whole world will end. Awesome.

Don't get me wrong; I don't want the world to end. Quite the opposite, actually. I happen to love my life. I am married to the girl of my dreams and I see my family on a consistent basis. I have a killer job, great friends, 9 guitars (ok that's bragging a little), and I even have a way to vent the inner workings of my brain to anyone who cares (yay blogging!). I am amazed on a daily basis by the things that I see in the world and by the people who live in it. I am captivated by some of the amazing technology we have access to, and the great things people are starting to do with it. I don't want Schwarzenegger to show up at my door asking for John Connor, but still.

The reason for this post is not to instigate panic or convince you one way or another that A) the world is ending or B) it isn't. My point is that time is fleeting, whether it ends in 2 days or not. The things that have happened across the nation over the last year have been mindblowing and horrific. The incident in Connecticut last week and the violence in Colorado over the summer have shaken me to my core. The storm that rocked the east coast is still very fresh in my memory, and Katrina still is easy to recall. A friend of mine had to go through the death of his 17 year old nephew who died tragically last week. I can't believe some of the things I have read in the news. Terrifying, awful, and utterly evil in some cases...But at the same time, it makes me think about the time that I do have and what I am doing with my life.

I personally am not overly concerned about the world blowing up on Friday. The Mayans didn't have a thing called Leap Year, which would put their 12/21/12 about 4 years ago. There have been a bunch of 12/21/12s in between their count and ours...once a century in fact, on December 21, **12 each. That's not my point. My point is we need to live our lives like THE WORLD ACTUALLY IS ending in 2 days. But I feel like we should live that way every day, whether tomorrow is the day the world ends or not. As I sit here, 'If Today Was Your Last Day' by Nickelback just came on shuffle...I'm a little creeped out by that particular wrinkle the universe sent me, but the point is driven regardless.

I am a strong believer in manifest-destiny; that what I put out into the world comes back to me. You can call it Karma if you want, or God bestowing blessings out to us if you want. I have my own beliefs, but so does everyone else. If we try to force the world to end in 2 days, I imagine someone will find something that could end it and interpret something to justify it. That's the way the world seems to go.

I don't know how the world is going to end or when and I don't pretend to. I write this now not to preach, not to bluster and posture for you. I'm not trying to offend anybody nor am I trying to stir up anything with anyone anywhere. I write this now because I think we could all use a moment to take a step back and remember what's really important. This is an opportunity to not take things for granted.

Is the world ending in 2 days? Maybe. But maybe it isn't. And even if it does, at the end of all things, what is important? That's your decision. It isn't too late.

Sb.

Wake-Up Call

One of my favorite quotes is "We must accept change as the rule, but not as our ruler." I love this quote because it reminds us that while we can't control that things change, we are in control of the changes we make. My last post was about seeing things differently, about approaching my own life in a different manner. I have tried to do what I committed to do, and have worked hard to make each day a new one and to start fresh each time I wake.

I recieved a post on facebook from an old friend. She is a successful independent writer/graphic designer/just plain awesome person. She had taken the time to create a cover for my novel The Nemesis Diary that I have posted at http://thenemesisdiary.blogspot.com. She has been following it since I started it a little more than 2 years ago, and consistently encourages me to finish it. First of all, I am completely blown away by that gesture. Thanks a million Keary :) Secondly, I have had more motivation to finish than I have had to do anything in a long while.

The reason I bring this up is because of the time of year we are in. It's no secret: I've been called a Scrooge for a lot of my life. I hate Christmas music (especially Mariah Carey), and I've never liked the claymation movies. More than that, I have always had a hard time with what people call 'the Christmas Spirit.' People use this term as a guise to be a good person for 31 days of the year, which I have always been against. There are 365 days in a year; 31 means very little in the grander stage of things. I hate the idea that people only need to be good to each other for 31 days. Call it what you will.

The reason I mention this is because I was completely rocked by what my friend did for me. She didn't have to make that graphic for me; I didn't even ask her to. It was exactly what I would want, don't get me wrong...but it was done completely out of the goodness of her heart. That is the change that I would like to make in my own life; to be able to do things that completely change the landscape of someone's life or mood and not attribute it to the time of year. I want to be able to make a difference through a gesture or thought, because I choose to.

I challenge you to make that kind of difference in someone's life. Today. Now.

Again, I am grateful for the wake-up call. My words could never express the gratitude I feel for a good friend taking the time to reach out to me. It will not go unnoticed.

 If you haven't read Eden by Keary Taylor, I highly recommend it and any of her projects. I hope to be half the author and person she is someday.


Sb