MAKING HISTORY: Life is a journey.

Image of GOD

2007-01-27T15:51:00.000-06:00

Hi ALL:

I read a post posted by ermz on Images of God.

She challenged all of us to find an image of God. SO I am challenging you.

Here is mine:

It is our choice whether we let God into our live. We must open that door...

Take the challenge and post it on her blog...

shadows

2007-01-16T23:45:00.000-06:00

with no identity

University ...or so they call it....

2006-12-03T17:14:00.000-06:00

Is it really a problem to have a university education?

Apparently so, apparently those who have a university education are a bunch of “dummies”. They are a waste of breath. They don’t belong here!

I can’t handle this. Doesn’t matter how much I try nothing works – they say, “don’t bring that university bullshit over here”. I can’t wait to get out!!! Run!! Just escape from this hellhole and never look back.

I HATE THEM. ALL OF THEM!!!

this journey...

2006-12-02T16:08:00.000-06:00

this journey is all but smooth.

Things are well but how can one "honour thy father and mother" when they don't and won't respect you.

Everything that you do is a shame. Who you are should be denied -- you are NOTHING!

How can this be? Do we all not have freedom to be who we are?! Do we not live in a place where there is freedom, freedom to do what we wish??

CITB

2006-10-18T23:48:00.000-05:00

I CAN'T wait!!!

NUMBNESS

2006-10-16T20:04:00.000-05:00

I feel as though I am wallowing in self-pity as I travel down this road of ......I'm not sure what this road really is.

I feel the numbness.

I am paralyzed by emotion and yet I feel NOTHING!!!

I am exhausted with the bullies, exhausted with life

...feel the life draining out of me..............

have i built a shield to my heart?

2006-09-30T23:40:00.000-05:00

As a child, my life was filled with pain. I don’t mean pain from a physical illness, but emotional and physical pain caused from circumstances in my life that were out of my control. I think. It is hard to descirbe and not much has changed -- except that I am a grown adult.

I was a child of my parents and some how I knew that I was not really wanted. I wasn't a boy like they had wished. My father was an alcoholic. He was and is abusive , making our home life a complete disaster. My mother was depressed and took it out on us. My life was filled with lies upon lies.

Some of my earliest memories consisted of terror that I felt each night and how much I hated home. I wanted to stay away as much as possible -- but nothing worked. I was expected home every night and I better not be late....or else....

The cycle would start ..............and promises that would never come to pass. If you were to meet my father, you would not believe that all this was true. When sober, he was very kind and gentle. He was a good provider and would never miss work. My mother a sweatheart. A commpassionate woman full of spirit and joy.

Many nights, I wasn't sure if I would wake to see the next morning. Would the calm come and would the sun rise....I was never sure. There were many times that I would run outside for safety and hide, hoping that no one would find me, often without shoes on my feet. When I finally got my liscense I would take the car and drive. I would drive until I could sneak back into the house. As a child, I thought the neighbours were not aware of what was going on. I still do. There were many cold winters -- winters that I would sleep in my car so not to return home. I hated it there. I often wonder what it would be like to have a normal life like other families. I dream of a life where things could be as they should be without so many lies and tears and bruises. I just want a normal life. A life where I don't have to put on a fake smile and just be myself.

Today, my family continues as it did many years ago. Nothing has changed. They continue to mock me for who I am and who I have become. They still beat me when I am unable to sneak away.

When you’ve had a hard life, you have all this pain inside and people just don’t understand if they never lived through the experience. It's just hard to do anything right. Hard to share. I thought being anonymous would be easy but it has proven to be very difficult. And I wonder why? Why do I allow myself to be subjected to this pain...hurt? Why can't I just get away?

There is a temptation...to run away. Run. Run from everything. Life would be easier. What can I do? Go away and start a new life -- somewhere where no one knows me. Somewhere where I can hide.

I'm surrounded by so many people but yet I am alone. No one gets it. I'm strong yet I am not. Why do so many people say one thing and do another? Why do they pretend they care and don't? Why go through the motions of life when no one cares? Why act a way to one person and different to another? Why can't people be themselves? I know -- because we all have secrets, we hide in shame.

I can't get through this on my own, but I can't trust anyone. I want to escape from this torment. Curl up into a tight ball and never wake up. Escape.

wondering the halls of loneliness

2006-09-26T22:27:00.000-05:00

No connection, not even with those who live with me. Lost. I am wondering the halls of loneliness. People smiling, people waving and yet I still feel so alone.

You would think that after walking the halls day-in and day-out one wouldn't feel so lonely. It's just the opposite -- the more people I meet the more alone I feel. Why don't I connect?!

I do have friends, I think.

I often wonder if I do...

3% of People don't feel LOVED

2006-09-24T21:01:00.000-05:00

I am one of them.

Thank you for the prayers.

2006-08-17T23:56:00.000-05:00

Dear friends,

Thank you for your prayers. I am humbled beyond imagination by the outpouring of love and support. Thank you.

I found much comfort in reading the comments and in knowing that your faith-filled, heart-felt prayers are piercing the heart of God.

God is stirring in my soul and I will hopefully be able to reflect and write about this part of my journey soon.

I ask that you continue to pray for me as you feel led.

Many blessings,

Making History - since life is a story

Please Pray For ME

2006-08-08T01:03:00.000-05:00

Dear Friends,

If you are one who prays, I ask that you pray for me.

I am facing one of the most difficult challenges of my life and I need your prayers.

My heart is too heavy and my spirit too weak to go into details now; just know that I covet your prayers. I don't know what else to do but pray.

Nothingness

2006-08-03T21:27:00.000-05:00

I have no idea how I feel.

I can't explain my emotions

I can't explain myself...I have nothing to say because I'm feeling everything

I don't feel sad but just confused

I can't use words because I've lost my language

I've lost my center, I've lost everything that I once believed was my core of self

Now its just me and confusion and...no answers, and really no questions no thoughts, no nothing

Again I find myself at the place of nothingness

I want a hug...

2006-07-25T17:16:00.000-05:00

....a nice good old fashioned hug.

I want someone to walk up to me and say "hey _______", you're looking a little down today. how about a hug?" after which i will hang my head a little and embrace the other person in a friendly hug.

I need a hug.

A hug would be nice it would make me feel better.

No one will offer me a hug though :( no one notices my bad moods unless they piss me off.
but i'm not upset with people right now. just sad. not really sad. just, i dunno, down.

I want a hug, that's it-- that's the only problem -- I just want a damn hug. I haven't had one in awhile. I can't even remember the last time I had a hug. No one ever hugs me.

I'm gonna stop ranting now

she sits alone

2006-07-25T14:31:00.001-05:00

She sits alone and fades away
She tries to hold her head up high
Just a mask to hide the tears behind
She buries the hurt deep inside

She continues to stay unnoticed
Acts like she’s glad to be alive
So no one can say she didn’t try
She buries the loneliness deep inside

She cries alone into her pillow
Until her heart is empty
And slowly the world goes by
She buries the tears deep inside

She smiles like she’s a movie star
No one knows that’s just for show
Keeping herself to herself
She buries herself deep inside

She says she doesn’t need anyone
Tells people that she’s always fine
Time after time
She buries the lies deep inside

She sits alone and fades away
She tries to hold her head up high
Just a mask to hide her tears behind
She buries the hurt deep inside

This isn't RIGHT!!!!!!!!!

2006-07-21T19:30:00.000-05:00

This isn’t right.

I am obviously going through an incredible low right now. It’s pathetic. Why?

For instance, today I ate an entire bag of cheetohs in my car in the parking lot of the store where I bought them. There I was, sitting there covered in cheetoh dust and it occured to me that this just wasn't right.

I’m a compulsive eater! But why do I eat? What is really bothering me?

HELP!!!!!!!!!!!

Trust, anyone?

2006-07-17T10:28:00.000-05:00

I don't like that I can't trust anyone anymore. I also hate that I am afraid all the time. It's driving me nuts. I never really trusted anyone but the few that I do confide I would hope be respectful of me as I have been of them and keep things in confidence. You think that's what happens right? Nope!

I'm not going to rehash all the people that broke my confidence, however I am frustrated that one person has the ability to make you not trust anyone. I hate that one person or a small group of individuals have the control to shatter everything you've done for yourself. I can not take what this is doing to me. I'm normally a very private person, I guess thats why I started this blog, too much for me to keep in and perhaps it was also the fact that everyone tells me that I should express myself.

What I don't get is how the hell do you actually know if someone will ever be so low to betray your confidance?

2006-07-13T23:19:00.000-05:00

Dear whoever is out reading,

Todays thoughts are very harsh but I need to get them off my chest and just share them...
I have been ashamed to admit it for years and today I have decided to actually write it down. I was raped! Over the years I learned quikly to hide or not show my emotions, and wore a mask to hide my emotions. Now that I am getting older I realized that I do not feel or experience any emotions.

I've dealt with it the best I know how. However I don’t think I have dealt with it properly for it appears to continually creap up. I have prayed about it and it seems to come calling every so often. For a long time I did not think that it had any effect on my life, but I am beginning to see just how much it has changed me and what effects it has had.

My ongoing road to recovery hasn't been an easy one and its definately an absorbing road. Especially when one travels alone. It has definately been challenging. An enourmous amount of feelings have come and gone and occasionally creep up. From: low self-esteem, emptiness, chronic depression and anxiety, flashbacks and body memories. Although these feeling are present I have found a way to live my life anyway.

I am more hopeful, joyful and future oriented.

One thing is forsure is that you can choose your pain to work for you in wonderful ways. You can let it consume you and drag you into a downward spiral or you can choose to use your pain as positive energy to make changes in your life (sometimes hard changes - I had to work my way through school but I am determineded not to have them take anything else away from me).

This is what I have learned along this road: basically there is hope and if you had enough strength to survive the initial incident then you definitely have enough strength to deal with it(even at times when it feels like you don't). I keep reminding myself of this. But let me make one suggestion to those who perhaps are reading this and are going through this themselves. Go and talk to someone. Perhaps writing this will give me the strength to also follow my very own suggestion.

One thing that is forsure is that one should never be compared with someone else's experiences and pain. We are unique people and we feel an react to our environment in a unique way.

But...

I still have an emptiness inside that will not go away.

I feel like I'm keeping this big secret. I'm afraid if I tell anyone that they might look at me differently. If anyone has any advice for me I need it.

2006-07-10T22:45:00.000-05:00

So am I just a blur in the mind or am I for real. Do we really exist in this world or do we walk alone. What is are purpose and why is it that. How do we really know when to stop and what should we stop for. How do we know? To be here is to be now, forget about time it has no importance. Time is societies way of control and the now has no time so why do we live by it surrender are lives to it? When is now, and now had been then and will be tomorrow but it is now, now. What ever happened to that?

A Little Thinking Music

2006-07-10T17:06:00.000-05:00

"Words are the pen of the heart, but music is the pen of the soul" said Shneur Zalman. "Ain't it funny how a melody brings back memories/takes you to another place and time/completely changes your state of mind" croons the old country ballad. "Give me the beat boys and free my soul, I wanna get lost in your rock and roll and drift away" says the classic blues song. We are a species obsessed with these compositions of sound and rhythm. We call it the universal language and provide it the role of conveying our emotions without the restrictions of a linguistic system, we say that it has the ability to trigger memories and change moods. Why do our brains react so powerfully to music? How do we process it and what purpose does it serve?

Music is one thing that stimulates and utilizes most parts of the brain.

Although everyone has differing experiences of this form of expression, music is commonly identified as the 'universal language'. Perhaps, the common enjoyment and understanding of music lies in the fact that we are all born with an ability to "process music". Why is this so? What purpose does it serve humans as biological systems to be able to listen to and enjoy music? I think that in the beginnings, in most early civilizations, music and musical instruments were a form of communication. We sing, because, like other animals, we need to relate our perceptions of the world to one another. But we also listen to music for the pure aesthetic of it. It has recently been discovered that even the Neanderthals had flutes that were used to play melodies for entertainment. There is something about the beauty of music that appeals to our brains. It probably has something to do with the fact that listening to music involves relatively effortless enjoyment. When reading a book, one has to concentrate on the subject, the formation of the words, the plot, etc. But one does not necessarily have to do anything while listening to music. The stimulation that these patterns of sound generate in our brains in turn produce images, memories, and thoughts without us having to make a conscious effort. It could be argued that the I-function box experiences music vicariously through the other parts of the brain.

For a long time now music has been thought to be good for people. The Mozart Effect Experiment, though not proof positive of anything, did suggest that children who study music or play musical instruments, enhance their math and language skills. Exercise makes things stronger, so it makes sense that studying music, which exercises the language and cognition centers of the brain, would enhance their performance abilities. An interesting aspect of music, however, which has only recently been explored scientifically, is its healing capabilities. Melodic Intonation Therapy is being used on stroke victims to help them recover from language aphasia. Therapists have their patients sing what they wish to say in very particular tones or pitches. The right brain stimulates impulses in the damaged left brain and in doing so helps it to regain its abilities. Patients' improvements are better and faster with this type of therapy than with ordinary language and speech therapy. Music is used to soothe babies in intensive care units, ease the pain of patients who have experienced to severe trauma, jostle the memories of Alzheimer's sufferers, and prepare athletes mentally and physically for games. Although more research needs to be done to discover the details of why musical therapy is so effective, it is clear that we respond psychosomatically to these strangely powerful noises.
It would seem that there is something inherent in our brains which makes music an essential for survival. It isn't so much that we would die if we never heard a single note, or hummed a tune, or played a melody, but that our experiences of everything else would be slower, less vivid, not remembered as well. Music thoroughly exercises and stimulates the brain, and in doing so, makes it stronger, more capable, and more in-tune with the world inside and outside it. So, in agreement with the ABBA song, that I danced to as a kid,

I say thank you for the music, the songs I'm singing.
Thanks for all the joy they're bringing.
Who could live without it? I ask in honesty, what would life be?
Without a song or a dance what are we?
So I say thank you for the music for giving it to me.

Doctors? Prescription drugs? Shock therapy? Who needs 'em? We have music! Music has always successfully healed where all else has failed to heal. A daily wash of beloved music is as cleansing as a long hot bath. Combine the two and we really have some magic. We intuitively reach for music to heal us. It’s such a natural choice we don’t give it its proper due.

At different times in our lives we dance to the beat of different drums. Whatever will most harmoniously heal our souls at the time is what we gravitate toward. Our music will reflect not only our state of mind but our dreams. Consider your teenage years (or perhaps you are still there) and the intense blastings of chaos that ruled the day then. Compare it to whatever lovely stuff fills your personal airwaves now.

Music touches our hearts, heals our souls and nurtures our creativity. In my own life it’s been a form of grace like no other.

What does music do to you?

2006-07-08T14:41:00.000-05:00

Sometimes I feel so alone. I sit in my room and stare at the walls because there isn't anything else. And there isn't anyone to talk to.

So I just sit in my room and stare at the walls. And I think about all the other people in the world. Four billion people and no two of them alike. And I'm sitting in my room all by myself, because not one of them....is here.

At the most unexpected moments it slips people its dark poison. One scarcely notices the initial sting. Slowly, insidiously, the poison spreads until the victim find themselves cut off from life by a gray veil. What is it? Depression.

It is darkness laid upon the mind. Life and light seem beyond reach. Something intervenes: a gray mist of separation, the inability to feel loved and needed, a feeling of being locked away from everything and everyone -- including God.

Sometimes I yell: "My God, why hast thou forsaken me?"

Than I think....can I really blame you?

So many of us will worry over even a sore throat and seek condolences from others, but we are strangely reluctant to admit to mental affliction. Why? Have we done wrong?

Now, let me clear one thing up ... I DO NOT feel suicidal! It appears that suicide is the first thing people think of when one is depressed.

Sometimes I feel so alone, that no one understands. Thats all.

I have great friends and an incredible family but still feel a bit disconnected. I'm single and still haven't found that special someone. It just seems so hard now and I get frightened even more because I keep getting older. I have dreams of having a family but these dreams seem so far away. So far that they are out of reach.

I just needed to get a lot off my chest. It's been building up inside and sometimes I feel that I have no one to tell this to.

Sometimes I feel so alone. I sit in my room and stare at the walls because there isn't anything else. And there isn't anyone to talk to. Because I'm all by myself.

The purpose of this blog...

2006-07-07T02:10:00.000-05:00

"Blessed is the man who trusts in the Lord, and whose hope is in the Lord." Jeremiah 17:7

As we all eventually discover, the twists and turns of the roads of life can sometimes take us by surprise; leading us to situations and places we never dreamed of experiencing. I must admit, that when the first words were put on this page , I was not and am not at a place in my life where I thought or hoped I'd be. As a result I have taken this keyboard and started a blog as an online-journal in hopes of seeking guidance, assistance, aid, words of wisdom, or perhaps, just refuge from the everyday.

Due to some recent events and news in my life, I have been doing a lot of thinking about the past several years of my life. As I am sure many of you do. Do you realize how busy you are and how many changes you have experienced? It's good to do...though it is not always easy. As you may uncover some truths, hurts and discomforts. Perhaps it will shed some light to the dark moments in your life where you were unsure, uncomfortable , confused or even frustrated. You may even laugh like you never did before; or even cry those tears that never did have a chance to be released. A release of those feelings harbored deep inside.

Maybe its just clarity that I seek.

What does one do to cope when they seem to have lost their way? Some people turn to unhealthy habits and unconventional remedies, but for me, I am trying my typing skills and attempting to "let it all out" - to express myself.

Having purchased multiple items in hopes of expressing myself ...I have had no such luck. As a result I am here, sitting infront of this computer screen trusting, perhaps more like believing that you, my readers, will provide me with some words of strength to get off this path of sheer confusion.

My hopes are that this on-line journal will be therapeutic --spending time expressing myself through this artistic creation, and I expect that through it, I will be able to touch the lives of others all around campus, city or even perhaps the world, just like many have done for me.