Ryan Part 2

 “Never cut a tree down in the wintertime. Never make a negative decision in the low time. Never make your most important decisions when you are in your worst moods. Wait. Be patient. The storm will pass. The spring will come.” ― Robert H. Schuller

In exactly seven days, it will be four months since my beautiful little brother commited suicide.  I can honestly say that this has been the most difficult time of my entire thirty-six years.  The holidays were especially hard.  I could not do Thanksgiving.  I gave it my all for Christmas, but that was only for the sake of the children.  I tried to find joy in the season.  I could not.  Everyone has tried to make sense of the tragedy in their own way, but we never get the answers we seek.  There is no solid reason and it does not make sense why a soul so pure would make a decision to leave all those behind that loved him.  Since I last wrote, I have had an extremely hard time controlling my emotions.  As always, I try to push through because there is so much to do.  I have to take care of the house, the children, work, and finish this doctorate because I am oh so close!  Only this tragedy is different than every other one in my life.  I have not found the strength to push through on my own.  I want to so badly, but some days it is hard to breath, much less accomplish anything else.  I am seeing a therapist and hoping dearly that she can help me find the light out of this very dark hole.  I sit in fear that I am going to lose someone else that I love.  The worry is always at the edge of my mind.  I sit for hours and stare at nothing.  My mind is blank.  I cannot find joy in all of the little things that I have always been so delighted in before now.  
I have had better days lately.  I have gotten out of bed and accomplished some things and for every tiny little thing that I would have taken for granted before, I am very proud of myself.  I have never suffered from depression.  Sure I have had hard times, but I have always had Joe Dirt's attitude of "you just gotta keep on keepin on!"  This is a very real thing that most do not understand unless they have experienced it themselves.  It takes all the energy and drive that I have some days to take a shower, and I am learning that that is okay.  We are always our own worst critics, and no one is harder on herself than I am.  I feel I should have the strength and courage to be so much stronger, just like I always have, but it is just not there. I still scream, cry, and rage.  Some days the pain is so bad that I feel like there is a huge hole in my chest.  Today is one of those days.
I write this blog to purify my soul.  It is very therapeutic and there is something weirdly freeing about sending one's feelings out into the cosmic void.  I only want anyone reading it to know that if they are suffering from depression- fight it every single day.  Some days we win and some days we lose, but we are worth the battle.  KB  

Ryan Part 1

My mind is a disaster.  I cannot sleep.  I have never felt so much pain.  I see him everywhere I look.  I feel him sitting on my porch or lying on the couch watching me.  I know that it is only the shame and fear and guilt that are working their way out of my skin, but I find it very hard to breathe.  I feel like I am dying a slow death of grief on the inside.  I look in the mirror at myself and I see me looking back, only this girl has a vacancy in her eyes that only comes from a huge and gaping hole in her heart. 

I can hardly bear the pain, but then I remember the love.  I remember what it was like for him to hold me in his arms and tell me how much he loved me.  I can still hear his voice saying, “I love you Sis.”  I still remember dancing and singing and celebrating life every day, and I am having such a hard time understanding why that is not possible anymore.  This is insane.  There is no way that my little brother is dead.  There is no way that he really hurt himself so he cannot be with us anymore.  There is no way his soul has departed from mine.  Only it has. 

It hurts so badly because our souls are made of the same thing.  There is so much light and love inside of us, but there are also dark places, demons, and sadness.  We have suffered loss unimaginable to most, and still we try to keep moving every day.  Or we did, but he gave up the fight and I cannot understand why.  We are people of action.  We do the damn thing every single day.  We do not give up.

I am so very angry at him, but then I feel guilty for being angry because stupid anger is what got me into this horrible mess in the first place.  I was angry with him because I thought he was really making stupid decisions, and I was not speaking with him.  I feel like holding my love hostage could be a part of his sorrow that was so great that he did this to himself.  How alone he must have felt to have done this.  I am older.  I am braver and much stronger.  I should have been the bigger person and just gotten over myself, but I was an idiot.  I will pay this price every day for the rest of my life, and that is almost an unbearable thought.  Anger, envy, malice, and jealousy are sinful because they are things that one cannot get back.  I do not have the option to hold my little brother and tell him how much I love him because he is dead, and there is no coming back from that.

I can cry, lay awake, howl at the moon, and be so sad that I feel myself coming apart at a molecular level but none of that will do any good because he will never come back.  I have made yet another mistake with regret in my life.  I thought I had learned this lesson with my birth mother a few years.  I spent my entire life mad at her, and never gave her a chance to apologize.  She died and I was not sad about her demise.  I was terribly sad that I did not give her a chance to explain her side of the story. 

Family is everything and we come in all different shapes and sizes.  Some of my friends I love just as much as my family, if not even more.  But those people that we love and choose to be our family are the most important things in life.  There is never a reason good enough not to love them with everything we have, because we never know if we will get another chance to tell them that we love them or give them a hug.  My crazy thoughts for today…..  KB

Living in a Lonely World

“I write about the power of trying, because I want to be okay with failing. I write about generosity because I battle selfishness. I write about joy because I know sorrow. I write about faith because I almost lost mine, and I know what it is to be broken and in need of redemption. I write about gratitude because I am thankful - for all of it.”― Kristin Armstrong 

I am writing today with a heavy heart.  In three days it will be exactly five months since I have found myself all alone again.  I honestly thought I was prepared to handle life all alone, but I am truly having a difficult time.  This life I planned is designed for two people and I am literally running myself ragged trying to maintain.  Every time I get down, I think about all that I have to be so very thankful for, but I still find myself feeling sad.  I can do this.  I know that I can.  I will go until I cannot go anymore, and at that point I am not sure what will happen.  I will never give up, because my two greatest accomplishments depend on me for love and support, and I will never let them down.

I am extremely hard on everyone, and myself most of all.  This is a character flaw in my opinion.  I have gained wisdom with age and I no longer dismiss other people's feelings as stupid or inadequate, but I still sometimes think that they are.  Of course I have no room to talk, because I carry my own bucket of mistakes and insecurities with me everywhere I go. I do not really understand my feelings of the moment, because I am doing fairly well.  I have a beautiful family and home.  I have to work to make that happen, but I have never been afraid of hard work.  I am maintaining a 4.0 GPA in my Doctoral program, and that is something to be truly proud of.  Dr. Billings is my dream.

I think that I am sad because I am missing the closeness and dependability that a person takes for granted when they are loved every day.  I miss the knowledge of having someone there that I can count on to help me through the day.  I do not like to think I am a person that requires someone to validate my existence, but I like the idea of having someone love me with all their heart.

I know that time helps all things, and I should be patient.  That kind of love exists.  I know because I have felt it before.  It eases the burden on my heavy heart to share it with you and send it out into the cosmic void.  So if you read my blog, pray for me, because I can use all the help I can get.  KB

You are braver than you think......

I have decided to begin working towards my PhD.  I love teaching at the college level.  To further my career at this level, I think a PhD will be beneficial.  I was thinking on my way to work this morning about how very difficult this task is going to be.  I have been thinking of putting it off, because the work load will be tremendous.  I am not certain I want to dedicate myself to that right now.  I recently moved to my dream house, and I have so much to do there.  Next year, both kids will be involved in sports, and shouldn't I wait until they are older?

I've come to the realization that I keep coming up with 800 million reasons why I can't do this right now because I am truly scared.  I am not afraid that I am not smart enough, I know that I am.  I have not forgotten graduate school, and that was really hard!  It was not hard because of what we had to learn, it was hard because the workload was do or die!  If you can survive this, you will get that MBA.  Of course I did.  I have never failed at a single thing I put my mind to completing.  It is a reasonable fear because there are not many people in the world that are successful at this level.  I have had all these things going through my mind, choking my reason and sanity.  Then I thought about this quote a colleague of mine got in his going away card last week (you know how I love quotes!).
Hope is a state of mind, not of the world.  Hope, in this deep and powerful sense, is not the same as joy that things are going well, or willingness to invest in enterprises that are obviously heading for success but rather an ability to work for something because it is good.-Vaclav Havel (1936)

I think about this and it makes me smile.  It is a good and noble thing to teach these students.  It is a great and wonderful thing to help them accomplish their dreams.  I can do this, and I can do this even better once I manage to obtain this PhD.  So, I am going to keep studying and kill this GRE.  I will get this done, because it is important to me and to the future of my family.  There is also a tiny vain part of me in there somewhere that can't wait for you all to call me Dr. Kathy!

Good day to you all, until next time.  Remember to keep hoping, because you are braver than you think.  KB

A Season for Change

“Progress is impossible without change, and those who cannot change their minds cannot change anything.” George Bernard Shaw



Change often requires a great deal of courage.  Courage for change is something I lack.  I think of my everyday existence, and am always amazed at how very much a creature of habit that I am.  I wake up at (about) the same time everyday.  I go directly to my coffee pot & make coffee.  I stand there and stare at the machine, willing it to make the coffee just a little faster.  Of course, it never does!  I make a cup, stirring in my sweet-n-low and creamer, and take my first drink.  That is the most magical moment of my morning.  I kill the first cup quickly, and now I can grudgingly face the day.  I get ready, straighten up around the house a bit, go to work, run errands, pick up kids and go back home.  Every week day is the same, and I really like that they are the same.  As I mentioned, I am a creature of extreme habit.  I am sure that there are many of you out there a lot like that.  We all have our routines that help to manage our cozy lives.
I need to make some changes, and I dread the very thought of it.  I need to get up every morning and exercise.  At almost 35, the cheeseburgers linger on my thighs now.  Nobody likes cheeseburger thighs.  I need to drink less caffeine, eat less junk food and definitely quit smoking cigarettes.  I need to learn to face the morning with a smile, although I doubt very seriously that is ever going to happen, because I am not a morning person.
I love my coffee, cheeseburgers and even my stinky cigarettes!  I don't want to give them up.  I lack the courage of my convictions.  I am a chicken!  
The simple truth behind all of this is that I am not very likely to live to be an old grandmother if I do not kick my unhealthy habits. Like Mr. Bernard says, progress is not possible without change.  
Change is difficult in other circumstances as well.  There is a time and season for everything and everyone also.  There are times when people are relevant to your life, and then they are not anymore.  This may occur for any number of reasons, and it does not necessarily mean that you do not care for them still.  That is just how the world turns!
 Change happens, life goes on and hopefully in there somewhere, we make a little progress.

That is all I have for today.  Did I mention that I hate Mondays??  Have a great week.  KB

Her Broken Halo

So much of everything I think and feel about things in life is a reflection of my Meme.  She taught me everything.  She taught me to read, everything about God and the Bible (in the true Southern Baptist ideals of course) and that it was a good idea to follow the Ten Commandments, simply because they were all good ideas, whether we have proof of God or not.  She taught me to be a good student, to cook and to work hard, because that woman, Lord did she have a list of chores for us all!
She also taught me that no matter how wonderful a person is to us in our minds, we are all humans.  We all sin, suffer, fail and most of us are broken in some way.  It is these things about each other that we should cherish and celebrate. We should not despise or judge others for sinning differently than we do.
She was my savior also.  She took me in when my folks gave me away.  She was an angel to me.  In my coming of age years, I discovered just how really human she was, and I became very angry with her.  I will not discuss all of her mistakes because those are very private situations that need not be shared with the world.  However, to me, they were unforgivable.
I look back on so much of my life at this point and realize so much has been guided by anger.  This anger that has infected my soul for so long has become too much of a burden to carry.  Meme has always said that everything happens for a reason, and for every season there is a change.  (That is my next blog topic.) Dare I say that since my sister died, I can be so much more honest with myself.  I am not sure why this is the case.  Maybe my broken heart let loose all that grief and anger.  I can't explain it, but I am glad.  I feel as though a weight has been lifted, and I am free to love again.  I forgive so much easier, am far less quick to judge anyone (like I have any room to talk anyway) and am just grateful for my life every single day.
I have heard countless times that you pay for your raising.  I find this to be true, now, more than ever.   I was raised to love and be loved.  Thank God my for my angel with a broken halo. 

Liar! Liar! Pants on Fire!

Today I read an article about all of the posts we make on social media, specifically Facebook (FB).  The lady in the article posted three pictures of herself and her family.  They were all happy and smiling together.  She went on to say that while these pictures painted a beautiful picture of her family, they were basically a lie.  The pictures did not show the fight she had gotten into with her husband earlier that day, and the other one did not show that she was deeply sad about the fact that she had been wait-listed by her adoption agency.  She said we need to stop only showing the world the positive aspects of our lives, while leaving out the negative.  I am going to have to strongly disagree.  We are not all liars, we just all do not find it necessary to air our dirty laundry on social media.

Social media is a slippery slope to begin with.  It allows people to monitor our moods, movements, accomplishments and every other aspect of our life that we choose to share.  In my hometown of Covington, TN, our beloved Fire Chief was recently forced to resign for posting his personal opinion on FB.  In my opinion, this was completely ludicrous.  An entire lifetime of work resulted in a negative ending, all due to FB.

So based on this example, I say let's keep it positive people!  If I pull up FB and see that one of my friends is always being Negative Ned or Negative Nancy, they will quickly become unfriended.  Sure, all aspects of life have negative sides.  Good and bad things happen every single day to everyone.  I think you should keep all that negative crap to yourself, because I certainly do not want to hear it.  Like my Meme always used to say, "If you don't have anything nice to say, don't say anything at all."