Stress Pt. 1 (6 Tests, One Day)

Okay, let’s talk about stress. I don’t mind small amounts of stress, in fact, I think that small amounts of stress are good. I would actually rather have minimal amounts of stress than no stress at all, stress keeps me from falling over in life in some ways, but in others it causes me to want to fall over and stay there.

I had six tests today. Six. SIX (please notice the amount of emphasis there.) Let’s go back in time for a moment. Two days ago, October 20th, I began to come down with a cold, I felt dead, literally, and it was the worst cold I have ever gotten in my fourteen years of life. That night knowing that I had a math final and a Spanish exam the next day, went to bed at eight o’ clock, with minimal study hours and my homework unfinished. When I went to bed I began to get a stomach ache. It got so bad to the point that I was physically shaking in bed, teeth chattering, and tears close to shedding. This kind of stomach ache had happened to me once before, we are not ascertain of the cause but it usually lasts twenty-four hours. The next day I typically am unable to walk and it is hard for me to straighten out my abdomen without an abundance of pain. ‘I’m screwed’ I thought to myself while lying in bed probably about five hours later, still wide awake. I got probably around three hours of light sleep that night and my mother didn’t even bother to wake me up at the usual 5:40 AM. That means from 8:00 PM to around 9:00 AM, I spent ten hours miserably in bed out of breath from shaking so hard. The next day, I was on the phone with my dad and he suggested that it might be caused from stress. And he must be right, there’s my little frenemy visiting me once again…

So I stayed home with my favorite reality TV show, Heartland, playing in the background (I was not watching it, I just played it in the background so that I didn’t feel so alone, okay) and studying for all of the tests I would be participating in the next day. First I did some math, then some geography, then back to math to switch it up and keep my ill brain from losing focus. By the time I had finished studying for math, I got a text from a group conversation named “The Hood *insert eggplant emoji here*” which read “I failed the math test” and I immediately started panicking again. Some one who I view as vert good at math is saying that she did extremely badly on the math test which is 100 points in the grade book.

So when my mom gets home I make plans to go to my dad’s house so that I can get extra practice for this apparently really hard math test that everyone I’m talking to is high Cs to low Bs on. I was planning on going to Dimple Dell for a nice trail ride on Cadenza, but little did I know that I was going to have to stay after school to make up a spanish and math exam and won’t even have time for a regular lesson afterwards. Riding is usually my time to unwind and get rid of some stress, but I wasn't even going to be able to have a moment of that. So I’m stressed as all get out is my point, and it’s not healthy. This was pt. 1 of my “stress stories” so stay tuned to that label.

Photo Courtesy to: Free Big Photos

I (Don't) Love You

“I love you,” an abused, but powerful statement. To love something is to have a deep understanding and bond for another. You do not love a friend that you hardly see, you do not love a waffle, you do not love a pair of freaking shoes. Okay?

The word love is supposed to find a point in your emotions and make them somersault, cringe even. My lungs feel as if they had caught fire when I hear it. You should not be able to roll the term off of your tongue as if it’s something you’ve recited thousands of times. “I love you” is to your family when you are leaving the house in the morning. You don’t know if you will ever see them again. Your mom or dad could die in a car crash on the way to work, and the last thing you said to them would either be a phrase you use when passing sort-of-friends in the hall, or something special, something you only use for the people that actually make a daily impact on your life.

When I was five or so my mom used to ask me to give her hugs and kisses or say “I love you” all of the time. And I remember if I had already kissed her once or twice that day, I would say “I’m all out of kisses for today mama.” She would tell me that nobody ever runs out of kisses, hugs, and I love you’s, but recently I realized that I was quite smart for a five year old. Though it’s true that you will never run out of those three things, the meaning in them will dim. Eventually a hug won’t be warm and enlightening, it will just be yet another time that a person wrapped their arms around you, and a kiss will just be considered nothing serious, and “I love you” will just be a threesome of words thrown around to whomever you please.

Don’t say “I love you” to someone that you do not love. “I love you” is a beautiful term, created with intention of a unique essence that you only feel with certain things. In my school, countless people have said “Ashtyn, I love you” to me, people that I barely know, people that I only consider as acquaintances. And what do I do? I freak out, full on flip out. I have anxiety from it, one time I almost started crying. You may think I am insane for that, obviously they were just kidding around. But that’s exactly the point. There are people in my life, that I will not directly name in this blog, that I say “I love you” to, I say it with meaning and whole heartedness, and I don’t get it back sometimes. A person that I have so much respect for, so much affection, so much love for, ran out of “Ashtyn, I love you’s” but some random person in class hasn’t? If you don’t love a person don’t say it. Because otherwise they will find themselves constantly thinking, ‘you said you loved me.’

Photo courtesy: Weddings

The Deer & The Fox

Just because I am vulnerable, doesn’t mean that you aren’t weak in my gaze.
Just because I am hurt, doesn’t mean it is any safer to walk on my grounds.
Just because I am drowning, doesn’t mean you can evade my blaze.
Just because I am broken, doesn’t mean I am untouchable.
   
But don’t expect my trust to come as easy as a walk in the park.
And don’t complain when my edges get too sharp.

Because, I may be the deer and you may be the fox.
But, that doesn’t make me any less dangerous.

Because, I may be wounded from all of your games.
But, that doesn’t mean I can’t cause you the same amount of pain.

Because, I may be the shards of broken glass on the floor,
But, beware because one false step and you’ll be spending a lifetime,
picking out the shrapnels that I left behind.

-The Deer & The Fox, a poem I wrote sometime last year

Feeling Vulnerable,

This is reality. We are a constant cycle from deer to fox, you will never stay in one roll. Sometimes it’s a matter of years before you cycle to the next vulnerability rating, sometimes it’s only a matter of who you are associating with. And for me, it is only from bonds formed without a word spoken, that I am ever the fox.

But neither role is easy. In being the deer, you must learn to accept the role of a follower, the role of being in constant danger and still holding ground. You must learn to dance in a relationship where you are of the lesser. And in the meantime, be okay, be emotionally stable, with all of this. Well do that or have nights where you cry while rocking yourself back and forth. But don’t worry honey, that stage doesn’t last for long. After time, you learn to have tears without crying. After time, you will not be sad, or happy, or angry, you will be emotionless about the hell that you go through. Unless being the deer isn't hell, but we’ll get to that later.

Now you are a fox, you may not even know it. That’s the way most of them are. In the art of being a fox in a community of deer you learn that if you take advantage of your power, you will find yourself with a limited amount of people left in your life. In acting this way the only thing holding on to the left over people is an intangible, emotion driven source that nor you or the deer can touch. But if you are the fox and you take as cautious steps as the deer, maybe, just maybe, you will keep all of the people important in your life. And after time, the deer will still graze from a sunlit meadow and you will keep a stable amount of happiness. But, beware because one false step and you’ll be spending a lifetime, picking out the shrapnels that they left behind.

 

photo credits to A Lovely Lark