My Life is Anything But Perfect

For some reason I am unable to fathom how some people seem to think that I live a perfect life that has nothing to complain about. Now I will admit that I complain more than I should, and I’m working on it, and I’m not advocating for you to think life is terrible, but I’m also asking you to not think anybody’s life is perfect. The truth is, everyone is fighting a battle you know nothing about. So be kind, always. So I am going to talk about a few, not all, of my battles.

The first thing I’m going to talk about is depression. The fact that I struggle daily with depression is inevitable. I can hide it from people’s eyes but I can not evade the fact that it's true. There are many different events going on that factor into this so I’ll talk about a few key ones. A large contributing factor is that I lost a lot of key people in my life all at once. It was unbearably hard on me and I wanted the pain to end. Sometimes I felt I would have done anything to make it end. I wrote in my journal once “I’m so fucking tired. So fucking tired of this. I want it to end.” I have decided to not go too far into the next reason but I will mention it, because it was significant. I don’t have a stellar relationship with my mother. We do not always get along, and it is tiring to live with someone you are always fighting with. But even more so, it’s tiring to have such a strong love for a person you are constantly fighting with. In another journal entry I wrote “She is never happy with me, at least not for long. I am so tired. I want to stop being tired. I want to stop pretending I’m happy. I want to stop trying. I want to it to stop. I want it to stop. I want it to end.” I want you to know that I have thought of self inflicted harm but I have never come close to attempting.

Secondly, stress has driven me to insanity and keeps on adding the miles on. Mainly stress causes me migraines. Migraines have taken over my life. The best way to explain what they've done to my memory is making an analogy. Let’s say my life is a glass window in the back seat of a family car right beside the car seat of the youngest child. As children I’m sure you remember swiping your sweaty little fingers tips and palms all over that back window. Your parents would always scold you, for now they need to clean the window from the greasy streaks. But in my case, no one is there to clean the smudges. Sometimes I have flashbacks, usually of insignificant events, but other than that migraines have made grades six through nine a complete fog. Migraines have pulled me up by my roots. Some people say I’m one of the most down-to-earth people they’ve ever met. I find this quite ironic because I have such a down-to-earth disposition, but truly it’s so hard for me to stay grounded. I am in wonderland half the time, just sitting in the back of my head. I have an extremely small attention span now, I have loads of nervous energy and anxiety, and truth be heard, I wouldn’t be surprised if my pediatrician diagnoses me with ADHD. The stress amounts I undergo are to the point that at any given moment you asked me to cry, it would take me anywhere from a minute to a few seconds to burst into tears. I am on the verge of tears perpetually.

When you add these two things together, they make for quite the ordeal to be dealt with for one small fifteen year old girl that already has to think about getting decent grades in school if she wants to have a nice future ahead of her. The coalition of these two tribulations has caused me a variety of other issues such as malnutrition (not due to or related to any eating disorder), depreciation in grades and school work, issues with close friends, and loss of temperament control.

I want to acknowledge the fact that there are people out there with much worse problems than mine but I also believe that you should never degrade your emotions just because someone else out there is dealing with something worse. Point is, don’t assume someone’s life is flawless and remember, everyone is fighting a battle you know nothing about. Be kind, always.

Photo courtesy: Electric Sekki

Who Revolves Around Who?

The Sun, something so vital to our existence, to the way we live out our life. We have been taught about it ever since we were young, the blindingly bright sphere of fire that floated above us in the sky. The main source of energy on this Earth, the reason we are alive. Yet it isn’t grammatically correct to capitalize it. It is said to be spelled “the sun” but I am here to tell you differently.

We are to capitalize the first letter of our names because we are proper nouns. But in reality our significance is incomparable to the Sun’s. We are small individuals thriving off of the Sun and the Earth. We did not work for these things, they are our guardians, our care takers, what we actually need for survival. Yet us insignificant little destroyers of nature can’t even let the fucking Sun have a capital letter? We are so selfish, ignorant, self indulgent to the point we give our underserving selves capitalization yet the Sun and the Moon are to be uncapitalized.

Let’s play a little trivia: what would happen to the world if we suddenly disappeared? Whether you like it or not, this wouldn’t be a tragedy but rather a regular loss, in the Earth’s point of view anyways. Elimination of a species from Earth, it’s got it’s own word, extinction. That’s all it would be, another case of mass extinction. Next question: what would happen to the world if the Sun lost flame and flickered it’s last beam of light? This would change everything. Not only would we die, but the Earth would be on its way to losing every last species that inhabits it. Earth would be just another empty, cold, planet. So may I ask you now, which of us is more important? The Sun, or us as individuals?

Businesses, cars, magazines, books, countries, people, clothes lines, street signs, the list goes on and on. We throw capitalization at just about everything and anything in this world, significant or not. Except for the Sun. The one thing that deserves to be spelled as if it were the king of the world, because it was, because it is, because it always will be. Is it so hard for us humans to give the damn thing that keeps us alive a capital letter? So I realize my one blog post most likely won’t change the rule but if you read this all I’m asking you to do it take just a moment longer to when writing “the sun” and make it “the Sun.” And remember, the Sun doesn't revolve around us, we revolve around it. Therefore, do it for the thing that our life literally revolves around (Sun puns ?)

Photo courtesy: Houghton

Drawing the Line Between Childhood and Adulthood

If you are a teenager I’m sure you’ve heard an adult telling you that you need to handle things like an adult would or assuring you that you are an adult now and you need to act like it. It’s irritating to hear this. I’m not an adult, I’m already mature beyond my age, and now you’re asking me to be an adult.

No.

I am not an adult, I am not even close, I have so much more to learn and to experience in life before I even want to think about classifying myself as an adult. And in the meantime I’m going to live out this limited time I have to be a child. To make dumb decisions and be recklessly stupid. These are my trial years to life and I’m going to take them to the limit.

Technically, by doing so I am preparing my self for adulthood. If I only experience being a good kid all throughout childhood then there’s a higher probability that it will be during adulthood that I begin to make illogical decisions. The problem is that my life won’t be as forgiving when I don’t have parents paying for my care. If I make a shitload of shit decisions when I’m an adult and having to handle my own well being, it’s not going to end well.

Now I’m not encouraging for you to go out and do things that will most likely impact your future life badly. Don’t go get addicted to drugs and literally make every bad decision possible, but don’t feel too guilty over every single bad one you make.You need these less than great choices to learn what it feels like to mess up. No one can expect you to make all good choices. No one can expect you to be an adult at fifteen. Even so, adults don’t make all good decision either. So really, adults aren’t much to strive towards being. No offense.

So the next time an adult tell you to be more adult like in your decisions, the way you act, or anything similar to so, please remind them you are not an adult. Look them in their eyes and say “I am not an adult, you can not expect me to be one.” It’s time to draw the line between childhood and adulthood. Who really wants to be an adult anyways?

Stay young my friends, stay young.

Photo courtesy: Children's Ministry

Suicide is a Permanent Solution to Temporary Problem

Suicide. It’s a term that parents refrain their kids from knowing about. It is shamed upon. We run away from it; we don’t understand it. But it’s time to talk about it. I have a dear friend that has struggled with this. His brother attempted in sixth grade by overdosing on Ibuprofen, luckily he was found and saved. But, did he want to be saved? Was he okay with the thought of his slow and painful death when he was sitting on the cold bathroom floor, weak and unable to change his mind if he wanted to? Or had he accepted the fact that he was about to leave Earth, never to be seen alive again? My friend’s next two encounters were his own, he followed his little brother’s lead and swallowed a whole bottle of Advil. One-by-one they went down his throat.

Somewhere around this time, he ran away. I was worried sick, I didn’t know where he was, or if he was okay, or if I would ever see him again. First it was unreal to think that one of my very best friends had left me without saying goodbye. I was so stressed out that I failed a math quiz. That was my first reaction. Then a couple days later, I found myself teary-faced staring at my boat where most of our camping adventures took place, and then my jeep trailer where we would hide out from all of the Ashtyn-obsessed children that camped with us in Moab. He was a friend different from all others, he was the friend that I only ever saw in my happy places; Moab, Jordanelle Reservoir, and Flaming Gorge Reservoir. We were all happy there, no problems, only good times, boat rides, jeep trailing, and campfires. It was a surreal place with dreamy memories, no one was ever not happy there. And that’s how I remembered him, I never realized how serious his depression was until he was gone. But he wasn’t gone forever, he came back about 30 minutes after my breakdown.

A lot of people mistake my care for him as me “liking” him as more than a friend. But this isn’t the case. I care about him because he is my best camping buddy, he is my friend, he is my brother that I never had. And to hear that he hates life, that he doesn’t really want to be here, it kills me. But on January 1st, 2016 during our hour and a half long conversation at 6 in the morning he told me something about suicide that changed his mind. He said “Suicide is a permanent solution to a temporary problem.” That quote reversed his thinking. That quote save his life. And I will always respect those words for saving my camping buddy from choosing death over life.

"No Violence Statue"

Photo Courtesy: Prospect

Work Smart, Not Hard

“Work smart, not hard” is my dad’s favorite thing to say to me aside from “I’m going to be cleaning my guns when you bring a boy to this house.” Well I’ve been applying that quote of his (the first one) to my future. Working smart, career wise, would be getting a well paid job. But I have not yet found a job that brings money in with ease and would make me genuinely happy to do. I do know what job I want. I want to train and professionally compete horse. But the money that goes into that and the money that comes out, aren’t compatible.

So I will have to make a decision between worrying about the bills or not being completely satisfied all of the time. Or I could marry rich, but I can’t count on that. What I have come down to is that my job needs to have something to do with animals. Every one always says “Then be a vet” to that, but I don’t think that would necessarily be my ideal job either.


When is school going to teach me to balance my happiness and my success? When is school going to teach me anything significant to my life ahead? When is school going to stop asking me "What would be your ideal job?" and start telling me what different jobs are out there?

What I want most in life is to find and thrive in my happy place. But my happy place is too expensive for me to not have to stress about bills. And the second thing I want most in life, is to not stress about bills. The only way I am finding that I could possibly pull off both is if I found a well paying job, probably not animal included, and then train and compete in my free time. And still have time for a family and sleeping and eating.

Why does happiness seem so hard to find in this world? Why am I fourteen and already stressing about my adulthood?

Sorry for ranting but I feel the need to express what’s going through my head right now.

 Photo courtesy to Annika Amilie

What's Wrong With The World?

Though Earth is only one in an infinite amount of planets out there, it’s the only one we know of that can host the survival of creatures like ourselves. But people seem to think that the world is the same thing as the Earth and that the world is what is wrong with us.

world |wərld|
1 (usu. the world) the earth, together with all of its countries, peoples, and natural features: he was doing his bit to save the world.
(the world) all of the people, societies, and institutions on the earth: [ as modifier ] : world affairs.

“All of the people, societies, and institutions on the earth” the world is not what’s wrong with us, we are what’s wrong with the world. We our very selves, are the world. We are the world as we know it, living our day-to-day lives on the Earth. We are not the Earth, we are the things ruining the Earth. And in doing this, we are ruining the homestead of our world. So when it comes down to it, we are ruining, destroying, ourselves.

Now, I am not proposing a solution. I do not believe that there is a solution. For every star that there is in space, there is a solution to this problem. The most simple one would be to kill off every single human being on this planet, but that’s not the most self-satisfying one. The problem is, every single human on this planet would have to contribute in their own ways, and that is just not going to happen. I have absolutely no faith that that many people would care. Hell, I don’t even care enough to do something. I have ideas of things I could do, but I have no time to do them. Even if I did have time, I’m too lazy. This is the problem for most others in this topic too. I know I’m not alone. No matter how many commercials, seminars, ads on billboards, and etc. I see, I will probably never decide to actually go and make a change. I hate myself for it, but it’s true.

That right there is the problem with the world. The fact that we are too caught up in our own lives to even think twice about going out and cleaning up our societies. We are the problem. We are the heart and soul of our own disastrous world. We are the reasoning for the tears we cry. We are the reasoning for depression. We are the reason for suicide. We are the reason for rape. And what are we going to do about it? We are going to put our heads down and act like nothing has ever been any better.

Photo courtesy to: Athenaeum