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

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

The Fault in Your Birthday Cake Candles

When I was little my dad used to say “you’re growing like a weed, goose” and “maybe if I stop feeding you, you’ll stop growing.” I would always react by angrily telling him that he was dumb because I would die if he stopped feeding me and at the time I didn't think that weeds were pretty so I’d tell him that I grew like a flower. But standing here as a freshman who spends most of her time with a junior and some fellow freshman students, I regret how I treated my childhood. All kids want to do is get older and older, they count each and every candle on their cake just to make sure it is just as many as their new age. Those very candles burned out my creativity. Now you can picture yourself, all dressed up perched on your chair, eyes focused and reflecting the small buds of fire melting undesired wax onto your frosting, eagerly waiting for the untuned singing voices to stop. All for what? To blow out those damn candles. To be able to say “I’m six” instead of “I’m almost six.”

Truth is, I would do a lot of things to be almost six again. I would do a lot to go back to the time that I didn’t know what dirty jokes were so I could speak freely without the worry that people would laugh because what ever I said relates to sex some how. But no, I’m stuck here for a little while. I’m stuck seeing people that I love want, and try, to commit suicide. I’m stuck seeing the people that I love cut. I’m stuck here seeing the people that I love drown in their own goddamn tears. I’m stuck here seeing people I love burn in the extra fire those new candles provide because they just can’t blow them out anymore. I’m stuck here. And I’m sick of it.

The ironic thing is, no matter how much I hate those candles, I still look forward to them. I still have hope that they’ll bring me to a better place. That it’ll be better when I’m fifteen. They are a drug. The glory of age is a drug. It makes it hard to stay centered in your life. Its magnetic force pulls me so hard that I have to remind myself that the things I am touching and the objects surrounding me are real. My mind is so busy I forget to “stay real.” I’m so content thriving in my thoughts that I can’t focus at what I’m doing at that actual moment. I work in auto pilot most of the time, so used to my life, so bored, that I keep myself entertained in a separate dimension while I nearly unconsciously do what ever it is that I am supposed to be doing. This is why if you were to ask me to describe what I did yesterday I wouldn’t be able to tell you without struggling to remember what I actually physically did yesterday. I’m constantly trying to escape the now by time traveling into the future. So theoretically, I’m constantly trying to escape my current age, by day dreaming about the next cake full of candles I get to see.

Photo Courtesy: my mom, Kristin (yes, that is me)

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

The Plain Out, Uncultured Truth of Why School Sucks

Adults seem to have this twisted view of why exactly their kids complain 24/7 about school. “Oh, she just dislikes school because of the homework” or “He doesn’t like school because he’d rather be gaming than learning.” This is not the case for many of these students.

School is cringed upon not because it takes effort or because we have to do home work at night. Kids actually want to learn. They want to have something to do. They want to have something to get better at. School is shamed upon by them because of the way it is set up. The way it is scored. The way it is taught. The way it is shoved into our brains as hastily as a toddler pokes the buttons on a remote. School is hated for its standards.

Standards are set by highly educated, fully matured, adults. The problem? These standards are for kids, not adults. So take the standards crafted by highly educated, fully matured, adults and add these to parent standards. Do a sport, be smart, be successful, do your chores, go to bed at a decent time, and have a social life. And then add the sum of highly educated, fully matured, adult standards and parent standards to sport standards. Sport standards differ due to what sport the child pursues but by high school it’s typically this: two to five hours of your sport at least two to five times during the school week, do well in competitions, condition at home, get good grades in school or we’ll kick you out. Oh, and have fun! If that doesn’t seem hard to you then great! Because there’s one last thing that everyone seems to forget about. Ready for it? Us students have standards for ourselves. Wow! Who would have thought? We have goals? Yes, we all have goals. I have goals, ones that are just as important to me, if not more important, than school standards. WHAT?!
Nope, nope, nope.
That’s not allowed.

School is more important than the way I view myself.

School is more important than what I want for myself.

School is more important than my happiness.

School standards, the standards made by people I don't even know for me and the other 1.436 billion students in the world are more important than my self-standards.

Strangers are deciding the path of my life.

And that’s the plain out, uncultured truth. Strangers rule me. Strangers tell me what to do everyday. Strangers tell me to shut up, glue my eyes to a white board for eight hours, and complete what wasn’t finished in the previous eight hours at home. Strangers tell me to not care about what other people think. And then they tell me to care more about what they want for me than what I want for me.

This is what parents don't get to see. This is what we are told to obey. This is school.

Photo courtesy: Friendship Circle

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