To the Small things in Life 11/17/15

Life is exhausting.

I've got a full course load, am working for two professors, going to group therapy, doing all of my work, and yet, I still have time to watch a ton of Netflix.

Maybe I should pick up a hobby? I don't even know what I'm interested in though.

I can't believe where I am in life. I don't mean that as in,"Wow look how far I've gotten!" I mean it more as, how did I get here? Why did I get here?

At group therapy I don't participate that much, not because I don't have something to say, but because when I say something, no matter what it is, even something helpful to someone else, I regret it.

I regret talking.

I don't know why though.  It's not that I regret bonding with people, it's just that I don't feel like I have the right to talk.  That my words, my feelings, and my thoughts are unimportant, that I have no right to let them interfere, even in a good sense, with someone else's life.

I don't think it's due to a low self worth, but I guess I'm not really sure what that truly means.

Maybe one day I'll get over it, that's what everyone does right? Get over their issues?

I actually said this in group today, the when I talk thing.
Curious as to what happened?
It wasn't acknowledged, one of the other members said something and the conversation quickly ran to them.

I don't think it was intentional.
In the debriefing the counselors mentioned it, saying that it took guts to say it, that I was opening up a bit to the group.  They said that they'd been wanting to check in on me through the whole time period of an hour and a half, the first hour when I didn't say anything at all.
No one did though.
You know the saying, "It's the thought that counts."?
I'm calling BS on that.  If they really wanted to check in, they would have come in during the lulls in the conversation.
It doesn't matter though, I don't know what I'd have said when they asked what was going on with me.
To be totally blunt with you, it's just me. I can't say for certain, but I don't think that I'm any different in a general social setting.  I don't say anything because when I do, I get noticed.
I want to blend in.
I want to be forgotten.

On a different note, I jumped in puddles today.  I mean why not? I was getting wet anyway.
It's been raining for two days now, tomorrow looks a little less like an outdoor shower though.

I walked to a meeting with one of the professors, we're working on a game for econ students, total downpour, my shoes were soaked and my pant legs were pretty wet too.

After group today I decide that since I was going to get wet, I might as well make the best of it.
I knew that I was going home, that I'd have a ten (10) minute wait in the rain while waiting for the bus.

When leaving the building, I stepped in a puddle, unintentionally. Cold water rushed into my shoe and I could feel the water between my toes.
Every puddle, stream of flowing water, basin of pure rain, I stepped in.
Not only did I step in them, I jumped in them, I kicked the water around in them, I splashed and I had fun, also took a video of a worm that was swimming along, probably dying now that I think about it..

But despite the looks from the other students, the fact that I was in tennis shoes, holding an umbrella, and mostly dry, I did it for me.

I keep telling myself to do something every few days, hopefully eventually every day, that's just for me.

No actual gain from it other than it was just for me.

If I'm going to be honest, I'm not doing so well at it.
I forget to do me.
I don't really know the repercussions of this, but I'm sure there will be some, maybe not directly, but I'm sure there will be some.

I purchased the tickets to go see my friend in December, over winter break. I still haven't told my parents I won't be joining them for Christmas, I'm not sure how.

I thought I'd get to see how they reacted to my brother saying that he would be working through Thanksgiving so then I could know what to expect. He asked me if I would be willing to go to an early Thanksgiving on Tuesday or Wednesday instead.  I told him I would.

I know vaguely what I want to say to them.
I want to say that I'm not skipping spending the holiday with them to hurt either of them.
That it isn't because I don't love them.
It's because I want to spend the break with my friends, I don't know that I'll ever have a more opportune time to just be with friends.
That I plan on offering to cook a dinner for them, a ham, oven roasted vegetables, hasselback potatoes, and butter and herb biscuits. That I'd make a dessert of an apple pie and peppermint bark.
We can exchange the meaningless gifts on the 18th and 19th instead.

By the way, previously my brother and I have gotten her a necklace or earrings for $15 from Khol's, and a few times ended up putting it on her Khol's card, meaning she paid for her gift, but this year, I think I'm going to make her a box of recipes.  Ones that I like.  Because sometimes I do care,  and sometimes I think that I can pretend just enough to make it look like that care is for them.
Granted I have no idea what to get for my father.

But I don't think it'll work.
I don't think they'd be happy with it, with me.
Maybe they'd see that barely any of the above is true. I would make them dinner, but everything above that, nah, nothing to me, I may not want to hurt them, but I don't want to make them happy under false pretenses either.

I have to try it though. What can they say, no, you have to be here?
Too bad.
I am my own person.

I may not know what the best decision for me is, but I do know that being around them isn't an option.

Here's to the small things, the insignificant things, and the things that matter most.
Here's to puddles, family, and Hillary.

Carson

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A brief summary of a long time 10/7/15

It's been a while, a really long while.

I guess you could say that things are going well.
Classes haven't been too terrible; I found out that I actually like finance courses. Wasn't a huge fan of accounting in high school, but to an extent, I really enjoy it now.

Things haven't changed a whole lot, I'm still avoiding various aspects of my life: the blood elders still don't know of Hillary, I haven't offered up any information regarding classes or work, I still have issues from time to time, but that's expected.

Two weeks ago the blood elders came in to town, not to see my brother or I, but because Rhonda had a meeting and Tim wanted to give her company on the drive.  We did have dinner with them, but I am mildly proud to say that I had a nice peaceful dinner at a restaurant, mostly because I didn't engage in conversation, and "watched" the football game going on.

They didn't ask too many questions, I didn't provide too many answers. Tim wanted to hang out on Saturday, they got there on Friday, but I mentioned that I was studying for tests and had a group project to do.  If that was a 100% true statement, we won't ask.e

I started group therapy.

It's odd.. I'm not sure it's the place for me, but hey, you never know where you'll learn something.

It's a relationship group, we meet on Tuesdays for an hour and a half.  There are ten of us and six therapists, and we've had four meetings so far.

It's a bit surprising how much the ten of us have in common, and not just relationship building/mistrust things either.

One of the girls, there are only three of us, seems like an interesting person.  I'd probably hang out with her if we could have contact outside of group.

In the group we talk about whatever comes up,  sometimes it's things that are happening, dispelling social norms, or explaining how and what it looks like when our walls go up.

I'm not really sure what it looks like for all situations, but I know for me, with my parents one way a wall showed up was that I quit informing them of my actual habits.  Sure they were still minutely interested, not enough to see that I didn't actually care about what I was telling them, but enough to still ask.  As an example, Rhonda asked about my classes and if I like them, I responded with that I really like my literature class, not a total lie, I enjoy literature, but I didn't want to give up with what I'll call my little secret, I really enjoy economics.  I'm starting to see that I could end up as an international economic corespondent.

One of my professors offered up an opportunity of holding a position to answer questions of Japanese students about the United States agricultural economy, there were ten positions open and I now hold one. I'm pretty excited about it.

I could also see being an econ professor though.  Maybe I could  be both? It's my life, why not.

Granted, what I'd really like to do, own a book shop or community library and not have to have a mentally challenging career. It may be weird, but I kind of like the idea of having a job that's a bit mind numbing some times.  One that I care about, but one that doesn't exhaust all of my energy so that when I get off work, which I hope not to be a 9-5, I can still have me time.

That's a goal of mine, to not have to work all the time.  I've seen what it does to a person,  it's not a pleasant sight.

I'm (slowly) learning to let go.

Some days are still taxing: talking to Rhonda for 28 minutes the other day, that was really rough, but I made it a point to stay verbally cheery, even when I absolutely wanted off the phone. I'd like to say that it made a difference for me, I can't say for sure that it did, but I know that Rhonda wasn't near as audibly frustrated and pissed off at me as she usually is.

Later that day I felt like I had a bowling ball being shoved into my eye sockets, on top of someone rhythmically inflating a balloon inside my skull.

I wanted to just pass out for a few days, total darkness and silence, curled up with Hillary.  That didn't happen, I had class, needed to cook dinner, and do some homework.  Life doesn't go as planned very often does it?

Lately I've been thinking a a lot about how when I was little I wanted to be blind, it still seems viable some days.  I think it stems from the light sensitivity, that if I could wear the glasses, not have to have my eyes open to walk around, it might be better.

I don't fully believe that though, only if it was a controlled blindness.

People look at you really funny when you wear your sunglasses inside while walking through Walmart, it made it a tad more bearable though.

I think it'll work out, it has to right?
Even if it's not how I wanted it to work out, I guess some day it will no matter what.

--Carson

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Growth. 5/30/15

Shrug off the things that don't matter.  Want to know why? Because they don't matter, that's why.

Days can be hard, but that doesn't mean you have to worry about anything.

Think of the things you can change.
 Now don't worry about them, you CAN change them.

Think of the things you can't change.
Hey guess what, you CAN'T change them, so don't be concerned.

Okay, you're right, it's just not that simple.

Maybe it is though.  Imagine you're a week in the future, will it still be there?
There are, simplistically, only two answers to that.
Yes, it's still there, all right, so you need to find a way to cope with it, safely.
No, it's not here, well that's a good thing right? You're through the trouble, what's to dwell on?

All examples of what I've been telling myself recently.  I'd like to say it's starting to help, but I don't know for sure.  it's hard to say when so much in life is changing.

Perhaps, it's not changing, I am.

Actually, that's a good point.. Within the past few weeks I've done a fair amount of self exploration, sure, I've had some help, but all great explorers had some form of help.  If that was the people back home waiting to hear back, good or bad, they were behind the explorer, no matter what.

Now I know not all explorers make it back to their supporters, but I think I'm finally deciding I can make it back, that I actually want to make it back.

However, the journey back isn't all rainbows and sunshine, at least my journey back isn't.

My journey will be full of chaos, bad memories, maybe some anger, hopefully not, but maybe, and likely some tears.

But you know what?
I have people that want to see what I bring back, who I brought back.  I'd be crazy to think that I could go on an exploration and not change who I am.  It's natural.

People grow, they morph, they mold, they are impressionable.
I'm no different and quite frankly, neither are you.

I've grown, not in height, although that might be useful, no, instead my mind has grown.
Maybe one day I'll run out of space, doubtful, have you realized how much memory a brain has? No? Well it's a lot, like a lot a lot.

I've received some gifts from the locals, I'll let you figure that one out, one post at a time.

One thing, the knowledge that I do in fact want a family, I was born into a household, the only thing in common is the chemical make up of our body, and perhaps looks, I mean they did donate my chromosomes and genetic make up. I can't avoid that..

But you know what? Blood doesn't make a family, I don't agree with Webster on this one, "a group of related people including people who lived in the past."

Family as defined by me, is the people who care about you, those who you can be yourself around, your true self. Family means honesty, it means love, and playfulness.

Family is more than a group of people who didn't choose each other, through Webster's definition, family isn't a bond that was forged through fire and hard work, family is the results of paternity or maternity test to know your parents.

For me? Those parents aren't family.  They are strangers that I share a common ancestor with. I'm no more family to them than I would be to go to the nearest zoo and call the chimp my cousin.

That's not a thing.
So why do we call our blood elders family?
Because it's the norm.

I don't want to be normal.

My actual parents, or parent in this case, is an older gentleman who stepped up for two kids that needed to be reminded what love is. Donny.

He's great, when my brother and I were little, he would take us and pick us up from school,  no complaints.  He'd take us for a Friday snack, on a Tuesday or any other day, and Friday of course.

He took us to lunch at the local diner when we didn't have school, it didn't matter if it was elementary school or high school, even now in college he does when I'm home.

It was always a great day when I would get to sit in the tractor and mow hay all day with him.  Do you know how boring that is? I'd sit on the top of the wheel cover (inside the cab of the tractor) and hold onto the window latch and the armrest.  He'd make small talk with me, or sing to the radio (horribly, just like me) and we'd have hours pass, then we'd stop for the day and go home.

Donny is the type of old man, he's 87ish it's okay, to make little kid jokes. You know, the ones that are so terrible they're funny?
We'd be driving and a bug would hit the window, big enough that you knew when it hit and could see the juice on the window kind of bug.  Off handedly, he'd say," Bet he doesn't have the guts to do that again." and just keep looking ahead.

Once he gets a laugh out of you for a joke, it's not going away anytime soon, and that's perfectly okay.

Donny is the family member that you love to be around, he is the best adopted grandpa a kid could ask for.

Donny gave me the experiences that a parent should have, the sitting on the floor and playing with your toys with you in the evening experiences.
The ones that don't mean a thing, but mean the world at the time.

My mom and dad didn't really have time for that sort of stuff.  My mom was out of town a lot, and my dad was always on the farm or in his office, so I know a lot about experiences that don't mean a thing. That comprised my entire relationship with my parents, if you can even call it a relationship.

But, I wouldn't change it.  I wouldn't want a mom or a dad that did that, I want to be that mom some day, but if I had that, I wouldn't have had Donny, and he's one that I would not give up.

He shaped me into the woman I am today, and I have learned that all things considered, I'm a decent human being. No better or worse that the next person. And that's what matters.

So that family that I found out I do want some day, I want to be the Donny that I had, for my kids, I want to be the best that I can be. I don't want to skip out on the play times, or the afternoon snacks, like my parents did, I am going to fill the same gap Donny did.

A family, just like Webster defined, but with my definition added in. Who knows, my definition will surely change over time, but I have experiences that will help me learn exactly what family really means, even if I can't put it into words.

Take care.

P.S. Yeah, two posts about my grandpa, he is just that great, no blood relation needed.

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This House is Not a Home 5/17/15

I arrived in my hometown on Friday night, in about two hours I realized how ready to leave I was.
Not being able to leave until Monday morning, I don't know what to do.

Reasons why this is not my home:

1. The people (parents) are not my family.

Upon entering the house I was greeted by my cat, She was very loving and wanted cuddled.  Out of character for her, but I hadn't been home in about two months so it was expected.

My father was in the kitchen and said he was glad I was home for a while, and gave me a high five. Later on, while playing with my cat on the floor, he patted my head and gave me a high five again.

My mother was no where to be seen, not uncommon, and not unwelcome.  I was not ready to see her.  She made her appearance sooner that I would have liked, but we can't all have what we want.

During dinner they asked how my finals went, I responded with fine, not really wanting to delve into mind numbing conversation. End of dinner time conversation.

My father was done before my brother or I had made our plates, both parents remained at the table until we sat down.  They returned as we finished wanting to talk about mom's work day.

Quite frankly, I don't give a shit about how her day went.

2. I don't like it here.

You may say that's normal after leaving for college.  Perhaps it is, but I don't think that on the drive home I should be wondering how much conversation for the weekend I can get out of by taking naps with the cat.

Between that, and what kind of games I can play in my head to spend some time.

Summery of Saturday, being woken up by mom putting a cat in my bed.  Not my cat.  Being told to get up. Reading until my friends graduation at 2:30,  I miss him.

It's hard to miss someone you haven't met, but for me, the connect was formed and it's one that I want to keep.

Mom asked me to go to Walgreen's and the Library with her.  I told her no. She wasn't happy with me, shocker I'm sure.  Wanted to know why, and I told her I was watching a friend's graduation.  She decided to wait until it was over to go.

We went to more than just Walgreen's and the Library.  Got home 3 hours later, went to dinner with my brother, and we drove around for about two hours.

3. There's nothing to eat

This isn't a change though, even in high school there wasn't any food in the house.  I would actually prefer dorm food or even high school lunches to freezer meals that she buys from Walmart and tosses on the stove, claiming to have cooked dinner.

Junk food in the cabinets, and prepackaged foods in the refrigerator.  I haven't missed someone else doing the grocery shopping.

Had cereal for lunch and dinner today, Sunday, it's a good thing I like cereal.

4. There's no privacy, at all.

Thought maybe I'd change my clothes in my room before bed, instead of in the bathroom.  I shut the door, right as I went to undress, my door was opened with my mom bringing the cat in.

Tried to take a shower, she opened the door asking me to use her shower so she could wash the cat.

Neither time was there a knock.
There never is in this house.

5. My room is not my room

When my brother went to college, his room was his.  We didn't enter it for any reason.  Why should we have?

Now that I'm gone? Nah, it's a storage room, I have security cameras on my floor, paper and notes all over my desk,  because dad's desk is full.  I have shoes of my mom's, clothes that need to go to a thrift store, things that need returned.  No mine.

My mail that I received, on the floor next to my bed.

6. Too little too late

They are trying, mom wanted to watch a DVR with me, dad wanted to talk and watch the baseball game.

Oh yeah, because that's bonding time.

I don't like watching TV.

It's boring, mind numbing, just like any conversation with them.

There's no substance, and nothing to gain.

Pointless.

We never did things like this when I still lived here, can we go back to those times?
I don't like them pretending to be my friends.  They weren't around when I was under their roof, why should they get the chance to be around me when I'm not.

If I really wanted to see them, I'd have come home between Spring break and now.  If my lease stated right as my other ended, instead of having a few day lay over, I wouldn't be here.

___

They're pushing things, decisions, and themselves on me, and all I want to do is leave.

They may be blood related, but I can't change that.
Family is not the genes that make up your DNA, or the ones who raised you.
Family are those who act like it, who deserve to be around you and who you want around you.
___

Tomorrow when I leave, I won't have left anything behind, other than my cat. I'd take her if I could though, but she doesn't do well on car rides.


Maybe I can make something of the rest of today.
Might as well give it a shot.

Take care.

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Life's Ponderings 2/22/15

I thought it'd get better, I really did.  I'm on my second semester of college and I still don't want to be here...

All I hear is that going to college is what you have to do.  Well, maybe I don't have to, as children we are told that we can do whatever we want when we grow up, when does that start?

Sure, I get good grades a 4.0 last semester, my parents are proud of me, but I'm not.  I think that college is pointless, so I don't try.  I didn't apply myself at all last semester, I just did enough to get by actually.  

So why can't I keep doing that if it's so easy? Because it's a waste of my time. I didn't want to go to college when I applied, it was just expected that I would.  

I'm a double major, Informational Technology and Agricultural Economics.  I have a grad plan figured out for both majors, I'm trying to do this.  Every day it gets harder to get out of bed and "into the grind."

In high school I realized that I didn't want to work for people, I didn't want to work in an office, and I did not want to work a 9-5 shift for 40+ years of my life.  That's not living.

Last semester I realized one of the main reasons that I dislike college.  Parents, advisers, teachers, everyone, tells you to go to college, get a good job, make a lot of money, you'll be happy. They say that you can make what you do unique.  How can you make college unique when everyone picks a degree on a multiple choice form, takes the same base classes, and has a limited selection of electives?

We go to college not to become individuals, but to be taught how to conform, how to listen to what people say is how something is done, and not break that mold that we've been crammed into for the past 12 years of our education.  

If you don't work towards your own dream, someone will hire you to work towards theirs.  How does society expect to continue to grow when everyone is told to do the same things? Most employers look for the same things, and if you don't have them, you're out.  That's not how innovation works though, with innovation, you fail, you get back up, and try again, granted, you'll probably fail a few more times, but eventually, you won't and you'll be better off for your failures.

I don't want to be convinced to stay in college, get good grades, graduate, get a job, etc. because my brother did that.  Four years ago, he was in my position but stuck with it, he hates himself for not standing up for what he thought was what he needed to do.  

He listened to our parents instead, now he's encouraging me to leave.

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