Living Proof

A friend of mine tweeted something really significant - something that stood out and made me think about my own situation. She wrote, "I wonder if self-help authors are as happy as they tell us we should be." If you think about it, self-help authors are the ones who have either been through or perhaps even still going through trouble in order to help those who are struggling. For instance, (and I bring this analogy up a lot), it's like someone who has never touched a drink in their life directing an AA meeting. They have no clue what the hell they're doing other than give "happy-go-lucky-you-can-do-it" advice without the pain, the willpower, the intense craving of wanting just one drink...and then another. For me, when I write about anxiety attacks and depression, I tell people what I do in order to feel better for that time being, or what I do to just keep me alive for just another hour, another night, another week. When it works, I give advice. So, ...

The one thing I've learned over time is that you never know if your date or lover is a "penned up ax murderer" until she becomes one. In Travis Alexander's blog, he states, "Desperately trying to find out if my date has an axe murderer penned up inside of her and knowing she is wondering the same thing about me. That’s usually when I think myself into a panic and start acting weird in consequence to trying so hard to act normal." Have you ever been in a position where someone you knew, loved and cared for just finally flipped their lid and revealed their true colors? It can be very scary and unsettling to say the least. But what if you never knew the potential killer underneath the sweet, smiling beautiful girl you once loved, and now...you had to end the relationship. But it doesn't end there. I have been diligently following the Jodi Arias trial, even falling asleep to it (which isn't such a good idea). But then they have the news afterwards dedi...

Sometimes I look over at my dog and wonder what she's thinking. Does she even think at all? Does she have a thought process? Is she plotting against the squirrel out on the lawn? When it rains, she looks melancholy -  as if she's wishing her sunny days back, lying in some random sunbeam. Occasionally, she'll run up and jump on me, indicating she wants something. I have to walk and follow her in order to know what she needs. If she heads to the kitchen, she wants a treat. If she heads near the door, she needs to go out. Sometimes, it could be that she just wants to cuddle on the couch, so she'll pull my pant leg and steer me over to the sofa. Our communication isn't the best, we mess up and well, I have to clean up the occasional 'mess', but overall, it's pretty damn good. But this isn't about my dog, oddly enough. Have you ever wondered what someone in your life was thinking? It amazes me we have this precise language that we can tell others exactl...

That was me bored out of my mind. There was a time when I once thought that getting older would be somehow easier, perhaps a bit carefree and more spontaneous, because well, grown ups were allowed to do everything and anything they wanted. As a kid, looking up at people who were adults, I envied the "freedom" I thought they had. I envied the millions of things that they could have done, but most around me didn't do most of what I thought I would do myself, say if God came down and said, "Voila Deb! You're an adult! Go do whatever it is that makes you happy!" So then one day, I became an adult. I became that person who had the freedom to live her life the way I wanted. Then I learned about fear, not only learned it, absorbed it. I saw people getting into trouble, getting hurt, getting killed over the things I thought were once "fun". I saw people being at the wrong place at the wrong time. I saw young adults having heart attacks, dying of cance...

Last night, I went into the kitchen and made myself a drink while waiting for my wife to come home. I started to prepare dinner for her since it was her late night to work. I made sure her chicken was cooked to perfection, and that she had a nice cocktail waiting once she walked in the door so she could relax and put her feet up. We sat, talked for a while and discussed our excitement for our vacation this upcoming June. We've been through a rough couple of years, having my Dad pass on from his long struggle with cancer. Dad loved her. One evening, Mom had called us in the middle of the night crying that Dad had taken a bad fall on the living room floor while grabbing an orange from the kitchen. He couldn't get up. We rushed down to try and help, but he was in such pain that I didn't want to break anything. Last time, he broke a rib from us trying to lift him back up. This time, his hip was broken. Once back up on the bed, he said, "Can you get me that orange?" ...

No one knows the truth, or better yet, perhaps everyone thinks they know the truth. I found myself amazed last night over the the amount of 'death chatter' regarding young people dying of strokes and heart attacks. "Well she worked out, she was young and healthy."  What is "healthy"? Dr. Oz even had these cardiologists come onto his show and say that if you have high cholesterol, then you will live longer. They said, "Eat more saturated fat" while other doctors cringed and said, "Take more statins!" Our uncle died of a heart attack in his 30's -- so did my mother's cousin. All ate well, jogged, had a "healthy lifestyle" as the average person would see it. I have a doctor friend who inspired me to take the Paleo challenge. "Eat all the bacon you want!" Of course that comes with, "Stay away from all sugar and pastas."  The pasta part was the hardest for me. But think about all of the contradictions ou...

This weekend was just incredible. I got to spend time with my family (on my wife's side) and celebrated a couple of birthdays. It was nice to see everyone, and many times, it was like, "How come we haven't gotten together more?" It was said more than enough times. We're too busy, we're doing 'this' and 'that' and then, something happens that brings it to a different level - a different perspective. I realized I've been missing out on a lot. With recent events that had taken place in my life, especially with Dad passing, I just sort of went into my shell and only let a select few people in if need be. I should have done the exact opposite - would have been healthier, but shoulda' woulda' coulda'. It's strange how things happen. Last night I was lying in bed wide awake with my mind racing. I had so many questions for God - like how did He let the bombing happen in Boston? Why did "He" have to take away a couple of ...

There are evenings when my wife will spend a little extra time in the bathroom putting on these anti-aging creams and 'dewrinklers' as if she was a piece of linen. She comes back smelling like fragrant mud. I admire her persistence of always keeping herself nice and looking young. I started dating her when she was 29 years old. And may lightening strike me, I still see her as 29. I ask her why does she even bother with these rituals if her skin is naturally beautiful and young, just like her mom's. She says, "Well I have dark circles under my eyes ---see? And I have wrinkles in places I never saw before."  I stare at her face --- I see the 29 year old I fell in love with. I honestly never see any flaws on her. There was even a time when Mad 'thought' she had put on weight. I never noticed. To me, she was the same beautiful and curvy woman I fell in love with. Since then, she has lost all the weight she put on, but the fact is, I never even realized it u...

Rant 1 : You'll have to excuse me for I'm PMSing a bit edgy today. I have had it up to my nostrils with customer service these days. And granted, I was a customer service rep for quite a few years -- I just don't know how people do business anymore. I also blame companies for hiring these ghetto monkeys people who deliver or come over to repair anything in your home. It's disturbing. There's a few groups of people I am referring to, so I'm not racist, I just hate everyone right now. The first group of men (because there wasn't a single woman on the job sadly), came over to put in my internet, phone and cable service. They denied me service because the pole behind my house was behind bushes. They guy said, "Oh shieeet, we ain't climbing dat!" I reminded them that they were phone technicians. This is the job they signed up for. "But there can be snakes in those bushes." They left. I called Optimum Online / Cablevision to let them kn...

In my previous post , I spoke about faith and about the dream I had that could have been taken as an outer body experience. Dreams are dreams, right? I also spoke about whether or not a spiritual experience was just a burst of euphoric events in our brain, giving us a "god-like" presence. I did forget one thing that let me know that there was indeed a god, or at least, a place where my Dad was being taken to. It was last year, on a Saturday, July 21rst. Dad was in hospice and not expected to live much longer. I was there all week, and needed just to breathe in the morning, have a peaceful breakfast outside with Madelene and then head up to say my final goodbyes. As I said before, most of my relatives die on the 21rst of whatever month. I wanted to wait after 12:21, because it's a number I see all. the. time. when I look at the clock. It happens too often. After 12:21, I would head up to where Dad was. At 12:21 pm, this moth came flying down and onto the picnic table tha...

Stepping outside of my faith in God, I have to say religion is a funny and strange concept. Here you have so many people living on earth believing in numerous "gods" without an ounce of concrete proof. Our faith is supposed to gather all the "spiritual experiences" it can, if we're willing enough. And on the scientific end of it, our brain can manifest such euphoria - a "god-like" feeling which can be confused with "God's presence". Many Catholics have seen "evidence" --- a statue of religious figures crying, a wood groove on an oak tree that resembled a man with a beard (Jesus) or seeing the Virgin Mary on a piece of toast up for bids on eBay. We're completely awed by it, until someone tells us it was rigged or tampered with -- or, that it was just a coincidence that their mind "saw" Jesus and not a groove that somehow can be looked at as a man with a beard.  For me, I have had confirmations of messages of God -...