Tag: life

Sickness

Diseases, illness, and sickness have been of interest to me lately. This all stems from me curled up on my bedroom floor, having a panic attack, while crying, and gasping to breathe because my nose was completely clogged. I was diagnosed with RSV a few weeks ago, and let me say, having RSV while pregnant is quite debilitating. Due to growing another human, I am unable to take medications to relieve or cure the RSV faster, and if you choose to do any research, you will see it takes longer for RSV to run its course if a woman is pregnant. Not to mention, while being pregnant, most of your O2 goes to the baby in the first place, so now I have two sources as to why it is challenging to breathe daily.

So I am lying there, trying to calm myself down, and mentally I am scared because I was worried I would not be able to catch my breath. I started to think of all these horrible thoughts, and this continued my anxiety attack to heighten. How did I resolve this attack on my own? I started to link how my anxiety and my mind are a disease. A disease that was genetically passed to me and my body was fighting off not only a sickness, RSV, but technically also a parasite, my baby. Yes, I know it is not socially acceptable to call babies parasites, but they technically are since they absorb and use all their mother’s nutrients and many other functional resources to grow.

I was fighting off so much in one moment, and my mind turned from harmful thoughts to scientific ones. Soon, I was thinking about how much my body was doing in those few minutes, and I started to calm down and breathe through my mouth, but I was still breathing. I was no longer panicking, gasping for air, or damaging my sense of self; I was fighting back.

This was a rock bottom moment for me, but I am truly happy I had it. From low moments, I realize how much I am grateful for just being alive. Being able to live life and cherish so many small, happy moments is why I stay present. Today is also a dear uncle’s anniversary of death via a brain aneurysm. His death was quick, unforeseen, and devastating. He was only 52 and left behind my 3 amazing cousins who have continued to impress me with their resilience and attitudes at conquering the world. I wish I could hear his laugh just one more time, since he was the happiest person I knew. Sadly, due to a family strife, I barely got to spend much time with him in his last few years of living, but I now plan to live life to the fullest as much as he did.

Depression, anxiety, RSV, and even pregnancy are all small moments in our lives. It is my job to remind myself that they do not control me, but are all sickness, illnesses, and/or diseases that I can overcome with time. I am here to live and enjoy life, not to give in to sicknesses that may try to bring me down.

Insightful or Venting

We all know I started posting for selfish reasons. To get the thoughts out of my brain onto ‘paper’ as oddly enough it is easier for me to type instead of write now. I used to write so much when I was a kid but sadly had to stop due to others finding my writings and getting angry about them. Now I am an adult who works in tech and can type faster then I can write. This makes me sad and concerned.

My anxiety and worry is fluctuating off the charts lately and it is hard to keep them all in line. I didn’t even realize I was concerned about my writing capabilities until I just typed it. My brain is bouncing all over the place and I think it is interesting that there are a few people reading and enjoying the posts. To be honest I am not sure they are insightful or they are just a way for me to vent. To get things on ‘paper’ instead of continuously circling around in my brain.

I have so many things in my life to be happy about but for some reason I can not stop the negative, sad thoughts that spring out of now where. For today, there is a family funeral I am unable to attend since I am overseas in a different country. I am sad I am not there with my family and there are so many worries that keep coming across my mind. Meanwhile there is nothing I can really do besides go for a walk, take a shower, take care of the kids, and head into work. I called and talked to a few key family members but it is not the same as being present in person.

Going for a power walk really helped and sweating out the concerns really helped but now sitting at my desk preparing for what feels like a ‘normal’ day just seems awkward and I feel guilty. I have made my peace with their passing already but not peace with not being there for my sibling, cousins, step-mom and dad. I know they are fine without me being there but I also know they have all expressed that they wish I was with them.

Tis the life of someone who choose to move from home, marry a person not from the united states, and inspiring to build a better future for our kids. I am hoping this journey and path I am taking will be worth it but who the hell knows. Only time will tell and if I succeed at my goals, then I will know taking a different path then what I was told was correct, will be worth it. I sure hope putting down a pen for a keyboard will be fruitful. But man do I miss my roots.

Pleasure and Pain

Balancing life is both pleasurable and painful all at the same time. There is a saying that nothing is worth while unless it is hard. Welp, life is hard but man are the pleasurable moments worth it.

My mind is constantly telling myself to keep going, that I don’t have it that bad, nothing compares to those fighting for their lives or those who do not have adequate resources. Then there is another part of me that wants to just toss in the towel and live in an area where fetching water from a well or a river is how to obtain your drinking, and washing water.

There are many types of pain; physical, mental, and emotional. All of which are rated and have a different scale for different individuals. No one person can dismiss your pain. No person can tell you something doesn’t hurt. There are so many variables and circumstances that can lead to pain. Whether it is big or small, pain is pain. But what happens if you are the one causing the never ending torture on yourself by choosing the same situations over and over that inflict the pain? It goes with out saying that insanity is repeating the same occurrence over and over again expecting different results. So how does one stop the pain?

I don’t have the right answers and hell I have not clue if I am on the right path to happiness and pleasure. What I do know is that I am experiencing more and more small pleasurable happy moments in a day then I have ever before. This reminds me that taking the big steps and large risks were worth it. Yes, do I still have a TON of fear, yes do I worry about to many items that are not in my control, and yes do I push myself through more ‘painful’ moments to gain those pleasurable moments, but in the end, it is worth it. Or I hope it will be worth it. The only thing I know is that there is no correct way to live life and if someone tells you or insinuates otherwise, they are lost themselves.

My ultimate goal is to find both a tolerable pain and pleasurable life balance so I can make my risks worth while. Step outside of my comfort zone to see a better life for the people I love, whether they notice it or not.

Staying Stable

The past few days have challenge me in many new ways. Yes, I am nobody, but I am also a mom of two, pregnant with my third, a full-time worker who carries the weight of main bread-winner, and currently in a different country for the month to support my husbands career. On top of that, there was a family emergency back home that I can’t be there for besides be emotionally supportive over text, phones calls, and video calls. How am I staying stable?

This is something I question pretty much every hour. I try to remember that everything happens for a reason. I remind my self there is some form of higher power out there. Now whether that is a god(s), mother nature, or some other ultimate entity, I oddly have a sense of faith that things happen for a reason.

The past few years I have been trying to connect with not only myself of self but be aware of ‘energies’ and rely on all my senses. This has been extremely helpful lately in grounding myself. I stabilize myself by pulling the energy off of my innocent children who are LOVING the environment we are currently living in. Seeing their pure joy and happiness makes me happy. I draw energy from not only the natural environment of listening to the wind during the brief breaks I take outside but also feeling the different vibes the community exudes around me as I pick up necessary items from the local grocery store.

Being present in small moments and connecting with what is occurring around me makes me whole and stable. I don’t have many people I am able to lean on presently in my life but I am learning to lean on my senses. To use the world around me to stabilize my the emotional roller coaster and life occurrences I am currently on. Writing on this platform to get out my thoughts from a high-level approach also assists. There are many ways to reach out for stabilization in ones life. We just have to be up for the challenge and be willing to try different approaches. It has been a really tough couple of weeks but ultimately I am surviving and I am proud of the growth I have taken as a single entity.

Left not Knowing from Right

Life is so complex, daunting, scary, fun, and just a big bag of unknowns. Not knowing what path to take, not knowing if the choices you are making on a daily basis are the correct ones. In the end, your life and your choices impact not only yourself but the people around you. Observing how I carry myself while living around many different people, from different cultures, ethnicities, backgrounds, and overall different perspectives, I have come to realize how much we impact one another.

We feed off one another like one living organism trying to find food, and comfort on the way to survival. It is an odd way to think about it but honestly I am surprised by other’s reactions, even strangers, from simple common interactions I may have with them. I am just trying to survive as well in this crazy world and figure out my identity and make sure I choose a path that will lead to my children’s and families success. But I have noticed, it is better to live with the wholistic thriving organism instead of hiding myself and my family to just a certain group.

Sharing the small wins in life, being empathetic, and overall treating others with decent respect along your life journey can cause a huge ripple affect. Whether if you are aware of it or not. Take a moment, and extend a hand no matter which one it might be. Live life and simultaneously raise others up by living with them. There is so much good in this world even though it appears to being damning right now in today’s climate.

It is hard to keep focus on the good and focus on the different hands life dealt us. Left hand is doing one thing while the right hand doing something completely different. One thing I know for sure is to start focusing on the small good items in the life that both paths or hands are dealing with and try to bring them together in synergy. Extremely hard but possible!

Community

Losing ones sense of self is extremely easy. There are so many distractions and tons of chaos that surrounds us on a daily basis. Hell life is full of unfortunate events that can happen in a moments time to dismantle us off our course. OR, is this chaos and moments there to redirect us to a path that we missed.

Lately, I am realizing something my father used to tell me is coming back full circle. A way of living that I really didn’t realize was inbreed in me is now going to bring me back on a path I miss. A friend recently reminded me of this way of living in one simple statement, “Keep your community close because among this chaos, they are the ones that will be there to support you and your family.”

I grew up being guided that community is only your family, blood. But I struggled to believe this, even at a young age. Let’s just say on both my mother and father’s side my blood family would distance themselves from my sister and me because we thought differently in this sense. My sister was lucky enough to find a friend community in her high school friends that are all heavily involved in her life to this day. Something I am grateful they have adopted me into. But when do I start my own community. A community that is not long distance or virtual. A community that I find solace in and one that I find support but also contribute to support them. I am tired of bouncing around from work community to work community. I love all my friends and family that are all in different states and countries but I am missing a close presence they can not fill.

How, in today’s world of chaos, do I find a path that leads me to a local community, and one that I can trust?