Working Towards a Better You

As a reflect on the past four years I can safely assert that I have in fact neglected the most important
person in my life, myself. While my mom was sick with cancer, I had a new found appreciation for life. I realized that we are fragile, and much like a beautiful piece of art, we can shatter. Sometimes we can pick the pieces back up and recreate the piece into a beautiful mosaic. Other times, the glass is unable to be repaired. I chose to take the pieces that shattered from my mom's terminal cancer diagnosis and created a new, but beautiful picture. A picture of a life I always desired, but could never achieve. I went on for a Masters degree, finding enrichment through education. I worked out daily, which felt freeing when and helped to reduce life stressors. I was at a healthy weight, where I was feeling confident in my looks, abilities, and self. My health seemed to finally be back on the right path. I was dedicated to facilitating change both through my research and my commitment to my community. I recall putting on my reduce, reuse shirt and riding my bike to the blue line train. I got off the train, with spidey (my bike) by my side and celebrated earth day with hundreds of other people hoping to save the animals, environment, and our home (Earth). In that moment, at the Earth Day Celebration, I felt as though I had finally discovered who I was. Somewhere between that moment to the present I think I lost my way. As mentioned is previous blogs, I lost my path.

I'm not sure if the major loss of my older brother has caused me to reevaluate my life choices, but I certainly think it has sparked something within me. I realize the past 4 years I've been slowly digging my own grave. First, the stress that I have experienced in the past 4 years has been indescribable. There were moments I was wondering how I was still even able to exist. Rather than viewing education as a gift, I began to view it as a pressure. I constantly felt not good enough, and as though I was not worthy. I know it's not uncommon for people to have impostor syndrome, but I felt as though mine was getting the best of me. Second, my physical health began to deteriorate. I slowly gained all of my weight back and then some. I have been the heaviest I have been since high school, and am disappointed and enraged at myself. I made a promise when I lost over 100 pounds that I would never let myself get that big. Here I am 4 years later twice as heavy. I worked incredibly hard to take off the weight and can't believe I am back at square one. Third, I have put aside my own desires and passions to appease to others. I feel as though I am selfish when I do something for me. And at times, I really want to say "I JUST WANT A DAY ABOUT ME", but I continue to struggle with that. Additionally, I have allowed others to bully me and even make me feel bad. It is my assumption, that most people, don't truly want to hurt you. We can and often do say hurtful things that aren't indicative of how we feel. I can, and should, tell people when they say these things.

The past two days I've tried very hard to be a better me. To remember the maybe 2 years I was happy
in my life (aside from my childhood). I had a routine and I enjoyed my routine. I was productive, felt accomplished, and most importantly was proud of the person I was. I'm not proud of myself. I am not happy with what is going on in my life. Even though I haven't woken up at the time I want (I'm finding it completely impossible to wake up these days) I force myself to do what I had planned to do at that time. For example, the past two days I have biked 5 miles a day and swam for at least 30 minutes a day. Even though my body is sore I pressed through. I almost gave up halfway through my swim today, but then I saw a cardinal. The cardinal landed on the post by the pool. It was a beautiful, bright red. The cardinal began to sing one of the most incredible songs I have heard in nature. I continued to swim and it continued to sing. It felt as though the cardinal was singing to me and telling me to keep going. When the cardinal finally left, I paused for a moment and felt as though it was my brother, mom, or perhaps both. I believe in my heart, that it was a message to keep going. To keep fighting the darkness and to work towards my happiness. To be the person I consider "better". Today I am blogging. I want to continue to blog my emotions, feelings, and get back to my own personal writing. Writing brought me clarity and allowed me to cope with difficulties. And as a narrative scholar, I've come to learn that writing is cathartic.

I want to be a better person, and find my happiness again and not just for myself. I want to be happy and strong for my dad, who is going through something unimaginable. I want to be there for my sister and show her undeniable love. I want to be the best sister I can to my younger brother, who I know struggles daily. Most of all, I want to be happy for my husband so that he remembers why he married me. I also want to accomplish what I have set out to do from the start, to help people. I want to educate students and have them come to me and talk to me. I want to be the person that helps to guide them and makes them feel as though they can bring the skills they learn in the classroom into their lives. I want to continue to research cancer and illness, even though it hurts me and reopens wounds. Not because I want to be sad, but because I want others who have had to face what I have not to feel alone. Each year I want to do something for my mom and brother to show them that I am thinking of them.

Because Jay loved nature so much, I'm planning on doing something for him while in Arkansas.
Maybe going by the mountainside and saying a prayer for him. Maybe just having a fire and remembering him and telling stories. For my mom, I want to continue to light a candle. I also want to keep alive her love for life, desire to help others, and her fashion sense. In order to accomplish all of this I need to find my happy place. I need to do what makes me happy first so that I can be a better person for all of the people I love so much. I know I will get to where I need to be, I just need to believe in myself and have the confidence I once did. I have a paper accepted to NCA, I have the front end of my dissertation almost complete, and I have a tenure-track position with people I am greatly looking forward to working with. I can do this.

XOXO
Lex

Haunted

For much of my life I was haunted by pains that seemed so unbearable at times I didn't want to be here. While some of these thoughts plagued me for years, and some still do I have never had the courage to leave. I have experienced a tremendous amount of loss for my age, and I am and forever will be haunted by this notion. When I lost my mother, I thought that life could not get worse. I hoped, and to some extent, believed that I would not have to endure another loss in the near future. 4 years later I feel myself breaking down, the ground seems to be falling from beneath me, and I am dealing with the loss of my older brother.

When my mother got cancer, I vowed to make something positive out of it. I wanted to help people. My need to help people overtook me, and I became set on doing research to help people. More importantly, I realized that there weren't that many people at my age who had to deal with or see what I saw. When I did meet people who experienced the same loss I felt relieved, in a weird way. I wanted to do something to bring young adults together who lost a parent to a terminal illness. However, in the quest to help, I find myself neglecting me own feelings, desires, and needs. I realize now more than ever that people truly don't know what to say when faced with loss. Telling me to move on from my mother tells me I should not still be grieving her, which I am. Asking me how close or how I was related to my older brother is like saying well you weren't close so it shouldn't affect you.

Each holiday, birthday, celebration, and major life event I am haunted by the fact that my mother will never be able to attend. She will never see the woman I grew up to be. It took me a long time to accept this, and to this day I still struggle. I still feel angry that I don't get to have my mother while others do. I still am envious of those have their parents see their weddings, major life events, and see their children stabilize. The pain and grief I still live with the loss of my mother will never truly go away. As I told my Father, you don't ever move on, but rather you keep going. You need to keep going to honor and allow the memory of your loved one to stay alive. I had Brandon and my wedding in Galena to honor my mother, because that was a place she always dreamed of me getting married. While most people would say, "wouldn't this make you sad?" I didn't get sad. It felt good to be having an important and life changing experience in a place that my mother and I shared such a connection. It was like she was there, if not physically, in spirit.

When I visited my mothers grave this weekend, I told her I was sorry for not taking care of my brother, but that I was trying to help people. I told myself I wouldn't cry, but I did. More than I ever thought I could. I put my hands on her grave and it felt comforting, but also reminded me that she is not here. I can never give my mother a hug. I can never tell her how I truly feel. I will never see her again.

My brother's passing has reminded me and open up wounds I've worked towards repairing from my mothers death. Seeing my brother made me flashback to my mom. However, this was even more painful. My brother and I shared a love for music. He had his band play music to my lyrics because I always wanted to be in a band. I don't think he knew how meaningful that was to me. I was heavily bullied in high school. The music I listened to was my life and is what helped me cope with the pain. I always wished I could be in a band like him or my younger brother, but I knew it would never happen for me. That one song gave me so much joy. I've listened to it about a 100 times and just keep thinking about how that changed my life. It is a testimate to what kind of person my brother was. I knew eventually I would lose my parents. While I lost my mom way too soon, I never thought I'd lose a sibling, at least not so young. I never thought someone I loved would be in so much pain that they would take their own life.

I think this has affected me so much, because I've been in such a dark place that I didn't want to be here. Some of these blogs I'm sure alluded to my pain and suffering. I was bullied, cheated on, lost my childhood home, ran into financial issues, and been sick most of my life. My mom dying made everything else seem trivial and this makes life seem just way too short. We spend so much of our lives worrying about everything, working so hard, and at the end of the day what do we have to show for ourselves? Possessions? I worry everyday. I am so paranoid and so concerned about the future that I become too blind to see what's important in the moment. On the way home from Chicago, I'm fairly certain I may have had a mini stroke. Despite the loss of two important people and a scare of losing mobility of my body I still worry. I don't want to be consumed by pain and worry, but some days it's difficult to control. I think about my brother and what could have drove him to do what he did. I miss him and wish that I could hug him. I hadn't talked to him since Christmas, and the guilt that I feel is tremendous. Moving away from my family was one of the most difficult decisions I made in my life. Knowing that I missed out on so much of my brothers life and couldn't be there right away for my family pains me still.

I want to move forward and just want some of the stress and worry to go away. I'm not sure how I will get to that point. Some days I feel crazy and unable to do much of anything. I still do have many people in my life that I love, including my husband, dad, brother, sister, and nieces/nephew. I still can't get over that I could lose one of them. I think about it and I get depressed and worried. I just hope that I can find peace and that I can eventually get to where I want to be. I will always miss and be sad that I lost my mother and brother, but I will do my best to allow their memories to be a present part of my life.