Exposure

          There is a time in life when the blood in your body rushes faster and faster through your insides and you feel this warmth consume you.  You start to feel your hair on your arms raise and this chill in your back makes you quiver.  Your mouth becomes dry and it almost seems like your grip could be strong enough to crack a coconut.  This moment could be from extreme heights of anger or this moment could be from ground-breaking joy.   The way our bodies react physically to emotional stimulation has always fascinated me. I felt this rage of physical changes in my body.  I looked in the mirror. 

          I don't know a single soul that hasn't dealt with self pity.  Some cases are worse than others.  At the end of the day, we all have something we dislike in ourselves and struggle to overcome. As I said, some cases are worse than others and that was me. I was a freaking basket-case, for a lack of better terminology.  If it was socially acceptable to black out all mirrors in my home, I would have done so in the past.  I let demons consume me.  They crept into my thought processes and I blamed myself for every single bad thing that ever entered into my life.  No matter the situation, it was my fault. Some mistake in the past led to this moment in my life and I deserve this.  I deserve this agonizing pain.  But I looked in the mirror yesterday. 

       

        For the first time, I felt that raging passion of emotion running through my body for me.  It was all for me.  I looked in the mirror and I saw me for the beautiful woman I am.  I do not deserve harm.  I do not deserve to be consumed with demons... demons from situations or demons in people. People around you time and time are going to try and break you down.  People who know your demons will grab on to them and use them as pushing points.  People who don't love you throughout your journey will try and make you not love yourself.  But I have a question that I'm having a hard time answering for myself.  Is it okay to expose the demons of someone else?  

          Let's just say Bobby Joe had an issue with the color purple.  You knew this, because you helped Bobby Joe get through this situation.  You watched the tears and the pain the color purple caused him.  Would you talk about the color purple to him?  Would you talk about the color purple around him to other friends? I have two conflicting answers that are battling like the Hatfield and McCoys and I can't seem to find a neutral agreement.  One thought tells me that talking about it brings up memories and demons that Bobby may not want to relive, so out of respect, you simply just don't bring up the color purple unless Bobby brings it up first.  My other thoughts tell me that talking about it with Bobby helps him deal with it in an outside setting.  Because the color purple will always be discussed around him, so he will have to learn to adjust his reaction when it's brought up in conversation.  Can Bobby look in the mirror?

          Issues of our social times are more exposed now than they ever were.  Which is also why people believe this world is more evil than it is good.  We focus on it. The media thrives on it.  But what if Bobby doesn't want his demons exposed?  Is it okay to expose the issue Bobby had with the color purple to other people?  One thought says, it's not your right.  The other thought says, it could put a filter on conversations brought up around him... which in the end is a way of protecting him. What if Bobby was okay with only a select few knowing he is coping with the color purple.  And although he knows the color purple is out there, he just chooses to not let other people know he has had a bad run in with the color purple.  Is it okay to let other people know Bobby had this dilemma?  Were you there for this thing that the color purple did to him?  Or were you just there to help him pick up the pieces afterward?  How can you expose something to someone without knowing the entire situation?  I can tell Lisa Frank that I don't like ketchup and she may tell Bobby Joe that I don't like tomatoes, because that's the way she interpreted it.  But I love tomatoes. So should we really be talking about someones demons if they aren't our own?  When is a good time to do so?  

          I don't know the answers to these questions, which is why I ask upon any of the readers to give their interpretation.  If you're dealing with demons, if you're dealing with voices around you discussing your demons freely, and if you're struggling with any of the above... look in the mirror.  Look and the mirror and always remember one thing.  You are who you want to be.  You are not who they say you are!  

                                                                        Yours truly,

                                                                       Amanda Rae

Pausing time

          Have you ever stood before a beautiful landscape such as the fog across the mountain tops or the sunset hitting against white caps on a river and just felt frozen... as if time wasn't moving forward... as if the world had paused just for a moment to let you soak in the beauty without worrying about the passing of time?  If time could only just really pause so we could spend all of our seconds day-dreaming into the beauty of this world.  Unfortunately, time doesn't pause.  Time doesn't ever stand still for us even when we most desire it.  It's simliar the serenity we feel from a slow song that sings all the right words speaking into a "stretched too thin" heart.  The way you feel the words sink into your skin as your eyes start to shut in a way hoping that it'll trap all the good vibes it's sending throughout your body.  We hope for that beautiful ending that makes us feel like all these troubles will fade away just like the rythym and beat of the song do.   But that's the thing... it doesn't fade away.  We are still standing on that mountain edge and hours have passed.  We are still laying in bed with our heaphones in and the song has just ended and now we lay in silence.  Nothing has changed.  Reality is still there...

          Those are the moments where we must learn our inner strength.  We so often find things to cover up our issues due to what it feels like to expose yourself to those around you.  In society I've realized very quickly that if you break down you're most likely one of three things...1. A liar.  Because who on earth would vent about such huge dilemmas unless they were just trying to get attention from a crowd of people they barely knew or barely cared (sometimes we can't tell the difference).  2.  Weak.  I mean, c'mon you really have to complain about things like this... children in other countries are starving.  3.  Damaged. All they ever do is get sad and cry about things going on in their life. I just can't take this negativity all of the time.  How... and excuse my maturity of language here... How fucked up have we all become?  Because I'm not going to sit here and hold myself holier than thou as if I've never put someone in one of these categories.  I'm all for being aware of your surroundings and understanding who someone is before they begin to take advantage of you or pull the wool over your eyes.  Yet, at the same time... when did our hearts shrink so small that we couldn't even give a saddened soul the time of day to feel like someone actually cared to hear their issues?

          I haven't posted in a blog in a while and the time lapse between each post is so far apart, that I'm sure nobody truly follows this piece of shit anymore.  I don't really care about that at this point in my life. Life has taken me in places I never thought I'd experience... or actually let me be honest... I thought I'd experience eventually, just not so soon. I won't even begin to "cry" about my issues into my post right now.  Honestly, my anger with society will cloud my judgement with what I want to write instead of what I should write.  I just hope that if at any second you found yourself thinking back to someone that tried to reach out to you and instead of giving them an open heart, you shut them out and didn't devote any time to helping them see things through... I hope you reconsider that thought process next time.  Because one day you will come to a point in your life where all you desire is someone to reach out to you and demand you to cry... force you to fess up to what's been going on in your life... make you tell them what's going on no matter how many times you tell everyone it's okay.  All because you were scared of whether or not they would take you serious.  All because you were scared they would place you in one of those three categories.   It's okay to be sad.  It's quite okay to be lost and need some help along the way.  It's okay to be angry with the way things are going and desire a time to vent.  What isn't okay is the lack of support we offer to those we call "friends". 

                                                                           Yours truly,
                                                                          Amanda Rae
                                                                 (someone you can talk to)