Life Lessons

In life, and in love, communication is a key player.  When you don’t talk to one another about the good and the bad things you give those things consent to fester within yourself.  You allow your thoughts to be locked away.  In essence you are censoring yourself to your detriment.  Once the bad things take root it will always be a struggle to rid your mind of the negative and poisonous influences they inevitably have.  When you keep things to yourself, when you neglect to vocalize that you are in pain and that you need aid, you are not only hurting yourself but helping little cracks to form in the foundations of your relationships.  You never see these little cracks at first but like a small spot on a car’s windshield, sooner or later these cracks spread like a spider’s web.  And it can happen in an instant.  That little bump that you thought was nothing causes the whole thing to crack.  It’s broken.  There is no going back and repairing it.

Don’t go through your life quietly.  Don’t let others have the power and then resent them for it.  If you never allow yourself the know-how and willpower to be anything and everything you want then it’s your own fault where you end up.  You are the voice in your head that matters.  It is disrespectful to yourself and indeed others if you don’t say what you want or what you need.  We have not evolved into an era of psychic mind-reading abilities so don’t treat others as such.  You are responsible just as they are.  All relationships, in order to be successful, require mutual trust and respect. 

You never see until later how disrespectful and dishonest your passiveness had become.  And then it’s too late.  You’ve festered too long.  You’ve resented too much.  You never forgave and they never knew any wrong-doing had occurred.  Do not blame yourself but take responsibility.  Take charge and say you’re sorry.  You’re sorry for being silent.  You’re sorry for being afraid to stand up for yourself.  Then learn from it.  Acknowledgement given, you now own it.  Then forgive yourself because you’re only human and you can’t learn from mistakes that you’ve never made.

Never regret the things you’ve done.  They will help to shape you and teach you, if you let them.  And always love.  Even if it’s brief, love will always carry you to your next stop.  Love will feed that part of you that is always searching and hopefully it will lead you where you’ve never imagined.

“It’s not selfish to love yourself, take care of yourself, and to make your happiness a priority.  It’s necessary.”  –Mandy Hale

Priorities

“I’d rather sing one wild song and burst my heart with it, than live a thousand years watching my digestion and being afraid of the wet.”  –Jack London

That, right there, is precisely how I feel about writing.  I need to realize the neccessity of writing in my life and make it more of a priority.  I live and breathe the written word.  Straight from my heart through the pen/pencil/keyboard. 

If you’re still here, thanks for reading.  I’ll try to be more steadily committed to this relationship. 

PLEASE STAY TUNED.  Yes this is in fact begging. 

Personal Reflection (I’m never going to give you what you expect)

“My experience of life is that it is not divided up into genres; it’s a horrifying, romantic, tragic, comical, science-fiction cowboy detective novel. You know, with a bit of pornography if you’re lucky.”

-Alan Moore

 

I’ve looked back over that last post and I feel the need to remind myself that I started this blog as a journal, of sorts, to share with other people.  That last post was not up to my standards and actually reads a bit shallow.  I hope you’ll stick around for the ups and downs and curves I have in store for you.

Onward!  

I’ve been staying up entirely too late recently.  Thoughts about my life and how I’m living(or rather not living) it insist on swirling through my brain well into the night and early morning.  Even now as I sit here writing this, it is well past midnight and I have to be up by 6 a.m.  It isn’t insomnia.  I could go to sleep if i wanted to.

There are so many things I want to do.  So I make lists, goals and plans.  Notebooks have been filled with wish lists, itineraries and ideas.  They lay on the pages as only words, only as what-ifs and eventuallys.  Under my skin an urge crawls like one of those mythical sea monsters.  You can only catch a glimpse once in a great while but when you see its majesty you’re both awed and terrified.  I’m not saying that I’m something so special but I know, I know there is more to me.

Can I, will I stop trying so hard to figure out my next step in life?  I need to cease the incessant daydreaming and go live (or try on) some of these dreams.  This life I’m leading now is slowly crushing me.  The weight of ‘what’s next?’ is almost too much.

I am funny, creative, smart and passionate so here is my promise to myself:  I will spread some laughter.  I will create fictional lands and people to share with the world –I WILL WRITE.  I will learn new things and teach them to others.  I will revel in the laughter of others and use them to fuel my fictional creations.  I will love.  I will be loved.  I will live.

Goodnight/Good Morning my lovelies.  I leave you with a poem that I saw on a poster when I was young.  I copied it down and it has moved with me and stuck in my head for years.  I have it memorized and it epitomizes the way I look at the world around me fairly well.  The author, to my knowledge is unknown.

A smile is quite a funny thing, it wrinkles up the face

and when it’s gone, you never find

it’s secret hiding place.

But far more wonderful it is to see what smiles can do.

You smile at one, he smiles at you

and so one smile makes two

He smiles at someone, since you smiled, and that one smiles back

and that one smiles, until in truth, you fall in keeping track.

Since a smile can do a great deed

by cheering hearts of care

Let’s smile and smile, and not forget

that smiles go everywhere

xo

 

I Should Be Doing Something Else

I’m hoping as time goes on that I will be able to find some sort of direction for this blog. In the meantime, I shall pester you with my random thoughts on every single thing I can think of. THIS WILL BE FUN, I PROMISE. Okay, I can’t promise that because obviously I do not know what you think is fun. I’ll just assume that since you’re here reading this, you are so bored that it won’t really matter what I include. Are you still reading this? Great! I’m on a roll.

I have decided that procrastination is a disease. I caught it when I was young -much too young- and it has hindered me for the last twenty or so years. Why do now what you can put off until later, right? Wrong. Procrastination is a serious epidemic folks, and it must be stopped. My suggestions include but are not limited to: celebrity telethons (Zooey Deschanel and James Franco sound fantastic to me), fear-inducing threats ( NO COFFEE UNTIL YOU COMPLETE THIS TASK! That would scare the crap out of me for sure!), or perhaps incentives such as free food or gifts (Zooey or James could stop by and give me some pie, that would be acceptable to me). My ideas may seem far-fetched to you, in which case you may want to back away slowly from this blog because I enjoy both being fetching and being fetching from afar. Go ahead, analyze that sentence. I’ll wait.

….

Don’t get it yet? That’s okay, I’m not positive that I understand either. Let’s be daft together.

In all seriousness, procrastination has become my most bitter enemy. The fact that I’m sitting here completing an entry in one sitting is almost unthinkable. I have unfinished crafts (though that is mostly because I didn’t take the time to learn how to do them properly), incomplete poetry, stories, school work, even relationships. All because I put off dealing with things. That is the core of it all. I think the key could be having a support system. Maybe I need a support group of other like-minded individuals who cannot finish things. But would we ever meet? Would we be able to settle for a date and time and then commit to keeping that appointment? Not likely. The thought of even planning something and then following through does not sound like a feasible task.

Oy. This disease is tough. I should finish up here and get back to some homework. Or watch some Doctor Who. The homework isn’t due for a few weeks…

Crap.

If you or someone you know is suffering from this disease please remember that they’ve tried to overcome it many times and they cannot do it alone. With your powers combined…you could probably waste even more time! Good luck, we’re all counting on you.

In the beginning…

Hi, my name is Ashley and I’m not actually crazy but will, for the most part, come off that way throughout this blog.

So, I’ve toyed with the idea of blogging for quite some time. I am a procrastinator and often start things without any intention of finishing them. Bad habits and whatnot. So I’m just going to do it, jump in, and hopefully swim. I’m going to slowly invite readers here so that they may encourage (see that word and understand that it does not mean harass) me to continue updating you on the various thoughts in my head. That is all this blog shall be. Have fun trying to decipher what I post. Think of it like a puzzle where even the person laying out the pieces doesn’t know what’s going on. I cannot even guarantee that all of said pieces will belong to the same puzzle.

Aren’t you excited?!?!?! I know I am. See you soon.

Hey look, I’m a real person!

xo