The Circle of Life

This is probably considered a depressing entry, so if you read it to the end, you get a happy picture. :)

Having battled for many years with suicidal thinking has made me look at death differently. However, no matter how much of my life I have spent trying to come to peace with life, I still feel incredible sad when someone I can connect with on any level dies. There is so much unnecessary death. We all like to think that the timing of that irreversible event will somehow be fair and just. I often see it as being universal, one of the few things people agree on. No matter how you feel about someone you want their death to be fair, you want them to exit life at the right time. That may mean you want someone you love to live as long as possible and die peacefully while believing that someone you hate dies painfully at a young age.

When that doesn’t happen most people make peace by creating stories, some of which are probably the most beautiful ideas ever imagined by man. Sadly, deep down, we know, we hate to admit it, but we know at some point, everyone leaves and it’s not always fair. It’s nice that with current science and knowledge, a cause of death can be declared and we often find peace in that. It’s silly that the death of an actor, someone who I have never met personally, would be on the forefront of my mind so much. I cannot help it. He was only three years older than me. How scary is that? I’m young, it’s supposed to be a guarantee that I’ll wake up from my sleep and that tomorrow will for a fact happen. It brings me chills and flash backs.

I spent so long, so many nights crying myself to sleep in fear, wondering if in the middle of the night I would just sleep walk and accidently hurt myself, or worse, end my life. That’s something that is never talked about. Suicidal thinking is not just one thought, it follows you, and it takes over you and your entire life. You think about nothing else, you dream about nothing else. Every moment and ounce of energy you spend fighting for your life in great hope that one day it will all just get better. We want to believe that for you somehow magically life will return again, that you will feel safe in your own skin again.

I know it’s been widely reported, that the actor did not want to take his own life that he did not commit suicide. I also know that his cause of death has not been determined. However, the fact of the matter is he went to sleep, did not wake up and he was all of twenty-eight. What better example can life provide to illustrate the timing and situation of death can be anything but fair? However, out of all the sadness two things pop into my mind:

The actor’s final film has promotional posters with his character’s likeness with the words, “Why so serious?” I’ll leave that one for you to comprehend.

Second, I am reminded of a quote from the movie The Hours where the character Virginia Wolf explains to her young niece why she is killing one of the characters in the books she is writing. “Someone has to die in order that the rest of us should value life more.”

By the way, everyone, regardless of their faith, should read the book of Genesis. It is beautiful. That story has so much to it and has undoubtedly stood the test of time.

So, here you have it, a happy picture of my favorite lobster and I. It's my favorite because it was a gift from my sailor. Just further proof we are two peas from the same pod. :)

Wire, Washers and Wisdom

I’ve recently decided that I’m going to start a new hobby. I had lots of reservations. Most of the revolved around the fact that for some odd reason I spent most of my childhood days competing with people for various wants and felt a pressure to be good at whatever it was I spent my time doing. It was a way for me to prove my worth to people and further convince them that I was worth investing in. I know, sad isn’t it? Regardless, it made the whole idea of starting something new, something that would probably take me years to perfect very overwhelming. However, I realized the following and now I am excited as ever at taking on a new trade:

Where does this idea come from that in life it’s too late to learn something or change something about your self? That it’s too late to go back to school or start a new career? It wasn’t that long ago that people would learn a trade and die ten or fifteen years later and that’s assuming that they even lived that long. It’s okay to start a new life at thirty, forty, and fifty and beyond. No matter what career you choose, what field you pursue, odds are very much in your favor you’ll be able to contribute to it. Why let mortality kill you before it takes your body back to the earth it came from?

Exactly.

It's okay to be bad, mad and sad.

It’s unfortunate that we live in a time and place were there is a consistent expectation to be perfectly happy all the time. Humans are not perfect and also not consistent. Yes, you can control attitude and behavior, but after that, what can you control? And if you could, should you? At what point should a person allow life to affect them, to sway them, to impress them? We often spend so much time fighting life, we often don’t just stop and appreciate the moment and accept ourselves regardless of how not perfect we are during that slice of time.

We also have stopped admitting that we dislike things or people for that matter. We’ve stopped letting people know when they do something that is below par or unacceptable. Teachers are afraid to fail students, employers afraid to fire people, there are even laws about how if you list someone as a reference they can’t even destroy your character, even if you may deserve it because while you worked for them you stole money out of the cash drawer on a daily basis.

It’s almost like we’ve lost a piece of our freedom somehow. I once had a roommate that at the time we lived together processed every single quality I disliked about people. Granted, she had additional qualities, some I liked very much and she was in mind, for the most part, a good person. It just so happened that because of where life was taking her, well, actually, where she was taking herself, I could not agree or approve of many of the decisions she was making including small ones. In hindsight, this shouldn’t have mattered. However, because I live in a world where it is somehow very evil and wrong to think, much less say anything negative about someone, my opinions caused many problems. I even had people telling me that I was wrong for disagreeing with them and thinking she was anything less than how amazing they believed her to be.

It was tough, in some cases it came down to either losing my friends or losing the very base of my belief system. My ideas of what was morally and ethically right or wrong were even brought into question. In the end, I choose my beliefs, my basic sense of self, the core of my identity, or at least what was left after other life events changed it. For some odd reason, people still think if I had the chance I would want to hurt her, which in itself is odd. Just because I disapprove or dislike does not mean I hate or disrespect it to the point I would want to hurt her just for enjoyment. It just goes to show how little people know about me. From my point of view, it sucks that I don't have any contact with her, because that means I will never have the oppertunity to form a more positive opinion of her. I just have to take my fairly negative opinion of her to my grave.

A lot of good came from the experience of living with her though. You can learn a lot from people who live a life you would hate or despise. That experience reaffirmed my confidence that my fundamental ideas of good and bad are the right ones for me to have in my life. It helped me to understand why there is so much hate, how so many people refuse to listen, take criticism for what it is, allow life to touch them and grow and change into better version of themselves. I hesitate to say better people because that would imply something I don’t mean, that only by someone becoming more like me are they good people. There is good in every person. It’s just that it saddens me that people ignore opportunities to enrich their lives simply because they refuse to listen and take other’s seriously.

Oddly enough, I woke up in the middle of the night thinking about this as well as being mad as heck that I had Queen’s bicycle song stuck in my head, which remained there, repeating itself for two hours until I feel asleep again. It was in wee hours I realized that I have never actually wrote down or made a list of the things I do not like about the human race, or qualities that have a tendency to rub me the wrong way much less what I would consider my core beliefs. I haven't listed what the qualities I most like about people. I think I’m going to add that to my list of things to do.

The Golden Chair of Kittery

Yes, it is true, it does exist, and now I have proof. Behold:

I have no idea why this is here. I have asked people and they claim they don't know either.

New Hampshire Primary

Shortly after I moved here I decided I was going to ignore the media and news about the presidential campaign temporary so that I could get a perspective that I would hope be a bit different from the national one considering the unique situation I’m in. Now, while I live in Maine and have absolutely so say in the matter, In just a short drive away, over in nearby New Hampshire, there’s a series of interesting events taking place. Every chance I get, I take the bridge that leads me through downtown Portsmouth so I have an excuse to drive very slowly and watch all the commotion.

Due to the unusual amount of heavy snowfall we’ve had up here the last month, there are still piles of the stuff in areas not cleared out, like the little corners of intersections. All of which are just covered with lawn signs for the different candidates. They all look about the same, all with a blue background and red and white lettering. If I was just visiting and didn’t know very much about the United States I’d think it was a multi-party system.

I’ve also realized how much talking the candidates are doing…to actual people, not cameras. Yeah, sure there are debates and such, but the candidates here are going out and just talking to people and ordinary people, just like you or me are listening to them. They are not sound bites; they are as close to actual people as you are going to get ever in this election. I know that there has been as lot complaints about how wrong it is for a just one state to steal the show as it were and get the glory of having the first primary election, BUT, after witnessing some of what goes on here, it may not be that bad of system after all. Granted, some tweaking may be in order, most of the people in New Hampshire are white, so I completely understand the view points of other Americans who are not mostly European and their argument that it isn’t a fair representation.

However, there are a lot of reasons why New Hampshire is a good place for the first primary. The most obvious being that it is small in size and even if a candidate had little money, it would be relatively easy to travel around, find audiences, and get his (or her) point across. It’s a more level playing field than other states in that regard. It also doesn’t seem to have a media monopoly where one station or news outlet controls all of the information and how it’s portrayed or slanted, if at all.

I do wonder what New Hampshire gets out of it besides recognition. Why would a state have a law on the books stating that their primary isn’t held on X date, but rather is held a week before any other state’s primary? So, if a state moves up the primary, then New Hampshire’s moves up automatically without the need to be slowed down by needing a state government vote of some kind? Interesting…Any one else find this odd? I haven’t been around long enough to know if it just has something to do with state pride. I know back home in Kansas, there are definitely things if some other state tried to take from us we’d fight like hell and raise a stink to back them off.

I do know that New Hampshire doesn’t seem to have a problem taking care of itself despite having no personal income or sales tax. The current governor boosts about eliminating a major budget deficient and improving a lot of state run programs like education and health services while continuing to keep personal income and sales tax at a big zero. With that being the case is it so wrong for New Hampshire to just have the first primary? As long as people in New Hampshire are happy with their state and local governments, they aren’t looking up at any of these candidates wondering how they would help only them personally, but rather how they’ll help the country as a whole. As much as you might want to think that each individual from New England walks around with a stick shoved up their butt, the people in New Hampshire know first hand what a system looks like that does more with less. In other words, gets a heck of a lot more done with a smaller government and less money.

At the end of the day, respect it for what it is, one state’s primary. And if there were a group of people who would love to see less federal taxes come out of their paycheck, it would be my neighboring New Hampshirites. They don’t mind giving money to programs, if they work. Keep in mind they still pay taxes on some things, like property for instance. If a New Hampshirite said that X government program was okay and worth the money I’d buy them a cup of coffee and listen to what they would have to say. They are trustworthy in that regard.

Now, if only someone would teach people from New Hampshire those roundabouts are not always necessary and how to use their freaking turn signals…

They ♥ Kittery, Maine

As much as I ate to admit it, homesickness did catch up to me recently. I never thought I’d miss my friends so much, and those dirty coffee shops, fresh beef, my long walks through the neighborhood, familiar restaurants, having an excuse to read and care about the journal world, knowing exactly where to go to find a nice, quiet park bench, used book stores, thrift stores, and yes, Friday nights with the family where we’d go out to eat at some cheap restaurant and sometimes sit and watch movies, talk about world events and other lively discussions. I have been longing for some sense of familiarity and being unemployed and watching bills build up in my name around me isn’t helping my sense of belonging here.

The town of Kittery hosted a welcome gathering for the men that serve aboard the recent submarine addition to the nearby shipyard. They were greeted with hugs and a scarf made by a member of the city in which the boat was named after. It wasn’t the most exciting thing on the surface. The music was provided by four people, all talented, who sang, played flute, one who knew the saxophone really well. They cycled through the same five or six songs including “Hit the Road Jack,” which seemed like an odd choice for a welcoming event. As with all small town gatherings that I have ever attended, the big finale of the event was a raffle, but the prizes were very nice.

The most amazing thing about the event was how at first people were very stand offish and hesitant to be very welcoming at first. Most small towns have their people and their routine of things, we all know how it is, and new comers can be frightening. They were happy to share information, but it wasn’t until we were there for a while that people of the town really opened up. They’d just walk up, recognizing the hand made scarf on my fiancé’s neck and just start sharing personal stories about the town, often why they moved here, what they like to do here and often ending with their favorite part about this place. It was so amazing to watch people become very trusting and open up so much with us.

It made me realize that no, I’m not in Kansas anymore, but this place is just fine and maybe at some point will seem wonderful. There are people here, actual ones, with souls and spirit including people whom when given a choice to live anywhere, could afford to live anywhere, choose to live here. My new neighbors helped ground me into a new kind of peace and almost, but not entirely, convinced me that it is possible to live on a diet that does not included beef. I had clam chowder for the first time and it was very unusual. I highly recommend NEVER eating that stuff out of can, but made fresh it’s quite good. It’s going to take me a while to get used to it and I imagine adjusting to eating lobster will be more difficult. I keep seeing them at the grocery store, alive still, and just passing time until someone takes them home and eats them. I just can’t quite picture myself bringing home a live animal and killing it in my own kitchen.

It's a small world you know...

I continue to be baffled by people who do not understand that money does not grow on trees or fall magically from the sky. If you are getting something for free or greatly discounted, odds are it’s because someone somewhere is paying for it. For example, if you have health insurance, granted, you may only pay a small amount, a co-pay, but someone is paying the rest of the bill. Most of the time it’s your employer, but in other cases, it’s taxpayers. Another example would be very cheap clothing. What do you think the person who made the shirt you are wearing is making per day or per year? Do you think he or she is making enough money to live well? Yes, it’s true, sometimes things are free or greatly discounted and it’s in the best interest of all to take advantage of it. For example, if a grocery store has overstocked on milk, they will put milk on sale to encourage people to buy it. They win because they are getting rid of excess stock that is costing them too much money then it’s worth to store it and the customer wins because he gets milk at a price that is easier on the checkbook.

Please don’t take what I’ve said to mean I’m completely against nationalizing programs like health care or have a problem with world trade or globalism. I’m just noting that it is strange to me that people do not understand how much products are interconnected and how their actions effects others, no matter how small of an impact that may have on other people, it’s still an impact.