A Little Self-Confidence Makes The Medicine Go Down...the medicine go down...

So. I ran about a mile and a half today and sweated like a pig, and then I went for a two hour long bike ride. Just enjoying myself. I don't do that very often.

I'm trying to calm myself down and start following some of my dreams. "How does running and bike-riding follow a dream," you ask? It's just a really simple thing. I've always had some minor self-esteem issues with my body, and recently they've been pretty bad and have actually started to effect my life a little bit. I always kind of get this way in the summer, though, since it's just a given that you show more skin due to the heat.

If you read my posts closely you probably understand why I have issues with my body...Psoriasis. Yeah. I've had it since I was around seven or eight years old. It's not that big of a deal...and by that, I mean it's not a very bad case of psoriasis, but it is very visible on my elbows, and I have a few patches on my stomach, one on my knee, and one on the upper side of my left foot, and it also destroys my nails (to make them look normal I paint them). I'm as pale as pale gets, and they're a bright pink, almost red, against my milk white skin.

I've come out pretty good on this end considering that I grew up a freak. I've been paraded in front of more doctors than I care to admit, and when I was a little girl one of the first doctors I saw (to get diagnosed with psoriasis in the first place) used me as an example for twenty medical students who all came into my examination room to get their first eye-full of psoriasis. That wasn't normal. Ever since then I've been traumatized by this disease more times than I can count. I've been drug out of my sandbox and away from my friends to drive fifteen miles just to stand in a light box for twenty minutes out of a hope for "improvement." I was given ointments with steroids that thinned my skin and gave me stretchmarks at the age of nine. I was called "chicken pox girl" and even the teachers were scared of me. When I was in third grade my teacher was walking down the hall, leading our class to another room for our music lesson...she looked at my hand, freaked out and told me to go to the nurse. The nurse called my parents and asked what it was. Every grade after that up till my first year of middle school we had to sit down with every teacher I had and tell them what the hell was wrong with me so that they wouldn't have a conniption fit over my diseased body.

At one point or another I've had to explain my skin to every one of the friends I've had in my life. Answering the questions: "does it itch?" "Does it hurt?" "How long have you had it?" "What's it like?" "Why aren't you normal?" The answers to those questions are: yes. It friggin' itches sometimes. Yes. It hurts when my skin is so dry from it that it cracks and bleeds. And yes, it hurts when it gives me Psoriatic arthritis in my right knee occasionally. Finally, what's it like? It's like hell, darling. It's annoying, it's embarrassing, and people don't understand it.

The only thing that's kept me sane all these years is that I've been in a state of denial over its existence for around 90% of my life. I don't really see it when I look in the mirror. It's the assholes of the world that see it and remind me it's there with their backwards glances and raised eyebrows.

Every once in a while I look in the mirror and ask "Why, God? Why me?" Well. It made me a better person. It took a long while to accept myself, and there are still days that I look in the mirror at the shit and wish that I could tear it off of my skin. But...it made me a really good person. I understand so many things, I see the beauty in almost everything. I love hard, and I believe what comes out of my mouth. I KNOW a good person when I see one, and I understand what's worth fighting for. I've raised myself for years. I'm an old soul because of what I've lived through. I will always resent psoriasis a little, but I understand why it's been in my life.

Anyway, my psoriasis has been flaring up a little bit more than usual lately, and has been really annoying me. Also...it was really hard losing my ex...he wouldn't touch any part of my body with a patch on it...I know that's not why we broke up, but of course it didn't help anything, now did it? So I've felt really bad about myself lately. I just want to fix it all. I just want to be normal, you know? This psoriasis has been holding me back a lot recently, and I'm tired of it.

So what does this all have to do with bike-riding and running fulfilling dreams? I've been so depressed for the past few months because of being left alone again with my crazy mother, and losing the only person I've trusted in five years, and my psoriasis, that I haven't done anything. I've always said that I wanted to be in really great shape and take care of my body, so I'm doing it. Damned well I'm doing it this time. I will have the body I want by the end of this summer. I will. So, basically: I'm listening to myself and loving myself instead of listening to the shit of other people's mouths.

I'm turning myself back into the person I lost when I was in high school. Well, even middle school. I'm trying to make myself trust people, because I lost that ability long before I had my first memory. I'm turning myself into what and who I want to be because I absolutely refuse to become my parents and lose myself to bickering, ignorance, hatred, and a loveless marriage.

I want myself a good boy. Who loves me more than anything in the world. That's why I'm making me love myself. And that starts with taking care of myself. Which is why...why I will keep running, and riding, and eating well...and smiling every day...and playing the violin...and reading...and drawing.

These are all things that I stopped doing so long ago...so very, very, long ago.

To everyone that reads this: Don't lose your self-confidence. It is the single most important thing you have in this world...and, if you've lost it, do whatever it takes to find a reason to love yourself.

A little self-confidence makes the medicine go down, baby doll. You can do anything when you live for yourself, love, happiness, and all things that you believe in. If you're in a bad place in life, get yourself out of it, or find a way to deal with it so that you don't lose yourself, and let that be a healthy way. Drugs only get you deeper into your own shit-hole.

Even if it's as simple as watching the sunset alone every night. Get yourself out of the situation for a little while and do something you love and have been promising yourself that you were going to do.

Only you can help yourself.

This Has Been,
~A Little Lonely Wisdom

"Death is not the greatest loss in life. The greatest loss is what dies inside us while we live." ~Norman Cousins

Pretty Little Understandings

This has been an odd week. Not a bad odd, but odd.

I've gone back to school after my three week break, and it's summer now. The birds are singing in the morning, and the days last till 8:00 p.m. People walk with a skip to their step and smiles on their faces. Little girls whirl happily in their summer bell dresses just to see them poof out around their legs, and the only thing that interrupts my afternoons is the sound of the church down the street ringing a happy tune at midday.

The music on the radio is peppier, the clothing brighter, and the smiles genuine. I love this time of year. There's just something about it. Even the darkest of hearts crack open a window and hope for something.

And I can look out my back door to see this.

Anyway, it's been an odd week. A friend of mine had a breakdown and I went to stay overnight with her to keep her company in her sadness, my father went off on me for no reason, my mother has been going through phases of depression and über happiness, and I've been okay with everything going on. I'm handling it all well. That being the only reason this week wasn't particularly bad other than the fact that I had a great day on Saturday. I'm handling things well. That is so odd for me. I think it has to do with all the strifes I've been going through over the last few years.

Finally, they're paying off.

Aww, man. I just cracked myself up. "Strifes that are paying off." I said that like I purposely put myself through the loss of my personality, a bout with an alcoholic family member, psoriasis, parents constantly on the verge of divorce, endless work, and a broken heart mixed with a helping of "long-distance-relationship."

I'm feeling better because I'm letting myself feel better. I'm feeling better because I'm following my dreams. I'm feeling better because I'm listening to my passions, and, finally, I'm feeling better because I'm making sure that I'm doing what I want to do along with what I have to do.

At the same time I'm dealing with my old pains instead of letting them float in the muck of my mind, heart, and soul. Every time something comes back to haunt me I stab it with a knife or shoot it with a bullet. My mind likes to tell me how everything that went wrong in my past was my fault and that I need to regret it forever. It's one of my dragons that needs slaying. I haven't fought it for a long time, but (like I've said) recently I've been killing it. I've been taking hunks out of it. I am so tired of being haunted by my past. It would be a good thing for it to die, perhaps mourned a little bit, but definitely needs to be left cold and lifeless in an unmarked grave. I'll never forget what I've been through, but it's nice to say goodbye for it. And you, if you've read this blog at all, know that I believe "goodbye" is a thing said only when you mean never to come back.

I also believe that shit happens for a reason. I always knew that my ex came into my life for a reason, and I always knew he would never stay, but it took me months to figure out why. You wanna know what I discovered? It's that he taught me how to fight. It's not like he told me to, but he gave me something to fight for, so I indirectly learned the lesson from him. It was really God telling me to do something. It was God telling me to stop being such a pussyfoot, and it was God telling me to get off my ass and live because there's good shit out there mixed in with all the crap. I'm glad he did. Because now I can handle my current situations, which are all easy in my mind, but I can deal with them whilst that little girl so many months ago wouldn't have dealt with anything at all.

You've got to deal with things. When you leave stuff undone, that stuff will come back to haunt you. I know that well. I definitely know that well.

Stuff comes into your life for a reason. Live through the circumstances bravely and fight your dragons. Just don't forget to slay them.

~A Little Lonely Wisdom

"The hardest battle you're ever going to fight is the battle to be just you." ~Leo F. Buscaglia