Turning 30...........

I guess with this being a huge milestone in my life I am supposes to have something wise and insightful to say about all that I have learned in the last 10 years and how much I have grown.  But to be honest, which is hard to believe, I find myself speechless. I am in awe of all that I have in all areas of my life. I tend to be a glass half empty person but even I have to acknowledge that my cup runeth over. I have so much and an am so blessed that all I can manage to say is “Thank you” to everyone that I am lucky enough to have in my life and for everything that I have in my life.

You must choose your thoughts like your clothes

I sit here in my too big pjs staring at Microsoft word hoping that the answers to my life’s problems will just start appearing as I type on my laptop. I try to focus on which one I want this blog to be about but honestly I can even manage a single thought at one time. My head runs constantly now. Like a ticker tape at the bottom of the screen of the news channel. Always overloading the system and causing feelings of chaos. This pulls up the memory of a scene from Eat Pray Love when Richard from Texas tells her that you have to select your thought like you do your clothes every day. Or of the really fancy preacher who is on every Sunday that says "just change the channel" if you dont like what you are thinking about. That you have to not allow those thoughts to enter your mind.

For someone that lives on control you think that this would be the first place I have control but honestly it seems to be the only place that I can’t manage to gain any control whatsoever. Sometimes I go to bed so sure that I have good ideas and plans and when I wake up it all goes to hell. I was going to go to the gym this morning but….I was going to not eat that but for some reason I am not able to just walk away. In my head the reasonable want to be beautiful Shannon is screaming STOP PLEASE DON’T DO IT…..and out of control Shannon does it anyway. Why do I do things to myself to make me hate myself? It seems like I work really hard to keep this cycle of self hatred rolling. How do you break a cycle that you have learned to run without even thinking about it? Think right?! Well I do that PLENTY. Sometimes I wonder if I will ever be free of this burden. I wonder if I could ever turn my negative to a positive, my problems to solutions, and my thinking from self loathing to self love. How do you one day look in the mirror and decide that you like what and who you see? I hope that by using this blog and an A+ effort that I will be able to at least make a step in the right direction.

Two years later and still a list of problems....

The last time I used this medium it really helped me thru a tough time......

Well I find myself in yet another rough patch and decided to give it a try again; my current delemma has to do with how I am percieved and how I want to be. It comes up a lot with everyone from patients to my closest friends that I am not always a nice person. And sometimes I have to admit I know that I lash out but for the amount of times it is actually brought up I cant account for.

I had a patient ask me this morning if I hated him. Honestly I dont. I just get so caught up in everything that I forget that there is a person with feeling on the other end of my verbal lashings. Which is ironic because I use to lie to protect peoples feelings and now it seems I have went to the other end of the spectrum where I dont care.

Caring maybe the very source of the change when I think about it. I have been in a state of "frozeness" if you will. That comes from being in a situation where my feelings didnt matter. Now that that has changed I feel like my whole person is being altered. The changes are similar to icebergs shifting over rocky lands turning them flat. The aftermath of it is so different from what it was before that sometimes it feels unrecognizable; And that is how I feel sometimes. Like I dont know my own feelings. However it is a fresh start and like dethawing anything it is painful.

This pain is what I think I lead with. The pain of how I got to this point and the pain of leaving it.

My dilemma now is to deal with the pain and to use my fresh start to change what I want changed. I want to be a friendlier person that people enjoy talking to and being around to and that they do not fear like some evil queen. I wish this process were painless but that is a frivolous waste of a wish.

A Man.....

A Man……..

By: Shannon R Fields

 

Tells you that you are beautiful when you least expect it

On occasion sends you “Good Morning” or “I love you” texts

Would stand up for you against anyone- foreign or domestic

Laughs with you, cries with you, really listens to you

Loves you unconditionally

Shares his t-shirts

Is spontaneous

Is not to proud to let you lead

Looks at you like you are the most beautiful woman in the world

Knows that you have flaws and loves you in spit of them

Takes care of you when you are sick or drunk

Loves pictures and making memories

Is not afraid to let loose

Wipes away your tears

Knows when you need a hug

Doesn’t abandon ship when the waters get rocky

Isn’t afraid to hold you hand or kiss you in public

Is proud to introduce you to everyone he knows

Knows how you take your coffee and what you eat on your sandwich

Enjoys laying on the couch watching movies as much as going out

Knows your fears, goals, dreams, and fantasies

Can talk to you about anything and visa versa

Means “sorry” when he says it

Holds the door open for you

Carries in your groceries

Finishes your sentences

Lets you drive

Never quits

                           

I wrote this a long time ago and just happened to find it when I was cleaning out my external hard drive. However random it seems like perfect timing. And as I read over it for the first time in years I realized that this is still what I want in a man.

Time and Control

Well I have say that I have somewhat neglected myself prescribed treatment for my tendency to not tell the truth. It honestly has to do with the madness that has been my life for the past few weeks but…. I am back!

Have you ever found yourself rushing and rushing to get a ton of stuff done and you do this rushing because you somehow think that the extra time will be what deposited in your time bank? I am CONSTANTLY in a rush. That’s why I forget things, details, important information because I am always in a hurry to get to the next part and then to the next part. I have this insatiable appetite for storing up time even though it doesn’t happen. I am always so worried about what is happening next that I rarely get to enjoy what is happening now! And if something were to go off schedule and alter the time saving schedule well then the entire day is ruined. What is funny now is that I can see myself doing this. I can say “Shannon it doesn’t really matter if you are 30 minutes late to a birthday party because something happened”. I honestly know that it is crazy, I just can’t control it. This complied with my need to control how things go leads to quite the synergistic effect. I know think about this like a hurricane and earthquake happening in the same place and at the same time. There is no hope. Then for some reason it gets worse in warmer weather. It is almost like little balls of matter that when heated up move a billion times fast. I just see myself ping ponging around randomly and out of control. This is ironic for someone that tries to control herself so rigidly and probably adds to the storm so to speak. Many days of both my life and of other individuals, I have ruined because I can’t seem to keep blue skies. I honestly try but when I am stressed out and something goes wrong well I just let loose and watch out because it is never pretty. These are the days when, and I know that this is overplayed, but I see red. I hear and see myself but it is like a video game that I have no control over and no matter what I do I can’t stop. Sometimes I would like to think that my lack of control at these points is my body’s way of protecting itself so we (mean my body and mind) don’t get sick again. And I am sure that my unpredictable conditions are not easily tolerated. Although, I sort of let out my not so pleasant side in little bits to the majority of people only a select few have gotten the esteemed privilege to see me on a genuine bad day. I have often wondered how anyone could love someone who can destroy so much so fast. I just see it as an improbability. I let off this storm and then look around to survey the damage that I have caused. These outbursts seem to hurt the ones most that are closest to the blast. Basically I hurt the people that I supposedly love the most.

Relationships and Conclusions

I know there is always the “straw that finally broke the camel’s back” but lately I have asked myself why am I always willing to put up with more than someone else? As I stated in my other blog I am currently on a quest to better me and this brings me to what if I have really been that bad?! What if what I think is putting up with more is actually not the way it really is. I swear that that silly book Mistakes Were Made Here but Not by Me screws with me. That author would say that I make myself feel better in order to maintain myself image about the kind of person I am in a relationship.

 I have started reading Eat Pray Love this last week and reading about her troubled relationships I started thinking about my own relationship past. I really don’t have a ton of history but I have had my share of turbulent relationships. I think that over the years I have always struggled with relationship’s conclusions. I use the word conclusion loosely because no one can predict the future. But there seems to be some underlying pattern of the conclusion; as if they were all written by the same writer. Oh wait they were, me. The theme always seems to involve the smallest things that turn into huge things. I have previously explained that I am not so good at saying when something really bothers me. I hate to have people that I love angry at me. So I do whatever I have to do in order to avoid that and in doing so I seem to keep myself in a constant state of hostility. And trying to cage my own personal Kraken of anger takes up so much of me I neglect everything and everyone. I realize this Kraken, now that I have slightly reduced his size, is what makes me be the person I don’t want to be. It is hard to laugh, live, and love ( I know it is cheesy, that is me J ) when you are a crazy angry. I know that I only have me to blame for this. And I really want to get to the point where I am just me. Not me + the Kraken.

Conclusions also involve admitting when you are wrong. I really don’t like admitting when I am wrong or at fault. But I know that also plays into the need to be perfect. It’s funny though because the last few weeks I have been trying to let myself be wrong and it really isn’t as bad as I thought. However I don’t want to turn into a “sorry” machine. Anyone that knows me knows that I frequently say that “nothing is 100% one person’s fault”. I still believe that. I am pretty sure that most of the time it is split right down the middle with just a few variations. In the conclusion of a relationship there are always lines drawn about who did what to whom. I think that this is where my individual issues play into the problem. My stubbornness and need to be perfect lead me to never want to admit wrong doing. Even though I am working on it, I still struggle sometimes to see my own wrong doing. I think that seeing the error is one’s ways before it happens requires a crystal ball which I do not have. And there, unfortunately, is not always a formula to repair the bridges that have been burnt. And sometimes I get sick from agonizing over what I could have done different. But Richard from Texas, from Eat Pray Love, has a solution that I am trying. “Love/Miss them; send then light and love each time you think of them and that’s it”. It seems simple enough. I have tried to use this when I have a fond memory triggered that in turn makes me sad. I do feel like after a conclusion I have lost the right to talk about that person or like a part of me has been taken away. But when you clear a room you get to rearrange and hopefully learn something from the experience.

DISCLAIMER

I will never discuss anyone specifically or any specific incident. I will be speaking generally and mostly about myself. I am doing this to somewhat document how I feel and see if I cant make some changes. Please do not take offense to anything that I say. This is not to start disagreement or fights. I am posting this to get my thoughts out there. I guess posting how I really feel is a part of changing me....because I would not normally show that particular part of myself. I welcome comments but dont intend to answer comments that are argumentative. Thank you for caring to read.

Shannon