5 Alive

I really think that there should be a set of badges for Living. They would be like the Boy Scouts or Brownies or Girl Guides. Let's face it life is a series of all kinds of challenges. We each face all different kinds. Where to even begin with what my own would be? If I started from the beginning to now I have endless. So if I took out the basics of life skills and went to experiences ...still quite a list. I still think Life Badges should be awarded. Living is a series of achievements. The hard ones that come with adulting should get awarded. I could start with just 10 for every decade of my life. That would be nearly 50! Going to need two double sided sashes!🤣😂 Blood, sweat and tears got this body to here. Maybe you can relate?

It is extremely important to make a self care plan that has 5 basics in it for any moments of distress, anxiety, deep depression etc. An example of this could be; 1. Your breathing exercise I use square breathing ( 4 count in 4 hold 4 out 4 pause ) and I have a drawing card up as a reminder. 2. Distraction with what is in your space (5 green objects, all things round, Count on your fingers back and forth, etc.) 3. Stretching gently Light yoga works for me and there are guided apps. 4. Something comforting ( stuffed animal, photos, blanket, soothing scent, hot water bottle, so forth ) 5. Music I like jazz when I am stressed or I go yo familiar old rock.

I met this lady. Wow. I was taken aback by her glow when she smiled. She spoke with an animation. A storyteller of sorts. Tone and mannerisms flowing into different pieces as I watched her. A flash of hidden sadness. A moment in anger, or was it boldness I saw? Returned to glimmer and light. Breaks of quiet and head turned away. There was more in her. This was obvious. I was eager to know the depth of this woman. Time and again I sought her out. Getting small snipits of her substance. Learning her desires, her fears, her needs. I pieced  slivers of her life. A story that shattered this individual, yet made her magical. A being like no other. I wondered where her path would take her. What turns could lay ahead? Would the demons continue to haunt her without invitation? Did her sadness lift? Did her happiness comes? Was her ending hard? Her story continued.

I believed. I saw but didn't see. You had your truth that you hid. Once so young I believed another. The hurt stayed and fractured my being. Another...I had come to the same conclusion. Too young to have learned what was not real. Naive and hopeful. I trusted. Woven illusions of binding strings. Decisions made based on what I was fed in lies. Omissions that led to my being at risk repeatedly. I believed the lies. Many tell them. I know more now. More than 40 years later I know the reality I did not know then. Like all I believed that rooked me, let me fall and crash. I rise. I fight. I will claw my way back. There I will make my own life. One with no fogged glasses. Back to a life I take charge of. I believe in me.

I wish I had something profound to say. I have few words other than a whirling head. I live my days as best I can. Often it feels lonely and futile. Uphill or downhill? I am not sure right now. Sideways and backwards on my head is how it feels. I am melancholy. Depressed. My life circumstances bind me in discomfort. I want to flee but cannot. For it is also so much that is physical. In me. On me. Illness sucks. Keep going. Keep going. Calm. Find it.