Call It My Inability to Focus

Somedays I swear I have ADHD. I am always fidgety, fall asleep if I have to sit still too long and I have a hard time attending to the task at hand for more than 5 minutes. One of my friends describes me as an ADHD shopper in Wal-Mart because I dart from display to display ooohing and awing. All that being say, here are the thoughts that have been darting through my mind today:

-I am stronger than I was the other day (my grip strength went up)
-I rock at sit-ups, not so good at push-ups
-I despise group work. I hate leaving the fate of my final mark up to someone else
-you have to very comfortable to stand in front of a class in spandex to give a presentation for 15 minutes
-my fleece from work is hot. Its so nice and soft and warm and I've been getting a lot of compliments on it
-I hate that I am an emotional/stressed eater
-conversations at 3:00 in the morning with a friend in another country who is just starting their day out rock
-brides must pick their maids of honour carefully
-I love my cowboy hat
-I am so totally stoked that my older sister is coming this weekend. You have no idea
-I love my cowboy hat
-the song "take me home" by Vanessa Carlton (i think?) makes me think "Take me to Agribition"
-I love the country. My heart aches for it every time I walk into the buildings at the Exhibition grounds and smell cow
-I want to be the classic farmwife someday. The one who loves her kids, is a hardworker, helps with the farm work, knows how to cook and manage the household despite being really busy. Oh, and I want to drive a Chevy. That's a given. Gotta have one like Old Betsy (our farm truck) that is all rusted out and has lots of character dents in it for around the farm. might want something a little better for the long road trips to the city etc. Either way....Chevs.
-I want to marry a rancher. I would say a dairy farmer but even though I loved it and miss it so it ties you down so so much. I would rather raise beef and have some spare time to breathe. One thing I would like to do is show cattle. Never had that much opportunity to do that with the dairy.
-Did I mention I love the country?
-city boys are so.....cityish.....lol! Thanks Trisha. That totally made my night!

Crazy, Tragic, Sometimes Almost Magic, Awful Beautiful Life???????

I don't remember who wrote the song that contains the above lyrics it, but as you may have guessed, its a country song. As I look at those words though I wonder how anyone can say that about life. I mean, what is there that makes life so wonderful to live? What's the purpose of life? I rarely find joy in life anymore. I mean, occasionally I will be out and about and see something that makes me smile or I will have a good laugh with a friend but those things seem so temporary. Then it is back to my solitude where my thoughts torture me. Most days just getting by is hard enough and I know there are others that agree. It seems like life is just a struggle so survive, just barely keeping your head above water.

How do people do it, keep on living and find joy in it when things are incredibly hard and they don't see a purpose to why they are on Earth? Christians would say that their joy is in serving the Lord, but I am curious, if you had the choice of dying when you were still young and innocent or having to live the rest of your life with intense struggles, which would you chose? I know what I would chose. Growing up really sucks. No one told me that it would be this hard. No one told me there is some truth to the tragic situations you see on TV or movies or read about in books. After all, they are called "fiction". Thinking about the rest of my life absolutely terrifies me. Thinking about having to live another 60 or so years (or however long I have left) with my mind running wild and continuing to torment me absolutely terrifies and immobilizes me. The human mind is an amazing thing capable of beautiful things but something with those kinds of capabilities can also turn on you and be really bad. Somedays I wish I had been born an ant or some other non-thinking kind of creature. Do ants even have a brain?

In my life I have always looked to the future with hope when I was having hard times. I had a picture of what things would be like once I was out of high school, and they are really nothing like I pictured. They are about 300 times harder. I can still try to look forward to the future but so far the futures that I have arrived at have been much harder than I thought. I remember my mother telling me that my grandfather (ie. her dad) had struggled with depression. I wonder, is that why he was so silent all the time? He was a very quiet and solemn man. Was it because he was sitting there, constatntly tortured by his thoughts as the world continued to go on? I see him in myself in that way. I have many memories of sitting in a room full of people and feeling completely alone, sitting there with my thoughts as the room filled with conversation. One place where this was really true was in my church youth group and I have had flashbacks to that time recently. Its the same kind of feeling. Perhaps this is why I like to keep so busy, so that I can feel like I have a purpose, so that I do not have to sit there alone with my thoughts.

I was talking to a couple of my friends the other day and we were talking about how it is crunch time right now for university. They called it suicide month and I said it had been suicide semester. At the end of the conversation they said "Don't kill yourself with homework". I was thinking.....if you only knew. One of my friends says the only way she can think to stop the thoughts in her head is to kill it and somedays I feel the same way. I hear that after someone commits suicide, it can often cause a suicide epidemic among the people he or she knew. Would things be different if Mike were still alive? I don't know. Somedays I worry so much that I will be the one that starts that epidemic. I worry that my mind will push me far enough that I will want to stop it forever. Somedays I feel like I am not anywhere near the edge. Like, I'm not even on the cliff. Other days I feel like I am on the cliff, slowly edging forward and all I need it one big final push. Somedays I kneel on the edge and look down and it terrifies me so I don't go there.

I can have faith that I will one day get better, but I had that faith with Mike and he killed himself before he had a chance. His mind no longer tortures him. All I can cry out in desperation is :

Jesus take the wheel
Take it from my hands
Cause I can't do this all on my own
I'm letting go
So give me one more chance
To save me from this road I'm on
Jesus take the wheel
(lyrics from a Carrie Underwood song)

That's all I feel I can cling to right now in desperation and try to take things one day at a time and keep on living. God help me.

Nuts and Bolts

So music has always been a big part of my life: I began taking piano lessons when I was five years old and continued on until I was 18. I was raised in church singing hymns every Sunday and went on to sing in choirs in Bible college and university. Usually if I am in my bedroom for longer than 2 minutes I automatically put music on even if it is just the radio. When I cannot sleep I put music on. When I need to relax, I put music on. When I am upset or frustrated or sappy or whatever else mood I am in I either play songs on the piano that match my mood or play music in my stereo that matches my mood. Any way you put it, music moves me. As I was standing in church on Sunday I was thinking about how music moves me. When I am worshipping I often sway or bounce or just "creatively wiggle" to the music. You know how at church Christmas pagents there is always the one little kid that steals the show by just dancing his or her heart out as he or she attempts to carry a tune? That kid was me. I loved to wiggle and "dance" when I sang. I would even stand on the pews and dance when I was little. That was all fun and good when I was younger because you are not expected to dance well when you are a kid but now that I am older I realize there's a problem with my dancing.....I think I am a Black person who was born in a white Mennonite body. I just want to be able to groove and dance to the music but I've got no rhythm sometimes. Its like some great dancer had bad karma and was reincarnated into this body as punishment. I mean, really what could be worse for an experienced dancer than to be stuck in a white Mennonite body. That's two strikes against the musical soul. white hips just don't move that good and the word "dance" does not exist in the Mennonite vocabulary!

As if that were not enough randomness/pointlessness, here are more random thoughts:
-one of the things I really hate about winter is when you open your car door and the snow falls onto the seat and even though you try to brush it off you inevitably end up sitting in some snow and you get a wet bum
-I hate when the snow blows in my eyes. I think I need to wear ski goggles to prevent that
-I hate the ice that comes with winter.....already had my first wipeout today....really hoping I don't resprain my ankle again
-Lynette looks like a yeti when she wears a fur hat. I almost peed myself laughing at her. She made my night tonight.
-Brewster's BBQ wings and I just do not get along
-the person who invented low rise jeans should be hunted down and actually forced to wear them. I doubt the creator actually ever wears them because they are so annoying! I think the creator should be made to wear the low cut jeans and a short shirt and go through a Canadian winter like that without a jacket. That would teach him or her.
-soap operas are really simple when compared to real life.
-Lynette looks cute in mitts: ahhh little people.
-It was awesome to see Craig this weekend
-I like my hair in braids

Am I really that old?

So today I'm at the gym, just doing my thing on the mats. Usually I do my cardio and then head to the mats to do my strengthening exercises and stretch. Even though I hate doing crunches, the work I do on the mats is by far my most favourite because between sets I just stretch out and relax as I rest. If I'm not careful though, I could just fall asleep right there (I know, most of you are thinking "No! Not Karen!"). Anyways....more to the point of my story. So I'm doing my thing on the matt and these two guys approach. I had seen them in the gym before: one looks like he's in his mid 20's and the guy he is training is probably in his 40's. The trainer is giving the other dude instructions and they wanted to use this piece of equipment that was near my mat and they would possibly be infringing on my space. The older guy said he couldn't go work in that area because there was no room and the young guy was like "well just work in beside her there." I could overhear them and then the young guy comes up and asks if its alright if the other guy worked beside me. I said not a problem. I understand the frustration that exists when the mats are so full. So the young guy starts chatting it up with me while the other guy is working. He asked me how often I come to the gym. I told him I come four times a week to which he replied "That's a lot. My mom doesn't even do that much. She's lazy". I didn't think much of that comment and we chatted for a little longer until the older guy was done his work. So afterwards I was analyzing the conversation (like I always do with everything) and I was like "what the heck? Why did he give me a mom commment when I said how much I worked out? Did he mean he thought I looked old enough to be his mother?!! Boy! You're likely only a couple of years older than me. There's no way I should look that old!!!" Maybe I was just reading too much into things, but really, I had to wonder, especially when one of the guys I work with said he would ID me if I came in to buy cigarettes (which totally made my day when he said that)".

And now to ABSOLUTELY, COMPLETELY switch tracks: here's my major question of the day. It came up in my devotions today. I was reading in Psalm 16 and verse 2 stuck out to me: "I said to the Lord, 'You are my Lord; apart from you I have no good thing.' " God is the purpose to my life. I mean it literally when I say He is the reason I am still alive today. He is the reason that I can still manage to plug through life even when its rough. But then I got to thinking, what do people who do not know God live for? I mean, if there is no afterlife what is there to live for? We would live to die then and as the generations die off, people would be forgotten. If I felt I had no ultimate purpose in life I don't think I could keep pressing on. I think that is what all humans are looking for in their quest for some sort of higher being: purpose. But here's the big question: How do you know if you are following the right god? I mean, most Christians in answer to this question would likely say things like "God gives me purpose" or " I can 'feel' God" or "God has changed people's lives". But have not other gods done the same for people of other religions? Do people of other faiths also not feel they have a purpose or that their god is real or that he/she has changed their life? Maybe we are all serving the same God but have different interpretations of Him. Us Protestants get so offended when Catholics try to convert us to Catholocism and yet we will try to convert other people to our faith. Maybe we are just trying to convert them to a different frame of thinking. Who really knows who is right in the end? I mean you don't find out until the end, right? It seems like a pretty big gamble. Its all a matter of faith, no matter what religion you are. I'm by no means saying I am going to stop believing and trusting in God but somedays I just wonder, how do we know who's right without saying "because the Bible says" or "because it gives me hope?" I mean, I just feel its right for me because I was always taught it was right. And I know God is real to me and has made a difference in my life. But how am I to say my interpretation of God is any better than anyone elses. I mean, I guess if Christianity's interpretation of God is wrong, there are a lot of people taking a gamble on it but there are also a lot of other people taking a gamble on other interpretations of God......

OK. Wow. So that blog was totally two different extremes. But hey, that's the way my thought patterns work in a day....welcome to Karen's brain.

Unhinged?

You know, somedays I serioulsy worry myself because I think that I have early-stage Alzhiemers. Like half the time when I wake up in the morning I can't remember what day it is. I have to think what I did before bed to figure out what day it is. Usually my reference point is Mondays because that is the day I go for wings with Lynette so I know if I had wings the night before (which I usually remember) that I am waking up in Tuesday. It happens too when I wake up from a nap. One day I was studying and decided to take a little nap at 4:30 in the afternoon because I had a pounding headache. I woke up at 5:30 and saw the clock was at p.m. but I was thinking it was the either the next morning or the next evening and I had slept through my midterm. I was in a panic for quite awhile until somehow I figured it out. I don't even know how I did it. And this Monday someone asked how my weekend was and what I did and I honestly could not remember any part of it.....and for no good reason either. I mean, it wasn't like I had been drinking on the weekend and couldn't remember because I was drunk.....I just could not remember. Its seriously creeping me out!

I have decided I hate working with high school students. I haven't really had to work with that many of them until I worked at Shell. They just don't get what work is really. They don't understand that they are being paid so that they will look after the store and the customers. Half of them at my workplace are smokers and so they are constantly going out for smokes and their friends are always stopping by (again, their friends don't understand either that they are there to work. That is why they call it work). My boss has already posted a policy that says friends are not allowed to stop by for extended periods of time and that breaks are to be taken within the general area of the store, pumps, and car wash (because a couple of them would go sit out in their car for half their shift and smoke). It has helped a little, but now they just go out for more "smoke breaks" I swear, one day I will just lose it on one of them when they say they are going for a smoke break. Somedays I think I should start smoking just so I can have an excuse to get out of there and make them have to work.

Don't get me wrong....I don't hate my job every day. In fact, on Saturday I actually had a good day beause I worked with one of the guys who is more my age and isn't a smoker. The first few times I worked with him were kind of awkward because I found him really hard to read but on Saturday we had a good chat for the duration of our shift. One of the few perks of my job is the recent deal we decided to give the RCMP cadets on car washes. They have to wash their cars once a week so we give them a discount. Lets just say the scenery has improved....I saw my first cadet the other day. He came in to pay for his car wash and I was helping him. I was trying to read his tag (they all wear ID cards) because I think it had a graduation date on it. I was so dumbfounded/out of it that when Brennan handed me someone else's car wash ticket I didn't know what to do with it and I was confused. What can I say? I love a man in uniform. I'm a little miffed though because Sunday night like 5 or 6 of them pulled up to wash their cars but they couldn't because the door was broken so the car wash was closed. Man, I sure coulda used some visual stimulation that night because that was the night I was ready to lose it on the high schooler I was working with. Brennan told me on Saturday to stop looking at the boys but that's so not fair because its a double standard. I'm one of the only girls that works there and the boys all check out the girls that come in, so what's the matter with me checking out a boy once in awhile....or 10, or 20?

So last week my parents brought my a different bed because the one I had was absolutely shot. The one they brought is my grandma's old one, but let me tell you, it is like heaven. When I lay down on my bed, I never ever want to get up again. Plus, its a double (as opposed to a single) so I can stretch right out on it. I'm very protective of it though and try to be very delicate with it because I want it to stay in the condition it is in forever and not fall apart like my old one.