What if, what if, what if....

I had an[other] emotional breakdown today. Kind of a freaky one.

For the last several months I've been thinking quite a bit about death. (stop freaking out, I'm not suicidal) I think it started with all the suicides and accidents happening to people my age recently. It seriously had me freaked out, but it's gotten worse.

What if something happens tomorrow?

What if I or someone I love dies tomorrow?

What if I never get to say goodbye?

What if... What if... What if....

I think one of the big reasons this has come up more recently is how many things I've realized are my last somethings. Last year in junior high, last year with all of my friends before we all go our separate ways, last voice lesson until what seems like forever, and every time I say goodbye to someone. I just feel like something is going to happen.

It's kind of an eery, ominous, foreboding kind of feeling. I feel crazy thinking about it, but what if it's a sign? What if something really is going to happen, and these are just warnings to not waste any time?

Like I said before, there have been several events that have added to this now hysterical freaking-out-ness. One of the other ones that really solidified all of these and pieced them together was reading Fahrenheit 451 by Ray Bradbury. I kept thinking about what Captain Beatty said to Montag.

"This is happening to me."

"What a dreadful surprise," said Beatty. "For everyone nowadays knows, absolutely is certain, that nothing will ever happen to me. Others die, I go on. There are no consequences and no responsibilities. Except that there are. But let's not talk about them, eh? By the time the consequences catch up with you, it's too late, isn't it, Montag?"

Pretty creepy, am I right? Well, that really got me thinking. A lot. And it hit me hard today after I was coming back from my last voice lesson. I'm going back in September, but I keep feeling like this was my last one, ever. And I burst in to tears.

Darn those hormones.

So I started to voice all of my worries to my mom (lucky her!), because I had her pretty worried when I started crying with no warning. This turned out to be a pretty good idea, because she gave me some excellent advice. (Don't you love moms?)

This was my very favorite thought she gave me, and it was a HUGE relief:

• Thoughts are just thoughts. You don't have to believe or accept them. They exist and come and go, but that doesn't mean that they're true or ever will be.

Byron Katie has a really amazing website/book/theory/etc. that my mom was telling me about. She has some steps you should take when unpleasant/negative thoughts come up (which I have had plenty of, lately):

1. Is it true?

2. Can you absolutely know that it's true?

3. How do you react, what happens, when you believe that thought?

4. Who would you be without the thought?

5. Then turn it around (the concept you are questioning), and don't forget to find three genuine, specific examples of each turnaround.

An example on her website is the phrase "Paul doesn't listen to me." Here's how you do it:

1. Does Paul NEVER listen to you? (if false, skip #2)

2. Re-evaluate. Are you ABSOLUTELY SURE??

3. How do you feel when that happens? Angry, sad, frustrated, frightened... any negative emotions.

4. If you didn't have this thought, would you be happy? How would your life be better if you didn't have this thought?

5. "Paul sometimes listens to me" "I never listen to Paul" "I never listen to myself" If any of those are true, you need to re-evaluate. Put the first in a positive form, flip it around, and put it to yourself. What you'll often find is that you are often everything you claim the other is.

That's just a taste of what she teaches (which you probably didn't want to read, anyway), but I would read it on her website. It's really, really good.

Anyway, this can work for my problem, too. Yes, bad things CAN and MAY happen to me, but the idea that they WILL is false.

Obviously, this thought freaks me out and scares me to death. If I didn't have it (or, as my mom and Marci put it, "Huh. That's interesting that that thought keeps coming up. Good thing I don't have to believe it."), I would be much more relaxed and much happier and cheerful.

"Bad things never happen to me." Not necessarily true, but still more true than the other phrase. Definitely comforting :)

You don't need all the details of this chat with my mom, but I came away from it much, MUCH happier. Still kind of creeped out, but I have more time to think about it, and time to find it out for myself!

No regrets!

Whyy Doo Peoplee Typee Likee Thissss???

UGH! Why does no one bother with spelling or grammar anymore? Seriously! You look like an idiot when you write like that!

Look at this comment on a poem I found: iwsh i had som one who wold love me and car for me but i dow not know wheni fall in love again

Seriously? Is that the best you can do? Have you ever heard of spell check (not that it would help... Some of those it probably wouldn't even recognize...) Do you even TRY? Or do you write like that deliberately?? Do you TALK like that? THEN WHY THE HECK ARE YOU KILLING MY BRAIN?!!

What the heck is wrong with TV?!

What’s Wrong With TV?

What’s wrong with that horrible beast, the television? What does it have against society and everything good in the world? What did we ever do to it? Nothing. And everything.

Many people are inclined to blame all the bad things in the world on TV. This is a pointless accusation! The television is nothing more than a machine. It exists solely to entertain us. It has no control over what it shows or who watches it. The TV isn’t the problem—it’s us. People are using the television to replace and avoid living in the real world. Watching TV makes people lose interest in experiencing things for themselves. Wasting our time in front of the television leads to unhealthy lifestyles. People aren’t learning how to develop social skills or good relationships.

What’s ironic about technology is that it’s supposed to help us live our lives. Instead, it lives them for us. We sit inside on a beautiful day watching shows about The Great Outdoors instead of getting outside ourselves. We have become a spectator society. We waste thousands of hours in front of the television. Children spend more time watching television than in any other activity except sleep. (Huston and Wright, University of Kansas. "Television and Socialization of Young Children.") Children used to play with friends all day. Now, because of the thousands of shows playing 24/7, they’re glued to the screen. People become so addicted to their soap operas and cartoons that their schedules are planned around the TV guide. Never mind that their friends want to play, SpongeBob is waiting for them. Children and adults alike are quickly becoming couch potatoes, hardly aware of the kind of damage it can cause them.

According to The New York Times in January 2010, nearly 34 percent of American adults are obese, more than double the percentage 30 years ago. The share of obese children tripled during that time, to 17 percent. Why are these numbers so grossly large? Does it have anything to do with watching TV? Most certainly. If you’re glued to the television all day, how are you supposed to get exercise? Kids used to come home from school and play sports and run and play with friends! What has happened? They have become too attached to their TVs. Obesity is quickly becoming a huge issue. When you’re overweight, you feel sluggish and you don’t want to do anything except nothing. Watching TV is a highly convenient activity that doesn’t involve anything but staring. You don’t have to exercise your brain, much less the rest of your body! Society came up with the Wii, which made everyone feel active, even though you’re just going through the motions of the sport. You can stay in the comfort of your basement and feel like you’re outside playing tennis or soccer… But why not just go outside and actually play tennis or soccer?! Playing sports isn’t just good exercise, you can interact with other people, too.

Watching movies as a family is great quality time, right? Um, no, not anymore. We live in a world where one household can have as many as five or fifteen different TVs. You don’t even have to be in the same room. Why would you sit and watch what your five-year-old sister is when you can watch what you want on your own? Or even on your iPod? Family road trips, which used to be an opportunity for bonding, are now a time when everyone plugs in and tunes out. Portable DVD players have made it possible for everyone to be watching different movies in the same car. This lack of communication and interaction is seriously affecting families. Relationships between child and parent and husband and wife are becoming extremely broken up. If a son or daughter is watching shows about rebellious teens that are disrespectful of their parents, how are they going to act? Or a husband and wife; is their marriage going to last long if one or both of them are replacing their own relationship with shows about dysfunctional relationships? The Americans for Divorce Reform estimates that 40 or possibly even 50 percent of marriages will end in divorce if current trends continue. Television can hardly be helping this!

It’s really our own fault that we’re being subject to this. The film directors are only giving us what we’ve asked for. We need to live life, not just be alive. This will help with better health, which, in turn, will also help with healthier relationships with our family and friends. We just need to be careful with how much TV we are watching, and stop trying to blame our problems on inanimate objects! Go outside and LIVE!

UYIHF 2010... (Part Two)

So after my interesting lunch, I left in search of my friends. I hadn't seen them at any of the tables, and wasn't sure where else I would find them. I wandered outside, and there they were! In a tree!

It turns out while climbing the tree they had found a mysterious wooden box that was about 2 cubic inches... (haha how's that for nerdy?) Inside, there was a folded up note that was full of random things like what the girl (it looked like girl's handwriting, at least) had eaten that day, etc. We had fun laughing at it, because they thought it was some kind of secret coded love note. They wanted to rewrite the note, but they didn't have any paper... (Which was a good thing) Instead, they caught a fly that had drowned in one of my friend's fry sauce and stuck it in the box along with the original note and my friends phone number.... He's still waiting for them to call him :)

So after lunch we went back and sang for like four straight hours. My feet felt like they were going to fall off. There were a many people that would just sit down on the risers until the director would start yelling at them to stand up again... I was sorely (quite literally) tempted to join them, but the director was starting to scare me a bit and I would kick the person in front of me every time I tried to sit. It was that crowded.

After our last practice before the performance, we had about an hour and a half to do whatever we wanted. Instead of sitting (sitting!) and napping like I had planned, my friends and I walked down to the Fresh Market several blocks away. It was actually a LOT of fun!

I got to chat with one of the coolest girls on the planet for like an hour. I had never realized how much we had in common. There were a lot of things that I had never known about her, even though I (very stupidly) thought I knew her pretty well. She gave me the "What I Wish Someone Had Told Me Before I Went Into High School" chat, which was very nice :) Like I said in a previous post, I've been feeling VERY overwhelmed, and she really helped. She was able to answer a lot of my questions and give me very useful tips.

I had never realized that she often feels as left out and out of place as I do. I look at her and think of her as everyone's friend, the person that EVERYONE knows and loves, and the girl that loves performing and making people laugh. Oh, how little I knew! During that walk I learned just how out of place she often feels, even with her best friends. We both kind of hang back from the rest of the group, listen in on conversations, roll our eyes at how immature people can be... She told me how until terrified she is of performing, which really, really surprised me. She's one of the most outgoing, friendly, and talented people I know, and here she is hating to perform. What is this?? She told me that that's one of the reasons that she feels so left out. All of her friends are in the musicals and performing all the time. By the time we got to the store I was feeling very connected with her. There was so much I was learning about her, stuff that I could relate to.

When we got in the store we watched the others go off looking for stuff to buy and break and mess around with. We saw a huge chicken costume by the deli which made us laugh. One of the others found some small watermelons and started chucking them in the air and catching them. That's when we left. The two of us and two other girls walked out of the store to wait for them. My friend told me how she had gotten kicked out of a store when she was in like 5th grade and didn't want it to happen again... So we waited by the four-way stop by the parking lot.

That's when the sex offender comes in.

There was an ad/warning sign on the lamp post on the corner where we were waiting that was warning locals about a sex offender on the loose. It was very disturbing, and it seriously freaked us out, especially one of the other girls. She decided she would not wait any longer without the others. So she called them up. When they didn't answer, she left them a message, something to this effect:

"Hey guys. Hurry up. There's a sex offender on the loose and we need to go. HURRY. Bye."

We all laughed really hard, but sobered up pretty fast when we saw a creepy looking guy across the street from us. He crossed and went the other way, but we were seriously freaked out for a minute. The others came out of the store and we started walking back up.

One of the guys decided he wanted to go on the other side of the street. He crossed while we were still waiting for our light, and when he got over to the other side, my friend looked at us with wide eyes and said, "Guys? What if he's the sex offender? He looks like he could be." We burst out laughing for like the millionth time. He heard us and probably guessed what we were laughing about. He put his hood up and started walking in a really disturbed sort of way... We started screaming and laughing.... *sigh* it was really funny, but we were driving the people in the cars crazy, I think. We took forever crossing the street because one of the girls was throwing her flip flop into the road then wandering over to get it, then wandering back....

Anyway, I was gradually realizing how stupid high school makes many people. I think even more than learning how to better my singing, I learned that much. I was really grateful for my friend. That whole day would have sucked if she wasn't there to help me and pull me in. So thank you, if you're reading this :) You're really awesome and I love you just the way you are!!

(That's pretty much how my whole day was, but if I can't think of anything to talk about for next week's blog, I'll tell you how the performance went. There isn't a whole lot to talk about, but I'm sure I could milk 500 words out of it, if needed. I hope for your sake that I can think of something more interesting!)