Words

Just a Human, Being.

I was walking home one Friday night recently.
It was about 9:30 at night, and it was cold and dark.
I got to the apartment building just before mine and a gentleman jumped out from behind a tree eating a bread roll.
(I use 'jumped' probably as an exaggeration. In reality, he just sort of appeared.)
"Do you want some bread?" he asked.
I smiled politely, said "No, thank you" and kept walking.
"Are you sure?" he persisted.
I looked back.
He was wearing an old hooded jumper, with the hood over his head and ripped jeans.
I judged him and walked a little faster.
"Really, we have plenty to share" I suddenly heard a female voice call out.

It turned out that this couple are given crates full of bread from the local Bakers Delight when they close on a Friday night and distribute it they around the community; to churches, to the hungry and homeless and if they have some left, to a few of their friends who happen to be my neighbours.
They gave me a plastic bag full of fresh bread and french sticks and sweet buns, along with their mobile phone number and told me to call them if I ever wanted more.
They didn't ask for anything in return, not even my apartment number to make a delivery.
As I was walking away, the man said to me "There are still good people in the world you know, everyone is just putting up higher walls."

That comment messed with my head.

As a country girl I grew up trusting everyone.
Possibly a little bit too much.
Eveyone just knew everyone in my small town.
Mum often says that when I was a kid, she'd turn around to find me gone in the supermarket, and find me sitting on a bench talking to some old man I had never met, as though we were old friends.
That's how far my trust in other people extended.
But the bread man's comment made me realise that at some point that had changed.
When did I stop having faith in others?
And when did I stop just being and doing for the joy of being and doing.

After a bit of soul searching, I realised that it wasnt when my heart got broken for the first time, it wasn't because of any particular news story I head read, drug addict or homeless person I had witnessed, nor any job I had hated.
It was just because I had gotten older, lived, seen and known things that I didn't know then.
As a grown up, you have deadlines to meet, you feel like you have people to impress, you hear too many things about the unfavourable people in the world and you begin to become untrusting and you just kind of stop being that open hearted kid.

It's my personal mission right now to try and rediscoverthat side of myself.
I'm going to reopen my heart.
There is that lame old addage to love like you've never been hurt and dance like nobody is watching. I think people lost the meaning of that after seeing it printed on too many inspirational calendars and their mothers' facebook pages, but it makes complete sense.

The way I see it is, if we open our hearts and people reject it, that's their karma.
If we never open our hearts in the first place, that's ours.
Some of the most joyful and memorable moments in my life to date have been hen I just let go and let myself be myself.

I was having a conversation with a scrapbooking friend over the weekend also, and I said to her that I most like my work when I am just being creative and trying new things and playing.
No deadlines, no stress, no trying to impress anybody, no commissions - just creating.
It's a similar thing.
I sat down to create a page last night with that in mind and absolutely loved the outcome:


  
 
    For the first time in months, I am once more loving the thing that used to make me so happy.

If opening my heart and being and doing and smiling extends to my creativity, it is entirely likely it will extend to every other part of my life and I cannot wait to see where that will lead!

xxxx
Skye

Strong Women.

I've never really thought of myself as a strong person.
Not emotionally nor physically.
But my best friend was put into hospital 2 weeks ago with extremely severe depression and since then I've found that I've been spending a lot of time thinking about emotions, how we handle them and how sometimes, we really don't.

I come from a long line of strong women, and I grew up knowing that.
My great grandmother was, by all accounts, an absolute hardarse, and to be honest, you only need to see a photo of her to know she wasn't the type of woman you wanted to cross.
My grandmother, though she doesnt think of herself as anything special, has been through more in her life than anyone else I know and doesnt bat an eyelid when telling you about some of the stories that have imprinted themselves on my mind from shock.
'It's just how it was back then' she says.
And my mother, from the age of 21, sacrificed a large portion of her own life to raise my brother and I as a single parent and make sure we were brought up right and gave us everything she ever could, and often, things she couldn't.
She is still the only person in the world who can look at me when I'm being a depressive drama queen and say (in the gracious words of Mal), "Suck it up princess" and I'll respect it. Because she knows what she's talking about.
I've considered myself in relation to these 3 women many times and every time I've come up lacking in comparison.

Each one of my friends, I similarly look at as a strong woman.
Because of decisions they've made, situations they've gotten through, bravery they've shown or just the way they've dealt with themselves over the time I've known them.
I created this layout last night and while I was looking at it coming together, I thought to myself that I can pick at least one example of real, pure strength shown by each one of these girls just off the top of my head.
 
 Sorry all, the layoutgot nabbed for publishing, so the most makes sense, this is the photo I'm talking about!


 
And it made me reconsider.
I am in that photo, surrounded by all of these amazing strong women.
Maybe I do have the same strength as all of them them.
Maybe I just have my own brand of it.

It occured to me that I have never really been faced with any challenge that has had an earth shatteringly bad result.
I have had my swings & roundabouts in life. I have been faced with challenges, some of them of seemingly mammoth proportion, and I've always gotten through them relatively unscathed.
But it also occured to me that neither have the majority of my friends.
And maybe the reason for that is not purely incidental, maybe it's because of the strength each of us has shown when faced with these challenges.
Maybe too, its due to the company we keep.

I think everyone needs, at some point, to be able to have someone who will be there to not only let you cry, but cry along with you, someone who will be the rational, almost cynical one, someone who will be the one to tell you to get over it, someone who will be the one to indulge you, someone who will hold the type of strength you strive for, someone who will just listen to you when you need to talk it all out.
And I'm starting to realise that needing those people doesn't make you emotionally weaker than them. No one can get through it all alone.
I'm fortunate to have all of those people in my life, many of them pictured in that layout and next time I'm considering my emotional weaknesses, I'm going to count that as one my biggest strengths.

x
Skye