My Eulogy to the Living

I want to be remembered, do you not?! 

Eulogy: 

A eulogy is a speech or writing in praise of a person or thing, especially one who recently died or retired or as a term of endearment. Eulogies may be given as part of funeral services. They take place in a funeral home during or after a wake. -Wikipedia

By definition, a eulogy should be expressed upon death. 

I get it. 

It's a formal part of our culture that helps the living deal with death; a way to pay our respects and remember all the intricacies of what made that person human. What made them tick.. What made them reach your heart. To share in their greatest achievements and value their character and spirit. 

The problem is.. Funerals aren't for the dead, they're for the living. 

So I had this crazy idea. If anyone is remotely into, let's call it science, you know that black is simply the absence of color. It's not a color at all. (A black object absorbs all the colors of the visible spectrum and reflects none of them to the eyes) 

Then I got to thinking, maybe that's why we wear black to funerals, to honor the absence of someone in our lives. 

Naturally, this seemed pretty far-fetched to me. Why? Because the color or lack of color you wear to a funeral really makes no difference. But it brought me around to my original point, funerals are for the living, not the dead. So we must wear black, we must create heartfelt eulogies in our greatest time of grief, and we must come together in one ceremony to announce and celebrate and mourn the loss of the one we love. 

Now this will probably bite me in the ass when I die, but I don't want a eulogy at my funeral. I don't want someone to stand up at a podium with a broken heart and create words that are supposed to neatly tie up who I am as a person.

My being is so much greater than that. I don't want you to be able to tie a bow around the person I was. I don't want my love to be that neat and straightforward.. I don't want commemorated in a tidy speech with the utmost affection and kindness, because that's not who I am. Even today. I hope my presence to be fierce in your life, for better or for worse. To love not with a great width, but a great depth. I will never live up to those words that you share when you grieve over me. I will never live up to the memory of me. I can only be me, and that's simply enough. 

I want you to live my eulogy every day.

It's a selfish endeavor, truly. To ask that the most sincere thoughts and feelings are expressed all throughout my life being alive, instead of when I have passed on. 

It's selfish. 

I don't want you to save the words about me. I don't want you to save that feeling of missing me horrendously and wanting one more moment with me. I don't want you to pack a lifetime of feelings into a paragraph on a folded up napkin at a dimly lit church. 

I just can't have you do that. 

I just can't spend my whole life living, and then pass on to know what you thought. 

So with all due respect to those planning my funeral, please burn the speeches. Don't let any person stand in front of the congregation and pour out their heart. 

Let it sit with you. Let my eulogy be in the memories we have made. Let my eulogy be a silent celebration of all that I was and all that I am. 

And because I will be an angel, I have no qualms about haunting you if you don't follow my wishes ;) 

I want you, loved ones, to write my eulogy in each moment we share, because I will do the same for you. I won't wait to cherish all that you mean to me and all that you are. 

My eulogy is for the living. My eulogy should be shared in all the moments I am alive. 

So when I take my last breaths, may it be tomorrow or in 104 years, I hope your heart is filled with my eulogy of love. 

I'm asking to be loved as if it was my last, to be valued as though I wouldn't be on this Earth again.. And if you're thinking that's crazy? I think it's crazy not to. I can't live my life half way; and I'm asking you do the same. 

Write my eulogy in the texts you send me. Write my eulogy in the hugs we share. Write my eulogy in the kisses we give. Write my eulogy in the laughter that hurts our stomachs. Write my eulogy in the depths of our greatest sorrows. Write my eulogy in the gifts you buy me, and the cards you write me. Write my eulogy in the trips you plan with me and the adventures we go on. Write my eulogy in the way you hold my hand. Write my eulogy in the little surprises that make me cry with happiness. Write my eulogy in the way you look at me in the morning. Write my eulogy in your invitation to spend time. Write my eulogy in all the moments we can ever wish to share together.. 

Just don't write my eulogy at my funeral. 

What should and is going to be remembered is the love we shared and the moments we had; that's what is going to matter. Not a speech dressed in black, standing at a podium with tear soaked eyes. 

Live my eulogy every day before I pass. My funeral is for the living. 

I plan to live this life writing a thousand eulogies every day with the ones I love; I ask selfishly you do the same for me. 

Wild Creatures

My silk comforter glides across my freshly shaven legs as I fumble for my phone to watch yet another New Girl episode on Netflix. My heart aches at the lyrics to every Taylor Swift song, and I try to convince myself that Chinese take-out could very well be a healthy option every night...... It's not; if you're wondering.

I sit here and I can't help but think to myself: Your heart is your biggest flaw. 

My heart encompasses this plethora of emotions that in my mind I know I should move on from, but my heart refuses. My heart sees the best parts and the worst parts in people, and loves them fiercely all the same. 

I still believe in soul mates. Unfortunately the world has taught me that sometimes soul mates gets pushed on their backs in the dark. The world has taught me that our experience with love is flawed; in every way imaginable.. 

But every once in a while, you get the chance to change that. 

You get the chance to dig your toes into the Earth and stand for what your heart wants. I've been told that 

hearts are wild creatures and that's why our ribs are cages.... Open. The. Cage. 

Maybe my heart is still my biggest flaw. Maybe hope for the future and nostalgia for the past are my two greatest weaknesses. Maybe I should cage my heart a little more often.

But today I'm not. 

Today my feet are gripping the Earth and standing up for my biggest flaw. Today my heart is first. 

Because one day, what my heart wants and my mind thinks will be one. 

I hope that you too will acknowledge your heart. Acknowledge the feelings you've been pushing aside.. Maybe it's an incessant aching you've been numbing with sweet wine and romantic comedies, or maybe it's an overjoyed spirit that you feel guilty of. Whatever your heart is yearning for today, I wish you the power to honor it. 

23 Years... Young?

When did the day arrive when I was actually able to say, "Wow! Look how YOUNG I was!" and actually feel it? 

The answer is today. Today I felt that.... I think for the first time. 

I've always said, "OMG I was so little!" But come on, I didn't really FEEL it. I just knew in my mind that I was younger, so I commented on it. 

Today is different. 

Today I feel this plethora of questions rising in me! What have I accomplished? Where have I been? Am I doing this right? What if I never get married? Am I ever going to have babies?! OMG! What if I get too old to have babies?! OMG the biological clock is a REAL thing! I need to start traveling, like, yesterday! Why are there bags under my eyes!? Why have I not exercised and eaten healthy and slept right all these years?! WHYYY?!?!!! ((Haha--You've been there, don't lie!)) 

I looked at my eyes and for the first time I'm starting to see them grow older. My appetite is changing, or my metabolism is slowing.

And no, this isn't happening rapidly, and I'm still 23 years young. But today, maybe for the first time, I felt like time was not on my side. 

And I am sure there are many more people out there like me. (I mean it's not an innate human trait to feel older, right? Haha) 

Maybe you're 16. Maybe you're 49. Maybe you're 94. It hits us all at different ages, and I'm sure now it will hit me again and again and again. 

I will wake up and realize, wow, I'm really NOT getting any younger, and this is what that feels like. 

This is what it feels like to not be promised time. 

To know that my mind, my body, my being is not forever. 

I am not forever. I am not promised tomorrow, or even this next breath. 

And I realized that I should make THESE moments count, because I might not make it to 92. I might not make it to tomorrow. And no, I'm not being suicidal or depressed, I'm being honest. We don't KNOW how much time we have, so why am I living like I have all the time in the world? 

I hope when this day comes for you (whether you've already had it twenty years ago, or you're only 14 and you feel like this) that you will make the decision to truly live. To not be bound by time, but to make sure that every breath matters because we don't always know when our last will be. 

Now excuse me while I go research Mary Kay anti-aging products to get ahead of this whole thing ;) Suggestions, anyone?! 

Warning Signs You May Be a Real Life Adult

1. You have an unhealthy amount of excitement when your health, dental and vision insurance kicks in at work... Like, scheduling five appointments the next day excited. ((When did having routine check-ups at the dentist become so invigorating?!)) 

2. You hit snooze five times on your alarm, and each time you say to yourself, "I can't wait until I can be in bed again!" ((OMG, I'm thinking this AS I am in bed; what's wrong with me?!)) 

3. If you actually get groceries before making 'Kitchen Surprise'.... You reward yourself with a large pizza and Sriracha, because, well, you deserve those 8K calories, you got kale and spinach at the grocery store! 

4. You say, "Adult," instead of "Grown up." ('Nuff said) 

5. You celebrate silently when you wash AND fold AND put away the laundry. ((You deserve a PRIZE here people!!))

6. You actually can't eat fast food five times a day. ((Food babies are real here people, I am here to tell you)) 

7. You feel proud that you got through day 18 of the 30 day Ab Challenge.  ((And you reward yourself with wine, red wine of course, good for the heart!)) 

8. You would rather buy a dresser for your bedroom than spend money on going out. 

9. You value the relationships in your life and realize the effort it takes to upkeep them. ((Most of all, you are WILLING to put that effort in)) 

10. You still don't like to do the dishes, but you do them regularly now. ((You actually want the Amazon in existence so you stop using paper plates every day))

11. A blog post titled, "Warning Signs You May Be a Real Life Adult," caught your attention and you thought, "I wonder how many signs I have!" 

12. **Gasp!** You actually do, like, more than five of these!! 

Predestined To Be.

You there! Beautiful eyes, first off. They are scrolling so flawlessly across this page. Now, if you're looking for more compliments, click away now. If you're looking for humor, click away. But I promise, it will be worth it to read until the end. 

Let me start out by stating the obvious- You have a past. 

I have a past. My family has a past.

Sometimes, I feel like I have a predestined future. I was born into a life that I will eventually become (fill in the blank.) 

When my father struggled with alcoholism, I was told that I was "born with a shot of whiskey in my hand, so it's best to just stay away." It made me feel as though I had no choice in the matter. I will become an alcoholic, at some point in life, because those that came before me were. I strayed from alcohol for as long as possible. Partly because it doesn't make me feel great (whoever feels great please let me in on your secret) and partly because I felt predestined to become an alcoholic if I even took one shot. I have many nights wanted, "the forbidden fruit" and lay awake craving something I had never even had before. Which then led me to believe that maybe he was right, maybe vodka or whiskey or pick your poison, really WAS coursing through my veins. It would only be a matter of time before I took my first hard kick with alcohol and that would do it for me. Downward spiral of uncontrollable atrocities from there. 

Then one day I got up the courage to drink a glass of wine. Woah... Nothing happened. I wasn't pouring down shots of vodka and ruining relationships. I just.... Had a glass of wine. And then I stopped. I then had some fruity concoction (I don't drink often people, I don't know names of ANY.THING) at a party a few months later, and again. That was it. This BEING, this monster in my closet of drinking that I was led to be so fearful of, was really just this warm, cuddly, sometimes fuzzy monster. Why? Because I made it that way. I didn't take it where others have. It wasn't going to be my crutch in life. 

Maybe you too, come from a long line of alcoholics or pill poppers or mental disorders. (Speaking from experience here people, I have a little of all of that in my family. Whom I love each and every one of so fiercely and dearly it is unexplainable) 

I've been afraid of my own mind, my own body. I've feared WHAT COULD BE. I naturally have an extremely overactive mind, and I have felt like with just one wrong move, it could start working against me. 

I want to bring awareness to alcoholism though, because everyone seems to think that it is a bunch of lazy people with no dreams or aspirations in life that don't have anything better to do than scratch their belly and drink a six pack, but oh, how it is exactly the opposite. 

I will tell you one thing I know to be true in life, nobody can become truly addicted to something without having a powerful mind. Whether or not they ever break that addiction, this is true. 

I believe this wholeheartedly. I don't mean you have to be a rocket scientist, but I think your brain capacity has to have a special and unique SOMETHING. Maybe it's one thing. You can memorize numbers. Whatever it is, it's special. You have to possess some depth, some demon in the closet or an inkling of a dream.... 

You can't struggle with something so fierce without first possessing the ability to be consumed. I'm talking body, mind and soul here people. And I honestly and wholly believe that if you have no depth to you, it wouldn't be hard to get out of addictions. 

That's why I believe alcoholism and addictions swallow up the purest of our people. Maybe before they even had the chance to show anybody on Earth what their true spirit reflects, and that's why we think of drunks as lazy and incompetent people. 

But these people are strong. Often times they have been places in life and then they have fallen. 

We have disease in this world that will swallow you whole; they won't discriminate on color or gender or wealth or education. They will throw you against the wall until you've committed suicide twenty times over and then wake up every morning, they will resuscitate your deepest fears and suffocate your ability to think clearly. 

Our minds are our biggest assets here.

I know this because at one point I was scared of my own space between my ears. I was predestined to become an alcoholic. I was predestined to have a mental illness. I was predestined to struggle with suicide. 

But how I was very horribly wrong. (well, thus far... Keep tabs on me people, I'm only 23 years young) 

I am just me. With a line of people who were just them. 

I am not to become anyone or anything else. My genetics do not define my struggles. My blood does not dictate my present or my future. 

And I've been GIFTED with the power of an active mind, not cursed. 

I've been gifted with the knowledge of knowing when is too much. When to try harder and when to walk away. 

I've been gifted with the struggles surrounding me so I could overcome them and be a light to those around me. 

My destiny, your destiny, is not written in the past. It is not written in your blood line. It is not written by your genetic composure. It is not written by a shot glass in your hand at birth or a needle in your arm in your teens. 

It is written by you, and only you, today and every day going forward.

Make it count. Who do YOU want to be destined to become? That is only YOURS to determine. 

The chains of the past are meant to be broken, not hanging wearily for generations. 

Hushing Your Inner Monologue

I'm sure my parents knew something was different about me when I bawled over my dead goldfish for hours; it was traumatizing okay. (P.S. He went to heaven, all is well, since I know you were concerned) 

I am extra, super, highly sensitive. And for some reason, the whole world thinks this is a bad thing... Which led ME to believe it was a bad thing. 

.........It's not. 

I've actually come to learn that it's a great thing, for any number of reasons! 

Sure, sometimes I just want to drink cheap whine and turn off my brain for even thirty seconds of relief from the constant onslaught of FEELINGS; but sometimes, it's nice to know exactly how I feel, why I feel, what that person across the room feels, how to help other people, how to ask for help myself.. It's nice to no longer hush that inner monologue. 

I don't think anything good ever comes from hiding emotions. Like... Ever. ((Well, if you're psychotic and you genuinely FEEL like killing someone or doing some terrible act.. You need to rethink your feelings. Like.. Stat!)) 

I wholly believe that we feel certain things for a reason. Maybe it's not always a good reason, but it's there. Your gut is telling you something just isn't right, you've been here before in another life it seems, or maybe you've never felt so incredibly happy in your life you just need someone to pinch you.... Or something we've all experienced a time or two, missing someone and not telling them for fear of seeming weak or desperate or clingy or needy. 

I call bullshit. I call bullshit on this whole nonsense about not sharing your feelings with yourself and with the people you care about. 

It's important to feel what you feel. Whether that may be anger or sadness or happiness or frustration, it's worth feeling. I don't think you can experience one emotion without all the rest. You can't feel true happiness if you've never had a day of sorrow, and you can't feel anger if you've never been at peace. 

Feel all the feels.

^^Yup. That was just said. 

I feel like that will get across better than, look, you have this one life, don't hide from the real moments in life. Don't hide from your emotions, and don't let anybody else silence them either. 

It doesn't make you weird or bipolar or crazy or too much to just FEEL. I promise. So please, do me a favor, and today, feel life as it hits you... 

Live.

Sometimes I think I write better than I live. Writing the world around me is sometimes more fleeting and exhilarating than living in the world around me. 

Maybe I'll always be a gypsy-spirit. Wandering and never truly finding home until my pen hits the paper. (okay, it's 2015, so when my fingers hit the keyboard) 

Or maybe one day I'll live better than I write. I'll find the umph inside of me to live with all of me, instead of just writing with all of me. 

But just maybe, one day I'll find a balance. Between living and writing, and bringing the two together. 

For without living and experiencing, one has nothing to write of; and to not write, I wouldn't feel as though I was living at all.