Greener Grass

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Why is divorce literally hell? The marriage was supposed to be the hell, the divorce was supposed to be the relief. You sign a piece of paper, pretending like you’ll be able to erase your past, with hopes and dreams that the grass is greener on the other side. Well spoiler alert – the process itself is just as gut wrenching as the day you spent packing up your belongings and driving away. It’s that moment of saying goodbye to your dogs, and the house that was once yours every…single…day. It’s the memories of the good times replaying over and over in your mind, because for some reason the days you wanted to give up have been pushed aside in your brain as your body’s mechanism to heal. I know why I left, and I know how much pain and sadness I was in prior to leaving, but this… at this point still feeling this way… just is really unfair.

As if replaying moments in my mind throughout the day isn’t bad enough, I have had continual nightmares since I left. They stopped for a few months, but came right back. Since the last court date they have been becoming more vivid. When I wake up from the dream I am soaked, heart racing, gasping for a breath of air. I don’t understand how he still has the power to make me feel this way. How can one person control another even in their unconscious?

I was just getting out of the shower after working a double at the restaurant. My husband (then boyfriend) hadn’t touched me in a few days, which for us was completely off. He happened to come into the bathroom as I was drying myself off, mascara slightly running as it never completely comes off in the shower. As I wrapped the towel around my wet body I looked at him and asked if everything was okay… certainly not thinking that anything was wrong, but just wanting to hear him confirm. He lifted his right hand to my chin and turned my face over to a small section of the un-fogged bathroom mirror that had cleared itself and said “tell me, who would want that.”

I remember that moment as if it was yesterday, and now that’s all I constantly dream about. His tone, his face, the way his eyes looked as he looked at me through the mirror. His words completely shattered my every being. It was the beginning of me learning the rules if I wanted a to please him. I obviously knew that after work I had to shower, but I also had learned that my hair was not allowed to be wet – because who wants a “wet rat” on top of them. Also, being without makeup meant I was good looking for everyone else during the day, but disgusting for the only person that should matter at night. So after I showered I would put something flattering on and at least a little mascara. I hated myself so much back then that I would have done anything to feel loved by him. Can I blame him for wanting the girlfriend/wife that everyone else got to see? Just because I was exhausted from the continual doubles, working multiple jobs, didn’t mean that he wanted me any less – and I should be happy he wants me [sexy], right?

Anyways, the dream… Instead of my ex just saying “tell me, who would want that” – he continued to tell me everything that was wrong with me. Everything in the past decade that he used to say wrapped up into one horrible nightmare. “You’re too selfish to ever be a mother”, “You are just your mother“, “You care about looking good when you leave the house, but this is what I get?”, “You’re a horrible wife“, “What do you do for me?”…. The list went on but at the end of the nightmare he just kept calling me “Debbie” (my mothers name). I was up against the bathroom wall and slowly inching down the floor, hysterical, barely able to make out the words “stop, please stop.” And then I wake up. Drenched. Having to remind myself where I am, and that it was just a dream.

Sometimes I wonder if this is all a dream. One of these days I am going to wake up and say “wow, that was such a horrible nightmare.” I’d walk down the hallway listening to the squeaks of the floor boards as my “Memere slippers” rubbed against the wood, and enter the living room greeted by my chocolate lab, dachshund, and husband. Husband. I have to stop saying that. As of Monday (yes, Valentine’s Day – how f’ing ironic, I know) our divorce was finally approved. I thought that hearing the judges words on Monday would bring me this sense of relief; some ability to breath knowing there isn’t a dark shadow hovering over me, knowing that I can finally pick up the pieces of my life, and be happy again… In reality, it was just another day, just a random woman saying random words to us. It didn’t take away the pain of the past. It didn’t take away the pain of loosing an entire family that I loved more than life. It didn’t change anything.

I don’t regret my decision. I begged him for years to just love me. I know he did, but god… he had this magical way of making me feel like absolutely nothing. I chose to believe that happiness does exist, and its out there. I chose to be able to find a spouse I never will have to worry about coming home to at night. I chose to be a mother someday. I have to continually remind myself of everything I can have in my life now that I am no longer married to him. I have to keep telling myself that the grass will be greener.

Hope

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“The princess locked herself away in the highest tower, hoping a knight in shining armor would come to her rescue. – I didn’t realize I could be my own knight.”

Amanda Lovelace

Little girls dream of their knight and shining armor riding a white horse, galloping towards you in a meadow of flowers, scooping you up, and carrying you off into endless bliss. If I could go back in time and tell my young self how incredibly ridiculous that even sounds… I wouldn’t. Being able to dream like that made me the loving, heartless romantic that I am; even if every relationship I’ve been in has failed. I used to be told that the things I wanted out of a relationship was nothing but a Lifetime movie special. As much as I cringed every time that was said to me, reality has struck; life isn’t always grand, relationships are hard, and marriage doesn’t always mean “to death do us part.” I guess I should have caught on when most of those Lifetime movies ended in cheating and murder.

I have been thinking a lot about the day that I walked down the aisle. 4 years, 11 months and 8 days ago. I had spent an entire year of working 100+ hour weeks, two jobs, for that one moment. I was beyond exhausted, but I couldn’t have been happier than I was on that day. If someone had told me that in less then five years I would be sitting in my one bedroom apartment at 5:00 AM counting down the minutes to the worst Zoom call of my life, I never would have believed them. I never thought that today would come, not in my wildest dreams.

Everyone has dreams and aspirations, goals, desires. I knew exactly what I wanted from a very young age. I needed to be a mother, and it was as simple as that. Raised Italian in every sense of the word – big family dinners, always with cousins and at family gatherings. I pictured myself married young, with 3 children before I turned 25 years old; 2 boys and 1 girl to be exact. I was going to work in the city, wear pencil pleated skirts with stiletto heels daily, manage a corporate company and come home to my loving family each and every night. Not a single one of those dreams became a reality for me. At 32 years old I have not lived farther than 10 miles from my childhood home, I have no children (unless you count the 30 pound fur ball still currently curled up in my bed), I have slaved – I mean, managed, my family business for 13 years and today.. well today I am getting divorced.

It is hard for me to put into words how I am actually feeling. In the past few months, the rollercoaster of emotions that I have experienced has been almost debilitating. One minute I would be at peace with the path that has unfolded, and another I find myself elbow deep in a bag of family size potato chips, hysterically crying about being 32 years old and having to start my life over. I have continually asked myself “what if” and prayed to god that I didn’t make the biggest mistake of my life by walking away from my marraige. I have doubted myself, hated myself, and punished myself so much in the past year that I don’t recognize the person I see in the mirror anymore. But today, today is the day I hopefully get some type of peace from my constantly racing mind and aching heart. Today I will sit in front of my laptop, staring at the man I thought I would die next to, as a judge declares us – not husband and wife.

“New beginnings are often disguised as painful endings…”

– Lao Tzu

They say when one door closes, another opens; if one thing you do fails, you will soon have the opportunity to try to succeed at something else. I have to whole heartedly believe this and tell myself that this isn’t the end, this is merely the beginning. Maybe I didn’t get my 3 children, successful corporate city career, or white picket fence that I always thought I would. Maybe that dream just was never meant to be a reality, maybe I was meant for something more. Maybe this heartache was meant for me, as a cruel horrible lesson of some kind. Maybe I was made to live it, endure the pain, and become 10x stronger from it. I have never been a spiritual type, although my grandmother is the most religious person I know, I have doubts. On days like today though I find myself praying to something, praying that this nightmare finally comes to an end and that I will be able to breathe again. The pain of loosing my family will never go away, and I know that, I would never expect It to. But after today, one door will close, and i’ll be walking towards the next open one.

Rebuilding

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“Never be afraid to fall apart because it is an opportunity to rebuild yourself the way you wish you had been all along.” – Rae Smith

There becomes a point in life when you realize that it will never be the same ever again. For everyone it appears differently. I looked at a photo of myself today and I hated what I saw. I literally didn’t recognize her. I was tagged in a post and it actually took me a couple seconds to realize that the completely drained woman with noticeable bags under her eyes and wrinkles was actually myself. And that was the moment, the moment i realized that life just isn’t going to be the same again.

A friend has said to me numerous times that divorce is just like grieving for a loved one. It is grieving. It is realizing that the one person that has been a constant, a backbone, a best friend… never mind all of the family and friends that came with that individual… its all gone. I am not sure how someone is supposed to deal with that. With death, you know the person isn’t there to run to… that seeing them, doesn’t need to be a ‘right or wrong’ issue, because it’s just not an option. Constantly playing moments over in your mind, the heart ache, the loneliness. It’s a physical pain that you feel when you loose a love one, death or not. And just when you think that you’re going to be able to conquer this, a wave comes over you and it can seriously rock your world.

I keep reading that its normal to feel this way. To want so badly to repair yourself from years of being broken, to only feel worse. But it is part of the journey. The rollercoaster. Your life may never be the same again, that part is true. But you have to accept what it is, let go of what it was, and have faith in the future; what will be.

“And so rock bottom became the solid foundation on which I rebuilt my life” – J.K. Rowling

The NEW Year

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Many people post “New Year, New Me”, as if a date… a tomorrow, actually changes anything. From 11:59pm to 12:00 am the only change is a minute; 60 seconds, and yet so many people in the world post about how their life will change once that moment comes.

I remember the first time I watched the ball drop on television. My grandfather was watching my siblings and I as my parents went out for the night. I was adamant that I was going to watch the ceremonial New York City ball drop and I fought my eyes closing with everything I had. I can still picture his living room, the smell of musk and wood from his shop in the basement below as I lay on the couch next to him in his recliner, my sister already asleep on the adjacent couch.

I continued to tell him how I was going to make it to midnight, nothing was going to stop me from experiencing that glorified moment of the clock striking 12, the past year disappearing, a new year beginning. I remember waking up my sister when it was time, sitting inches from the tv with her as we watched the shinning sparkling ball drop lower and lower, counting back the numbers to when the time was going to change – the anticipation and excitement was overwhelming. And just like that, the ball stopped peacefully, confetti released throughout New York City, couples grabbed their loved ones, everyone was cheering and smiling, and I looked at him and said “that’s it?” I remember his laugh, his deep chuckle, and he turned to me and said “that’s it.” I went to bed astonished that this is what people celebrated; I felt no different, there was not any magical feeling or incredible change as I thought would happen; I was the same person I was only a minute prior.

And so for the next 20 years of my life it would bother me when people posted about resolutions on New Years Day as if that one minute should be the reason that you have decided to grab your life by the balls and take charge of it. With that being said, this year I recant. If this year has taught me anything it has taught me that life is ever-changing. You never know what the next 60 seconds can bring. Sometimes people just need an opportunity to give them the courage to fight for the life that they want, and if that change of 60 seconds enables you to take that step toward the better you – then run at the New Year, in full force (with under armor if necessary).

This year is ending as it started for me. It’s ironic as I see foreshadowing in everyday situations and this one blindsided me. 11 months ago I stood up for something that I believed in, a change that was needed, in hopes that people woke up to realize that life truly is too short. Two weeks ago I walked into the same battlefield, and deja vu hit hard. The same tears were shed, the same emptiness over came me, and I lost the one thing that I worked to create for a third of my life. Now I sit here like the rest of the world, waiting for the clock to strike 11:59:59 so I can take my last breath in 2018 and find the courage to conquer 2019.

So how do I do this? How to I have the strength to move on and prove to myself (because that is the only person in this world that ever truly matters) that I have more worth than what my past self has allowed me to believe, and that I have the power to make the change to succeed in my future endeavors?

Stop expecting.

We cling to our expectations, because the expected is what keeps us steady. But in all reality, the expected is just the beginning, it’s the unexpected that changes our lives.

Realize that change is okay, it is actually normal.

Change is literally the only constant in all of science. It’s the way people try not to change that is unnatural. The way we cling to what things were instead of letting things be what they are. The way we cling to old memories instead of forming new ones. The way we insist on believing despite every scientific indication that anything in this lifetime is permanent. Change is constant. How we experience change, that’s up to us. It can feel like death or it can feel like a second chance at life. If we open our fingers, loosen our grips, go with it, it can feel like pure adrenaline. Like at any moment we can have another chance at life. Like at any moment, we can be born all over again.

Keep your dreams alive.

Understand to achieve anything requires faith and belief in yourself, your vision, hard work, determination, and dedication. Remember all things are possible for those who believe.

I hope that you find the power in the 60 seconds to create the life that you desire. I hope that you find the courage to overcome any fears of change. I hope that your 2019 is everything you dreamt it will be, and I hope you find the strength to create just that.

Happy New Year

 

Cause for Light

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“Life is what you make it”, “when life throws you lemons, make lemonade”, “you and only you can change your life, if you don’t like it, change it”. How many times have we heard these expressions and want to scratch the living day lights out of the person who decided to be witty enough to say them to you? You smile, nod, all while your thinking to yourself “Oh, just be happy, just change my life, I didn’t think of that! Thank you for you insight.” Fact is – truth hurts. And although you may think these people don’t understand because they aren’t walking in your shoes, I am going to fill you in on a secret. They are Right.

It has been a pretty dark Winter, in multiple ways. If things are going to hit your life, affect your every movement and thought, it might as well happen in the cold depressing months we call Winter. Looking back I can laugh, because I made it through, but it seems to be one thing after another that can leave our lives upside down. So when do we break free? When do we finally throw our hands in the air and give up concentrating on the miserable, suffocating things that have been happening in your life, accept them and find the light?

I will be the first to admit that I am the biggest pessimist there is. I complain constantly. I am exhausted. I have worked multiple jobs (several at a time), and over the past six years I have said a specific job was the cause of my exhaustion and I have dropped it, moved to another, picked up insane hours, and done a repeat cycle to my self over and over again. Then there is the mental stress, the family problems, and the financial instability that can completely rock your world. Life can throw lemons alright, so lets start making some lemonade.

“We spend our whole lives worrying about the future, planning the future, trying to predict the future. As if figuring it out will somehow cushion the blow, but the future is always changing. The future is the whole of our deepest fears and our wildest hopes, but one thing is certain: When it finally reveals itself, the future is never the way we imagined it.” – Meredith Grey “Scars and Souvenirs” (3.18)

I understand the worry about the future. You have dreams, plans about exactly what you want and what it will be like, and unfortunately, it never happens that way. My mother was married at 21, had my sister at 22, myself at 23, my brother at 25 and my last sibling at 32 (a little surprise). She had an amazing career at a young age making beautiful wedding gowns. The story goes that on her wedding day she was an hour late because of the swarm of people around her limo that just wanted to see ‘the wedding dress maker’s wedding dress’. I wanted to be everything she was. Fall in love young, find the man of my dreams, have a career, have a family, and all young enough to be able to live the rest of my life however I want.

Of course that didn’t happen. I left my house at 17 to live with the love of my life. The first long term relationship and it ended due to the disgusting heart ache of substance abuse. I firmly believe to this day though that the break up is what made us both strong enough to move on in our lives and drove us to want more and to better ourselves (see the lemonade there? I’m trying). Then I escaped to another great guy, but again, didn’t work. For some odd reason that break up was even harder, but after a few weeks of crying and doing nothing but working (truly what I do best) I went out to drink my sorrows away and met the man of my dreams, my now husband.

My point to rambling on about my love life is to bring back around my point to my earlier statement. Every life “hiccup”  can be looked at two ways. I could say that I wasted seven years of my life dating the wrong men for me and ruining my plans of being a young successful mother, or I can look at it as if I didn’t go through the roller coaster of relationship disasters I never would have met my husband. AKA – lemonade.

So what is the key to releasing the stress of life? Always being optimistic and looking at the glass half full instead of half empty? Sure. But most life situations won’t be settled that way. So what is the key to the stress of life? One of my brothers taught me grounding. When you are freaking out IE: crying, stressing, ready to pull out your last follicles – you just stop, sit, use all of your senses… touch – your chair, the floor, your clothes, smell – the room, the air, hear – what are people talking about, who is around you.. and you continue this with all your senses and when you are done your heart rate is lowered and you’re done freaking out. I laughed when I first heard this, but then I tried it during one of my emotional melt downs and it actually did work, for that moment.

I honestly believe that the key to life’s stress is – none. There is no easy answer and everyone has their moments. Life’s key… the answer to all problems, its just all in how you deal with it. So while some people can sit in a chair and calm themselves, others prefer the follicle pulling method. Either way, you have to believe.. you have to remember… this very moment, the moment that is making your skin crawl and your fight or flight reaction screaming to run for the hills, tomorrow it will just be a memory, next week, you might not remember it, and next year it will be obsolete.

Just Let it Go

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“Only I can change my life. No one can do it for me.” – Carol Burnett

There is a time in everyone’s lives where there is nothing you can do but let go. Almost like an epiphany comes over you and you instantly decide to change your life for the better. Career change, relationship issues, family feuds, friendship queries, or simply the life and path you are currently traveling on is not what you want; nothing is worth your unhappiness. I know, easier said than done, but I promise you, the second you build up enough will-power, or the moment where the pain that continually eats you alive has become unbearable – releasing will be the best feeling of your life.

“Your time is limited, so don’t waste it living someone else’s life. Don’t be trapped by dogma – which is living with the results of other people’s thinking. Don’t let the noise of others’ opinions drown out your own inner voice. And most important, have the courage to follow your heart and intuition” – Steve Jobs

I never want to look back on life and regret anything. I firmly believe that all past experiences and situations were put in front of every person for a reason. Some reasons are more clear than others, sometimes faith in any type of higher being gets difficult to believe in, but at the end of the day, at the end of my life, I want to be able to say that nothing stopped me from living the life I was put on this Earth to live.

So the question is, how do we let go? How do we handle situations that are out of our control, but need our control in order to get through? I have personally learned the biggest lesson of my life this month. Sometimes it is okay to just let go. Sometimes its okay to just say “screw it” and let go of all the negativity in your life  – because this is your life, and you only get one to live.

Today I choose life. Every morning when I wake up I can choose joy, happiness, negativity, pain…. To feel the freedom that comes from being able to continue to make mistakes and choices – today I choose to feel life, not to deny my humanity but to embrace it.” – Kevin Aucoin

When to Say When

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“There’s something to be said about a glass half full, about knowing when to say when. I think it’s more of a floating line, a barometer of need. Of desire. It’s entirely up to the individual, and it depends what’s being poured. Sometimes all we want is a taste. Other times there’s no such thing as enough, the glass is bottomless…all we want it more”

We are all human and when love is involved life gets messy. There is no better recipe for a disaster than thinking with your heart instead of your mind. People grow, every day, which means they change. They become more comfortable to show imperfections, more comfortable to say and do whatever touches their lips, completely bypassing the brain before hand.

My question today is, when is love enough, or is love ever really enough? Enough to stay, to keep on trying, all while knowing you’ll feel each potential hole struck along the way. At what point do you give up? Do you raise that white flag, throw in the towel and say “I gave it all I had, and it just didn’t work.” How do you make your heart stop loving, knowing that the pain of walking away will be unbearable and doing so will be hardest decision of your life?

“There is always a way when things look like there’s no way. There’s a way to do the impossible, to survive the in survivable. There’s always a way. So if I can offer one piece of advice.. Today if you become frightened instead become inspired.”

Life is an amazing thing. Some people don’t have the ability to live it, others take advantage of their ability. We only get one chance at this journey. One chance to look back on life, smile, and say that we had an amazing run, no regrets. I believe everyone has it in them to make the right decision, some just have to dig deeper to find it. A great man once told me “If you can put your head to your pillow at night and sleep, then you are doing something right in your life.” So what is making you not be able to sleep at night, and how do you fix it? You know the answer, and its never easy, but you were built with the strength, and its time to use it, its time to start living.

 

Consent to Feel Inferior

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“No one can make you feel inferior without your consent.” – Eleanor Roosevelt

I think about this quote a lot, and personally, I think its a complete load of crap – excuse my English. I understand the meaning behind it, but any normal human being with “feelings” gets hurt when someone else speaks ill of or to them, it is just how we work. So the real question is, once something is said that hurts us, where do we go from that point?

Everyone handles conflict different in their lives and that’s part of what makes us all different in this world. Some people will cry themselves to sleep at night, remembering the words that hurt them and playing the moment over and over in their head. Others will grow from the moment, learn to swallow what was said (if it happened to have been the truth) and understand that maybe the one that needs change is themselves. No matter how we choose to deal with the negativity, there is one thing stays constant: we will always remember that moment, the words, and the person who decided to spit it out of their face.

-A

Loss

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I haven’t written in a while, I haven’t felt the need to write in a while.

It is the most unbearable feeling a person can handle. No need to look back… to remember… because every time you close your eyes you see the body, laying there… motionless… Pale doesn’t seem to be remotely close to what the color of his skin was… white… ghost like… clear… no definition between his cheeks, nose and lips. I can’t stop hearing my mother screaming, a scream that I have never heard before, from the lowest, deepest part of her being. In the matter of a moment, and what seemed to be an hour, my world came crashing down around me.

It was a normal Saturday. I was working at our family restaurant. I just finished washing the floors and the rooms smelt of cleaning solutions. The restaurant was ready to open, doors were unlocked, lights were on, music was playing. I was in the basement doing payroll when I heard my name. I knew it was my mother but it was a deep scream, something I can’t describe, something I pray to never hear again. As I ran to the bottom of the stairs… I knew. Everything seemed to be in slow motion, her hands waving in the air, begging for help. She could barely breathe and suffered saying the words “your brother, something is wrong with your brother.”

I remember running. My heart didn’t seem to be pumping at all, I held my breath, I just ran. When I got up the two flights of stairs and opened their house door, I saw him. His lifeless body sitting up right on the couch. My father was standing above him yelling at him to wake up, screaming, swearing, asking him how he could do this. His head had gone limp and as it rolled slowly to his right shoulder, his eye lids opened and all I could see was white as his eyes rolled to the back of his head. My stomach instantly turned, it felt like a knife went directly into my chest and all I could do was run. I ran. I ran back down the two flights of stairs and grabbed my cell phone. I knew the ambulance was already on the way and I called my boyfriend. Something about hearing his voice and knowing he was coming made me know I could handle this. “He overdosed. You need to come here now.”

As I ran back up the stairs and was ready to take the turn to go up another flight, my dad and our head chef was carrying my brother’s lifeless body down the stairs. I lost it. They put him on the floor and his chest wasn’t moving. I remember his arms were spread out, head bent to the right, white, so white. I collapsed, I couldn’t breathe. My finger tips and toes were tingling… I felt like my chest was about to explode. I remember just repeating “oh my god, oh my god” as if now there was some higher power that was going to come save us. The Chef kept saying he was going to be okay, I think by saying it we all felt like it could be a possibility. “Just breathe, just take a breath!”

I don’t remember how I got outside. I guess I had walked over his body.. I was searching for my mom who I could hear hysterically screaming for the police. It seemed like hours had gone by. We were so close to the hospital and the police station… I should have heard sirens by now, but I didn’t hear anything besides her screaming. The sound of a mother loosing a child is completely deafening. For the first time in my life I couldn’t console her. I couldn’t take her in my arms and tell her everything was going to be okay. I knew I couldn’t calm her down and I didn’t even dare try.

The police finally came, and as they heard the words “heroin overdose” the officer popped his trunk and grabbed his bag and ran to the door where my brother laid. They surrounded him and started working on him right away. My father was the closest, still screaming at my brother to wake up as if somewhere inside him he could hear and understand what was going on. “Wake up, wake up so I can kill you, wake up!” He kept repeating himself over and over again. I stood on the bricks as they laid him on the stretcher and ran him into the ambulance. Every part of his body I tried to remember…. The plastic green tube in his mouth, the bag pumping air into his chest, his grey checkered shirt, his tight skinny jeans, beige, his dark socks… all slowly wheeling by me.

As the ambulance drove away I was numb.

A few minutes later I got a call from my mother who was in the ambulance that he was awake. They had to give him two doses of Narcan to start his heart back up, he was dead. Hearing the words that he was dead had over powered the thought of him now being awake. I was in complete shock and couldn’t believe our lives had gotten to this point. The years of detox and rehab facilities, the months of Recovery High School, AA and NA meetings…

I drove to the hospital once I knew the restaurant was in good hands. Throughout the night I drove back and forth from the ER to the restaurant.. I couldn’t sit still… I couldn’t just wait. He was alive, which I realize is so huge, because there are so many people in this world who don’t survive an overdose, but to me, my brother was still gone. This isn’t the boy I knew… The boy who I used to read bed time stories to every night…I remember grabbing his tiny feet with his tiny toes and pretending to eat them as he laughed and laughed. I remember dressing him up and playing music in the living room … teaching him “adults dance like this” as we did the chicken dance. The years flashed through my head all night, and I still can’t get it out of my mind.

The excuses that I hear, the blame, “relapse” they call it. I don’t consider death to be a relapse. How can dying, no pulse, not breathing, your heart stopping, please someone explain how that is a relapse. This thing called addiction is a real bitch. It has completely consumed my family in the worse possible way. Every day has been a complete struggle… I don’t think I can ever come to terms with loosing my brother, yet deep inside I know this isn’t the end. The pain isn’t gone, and he isn’t done.

 

The Cost of Happiness

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How many people can really say they are happy with their current career? Happy with their pay, happy with the hours they put in, happy with their co-workers and the environment they work in… just an overall pleased with where they are and wouldn’t want to change it. I have met people making $100,000 a year who are miserable, and people who make $20,000 who are perfectly content. So what defines the perfect job? The perfect “home away from home”; your second family? When do you know you are where you are meant to be, even if not happy now, sticking it out for a what your future could be? Where is that damn magic 8 ball when you need it?