Your struggles aren't discounted
The other night we were driving home.
I look down at my dashboard, for no real reason, and I see my tire warning light, or whatever the real name is for it, I don't know. But lets just be real, there isn't that much about cars that I know.
My dad, who is a saint that I get to call dad, just recently checked my tire pressure on all my tires, you know, 'cause the weather is changing and the whole chemistry-thing that happens to air when it gets colder (this, science, I actually understand) change the pressure of your tires, and I have to have 35 PSI blah-blah-blah in my tires for my car to get its best gas mileage.
All stuff I'm pretty sure and I'm pretty sure I'm regurgitating the information back correctly.
I think to myself dad just checked my tire pressure, so that can't be right. . .
And then for no reason, maybe Jesus whispering in the quietest parts of my soul, maybe you have a flat tire.
If you know me, like, at all, you know that whenever the smallest (or biggest, for that matter) crisis occurs to me or in any vicinity around me in reference to my personal life, I kinda, as my dad would say, blow a gasket.
I pulled over into the most non-creepy parking spot (mind you, its almost ten o'clock at night) and call my boyfriend, who was not far up the road from me, since we were both driving in the same direction.
And, as you can guess, at this point I am already crying.
Well bawling, or sobbing, would be a better descriptive word.
In the end, everything turned out just fine. We still ended up getting our milkshakes that night we had planned to get; and additionally I was given the opportunity to learn how to change a flat and how to jump a car, not that’s something I would want to learn in the darkness of a beautiful Friday night.
Yes, my tire went flat and my car wouldn't start.
The most exciting Friday night I've had in quite a long time.
*
I was able to see a good friend and coworker the other night whom I haven't seen in a few months. We talked and caught up on what has happened over the past few months.
Some people are blessed with their lives, and others have a good share of struggles.
She has, well to be frank, many struggles and stressors that seem to come at her from all directions.
Being in your early twenties and having a close to death experience is not something that twenty year olds should have to go through.
Its just not fair.
Life isn't fair, Elizabeth.
With emotional and physical and academic and internal stressors comes mental struggles.
It's amazing how many people have anxiety and depression.
I only took one psychology class in college - well that and a psych nursing course as well - but I think that everyone has a little bit of mental struggles in their lives.
Whether it be real, severe clinical depression, or just a hint of the ups and downs, I think everyone, at some point in their lives, internally struggles with themselves.
The intense struggles that my friend experiences are, for sure, more challenging than my own; but in that same token, there is someone somewhere going through something more crappy.
And just because someone has it worse off than me, just because my 'bad times' and 'emotionally depressed moments' aren't as severe as others' doesn't discredit them; it doesn't mean they don't exist.
*
One of my friends who is also a coworker was listening to my conversation with my other friend.
At one point, she interjected to me, "You have been spoiled your whole life."
Don't fret, there was no argument. To be honest, I didn't really say anything back to that.
Why?
There are about six people, maybe, in this world who know how I was brought up and of what my childhood consisted.
The thing is, so many people now-a-days think that because you live in a decent neighborhood or you don't have college debt or you pay your bills on time, or ahead of time even; they correlate this with being spoiled or affluent.
It's like having your s*** together is a bad thing.
The background that no one sees, because they are too focused on the foreground, is the sacrifices my family, my parents, have had to make over the years; no one sees the personal and family struggles we have encountered over the years.
In general, I have encountered people who think they know me, know us; who think they can define me, can define us, and the ironic thing is, they couldn't be more wrong.
Sometimes people just see what they want to see.
There are very few people in this work who know and can understand your situation.
The reason I didn't rebuttal this accusation, there really was no reason to.
I think how people view you is based on how they view themselves; in other words, people always compare and contrast.
It's written in our bones to do so.
And I'm not saying that is a bad thing.
But no matter how "good" or "bad" people label your life, you are still going to have bad days, still have anxious and depressed moments; this world is not perfect, and no matter how perfect someone views your world, it is, under no circumstance, not.
Just because you were blessed with a family unit who instilled certain principles and morals into you, that, when completed out correctly, usually make life easier, doesn't mean you can't have bad days.
It does not discount those moments where you just feel like plain poop.
*
Everyone has crappy days.
The best way to get through them is to be able to lean on someone.
And I think that is something that humanity shares: some type or another, the crap of life.
I look down at my dashboard, for no real reason, and I see my tire warning light, or whatever the real name is for it, I don't know. But lets just be real, there isn't that much about cars that I know.
My dad, who is a saint that I get to call dad, just recently checked my tire pressure on all my tires, you know, 'cause the weather is changing and the whole chemistry-thing that happens to air when it gets colder (this, science, I actually understand) change the pressure of your tires, and I have to have 35 PSI blah-blah-blah in my tires for my car to get its best gas mileage.
All stuff I'm pretty sure and I'm pretty sure I'm regurgitating the information back correctly.
I think to myself dad just checked my tire pressure, so that can't be right. . .
And then for no reason, maybe Jesus whispering in the quietest parts of my soul, maybe you have a flat tire.
If you know me, like, at all, you know that whenever the smallest (or biggest, for that matter) crisis occurs to me or in any vicinity around me in reference to my personal life, I kinda, as my dad would say, blow a gasket.
I pulled over into the most non-creepy parking spot (mind you, its almost ten o'clock at night) and call my boyfriend, who was not far up the road from me, since we were both driving in the same direction.
And, as you can guess, at this point I am already crying.
Well bawling, or sobbing, would be a better descriptive word.
In the end, everything turned out just fine. We still ended up getting our milkshakes that night we had planned to get; and additionally I was given the opportunity to learn how to change a flat and how to jump a car, not that’s something I would want to learn in the darkness of a beautiful Friday night.
Yes, my tire went flat and my car wouldn't start.
The most exciting Friday night I've had in quite a long time.
*
I was able to see a good friend and coworker the other night whom I haven't seen in a few months. We talked and caught up on what has happened over the past few months.
Some people are blessed with their lives, and others have a good share of struggles.
She has, well to be frank, many struggles and stressors that seem to come at her from all directions.
Being in your early twenties and having a close to death experience is not something that twenty year olds should have to go through.
Its just not fair.
Life isn't fair, Elizabeth.
With emotional and physical and academic and internal stressors comes mental struggles.
It's amazing how many people have anxiety and depression.
I only took one psychology class in college - well that and a psych nursing course as well - but I think that everyone has a little bit of mental struggles in their lives.
Whether it be real, severe clinical depression, or just a hint of the ups and downs, I think everyone, at some point in their lives, internally struggles with themselves.
The intense struggles that my friend experiences are, for sure, more challenging than my own; but in that same token, there is someone somewhere going through something more crappy.
And just because someone has it worse off than me, just because my 'bad times' and 'emotionally depressed moments' aren't as severe as others' doesn't discredit them; it doesn't mean they don't exist.
*
One of my friends who is also a coworker was listening to my conversation with my other friend.
At one point, she interjected to me, "You have been spoiled your whole life."
Don't fret, there was no argument. To be honest, I didn't really say anything back to that.
Why?
There are about six people, maybe, in this world who know how I was brought up and of what my childhood consisted.
The thing is, so many people now-a-days think that because you live in a decent neighborhood or you don't have college debt or you pay your bills on time, or ahead of time even; they correlate this with being spoiled or affluent.
It's like having your s*** together is a bad thing.
The background that no one sees, because they are too focused on the foreground, is the sacrifices my family, my parents, have had to make over the years; no one sees the personal and family struggles we have encountered over the years.
In general, I have encountered people who think they know me, know us; who think they can define me, can define us, and the ironic thing is, they couldn't be more wrong.
Sometimes people just see what they want to see.
There are very few people in this work who know and can understand your situation.
The reason I didn't rebuttal this accusation, there really was no reason to.
I think how people view you is based on how they view themselves; in other words, people always compare and contrast.
It's written in our bones to do so.
And I'm not saying that is a bad thing.
But no matter how "good" or "bad" people label your life, you are still going to have bad days, still have anxious and depressed moments; this world is not perfect, and no matter how perfect someone views your world, it is, under no circumstance, not.
Just because you were blessed with a family unit who instilled certain principles and morals into you, that, when completed out correctly, usually make life easier, doesn't mean you can't have bad days.
It does not discount those moments where you just feel like plain poop.
*
Everyone has crappy days.
The best way to get through them is to be able to lean on someone.
And I think that is something that humanity shares: some type or another, the crap of life.
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