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#Who else manages to have a guilt crises about not being on here
rotzaprachim · 3 years
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Looking at the posts I do in a day like oh that’s way more than enough posting
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Close to you
» Izuku Midoriya x male reader
» Angst with some fluff » Requested (by anon): I need a fix of desperate, angsty fluff with Izuku. Maybe his hero bf recklessly goes after a villain alone and gets captured, so Pro-hero Deku has to rush to his rescue, scared of what he might find. » Warnings: mentions of religion at the beginning; dissociation; anxiety; overthinking; smoking; emetophobia; descriptions of blood & gore; mentions of death » Words: ~3.5k
You can find a link to my Masterlist etc in my bio and pinned post
Midoriya had never been one to pray to any gods for a wish. To him, it often felt selfish – after all, there were people who needed help more desperately than he did and they should receive it first. Even during his darkest moments, he had never even thought about praying, he had always known that he could rely on his own strength as well as his friends.
However, this time, his hands trembled as he put them together in a manner meant for praying. With his eyes closed and head lowered, Midoriya tried to think of a way to phrase his prayer but no right wording would come to his mind – in the end, he only stared at the dark behind his closed eyelids, incomprehensible thoughts filling his mind.
“Izuku.” A firm grip on his shoulder pulled Midoriya from his thoughts. It caught him off-guard, and he almost prepared himself for an attack before he recognized the person who stood before the bench Midoriya sat on. “Oh Shouto, it’s you!” Midoriya sighed in relief at the sight of his friend. “I’m sorry if I scared you, but the meeting should start very soon, and I didn’t want to miss the chance to talk to you before the others are here.” They were still the only ones in the bright yet depressing hallway of the hero agency that Deku currently worked at, and after taking a quick look at his watch, Midoriya figured that it would still take the other heroes a few minutes to get there. “Sure, what is it?” The light smile that had adorned Todoroki’s lips from when he had just greeted Midoriya vanished again and was replaced by a deep, concerned frown.
“I don’t think you should be leading this mission, Izuku, but someone else should do it,” Todoroki’s voice sounded just as concerned as he looked. “To be frank I would not even want you to participate in this rescue at all, but I don’t think that I could ever stop you from that.” Midoriya took a moment to think about his fellow pro hero’s words. It had already taken him all the self-control he had to not immediately run after you to save you, so he had to be on this mission. Though, he had to admit that due to the personal feelings toward this mission, his judgement might be off, so having someone else lead it would probably put them at an advantage.
“When you’re saying, ‘someone else’, do you mean yourself?” he inquired, and Todoroki nodded in confirmation. Midoriya took a few seconds to consider the proposal. Down the hall, he could hear the rest of the team for the rescue mission approach them. “Alright, let’s do it!”
The small conference room was unusually quiet. There was no happy catching up with one another, no euphoric reunions after not seeing each other for a few months. A pressing silence filled the room like thick, heavy fog as the ex-class 1A students Midoriya, Todoroki, Iida, Kirishima and Uraraka sat around the table, eyes fixed on their hands and the files in front of them. The only words that had been spoken were words of solidarity towards Midoriya, which he appreciated.
While Todoroki opened the meeting by greeting everyone and thanking them for coming, Midoriya stared down at his hands. The skin on his fingertips around the nails was reddened, a side effect of his anxious habit of biting his fingernails. Midoriya thought that he had gotten rid of said habit, but the current situation had changed many things. Before him on the table, his hands started to blur as his eyes filled with tears once again. He quickly wiped them away, hoping that nobody would notice.
Todoroki’s speech only barely reached him, only as a seemingly distant, faint mumbling as though he was speaking to Midoriya through a thick concrete wall. The whole room started feeling like a wide and open space with his former classmates miles and miles away. Mind numbing emptiness filled Midoriya’s heart and went through his veins until it was the only thing he felt in his whole body. As his breathing got faster, his heartrate picked up. Why was he there? Why was he not on his way to get you already? Even though he sat perfectly still, Midoriya felt dizzy, only from the way his mind spun – around and around and around like a carousel, Deku being the only passenger on this horrendous ride.
“You look really pale, Deku, are you alright?” Uraraka’s voice was as soft as ever. The soothing tone was able to momentarily stop Midoriya’s mind. For a second, he looked at her without an answer before simply nodding.
Only when Todoroki asked Midoriya to go over the situation once again, he was completely pulled back into reality. His legs trembled a little as Deku stood up. The eyes of his former classmates all followed his movements very carefully, trying to get clues about their friend’s mental state that the situation caused. Uraraka and Kirishima looked especially worried whereas Todoroki and Iida kept their expressions professional.
“Thank you everyone for coming on such short notice,” Midoriya started. He balled his hands to fists and squeezed as hard as he could to keep his mind from wandering too much that might cause him to break down again. “The villain organization that has been watched by several agencies for the past few months made a move about a week ago, as some of you may know. It was the first incident of that kind and several civilians got hurt in the process.” Deku clearly remembered the pictures of the scene on the news. Neither his nor the hero agency you worked for had been able to stop that despite being the ones watching the organization. “Y/N went after the villains alone and has not been seen since.” His voice got quieter with every word he spoke.
Your actions contradicted what you had learned at UA not so long ago. Staying calm and collected in crises, thinking rationally, and getting help was the priority. But guilt and anger had eaten you up. Midoriya could not blame you for that, even if he wanted to. He had experienced the same feelings in the past, put himself in danger, worried others, all because he wanted to play hero. Midoriya sat down again and let Todoroki take over once again.
“Since we know where the villains are hiding, it will be easy to retrieve the target.” ‘The target’. Midoriya flinched. The way the words came out of Todoroki’s mouth, the lack of emotion and his straight face were something admirable and scary at the same time. Reducing you to merely the word ‘target’ and the emotional disconnect that came with it would probably make this mission easier for Deku, but he just did not manage to think that way. With a sigh, he sank deeper into his chair and listened to Todoroki’s plan.
It was an easy one, starting with negotiations led by Iida. He was the best that that sort of thing, so Midoriya had no problem leaving that to him. However, he was not really fond of the idea of exchanging your life for something like money but since it was the easiest way to avoid direct confrontation, they had to try it. If that did not work, Iida would go in through the front door, and Todoroki, Deku, Kirishima and Uraraka through the back door in two teams to get ‘the target’ out by themselves. Combat was to be avoided. The top priority was getting you out, not arresting the bad guys, though the police would be waiting in front of the building to take them in.
The base of the small villain group was an abandoned warehouse – because of course it would be that. The alley behind it was narrow and dirty, littered with shards of glass and cigarette butts. Next to the dark water in the potholes, Midoriya could see dried as well as fresh blood shimmering on the asphalt. The sight made him sick, a feeling he had not experienced in a while.
The four heroes came to a halt at the place where they would go into the building through the back door. There were no guards, which came as a surprise, but even if there had been some it would not have been a problem for any of them. Midoriya and Todoroki stayed back and inspected the alley while Uraraka and Kirishima got ready at the heavy double-winged door
 Midoriya crouched down and inspected the blood stains. Todoroki’s eyes were fixed on him, he could almost physically feel it. With his gloved hand, Midoriya moved some reddened shards around, not entirely sure of what he was doing or why he was doing it in the first place, but it was a way to keep his hands and mind busy. Todoroki had his own ways of doing that. “I thought you quit,” Midoriya remarked. “I thought so too, but-” Todoroki did not care to finish his sentence and only a few seconds later, the smell of cigarette smoke reached Deku. He wrinkled his nose. “The situation is getting to me too, you know?” Todoroki’s pronunciation was a bit curious with the cig between his lips. “The same goes for the others. Kirishima, Uraraka, Iida, they’re all worried. Bakugou, too, even though he isn’t here today.” A short pause. Deku assumed that Todoroki was taking a deep drag. “It is really getting to me.” His voice was quieter this time and it had a tone to it that Deku barely knew from his friend. It was desperate, hopeless, pleading.
Midoriya had no words of affirmation that he could tell Todoroki. Hell, if he could think positively in this situation, everything would be a lot easier. He searched and searched for words, but none would come to his mind. And in the end, he did not need to say anything. Midoriya’s communication device made a static sound, before he heard Iida’s voice, loud and clear. »Negotiations failed. What will be the next step?« “We’re going in,” Todoroki told them without hesitation. “Understood!” Midoriya got back up and was at the door in less than a second. He looked at Uraraka and Kirishima, both had a determined look on their face.
Todoroki stepped to them and – given the lack of a bin – dropped his half-smoked cigarette to the ground. “That’s not very heroic of you, Todoroki,” Kirishima commented. Uraraka giggled and even Midoriya managed to crack a smile. “I’ll pick it up later,” the leader of their mission said and Deku was sure he saw his lips twitch into a fond expression as well, even if it was only for a split second. They all became serious again. “Deku, open the door for us.”
  The inside of the building was dark and empty, and Midoriya was not sure why he had expected anything else. His and Uraraka’s footsteps on the wet ground resounded through the empty hallway. It was quite dark, most of the lamps on the walls were either broken or very dim, so the major source of light were the occasional holes in the ceiling. It took Midoriya all the self-control he had not to activate One For All and charge forward – Uraraka and he were a team, and they should stay together since running around alone might be dangerous. The further they got into the building, the harder it got for Midoriya to keep it together. With every door they opened, with every room they inspected, anxiety and terror grew withing him. There was no sign of you.
It did not take long for some villains to show up, but at this point in time they were no match for Deku. Anyone who tried to get in his way right now was put down in mere seconds. Uraraka kept his back free and had an eye on him in case he got too reckless.
The last door he approached was a pain to open. Midoriya had to push it with his shoulder since the hinges were rusty and it took him a few tries until the door finally budged and creaked open. Behind the door, Midoriya was met with a pitch-black room. He reached over to the wall besides the entrance and searched for a light switch. A single light bulb hanging from the ceiling flickered on, only giving enough light for Midoriya to see the rough shapes of the room’s interior, but it slowly started glowing brighter. That was when his heart stopped.
For a split second, Midoriya thought that maybe he had come too late, that maybe you were already dead. The sight of you, tied to a chair with ropes so tight that they were cutting into the flesh on your wrists and ankles sent shivers up and down his spine. Blood dripping down from your chin had already formed a small pool on the already wet floor. He noticed the smell of blood, sweat and vomit still fresh and heavy in the air.
“Y/N?” His voice was merely a whisper. Maybe he was afraid that if he were loud enough for you to hear, you would not react. Midoriya forced himself to take a step. Lift his foot off the ground, move it onwards, put it down again. Now with his other foot. Lift, onwards, down. And again. With every step, a new wave of sensations and feelings washed over Midoriya. First it was disgust – he could not help that one but looking at your skin peeling off your flesh and exposing the bare muscle tissue and bone almost made him vomit. Then it was hysteria – Midoriya could both laugh and cry out loud until he lost his voice, kiss you on your dead cold bloody lips, dance and jump through this awful room – because he finally found you but what if it were too late? Then it was fear – and with this feeling numbing his mind once again, he reached you.
“Y/N?” He crouched down so his face was on one level with yours. The dull sound of Midoriya’s gloves falling to the ground echoed through the room, to him it was almost as loud as an explosion. As he held his breath, his now bare hand reached out for you almost all on its own, touched your neck, searched for a pulse. To Midoriya’s relief, your skin was not cold, but warm. Maybe even a bit too warm. His hand wandered up your neck and he cupped your cheek, wiped away some blood with his thumb. Under his touch, your muscles twitched. Midoriya pulled back and watched as your eyes fluttered open. Your gaze was empty and unfocused for a while, wandering from the dark walls of the room to the lightbulb over your head, until it stopped on Midoriya’s face.
He watched as your eyes widened. “Izuku?” Your voice was hoarse and filled with so much desperation that it made the hero’s heart drop. “Is it really you?” Midoriya nodded. He pressed his lips together and did not dare to answer, afraid that his voice would break if he said anything. “I’ve been waiting for you.” You made an attempt to reach out for him but the restraints around your wrists made that impossible. Midoriya swallowed the lump in his throat and forced himself to stay focused. “And I’ve been looking for you. I’ll get you out of here now.” Over the comms, he quickly informed his teammates over the mission’s success before he reached into his pocket for a knife. “I’m sorry that I’m so late,” he told you as he cut through the ropes. They were sticky, some even slippery from the blood. Deku tried not to pay too much attention to that but the sight of the crimson red shimmering on his hands made him gag. “The most important thing is that you’re here now.” You cracked a smile, but it did not look too convincing.
Once your hands were free, you swiftly wrapped your arms around Midoriya. It took him by surprise, but he hugged you back, careful not to use too much strength that might hurt you. You buried your face deep in Midoriya’s chest, fingers digging into his back, clinging to his suit. Just now he felt the way your body trembled, Midoriya did not know if it was exhaustion or fear. Maybe he was shaking as well. He wanted to stay like this forever, feel you in his arms, warm and alive, hold onto this thought and only this one while ignoring the horrible reality. Blood wet Midoriya’s clothes but he had nothing to take care of your wounds with. To be honest, he did not want to look at them. All he wanted was to keep holding on to you, forever.
Fighting noises reached his ears, not too far away. Men yelling. Your grip tightened a little and Midoriya thought that maybe you were shaking a little more now. “I want to leave, Izuku,” you whispered. Midoriya did not say anything. He listened carefully as the noises faded away. A few seconds of pressing silence passed awfully slow. »We’re all clear!« Todoroki’s voice was calm but Midoriya heard a hint of relief. However, he decided to stay put for a few more minutes to make sure that no other people were picking a fight anywhere else.
“Let’s go,” he said after a while. He could not spend another minute in this building, afraid that you might end up dying from your injuries.
As gently as he possibly could, Midoriya lifted you from the chair and carried you out of the building.
  Talking to the police and the press was a pain. Todoroki did most of it, given that he had been the leader of this mission, but Deku still had to talk to everyone as well. Press conferences with countless questions, some challenging their beliefs and morals as heroes, some too personal for Midoriya to answer – questions about you, your wellbeing, your relationship to the hero Deku. When he was not currently being interrogated by the public, Midoriya spent every free minute in the hospital, by your side. At first the doctors had not let him see you, but he had still stayed there the entire time. And when he was finally allowed in your room, Midoriya could not contain himself and his emotions any longer.
He sobbed and cried and swore and apologized all in one go without taking a breath while you tried to calm him down. He held your hand the entire time he was there, afraid that if he let go off you for one second, some villains might separate the two of you again.
“When are you getting released from the hospital?” Uraraka questioned while she put a small bouquet into a vase on the windowsill. The blossoms shone in the golden light of the evening sun and threw dancing shadows on your white blanket. “Next week, probably.” You gave her a tired smile. “Though I’ll have to be inactive for a while during my healing process.” Midoriya knew that having to neglect your hero duties like that was hard for you, so he squeezed your hand reassuringly. “We’re all wishing you well!” “Thanks Uraraka!” The two of you watched as the young woman left again. She was not the only one who had visited. The whole team had been there, Todoroki visited frequently, and even Bakugou had showed up once or twice.
“This sucks, I’m so bored!” You whined, getting a short chuckle from Midoriya. “I know, but you need some more rest.” He looked down at your intertwined fingers. Your wrists were still covered in bandages but some of your wounds had started to heal again. However, it would still take quite a while for you to fully recover. Midoriya ran his thumb over the fabric. “You’ll get better soon, and I’ll always be here to support you during this time. I miss you at home and being close to you.” “Thank you. And I miss that too.” A soft smile formed on your lips, so Midoriya leaned forward and placed a tender kiss on them. He lingered there for a moment before standing up and grabbing his jacket. “I should get going, it’s late and you need your rest.” “Alright!”
Midoriya slipped into his jacket but before he could leave, you sat up, grabbed him by the collar of his jacket and pulled him down into another kiss. “Hey, you’re supposed to lay dow-” Midoriya started to complain but quickly quit to return the kiss. When you let him go and Midoriya walked towards the door he had a smile on his face. Everything was going to be fine. He turned around by the door and looked at the flowers and the curtain moving in the wind. “I’ll see you tomorrow!” “See you tomorrow, Izuku!”
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bellamyblake · 3 years
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As usually I'm a big fan of your meta, I was wondering what you would say Bellamy and Clarke's biggest tragedies are and if they define them and how do you think they define them as characters? Thank you
ohhh, another very tough question! thank you, nonnie!
well i'd say that if you look from the outside perspective of things, that is the not fandom side of things, like if you pull yourself out from all of it you can quite clearly define their tragedies and what shapes them as characters and more importantly, why they are HEAD and HEART to begin with.
i think because it is not as much talked to on the show, their first tragedies and what shapes them tend to get quite undermined (that also is because the show really does bring so many tragedies in their lives as well, one crises over the other, so we tend to ask ourselves not only when does it end but where it began, right?)
and for me i think it all began both similarly and at the same time very differently, a paradox of sorts, just like the head and the heart.
both their first tragedies were about their parents.
bellamy loses his mother and feels guilt over it because he was the reason for it to happen, taking octavia to that dance, do you ever wonder how many times he probably asked himself in that year on the ark all alone-what if he had just stayed home, what if he never took her, right?
his mom's passing was his first major sin and that is one of the reasons why i was certain that if he, as a character was to die and if j/ason was any semblance of a storyteller, he had to bring his mom before the end and i was right even if he absolutely fucked it up. you had to go to that original first big tragedy/sin just like clarke saw her dad more than once right?
and i should add here that bellamy can't be entirely blamed for what happened. i think aurora herself knew this was inevitable it was just the question of when and how and bellamy ended up being the answer to those questions.
i think it wasn't just bellamy who stopped existing the day octavia was born-from then on his mom was a ghost of herself, a person as if sick with case of untreatable cancer-she knew she was going to die, she was living on borrowed time, how much?
nobody knew but i assume with time, seeing as how much bellamy loved octavia, she guessed it could be him who resulted in this and i still believe it'd have been great to see that last moment before she was floated that i am sure happened between her and bellamy and what they talked about.
anyway- that aside
so his first big tragedy was his mom's passing and clarke's was her dad's and those two deaths shape their stories going onward.
bellamy is all heart, he is all family, he is all about saving those you let into your heart and fighting for them no matter what. his tragedy is that he loves too much and in his love he makes mistakes because he just wants them to be okay but they never truly are no matter what he does, right?
he is a character looking within, both himself and everyone else-he loves passionately and dearly and it is to a point that can kill him and everyone else as it becomes reckless in its goodness-so those are both his blessings and his curse.
aurora set a model for him-family is everything.
i think one problem the show never truly managed to fix is that octavia and bellamy's protective streak over her sl ended in season 1. bob talks about it himself-it was finished and from then on it should've only ever extended to the others AND octavia but not just her. that works well in season 2 and 3 but then it regresses after her beating and HIS beating up over what happened and what he did for the good of the many that ended up leading to a massacre. and they never let him get rid of that constant self-beating that chases him from the moment his mom dies.
so we have bellamy, family, heart.
clarke's model is quite the opposite, set as an example by her dad who wants to tell the truth about the ark and let people decide, take care of THE many, not the FEW or just HIS family. clarke takes up on that model and she never stops fighting for it. on many instances she doesn't just fight for the 100, she fights for her father too and for what this belief that people deserve the truth and that THEIR people should be saved stands for, right?
so she is external, head.
and what i think makes both of them as characters and as a dynamic so unique and why people love the head and the heart parallel is THEIR meeting point.
ultimately bellamy and clarke fight for the same thing, coming from different angles. so bellamy extends his heart to not just his sister, but jasper, monty, monroe, harper, etc, all the hundred and grows to LOVE and care for them as HIS family, as part of one WHOLE and he FIGHTS for that family and Clarke looks on it logically, accepts the 100 as HER people now who she has to TAKE care of like her dad wanted to take care of the arkers and she intends to fight tooth and nail to do this.
apart from those first big tragedies that set the trajectories of who they are as people, as characters, i'd rather say for Clarke her first next big tragedy is killing Finn and Mount Weather and for Bellamy it is Mount weather and then the bombings of it that results in Gina's death.
Those two lead to two bigger tragedies and mistakes-one is losing L/exa for Clarke and the massacre for Bellamy as well as Lincoln's demise.
That is why by the time they reach season 4 I believe both of them are sad and d.epressed as fuck, say what you want about it but so many things in the dialogue point out to it, for Clarke it is so pronounced you can basically shudder if you take out just those lines of hers and frankly I think so is for Bellamy.
They believe they ultimately failed at their goal-they tried to do the best to save their kids/their people by killing other kids/people and losing others that they loved-they are so lost and alone that I think both of them in a way welcome the death wave and don't believe they should ever survive or outrun it.
And as much as I don't like the time jump it was in part a necessity. They couldn't keep being the same people IF we wanted to see them alive-they simply had stopped existing they were so sad, so they had to be buried in the ashes and reborn and they were.
How well it was done is another question but anyone who fails to see what happened to them isn't really paying attention.
So...that's all I guess LOL.
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swimmingnewsie · 4 years
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Of Coffee and Cookies (Chapter 7)
...You know I used to be patient and methodical with my upload schedule. But now I just want to share with the world my work <3 So enjoy two chapters in less than 24 hours.
Link to AO3
---
"I just don't understand why she can't tell me what's wrong. Obviously there's something, and maybe I could help if she would just let me in!" Maren said in frustration as Ryder drove.
It had been three days since Maren had walked out on Elsa in the cafe, and she hadn't heard from the woman since. What was so bad that Elsa couldn't bring herself to talk about? It wasn't like they hadn't had deep conversations before. They had talked about everything from miscarriages to the death of parents to mental health crises. What was so bad Elsa couldn't even name?
"Have you considered the chance that maybe she's still processing whatever it is? And that she wants some sort of grasp before she tries to talk about it with someone else?" Ryder suggested, eyes focused on the open road ahead of them. There was no destination today, but Maren had a feeling that Ryder was doing this so she would talk candidly. They had never been good at a direct face-to-face conversation. Driving provided an easy environment for them both.
"Maybe, but she's my girlfriend, Ry. I'm supposed to be there to help her with stuff," she exasperated. All she wanted was to be there for Elsa. Why was that so hard?
"You may be her girlfriend, but she's still her own person. She's allowed to keep her secrets if she wants. That's just something she does. Have you tried talking to her about it?"
Maren shook her head. "I told her to come back when she was ready to be mature about things. She needs to come to me first."
Ryder raised an eyebrow. "But is that fair? You're the one who walked out on her because she wasn't talking. Do you really think that's the best way to get what you want?"
Maren rolled her eyes. "No, but- but- I don't know!"
"Then put your stubbornness aside and apologize. She may have done things wrong, but so did you." Ryder said, looking at her. "You yelled at her for not opening up when you knew full well the shit show that the last week has been for her with Anna being so sick.
"Look I don't know Elsa as well as you do, obviously, but I do know this: she internalizes her feelings while you externalize your feelings. If you guys are gonna make this work, you’re gonna have to learn to deal with that."
Maren looked stunned at her brother. Where the hell had all that come from? Her brother had grown a lot from that flighty boy who wouldn't talk to anyone for anything. Maren laid her head back on the seat. "When did you get so wise?"
"I'm dating a self-proclaimed love expert who was raised by actual love expert marriage counselors. You pick up on this kind of shit," he said simply. Ryder sighed, turning the car back towards home.
Maren could hear the sadness in her brother's sigh. She was far more adept at her brother's emotions than anyone else's. "Well, I may not be able to pick at my girlfriend's mind right now, but I can pick at yours. What's running in that pretty little head of yours?"
Ryder gave a hint of a laugh. "Just trying to solve all the world's problems today, aren't you?"
She nudged her brother in the shoulder. "Maybe," she said with a slight smile.
"You're worse than Anna about meddling!" he teased.
"Am not!" Maren slapped her brother's shoulder.
"Hey! Hey! No hitting the driver!" Ryder called out laughing. "And answering your question would require whiskey, and considering we both have work tomorrow, that is not an option."
Maren rolled her eyes. "So you're not going to tell me? Even after everything I've gone through with Elsa?"
"Dramatic much?" he asked, mirroring her eye roll. "We'll talk about it Friday. I promise."
Ryder held out a pinky that Maren happily linked. "Friday," she agreed.
"And in the meantime, you are going to your girlfriend's and talking this out."
"As you command, Mr. Love Expert."
---
"Hi, Maren! I wasn't expecting to see you today." Maren was greeted at the door by a sleepy looking Anna. She looked much healthier than the last time she had been by. Her face had more color, and she seemed far perkier.
"Hi, Anna. How are you feeling?"
"Tired still," she admitted coughing in the sleeve of her sweatshirt. "But what can you expect when you get the flu and strep throat at the same time?"
"Oh, Anna, that's terrible," Maren frowned. "I'm sorry. Have they been able to give you anything to make you feel better?"
Anna nodded. "Antibiotics for the strep and cough syrup to help me sleep at night. Seems to be doing well enough. Elsa's in her room if you want to come in." Maren nodded in reply, entering the apartment. "She had headphones in earlier, so she might not hear you if you knock."
"Thanks, Anna," she said sincerely. "Is there anything I can do for you?"
"Honestly? Get my sister to go to bed," she said with tired eyes. "She won't say anything, but I heard her coughing all night and I'm worried."
Maren's eyes softened. Of course Elsa wouldn't say anything while Anna was still sick. "I'll do my best."
"Elsa?" she said as she entered the bedroom quietly. Her heart ached at the sight. Books and tissues were scattered on Elsa's bed while Elsa herself was passed out in the middle with her laptop open on a half finished word document and Marshmallow curled up at her side. Her face was much paler than usual- something Maren had thought was impossible- and she shivered violently on the bed clinging to the fluffy cat for warmth. Maren placed a gentle hand to get girlfriend's head; she was burning up. Their discussion could certainly wait, she thought.
Marshmallow meowed up at her. Maren didn't know cats could looked worried, but he certainly did. She gave him a comforting pet. "Don't worry, Marshie. We'll take care of her." He meowed in reply before rubbing up on his owner again, pleased with her words.
"Hey snowflake. Can you wake up for me?" she asked softly. Elsa couldn't be comfortable like that, and if she was hiding her illness like Maren suspected she was, then she was going to get her the rest and medicine she needed.
Elsa's eyes slowly opened to reveal glassy blue eyes. "Maren? What are you doing here? You were mad at me. I'm- I'm sorry," she managed before coughs overtook her chest, scaring Marshmallow off the bed. She sounded terrible.
Maren shook her head, patting Elsa's back to help with the cough. "That's not important right now. How long have you been feeling sick?"
"'m not sick," she said, sniffling as her runny nose betrayed her.
"While you make a very compelling argument, snowflake, do you think you could you tell me the truth?" Maren asked wrapping an arm around Elsa.
Elsa tried to recoil from the touch. "Don't want you to get sick," she said hazily.
"So you admit you're sick," she said with a small smirk. "Love, I teach middle schoolers. My fear of catching a cold is long gone. Now how long have you been feeling bad?"
"Monday."
Monday. Monday was when they fought. A wave of guilt passed over her. "And have you been going to school and work every day like a bad sick person?" Elsa nodded wearily. "Oh, love," she sighed.
Maren moved from the bed, beginning to pick her up her papers and books. "What are you doing?" Elsa asked, clutching at some of her books. "I still have work to do."
"That may be true. But if you have the same thing Anna does, you need to rest more than you need to work. Did you even tell your sister you weren't feeling well?"
Elsa shook her head. "I didn't want to worry her. She has enough to worry about."
"I think you failed that mission, snowflake. She told me she heard you coughing all night last night. Meaning you probably didn't sleep and that you definitely shouldn't have been teaching today." Maren turned to Elsa's drawers. "What pajamas do you want? You aren't resting in those clothes."
Elsa slowly relinquished control, allowing Maren to help her change, something the brunette was very happy about. How Elsa had still been pushing on stunned her. She was running a temperature of 103 and yet here she was still working away on research. But Maren had told her enough was enough, and Elsa was settled in bed with two quilts and a dose of nighttime cold medicine.
"I'm sorry," she said sleepily looking at Maren.
"What for, snowflake?"
"For not calling, not talking to you, not telling you. I know you just wanted to help," Elsa said teary eyed. The combined illnesses must have been making her more emotional than usual, Maren thought.
"I'm sorry too. For yelling and running away on you. But we can talk about those things when you're feeling better, okay?"
"But I was so mean to you," she said before being interrupted by a sneeze.
"Bless you. You were getting sick and under a lot of stress, sweetheart. I can't hold that against you. Especially when you're still so unwell."
"But I don't- but I don't want to sweep it under the rug like it never happened." Her voice cracked, clearly strained by all the talking.
"We won't. There's a difference between sweeping an argument under the rug and waiting until you're well enough to talk without your body interrupting." Maren brushed a hand against her girlfriend's hot forehead. "We will talk about all this another day."
"Promise?" she asked.
"I promise. Now shush, don't strain your voice anymore." Elsa happily snuggled up against Maren, eyes shut. Soon enough, her wheezy breathing evened; and Elsa was fast asleep.
Maren was still just as confused as she was three days ago, but that didn't matter. Elsa was here with her, willing to talk. They would take it one step at a time, one breath at a time. They would figure this out. They would be fine.
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adoranymph · 4 years
Text
I was never the most graceful of children. Not much has changed since then, but I’d say I was far more awkward in my formative years. Especially my very early formative years. There were a couple of things I did that were very ungraceful indeed, and I’m still embarrassed still thinking about those things, wondering how stupid could I have been? Child or no. But for these perfectly human mistakes, it was enough of a reason for the rest of my elementary school classmates to pass judgement and decree that they’d make the majority of my waking school life Hell.
Fortunately for me, I had a set of loving parents (and a cat) waiting for me at home every day to escape to. And I did have friends, however, most of them were outside of my class, so it was a gamble during recess if I’d see them, and things like finding partners for in-class assignments were awkward at best.
And unfortunately, not all kids are even as lucky as that, and have absolutely no friends, and come home to family lives that are less than loving.  
They say that “living well is the best revenge”, and oftentimes I would think as a child, “Just you wait until I’m a successful writer and you have some stupid boring job”, and that would get me through one day to the next. It was one of those thoughts that even my mother encouraged, if only to make me feel better. Not a nice thing, but there were other kids hurting her baby, so I’m sure as far as she was concerned, thinking that way in private at least couldn’t do any damage. I’d like to think that it didn’t, even as I still think about those kids and at this point just wonder if they’re managing to get through our current crises okay.  
I haven’t been without my own moments of being mean, and in truth, I don’t think any of us really can say that we haven’t been. Unless we’re raised a devout, hardcore Buddhist who’s a natural at letting bygones be bygones. Indeed, if only we all  had the patience of a saint and the ability to take everything with good humor like I’ve seen the Dalai Lama do in interviews. If anyone’s the pinnacle of that kind of merciful strength in a world like ours, it’s him. 
Forgiveness is a complicated thing. It’s a big deal when we can say that we can forgive those who have wronged us. Depending on the wrong that was done however, that can factor into how easy it is to forgive. Which means sometimes it’s just impossible. 
Some might call that a shame, and for the most part, I’d agree. 
Like everything though, there are exceptions. 
Unfortunately, at times, the desire of one who’s done another wrong to be forgiven for that wrong doesn’t always come from a place of sincerity. Which means it could be fair to argue that that person’s desire to be forgiven comes from a place of selfishness, which defeats the purpose. 
At the same time, true guilt is a painful thing to bear, speaking as someone who’s felt heavy guilt as much as heavy hurt. Anything to make that feeling go away can drive anyone decent to desperation. So one of the first conundra is whether or not it’s right to seek forgiveness, if it’s more to make yourself feel better than to heal the hurt you caused another person. Not to say it can’t be both, but to forgo the latter for the former is, I really believe, missing the mark.
True desires for forgiveness only come from wanting to make the person you wronged feel better. Never mind those who try to just use it as a free pass to get away with what they’ve done, something which casts a shadow on those who want it for sincere purposes. Mostly because I think many are under the misconception that receiving forgiveness works the same way as would a Sham-Wow on their soul. Because I’ve thought that too. I think most of us have. Most of us have felt so bad about doing something terrible to someone else, we’d do anything to make that bad feeling go away.
Then there are those who would say that that bad feeling is in and of itself a punishment, hence the argument, “Haven’t I been punished enough?” But, again, the important thing is whether or not you learn from that feeling, contemplate on it, and understand why it is you feel that way, and how it is that you’ve brought it on yourself. 
Even after all that, it isn’t enough to beg for forgiveness. And forgiveness just can’t be given. Like all the best things, it has to be earned. Sincerely earned. 
I have made mention more than once before that I’m “glad” I was bullied. “Glad” isn’t really the right word though, not unless I were a glutton for punishment. More what I mean that I’m glad I was the one was bullied as opposed to the one doing the bullying, i.e., I’m glad that I had to deal with that and that dealing with that made me a stronger person, rather than get swept up in the self-esteem high that seems to come from putting another person down.
I’d like to think so, anyway. But seeing as how I’d prefer above all that to have not been bullied in the first place, nor to have ever bullied anyone (as I said, I have thrown out the occasional mean thing here and there and then regretted it, realizing I was totally not thinking when I said those things), I had to settle with what I got. Like most of us do. To this day, I think about all the torment I went through socially in elementary school, and to a lesser degree in middle school, right before my parents died and I got packed off to live elsewhere with my aunt and uncle. 
In the anime film, A Silent Voice, Shoya, a boy who mercilessly bullies, Shoko, a deaf girl in his elementary school class, is forced to taste his own medicine when he himself becomes the target of bullying after Shoko is forced to switch schools just to get away from the abuse. Abuse which includes but is not limited to: destroying at least eight pairs of her hearing aids, openly mocking the way she speaks, and little things like drenching her in hose water and throwing dirt in her face.
The film follows his own efforts to atone, and how he and Shoko manage to form a friendship and learn how to heal each other’s hurts from the past in forming that friendship. It poses questions like whether it’s selfish for Shoya to seek atonement, and when enough is enough when it comes to being punished for something you did, especially now that you’ve changed. Truly changed. For the better. 
And Shoya’s change is startling. In his elementary school days, we see him as that punk kid with whom the rest of the class is willing to along when it comes to laughs, which unfortunately includes laughs at the expense of others. Until one day when he “goes too far”, which doesn’t say much considering he was already going too far but I guess the line has to be drawn at some point, which in this case is when the teachers finally get around to getting involved.
(Which by the way, what was up with their teacher back then? That whole beleaguered jackass routine? Yeah, that didn’t exactly help matters.)
But after that, when he himself becomes the bullied, when he undergoes his own form of karmic suffering for what he’s done, he turns meek, unable to look anyone in the eye or get close to anyone. He loses old friendships, and is on the brink of suicide when he tries to make amends with Shoko, only to find himself trying to form a new friendship with her, and the from there the film plays out. 
There are people in the world I know I can never forgive. That said, those I can’t forgive are usually people I can sense would never actually bear the weight of the guilt that most ought to feel for the things they’ve done. Still, a little forgiveness goes a long way in the grand scheme of things. Thankfully, most people are feeling individuals, so while I can’t forget what they’ve done, I can forgive for the sake of their sincere desire to change their ways based on their sincere understanding of why what they did hurt me and or others. 
In stories, we have the benefit as the reader/audience of seeing both sides of a situation, the one who wronged and the one who was wronged. So, from that fourth-wall perspective, we find it at once easy and difficult to understand where the characters on both sides are coming from. 
In Avatar: the Last Airbender, there was an episode where I felt this strong confliction of emotions. It was the episode where Zuko has left his father, the Fire Lord Ozai and ruler of the Fire Nation, in order to join Aang the Avatar in defeating him and his tyranny. But given his track record with Aang and his friends, having spent the first half of the show mercilessly hunting Aang down so he can present him to Ozai and regain his place as the Fire Prince, it’s understandable that Aang and the Gang aren’t particularly keen on letting him join their group. Especially for Katara, who seems to carry the deepest wounds where both Zuko and the Fire Nation are concerned. So, even though they do need someone to teach Aang Firebending, Zuko has to work hard to get into their good graces enough in order to be accepted, and even then, there’s still some shaky ground to cover.
 Part of this is seeing how Zuko has to confront the consequences of his actions. Not just hunting Aang to the ends of the earth since the beginning of the series in order to please his father, and all the crimes against other innocents that that entailed, But also the fact that as he was starting to turn good, it seemed, towards the end of Book Two: Earth, before turning back “to the dark side”, as it were.
In the penultimate episodes of S2, he briefly gained Katara’s trust, presumably sharing with her the loss of his own mother when she broke down over the loss of her own as a casualty of this war that the Fire Nation started. Only for him to turn right around and take up his sister Azula’s offer to join her in taking Aang down in exchange for finally being allowed to come home after so many years of being banished. Just the same, it still hurt to see Zuko get turned away with so much anger when he tried to switch sides for good (in both senses of the word), especially when Katara drenched him furiously with water when he offered to be their prisoner if not a member of their group. As if we hadn’t already gotten enough of him getting kicked when he’s down in the episode “Zuko Alone”. 
Then you have Katara scoff at the idea that he’s trying to manipulate them by “making himself seem like an actual human being”. Which he wasn’t, and we know that, but we also know that to her, it must seem that way, given what happened between them last time. Still it stings, and more so when Toph tries to talk to the guy and he accidentally burns her feet when he’s startled by her, then tries to apologize and then yells, “Why am I so bad at being good?!”, which is at once piteous and hilarious. I like though that that ties into the reason that Aang finally gives into letting Zuko teach him Firebending, when Zuko admits that he too needs to learn control, so that he won’t accidentally burn people again. Aang identifies with that after that time he accidentally burnt Katara while getting too enthusiastic with his own first attempts at Firebending. I appreciate that nuance, because it’s the smallest patch of common ground to start sowing new friendship on, as it was Aang himself who wondered aloud if the two of them couldn’t have been friends, back in S1. 
Where Katara is concerned, she doesn’t really accept Zuko for a few more episodes down the line, not even after Zuko helps her brother Sokka break their father and Sokka’s girlfriend Suki out of the Boiling Rock Fire Nation prison. When everyone else seems to have accepted him, and she’s still clinging to her anger, he offers her the information on how to find the man who killed her mother as a means of appeasement. They go out together to track that man down, and Katara faces down her own demons, her desire for revenge. She realizes, after seeing how pathetic the man is, that he’d simply this small man who’d used his brief moment of power to take the life of an innocent, and what all that had amounted to. In the end, she can’t bring herself to kill him.
But it’s after that that she’s able to forgive Zuko, perhaps out of the fact that his taking her side on seeking revenge might have convinced her of the humanity inside him that was worth taking a chance on. That they do share the losses of their respective mothers in common as a result of Fire Lord Ozai and the Fire Nation’s war on the world. Unlike the ex-soldier who killed her mother, Zuko made not only a very human mistake, but one that he is genuinely, humanly sorry for. 
Zuko had to work to earn that forgiveness, and through earning it, learned from his mistake, rather than simply wore it as a badge of automatic absolvement. He absolved himself of his guilt with his own actions, and not at the will of Katara, and only after did Katara forgive him. Which led to something that, as much as part of me ships them (sort of) I don’t think gets enough credit as a beautiful hetero friendship. (Plus, I love Zuko x Mai just as much if not more. But then, nine times out of ten, I agree with the canon ships in most things.) 
Whether the initial desire for forgiveness was selfish, in the end, Zuko atoned for what he did and more, since in the climax episodes of the series he saves Katara’s life from a death bolt of lightning from his sister Azula by throwing himself in front of it. That he learned from that absolvement to be more self-sacrificing for the sake of those who are vulnerable (thankfully Katara takes Azula out right after he’s down for the count and it’s awesome). He didn’t just go back to his old habits, and was in fact able to clear that last hurtle to fully atone for everything he’s done. Pity the same can’t be said for his sister Azula, but I can set that aside for another post in future. 
In the case of Shoya and Zuko both, we see them go through moments that would make you feel for him, even though at the same time you know objectively and subjectively both that they deserve what they get coming to them. What mother wouldn’t smack someone for psychologically scarring their child, as Shoko’s mother does to Shoya in once scene? And when Shoya is first trying to reconnect with Shoko, Shoko’s little sister Yuzuru tries to keep Shoya from getting to her, just thing to look out for her. Which is totally understandable. And she’s even the one who points out that if Shoya’s just doing all this nice stuff to make himself feel better, he’s wasting his time. 
Only for Shoya to bring it back to how he still feels maybe the world would be better without him. 
As it turns out, Shoko is just as or nearly as suicidal as Shoya was at the beginning of the film. Like when they were in school, Shoko just wanted to be friends. In truth, the two of them had more in common than Shoya would have initially thought. But it was hard for him to understand that in part just because Shoko was someone with whom communication was difficult. So when Shoya finds Shoko about to jump off a balcony to her death, he manages to pull her back in the end without regard to the risk to his own life. 
From there comes an emotional wave-chain of weeping apologies and catharses. And Shoya and Shoko both come to an understanding that heretofore they hadn’t been able to reach. Once they’re able to bridge the gap between them, through a reaching out to the other, they begin to see the worth in each other’s lives, find reasons for each of them to be alive. Even before this moment, Shoya still seems to wonder if the world wouldn’t be better off without him, even after his mother’s already made him promise not to try that whole suicide thing again. 
The two of them have different reasons for wishing they were dead, and for wanting reasons to like themselves again. But those desires in and of themselves serve as common healing ground for them both. The idea of playing these themes against a girl who’s deaf is interesting in its own way, if only because when we’re addressing those with whom we disagree as well as those whom we’ve wronged but can’t understand how, or who have wronged us, it can often feel like we’re talking to those who can’t seem to hear us, even if they do actually have a working pair of ears. Which can serve as yet another block to forgiveness. 
Forgiveness as a concept is put on a pedestal it seems. That the ability to offer forgiveness grants you validation as a good person. That if you can’t, then there’s just some level of enlightenment that you have yet to reach. But, as said repeatedly above, it’s more complicated than that. There could be differences between forgiving a person, and forgiving their actions, and even vice versa, and every which way in between.
As I said, there are people and things that I can’t forgive in this world. And that I can honestly say after giving it some thought that I don’t feel bad about not being able to forgive them. Which is not to say that I wish them every ill imaginable upon them, and if I were in the very unlikely situation where they were dangling off a cliff and I was the only person who could pull them up, I’d pull them up. And that I could do that and still not forgive them I believe carries its own unique sense of morality: “I can’t forgive you or what you’ve done, but I don’t believe that you deserve to be left to die either. Not when I can save you, anyway.” 
But who knows, I could totally be talking out of my hat. 
That said, there are so many miseries that would be made less miserable if there were more forgiving people in the world. That despairing question cried into the void, when will the cycle finally be broken? I’m not sure that it can, but I think it can be broken down, and that’s starting with things like forgiveness. And to start with that, means understanding that forgiveness does not mean giving a free pass to people and their transgressions. More it should mean, “I am willing to give you a chance as a human being, because I am a human being too.” 
To forgive is to be willing to open one’s heart to someone who has done them wrong. Sometimes that’s not easy on a personal level, and, again, understandable. But on a larger scale, I think it’s an important thing to consider. While there can’t be this illusion that forgiveness works the same as a magic finger snap, I still believe it can still work as a good first step towards something better than what we have now. 
With recent events as they are, I’m taking a moment here to offer the below link as a way to encourage another small but meaningful way to make a difference. 
  Forgiveness I was never the most graceful of children. Not much has changed since then, but I'd say I was far more awkward in my formative years.
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sapphicscholar · 5 years
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Happy birthday, @argyle-s! Hope ya enjoy the tooth-rotting fluff as I sneak in right under the deadline!
Chapter Text
“73 down: apparel company whose first letter stands for a three-letter word in this clue. Four letters. F-blank-B-blank.”
Maggie let her head drop back against the headrest, her gaze flitting along with the countryside flying past the train window. “I don’t know. You know it’s hard when I can’t see the grid.”
Alex turned, angling her whole body towards Maggie. “But I’m reading you everything you need!”
“Yes, and some things I don’t need,” Maggie muttered, biting back a smile at the furrow in Alex’s brow.
“What don’t you need?”
“Alex, sweetie, the love of my life, I have told you 9,000 times that I do not need to know what number across or down it is. I can’t see the grid. It doesn’t matter.”
“Right.” She tapped the tip of the pen along the side of the newspaper, finally pushing it towards Maggie. “Fine, I guess you can take a turn reading the clues.”
“Thank you.” She pressed a soft kiss to Alex’s lips as she took the pen and paper before Alex could change her mind. “Alright, let’s see…” She scanned the list of clues. “Ooh, four letters: injure, as a bear might.” A moment’s hesitation. “Maul!”
Alex smiled and tried to peer over at the paper.
“Ooh, another good one. Apt rhyme of ‘sliced.’” She grinned up at Alex as she announced: “Diced!”
“Maggie,” Alex whined. “You’re not giving me all the information. Like…how many letters was it? And which letters did we have? Also none of the letters in diced are in maul.”
“Well, no…”
“So then one is wrong. Maybe maul could be maim. Where does it intersect?”
“They don’t.”
Alex blinked over at Maggie. “You don’t go in order?”
“Do the ones you know first. Then you’ve got a bunch of spots already filled in.”
“But—but—” Alex stammered, her mouth opening and closing as she fought the urge to reach over and snatch the pen back.
“Oh boy. Maybe we take a break from the crossword before your brain breaks.”
“It’s just…if you go in order you’re literally building a structurally sound foundation.”
Deciding the next several hours of their trip would go a lot more smoothly if they didn’t bicker through them, Maggie changed tactics, putting down the newspaper and twining her fingers with Alex’s. “Hey, let’s play a new game.”
“Like what? We already did 20 questions and I Spy and the alphabet game and all the things Kara used to make us play on long car rides.”
“Hmm…fuck marry kill with the cast of The L Word?”
Alex glared, and Maggie couldn’t help the snort of laughter that escaped. “So many hours of my life I’m never getting back.”
“Okay, but might I offer in response: pretty ladies kissing other pretty ladies on your screen?”
“Not enough to make it worth my while,” Alex grumbled.
“I told you from the start that it had its issues.”
“Maggie Sawyer, you did not once tell me that I would go from being like oh, maybe I was a little bit like Jenny to oh, I’d like to push Jenny out a window.”
With a loud gasp, Maggie spun around in her seat, locking her hands around Alex’s wrists like makeshift handcuffs. “Oh my god, you’re the one that killed Jenny Schecter!”
“Oh shut up. Also, that was some bullshit bringing in Lucy Lawless for a single episode. I’d rather watch an entire series of her interrogating them than the last season of the actual show.”
“Mm, so say we all.”
“That’s just because you had the world’s biggest crush on Xena.”
“Duh.” Maggie dropped her head to Alex’s shoulder as she released her hands. “I still say you should go as her for Halloween next year.”
“You gonna be my Gabrielle?”
Maggie’s fingers trailed along Alex’s thigh, inching a bit higher than was appropriate for being in public. “You just want me to spend the whole night in a crop top.”
“Your abs are a gift to the world, but I think I’m gonna be selfish and say no one else gets to enjoy them.” Alex’s fingers itched to reach out, to run up and down Maggie’s sides, curling under that soft henley and finding the even softer skin beneath it. After a week of too many crises at the DEO and a week before that of overtime at the NCPD for Maggie, it felt like ages since she’d gotten to spend time with her girlfriend that wasn’t out in the field. And of course Maggie had to go and be responsible the night before, insisting they do laundry and pack and all the things that, Alex begrudgingly admitted, did make their morning trek to the train station rather easy. Still. Now they were left with hours upon hours of limited touching as their train trundled out of California and meandered towards the next stop.
“You’d deprive the world of that joy?”
“Oh hush, maybe I only suggested you go as Gabrielle because you’re short enough.”
“Yeah, yeah, make all the jokes you want, but we both know who the little spoon is at the end of the day.”
“You love it.”
Maggie shrugged. “Easy access to your butt? Yeah, I’m not complaining.”
For a while, they fell into a comfortable silence, watching as the train passed through rolling hills and sprawling acres of the countryside. Even though Alex had been uncertain about the idea of a multi-day train trip across the country when airplanes that could get them to Metropolis in a matter of hours existed, even she had to admit that there was something sort of romantic about the protracted journey.
“Hey,” Alex whispered after what felt like nearly half an hour, wondering if Maggie was really asleep or just closing her eyes. “Sawyer.” She poked her shoulder, deciding she didn’t really care either way.
“What?”
Asleep then, if the raspy quality to Maggie’s voice or the slight scowl Alex was getting meant anything.
“I’m bored.”
“Seriously? You have a phone.”
“The wifi’s shit out here.”
“I packed books.”
“I don’t wanna read.”
“Oh my god, Danvers. Seriously?”
“C’mon.” Alex nudged Maggie’s shoulder with her own. “I’ve missed you.” There it was—the softening of Maggie’s features, the way her whole body seemed to melt further into Alex’s.
“I don’t suppose I can coax you into a nap with me?”
“Too much coffee.”
“Fine, fine.” Yawning loudly, Maggie drew the curious gazes of a few of the passengers who shared the compartment with them. She toed at Alex’s foot, then leaned in to whisper in her ear. “Old dude, front of the car. See him?”
“A threat?” Alex’s hand flew to her sidearm, but Maggie was already there, anticipating Alex’s reaction.
“Not that kind.” She cast a meaningful look at Alex as she pulled her hand away. “But maybe he’s another kind of threat…tell me what you know? What’s he doing on this train anyway?”
“Oh!” Alex’s lips curled up into a smile. Maggie had first taught her to play the stranger game during a terribly boring week-long stakeout that had yielded absolutely nothing of use. Apparently it was the best way to pass the time in a small town, although, Maggie conceded, eventually it was also a pretty good way for rumors to get started. She still carried a bit of guilt around for making people think that Sally Wilkins’ parents had tried to send her to a convent. “Well…he’s taking the train because he can walk to the station from his house, so his neighbors won’t see that his car is gone and tell his wife…who’s traveling for work all week.”
“Yeah? Why can’t they know?”
“Oh, well, the guy across the street is a total busybody ever since he retired. He keeps tabs on all his neighbors.”
“And obviously this guy doesn’t want anyone to know where he’s off to. But why’s that? Affair? Secret family? Totally paranoid?”
Alex tapped on her lower lip as she surveyed the man in question, watching as he spilled a bit of the tepid train coffee on the back of his hand. Shaking it off, he grumbled to himself and went back to his seat. “Hmm…I think it’s a secret job. Corporate espionage or something like that. But he’s not really good at keeping secrets. Makes him queasy 24/7. So he’s gotten really paranoid.”
“Ah yes, the guilty criminal. Really, they’re the best kind. So easy to pluck out of a crowd.”
“I give him…three weeks before he turns himself in or gets caught.”
“Sounds about right. Though, ya know, if we were on the case, I think his odds would be more like three minutes.”
“Yeah, well,” Alex shrugged her shoulders, an easy grin spreading across her face, “we make a pretty unbeatable team.”
Maggie’s voice dropped into a lower register as she leaned in, breath hot against the shell of Alex’s ear. “And how would we celebrate our hundredth team victory?”
“Only a hundred?”
“This year.”
“That’s more like it.”
Throwing her arm around Alex’s shoulders, Maggie pulled her in close. “Have I mentioned lately how much I love you?”
“Mm, you know, I think it’s been several hours.”
“Well that simply won’t do. I need to know that anyone else on this train playing the stranger game is absolutely positive that we are together.”
“Let’s make it really obvious,” Alex whispered as she leaned in, her breath ghosting across Maggie’s lips before she claimed them in a searing kiss that left Maggie dizzy with want.
“If we really wanted to make it obvious…” Maggie’s fingers skirted along the waistband of Alex’s jeans, her short nails dragging along the skin and making Alex shiver.
“You could literally be inside of me,” Alex managed, though her breath hitched on the last word, “and I bet at least one person on this train would ask if we were sisters.”
Maggie groaned, drawing her hands back as she buried her face in her palms. “Ugh, the Straights are fun.”
“So fun.”
“I bet you…20 bucks we get asked if we want two twin beds tonight.”
“I’ll see your 20 and raise you another 20 for not even being asked before we get those twin beds.”
“So that’s 40 on us having sex dorm-room style?”
“Shh!” Alex put a finger to her lips, but she couldn’t quite help the snort of laughter at the scandalized looks they were getting from the woman sitting directly behind them.
---
As it turned out, they received very sincere apologies from the hotel staff—“We’re so sorry! For some reason we had the reservation listed as needing a king-sized bed, and all of our double rooms are booked.”
Before Alex could roll her eyes and correct them, Maggie graciously accepted their offers for free room service, insisting that they could “make do.” She’d mouthed “free dinner” to Alex the moment they turned around.
When they arrived, Maggie gasped dramatically and turned to Alex, announcing: “Oh no! There’s only one bed!”
“What?”
“Oh god, sometimes I forget that you’re still kinda new to the being gay thing, and then you say stuff like that.”
“Can you just tell me?” Alex huffed, resisting the urge to cross her arms and stamp her foot. “It can’t be worse than when I told you that no, I’ve never seen Imagine Me and You.”
“It’s just a trope in fan fiction. You have two characters who are secretly pining after one another, only neither of them thinks the other one could ever like them back, but then they have to go somewhere—maybe undercover as a couple or something, or else it’s just for work or a trip or really any excuse to be not at home, ya know?—and they show up, only to find out that the second room was given away, and there’s only one room left that only has one bed.”
“One person could always sleep on the couch.”
“Oh, Danvers.” Maggie let out a sigh as she shook her head. “Danvers, Danvers, Danvers. What will we do with you?”
“What? It’s a reasonable question.”
“Reasonable, maybe. But where’s the fun in that?”
“Let me guess, the fun is in having them both fall into bed together?”
“More like awkwardly crawl in while the other one is in the bathroom, spend hours not really sleeping, and wake up tangled together because secretly they’re both cuddlers.”
“Ah, I see. I suppose these are a bit more PG than I imagined.”
“Yeah, get your head out of the gutter, Danvers.” A beat. “Sex happens the next night.”
After the laughter subsided, Alex nudged Maggie. “Well…I’m not really up for waiting a whole night, but what do you say? Should I go claim my side of the bed and pretend to be awkward while waiting for you?”
“Pretend?”
“Oh fuck off.”
Maggie grinned. “Ooh, would you rather reenact an old fashioned enemies to lovers?”
“Maggie,” Alex groaned.
“Fine, fine. I’ll stop.”
“Good. Because I think”—Alex unzipped her jacket, letting it fall to the floor—“there’s really only one scenario”—Maggie’s jacket followed her own as they inched closer and closer to the bed—“I have any desire to act out.”
“Oh yeah?” Maggie’s voice had taken on that throaty quality that never failed to make Alex’s heart skip a beat.
“Mhmm,” Alex hummed, as she carefully guided Maggie down to the mattress, settling one knee on either side of Maggie’s thighs.
“Which one is that?”
“Two girlfriends”—a kiss—“who are very much in love”—a longer kiss that time—“who have gone far, far too long without a night to themselves.”
Maggie’s fingers moved slowly down the front of Alex’s shirt, undoing buttons one after another. “You know…I think I could make that work.”
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bizmaster · 4 years
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We are in the middle of some difficult times.  Rather than belabor that point, I’d like to come to the heart of the problem:  What do we do?  We need to answer that question in an immediate, urgent basis:  What do we do right now?
In an earlier article, I shared some suggestions to help individuals navigate these turbulent waters.  In this article, I’m focusing on sales forces. So, this is specifically written to owners, CEOs, Chief Sales Officers, and other sales leaders.
A Mile-High View
Before I offer some recommendations, let’s take a bit of a mile-high view.  We have been here before.  As a nation, as individuals, and every level of society in between, this level of confusion and anxiety is not new.
Now, it may be new for you.  Depending on your age, this may be your first encounter with life that hasn’t gone according to your plan. But it certainly isn’t unique for many of us. We have lived through the oil embargo in the 70s; Jimmy Carter’s malaise and inflation in the teens; the 911 attacks and the resulting tailspin in the economy; the dot com crises, and the 2008 real estate crisis.  I’ve seen my business so devastated that I had to tell my staff that I could no longer make payroll.
But I don’t just draw from my experience in my business.  As a sales consultant, I have personally and contractually worked with over 500 companies.  Their sizes ranged from under $1 Million in annual sales to over $8 Billion – all B2B sellers of some kind.
In all of this, I have learned some lessons and gained some wisdom that may be helpful to you. I like to think of it as two issues:  Shoring up and gearing up.
1. Navigating:
Sales Leaders Must Shore Things up for Immediate Survival
It may be that you don’t need to worry, because of the happy coincidence of being in the right place at the right time.  One of my clients sells meat to grocery stores, for example.  The demand has spiked as people are not going to restaurants and are cooking at home. He’s had to put his customers on allocation. However, most of you are likely to be dealing with customers who won’t or can’t see your salespeople, customers who may be teetering on the edge of insolvency, and a pervasive climate of uncertainty and anxiety.
Three recommendations:
Navigating Difficult Times – Sales Leaders: Bring the troops inside.
Your salespeople are probably frustrated with their inability to see their customers. Now is the time to direct them and enable them to work inside – probably from their home. You’ll need to invest a little bit in equipment and software and provide them some minimal training. Once they become acclimated, they should be productive and much more positive. They, and you, will gain a competency that will separate you from the competition, and pay off long-term as well as short-term. You may want to check out our video: How to Sell to Customers When You Can’t Visit Them:  Using Technology to Sell Better Remotely.
Navigating Difficult Times – Sales Leaders: Install some new management routines.
If you haven’t already, now is the time to install a weekly one-on-one conference between your salespeople and your sales management.  The conference should focus on this week’s plans and last week’s progress. Your salespeople are doing something new and will need some high-touch encouragement. Also, when there is a crisis in the environment, they are far more amenable to change than when things are going according to plan. This is a great time to install some of those management best practices they may have been resistant to before. If and when they return to outside selling, you can push the weekly conferences to monthly.  But for now, the weekly touch can be very effective.
As a side note, you may want to check on their activity from time to time.  They should be making their calls via a phone system (not their cell phones) and/or a video platform like Zoom or Skype.  You’ll want to have the capability to monitor their activity. It may seem a little bit like ‘Big Brother.’  But, without exception, every time that I have worked with a client who implemented some kind of activity monitoring, the results were always eye-opening.
Navigating Difficult Times – Sales Leaders: Must be a calm, rational model.
They are all looking for leadership from someone. You are the most likely candidate. Your attitude, your demeanor, and the words you share will go a long way to reassuring people who are anxious and fearful.
2. Navigating:
Gearing up for the Inevitable Opportunity to Come
I am not a futurist, and I make no claim to having any special insight. But, I have been through this a number of times, and I am pretty certain that:
This will end.
Things will be different on the other side of it – but probably not transformationally so.
When it ends, some companies in your industry will be worse for the experience.
A few will be better.
Demand will be pent up and ready to increase disproportionately.
This is the perfect time to make some long-overdue structural changes to the way sales are done in your organization.  Remember, people are much more amenable to change when they are in the middle of a crisis than when things are going along smoothly.  So, you’ll be able to implement some changes that may have met with resistance at a different time.
Navigating Difficult Times – Sales Leaders: Tighten-up your sales system.
Restructure your account priorities.
If you have not yet, then this is the perfect time to rearrange account responsibilities and priorities.  It is likely that your sales force has been spending time with a number of accounts that just aren’t worth it.  Now is the time to rank every account’s potential, and to categorize into three categories – A, B, C – and direct the salesforce to spend more time with A’s.
As a result of having to do business remotely, some of your customers are going to like that approach, and, on the other side, decide that is how they want to do business.  You will identify some salespeople who excel at selling remotely.  Put the two together and create an ‘inside’ sales territory which is defined by phone numbers instead of geographical territories defined by addresses.
These changes will have a bigger impact than anything else you can do.  And the slow time brought on by this crisis is the perfect time to make them. (You may want to review Chapter Six of 11 Secrets Of Time Management for Salespeople for a step-by-step description of how to do this.)
Navigating Difficult Times – Sales Leaders: Prune your sales force.
No one likes to let someone go.  It is often an emotionally draining, guilt-inducing event.
But, you’re a manager.
It comes with the territory. The health and well-being of the enterprise ensure financial and emotional security for all the employees, not just the few who are marginal. It’s likely that some of your salespeople are marginal performers.  For the health of the company, you need to prune the marginal performers so that the entire organization can reach its potential. It’s like a grapevine. New growth won’t happen until you prune the old.  Your marginal performers drag the whole enterprise down. The crisis we are experiencing right now will make their lack of competency or performance even more visible and painful.
Now is the time to make those changes that you have been thinking about.
Navigating Difficult Times – Sales Leaders: Need to improve the competency of your sales team
One of the things I have always liked about sales is this:
You are never as good as you can be.  Every one of your salespeople could be better. 
At the same time, my personal experience indicates that only about 20% of B2B salespeople have ever been taught the best practices of their profession. A little bit of education can have a huge payback just down the road a bit.  Bring them to a higher level of performance now, when there is time available, and they are amenable to learning and change.  (Note, see our Kahle Way® B2B Selling System.)
Navigating Difficult Times – Sales Leaders: Take a hard look at your sales compensation plan
If you make the changes I recommend, above, then it is entirely possible that your salespeople will be doing their jobs somewhat differently after the crisis. What you expect of them may change. It’s time to take a hard look at your sales compensation plan and consider revising it to meet the new conditions. Again, from my personal experience, most sales compensation plans are vestiges of years gone by, designed to incent behavior that is no longer at the crosshairs of the bull’s eye.
If you restructure your account priorities, prune your salesforce, improve their competencies, and revise your sales compensation plan, you will be prepared to increase market share and dramatically improve sales on the other side of this crisis.
-We are in the middle of some difficult times.  Rather than belabor that point, I’d like to come to the heart of the problem:  What do we do?  We need to answer that question in an immediate, urgent basis:  What do we do right now? In an earlier article, I shared some suggestions to help […]- #SHOWCASEHOMEPAGE, #BIZSPECTRUM, #BLESSEDFORSUCCESS, #@Sales|Marketing -Dave Kahle
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8 STEPS TO HELP YOU THRIVE POST-DIVORCE
Written by Melissa Rosenberg
Dellino Law Group has strong commitment to empowering our clients, many of whom are amid significant life crises. Whether it be a messy divorce, an escape from an abusive relationship, or an ugly child custody battle, we are here. It is part of our mission to assist you in moving into your next chapter with hope and optimism. We believe your best life is ahead of you and we are here to help you find it.
Each individual's experience is intrinsically unique and there are many more factors and variables to take into account based on each person's individual and complex picture. No matter what the circumstances, divorce is complicated. Ending a partnership that you hoped would last forever is logistically challenging and emotionally painful. Here we share some of our tips on how to take steps to not just survive but thrive post-divorce or separation.
1 – Allow Time to Grieve
Divorce represents a significant loss and you need to take the time to grieve. When two people decide to make a life-long commitment, this is not the outcome they are planning for. Even if the divorce is your idea, if the relationship was negative or undesirable, or if you know you'll be better off for the split, the divorce is still a loss of some type. It is the ending of a relationship and a lifestyle you've known.
Make space for your emotions as they relate to grief. Remember that emotions can be very uncomfortable, but they are normal and necessary, and not permanent. Don't dwell on them but allow for them. You may experience shock, regret, or guilt. You may feel angry, resentful, or fearful. You may feel lonely, sad, and heartbroken. Allow yourself the space and time to work through the natural emotional experience that comes your way.
2 – Practice Self Care
Part of taking care of yourself is allowing for and attending to your emotions, as described in #1. Alongside the grieving process, this is also the time to find other ways to take care of yourself and your personal wellness.  Pull from your self-care toolbox and do what makes you feel good. If your toolbox is empty, it is time to develop and practice some new self-care strategies. Exercise! Exercise is proven to have a direct positive impact on mood by boosting endorphin production, so its a great time to get your body moving. Go for a walk, take baths, attend a yoga class, listen to music that feeds your soul. Get a massage or a haircut or buy some new shoes. Binge-watch a Netflix series and then get out for a hike with a beautiful view. Try journaling or sketching. If nothing feels like it will be helpful, try something anyway. You never know what help alleviate painful emotion, or even bring a moment of serenity.
3 – Enlist Social Support
Surround yourself with people who are positive, non-judgmental, and supportive of you. Determine who in your social support network you can cry with or talk with and keep those numbers close. This is the time to pick up the phone and ask for help when you need it. Resist the urge to isolate and allow your loved ones to be there for you, just as you would for them. If you are having a hard time getting out of the house, ask a trusted friend to help hold you accountable. If you need someone to sit with your kids so you can get out and de-stress, enlist your supports. Ask your friends to help keep you in check regarding backward behavior, such as social media slandering or drunk dialing. If your social support network is limited, or in addition to existing social supports, consider joining a support group for divorcing women. It may feel validating and comforting to connect with women enduring similar experiences.
4 – Enlist Professional Support
With divorce comes inevitable lifestyle shift and you should not try to tackle it all of these changes alone. We recommend you utilize professional support in several different areas in order to reach the most optimal outcome and ultimately thrive post-divorce.
-Family Law Attorney:  First and foremost, be sure you are working with an experienced, trustworthy family law attorney. Divorce is complicated –  even when it is not complicated, and you should be properly advised and represented in order to reach the best possible outcome. There are inevitable challenging emotions and relationship dynamics at play, and it is essential you work with an experienced professional to manage the legal aspects of the situation, so as not to further complicate things or bring on additional stress.
-Therapy: Divorce is among the most stressful life experiences one can encounter and you deserve to feel supported. In addition to leaning on trustworthy friends and family, it can be immensely helpful to work with a trained mental health professional during this time. Work with an experienced therapist to process your emotions and refine old/develop new ways of coping with stress. Utilize therapeutic support in dealing with the emotional aspects of your situation so you can find clarity on how to manage the logistical and practical aspects. Use this space to help reconnect with yourself and for setting and embarking on a plan to move forward into your new life.
-Financial Planning: Please see #5. We recommend you consider working with a financial planner or accountant to determine your best path forward and to develop a financial plan that maximizes your best interests. Your attorney should have referrals that will be part of the divorce process and will help you with settlement and reaching your new financial goals after divorce.
5 – Develop a Financial Plan
Each person's situation is completely different, but it is likely there will be some shift in your financial situation following a divorce. Maybe your economic level takes a real hit and you need to determine how to live off a tighter budget, or maybe you find yourself with a lot more disposable income and aren't sure the best way to manage or invest the new funds. You may have significant assets to divide or you may be dealing with the division of debt. Either way, we recommend you consider working with a financial planner to determine your best path forward, both in the short and long term. Once again, emotions are generally heightened during this time, and it is useful to have an outside professional who specializes in this area to properly advise you. It is also important to take stock of your new budget and determine what lifestyle changes you may need to make in order to adjust.
6 – Get to Know Yourself Again
You have an important opportunity to re-connect with yourself. The ending of a major life role often leaves people with thoughts and questions about sense of self. Rediscover who you used to be prior to or separate from your marriage and reconnect with that self. Take a self-inventory and think about what you value most about yourself, including aspects of yourself that may have grown or evolved during the time you were married.
Examine the ways you would like to continue to change and grow. We are all works in progress with constant opportunity to become better versions of ourselves. This is a new start and a great opportunity for growth and betterment. Discover a new side of yourself. Find a new hobby or passion. Seek out new life-enriching experiences that bring hope or optimism as you look ahead in this next chapter.
7 – Embrace Singlehood
As you re-connect with yourself and develop and discover who you are, be sure to take the time to embrace and enjoy being single. Celebrate this new path. Revel in solitude or quiet space. Do something you may not have done or go somewhere you may not have gone when you were married. You may be single for a brief time, or maybe you'll stay single for years to come. However long it may be, embrace where you are. It may sound cliché, but this is literally the beginning of the rest of your life and that can be an exciting place to be if you let it!
8 – Moving Forward
Only you can determine your best path forward. Moving forward involves a bit of letting go and significant embracing of change. Dating or finding a new partner may be the last thing on your mind or you may feel anxious to get back in the game. You will likely get all kinds of advice about how soon is “too soon” to start dating again. You may be told “you should be single for at least x months or years before getting back out there.” There is no doubt time can have great healing powers, but there is no post-divorce handbook with all the right answers. Once again, each person's situation is unique and what may be right for someone else is not necessarily what is right for you.
Moving forward may eventually include dating, sex, or new relationships, or it may include none of these. Moving forward may include renewed or improved connections with family or friends. We recommend you do take the time to walk through the above steps in helping you determine your healthiest path forward, but the timeline is fully up to you and can only be informed by your experience and your personal emotional readiness.
You can and you will get through this. We are here to help.
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ivyskiss · 7 years
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Her Handsome Hero
Killian and Emma 
I_O
Killian didn't want to a hero, he wanted to be her hero.
(I do not own these characters, just taking them out to play for a bit.)
Prompt included "The air thickened as he instinctively sensed something worse was coming." from @captainswanpromptsandrecs
________________________________________________________
A hero’s journey.
Sometimes, if he stood quietly on the Jolly and closed his eyes, Killian could sometimes hear his brother’s words echo back through the centuries.
A hero.
Killian learned to read by a book of poetry he had found on the ground after falling off of a cart. For years after, he had felt a tad bit guilty about that. It would have been far more noble to attempt to find the owner. However, he had been so young at the time, so he eventually let go of that guilt.
Looking back, he knows that snatching that book from the dirt had been one of the best things that he had ever done.
Many a dark nights alone on the Jolly he had read the tales in that book. He read of all sorts of things. But the tale he read over and over was the story of Iris and her Demitri. The tale of a beautiful lady and the dashing knight who rescued her. They fell in love, and even though they faced hardships, they always found one another.
He would never admit it then, but he was a romantic through and through.
He had met Milah when he had protected her from a creepy man. He had done that for many a fair maiden in his long life. Milah had later told his he was like a knight in armor to her that first night.
Emma had entered his life like a windstorm. It knocked him over how bloody brilliant and amazing she was.
Emma didn’t need a hero, she didn’t need a knight in shining armor to save her. Hell, she was a savior in her own right.
Killian loved and admired his strong woman. He loved that they were a team. She was perfect to him. But there was still a tiny part of him, a tiny piece that formed as a longing youth that desperately, silently, ached to be that knight in armor for his Swan.
Killian didn't want to a hero, he wanted to be her hero.
______________________________________________________________“Belle, why do you like that book so much?"
Belle looked up from her place at the stack of tombs she was going through, “I’m sorry?”
“Your book, the one you gave Gideon. Why does it mean so much to you?”
“Well, my mother read it to me, it’s really all I have left of her.”
“But it’s more than sentiment, you like the story right?
“Of course! It’s so romantic. You see, my favorite part is when she meets Gideon, but doesn’t realize just who he is until chapter three….”
She began prattling on about details but Killian didn’t hear it.
______________________________________________________________That evening, Killian was lost in thought, tidying up the kitchen while Emma went upstairs to take a quick shower. Suddenly, he heard a crash followed by a high scream.
“Hook! Hook, come quick!”
He sprinted up the stairs, finding Emma in the hallway pacing in a circle.
“Swan! What’s wrong?!”
“There’s a mouse in the bathroom!”
Killian’s eyebrows shot up on their own. “Pardon?”
“There is a mouse in the bathroom! Can you get it out!? Please! But don’t kill it! Just get rid of it!!”
Killian slipped into the bathroom and indeed there was a tiny mouse, as long as his thumb in the bathtub. It took about a minute to sweep the tiny creature into the trashcan. He walked it out and dumped it into the street.
He came back into the house and set the bin down.
“Crises averted, love. The beast is in exile as we speak.”
Emma sighed but still looked thoroughly horrified by the encounter.
“Ugh. Thank you so much. Mice creep me out.”
Killian smirked at, “Didn’t you slay a dragon once?”
“I’d take a dragon over a mouse. I HATE mice!”
______________________________________________________________
Killian’s eyes roamed down the notebook in his hand, brow furrowed in concentration. He slipped the pencil from it’s place behind his ear and circled a few figures. He then slid the notebook to Henry who sat next to him at the kitchen table.
“Here is the problem lad,” Hook said, pointing with the pencil. You forgot to multiply these two figures.”
Henry sighed, “Thanks Killian.”
Emma looked up, from her paperwork from the sheriff's station “You're a lifesaver, I never had a head for math.”
“You’d be surprised what they teach you in the Royal Navy.”
______________________________________________________________
“How about we got on a trip?” Emma asked Hook as he was taking off his waistcoat for bed.
He quirked an eyebrow? “A trip?”
“I need to go to Boston, where I lived before I moved here. There is this thing I am going to, it’s sortof a big deal.” She hesitated. “ Would you maybe want to come with me?” She bit her lip nervously.
Killian beamed, “I am delighted to accompany you on this quest, love.”
She sighed her relief. “Thank God, I owe you one.”
______________________________________________________________
“No!”
Killian started awake to his the sound of his love’s distress.
The room was black and Emma was thrashing in her sleep, whimpering.
“Killian! No, no please, no! Don’t leave me!”
“Emma, love, wake up!”
He shook her gently, and she started awake and gasped, her eyes wide with fear.
“It was just a dream.”
Emma was shaking, and her arms went around him.
She burrowed her face in his neck, Holding him tightly as her sobs began to overtake her.
“Shh, love it’s alright.”
“I lost you.”
“No, you haven’t. I’m right here." Killian's hand cupped the back of her head.
"You’ll never lose me.”
______________________________________________________________
Killian walked up the stairs with the plastic grocery bag from Doc hanging from his hook. He could hear noise from Emma’s laptop playing, so he quietly stepped inside.
Indeed, she was right where he had left her; lying wrapped around a pillow, with the computer in front of her. She looked up from where she lay, and winced as she sat up. He handed her the bag and sat down next to her on the bed.
“How are you feeling, darling?”
She made a face as she opened the package labeled Midol. “Not great.” She admitted quietly, sounding a bit embarrassed.
“The first day is always the worst.” Emma smiled softly at him. “Thank god you're here. I don’t think I could've gone to the store by myself.”
“I’m sure you would've managed. You always have before.”
She gave him a strange look at that, but said nothing as she swallowed down the pills.
“Anything else I can do?”
“Stay with me for a while?”
“As you wish.”
__________________________________________________________
Killian had sent Emma a text at noon saying that the weather was going to turn quite foul. He would be a poor excuse of a pirate if he couldn’t sense a storm from a mile away. Indeed, The air thickened as he instinctively sensed something worse was coming. She hadn’t replied, so she would be caught unaware.
So, he had tossed their dinner in an ingenious invention called the “slow-cooker” and gone to the store to gather groceries, in case they were holed up for a few days.
By the time Emma’s yellow car pulled up to their how, the sky was grey and the snow was falling steadily. He was throwing a few more logs in the fireplace when a shivering Emma entered their home.
He greeted her by pulling her in front of the fire and wrapping her in a blanket.
“Tonight’s dinner is soup. But get warm first.”
“Emma sighed, looking at him gratefully as she took the hot mug from his hand.
“What would I do without you?”
He kissed her head as he handed a cocoa with cinnamon. “You’ll never need to find out.”
_____________________________________________________________
He was lying on his side in their bed, when he felt slender arms snake around his waist, and Emma’s sweet scent surrounded him.
She was warm and pliant, having just emerged from a hot bath. He brought his arms to meet hers and he felt her forehead rest on back. She sighed as she snuggled into his warmth.
“You’re like my knight in shining armor, you know that?”
Killian’s heart swelled at he words, but he choked a bit.
“What? You are.”
“I’m hardly a knight, love.” Killian argued softly.
Emma’s embrace around his middle tightened “Killian Jones, when are you ever going to stop being so hard on yourself?”
He rolled over to face her.
“Hook, even if we don’t consider how many times you’ve died for me, or all things you have done to fight evil. It’s like everyday you are a better man. I mean, you take care of me. Like, really take care of me, every day. You bring me my lunch and help Henry with his homework…”
“A grilled cheese and some geometry is hardly an act of valor.”
“I never had anyone to do those little things for me before. You know that.”
She brought her hand up to stroke his face as she tried to find the words.
“You’re the one person in this world who has never, ever let me down.”
She smiled, “In any life, in any world, you’re not just a hero, you’re my hero.”
Killian felt a prick at the back of his throat. In that moment, Killian was that young man again, sitting up reading poetry by candlelight, and it was like a piece of him was healed.
A tiny part of him, the young Killian from centuries ago was finally, finally made whole.
“Aye, love.” He pulled her in close enough to brush his lips to her forehead.
“And you are mine.”
Notes:
A bit of hiatus fueled angst drabble. No beta.
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wikipress01 · 6 years
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The HIV-positive man who stopped thousands getting the virus
Greg Owen wished a brand new drug, not accessible via the NHS, that will cease him changing into HIV-positive. But it was too late – he already had the virus. Despite this, he and a good friend labored on an bold plan to assist thousands of others get the new remedy.
“You know when you do one thing… when your whole life changes? Pressing that send on Facebook was actually the moment my whole life changed.”
Greg Owen grew up in Belfast, the eldest of six youngsters. It was the 1980s, the peak of the Troubles, and he was, as he places it, “very gay”.
Fast-forward to London in 2015. Greg is working in bars and golf equipment, sleeping on pals’ sofas.
There is not any signal of what’s to return – that Greg goes to assist save thousands of lives and alter the method the NHS thinks about homosexual males having intercourse.
Then, Greg met Alex Craddock.
“He was cute, a little bit sassy. And I fancied him a little bit,” says Greg.
Alex had simply come again from New York. He had one thing Greg wished very a lot. He was on Prep, a comparatively new drug seen as a game-changer in the battle in opposition to HIV an infection.
If you might be on Prep and have intercourse with somebody with HIV, the drug will cease you changing into HIV constructive – even in case you are not sporting a condom.
Greg was intrigued. “I was trying to get Prep. And Alex was already on it. He’d got in the States.” Alex instructed him it was straightforward to get in New York. But Alex’s provide was about to expire. Here in the UK, it wasn’t accessible.
“I’d been given this amazing new thing and then it had been taken away from me,” Alex says. “That’s when I first met Greg.”
At the time, HIV diagnoses for top danger teams in the UK have been going up. One in eight homosexual males in London had HIV.
Short for pre-exposure prophylaxis, Prep is a tablet you’re taking earlier than penetrative intercourse.
Some customers take it every day – whereas others take it “on demand”, in the days earlier than and after intercourse.
If a condom just isn’t worn, and also you come into contact with HIV, the drug stops the virus from getting into the bloodstream completely. Prep is prevention not remedy.
But earlier than you possibly can take Prep, it’s important to ensure you do not have already got HIV.
Greg had managed to pay money for a small quantity of the drug – and so he went for a check.
He wasn’t too frightened as he’d gone for sexually transmitted an infection (STI) checks pretty often. He was watching the physician. He knew the way it labored. The testing package would present one dot for unfavourable, and two for constructive. Suddenly, in a heartbeat, every little thing modified.
“Literally, ‘Boom,’ like two dots so [the doctor] didn’t even have to say anything, I saw it because it was sitting in-between us.”
Greg felt numb, trapped and alone. “I was seeing people go past me and I felt like I was in like a bubble – like there was a something separating me from the rest of the world.”
And that is when he made the choice that modified his life and perhaps that of thousands of different homosexual males.
He determined to disclose this large secret to the world. So, he posted on Facebook that he was HIV constructive. And he talked about Prep – this drug few knew a lot about, which might have stopped him getting HIV.
His telephone “just lit up”, he says.
“First of all, people couldn’t believe I’d done that. And then there was, ‘What is all this Prep stuff?’ Why would Prep have kept you HIV negative?’ So, I could tell people what Prep was and I could tell people how it worked. And then obviously the next question was, ‘How do I get Prep?'”
Watch Greg and Alex’s story
The People vs The NHS: Who Gets the Drugs? was first broadcast on BBC Two.
It is now accessible on the BBC iPlayer together with extra programmes about the NHS at 70.
And that was Greg and Alex’s subsequent transfer.
“We don’t even need the government right now,” Alex recollects them saying. “We can do it ourselves. We’ll tell everyone to order pharmaceutical drugs on the internet and start taking them.”
From Alex’s bed room, they began constructing an internet site.
First, got here all the medical data folks wanted to know. And then, the bit everybody wished – the alternative to “click to buy”. “We didn’t want to make any money ourselves. We were just linking up buyers to sellers,” Greg says.
It was a easy, radical thought.
“I’m not going to wait for the NHS to come and save me,” Alex recollects. “I want Prep now and this is how I’m going to get it.”
So, they referred to as the web site I Want Prep Now. It launched in October 2015.
They obtained 400 hits in the first 24 hours and it mushroomed from there.
Then, the medical career took an curiosity.
Mags Portman, an NHS advisor on HIV and sexual well being, emailed Greg asking if she might meet. Will Nutland, an activist at Prepster, an internet site giving details about Prep, additionally turned concerned.
Will even turned a guinea pig.
He took Prep capsules from new suppliers after which had his blood examined at Portman’s sexual well being clinic. It examined greater than 300 batches and located no fakes.
At the identical time, the UK Medical Research Council was operating the Proud examine, evaluating homosexual males on Prep in opposition to non-users.
The outcome was so clear-cut – an 86% fall in new HIV infections amongst in Prep customers – that the examine was ended early and people on the examine not taking Prep have been instantly provided it.
So the place was NHS England?
At the finish of 2014, it had begun a course of to resolve whether or not Prep must be made accessible. Time handed, nothing occurred.
“It was very, very difficult and frustrating as a clinician to know that this HIV prevention tool was out there,” says Mags.
“We couldn’t access it and we couldn’t prescribe it and we were seeing people that we knew were at risk and then coming back with HIV.”
By 2016, the NHS was nonetheless debating the matter. And then it mentioned no.
“I was gobsmacked,” says Sheena McCormack, professor of medical epidemiology, who ran the Proud trial.
“Oh, my goodness, it was absolutely horrifying,” says Mags.
But what started in a bed room ended up going to the High Court.
The National Aids Trust, a charity, took NHS England to courtroom. They wished Prep to be checked out based on the identical guidelines as another new treatment can be.
The stakes have been excessive. The Terrence Higgins Trust – one other main HIV/Aids charity – despatched a letter to the Times, saying that on daily basis Prep was delayed no less than 17 folks have been changing into contaminated with HIV.
The authorized case was advanced. The NHS mentioned it wasn’t legally required to fund prevention. That was the job of native authorities, it mentioned.
The NHS was dealing with one among the largest funding crises in its seven-decade historical past. It was not a superb time to be taking up new funding duties. Today, regardless of file ranges of funding, there are nonetheless funding gaps.
The case additionally revealed one thing else – society’s view of what homosexual males have been entitled to.
The journalist and broadcaster Andrew Pierce, who is homosexual himself, is in opposition to Prep being funded by the state.
“I don’t think the NHS can afford £450 per month to a homosexual,” he says.
“Because this is what it is about – indulging gay men who don’t want to use a condom. Well, that is outrageous – why should the taxpayer subsidise a reckless sex life?”
But for Greg, “gay guys have the right to fear-free, guilt-free, disease-free sex”. For too lengthy, he says, there was an excessive amount of self-loathing.
“We are ultimately conditioned to believe that love, particularly sex between two men, always has to come at a price. And it doesn’t.”
In courtroom, the NHS’s argument unravelled. It turned out it did fund prevention – statins, for instance, which assist to decrease dangerous ldl cholesterol. The choose discovered unequivocally in favour of the National Aids Trust.
But NHS England mentioned it could attraction and despatched out a press launch that Ian Green, chief govt of the Terrence Higgins Trust, remembers all too effectively. “They said the decision had been taken for high risk men who have condomless sex, with multiple sexual partners – it was condemnatory.”
For Greg, it was hurtful. “It just felt, that felt really vicious actually. It felt like sour grapes.”
Suddenly the NHS’s decision-making was below the microscope at nearly a philosophical stage.
“It’s interesting, this question of personal responsibility and on what role it plays in the NHS’s decisions – officially it doesn’t play any role at all,” says Sean Sinclair, a medical ethicist at the University of Leeds. “Unofficially, you can see it playing a role.”
The matter was settled in November 2016. The NHS misplaced its authorized attraction and must take duty for Prep.
Greg, by now again in Northern Ireland, was working in a pub. “I was literally crying. Serving pints of beer to this poor Belfast boy who probably thought I was absolutely off my rocker.”
So what’s occurred since then?
By summer time final 12 months, eight clinics in London, and several other outdoors the capital, had taken half in a trial to offer Prep. And many extra males purchase the drug privately resulting from higher consciousness. In August 2017, the NHS in England introduced it could give Prep to 10,000 folks in a £10m trial lasting three years.
In Wales, the drug is offered from chosen NHS sexual well being clinics as a part of an analogous trial. Prep just isn’t presently accessible from the NHS in Northern Ireland. Scotland is the solely a part of the UK to supply full Prep provision via the NHS.
For the first time lately, the HIV analysis fee in homosexual males is down. From 2015 to 2016, it was down by about 20% nationwide. But in sure clinics in London it fell by 40%.
“That was the first moment when we were able to take a step back and actually be quite shocked at how effective all of this was,” says Alex.
Opponents say Prep could undermine safe-sex messages. They level to a four-year Australian examine in the Lancet, suggesting that as Prep use grows, condom use falls. And males not on the drug, due to this fact not benefiting from it, have been additionally having extra condomless intercourse, the researchers say.
But for Sheena McCormack, who ran the Proud trial, Prep continues to be a game-changer.
“We in all probability had carried out as a lot as we presumably might in the method of frequent testing, early analysis and early remedy.
“The piece that was lacking was the HIV-negative people who have been catching HIV in-between their HIV assessments. That’s the place Prep fills the hole.”
Prep can also save the NHS cash.
Scientists at University College London who studied its cost-effectiveness mentioned it could value cash for the first few a long time however after 40 years it could start to avoid wasting the NHS money.
And after 80 years it could save the UK about £1bn, they predicted.
Greg typically tears up when he thinks about the place they have to.
He remembers one telephone name particularly that made him cry. Sheena McCormack was on the line. It was Christmas 2016, a number of weeks after the Appeal Court victory.
She instructed him that with out his web site, the one arrange by him and Alex, there would have been solely tiny numbers of individuals on Prep.
“Sheena was like, ‘I want you to strip it back, think about the people, of the thousands of people walking around now HIV negative because of something that you did.'”
Looking again, Greg says there was no grand plan. “I had a humble objective. I just wanted one person to remain HIV negative on the back of my diagnosis. That way it’s HIV equal. If we prevent a second person, then I have won – my HIV status didn’t cost anything.”
It’s truthful to say, he received large.
Image copyright:
BBC, Getty Images, Greg Owen, Claire McGeown and Alex Craddock.
Source hyperlink from http://www.wikipress.co.uk/health/the-hiv-positive-man-who-stopped-thousands-getting-the-virus/
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realhousewivespower · 6 years
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How Can the Housewives Franchise Be Feminist?
Many people have stated their dismay for the Real Housewives franchise on Bravo. Their issue is that the franchise only shows women being pinned against each other and backstabbing each other over champagne and diamonds. Which is the bate of the show, the way the producers capture the attention of their audience. But that may be true, which I will get into later, but that is only surface deep. These shows are not just about fabulous fashion, having kids, and fighting with your best friend. These shows are about women in power. Most of these ladies are not 1950′s housewives. And many of these ladies do not have husbands or children. But many of these ladies have successful businesses they had before joining the show or while being on the show. I have been a fan for years and have always been giving negative feedback for claiming myself as a feminist and being a supporter of such “garbage.” Do not get me wrong, I am not comparing the franchise to the works of Susan B. Anthony or Gloria Steinem but I do believe the feminist movement has changed. The term feminism, in its purest, means equality. And boy do these women fight for equality. And that is the world we live in. We may want to think that we as women, and men, must come together pull each other up and run together in a field of daisies. But that is not the real world. People fight over petty issues every day, whether women or men. People backstab, whether women or men.  Of course, this is reality TV so everything is pushed to the extreme. But this show is not only about the negative but also the positives. 
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I was inspired to do this post based on two different blog post I read about this top. One for my claim and one against. In Allie Gemmill’s blog, 9 Ways Real Housewives Is Actually Super Feminist, she states some ways that the Housewives franchise is part of the feminist movement, which I can see her point but are a bit superficial. For example, she states that women on the show are able to be sexual and gross, which is good but there are other deeper reasons why the show is part of the movement. The second blog, Women Everywhere vs Andy Cohen, post by Laurel argues that the franchise sets back women 100 years stating “What does this mean for women? Stereotype, embarrassment, and bad role-modeling are a few that come to mind”. As a fan, I did not want to support these two viewpoints because they do not support my claim that the franchise is a part of the feminist movement. There are several positive rooted reasons why the franchise is feminist. And of course, I can not post about this issue without stating the obvious that Laurel addresses in her blog. 
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The ongoing act of self-documentation in a world that punishes female experience (that doesn’t aspire to maleness) is a radical declaration that women are within our rights to contribute to the story of what it means to be human.
-- Alana Massey
The purpose of this post isn’t to change the haters mind but possible just see my point of view. I read a blog post by Ana Dorn where she states “The Real Housewives doesn’t have the intellectual heft of, say, a documentary feature on particle science or the ills of the criminal justice system, but it’s no less intelligent than shows viewers readily admit to loving without guilt, such as Westworld or The Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt”. She later argues that the show has empowered several women that did not have a voice amongst their peers or even amongst their own husband. For many of these women, the show has given them a voice. 
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Here I will list a few reasons why I feel that the housewives franchise is part of the 21st-century movement of feminism. 
1. They Do Not Rely On Men  
A false claim about these shows is that these women became successful because of their husband’s money and rely on being with a man. There is some truth through these claims but not the full story. First, not all of the housewives rely on their husband's money. For example, D’ Andra Simmons is the multi-million dollar breadwinner in her marriage. Second, a good percentage of these cast members were not married when they joined the show like Carol Radziwill who was a successful reporter for NBC before she met her husband who passed away from cancer. Third, as the divorce rate rises in the US, housewives to fall victim to the epidemic. And even though they do face tough sad times like anyone else, they manage to become more successful and independent on their own like Nene Leaks who after her divorce had multiple roles in hit TV shows. These women show the rest of the world that they do not need a man to be successful, that even in tough times, you can be successful on your own.
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A woman without a man is like a fish without a bicycle.
-Gloria Steinem
2. Bad Behavior Is Punished
To some, this may seem like an oxymoron since they believe the whole show is women behaving badly, but that is false. The great thing about the Housewives franchise is how much they listen to their audience. The audience becomes the moral compass of the show and lets the producers know via tweeter, blog post, or emails what they feel as acceptable. And thankfully a higher percentage of the US population has a high moral compass. When a castmember violates what the audience feels as morally acceptable, the franchise will fire them. For example, in the Real Housewives of Atlanta Phaedra Parks falsely claimed that another cast member, Kandi Burruss, of wanting to drug and rape Porsha Williams. The audience quickly reacted and producers fired Parks. This is an example of punishment. This shows the cast members and the rest of the population what is socially acceptable and the consequences of one's actions. Another example is when Teresa Giudice, a cast member from the Real Housewives of New Jersey, faced time in prison for tax fraud. Even though these women had fame and money does not mean they are above the law or above what is socially acceptable. There are consequences to your action. So the franchise does not glorify bad behavior. 
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‘Housewives universe,’ you get punished for behaving badly. There are consequences to it.”
-Andy Cohen
3. The Franchise Has Launched Several Succesful Business Women 
There is no way I can talk about successful business women in the housewives franchise without mentioning the most successful housewife of all, Bethenny Frankel. When Frankel first joining the Housewives she was labeled the “underdog” of her cast. Even though she was not poor at all, a successful celebrity chef in New York City, among her Park Avenue old money cast members she was. Through the show, she was able to come up with the Skinny Girl Margarita and through the show, she was able to get connections to promote and patten her drink. She established her Skinny Girl company and in 2011 sold her company for 100 million dollars. Through her company’s great financial gain she has been able to start her nonprofit BStrong that helps crises around the world. For example, BStrong was the first rescue organization to hit the ground running in Puerto Rico after hurricane Maria, even before the US. Through the show, she was able to be a successful businesswoman without any help from a man. She was able to achieve a great amount of money and also help others. And her whole story is shown on the show. Her story inspires other women and promotes awareness. 
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“It doesn’t matter what anybody else thinks of your life. All that matters is what you think of it, and what you decide to make of it.” 
-Bethenny Frankel
I hope that I have changed your view a little bit or a lot about about the postive influence that the Housewives franchise has on the current feminist movement. If not a least you could see some postives of the show. If anything people who watch the show, like myself, understand that it is reality TV. And the audience knows that reality TV scripted and just for entraiment. 
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el-im · 6 years
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Intentions are oftener vague than not, and mostly cannot be extracted from a body of work without error. Within analyzation of anything comes extrapolation, which is an inaccurate form of projection. Personal error arises from clouded judgement that is onset by experience and application of memory, and thus I provide this document in a strive for clarity. Notes accompany 25-30% of suicides, which, to one so enamored with words, seems an awfully low percent. I cannot imagine departing without an “Adieu, adieu, parting is such a sweet sorrow--” (though perhaps, more fittingly for myself, an “Adieu! Auf wiedersehen. Gesundheit. Farewell.” would be appropriate). Nevertheless. I was raised alongside a stretching literature: a growing stack of books read without discrimination to something so limiting as topic or author or, later, language (mi copia de obras completas de oscar wilde es mi posesión más preciada) that never towered above me. I believe in language more than I have any person, and stories as more necessary sustenance than light or sound or vision. I am inexplicably bound to books, and perhaps such, alongside possible dissipation of guilt felt by those I leave in departing, is the reason for my drafting this. To whom it may concern: might you forgive the disorganization, there are no templates on earth to follow.
I am young at my time of writing this, as youth is variable, it is impossible, when within it, to see beyond. The extent of my person is bounded by linoleum flooring in hallways and eventual promises of becoming new by incorporeal entities. I often think of the person I could become. I imagine someone so vastly removed from that which I currently am that there exists little room for transition. I am as concrete as my conception of an eventual self, and one cannot be melded into the shadow of another. I see adulthood now as I do most art, as out of touch and improbable. But still there are glimpses through the holes created in time by our minds. People so often forget that heads are tools for boring, and all of time is malleable. I imagine now not glory as I once did. Not fame or riches. I see simplicity in the domestic, which above all speaks of a separate peace. But still I know that time, too, is fogged by projection, and am not swayed by my hopes.
If ever I should find within myself the courage and ability (as the action that so stirs such a document is truly a complete mixture of both) to print this:
Know at times that I was sorry.
I know that my actions may not be mended by time nor words nor consolations in the form of flowers or casseroles or anything else of the sort. That said, many, (a number so large I cannot possibly be expected to type out) will be completely unaffected by this action. People that I will never know will continue aimlessly on with their day, thinking, for a brief moment perhaps, in that time or in the time to come, that someone was missing from their lives that should have been there. A door not opened. A gift not received. These will be the objects of their missing perceptions, and to them I must apologize as well. I find myself often thinking about a future I could have. Being alone someplace new. Not being alone someplace new. It seems so distant: much so the details can’t be properly worked out, and I never really thought much of glimpses into later days anyway. Maybe something could have worked out. Maybe not. Probably not. This version of me is too broken to carry on into anything worthwhile.
That’s kind of the whole basis of this thing. I took the mirror out of my room the other day upon becoming so suddenly sick of the person I am. Of seeing her body angled and contorted like a specimen at a horror show encased in glass. It’s easier being in there now, but the absence of glass doesn’t really do much for still having to wake up in this body every day. I wish I was different. I wish all the notions people have of who I am were different.
To many others such departing is a cracked bottle upon the wood of a ship: received with unparalleled joy and relief. To those that so feel this way: me too. (I remember mom telling me about an article she had read about a man who woke up from a years-long coma, having been conscious the entire time, and who had consequently heard his mother say that she wished he would just die. It's like that. Everyone was expecting it, and holding on just makes for a shitshow.)
Despite the effort put into consolation, I hope it is also known that this decision was not one hastily made. It has been a dwelling consideration since fourth grade, and reached its suggestive fruition in Sophomore year of high school. Afore that however, it existed always as an abstract possibility. My mind would wander aimlessly, when unoccupied, to all the ways I could kill myself (if necessary) given the items with me in the room I was sitting in. This game was especially exciting in Leslie Ringler’s first period geometry class in 8th grade at Tempe Academy. I play this game still, and wonder when I may put my creative processes of the previous years into practice. (It’s always been like this. The earliest memories I have are transcribed in a journal I lost somewhere. I remember sitting on a parking block outside of a dirty convenience store waiting for someone to fill a gas tank or return from the bathroom or come out with a bag of plastic-wrapped sweets for the rest of the drive. It was hot. It was always hot, and my hair, still light then, was pushing into my eyes. I remember not quite feeling anything, and being confused about the lack of anything in me. I wasn’t excited for the trip. It was as though the entire world had turned sour and it made my head pound and ache. We carried on driving, and as I looked out the windows, I was shocked about the absence of any wonder in me. It was cold that night.)
I read somewhere that depression is like watching paint dry, and never before has a statement made more sense. I’m full of nothingness. I have no motivation or concern. No governing principles and no subscription to reason.
I hope it is also known that there are (there are there are there are) times now where sorrow for what is to come is nonexistent, those times increasing in frequency and magnitude, being consuming in their presence. I want it to be known that I am angry. (I was angry? Huh.) I shake with an unnameable rage I have no outlet for; that no amount of any substance known to man may satiate or saturate. That no amount of slitting my wrists open (and following with a swab covered in neosporin to clean, as infections raise questions as to why open wounds were ever really present in the first place, and I’d rather simply Not have that conversation.) Anyway. The matter is that nothing can really do much for me at this point, so I’ve given up looking for solutions. Nothing alleviates the grief that’s taken up residence in my body, and seems to drag me along as though I’m already dead weight.
Frank Iero wrote “You can’t cure me/Drugs can’t kill me/Love won’t save me from myself.” the last part is a bit reminiscent of some Anakin Skywalker quote, but who cares. Its seeming more true than ever now. The solution to all my problems is either death–as brought on by myself, a very convenient accident, or medication. Medication. Medication that does nothing more than dull out what’s already gray. I’ve seen it in action and there’s not a way on earth I’d ever subscribe myself to become the drugged out shell of a person that I’ve seen meandering in family gatherings, holding close to the wall as though to define the boundary of space, because the walls would cave in and the world would be swallowed into darkness if they didn't. Medication. A fancy word for pumping people so full of pills they burst at the seams and deflate in areas barely protruding before. Medication. That is in no way better than whatever I’m in now. Therapy maybe, but if people ever listened to me, perhaps this wouldn’t be a problem in the first place.
I often forget that all my daydreaming about growing up and getting better exists as a result. A product of a prerequisite of my being treated. I forget that leaving the house I am gradually becoming entombed in will not solve the crises I experience (and refuse to contemplate the possibility of such a transition somehow making me worse.) I forget that, under all my moods, lying still as a flowing artery, the distractions from numbness is an omnipresent layer of distress and disarray. I forget that I am followed by a black eel with sharp teeth and a taste for sickness that is becoming more difficult to resist feeding until it becomes more difficult to satisfy. I forget that the bottom of my heart is a chasm, which has been filled with a thick and harrowing sense of discomfort. An unsettling black water that lurches and churns with every step forward and three steps back. I forget, at the end of each sunset and managed calamity, I will still turn to a noose rather than a pillow to cradle my neck. I so often forget that killing myself is never an option off the table, but gleams in the corner of my mind like an EXIT sign, and hate the knowledge that the prospect of getting better only pushed me toward it.
Know that I wish this was easier. Know that this isn’t about any of you, and if I had the chance, I’d kill myself without anyone having known I was ever here. I aim not to hurt anyone else, and know that anything I do will be detrimental anyway. What's worse, dying young, as the good, or watching the good meld into pathetic repose? Wasting away as does any once great mind, into average mediocrity and fading without a bang, but a whimper. (The Hollow Men - T.S. Eliot.) My apologies, though genuine, are not strong enough to be deterrents, I know this document will be printed eventually, that I’ll kill myself and remain young in the memory of those who didn’t particularly like me that much, anyway. The how is the tricky part. I am sorry more than much else that people will have to remember me when I’m gone, though know not to whom I am necessarily apologizing to. I wish for ease. For everything to end neatly. To hell with contemplation.
It is haunting to feel nothing so vehemently that the negative space within you creates a heartbeat of its own. This blackness has overturned every stone I have ever corrected, steady hands pulling at each thread I have woven together and crossed. I have watched, tired eyes in hollow sockets tracing its undoings, with every instinct within me pushing to rebel and correct. But my limbs are too weary to carry my form forward, and my bidding becomes nothing more than an instruction shouted to an empty hall. Slumped, a corpse watches itself burn.
I have grown too tired for this life.
Tiana: You know more of me than anyone, especially myself. You are the bravest person I have had the chance to meet, and I know you will continue to be such in the absence of myself or any other. I give you no advice, for I know you do not need it. I have seen you persist through the worst of times, and flourish in the best. I know that you bring with you a sagacity that no other possesses, much less employs.
Know, if not anything else, that there is a reason you collect rocks. I love you, but such goes without saying.
Nick: You once told me that you thought about death a lot as a kid. I did too. I used to imagine a sort of blackness. I imagined not being able to move or breathe or see or think and the longer I contemplated that the harder it would become to breathe and think and see until my vision turned as black as my thoughts and a wall would collapse somewhere within me and I would cry. I don’t think of it anymore. I can feel it now, the thought of such blackness, creeping upward toward the light to swallow it whole. I blink it back now. Force it down and shake it off. I can block it now, but it persists, as all evils, nonetheless; without much thought to resilience. Evils, Nick, I think are really just built that way, and perhaps we cannot hold it against them. I suppose it can’t be that bad if you’re not really conscious.
But who’s to say you won’t be, right?
These thoughts came to me at night. It always took long for me to fall asleep, and night seemed the only time where my mind could wander without a particular end in sight. Because I wasn’t contemplating a PACE problem or working through an English assignment, my mind would turn to depths I hadn’t previously the ability to see out of mere boredom, and I was powerless to its advances. All the menial. The dull and tedious kept me at bay. I am grateful for them now, in a sense I hadn't the capacity for then.
In hindsight, which I find is seldom far from 20/20, I believe that such wandering of the mind was due to sensory deprivation. I had nothing to look at aside from a barely lit popcorn ceiling, which seemed to twist and shift in the dark, contorting into the moving hooves of war horses or faces of generals who have long since been faded by sand and the constance of time. I had nothing to hear or listen to and nothing to touch aside from old sheets that felt like nothing in my hands, which were, then, still very young. So I filled in the gaps, and was far too smart to do so with any light.
I wandered too far one night, when I was still living with my dad, before his last two manic episodes in close enough memory to grasp. I laid in the twin size bed that Tiana and I used to share, the safety railing ironically erect in the dark, white wood bright as a beacon in the night. It had not yet broken off due to my age and tendency to roll onto the concrete floor. I was restless then, and am restless still, even in sleep. My head was near the window, which was so thin paned it fogged in the winters. One of my hands pressed next to the railing as though such contact might ground me. The dust filtered through blinds where the streetlight next to my room shone through the cracks, which never closed. I slept with my door open back then.
It wandered, my mind, and landed ultimately where it always did.
I peeked into that darkness, knowing not, standing within it, that I was so near an edge, which stared back at my eyes, then so lighted with curiosity they may have shone. I wandered though it, imagining what it would be like: not to feel.
These were the days of my youth that death seemed a plague: omnipresent and no better for it. These were the days that my nightmares were comprised of my parents: me standing at the edge of their open graves, white, polished shoes gleaming under the caking mud about their soles. These were the days that I woke in a start: sitting up as to distance my head from its previous position on its embroidered pillow, the pale roses I slept on seeming mocking. I dreamed of them each dying, leaving me all alone, and woke each morning thinking of what I would do then. How connected I was. How considerate. I wandered further and further into the extending blackness and Not the Blackness and the Absence of all things and its neverending until I began to cry.
My dad spent his Sunday nights watching TV, the blue light and hum of old comedy shows spilling careless light and sound into my room. He had spent the day washing dishes, as he always did, with a worn towel thrown over his shoulder as he let the water run circles down the drain. He came into my room with a quiet haste, knowing something was wrong but understanding children well enough to know that bursting in is often less appropriate than not. He told me that we would always exist, even after death, in people’s dreams. (I later learned the term oneirology to describe his poetic, vaguely Mystery Achievement-sounding waxings.) He told me he dreamed of his father all the time, so he could never truly be dead. I suppose that must have given me some comfort then, for I eventually stopped my shaking and crying and went to sleep.
I later learned that his father was, scientifically speaking, a shit-bag who hit his mother and abandoned his family to live in Iran, so I suppose that that comfort was kind of bullshit.
I slept with the door closed after that, and my room became darker. The sound of the DirectTV commercials didn’t float into my room with previous ease and the light from the kitchen could no longer be seen. Since then I have felt the encroaching darkness of those thoughts and forced them out of my mind with nothing more than my will. I only wish not to think of them, but they creep in the shadows, existing whether or not they are thought of.
I hope that those were not what your thoughts on death were like. I hope that’s what no ones are like.
Being that I also, occasionally, grew up around Buddhism, reincarnation became a subject of my thoughts as I grew old enough to understand it.
I hope you might know that the only aspect of my person that I regard with even the faintest tolerance is the consequence of my time of birth. I regard so many components of myself with a sullen distaste--quite the same as someone recently having bitten into a too-soft blueberry after having burst so many perfectly lovely ones between their teeth. I imagine, if perhaps distanced, in the low light of social interaction, I could be thought of as intriguing for my sadness (instead of desperate); interest in place of suggestion. Spring is a time of rot and death and rebirth. “I died, and was born in the spring. I found you, and loved you, again”.
When I was younger and had no history to my being aside from that which was thrust upon me by chance, I found myself often enamored with the thought of time that preceded my being on this earth as this person. Our mother often told me of my name and how it came to be. When she was pregnant with me, she lived in a small house in the middle of a dead end street with a man she hadn’t any intention of marrying. One day when it appeared as though she had swallowed a planet, and very well may have, she caught the faintest cream colored roses in bloom. Rose came to mind. Dirt colored eyes and rose tinted cheeks. The faintest white fading into brown rot in the sun. Adya Rose. Sunday Rose. Rose Rose Rose.
I thought of life after death as another possibility of events, but in no way necessarily believed it. I remember writing, as a kid, in one of the countless diaries I kept, that I imagined you being the only one at my funeral to cry. I imagined mom and Mia being off somewhere else busying themselves with something to keep their hands occupied or talking lightly about what a good student I was. I now see the falsity in this, but I’ll be damned if I don’t sometimes look at you and have that be the only thing I see.
I am sorry to you perhaps most of all. I’m sorry for all you’ve endured and all I could not have helped you with. I am sorry about your broken heart that you carry concealed under your great big coats (that I used to find such great joy in hiding in) as to not reveal its cracked state. I am sorry that you have lived through so much and will be aged so greatly by everything to come. I am sorry a million and one times.
I am eternally indebted to you for all you have done for me and I am impossibly thankful for your constant care. (I am reminded of when we were alone at El Parque. I didn’t have a room of my own to sleep in and mom would so often wake me when the morning sky was still dark as she shuffled out the door on her way to work. You would come check on me then, sleeping alone in a great big bed I would never fill to make sure that I was doing alright. You would so often come sit with me while I was reading at night--Magic Tree House books then--departing quickly from your friends to ask if I needed anything, never leaving me alone, even when I perhaps deserved it.) I am thankful that you made me feel cool when I hadn’t a friend to speak of. I am thankful that you were so selfless when you had every reason in the world to be distant; and thankful that you have continually made an effort to bring me peace. I am thankful for every movie you ever rented at Blockbuster, that you had to pause to hear all my questions about. I am thankful for your patience and have thus far not forgotten a single instance where it was present. You shaped my interests for such a great portion of my life by introducing me to solace, and for that, there are not words in any language to show gratitude.
You introduced me to stand up comedy. Despite your influence, our tastes remain varied, with the exception of Robin Williams–whom we both love. I believe my appreciation for him was borne of Mrs. Doubtfire, which you introduced to me and proceeded to have to watch every day since, rewinding a VHS tape for me when I was done. But regardless of taste, I found within its bounds the ability to laugh like I hadn’t in years, the practice seeming vaguely alien--a foreign body in a dark state. You made me happy. With artificial flavoring and your renditions of Chamillionare songs. With movies and books and stories. For that I am thankful, and for that I can hardly articulate my regret for this. You are distant and cold when you are sad, and I hope this is not an excuse for you to fold back into yourself. I love you. You have a rich and full life ahead of you that brims with whatever joys you choose to fill it with.
There are days that I look at you and only see the sun. It sets on a tall grass field in the summer, with lazing mosquitoes buzzing thick and heavy in the still air, filled so much with blood they might burst. They are engorged, much as you are, but in leathery richness of red rather than memory. You exist alongside the greatest pieces of time to come, and you create a happiness that cannot be compared to anything else. Nothing like it, not now, exists. You must create it. You smell of sweat and dirt and your hair is long enough to press under your collar. A little overgrown, like the grass. A small, plump hand, like yours when you were that age, but perhaps a little different, too, will pull you further toward the setting sun.
A secret? My dear Nicolas? You will be a better dad than either of us can dream of. (I am taking my time / Watching the / Afterbirth of a nation / Watching the tension grow). You were built for making something new and wonderful and revolutionary, and your hands are those which pitch stones that build the foundation of home. I am already sorry I can’t meet them, and I hope they’ll keep your eyes.
Mia: Hello. I believe it is not without reason to say that we have grown closer in the last few years. Afore that, you were often so busy with working or law school or waitressing or traveling that you spent little time at home. Seeing you was a reward long awaited, and not often received. You have been here more recently now, and even with a job that keeps you far for long, I see you with far more frequency than I previously did, and for that I am grateful. I hope you know that I appreciate you teaching me how to drive. My hands still shake and I’m still too nervous a wreck to do much, but the first day I ever sat in your car and made slow loops around a church parking lot, I was happy for the first time in a very long time. It felt as though I finally had control over some aspect of my life. It was freeing and powerful and made me want to Get The Hell Out Of Here all the more. You have taught me much more than that which may be measured in miles. You know that, I’m sure.
I don’t believe I understood your looking out for me until this year. Max visited, for the first time in six months. He was taller and his hair was darker from the lack of sun. His freckles had, for the most part, retracted into his skin, leaving only faint marks that they had ever been littered across the bridge of his nose. He stood in front of me much like a stranger does, and I found myself speaking to him with a removed sort of nonchalance that I can only explain through means of distance. And yet. (“Frail? Sure. Vulnerable? And yet… My favorite words, ‘and yet’.”) I know now, being separated as I am, that there isn’t a single thing in the world I wouldn’t do for him. He is to me as I am to you. In need of protection. I will sacrifice all for him without thought. When I was young, I used to imagine two people I loved standing atop thin pillars of stone, hundreds of feet above glowing magma, their faces distorted in the reflecting brightness. Sometimes they were you and Nick. Sometimes my mom and dad. I imagined being tasked to pick between them. To send the other to their death. Some years later I found the way out would be my own sacrifice, but for Max there is no question.
I think perhaps this is the dedication you might view me in. I am entirely undeserving of it, but understand it nonetheless. I believe that you are the most headstrong person I know. I believe that you love without much condition so intensely that it nearly burns. I know you have a blossoming life in front of you. That the sun will rise each day despite your troubles and you will set the world back into its axis. You will be the greatest mother the world has ever known, and of the freaky-strong, lift-a-car-type women that make Florida headlines. You are an unstoppable and will move each inch of the world if it stands in your way. I hope more than anything that you continue with your art. In the past few years, you have made more time for it than you have before, and you have grown into a newly invigorated person because of it. I am elated to see you so happy. Know that you are loved, entirely and without reserve, by so many and so much. You have moved mountains in your past hundred lives and this case is no different. I give you your rope, so go.
Max: Hello starshine. How I hope you know the sun rises to greet you. I know you are far wiser than me and thus require very little on my part. Knowing you has been the greatest kindness that chance has allowed me in this lifetime. My copies of The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings are set out in the bottom drawer of my dresser for you, alongside an old film camera once belonging to my grandpa that I hope you might like.
When you and I were both younger than we are now, I read The Hobbit to you when no one else was awake to put you to sleep. You, perhaps, were the push that lead to my staying up at night. I am grateful for it, as no stars but yourself are visible in the day. I don’t believe we ever made it past fifteen pages, and after the time it took to come so far I’d carry you back to your room. I don’t think I could anymore, but you’ve grown far too old for falling asleep in odd places anyhow. I mentioned the story to you the last time I saw you in person. You told me that you’d hear me reading it from across the country, and I hope you did.
The camera was a gift from my grandmother. Her husband took it when they went together on trips on his motorcycle. I never knew him, but he wrote a story about his life that I’m sure my mom will let you read if you tell her you’re interested. He was a wonderful man, as you too will one day be, with the same good natured face that you have. He took hundreds of pictures on that camera, and was happy every time he clicked the shutter. I hope that happiness extends to you, and that it might allow you to capture your view of the world; which is unlike any other I have yet to know. Little prince from who knows where: I hope you save the bees you find in pools like I taught you, and no matter where you go, take a pair or two of wool socks, which will keep you warm no matter how weathered they might become.
Fin I conclude knowing I am destined to fade as all else. As all does and will for all of earth and its surroundings. For explanation, if searching for it is necessary: I feel as though I am beyond help--like I've become so horridly dissolved into my fantasies about the future that I have completely lost the ability to hold onto anything real. I have no hope for growing older--no sense that I really ever will. It is a little like drowning, like having sat for too long at the bottom of a swimming pool that coming up for air seems foolish to pursue if one wishes to retain the faintest heir of dignity about them. Like the surface is too far a climb anyway; an unbreakable glass ceiling. Finally, This was never the person I imagined I’d grow into, and every bit of resentment I feel toward myself is reflected in the aluminum of each passed mirror. I’d give everything to be someone else, but know I possess nothing of sufficient value to make the exchange.
It feels as though my heart is still sinking, despite eventual ascension. There is something inside me that says, “Not yet”. Still, it becomes harder to gasp for air, as I have none the reason to.
I hear, sometimes, the light. “So shines a good deed...” but I am the weary world it speaks of. The air settles around it as it lays its head on its arm.
So as far as wishes may go, for one as dead as I: 1. Tell my cat I love him, and give him an extra treat for me, especially when he does not deserve it. Cats are far more clever than anyone else, and I understand him to be knowledgeable of my parting before any other. This, I think, is why he sits so close to me as I work. He is to soon fill space. 2. Do what you will with my words. They are the only gift I can truly bestow, and they litter about me like debris. They are no more mine now than anyone else's. 3. Don’t forget what happened to the man who suddenly got everything he always wanted
             Cheerily,          
                              Adya 
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Depression can be a reaction to adverse life circumstances, it can also affect anyone, regardless of wealth or success. Even people who are happy & content with their lives are not protected from episodes of mental ill-health. When we tell people with depression to count their blessings, we bring about the stigma of mental illness by implying it stems from a lack of perspective. A so-called ‘first world problem.’ In fact, depression exists across many cultures and has its roots in a complex combination of neurological, social and environmental factors, some of which are not yet fully understood. When we first confided in someone else about our depression, we may have heard the words, ‘But you have so much to be grateful for!’  It’s a common response to mental health issues; sometimes said in exasperation, sometimes a genuine attempt to help us to look on the bright side. Yet despite good intentions, it can also be profoundly unhelpful.  Many of us are highly sensitive, empathic individuals who are affected by injustice and the misery of others every time we switch on the news. Depression makes us prone to low self-esteem and guilt. Mothers are more likely to suffer from depression during the prenatal & postnatal pregnancy .periods according to a study’s that led to calls for a change in way women are cared. I just want to narrate an incident . I was going through this period of postnatal depression & anxiety for almost 3 to4 yrs. This was actually due to my back to back unplanned pregnancies..I had spent long periods in depression, & experienced the panic attacks.. or helplessness, like I was living in fear to manage things alone. I struggled to focus on anything for any period of time, being a therapist I was knowing the root cause of my situation..I remember after my 2nd pregnancy doctor told me what your problem.? .What kind of stress you have & why your BP IS SHOOT & not coming back to normal from past one week. she gave me the medications …it was like sedation sleeping pills so that the mind gets Rest.& I could sleep properly..which I did not take as I had to take care of kids..though I had support systems with me . My sister .My husband my biggest supporter was also there but then also I was having this feelings of helplessness. .that was due to stressors to having a child & raising them. I was going through all stress. I had fears in my mind of managing things alone which were converted in panic attacks..I had been through this period of isolation, Completely detached from world ,I was not socializing much as my fears would trigger the panic attacks ..living in my comfort zone..all this time I was missing my mom desperately…as things could have been much easier for me .but I had this habit of praying &meditating & every time I had any problem I use to prey to my( holy mother )I would get instant help….as time heels every things … I did not take any medication but with help of few support systems ,few close friends & my sister who have a very special place in my heart I bounced back to life you can say..initially it was difficult for me socializing with them but eventually I had overcome my fear…& my kds are also grown …my kids now go to school & soon I had my independence day also…I know all mommies can relate to me…now who know me see me as completely transformed person , I am perusing all my hobbies in spare time. I am completely healed…&I know if have any problem I always keep on talking to my( holy mother )people call it hallucination but I call it faith..i get instant answers … Here are Symptoms of Depression If any of the following mentioned feelings last for several days (approximately 2 weeks) then it’s a wise decision to ask for help: Feeling sad or low Feeling anxious or empty Feeling desperate or doubtful Feeling remorseful, valueless, or helpless Feeling irritable Having trouble with attention, memory, or decision-making Not enjoying things that once used to excite you Change in the appetite Sleeping too much or too little Sudden weight fluctuation Thoughts of suicide or death Solitude or isolation Stressful life experiences Absence or lack of social support Financial stress Family history of depression Relationship problems Unemployment Childhood trauma Childhood abuse Alcohol or drug abuse Health problems Chronic pain Here are some helpful ways to overcome depression: Make Connections. Good relationships with close family members, friends or others are important. Accepting help and support from those who care about you and will listen to you strengthens . Some people find that being active in civic groups, faith-based organizations or other local groups provides social support and can help with reclaiming hope. . Avoid Seeing Crises as Insurmountable Problems. You can't change the fact that highly stressful events happen, but you can change how you interpret and respond to these events. Try looking beyond the present to how future circumstances may be a little better. Note any subtle ways in which you might already feel somewhat better as you deal with difficult situations Accept That Change Is a Part of Living. Certain goals may no longer be attainable as a result of adverse situations. Accepting circumstances that cannot be changed can help you focus on circumstances that you can alter Move Toward Your Goals. Develop some realistic goals. Do something regularly — even if it seems like a small accomplishment — that enables you to move toward your goals. Instead of focusing on tasks that seem unachievable, ask yourself, "What's one thing I know I can accomplish today that helps me move in the direction I want to go?" .Take Decisive Actions. Act on adverse situations as much as you can. Take decisive actions, rather than detaching completely from problems and stresses and wishing they would just go away. .look for Opportunities for Self-Discovery. People often learn something about themselves and may find that they have grown in some respect as a result of their struggle with loss. Many people who have experienced tragedies &hardship have reported better relationships, a greater sense of personal strength even while feeling vulnerable, an increased sense of self-worth, a more developed spirituality and a heightened appreciation for life. . Nurture a Positive View of Yourself. Developing confidence in your ability to solve problems and trusting your instincts helps build resilience. . Keep Things in Perspective. Even when facing very painful events, try to consider the stressful situation in a broader context and keep a long-term perspective. Avoid blowing the event out of proportion Maintain a Hopeful Outlook. An optimistic outlook enables you to expect that good things will happen in your life. Try visualizing what you want, rather than worrying about what you fear. Take Care of Yourself. Pay attention to your own needs and feelings. Engage in activities that you enjoy and find relaxing. Exercise regularly. Taking care of yourself helps to keep your mind and body primed to deal with situations Luv & Light Jai Mata Di
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bizmaster · 4 years
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We are in the middle of some difficult times.  Rather than belabor that point, I’d like to come to the heart of the problem:  What do we do?  We need to answer that question in an immediate, urgent basis:  What do we do right now?
In an earlier article, I shared some suggestions to help individuals navigate these turbulent waters.  In this article, I’m focusing on sales forces. So, this is specifically written to owners, CEOs, Chief Sales Officers, and other sales leaders.
A Mile-High View
Before I offer some recommendations, let’s take a bit of a mile-high view.  We have been here before.  As a nation, as individuals, and every level of society in between, this level of confusion and anxiety is not new.
Now, it may be new for you.  Depending on your age, this may be your first encounter with life that hasn’t gone according to your plan. But it certainly isn’t unique for many of us. We have lived through the oil embargo in the 70s; Jimmy Carter’s malaise and inflation in the teens; the 911 attacks and the resulting tailspin in the economy; the dot com crises, and the 2008 real estate crisis.  I’ve seen my business so devastated that I had to tell my staff that I could no longer make payroll.
But I don’t just draw from my experience in my business.  As a sales consultant, I have personally and contractually worked with over 500 companies.  Their sizes ranged from under $1 Million in annual sales to over $8 Billion – all B2B sellers of some kind.
In all of this, I have learned some lessons and gained some wisdom that may be helpful to you. I like to think of it as two issues:  Shoring up and gearing up.
1. Navigating:
Sales Leaders Must Shore Things up for Immediate Survival
It may be that you don’t need to worry, because of the happy coincidence of being in the right place at the right time.  One of my clients sells meat to grocery stores, for example.  The demand has spiked as people are not going to restaurants and are cooking at home. He’s had to put his customers on allocation. However, most of you are likely to be dealing with customers who won’t or can’t see your salespeople, customers who may be teetering on the edge of insolvency, and a pervasive climate of uncertainty and anxiety.
Three recommendations:
Navigating Difficult Times – Sales Leaders: Bring the troops inside.
Your salespeople are probably frustrated with their inability to see their customers. Now is the time to direct them and enable them to work inside – probably from their home. You’ll need to invest a little bit in equipment and software and provide them some minimal training. Once they become acclimated, they should be productive and much more positive. They, and you, will gain a competency that will separate you from the competition, and pay off long-term as well as short-term. You may want to check out our video: How to Sell to Customers When You Can’t Visit Them:  Using Technology to Sell Better Remotely.
Navigating Difficult Times – Sales Leaders: Install some new management routines.
If you haven’t already, now is the time to install a weekly one-on-one conference between your salespeople and your sales management.  The conference should focus on this week’s plans and last week’s progress. Your salespeople are doing something new and will need some high-touch encouragement. Also, when there is a crisis in the environment, they are far more amenable to change than when things are going according to plan. This is a great time to install some of those management best practices they may have been resistant to before. If and when they return to outside selling, you can push the weekly conferences to monthly.  But for now, the weekly touch can be very effective.
As a side note, you may want to check on their activity from time to time.  They should be making their calls via a phone system (not their cell phones) and/or a video platform like Zoom or Skype.  You’ll want to have the capability to monitor their activity. It may seem a little bit like ‘Big Brother.’  But, without exception, every time that I have worked with a client who implemented some kind of activity monitoring, the results were always eye-opening.
Navigating Difficult Times – Sales Leaders: Must be a calm, rational model.
They are all looking for leadership from someone. You are the most likely candidate. Your attitude, your demeanor, and the words you share will go a long way to reassuring people who are anxious and fearful.
2. Navigating:
Gearing up for the Inevitable Opportunity to Come
I am not a futurist, and I make no claim to having any special insight. But, I have been through this a number of times, and I am pretty certain that:
This will end.
Things will be different on the other side of it – but probably not transformationally so.
When it ends, some companies in your industry will be worse for the experience.
A few will be better.
Demand will be pent up and ready to increase disproportionately.
This is the perfect time to make some long-overdue structural changes to the way sales are done in your organization.  Remember, people are much more amenable to change when they are in the middle of a crisis than when things are going along smoothly.  So, you’ll be able to implement some changes that may have met with resistance at a different time.
Navigating Difficult Times – Sales Leaders: Tighten-up your sales system.
Restructure your account priorities.
If you have not yet, then this is the perfect time to rearrange account responsibilities and priorities.  It is likely that your sales force has been spending time with a number of accounts that just aren’t worth it.  Now is the time to rank every account’s potential, and to categorize into three categories – A, B, C – and direct the salesforce to spend more time with A’s.
As a result of having to do business remotely, some of your customers are going to like that approach, and, on the other side, decide that is how they want to do business.  You will identify some salespeople who excel at selling remotely.  Put the two together and create an ‘inside’ sales territory which is defined by phone numbers instead of geographical territories defined by addresses.
These changes will have a bigger impact than anything else you can do.  And the slow time brought on by this crisis is the perfect time to make them. (You may want to review Chapter Six of 11 Secrets Of Time Management for Salespeople for a step-by-step description of how to do this.)
Navigating Difficult Times – Sales Leaders: Prune your sales force.
No one likes to let someone go.  It is often an emotionally draining, guilt-inducing event.
But, you’re a manager.
It comes with the territory. The health and well-being of the enterprise ensure financial and emotional security for all the employees, not just the few who are marginal. It’s likely that some of your salespeople are marginal performers.  For the health of the company, you need to prune the marginal performers so that the entire organization can reach its potential. It’s like a grapevine. New growth won’t happen until you prune the old.  Your marginal performers drag the whole enterprise down. The crisis we are experiencing right now will make their lack of competency or performance even more visible and painful.
Now is the time to make those changes that you have been thinking about.
Navigating Difficult Times – Sales Leaders: Need to improve the competency of your sales team
One of the things I have always liked about sales is this:
You are never as good as you can be.  Every one of your salespeople could be better. 
At the same time, my personal experience indicates that only about 20% of B2B salespeople have ever been taught the best practices of their profession. A little bit of education can have a huge payback just down the road a bit.  Bring them to a higher level of performance now, when there is time available, and they are amenable to learning and change.  (Note, see our Kahle Way® B2B Selling System.)
Navigating Difficult Times – Sales Leaders: Take a hard look at your sales compensation plan
If you make the changes I recommend, above, then it is entirely possible that your salespeople will be doing their jobs somewhat differently after the crisis. What you expect of them may change. It’s time to take a hard look at your sales compensation plan and consider revising it to meet the new conditions. Again, from my personal experience, most sales compensation plans are vestiges of years gone by, designed to incent behavior that is no longer at the crosshairs of the bull’s eye.
If you restructure your account priorities, prune your salesforce, improve their competencies, and revise your sales compensation plan, you will be prepared to increase market share and dramatically improve sales on the other side of this crisis.
-We are in the middle of some difficult times.  Rather than belabor that point, I’d like to come to the heart of the problem:  What do we do?  We need to answer that question in an immediate, urgent basis:  What do we do right now? In an earlier article, I shared some suggestions to help […]- #SHOWCASEHOMEPAGE, #BIZSPECTRUM, #BLESSEDFORSUCCESS, #@Sales|Marketing -Dave Kahle
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Depression can be a reaction to adverse life circumstances, it can also affect anyone, regardless of wealth or success. Even people who are happy & content with their lives are not protected from episodes of mental ill-health. When we tell people with depression to count their blessings, we bring about the stigma of mental illness by implying it stems from a lack of perspective. A so-called ‘first world problem.’ In fact, depression exists across many cultures and has its roots in a complex combination of neurological, social and environmental factors, some of which are not yet fully understood. When we first confided in someone else about our depression, we may have heard the words, ‘But you have so much to be grateful for!’  It’s a common response to mental health issues; sometimes said in exasperation, sometimes a genuine attempt to help us to look on the bright side. Yet despite good intentions, it can also be profoundly unhelpful.  Many of us are highly sensitive, empathic individuals who are affected by injustice and the misery of others every time we switch on the news. Depression makes us prone to low self-esteem and guilt. Mothers are more likely to suffer from depression during the prenatal & postnatal pregnancy .periods according to a study’s that led to calls for a change in way women are cared. I just want to narrate an incident . I was going through this period of postnatal depression & anxiety for almost 3 to4 yrs. This was actually due to my back to back unplanned pregnancies..I had spent long periods in depression, & experienced the panic attacks.. or helplessness, like I was living in fear to manage things alone. I struggled to focus on anything for any period of time, being a therapist I was knowing the root cause of my situation..I remember after my 2nd pregnancy doctor told me what your problem.? .What kind of stress you have & why your BP IS SHOOT & not coming back to normal from past one week. she gave me the medications …it was like sedation sleeping pills so that the mind gets Rest.& I could sleep properly..which I did not take as I had to take care of kids..though I had support systems with me . My sister .My husband my biggest supporter was also there but then also I was having this feelings of helplessness. .that was due to stressors to having a child & raising them. I was going through all stress. I had fears in my mind of managing things alone which were converted in panic attacks..I had been through this period of isolation, Completely detached from world ,I was not socializing much as my fears would trigger the panic attacks ..living in my comfort zone..all this time I was missing my mom desperately…as things could have been much easier for me .but I had this habit of praying &meditating & every time I had any problem I use to prey to my( holy mother )I would get instant help….as time heels every things … I did not take any medication but with help of few support systems ,few close friends & my sister who have a very special place in my heart I bounced back to life you can say..initially it was difficult for me socializing with them but eventually I had overcome my fear…& my were kids are also grown …my kids were off to school & soon I had my independence day also…I know all mommies can relate to me…now who know me see me as completely transformed person , I am perusing all my hobbies in spare time. I am completely healed…&I know if have any problem I always keep on talking to my( holy mother )people call it hallucination but I call it faith..i get instant answers … Here are Symptoms of Depression If any of the following mentioned feelings last for several days (approximately 2 weeks) then it’s a wise decision to ask for help: Feeling sad or low Feeling anxious or empty Feeling desperate or doubtful Feeling remorseful, valueless, or helpless Feeling irritable Having trouble with attention, memory, or decision-making Not enjoying things that once used to excite you Change in the appetite Sleeping too much or too little Sudden weight fluctuation Thoughts of suicide or death Solitude or isolation Stressful life experiences Absence or lack of social support Financial stress Family history of depression Relationship problems Unemployment Childhood trauma Childhood abuse Alcohol or drug abuse Health problems Chronic pain Here are some helpful ways to overcome depression: Make Connections. Good relationships with close family members, friends or others are important. Accepting help and support from those who care about you and will listen to you strengthens . Some people find that being active in civic groups, faith-based organizations or other local groups provides social support and can help with reclaiming hope. . Avoid Seeing Crises as Insurmountable Problems. You can't change the fact that highly stressful events happen, but you can change how you interpret and respond to these events. Try looking beyond the present to how future circumstances may be a little better. Note any subtle ways in which you might already feel somewhat better as you deal with difficult situations Accept That Change Is a Part of Living. Certain goals may no longer be attainable as a result of adverse situations. Accepting circumstances that cannot be changed can help you focus on circumstances that you can alter Move Toward Your Goals. Develop some realistic goals. Do something regularly — even if it seems like a small accomplishment — that enables you to move toward your goals. Instead of focusing on tasks that seem unachievable, ask yourself, "What's one thing I know I can accomplish today that helps me move in the direction I want to go?" .Take Decisive Actions. Act on adverse situations as much as you can. Take decisive actions, rather than detaching completely from problems and stresses and wishing they would just go away. .look for Opportunities for Self-Discovery. People often learn something about themselves and may find that they have grown in some respect as a result of their struggle with loss. Many people who have experienced tragedies &hardship have reported better relationships, a greater sense of personal strength even while feeling vulnerable, an increased sense of self-worth, a more developed spirituality and a heightened appreciation for life. . Nurture a Positive View of Yourself. Developing confidence in your ability to solve problems and trusting your instincts helps build resilience. . Keep Things in Perspective. Even when facing very painful events, try to consider the stressful situation in a broader context and keep a long-term perspective. Avoid blowing the event out of proportion Maintain a Hopeful Outlook. An optimistic outlook enables you to expect that good things will happen in your life. Try visualizing what you want, rather than worrying about what you fear. Take Care of Yourself. Pay attention to your own needs and feelings. Engage in activities that you enjoy and find relaxing. Exercise regularly. Taking care of yourself helps to keep your mind and body primed to deal with situations Luv & Light Jai Mata Di
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