#but my mental health got A LOT better once i graduated and started earning money. bc now i have autonomy & freedom

[thewhiteroseofvermilion]

Moving Forward

Hello everyone. It’s been a long time since I’ve last spoken to you all, and an even longer time since I’ve last updated this story. Over the months and years, my absence has saddened, frustrated, and even angered many of you. Despite my own valid feelings of how—to put it bluntly—I don’t owe any of you anything as this is something I do for free and in my own free time, I still recognize how it must feel for you all to see something you enjoy so much slowly lose momentum and eventually grind to a halt. Furthermore, my habit of making enthusiastic yet empty statements in between didn’t help either. 

As such, a proper and honest explanation is due, as anything less would be unkind. This will be lengthy, but please bear with me. 

For the past four years, it’s been increasingly difficult to find the time, energy, and motivation for me to properly sit down and write. Seemingly gone are the early days of this story’s life when I was able to publish a new chapter every month or so, or even every two weeks when I was at the top of my game in terms of activeness. Even though I had an immense workload due to being a double major in college, leading me to adopt the best work ethic I’ve ever had, I still led a sheltered lifestyle where I didn’t have to worry about the many looming, inevitable adult responsibilities that were ahead of me.

Those tranquil years of course came to an end when I graduated, and I soon felt immense pressure to shift my attention to finding work, living independently, and working on things that would further my career. While I received support as an aspiring writer from the majority of my family, those being my mother and sister, the both of them commented more frequently as time passed by that my “fanfiction” wasn’t something that I should be spending so much time on anymore. After all, it’s not like I could sell the work as my own, and the fact that despite fanfiction absolutely being a valid artform, it wasn’t something that the world of professional employers cared about. 

Nonetheless, when I did eventually find work as a film freelancer, I still tried to persevere and write on the side. My goal back then was to work in film in order to sustain my pursuit in writing. Film was something I went to school for, greatly enjoyed, and even saw a possible future career for myself in, but it was the writing aspect of it that I was truly after, that being primarily screenwriting. 

After two years of living at home, I felt the need to try and live independently as I outgrew my tiny room and my mom started dating a man that I didn’t particularly like. I knew it wasn’t financially smart of me to do so when my mom allowed me to live with her rent-free. But at the time I thought that it would help me to become more mature and productive, as I would have to force myself to work in order to put a roof over my head and food on the table—as opposed to living a sheltered life at home where everything was taken care of for me. Essentially, I was longing for the lifestyle I had in college, thinking that once I returned to it, I would be able to reacquire that once incredible work ethic I had. 

So, I became roommates with a friend from college and together we rented a townhouse together. Rent wasn’t terribly expensive, but it wasn’t cheap either. Regardless, I was able to make ends meet. My greatest challenge however, was to live up to my family’s spoken and unspoken expectations. On one hand, my mother was sweet and understanding, naturally giving me her full support. My father, on the other, always thought that it’d be better for me to pursue something safer and more lucrative, and to not risk being a starving artist. But the one I had to prove myself the most to was my older sister, who was wildly more successful than I was—financially and professionally. My pay compared to hers was like a drop in a bucket, and I felt both indirect and direct pressure from her to be more “professional” like her. Therefore, I threw myself into my work, which is when things slowly began to go downhill. 

As a film freelancer, my work hours usually averaged between 10-12 hours a day, and with my work taking me all over my home state of Maryland and even into neighboring Washington DC and Virginia, my commute time to and from work ranged anywhere from an additional 1-3 hours. It became incredibly common for me to wake up for work anywhere between 3-6 AM and not get home until 8-10 PM. 

Unbeknownst to me at the time, I slowly slipped into a routine where when I did have the “time” to write, I had zero energy or motivation as my work was so taxing. I reached the point where I had to drink two energy drinks with 300mg of caffeine to get myself to and from work. I saw less and less of my roommate and friends. I spent an alarming amount of money and gained weight from ordering take-out so often because I hadn’t the energy to cook for myself when I got home late from work. There would even be days when I fell into what felt like comas, sleeping up to two days straight at one point. My physical, mental, and emotional health was in serious decline. And yet I didn’t see it that way, as I had become obsessed with trying to prove to my family, my sister in particular, that I wasn’t a failure and that my pursuit of writing wasn’t a hopeless one.

During the first month of COVID-19′s outbreak last year, I finally had a much-needed vacation. This was undoubtedly the best time for me to have returned to writing—but I didn’t. At this point, so much time had passed since my last proper writing session that the few times I did try to write, I found myself completely unable to write anything. I was so out of practice and so out of touch with what I had written. This honestly frightened me, and I soon began to doubt if I could ever be able continue the story with the same quality that so many readers fell in love with. Regrettably, I fled from this revelation long enough for a full month to pass by, and I soon found myself busy with yet another distraction: unemployment. 

I was out of work for about 4.5 months, from the middle of March to the beginning of August. During this time, I had to rely on state unemployment, which earned me great scorn from my older sister. Our relationship had always been uneven since we were kids, but it was becoming increasingly toxic as of late since our college years. I felt so ashamed to tell her how much money I made in a year from my job as a film freelancer, and how I barely managed to move to a better position after four years of work. Riddled with guilt and disappointment in myself, when work became readily available again in August, I frantically threw myself back in harder than ever before. In the past where I had turned down the occasional job to give myself some time to relax or in order to make it to a social outing with friends, I now accepted every job thrown my way, only declining those that would make me double-book myself. I earned a lot of money during those months as a result, and I was so happy to finally distance myself from the stigma of being “unemployed.” However, I once again failed to see that I was yet again sliding back into the lifestyle that had been slowly poisoning me for the past two years. 

After essentially working non-stop from August to March, my body, mind, and soul soon returned right back to the brink of collapse. It wasn’t until then at my lowest point when I finally realized how I initially went from working to sustain myself in order to write, to not writing at all and only working to sustain myself to work even more. It was truly scary to see myself fall victim to a brutal cycle of unfulfilling work that could have trapped me for years to come if I hadn’t broken free first. That’s when I realized that my lifestyle was personally unsustainable, and that something had to change. 

Henceforth, I’ve made the difficult decisions to both transition out of film freelancing and to soon return home to live with my father. At the end of April, the homeowner of the townhouse my roommate and I had been living in for close to three years gave us our 30-days-notice to vacate, as they no longer wished to rent but to sell the property. As my roommate had been planning on finding a place of his own with his girlfriend for quite some time, we split amicably at the end of last month in May and I’ve since moved into a temporary apartment with a friend who has traveled back to Maryland for seasonal work. 

Regarding the change in my career, I’ve been looking into applying for writing positions for something that I’ve grown to enjoy over the past few years, which is to write reviews for media such as film, anime, and videogames. This of course is not what I truly want to do in life, but I think that because it actually involves writing, it would be both good practice in terms of practicing my writing and experience in terms of resume-building. Furthermore, a stable “9-5″ job as such would be good for me, I think, as it would introduce some desperately needed structure back into my life. Being a freelancer was definitely fun as I had the power to choose my own schedule, but it unfortunately fostered a lot of laziness and procrastination when I wasn’t completely burnt out. 

I’ve shared with you all this information, a great deal of it being very personal, in the hopes that it helps you better understand who I am as a person and what I’ve been going through these past four years. 

I understand that my word may be difficult to trust due to my history, but I sincerely wish to let you all know from the bottom of my heart that I do plan on continuing writing The White Rose of Vermilion until it’s completed. My fears and insecurities may have alienated me from that promise, but not once did I ever entertain the idea of fully dropping the story. And I promise you, I never will. It most likely will not further my career in any way, bring any revenue in, and will continue to consume a great deal of my precious free time—yet I still choose to pursue continuing it because I can’t see a future where I don’t finish it.

It is after all my most cherished project; the reason that I was able to truly find my calling as an aspiring writer, its success also ultimately being the proof to my mother that I had some skill as a budding writer, who then gave me her full blessings to pursue it as a career. But most important of all is that it’s the reason why I was able to experience first-hand one of the most important and beautiful discoveries in my entire life. That being the incredible phenomenon of how art is like a beacon—its bright light is powerful enough to reach out and inspire others to create art of their own. From Monty Oum to Nancy Phetchareune to myself, I was blessed enough to see readers create wonderful fanart to show me or tell me in a review that reading my story had inspired them to create something of their own.

I am officially leaving behind my prolonged hiatus and returning to working on The White Rose of Vermilion. While I am extremely hesitant to even estimate when the next chapter will be published, please know that I am genuinely trying to leave behind my habits of old and returning to a more consistent schedule. 

The White Rose of Vermilion will return in:

Arc II, Chapter Twenty-Seven: Stranger in the Night

#TWRoV #The White Rose of Vermilion

[stanandcharleyandfriends]

In the thick of the COVID-19 pandemic, it seemed to Scott Neabore that the pet population had doubled as people bound to their homes sought out cats and dogs for comfort and companionship. His practice in Haddonfield, meanwhile, was still compact — just him and three vet technicians.

His schedule is fully booked with surgeries until autumn. There are no slots for more dental procedures until the beginning of next year. He has performed more spay and neuter surgeries in the last year than he ever did previously.

“The pet population essentially doubled in a year, but the veterinarian population did not,” he said. “Now we’re trying to play catch-up.”

As pet ownership sharply grew in the last year — 11.38 million households in the United States got pets during the pandemic, according to the American Pet Products Association — so did the workload for veterinary practices, many of which simultaneously grappled with COVID-19 safety protocol, concerns of thinning staff, and growing pressure to see as many patients as possible.

Even with nimble vet staff, there was sometimes a waiting period of six to seven hours at the Red Bank Veterinary Hospital emergency room in Hillsborough, N.J. — a delay exacerbated by some owners who brought in their pets for nonurgent matters, veterinarian Agatha Kuza said.

“My job has kind of become a general practice-emergency hybrid,” she said, noting that some people have paid the more expensive emergency hospital fee rather than wait longer to get their animal seen elsewhere.

In a typical 12-hour shift during the pandemic, Kuza saw 10 to 15 patients. On her busiest day, she recalled, she saw 30. Another day, when two other emergency clinics in the area diverted owners to nearby facilities, eight patients showed up at Red Bank Veterinary Hospital within an hour.

The work has become overwhelming, Kuza said. After already long days sometimes peppered with combative or accusatory pet owners, some employees stay an extra hour or two to finish their tasks, she said. Half of the nurses who were working at the hospital when Kuza was hired last year have resigned, and replacements are hard to find.

“I definitely already feel burned out,” said Kuza, who graduated in 2019 from the University of Pennsylvania School of Veterinary Medicine. “I don’t see myself doing emergency — or even veterinary medicine — long term.” She has begun to see a therapist, she said, and take medication.

When COVID-19 and vet medicine collided, it brewed “a perfect storm,” said Jennifer Keeler, executive director of the Pennsylvania Veterinary Medical Association.

“We started out with not being sure if vet clinics could remain open, and in the early days, they were only open for the emergency procedures,” she said. That pushed back routine wellness visits — and the backlog compounded as people began adopting or buying new pets and bringing them in for their first checkups.

“Once they were allowed to do routine care and trying to dig out of that backlog, a lot of staff members are parents whose kids are home,” she said, noting that the majority of veterinarians and veterinary technicians in the United States are women. “So a lot of vet clinics lost staff and have been unable to fill positions. It’s really put a lot of pressure on them.”

Coupled with new rules surrounding COVID-19, such as appointments that required owners to stay outside while their pet was being seen, more owners became frustrated and angry, Keeler said.

“That can be emotional for pet owners because they want to be in with their pet,” she said. “They often give a lot of push-back to vets and staff, so it’s kind of coming at vet professionals from all angles lately.”

Turnover is then high, she said, particularly when there is low pay, little job satisfaction, burnout, and compassion fatigue. Vet technicians and technologists earned an annual median pay of $36,260 in 2020, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics. The agency found that the veterinarians averaged $108,350 a year as of last May.

“I get cursed at at least once a week,” said an emergency veterinarian in Philadelphia who requested anonymity for fear of jeopardizing her job. People also have threatened and yelled at her, she said, slammed doors in her face, and walked out on $2,000 bills. “It’s definitely gotten much worse.”

The workload, too, has been fierce: In the first week of the pandemic, she said, a few cat owners who began to spend more time at home observed their pets more closely and brought them in to be examined. She diagnosed three with having abdominal tumors. And she examined more puppies than usual, many of which came from Lancaster County, Missouri, or Ohio, hot spots for puppy mills.

“Everyone just wants a puppy so much right now that puppies that wouldn’t get adopted with heart murmurs or hernias are getting adopted,” she said.

Recently, she noticed an uptick in animals that had ingested marijuana.

She said she had used her own money to pay for the treatment of six animals surrendered to her practice during the COVID-19 outbreak. One was a puppy with a broken leg; another, a cat with a severed tail.

“There’s no end in sight,” she said, and recalled a shift when she had to handle 15 emergencies by herself. “And we’re just working harder and harder and harder.”

Despite increased stress, “in general, I’m doing better than most people,” she said. “... You have to not take things personally. You have to come up with ways to cope, or you can’t deal with it.”

As it stands, the industry feels broken, said Braelyn Bankoff, a graduate of Penn Vet. She left her job as a small-animal vet in April 2020 after the job left her anxious and unhappy.

“The vet world right now feels set up to go poorly from the start,” she said, and pointed to the high cost of vet school that led to people “feeling trapped” or “forced to work unsustainably,” and the expense of running a tight-margin animal hospital that invited the pressure of seeing as many patients a day as possible. The stress, so crippling at times, has given rise to Not One More Vet, a national nonprofit dedicated to bettering the mental health of vet staff.

“It puts more burden on the existing staff and results in crazy hours, unsustainable workloads, too many client expectations you just can’t support,” Bankoff said.

She ultimately found that the pressure was unhealthy.

“I started developing stress-related illness,” she said. “I saw a psychiatrist and had to get on antidepressants and anxiety medication.” She quit her job without another one lined up and started a job search. She landed her current position, an analyst for the National Board of Medical Examiners, in January.

“It’s absolutely amazing,” she said. “I have hobbies now. I have a life. I am no longer on any meds. I feel very much myself again, and that’s awesome.”

***

Published June 7, 2021. The author, Katie Park, is suburban development reporter for the Philadelphia Inquirer.

#veterinarian #animal hospital #pets #veterinary medicine #dogs and cats

[sabbywrites]

Let’s talk.

This is a long post that also happens to be long overdue. Also posted as a thread to my twitter (tl;dr at end). 

Hi everyone. It’s been a while. I’ve been debating for a little bit on how to write this, going back and forth between feeling scared and feeling determined to say what I want to say. I’m finally at a point where I can confidently say: let’s talk.

First, I want to say this: I’m sorry. I haven’t been very consistent these past two years, with both my writing and with keeping in touch with everyone I’ve met online. If you’re reading this and I haven’t spoken to you in a while, know this: I will be getting in touch with you soon. I haven’t forgotten the amazing people I call friends.

If you folks will have me, I’d love to catch up with everyone I haven’t talked to during my absence. I want to make one thing very, very clear— me being gone was never about me not wanting to talk to the people on here or participate in this community. The thing I regret the most about being gone is leaving people in the dark. If my absence has in any way, shape, or form hurt you, I cannot begin to apologize enough from the bottom of my heart. That was never my intention, although intentions don’t fix the hurt caused.

I want to discuss the reason for my absence, so please bear in mind that I’m not trying to excuse being gone— just explain why.

Some of you may know that I have three diagnosed mental conditions that have mostly been manageable through medication and therapy. When I first started writing online, I was halfway through undergrad and I wanted a place where I could put my writing so people might enjoy it. I found that pretty quickly on Ao3. As I worked on getting my writing degree, I would spend hours and hours working on what became ASID. I was thrilled beyond belief when ASID drew in readers who left wonderful comments.

I have a huge amount of love in my heart for everyone who has ever read any of my works, and I wouldn’t change anything about that. Ever. But as I graduated from college, I started noticing that my mental health was on a sharp decline that it hadn’t been on since high school. I tried to keep it at bay for a while, because I was sure I would bounce back.

I did not.

I began to take small breaks as I jumped into graduate school. I feel very purposeless without school in the background of my life; I’d gotten a degree that a lot of people in my life implied was useless, and with every break I took I felt more and more like an imposter. What’s a writer who doesn’t write? Had I gotten my degree for nothing? I trudged on through grad school and received my Masters in May. It still didn’t feel right. I felt like a failure.

Every time I logged on to talk to friends or check my comments, a voice in the back of my head kept popping up. I was getting older and less motivated. Life outside of undergrad hit me all at once. Nothing I wrote felt good enough to post. The amount of debt I was in already made me ill, and I went through four years of schooling just to feel like the degree I earned was for nothing.

There’s a weird misconception that artists have to be suffering to make good art. We have to be low to do our best. And I was low, lower than I had been since the absolute worst days of my life, and I still couldn’t produce anything. The pain wasn’t enough to jump-start me. What worth did I have, then? What worth does someone who has put their heart into their writing have if they can’t write anymore?

I mistakenly felt like I was an imposter among genuine people, like the friends I had made and the writers I admired were on the other side of a window, in a place I couldn’t get into. When the pandemic rolled around, things had already been teetering on the edge. I won’t sit here and pretend that I got hit any worse than anyone else during 2020— I had a roof over my head and a place to go during my state’s lockdown. But there was ample time, and yet I still wasn’t writing. I couldn’t even do that right. I had to rawdog my mental illness for a stretch, live in a town where the worst trauma of my life had happened to me, and feel like a total, complete, garbage failure every single day. Logging in was more and more of a reminder that I was dead weight.

Financially, I wasn’t doing much better. In the past year or so, I’ve had to provide for myself living on my own on an nonprofits’s pay (not much), as well as occasionally provide for my uncle. I’d thought that by my mid-twenties my life would be different; that I’d be better. In the last few months, it’s become clear that I require surgery for something that may not yet be able to be covered by my insurance; my options now are to wait for it to progress and get worse for coverage or pay out of pocket for the surgery sooner. It’s likely I will need a second one afterwards to completely correct my issues.

For a while, that just made the idea of writing again feel selfish. Why spend time interacting with the community when I should be working to make money because I wasn’t eligible for the stimulus? Why sit down and write something that I would probably just scrap anyway? There’s a lot of other more personal things that happened during my absence that I won’t delve into, including the passing of our family dog. I’m sorry if this seems vague as well, or if it appears that I’m just trying to make excuses— I’m not. Ever since I was younger, I’ve always kind of receded in on myself any time I feel anxious or like a phony. I know it’s not a good habit.

So that’s why I’m here right now, writing this. If I could go back and tell myself that those things I thought about myself weren’t true— that I deserve to have fun in this community and I deserve to talk to the people I care about— I would. But unfortunately, I can’t do that. All I can do is move forward.

I’m not going to sit here and promise that things will be the way that they were back when I first started; not right away, at least. But as of lately I’ve been letting myself peek at my Tumblr dash every so often or log into my Ao3 to see my comments. Those things used to scare me— and they still kind of do right now— but I can’t let them anymore. Joining this community is one of the best things I have ever done. I mean that. The people I’ve met, the comments I’ve received, hell even the discourse I’ve jumped in on— I wouldn’t trade any of it. Things might be overwhelming for a little bit as I adjust to being back after so long, but I want to be here. I want to let myself be happy again.

If you’ve read this far— thank you. Thank you so much for your love and for your patience. Like I said before, I cannot stress enough that my absence was because of myself alone and had nothing to do with my amazing friends on here or the community. If I haven’t messaged you in a long time— again, I apologize. I really, really did drop off. But the only way I can be better at being consistent with the people I care about is by holding myself accountable, not shrinking away.

It may take me a few days to really sort through all of my unread messages and comments and asks and give them the attention they deserve. But I promise, I’ll reach out to everyone whenever I’ve taken the time to do so. Thank you all for being there even when I am not.

Tl;dr—Mentally and financially, I’ve been struggling a lot this past year. I fell back into bad habits of receding into myself and leaving people in the dark, and I really wish I hadn’t. I’d love to be a more active part of this community again. I love all of you so, so much. 

#sabby rambles

[nightwideeyes]

2020 review

do we really wanna do this? I’m not sure but god knows I need it.

shout out to 2016 me for starting this. I’ll compare it afterwards and see how many steps I’ve taken back

okay okay all jokes aside

all the bad shit that happened, all my thoughts, all my feelings

this is 2020 in retrospect, so buckle up and join me on the ride

see, I was pretty hopeful for this year because I spent half of 2019 in a toxic relationship which I deeply and passionately regret with all my heart because it took a toll on my mental health. The rest of 2019 I spent recovering from self hate and anxiety

so I went into 2020 with a fresh start fever thinking this is the year that will change things

but the anxiety didn’t really leave. throughout january i was rather okay, euphoric about the new year. at the end of february my anxiety got worse and i was overthinking a lot, started being tense a lot etc etc

then march the absolute avalanche introduced herself. miss rona. i don’t want to whine about how shit the pandemic is, how terrible it hit us all because it certainly hit people a lot harder than me but still, it’s not nice, its annoying and frustrating and can mess with someones head enough

so during march and april my anxiety was on peak levels. i was constantly mad, upset or nervous and had to spent my time in homeschool, having no distraction whatsoever

i spent a lot of time outside in the forest and discovered new magical places where I could find some peace and thats where I’ve been hiding away during may, becoming part of nature, finding back to my old self somehow

on my birthday the 11th I was feeling well, I was content and happy and thought shit would be alright again

but the day after I came home from school and received the message that my fathers cancer was back after 10 years. although I’ve pretended like it wasn’t all hopeless and things would be alright again I think it hit me the hardest this year. it’s been the starting point of me confronting myself once again with the thought of him dying, of leaving us behind, of me having all the responsibility of what he would leave us. of going through the struggle again, of going to hospitals again, of seeing him vanish again. it was devastating.

in may I attended an assessment center for a job I wanted to do with all my heart and felt so confident and strong that I could do it

but in june I received a letter of rejection and had to write myself in for another year of school because i didn’t really have an alternative

meanwhile my dads treatment got rescheduled again and again until june and he had his operation on the day I wrote my second final

so unknowingly and unnoticeably i was put under so much pressure of one unfortunate event following the next and it felt like I was just supposed to function when I didn’t want to function anymore

but these times ended and I wrote my fucking finals, passed them, celebrated a bit and my father recovered too, like we all had hoped anyway but didn’t know for sure

so summer had been the best time. although there were still restrictions on public life me and my friends had so much fun together and did amazing things and I think we just grew closer from the creativity of coming with ways to spent time with each other without having to go out much

i was doing a lot of yoga, a lot of mental self care during summer, watching atla, spending time trying to get in touch with my body and soul and I discovered some good music that helped me find myself and develop myself

at this point I would like to thank

5 seconds of summer; for making me realize that deep in my heart I will forever be teenage me stuck in my emo phase and that’s how I feel most comfortable

Upsahl; for reminding me that I’m a bad bitch who doesn’t need anyone or anything to be happy with herself

Yungblud, for reminding me its okay not to be okay and that broken people stand up for themselves and are strong together

and Blackpink, mostly for giving me more reasons to simp for cute girls

in august i was working for two weeks at a factory to earn some money and although I’ve been there before this time it’s just been hard. I felt really stupid and not taken seriously by the staff and I think that’s when I was getting anxious again, feeling very stupid and very unable to do anything right

from the anxiety starting in august it went into september with me. I started a new school year, gave this weird boy a ride to school two times before I scared him off for some reason (maybe because I was giving him badass lesbian vibes as I was playing Use Me by PVRIS in my car constantly) and was quarantined on the second day of school bc of our english teacher

in september my dad was submitted into the hospital a second time and we thought he had gotten worse again but this time it was a result of too much mental pressure. i was stressing into that again, thinking of ways I could help him with his responsibilities and worries.

the rest of september I spent in this weird state of perpetual tension and kind of continued it into october

on the fourth of october I went to Lehesten all by myself and I felt so proud and accomplished and I realized that I don’t need anyone to feel better but myself. so I went on some more field trips in october, enjoying some me time and some peace of mind, getting back into the bands I was listening to as a teen, recalling the times I felt free with myself

in november I was living off post human survival horror and felt so careless yet free of all of my worries, feeling numb but content

so until december there have been pecks of anxiety here and there but I’ve spent the fall months rather well, mentally

now december started well but the anxiety has increased again and now it’s been on moderate levels

but nonetheless I’m getting through day by day and I hope I will reach the state of carelessness again in order to collect my thoughts

so although 2020 has been a year of disappointment, hurt, fear and way too many thoughts and worries I would like to move onto the point of this list which might help me move on further

2020 positivity

a collection of things I've learned, I am grateful for and what I've experienced and done all year which I am proud of

- I've been more open and confident about my sexuality than ever before

- I've been spending so much time outside getting inspired

- I've been creative

- I've been writing the most honest and uplifting poetry ever since I started

- I've self printed and binded a poetry collection of my past and the sorrows that came with it to help overcome it

- I've started drawing again, started yoga and meditation and enhanced my spirituality, I've picked up the guitar again

- I've graduated 12th grade with an average of 1.6

- I've started 13th grade with crippling fear of failing and got used to it after a month and appreciated the challenge

- I've dealt with a big disappointment and learned that when one door closes a new one opens somewhere else

- I've learned what it means to support each other as a family but also when it's time to step back and distance yourself to protect yourself when you can't help anymore

- I've been getting in touch with the most free and careless version of myself

- I've rediscovered my love for old music I used to listen to

- I've learned that I don't need anyone to do what makes me happy

- I've learned to appreciate my friends more than ever for being my light and support

so although this year was full of disappointment and hurt and fear and worries it helped me grow

throughout this year I have been the bravest, strongest, most honest and authentic version of myself

I do not have any hopes for 2021. I just want to continue growing the roots I have dug for myself now. I want to continue blooming into the person I've strived to become all these years

I want to grow and continue blooming. I want to continue becoming the version of myself that makes me feel content about myself. But I also want to know I am valuable and whole at any time.

I want to overcome this anxiety and I want to be free of fear again.

so this is me manifesting it.

I will grow and I will continue blooming. I will continue becoming the version of myself that makes me feel content about myself. I am valuable and whole at any time. And I will overcome this anxiety and I will be free of fear again. I will not be afraid anymore. I will be clear again.

Ich werde keine Angst mehr haben, ich werde wieder klar sein.

#personal #2020 review #2020 positivity #growth #i guess

[vithyahairandmakeup]

My Decade

My 2010 started with me finishing my one year diploma at London College of Fashion. I was so excited to start my new career with this prestigious qualification at one of the World’s top fashion institutions, but the makeup artist I used to look up to so much then, told me that I would not last long in this field. She broke my heart. And not because I thought I was doomed, but because of how discouraging and mean she was. 

Up until that moment I thought I had to prove something to my family, but then quickly realised that I am leaving one pack of wolves - my family of course - to walk into another - this industry!I swore to myself then, that I would encourage and support any other makeup artist along my journey and not be like her. I would like to believe that I stayed true to that to some extent. Whatever she had told me did place some doubt in my heart. Just as a precaution I thought I better apply somewhere and work part time at least. So I applied at MAC cosmetics, who had actually rejected me. They then gave me a call a few months later and asked if I could cover during their busy christmas period. Once I started at MAC, they kept me on and I worked for them for another 3 years. They even offered me the managerial position, the irony.

During the three years at MAC, I was so unsure and so confused in what direction I wanted to go in. It was a part time position, so it didn’t pay well, and I was desperately trying to freelance on the weekends. I would get a client once every few months, who wouldn’t pay me much. Without a car, without a proper makeup trolley, it was agony carrying my suitcase up and down underground staircases and holding onto it with my dear life during packed train journeys. I can assure you, it was not a pleasant experience at all.I tried being part of short movies, worked with the National Portrait Gallery, the Arcadia group (who own Topshop, Dorothy Perkins etc.), fashion shows for Nintendo, and even a shoot for British Airways. But all were unpaid and definitely got me nowhere except for a few phone pictures to add to my Facebook Page.

I would come home after a long day of standing and lugging my suitcase around, and my parents would look at me with judgemental eyes wondering why a science graduate who landed a very well paid job in a huge marketing company, would give it all up to do makeup on people for minimum wages and be treated like a servant?I honestly never ever regretted my decision. Yes it was tough not making money, and spending all my earnings on building a better makeup kit or on my travel, but it gave me life; it brought me happiness, it made me want to get out of bed, and it definitely distracted me from my anti depressants and suicidal thoughts. Being a makeup artist brought me back to life.

In 2013, I quit MAC and took the brave decision to go self employed. I registered my company officially. My freelance work had picked up, and I wanted to free my weekends from working in retail. I wanted to explore more and try out new things.I still remember I had hit 10K followers on Instagram after joining in 2012 and more and more people started to get to know me around the world. Instagram opened up a lot of doors for me.Having lived in Germany most of my childhood, my parents were ok with me travelling to Europe for bridal jobs because I was able to stay with family. I think I was the first Tamil makeup artist back then who travelled to neighbouring countries for work. That was probably one of the best decisions I had made. Travelling around Europe and doing makeup got me exposed a lot more and people who were not on social media knew of my existence. 

And as per usual I would still collaborate and work for free with anyone who contacted me. I wanted to get out there and try everything new. During exactly one of these collabs, I was asked to come early morning one day, to do makeup on a male model for a music video shoot. When I arrived that Monday morning I nearly fainted at the sight of Simbu, a very famous Tamil Actor. I was getting my station ready when the makeup artist who was hired for the entire movie did end up coming for this music video shoot. I was gutted. I thought I won’t get a chance to work with him and was prepared to pack up and leave. But the organiser was adamant that I stay and help out. I asked the makeup artist if I could do touch up makeup at least for a few scenes, and she kindly let me. The pictures I took of that moment went viral in South India, and that was the first time people in India started following my work on social media or even knew of my existence.It was also the first time a lot of makeup artists noticed me and can I just say they were not happy with this newbie getting to work with celebrities. 

It got worse in 2014 when I was asked to do makeup for another famous Actress, Sneha, for a Wedding Exhibition. To be honest I was very overwhelmed. I did not think I was cut out for the job and kept asking the organisers why not pick some of the more experienced makeup artists. I really was not ready for such a big job. I wasn’t confident.However, the organiser told me that out of all the profiles she had sent Sneha, Sneha herself picked me. That was all I needed. I spoke to Sneha on the phone a week before her arrival, and met her a few days before the show, to discuss the looks and make sure she was happy with everything.Working with her will forever be one of my most cherished moments in my career. She believed in me and trusted me. However a lot of people were absolutely angry at the thought of me doing makeup on someone as famous as her. They could not comprehend that someone as inexperienced, nor established as myself would bag in a job like this. I did understand their disappointment, but was sad that no one seemed to want to support me. 

Later that same year, I was asked if I was interested in being a production assistant for two songs from the movie Nanbenda; it was a Red Giant Production acting Udhayanidi and Nayanthara, line produced by Kavino from MYA Media. Of course I know nothing about production, but did not want to turn down this opportunity, so took 9 days off and decided to help out. The shoot took place all over Great Britain with a huge budget and an experience of a life time. I got to personally work with Nayanthara and saw what happened behind the scenes. I made great friends during that shoot, even had the responsibility of finding a castle and two horses for one scene, but went home having to deal with a divorce. Even though career-wise 2014 was a great year for me, but on a personal level I had to deal with a lot of heart ache. And no, it had nothing to do with my career, it was simply bad timing. 

The following few years just had me on a rollercoaster to be honest. I tried numerous new things; being a TV host, a judge for dance competitions and beauty peagants, modelling, acting in commercials which never made it on TV, makeup for adverts, short films, magazine shoots, editorials, none were paid of course, until I found a new love for teaching.

I started teaching one-to-one tutorials in 2014 and remember I couldn’t even get two students that December. The following year it grew to 10 students, and in 2016 I had back to back students who were willing to pay whatever I quoted. That I when I made the decision of doing a Masterclass after seeing Mario (Kim Kardashian’s Makeup Artist) do these around the US. I had no guidelines nor knew how to start. Masterclasses were unheard of in our community. I was the first.I hired a small gallery space, and rented 20 chairs. I had my cousins and friends help me set up and we bought a Kettle and paper cups to serve tea and coffee for everyone. I thought the day went so well, and absolutely enjoyed the teaching, to get a call at the end of that day from my mum crying down the phone telling me that our house got robbed. Well we quickly found out that nothing was actually stolen, but the house just go trashed. A lot of us that night stayed up thinking someone did not want me to do these classes. My high ended with such a low, and got worse when I woke up to a lot of emails from our students complaining about numerous things in regards to my Masterclass. Today, I have taught 16 classes all over the world now with as many as 80 students, and for renowned makeup brands such as Bobbi Brown and Nars Cosmetics. So don’t ever let anyone or anything stop you from what you love and what you are meant to do.

Anyway, the following years have definitely been the best; from campaign shoots for Pothys, being flown out around the world for Bridal jobs, being a panelist and being a Keynote speaker for American Express, working with South Indian Movie celebrities Amy Jackson, Bharathirajah, the beautiful Sneha again, and Meena, being in charge of Makeup for Anirudh’s Concert in London and Paris, interviewed on mental health and published in Huffington Post, and my YouTube journey with my Saree draping video amassing nearly 6 million views. I know this is not work related but me marrying the most amazing human being in New York almost 3 years ago definitely was a huge benefactor in my career too. Happiness does wonders, I tell you.

Either way, none of it came easy. Yes it was hard work, but no one ever publicly or openly talks about the politics and the drama that happen in the industry behind closed doors. How not only do you have to deal with your nerves when working on a big project but you probably have to pray all day that no one tries to sabotage this opportunity for you; that no one talks to the organiser and pays them off to drop you last minute (has happened to me countless times), and hope that no one talks behind your back and invents rumours about you. The best rumour was that my ex husband left me because I was having a relationship with Simbu apparently. When my Bride told me that, my answer was “I wish”. We had such a laugh that day.

My last 10 years taught me so much. I grew on a professional and personal level. I think maturity and experience has helped me deal with a lot of it, and face a lot of it.I have some amazing friends also who are in the same field as me, and I have never stopped encouraging, teaching, or inspiring others who are entering this industry. I want to be that someone I never had 10 years ago. Jealousy, competitiveness, and hate does nothing but destroy. It ruins, and it causes nothing but pain. Fame can be another culprit too. It’s great to want to grow on social media, but do not lose your morals, values, and principles along the way. Once you lose respect, it is very hard to earn it back.

How does one deal with all of this? I used to wonder why some people were so horrible, but then gave up trying to figure out what their reasons were. I still get hate or have situations were other makeup artists try and make it very difficult for me, but the first step was to block a lot of words and people on social media. Of course we want to be liked, and we want to be a good person and set a good example, but do we really need to prove something to someone who does not know you nor like you? No matter what line of business you are, there is going to be competition. There is going to be people around you who are going to watch you like a hawk and copy every single thing that you do. But let that be a positive thing. Let that challenge you to do better, and be better, and get outside of your comfort zone. Focus on your own path and cut out anything or anyone who stresses you out or causes negativity. It really is as simple as that.Comparing yourself to others is the worst thing you could do to yourself. Insecurities do not get you anywhere. Have the right people around you who feed your soul with positivity and happiness. And definitely stay away from those who like to gossip about others in the industry. Never healthy I tell you. Trust me, I have been there, done that.

My testimony is to help you see the non-glamorous side of my job, but also see how it has never been easy and still isn’t for any of us. In 2007 I tried to take my life. If anyone had told me then, that in 2020 I will be writing a blog about how to deal with negativity, I would have laughed in their face. But here I am today, doing what I love, loving life, and not being the slightest bit deterred by the few who will always try and bring you down. I have an amazing support system of family and friends, and there are hundreds of thousands of you who support me, so surely that has to count for something too. I am so ready to take on the next decade. Are you?

[smokeybrand]

The Rising Tide Raises All Ships

I don't understand people who are so ardently against social systems. Like, it's pulling eye-teeth just to have what little we do. I can't tell you how many f*cking time some MAGA cultist attacks food stamps or welfare like it's the worst thing ever but it's like, the ones who abuse it like you say, look like you. They don't look like me. There's always bad actors in any system, but if the majority carries on the way they should, then that system should function regardless. We know it can because it's being executed in real time, all over the world. There's a reason why the happiest places on earth, have the most expansive social welfare systems. Its fine to drive capitalism, no one's telling you not to work hard, but if we expanded those processes, everyone benefits. If everyone contributes a little more to the pool, all of our boats rise with the tide. I mean, seriously, if 2020 has taught us anything, it's that the systems we have in pace right now, don't work. They are easily exploited, easily manipulated, and completely counter intuitive to living life. There is a literal f*cking plague going on and our president is forcing people back to work and kids back to class because the economy. If that don't scream broke and needs fixing, I don't what does.

Free Healthcare means no worries going to the doctor. Paper cut, baby delivery, broken bone, or f*cking cancer, there'd be no stressing over how to pay those ridiculous bills. They wouldn't be ridiculous. I think in Canada an ambulance ride is, like, $230 dollars, average, depending on circumstances. In some places, it's as low as $45 and others, as high as $385. The average here in the States is closer to $1200 f*cking dollars. For just the ambulance. That's not even beginning to address the hospital visit and hope you don't an extended stay. These mother*ckers gave me a bill for close to $50,000 for my two week stay the first time I almost died. Bro, there's no way I am ever going to pay that. The f*ck is you saying? I read an account of someone going to the emergency room in the Philippines and it cost her $15 dollars. To see the doctor. It would have been free but she's not a citizen. More than anything, universal healthcare would force Big Pharma to price their medications appropriately. There would have affordable prescriptions for everyone. When I left my job, I lot my insurance. When I checked prices on my meds, just a single prescription was $400 f*cking dollars for one month's worth. In Canada, that prescription would have been $15. The ill thing? The $400 dollar one was the cheapest I could find stateside. I take five medications for my heart. Uninsured, I'd be dropping close to $3800 a month, on sh*t I need to live. Who the f*ck has a loose $3800 when they have to pay that much in rent every month? Insulin is, like, $300 for 10 days worth here. In Canada, it's f*cking $30. Sh*t's even cheaper in Egypt. Small businesses wouldn't have to worry about employee healthcare or anything like that. If you have more than two employees, the cost you save in insurance coverage is more than enough to offset that tax increase. You'd be able to actually pay a more livable wage, while pocketing more profit at the same time. How is any of this bad? How can you spin this sh*t as a negative?

Free education means a more literate populace. We wouldn't have near as many Anti-Vaxxers and Flat Earthers. Motherf*ckers would understand the science of social distancing and mask wearing during a goddamn pandemic. I wouldn't be so f*cking mad having to dumb myself down just to interact with society. If we follow the Nordic system, you get your four years worth of education, graduate with a proper degree, and get placed into a position immediately out of college to tenure in your focus for the next four years. It's not an internship but a real job. You not only get a degree, but you immediately start earning a living in that field, while accumulating experience. Once you complete your four year employment obligation, you can continue your employment, start the process  over with a new major in mind, or you're free to travel abroad with four years experience and a BA in your pocket. Not only would the populace be more literate, more people would be employed thus stimulating the economy. Those that enter into science and engineering, would have to innovate in their fields for four years, minimum, so you'd have hungry minds creating the future, just like back in the day when “America was great” or whatever. More education, means more jobs, means a stronger economy, means less crime. Again, how is this a bad thing? You wouldn't even have to do away with private college or studying whatever you want. If there wasn't a free program to take advantage of, just pay for your classes. I'm sure there'd still be grants and scholarship and financial aid available for aspiring painters or wannabe film makers, or any number of vanity degrees. F*ck it, man, if you want to go to Harvard just for the clout, you can still totally do that. F*ck, dude, you can do it after getting your free degree even. Graduate school, bro. Motherf*cker can be making six figures paying that stupid, clout chasing, tuition out of pocket because you can afford it with the job you got with that free degree. That's the beauty of the Nordic system; Everyone gets what they want.

That's just the surface of these benefits. I'm not even going to go into what universal income, maternity leave, vacation time, strong unions, and subsidized child care. I'm not even going to touch on how prisons over there are built to rehabilitate, not to humiliate and effectively enslave. For Profit prisons are the modern plantations. Look that sh*t up. I'm not even going to go into detail about the benefits collective legalization for all drugs and how crime plummeted because of it, or how they treat addiction like a mental illness and not a criminal offense, or the way they house their homeless and treat them humanely, while transitioning them into society with counseling, job placement, and social work. All of this, for, maybe, an extra hundred or two a year. That's, what? An extra $30 a month out of your check? Less than $10 a f*cking week? That one trip to Starbucks. That's two Quarter-Pounders. That's nothing. How does that math not work? How do these universal benefits, not jive with everyone? How does this sh*t not make sense to people, when you can see it working the world over? The illest thing in this whole situations is the fact that we, as the US, have absolutely more than enough to implement this system, this type of social democracy which benefits everyone, if we just rearranged our budget. Admittedly, we couldn't just implement the healthcare out the box. I mean, we could, but that would entail getting motherf*ckers who make trillions, like Amazon, Facebook, and Tesla as well as Zuckerberg, Musk, and Bezos, to pay their fair share without circumventing said responsibilities Corporate Welfare is crippling the working American and people are too dumb to even pay attention to it, distracted by buzzwords like “communism” and “immigrant.” So we do the free education thing first. That's only $4 billion a year. I checked. That's pittance compared to the defense budget.

Motherf*ckers wouldn't even need to “tax the rich” or “hold them accountable” if we just cut the defense budget. We can keep pretending that trickle down works and that Wall Street works for us and not corporate gluttons and that Reaganomics works, and whatever else the conservatives want us all to believe. Whatever, right? The US spends $650 billion on defense. That is, quite literally, $400 billion more than the next country, China. The rest of the world, minus the US and China, spends a collective $831 billion. That's an average of less than $50 billion a year, worldwide. F*ck, if you add China back into that, it's still less than $65 billion a year. Did i mention that these are yearly budgets? And these are old numbers. My guy, we can afford to drop a few billion of that defense budget. We can probably skim $50 billion and enrich a lot of people's lives but we don't even need that much. Drop $4 billion off of that gratuitous $650 tril, and you can fund free education for everyone. Following the Nordic system, that means more jobs. That means more taxes. That means a better economy and more revenue to implement the universal health care, which would further lessen the burden of employers and employees, putting even more money back into everyone's pockets, which would grow the economy even more. Happy and secure people, spend more money. The only people this system hurts, are those hurting us with the current system. Are they literally too dumb and/or selfish to let go of a little extra and uplift all of us? How do you argue that math? No one loses but the people forcing you to lose right now, in real time. F*ck, man, 2020 has exposed this entire system and there are still people who will die for a country that won't even give you enough money to be safe during a whole ass plague and I don't understand that at all.

[imikesmith-blog]

Why You Can't Afford to Be Bad at Bookkeeping

Maintaining your books is not one thing you must do alone as a tax-savings strategy; it may also forestall you from losing your mental health and obtaining dragged into a possible cause over commingling your funds. Here are 5 important reasons for maintaining a separate chequebook and set of books for every of your businesses: 1. company veil. initial and foremost, maintaining a separate chequebook substantiates the company veil, one among the first reasons for forming a brand new corporation. Having a separate chequebook shows you acknowledge the corporate is its own distinct entity. what is more, separate checkbooks can hopefully encourage you to not commingle personal and business funds. 2. Tax savings. Separate banking can improve accounting procedures, forestall payments from being incomprehensible , and supply higher records to boost your official document. 3. Audit protection. Having a separate chequebook can improve your probabilities in associate degree office audit. The office can typically forbid variety of expenses once personal and business expenses ar commingled during a single chequebook. 4. Less stress and a lot of mental health. One would possibly suppose having separate checking and accounting for a brand new company is cumbersome, reserve, and presumably even a waste of your time. In fact, this procedure saves time and cash within the long-standing time. once your books ar fucked-up, you’ll feel constant stress to require care of it, and this ultimately will cause you to feel undone. 5. Improved higher cognitive process. Having a separate chequebook starts the method of higher accounting, expense pursuit, and budgeting, that ends up in quality higher cognitive process. however are you able to expect to be a triple-crown business owner while not correct records? You owe it to yourself and your business to stay smart books. The next step is implementing a system for pursuit financial gain and expenses. It’s fully crucial for small-business house owners to a minimum of take into account QuickBooks as their primary accounting software. Yes, there ar a couple of alternatives to QuickBooks, however not several, and even fewer price considering. QuickBooks is that the most reasonable, easy, efficient, and effective accounting code ever written. that will sound a touch crummy or over the highest, however it’s true. Here ar simply a couple of things that QuickBooks will do to assist you become a far better, smarter business owner:    Keep essential data at your fingertips. QuickBooks generates reports that enable you to simply keep au fait your business’s most vital monetary data, like profit and loss by product or property, assets by client, sales reports, or expense reports. higher use of your on-line banking industry. QuickBooks permits you to harness the net advantages that several banks provide. It coordinates with most banks, even lesser-known ones, to supply instant data therefore you'll transfer transactions and reconcile your knowledge with ease.    Collect a lot of of your assets. QuickBooks permits you to come up with professional-looking invoices that may be delivered via email and provide your customers the choice to form on-line payments. you'll additionally generate statements and make varied reports to see UN agency your bad customers ar for assortment functions and to assist you create higher choices concerning your assets.    Delegate your accounting services with ease. If you're the kind that hates accounting, QuickBooks can still build your life easier. Once you perceive the basics—and i like to recommend that each business owner a minimum of master the basics—you will delegate tasks, from accommodative to overseeing monetary reportage. QuickBooks can even enable your controller to log in on-line to access your monetary knowledge whereas doing all of your accounting.    Pay your business bills expeditiously. Let QuickBooks track your accounts collectible therefore you'll higher manage your income and pay bills once it's most convenient for you. Ultimately you will save on past-due fees and interest, and you’ll be able to move together with your vendors during a a lot of skilled manner.    Receive payments right away. settle for mastercard payments on-line, and have the funds recorded directly in your QuickBooks file. you'll even upgrade your QuickBooks code and technical school provides to integrate a location (POS) system together with your cashbox and merchant/credit card machine.    Access your monetary data anyplace. the net version of QuickBooks permits you or your controller to access your books anyplace you have got a web association.    Use scanning code to trace receipts. Scan in receipts through a service like NeatReceipts, that right away records and categorizes the knowledge in QuickBooks. you'll then keep a duplicate in your cloud storage of all receipts and contracts for audit and legal protection. The list goes on and on. Please take this suggestion seriously; the earlier you integrate this method into your business, the earlier you’ll see cash savings, larger revenue, and a lot of profit. Don’t be scared of QuickBooks—embrace it, and it'll set you free! OK, that was a touch a lot of, however I will promise you this: it'll prevent cash, and you’ll additionally get dependent on the limited “ping” you hear each time you enter a check or item within the register. Get facilitate implementing your register Be honest with yourself: does one wish to try to to the accounting for your business? If therefore, great. But if not, who's attending to do it? Have a plan! affirmative, this can be my best try at providing you with associate degree “intervention.” consider yourself within the mirror and assess your level of dedication, knowledge, and accessible time to implement and maintain your books. However, whereas it’s fine if you have got somebody else do the dirty work, you continue to want a general understanding of the method and register in order that you, because the captain of your team, will administer the method.The following are five options to consider when it comes to divvying up the accounting duties. Option 1: Learn QuickBooks and input items yourself. I know this strikes fear in some of your hearts. In fact, this may be why your books currently aren’t getting done. But you still may want to hold off delegating any part of the process until you put in a few hours a week to learn the basics, like inputting figures. At the bare minimum, you need to be able to view and print reports and check the accuracy of the work. Option 2: Hire a family member to keep up the books. This is a great way to have the teenagers or young adults you're supporting financially earn their keep and teach them about entrepreneurship in the process. They'll learn about the heart and soul of small business by doing the books. Adding them to the payroll is also a great tax write-off. Option 3: Engage a local bookkeeper. This could be a local college student wanting internship/externship hours or a seasoned bookkeeper with affordable rates. It can free up your time so you can do what you know best: Make money for the business. This is also a natural step in the growth of a business before choosing the next option. Remember, this person will probably not prepare your taxes or do significant planning for you; they'll simply maintain your books affordably so you can focus on more pressing tasks. Option 4: Hire someone “in house.” You'd be amazed how quickly you can find a local college student or bookkeeper wanting to pick up some part- or full-time work for an hourly wage. This person could come in daily or a few days each week to input data and print reports. You might need to provide some supervision, or you could have your outside CPA train and supervise your in-house bookkeeper. It can be extremely convenient to have an employee available to keep things in order. You can also hire someone who can wear different hats and help with other tasks, like answering phones, scanning, doing collections, shipping, or running errands. Option 5: Use your CPA or tax professional throughout the year. Many business owners like the comfort and security of knowing they not only have highly skilled accountants doing their books daily but the benefit of one-stop shopping for tax planning and quarterly and annual reports as well. It may seem more expensive, but the value of better long-term planning and a higher quality of books can far exceed the cost. More mature and seasoned business owners may naturally “graduate” to a more experienced bookkeeper when the time is right. At most firms, you can get an accounting support package tailored to your budget and needs. Get a more robust handle on your finances with QuickBooks. Here is some interesting article i saw on Internet   How to Fix Quickbooks Error 3371 How to Fix Error H101, H202, H303, and H505 in QuickBooks Solved: Error 1935 When Installing QuickBooks Desktop 2020

[blogmarareactions]

Just what I needed - part 1

Description: A YoongixReader fanfic where Yoongi is a shapeshifter that can turn into a cat. This to much of the surprise and after a while, annoyance of the reader.

Genre: Fluff mostly (we`ll see where it leads after a while)

Warning: Mentions of blood, animal cruelty

Word count: 2347

Note: You can find the Intro to this story on my masterlist under BTS.

Tags: @chims-kookies 

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Once back at your apartment you proceeded to clean the wound on Sugas paw. This, however, proved a lot more of a challenge than you had anticipated. The whole ordeal ended in scratches up and down your arms, angry hisses and a broken lamp as Suga decided to go Rambo on your living room. But on the bright side you had managed to do what you wanted and added a small improvised bandage around it`s paw. Thanks to this rather difficult experience you had settled on cleaning it`s fur with a damp cloth and very, very gentle petting motions. A deep cleanse would have to wait till after you two got a bit more acquainted. Next you had made a run to the nearest store to buy some cat food, ending up with a collection of 4 different brands and types of foods since you didn’t know what Suga would like.

When you came back Suga had crawled under a high end-table in the corner of the room, going back into forming a little ball with its body, and not coming out from it, not even when you placed a series of bowls with food on the ground next to your sofa. The rest of the evening was spent by you watching tv and occasionally glancing over to Suga until you eventually had fallen asleep right there cuddled into the pillows of your sofa.

The next morning you were rudely awakened by the sound of your phone ringing. You mentally facepalmed yourself for the decision to have a minion’s ringtone, cause right now it was anything but fun and cute. Turning around and groaning loudly as the sunlight hit your face you picked up your phone, answering in a sleepy voice. “Yes, Hello?”

“Well good morning sunshine. You sound enthusiastic.” The voice on the other end said sarcastically. It was your long-time best friend Emma. You had known each other since third grade when you moved to the city with your parents. You were quite shy and didn`t know how to approach people, but luckily Emma was the complete opposite. She was bubbly and outgoing, and you quickly became the ultimate partners in crime.

“Did you forget about our lunch date today?” her voice dragged you out of the memory. Damn, you had completely forgotten about that. “Uhm...” you started. “Yeah, kinda. I`m sorry, but something came up. Do you wanna come over? I`ll show you, you`ll love it.” She really would. Emma loves animals, especially cats. You hoped it would make up for forgetting about the lunch and maybe she would know some ways on how to make Suga more comfortable and maybe even find its owner, all though the fact of the missing collar had you thinking that Suga may be a stray cat.

“Alright if you say so. But you better have some food and coffee cause I`m starving.” Emma answered, and you chuckled at the way she over exaggerated the starving part. “Do you even know me? When do I not have food in the house? I need my midnight snacks to survive, Emma.” After hanging up the phone you reluctantly pulled your body up into a sitting position on the sofa. Your eyes glide over the living room.

The room isn`t very big, granted that you live in a small apartment, but it`s enough for you. Half of the space was occupied by the sofa, your tv, a bookshelf, coffee table and 2 smaller end tables in the corners. The other 50% of the room are dedicated to your painting utensils and canvases. The way the sun shines through the big windows is glowing up the room beautifully in the mornings and evenings during sundown as your apartment is perfectly placed on the corner of the building, slightly overlooking the other buildings.

 Your eyes eventually catch the, now empty, bowls on the ground. So Suga had eaten the food after all. You smiled, happy about that fact and decided to check on your new roommate and just as you thought Suga was still balled up under the end table, sleeping peacefully. You decided to get dressed and clean up a bit before Emma`s arrival.

About half an hour later your doorbell rang, and you made your way to the front door, opening it to reveal Emma, dressed in a light blouse and cute skirt. Anyone else would think she had dressed up, but this was just her usual style. Another thing in which she was the complete opposite of you. Where you could describe Emma’s style as cute and stylish, yours could be called comfortable and plain. This had never bothered you, but you did think you could maybe put a bit more work into your appearance. But then again, sweatpants and sweaters kept calling out to you and at the end of the day you were way too lazy for anything fancy as an everyday look.

“Wow, what happened here?” Emma asked, pointing to the broken lamp you had placed outside of your front door of your apartment, so you could take it out later. “Did you have a party here without telling me?” She pouted, pretending to be hurt. “As if.” You scoffed and smiled before hugging Emma and inviting her in. She made her way instantly into your living room, plopping herself onto the couch and getting comfortable. You instead find your way into the kitchen, preparing the coffee and snack you had promised her.

Turning on the coffee machine and finding the last of the muffins you had baked in the days before, you let the smell of freshly brewed coffee reach your nose. Personally, you don`t like the taste of coffee. It`s too bitter and you could never really get behind the taste or why people liked it. The smell, however, damn. You loved the smell of fresh coffee and coffee beans. That`s what led you to end up working at a café at the first place. That, and the overwhelming desire of earning money so you wouldn`t have to live on the street or starve to death.

Truthfully, working at the café was nice, but it certainly wasn`t your dream job. When you graduated from university with a bachelor in fine arts you had hoped to be able to work at a museum and paint on the side, before your paintings eventually would blow up and they`d end up hanging on the wall of the museum. The thought made you smile every time you think of it. Of course, this was wishful thinking and so you ended up taking the job at the café, your hobby of painting staying just that, a hobby.

The finishing of the brewing was signalled by a click of the coffee machine and you found a cup, filling it with the hot liquid before calling out to Emma. “How do you want your coffee?”

“CAT!”

“Black? How come you suddenly drink your coff…” your sentence was interrupted as Emma suddenly burst into the kitchen. “NO NOT BLACK, I SAID CAT!” She said pointing to the direction of your living room, eyes wide and visibly shocked. “Y/N, there is a cat in your living room!” You laughed lightly. “Yes, I know, I found it in the alley behind the coffeeshop yesterday. It was all dirty and injured so I took it with me.” While talking you continued to prepare Emma`s snack, putting a muffin on a plate and reaching out your hand for Emma to take the plate from it. “That was actually the thing I wanted to show you, and why I asked if you wanted to come over.”

“Do you know if he belongs to anyone yet?” Emma asked. You had finished your brunch and Emma had calmed from the shock of suddenly finding a cat in your apartment. So now you two were sitting on your sofa, both watching Suga while he tried carefully to walk around and explore your living room. “He?” you crooked your head, looking at your best friend. “Yes. Little Suga here is a male. Good going on choosing a rather gender-neutral name for him.” She nudged your side. Well that`s at least one thing you managed to do right yesterday.

“He didn`t have a collar and based on just how dirty and injured he was yesterday I`d find it strange if he belonged to anyone. At least anyone that cares about him.” You remembered back to yesterday and how he had slowly crawled from behind the trashcans and your heart ached at the memory. “I thought I might take him to a vet and let him get treated professionally.” You continued. “I have tried my best yesterday, but it didn`t end too well.” At this you pulled up your sleeves, revealing the scars on your arms. Emma let out a chuckle, her eyes darting between you and Suga. “No wonder, he looks like a fighter. And you must remember that he doesn`t know you and is probably in a lot of pain. I`d attack anyone getting close to me too.”

Emma did have a point there. Obviously you weren`t angry at Suga, but you can`t deny your annoyance in the endeavour of getting a bandage around that little paw of his. The visit ended with her giving you the address of a good vet close by that she knew someone at and then she left for an appointment. But not before making you promise to update her on Sugas health and a bit of baby talk directed at him, which he, by the looks of it, completely ignored.

Talking about getting Suga to the vet, and actually doing it are 2 very different things, you found out. Yesterday he had been very weak and, even though he wasn`t too much stronger today, he certainly acted like it and was protesting any and all of your tries on getting him to either follow you, let you pick him up or transport him in any other way. And after nearly 2 hours of patiently trying to coax him into trusting you, you simply gave up, laying on the floor next to the end table Suga had claimed as his favourite spot and in which he was currently hiding.

You let out a long sigh. This whole helping out a little cat and doing something good was proving to be a lot more difficult than you had expected. Your gaze drifted around your ceiling, eyes catching the time of the clock on your wall. 15:37pm. The vet would close in under 2 hours and not open before Monday again. This is really not how you planned it to be. You roll your body over onto the side, the front now facing Suga. “You`re really not making it easy for me here pal.” You spoke out loud to him. You know he probably can`t understand a word of what you`re saying but you were so annoyed at the moment that you just had to let out your feelings and thoughts. And so you continued your rant in a slightly aggravated tone. “I`m just trying to help you, you know. A little help from your side would be appreciated in this. You could at least like… I don`t know, just let me pick you up? You don`t even have to do anything. I don’t understand why that`s so hard. Yesterday you were fine with it and today you`re acting like Mr. grumpy himself. You think this is fun for me? I could`ve spent the whole day finishing a painting, but instead I`m laying on the floor in front of an end table, talking to a cat.”

Suga`s ears had peaked up in the middle of your speech and his eyes were now focused on you. It almost looked as if he was actually listening to you. Once out of breath you plopped back onto your back and closed your eyes, pouting slightly and letting out a little huff as your back hit the wooden floor. “I just want to help.” You repeat almost in a whisper before silence fills the room. It stays like that for a little while. The only thing breaking through the silence being faint noises of traffic and the singing of birds. Until you hear slight rustling from close by, followed by the touch of fur on your hand as Suga made his way from under the table to sit directly by your side. His eyes were starring at you as you let your head fall to the direction of the sounds.

And then he let out a little meow, alerting you to the fact that he was trying to tell you something. Upon you just starring back at him, however, Suga proceeded to slowly walk around you and towards the front of your apartment. He stopped at around halfway through your living room, sitting down. Most likely he was in pain from walking, even for just such a short distance. You stood up, making your way to stand next to Suga, curious of what he was getting at. He shortly looked up at you and then continued towards the front door. This time only managing a few steps before coming to a halt again. But that was enough to make you wonder if he was trying to tell you that he wants to go outside, and by that maybe you were able to get him to the vet.

You quickly threw on your shoes and jacket before returning to the front of the living room, crouching down and slowly, carefully reaching out both your arms towards Suga. You then gently lifted him up and put him securely into the crook of your arms, holding him almost like you would a baby. He was completely still and let you do whatever you wanted to your surprise and relief.

Had he started to trust you? You didn`t think too much of it now. Right now your first priority was to get him treated and cleaned up professionally so he wouldn`t have to be in pain anymore.

________________________________________________________________

Note: In the next chapter I thought I`d go into Sugas story a little. Like how he was where he was and about his feelings. I also have some cute ideas for the next chapters in general. Do send in your constructive criticisms if you have any. I try to get better at writing so if you have any tips or things that bother you, do not be afraid to send me a message. I appreciate any comments. :)

#bts fanfiction #yoongi x reader #bts x reader #bts min yoongi #yoongi #bts yoongi #min yoongi #bts mythical #bts min yoongi fanfiction #yoongi fanfiction #suga #bts suga #suga x reader #suga fanfiction #lil meow meow #bts

[kainfamilyfortune]

Today is the start of something new. And I’m terrified.

OOC, obviously, I know this is far from what I normally post on here, but I figured I’d let any that are interested in on a secret project I’ve been working on between managing a million dollar company, RP engagements, and supporting my lovely wife who is exploding in the book critic space - something I’ve been working on over the last four weeks. I entered a contest.

TW: Anxiety, Agoraphobia, Depression, Suicide, Addiction.

So I wanted to go back to tell you a little bit about myself. I’m a bit of a jack of all trades, I’ve dabbled in many, many things over the years, one thing I fell in love with was photography due to an old relationship, of course. But truly I fell in love that day, with her perspective, her eye, and how I could use photography to tell a story. I wanted to be profound. So I picked up my Canon A-1, yes I shot film, and shot photos in strictly black and white for a year. They say that color captures the moment, but B&W captures the soul, and I honestly believed that. Still do. But eventually when I moved 3,000 miles away from her and we couldn’t make things work I dove into a severe depression. I was young, freshly 16, and the beginnings of anxiety began to creep and creep throughout that last year before the move.

Oregon is beautiful, but it wasn’t Florida - we moved at an inopportune time in my life, as all teenagers believe. Just before summer vacation. I shut myself in my room for nearly four months, becoming severely agoraphobic, I was not taking the move lightly. I had no friends, no entertainment since the main reason we moved was due to my parents going bankrupt, both loosing their 6-figure jobs. My parents divorced five months after moving. A blessing and a curse was we did not move up to Oregon alone. No, my parents were swingers, so they often swapped partners as I grew up, having to basically raise my younger brother, shielding him from that truth. I kept their secret even after they divorced. My brother only just found out after turning 21, after moving in with my mother and stepfather, back in sunny Florida.

But what kept me from ending it all? Xanax and Photography.

I had a passion and I was getting better and better. I began to dabble in stop-motion film, fine-art photography, eventually when I went to a new school, a charter school up in the woods of Culp-Creek, I began to dive deeper and deeper into making it my career. My junior year I was making documentaries, winning mayor’s art shows, and even selling my work in the local art-walks in the small town that we had moved to. But I was still an anxious mess. Still suffering from panic attacks. Eventually I didn’t want to go to the charter school anymore. Partly because my favorite teacher was leaving and also because the bus ride was killing me. Nearly an hour everyday, forced to sit still and not panic.

So, I transferred to the local public school for my senior year. I was ahead of all my credits. Nearly a straight-A student. I smoked cigarettes. I frequented the school counselor due to my panic attacks and all my teachers knew. But I took my work out into the hall to work on it, listening in. I didn’t have first or seventh period since I was ahead of my credits. I devoted time to being a teacher’s assistant and helping teach the videography course that was supported at the school. I worked at McDonald's as well and earned enough money to move out on my own after the second trimester and to upgrade all of my photography/video equipment. 

My senior project was a 25-minute documentary on mental-health and how art could be used as therapy, it won a few awards and got stellar marks on the board, but most of all it got recognition from the local news. I got picked up right after graduation by a media company in the next town up from where we were living. I also wanted to go to college and get my degree. I was the first to move out from my graduating class. Three days after. I worked for the media company, then the local news for one year. I dropped out of school my first term. I didn’t need school. I started vaping to quit smoking. I was still abusing Xanax though, I was up to 5MG every three hours to feel like I was still alive.

Then I started to work for a local vape shop on the side. Quit my news network job due to stress, and worked for a smaller media company making a weekly show. Eventually another year and a half had passed and I had a psychotic breakdown. The Xanax had stopped working. I lost insurance so I couldn’t get anymore, and I was loosing my jobs. My life’s work. I stopped photography that day.

I moved into a trailer for two months. I worked at a pizza hut, managing that place for a year as I became sober. I still vaped because it surrounded me with an amazing community of people who were in recovery. I had moved out of the trailer and in with an old friend. In that time frame I turned 21. I partied for one week and haven’t partied since. I told myself that sobriety is only thing that is going to keep me grounded. I helped a few friends start media companies, and vape shops and car dealerships, helping them with marketing, commercials, all that jazz. Hell, I even worked front counter for them when they needed it. Eventually I wanted to work for another vape shop, so I hit up a few friends and got into the biggest in the pacific northwest as a partner. I’ve been working here for the last 3 1/2 years. Managing one of their locations for nearly two. 

So. I turn 25 this year. I’m sober. I got married last year. And my mental health is considerably better than what it was in year’s past. Why am I terrified?

Well. If you can see from the picture, I built a set. I was watching my daily World of Warcraft videos and this video came up in my news feed from one of my favorite channels, WTBGold. He is announcing a contest and I think nothing of it for the first two weeks. Then I had an idea. What if I make a ‘How-to RP’ video from the perspective of someone who plays a fuck-ton of D&D, and RPG’s. And I had six days left in the contest to write a script, film a video, and edit it all together.

I made this in a feverish 9 1/2 hours worth of work on top of my already crazy schedule. So I don’t look at the camera a whole lot and I’m currently re-filming the entire thing with the new set. But I submitted it. And it was watched live on his stream for a bunch of people to watch and judge.

It was received very well. I don’t think I will win the contest though. The last two weeks have been tense since he has yet to release his winner. But initially from the strawpoll on stream I had won the RP category so hopefully it means I can still make viable content since it has been awhile and I’m rusty. I’m diving into this project head-first to make YouTube content, twice a week on top of everything I have going on, because dammit. I want to make something for myself again. 

I want to be passionate again.

If you care to follow me on this journey: KainFamilyFortune <-- Content will be up later this week once I finish editing it since I filmed it this morning. 

If you made it through this rant, thank you. I know this is a lot different than what I usually produce, and I promise I’m still working on Thea’s perspective to the Battle of Dazar’alor. Combat is not my strong suit.

Thank you, thank you , thank you , k bye, back to editing <3

#ooc #me

[upcyclethrowaways]

How Crossing Paths With Enlightenment Has Changed My Life

Group sunset meditation in Big Sur, 2014

Early 2009, the Fruitvale neighborhood of Oakland, California

The first African American president in U.S. history, Barack Obama, had just been inaugurated to his first term in office, Twilight ~ New Moon hadn’t quite begun filming yet, Amazon stock was around $65/share, and Jeff Bezos still had hair. I had just graduated from a Bachelor’s of Science program in one of the top colleges in the country. That is no easy feat for a lot of people, however it was particularly challenging for me because I had struggled for years with ADD (attention deficit disorder), and was unenthusiastically taking medication for it. Personal and family dramas around that time, which I need not get into for now, had also contributed towards a diagnosis of clinical depression, so I was also being prescribed medication for that. And resented it. I resented the side effects, but even more than that, I resented the prospect of having to pop pills for time indefinite in order to sustain a state of emotional and mental equilibrium that I believed ought to flow naturally and effortlessly**.

In spite of the four-year degree that I’d earned from a top university, I did not land a high-paying job right out of college. I settled for a meager wage job in a public sector lab that I had interned at one summer, as an undergraduate. I didn’t know how to market myself for better jobs, and I didn’t have the energy or sense of self-worth to motivate myself to push for more. Plus I had a weird, confused relationship with money in general, so low and behold, I didn’t have much of it. I was worst than flat broke in fact  —  as I was also mired in student loan debt from having gone to a four-year university, and I had a dash of credit card debt on top of it all. In the scarcity mindset that I was in, I went for an affordable housing option - renting an apartment in a not-so-great neighborhood in Oakland. That apartment was actually broken into at one point while I was away at work, but the would-be robbers didn’t even bother taking anything because, evidently, I didn’t own anything worth stealing.

I had a lot of friends, and got along with people alright — yet somehow felt alone, as though I hadn’t really found my “tribe” yet, so to speak. I almost always felt tired and depleted, despite having no detectable thyroid or other health problems that could directly impact my energy levels. I’d look around and see others being able to do so much, and didn’t understand why I just felt so scattered, sub-functional and drained more often than not. 

Meanwhile, on the spiritual front, I had started to hear the inner call towards something greater and deeper than circumstances in life had thus far led me to. I considered myself agnostic at the time, open to exploring any mindfulness practice or technique that could help with the invisible suffering that I was all too well aware of. The book, “The Secret”, had been out for a couple of years by then, and the visualization technique of dream/vision boarding that it espoused struck me as something worth trying out, at least once. I recall that one of the images that I pasted up on my board was a minimalist figure of a Buddha — not that I was intending to literally attract a Buddha or Buddhism itself into my life. What the image represented to me at the time was serenity. It signified naturally reaching and sustaining a state of mental calm, peaceful concentration, and clarity to me  — the opposite of what was going on in my head at the time. I eventually also started researching online about meditation, and began experimenting with different techniques to try out alone at home. One of the techniques that resonated the most with me was something called chakra meditation, whereby the focal point to attempt to train and still the mind upon is a chakra, or subtle physical energy center, within the body.. 

Setting intentions, 2009

Fast-forward to 2022, and being settled by the beautiful California coast. I co-own/mortgage a house on a large, forested lot in a quiet (a.k.a. safe) neighborhood that is verging on a market valuation of $1M. I’ve come a long way in terms of sorting out my conscious and sub-conscious relationship with money, and my earning power at the time of publication is approximately 9 times as much as it was back in 2009. I have been able to travel to places that I had only dreamed of in my early twenties ~ tropical destinations, scenic national parks all around the country, multiple trips to Europe.. I thought that I would have to be paying down student loan debt well into my 40s, but I was able to pay those all off by my early 30s. I am no longer reliant on public transportation — I’ve been driving luxury-class sedan since late 2013. And all of these are just the material differences.

Isn’t some of this upward mobility simply attributable to better pay for more professional experience/seniority? Sure, some of it could be. But looking back, I know that I was not on the same trajectory in life that could’ve possible led me to where I am at now. And I certainly wasn’t getting very far on the spiritual transcendence side of things with my solo chakra meditation practice. I’ve met so many kind, fascinating, determined individuals along the way, from all sorts of backgrounds, and have had so many rewarding experiences, both tangible and entirely mystical — things that my logical mind cannot deny. The states of consciousness that I’ve been able to reach through persistent practice (and zero recreational drug use!) have been the result of steady, progressive practice, building up to higher and brighter awarenesses and experiences of being. It’s not only me either - I have friends who I’ve seen become happier, feel more free, more prosperous, and more spiritually balanced — overcoming things like depression, addictions, phobias, self-doubt and the like. It’s been a beautiful thing to observe. 

The inner journey of self discovery has been just as impressive, and transformative, if not more so than the more obvious, quantifiable manifestations of outward improvement to my quality of life, mentioned above. Understanding my own aura/subtle physical energy body and why I had trouble focusing, etc, and how to strengthen it and cope with/improve my reactions to difficult circumstances has gone a long way for me. From everything that I’ve learned during my time as part of this sangha (spiritual community), applying myself to this school of enlightenment, I’m able to manage difficult emotions and situations in more balanced and elevated ways, a wellspring of peace and well-being grows deeper and stronger within me, and the world just makes a lot more sense to me now. I’ve experienced more satori(spontaneous insight), and learned more about life, love, overcoming obstacles in service of personal development, how to effectively help others, and how to maintain spiritual balance in the first four years of being part of Samvara’s sangha than I learned from going into debt for four years at a world-class university. And that’s even while not being an “A+” student here, which is by no means what I consider myself to be... 

Make no mistake, choosing to be on this path, with this particular tribe of hardcore spiritual aspirants practicing disciplines that actually work well within the context of modern Western society, has not been easy. It’s not like you just get to hang out in the kundalini glow of a spiritually liberated being and don’t ever have to do anything. There is etiquette, and an appropriate way to work with a master of fill-in-the-blank - be that a master of meditation, of Shotokan karate, of anything. Folks in the Far East know this very well, but it’s seems to be something cultural that gets lost in transit with Westerners. Reverence is not required, but it’s essentially a teacher-student relationship, so you should at least be open-minded enough so as to be teachable. And if you ask me, cultivating a little humility doesn’t hurt either. 

The past 10+ years of my life being voluntarily immersed in a multi-faceted practice has had a mystical, magical way of challenging ego pretty much all the time. Nothing in the program is mandatory, but if you aren’t participating in at last some of the disciplines of, for example, karma yoga (as it relates to career development), martial arts, compassion/tonglen, meditation and mindfulness, and the occasional SCUBA diving trip, you’ll most likely find that you are not able to keep up with the majority of practitioners who are constructively participating and applying themselves on a more consistent basis. 

You could call it the merits of having accrued good karma from many spiritual past lives, or plain dumb luck if you don’t believe in those sorts of things, but to me, I consider crossing paths with the afore-mentioned meditation master to be one of the greatest blessings of my life; one that has empowered me to be able to co-create a life that has met and in some cases, surpassed the dreams and goals that I had pasted up on that dinky little vision board of mine from over a decade ago.(By the way, I have indeed been able to meet my personal goal of tapering down and staying prescription-free for over a decade too**)

Encountering light, 2022

Enlightenment is real, and it is possible to reach and to integrate in a single lifetime. The path of self inquiry and inner work involves truly, bravely, ruthlessly facing your perceived limitations and patterns of self, and being willing to part with those patterns until ultimately, all habituations fall away. For the vast majority of humankind, rapid spiritual progress (i.e. awakening) is not just going to poof!, spontaneously explode inside of you if all that you’re choosing to do is to remain in your comfort zone, with the same fixed views about everything (including/especially about yourself) that you’ve always had. And it’s certainly not going to if you don’t have an earnest prayer or intention in your heart, for awakening.

Understandably, the path of most commitment/engagement in Samvara’s sangha, which I have elected for myself, and which I continue to renew my commitment to, is probably not for everyone. Some people may have different goals in mind, for example simply wishing to get better at meditation practice and nothing more. And that’s fine. There is a more relaxed, slower-paced tier plan for them. There’s also the exit door, which is alway available if folks feel that even the chill-path offering does not resonate with them. 

Consider if you will a mountaineering metaphor. For every epic mountain summit, there are a multitude of hiking trails that one could choose from in order to reach it. There are also nice picnic areas and vista points along the way, and going no further than those is simply a matter of personal preference. Just being out there, making any forward progress on the mountain, is inarguably a happy, harmless and positive thing.

Lokah samastah sukinoh bhavantu.

May all beings everywhere be happy and free, and may the thoughts, words, and actions of my own life contribute in some way to that happiness and to that freedom for all.

** Legal Disclaimer — I am not a medical or mental health professional and this is not medical or health advice. The text above is intended for informational purposes only. It is not a substitute for professional medical advice, diagnosis or treatment.** 

#spirituality #meditation #enlightenment #buddhism #law of attraction #mental health #adhd

[ekedolphin]

One Last Dance for NEW, and Its Greatest Champion

February 15, 2005

The soothing but mournful sounds of Gabriel Faure's "Sicilienne" from Pelléas et Mélisande played, and the tall blonde figure listened, letting himself get swept away with the music. He could hear a lot of himself in the piece-- regal, accomplished, yet at the same time tragic. He could remember each triumph he'd achieved in life, and there had been many. He'd become successful in his chosen field, adored by millions of people around the world. He'd created a successful record company, which was a difficult thing to do in the modern industry. He'd opened a successful wrestling school with two graduates that he was as proud of as if they were his own children.

He remembered his wedding days, to both his first and his second wife, and he remembered the birth of each of his four children with perfect clarity.  Carrie and Alex were two and a half now, hard to believe-- and already they'd taken on the look of their mother, thank God. Patrick would have his first birthday in April, and unfortunately for him, the man thought self-deprecatingly, it looked like he would get his father's side of the family.

But they were happy-- happier than he'd ever realized they could be, happier than certainly he ever imagined was possible. He was still very much in love with Amy, and she with him, and the thought of yet a fourth child was a distinct possibility. He wondered when Amy would finally say, "Enough's enough," but not once did he consider the possibility of saying those words himself. He loved his three children more than he loved life itself, so what was another six or seven? It certainly wasn't as if they couldn't afford to have children.

His family had four homes in various parts of the United States-- San Francisco, Indianapolis, Virginia Beach and Expedition, Alaska. They traveled from place to place on his private jet and wanted for nothing.

Yet he could still remember the look on the face of his beloved Jessica as she died from wounds suffered when she'd been assaulted and raped by two of his greatest enemies. He could remember the way his enemy had laughed as he'd happily admitted his guilt to the entire watching world. He could remember the friends he'd betrayed, the friends that had betrayed him, the injuries he'd suffered and the pain he'd inflicted.

So much joy, so much pain. He couldn't decide if either overrode the other one. On some days he'd say, "Yes, I've had a better life than I ever dreamed, and I'm happier than I've ever been." On other days, days like this one, he'd carefully examine himself and admit to himself that he was unhappy. Somewhere, deep inside his complex soul, there was a lingering unease-- as if there was something wrong with the way his life had turned out.

He couldn't, for the life of him, figure out what was causing these feelings. For that matter, he had no way of knowing if these feelings were legitimate or the result of an undiagnosed case of clinical depression. Maybe all the risks he'd taken, all the punishment he'd received, all the shots to the head, had rattled something loose inside his brain.

His wife would be the first one to say, jokingly, "Well, it's not exactly as if you were all that normal to begin with." But he hadn't shared these emotions with his wife, despite the fact that they shared practically everything else. He was afraid of what she might say-- "You need to get help." Or maybe she'd absorb the information and act as a comforting voice, while all the while feeling anxious and thinking that he might do something to hurt himself. There was a saying in the house that was more true than it had been with his mother when he'd been growing up. "If Mama ain't happy, ain't nobody happy." If Amy worried too much about his mental health, the twins would be able to sense something was wrong, and a dark shroud would envelop the household and add fear and loneliness to the equation.

He didn't wish to upset his family, so he kept his thoughts to himself. But this unease didn't just go away like he'd thought it would, it had grown-- grown so much that he couldn't concentrate on everyday tasks. He was zoning in and out of awareness at random, overcome with this-- this dark emotion that he couldn't even properly classify, let alone discover the root cause of.

Whatever it was, he needed to find something to make everything better, or risk serious harm done to his psyche-- or worse, the physical health of his family. Over the years, he'd protected his family from paparazzi, from the "boys" in the business, from everyone who'd ever meant less than kindness towards them. But how would he be able to protect them from himself?

So one night, he'd sat out on his porch, gazing up at the stars and looking for answers. He must have spent three hours out there, doing nothing but staring up at them-- while keeping his "father's ear" attached to Patrick, just in case. Then Amy and the twins had come home-- Amy from work and the twins from nursery school-- and he'd cooked them a dinner of pork chops, macaroni and cheese, and creamed corn, with orange sherbet for dessert.

He'd sent the twins to bed a couple of hours later, sent John to bed at nine, and was about to turn in himself when out of the corner of his eye, he noticed the red indicator light on his cordless phone was flashing. He checked the messages, fully expecting it to be yet another magazine wanting an interview, or another old friend wanting a favor (it was usually money).

His eyes widened in surprise when he recognized the voice-- which was rare, because few things surprised him nowadays.

"Long time, no speak. Last I heard, you were still sort of upset with Trey and I, but this isn't about that. I am sorry for it, and in retrospect, can see what a dick I was being. I hope you accept my apology for the way I acted in your last days in the NEW. But like I said, this isn't about that.

"Reaves abandoned the fed back in the summer, and it's been dead ever since, so Ben, Trey and I were talking about getting together a final memorial show for NEW. We want to get as many former names involved as possible, and one match we were thinking of doing is a Best of the Best type thing where former NEW champions face off, with the winner receiving one final shot at the NEW title, currently held by Will Storm, the final champ. I'm in the midst of doing a search for former members, and found your new phone number. The show'll take place on February 26 at the Alltell Arena in Little Rock, Arkansas, and it'll be hosted by Pro Wrestling KING, the fed where most of us are hanging out these days. If you'd like to be involved, please give me a call. It's the same number as always, but in case you've forgotten--" and Jade Diamond, one of his biggest rivals, had given him his phone number.

He'd been thunderstruck by the news. He told Amy about it, but for twelve days he'd sat on the decision, unsure whether to follow his first instinct-- to tell Jade to go straight to hell (which had been his second instinct as well, for that matter)-- or satisfy his desire for... some kind of challenge in his life. Everything he'd done since retiring had just come so goddamned easily for him. The sense of adventure he'd felt when his career had begun, when he entered the locker room for the first time and encountered a room full of strangers-- the jjubilation he'd felt when he and Nick had joined DV-- that feeling was like a distant memory now.

During the last few years of his career, winning had come to bring him less and less joy. The joy of the underdog had turned into the boredom of the heavy favorite. When he won, it was because winning had been a foregone conclusion, and when he lost, he was devastated by it. Where had the joy gone?

Perhaps that, he belatedly realized, had been part of the reason he'd retired two years ago. The thrill had gone, replaced by a tedious boredom, and he'd known it was time to move on. Time to teach the younger generation, time to concentrate on his music company, and more importantly, time to be with family.

But now...

He realized that the pallor that had hung over him recently had lifted. The process had started when he got the phone call from Jade, and had taken place very gradually, so gradually that he hadn't noticed it while it was happening. But all of the bad feelings had disappeared, replaced by a single determination-- this was something he had to do.

So he picked up the phone, called Jade's number, and his first reaction had been, "Holy fuck, it's you!" Then they'd gotten down to talking business, and he'd agreed that he would make a return-- one night only, mind you-- to take part in the battle royal and then, hopefully, earn the opportunity to once more wrestle for the NEW World Heavyweight Championship.

He wasn't all that concerned about ring rust, because he'd hardly been sitting on the couch for two years eating potato chips. He'd kept himself in the tremendous physical condition he'd always been in, and had trained his students with all the wrestling knowledge he had to give them. One of them in particular, Antonio Mason, had all the tools, he felt, to really succeed in this business. Of course, he'd been quick to point out to Tony that having the tools was only part of success-- that he had to make the right decisions, too.

When he was done, he'd return to what he'd been doing. A new class would join Inferno U., there'd always be new artists waiting to be discovered by Inferno Music Productions. The only challenges he'd have left would be in the areas of business and family.

So now, "Blue Inferno" Steve Grant sat in a darkened room, as he had during his brief, "one-night-only" return to NEW in 2002, and talked to the camera-- even though it could make out nothing more than his voice and perhaps the faintest outlines of his face.

------

"Survival of the Fittest. Perhaps that's the ideal name for the final production of New Era Wrestling, because after all, NEW survived for seven years in one of the harshest, most cut-throat industries in the world. It overcame initial lack of funding, the retirement of all their old stars, corporate greed, but ultimately couldn't overcome the abandonment of their owner. Well, it was his federation, he took it to heights that no one had ever dreamed, so he had every right to say, 'Enough's enough, it's time to move on.'

"Survival of the Fittest." He chuckled. "It really is the ideal name for this night, because someone will get a shot-- the final shot-- at the NEW World Heavyweight Championship. And he'll have to go through at least twenty, maybe more, guys, to get it. I don't mean twenty jobbers, I mean the best of the best. DRH, Ru, RipTide, Hardcore Jay, "The Franchise", "The Draw", Trey Reed, even that motherfucker TYRANT-- whose ass belongs to me, and only me.

"You hear me, motherfucker?! I broke your neck once, I can do it again! In the event that I don't win that battle royal, rest assured, I'm making sure to take you with me! You killed my wife, and you've yet to pay the full penalty!"

He took a few deep breaths. And when he spoke again, his voice was eerily calm-- as if he hadn't just threatened vengeance against the murderer of his first wife.

"And then, then, after surviving that battle royal-- and surviving's the only way to phrase it, because even the winner's gonna be banged up as hell-- whomever comes out of that battle royal with his hand raised is going to have to go up against a fresh Will Storm, the NEW World Heavyweight Champion. Thought by many as being the greatest World Champion in NEW history, and hey, he's certainly got a good case for himself.

"Of course, you all know my opinion as to who the actual greatest World Champion in NEW history is, so I'm not going to bore you by telling you what you already know. Just suffice to say, I'm more excited by the prospect of this card than I've been in a long time... a very, very long time. Hell, it wasn't too long ago that I thought my days about getting excited about wrestling events at all were long past-- with the exception of watching Chris Benoit win the title at WrestleMania XX, that is. That was such a great moment.

"In any event, I digress. This will be the single most important match for me ever since my match with EGANRAC that won me the first Lord of the Rings tournament back in '98. Sure, the eventual title match with Tank Thomas was big, too, but after winning LotR I, winning the World Title seemed, to me, to be a foregone conclusion. But that LotR win-- that said to people, 'Hey, Grant's a great tag-team wrestler, but I had no idea he was such a great singles wrestler, too.'

"If I have my way, people will be saying after Survival of the Fittest, 'Hey, Grant's so great that he came back after being retired for two years, immediately won a battle royal against NEW's cream of the crop, and then dethroned Will Storm to win his unprecedented fifth NEW World Heavyweight Championship.' What a nice way that would be to end my career, and finally, finally leave the rest of the fighting to the younger generation. To be known, for the rest of my life, not only as a five-time NEW World Champion but as the reigning NEW World Champion-- for the rest of my life-- God, what a rush that would be. I'd walk into a restaurant one day, forty years from now, still as the NEW World Champion. And the title wouldn't truly be laid to rest until the day I'm laid to rest. Which could be tomorrow, or could be seventy years from now, so I figure I'd better make the best of the moments I have.

"My ultimate battle awaits me-- and I mean that in more than one sense of the word. 'Ultimate' as in 'greatest', but also 'ultimate' as in final. My final, greatest test of my wrestling ability lies ahead. February 26, 2005-- three days after my thirty-third birthday. I last held the NEW World Title in the fall of 2001, a little over three years ago. If all these threes keep showing up, I'm gonna start wondering if it's some kind of a conspiracy.

"Any man who can survive the battle-royal of NEW all-stars is more than worthy of fighting for the World Heavyweight Championship-- but whomever that man is will have a distinct disadvantage against a well-rested Will Storm. He's hard enough to beat as it is without coming in beaten up. But if I can do it-- if I can survive all those other superstars, and defeat Storm, becoming the first-ever five-time NEW World Champion-- and the very last World Champion..."

Steve paused, and took a sip from a bottle that was hard to see, but looked suspiciously like Dr. Pepper. He knew he'd take some good-natured ribbing from the boys about that, but he didn't give a damn-- he could give back the ribbing just as well as he could take it. He set the bottle back down on the floor with a soft thump, "aah"ed quietly, and spoke again.

"...I'll have proven to everyone in the wrestling world that, with all due respect to Ares, there's only one "Franchise" of NEW, and that's me. Did you think I'd miss an opportunity like this one? An opportunity for one... last... chance... to be recognized as the greatest in the world? Moments like this don't come to everybody. They've certainly come to me more than a few times, but I'm more than aware that this is the last opportunity I'll ever have.

"Oh, yes, no matter what happens, I will never again step into the ring as an active competitor. The future is now. The moment is all that matters. Before I leave the wrestling to The Wild Child, I've got one last dance to perform, one final masterpiece to create. The NEW World Heavyweight Championship-- the only title that's really ever meant anything to me-- is going to be defended one last time. And I'll do whatever's necessary to get that shot-- and then to make sure that the title goes back around my waist, where it should rightfully always be."

The audio transmission faded, leaving only the faint silhouette of Grant before it, too, faded into total darkness.

#e-wrestling #bisg #stevegrant #rp #oc rp

[sarcasticshutter]

Man, a lot happens in a year: Number 2020

Started these yearly reviews back when I was in high school lol, and def haven’t done it every year (or if I did they’re not all on tumblr. Who knows, cause I feel like I’ve done more than I’ve found here) but I’d like to reflect on 2020 because wow. It obviously feels to everyone like a lost year where all you did was sit around at home and mourn all the normal things and the plans and the big life goals that have been fully stopped in their tracks thanks to a little (ongoing) global pandemic. 

Hello to future me, hope things are well. Shit sure is strange and tenuous at the moment lol. But it’ll all get unstuck again and the world will start turning soon enough. You know that. Anyway from where I’m sitting right now, it’s kind of hard to remember anything that’s happened this year. It feels like I’ve blinked and a year has been omitted from my life, aside from the first three months of 2020 where I was still very much out and rolling on my life-momentum and doing exciting things. So I just want to convince myself that things *have* happened this year, and actually they haven’t been so bad, and to reflect on life going on despite the odd flavor permeating everything this year. I’m glad that’s all I have to complain about because I guess feeling stuck isn’t the worst thing that can happen to a person. I digress. Here’s the highlights I’ve meandered through this year with my eyes closed apparently lol. Please enjoy them with me as I remember them again:

Travelled to Belize, Mexico, Jamaica, Haiti, the Cayman Islands, St Thomas (and probably more) Caribbean islands on the final months of my ship contract

Got to live through the distinctly odd and certainly once in a lifetime experience of being stranded on a cruise ship as the world shut all of its borders in March to reduce transmission of a global pandemic. Feels surreal to think about all the stuff I was seeing as it happened and how that’s probably a very small percentage of people on this planet who were...forgive me...in that boat at that moment in our collective history. So eerie, but with the calm of knowing you don’t know how bad it actually is out there. The self awareness that this is bigger than you can comprehend yet. Eye of the storm type feeling

St Patricks day party on that cruise ship when the rest of the world had ground to a halt and we all were stranded out there isolating as one sealed off covid pod of crewmembers, because if one of us on the ship had it we were all gonna have it. So no use distancing among us at that point. We had no guests left on board and had a huge end of the world party on the pool deck with full use of the guest pools and bars lol

Came home and life slowed waaaay down in march/april. Hiked with mom and dad, saw a lot more of the cats, had a wholly uneventful zoom birthday in early April for my 26th. A weird birthday for what felt like a strange age for me. 26 just fit weird as a number, I’m much more switched on for 27 for some reason. This one coming up feels more right somehow

Spent time in the pool, and doing a lot of yoga which has carried me through this whole year as a constant mellower of things for me mentally. A repeated exercise in re-grounding

Visited Alex in Flagstaff! Got to see meteor crater and spent a cute weekend in a little air bnb with my family, and did some aspen-y hiking as well

Bought my first car with my own money outright, that I’d been saving for the whole time I was in NYC. Been learning to be comfortable driving since I’ve never felt that way in my life lol, but I do think I’m less stressed behind the wheel now than I’ve ever been. Has been so nice to finally be combing through that anxiety. Finally was ready for it I guess

Started a (very long distance) relationship with a friend from the ship. He’s been a huge relief as far as someone to lean on through this year and a great sounding board for frustrations/lifeline to some feeling of sanity a good number of times. Shit is weird but taking this step still feels right, so we’ll see where tf this relationship is going haha

Moved to Tucson with a bff from college. A gigantic help for my sanity as far as getting a feeling of self reliance back and feeling like I have my own space. Soso grateful to be able to be sharing her home with her

Got a part time job so I could not feel so helplessly tied to the clusterfuck that has been unemployment insurance this year. Still have a lot to sort out with that... Glad to be earning my own cash, and glad that the weird little ragtag group of coworkers I’ve found myself with are actually a group of good hearts 

Pumpkin carving and a night hike up in Phoenix with my family for Halloween. And made sure I dropped off my early voting ballot to see that fucker out of office lol

Sweet god, Biden’s horrendously way too close presidential win. Can you imagine the other outcome... This is maybe the biggest relief of 2020 that he didn’t scrape out a second term

Outdoor attempt at a covid safe thanksgiving with my parents and my grandparents on my moms side in Phoenix

Finally had the balls to schedule a scary doctors appointment I’d been using covid to avoid going to. Got back the clean health news I had been anxious I wouldn’t receive. A huge weight off my chest that had been sitting there in the back of my thoughts since last year

Outdoor attempt at a covid safe christmas at my dads’ parents’ house in Sun City, and some cinnamon rolls and peanut butter ball making with my parents. Drove through a huge neighborhood of christmas lights and did a small mom and dad christmas gift opening on christmas eve night

Virtual new years game nights with SASH and the Joneses. Didn’t see a single firework or leave the house (heard em though) and felt surrounded by my closest friends safely even without seeing them in person

None of this stuff is all that flashy and a lot of the normal holidays or events, or even everyday things, were so much more low key and quiet this year. But it was still nice to at least have found a way to celebrate in a stripped down, sort of back to basics way. Glad to have been able to see my family so much more this year. Glad to have had countless meaningful text conversations with my friends who have had the same issues as me as far as having our entire industry unable to function for the last 9 months with no end in sight. The candidness of speaking about the difficulties everyone has had this year, but specifically sharing that weight of the arts being particularly suffocated, and having all of our young career momentums snuffed out for no reason of our own, has been soothing to commiserate about. It’s been a mentally taxing year in the hardest to describe way. But I’m glad that as hard as it is to find kind words for this year, at least it’s just boring and stuck and frustrated that are the things I’m feeling. Because I’ve managed not to lose anyone close to me, or have anyone dealing with any serious illnesses at the moment. 

(I believe) I’ve worked through all of the absolute bullshit I had on my plate in 2019. This year has been easier for me than last, as nuts as that sounds with every thing going on in 2020. I’m out of a suffocating relationship that had become very wrong for me.  Left the city that was killing me to remain stuck in. Had the courage to take this cruise job that I’d been curious about since graduation. Got to travel the world and meet amazing people I otherwise would have never known.  Met a new guy I’ve felt so much more effortlessly in sync with than I ever did in the last relationship. And that’s in an LDR lol, I can’t believe how comfortable that’s been given the ludicrous circumstances of seeing a guy from a different continent, 8 time zones away, during a global pandemic where our borders are shut to foreign visitors and we still at this moment don’t know when they’ll reopen. 

This year I’m just coasting in a house with my friend. Going to work at an easy job that covers my bills. Having the health and freedom to drive *my* car two hours to see my family way more often than I’ve seen them in the past four years. I’m feeling a lot more appreciative of my relationship with my brother, my parents, my grandparents. I’m feeling better about maybe returning to live where I’m from instead of seeing it with a chip on my shoulder. So in a lot of ways 2020 has been less of an emotional mindfuck for me than 2019 was. Or it’s at least been the landing pad to detangle everything from 2019.  I’ve been learning that maybe gathering a bit closer to a support system isn’t a weakness, but a comfort instead.

So this isn’t the tour de force bucket list I’ve grown accustomed to watching myself tackle in each year since undergrad. It’s a retracting of arms, and a regrouping to center. Being forced into looking inward at small details I hadn’t been interested in seeing lately. May be nice just to collect my feet underneath me again and take in all this chaotic crash course learning I’ve been doing the last few years before stepping back out of the plane. Time will tell if 2021 is another time of building and reflection, or a time to start taking a few shaky steps back out into whatever comes next.

What a year.

#tales of interest #2020 recap

[bryanllamado]

How the Quarantine Affected Me

Hi there, reader slash blog visitor! We’re down to the last week of November and soon, it’ll be the Holiday season. I recently celebrated my birthday and I’ve seen people flock to malls. But as much as I delight in seeing ~some things~ go back to normal, it also bothers me how people seem to have forgotten that there is STILL a pandemic. Don’t get me wrong– I still want to celebrate Christmas, but in a safe manner. It also makes me anxious that people will be too comfortable “going out” as soon as the holiday rush sets in. How will Christmas in the #NewNormal be celebrated?

For today’s entry, (as seen in the title) I’ll be talking about how the quarantine affected me. I wanted to write this entry weeks ago, but I don’t think I’m in the right headspace to do so. So yeah, in this entry I’ll be listing down some of the changes that I have observed in me ever since the quarantine started more than 8 months ago. It’s so unlikely for the majority to be stuck at home and far from the old way of living that we all had. What’s even more saddening is that we don’t know when this will all end. *shrugs*

As soon as WHO declared ‘it’ as a global pandemic, classes in the local areas were initially suspended. I had a bad feeling about it and so I took home all of my teaching resources and started working on the quarterly exams and final grades. Eventually, the school year prematurely ended without a formal culmination – no graduation, year-end event, etc. The summer (which did not seem like an actual summer) began soon after and the quarantine protocols became stricter and stricter. It led to the temporary closure of establishments, loss of jobs, and sadly, the increase in the number of cases.

With that being said, let me give you my list of the changes this 9-month long quarantine has brought me.

The Quarantine Made Me Socially, Morally, and Politically Aware.

During the years prior, I had this constant discomfort with bad governance and ill-conceived policies. Once a law or a public servant steps over one or any of my values, I would feel the need to express my opinions but I would also be too afraid to stand up for it as some people may tell me that I’m too young to get involved. But now that I’m an adult and a teacher by profession, I feel the need to speak up – not only for me, but also for those who can’t speak for themselves. Furthermore, if I can amplify their voices and use my platform to raise awareness, I will.

I’ve been constantly disheartened by the things that happened while we were under a strict quarantine– workers lost jobs, people got arrested, businesses shut down, and frontliners got sick. It’s plain to see that the pandemic response of the country was derailed from the get go, and you can tell it by the lack of massive testing, insufficient contact tracing, and faulty protocols. Now, here we are– still stuck in our homes and the risk of getting sick is still there. The situation could have been better had we employed preventive measures– flight bans, medical solutions, and isolation among others. The elected officials owe the public a competent leadership and comprehensive plans.

The Quarantine Made Me Check My Privileges

Yes, you read it right! Talking about privileges, I, for one, did not come from an affluent background, but I have always had my needs in check– tuition fees, new clothes from time to time, 3 or more full meals per day, and a quite comfortable home. I may not have all the things I want, but I’m definitely privileged compared to other Filipinos who suffered severely since the lockdown started. I acknowledge that fact, so as soon as donation drives surfaced, I started donating small amounts to certain causes. If I can spend money on shopping and pricey drinks, I definitely have the money to support those who are in need.

With the recent typhoons that hit the country, I became very vocal on social media about how I support relief operations and donation drives. I may not be personally there to help, but I know I can still provide assistance from afar. Despite my efforts to support these causes, this does not mean that I did not experience financial difficulties during the ECQ. Just like what I said, the school year prematurely ended in March, but I believe we were supposed to work until the first week of April. I know that my struggle is nothing compared to what other people experienced, and that’s the reason why I’m using my privilege for good.

The Quarantine Made Me Process My Emotions and Assess My Mental Health

If you’re someone from my circle, you would know that I’m an escapist. I hate facing problems, addressing my emotions, and dealing with confrontations. It does not mean that I’m in denial of the problem, it’s just that I despise addressing them because what’s the point? People care but not enough to apologize or change the behavior that hurt me in the first place. Or at least that’s how I used to think. The quarantine helped me process my emotions and I went through some of the deepest scars that I used to cover up. It was liberating, but emotionally exhausting as well.

I’m still an escapist, but I use escaping for better reasons this time. I use it as a thinking time, a processing period for me to realize where I went wrong and how I want to solve situations. I have gotten over my “what if’s” and “could have been’s” over the lockdown. I’ve made peace with my past, and I’m currently dealing with what’s in front of me– my present demons. I needed that release, and the quarantine gave me sooo much time to do it. I must say that I’m handling things better, and even if I escape the situation, I come back with a definite solution in mind.

The Quarantine Made Me Decide that I’m Too Old for Some Things

TikTok? I don’t know her. HAHA! Let’s go to something light and quite positive this time. I know there have been A LOT of trends that came up when everyone was stuck at home, and I’m quite horrified by the things that people can do out of boredom. Oh well, most of friends have succumbed to the craze. Then, there’s me– the one untouched. HAHA! I just decided I’m too old to dance in front of my phone, take a video of myself, and share it on that app. Can I just say how hard I cringe at myself in videos? Ugh. #nevertried lol

The Quarantine Made Me Rest and Take a Break from the Old Normal Lifestyle

Quite frankly, I used to splurge a lot on food during the old normal, which I still do, but now it’s in moderation. Aside from that, I shopped regularly and buy unnecessary things to compensate for the times when I felt like I lacked in material things. Isn’t it so unhealthy? But how was I supposed to know at that time, when I was working so hard day and night, and the only thing that validates my hard work is when I see my hard earned money go somewhere? In this case, it goes into food and shopping items. *insert my friends’ constant advice for me to stop spending*

Looking at it now, the way I used to “live” was so unsustainable. A friend used to say, “You never know when the next economic crisis it going to happen.” And it just did, right at the start of the new decade that we were all looking forward to. It made me realize how valuable money is, and that it should be in places where it will grow in quantity and in value. But here I am, once again, circling back to the old lifestyle. I guess it’s me searching for a sense of normalcy and validation as I’ve been working from home for the past 4 months. All I can say this time is “send help.” *note sarcasm*

So there, this is where the list ends… for now. We’re still stuck in quarantine so I guess the list will go on until we fully win against this pandemic. I’ve been so busy lately that I didn’t even realize how near Christmas is. Well, the rush is slowly setting in, and the guidelines for the Christmas celebration for this year was already released a couple of days ago. Let me remind you to stay safe and vigilant all the time. Practice social distancing as much as you can and stay at home unless it’s for essential business. I know we are all craving for the usual Christmas celebrations like Simbang Gabi, Christmas carols, and parties.

But trust me, we’ll all have that when this is all over. For now, we’ll have to celebrate in the #NewNormal way. We may not be rejoicing in the same manner, but the reason to make merry is still the same. This may not be a good year for some, but there is something good and something to be thankful for if look enough to find them. Or actually, we don’t have to look elsewhere. The mere fact that we are still here, thriving despite being under challenging situations, is enough to be thankful for. Advance merry Christmas everyone and don’t forget to wear a mask!

Till the next entry!

Bry. x 112120

#article #blog #blogging #blogger #journal #life #personal #writing #writer #christmas #quarantine #lockdown

[hopemckinney-blog]

photo by Alex Schonauer

Picture a circle of houses, smack dab in the middle of suburban Connecticut. It’s July and the air is heavy. The pavement is so warm there’s no other choice but to race to the grass, bare feet padding across the neighborhood field. You rub Gatorade remnants off your mouth with the back of your hand like a beer-bellied man who just rewarded himself after work with a fresh Corona. Stop. Look around. The whiz of bikes alerts your attention to a tanned kid frantically waving and summoning you to his yard for a neighborhood meeting. The most important news of the day is freeze tag once the sun sets. These are your days. The idea of a device you can hold in one hand with an unlimited amount of information is entirely foreign. A device that slowly gnaws on your self-esteem, absorbs your attention for hours, but can teach you a seemingly infinite amount of information seems impossible. This was my childhood since my birth in April 1995. It changed around 2007 when computers and cell phones seemed to add extra limbs on the bodies within the American population. A peak millennial experience.

           The Pew Research Center establishes millennials as the generation from 1981 to 1996, ages 23 to 38. Baby boomers are from 1946 to 1964, ages 55 to 73. There’s a swirl of generalizations given to both generations. The recent viral trend of the phrase “OK, boomer” kicked off with 25-year-old New Zealand lawmaker Chlöe Swarbrick, who was speaking in support of a climate crisis bill in November of this year. In the viral video, an older member of Parliament can be heard heckling her. Swarbrick looks up, quickly responds, “OK, boomer,” and continues with her speech as if nothing happened. A New York Times article called this quick-witted phrase “a rallying cry for millions of fed up kids.” It seems to have finally put a label on the increasingly clear divide between older and younger generations.  

           A myriad of TED Talks have analyzed this generational disconnect, and they tend to begin by looking at the stereotypes. Boomers are the generation characterized by hard work. They’re the architects, according to Dr. Mary Donohue, a published writer who advocates revolutionizing today’s workforce through enhanced communication. They’re obsessed with working, competing and focusing on fact and logic more than anything else. Millennials are the adapt, adopt and improve generation. According to Leah Georges, a published researcher examining the multigenerational workforce, we’re the “everybody gets a ribbon” generation who thinks they’re going to change the world. We tend to be fueled by feelings and desire immediate action.

           If you head to Google and type in “Millennials are,” some of the top searches are poor, lonely, soft, snowflakes, “the therapy generation” and helpless. “Baby boomers are” entitled, “the problem,” terrible, and rude. These generations have been riddled with stereotypes, smacked with labels and assumptions before a conversation can even be had. The individual has almost entirely been erased and silenced. So, let’s go back to 1945.

           Joe Alaimo, 74, was born alongside two sisters in Enfield, Connecticut, to first-generation Italian parents. He walked up to me with his hand outstretched and a set of kind eyes that could put anyone at ease. I found out his childhood was strikingly similar to mine – jumping on bikes with a crowd of friends and spending hours outside without a worry in the world. “My dad worked a lot and he had his own meat market so he put a lot of hours outside of the home,” he said. “So, my mom did most of the raising of us.”

           He went to Central Connecticut State University for a teaching degree after he graduated in 1964. For one year, the cost was a measly $1,000, a foreign concept for millennials today. He was able to work on a tobacco farm and earn enough money to pay for college himself. Two months after he started teaching in 1968, he was drafted to the Vietnam War – a foreign concept for millennials as well. “I didn’t wanna go,” he said. “I was ready to go to Canada. I didn’t believe in it. It’s not because of a fear of anything, I just didn’t believe in the purpose of that conflict.” Until 1974, he worked with a combat engineer company and was a training, non-commission officer, setting up classrooms for lieutenants. He ended up receiving a staff sergeant rank, and they wanted him to stay and make a career of his role. “I said thank you, but no,” he gently laughed. “It was fun, though. At least it kept me out of Vietnam.”

           Joe married his first wife in 1968 at 24 years old. This is the marriage his daughter, Jennifer, was born from. They weren’t married long and he ended up becoming, in his words, Mr. Mom. “The only thing I couldn’t do was comb her hair,” he said with a smile and a slight shake of his head. “I couldn’t do a straight part. She had long hair and that was the style. I just couldn’t, in the morning, get that thing going.”

A year after he split up with his first wife, she decided she wanted custody of Jennifer. This seemed to be the main source of distress in his life. “It was a whole year of constant concern that something was going to happen.” The judge ended up ruling that Jennifer should stay with him.

           Joe did his graduate study in Spanish literature and noted that, had he been alone, he would’ve gone to Spain or some other place. “But I didn’t, because I chose to be with Jennifer,” he said. “I didn’t want to give up my daughter.” In 1981, he closed on a house for him and Jennifer. “I had an attorney and the real estate agent, but every signature was my signature,” he said, and then paused. “I’m pretty easygoing, but I’ll tell you, Hope, at the end, I was shot. I was mentally shot. I couldn’t remember my name, again, because all the decisions were on me. It was very stressful.”        

           I asked him whether or not he struggled with his mental health. “For the most part, I didn’t,” he said slowly. “Although, I did when Jennifer’s mom and I broke up. I saw a psychologist, a counselor-type, just to keep a perspective. And he helped. You always wonder, what could I have done and, uh… so, I don’t know. That’s part of mental health. If you break your arm, you go to the doctor, right? I’m a firm believer in getting help.”

I was surprised but I tried not to show it. I would be lying if I said I didn’t place judgments on the older generation in terms of therapy. I asked whether or not therapy was looked down upon when he was younger. “Oh, yeah,” he said with a furrowed brow. “You’d get your brain drained and all of that. Electric shock. It wasn’t the thing to do. Like with my dad, he wasn’t one to talk about feelings. You just keep them in, get an ulcer and smoke and drink a little bit. I didn’t follow in that suit.”

           I asked how comfort came about for him. “Well, I did a lot of reading,” he said. “Going through the garbage of a divorce, fear that my daughter was going to be taken away. I think part of my character is I’m a sensitive guy. I can’t give a speech sometimes without bringing a tear to my eye.”

           As a teacher for 51 years, Joe has worked, and continues to work, with both older and younger generations. He brought up a time when he used to teach and a large group of students would meet in an auditorium to listen to a speaker who was older and has been in the field for years. He said there would be a clear lack of respect due to technological devices. “When these devices,” gently tapping my phone, “and these devices,” gently tapping my computer, “came in, people felt they needed to spend more time on them rather than listening to you. I don’t know if that was my old age, but it was more my feeling that we have a responsibility here. I’m being responsible and I don’t see you as being responsible. Make a choice.”

           He met his wife, Lynn, and got married in 1986. They had their son, Daniel, who is now 30. “My son’s a millennial, and he works his butt off,” he said, “He also knows how to relax. The millennials I’ve met in my student program… some drag their feet and others ask questions because they want to be on top of their game.”

           While Chlöe Swarbrick has become a representation of millennials, it feels like President Donald Trump has become representative of the baby boomers. I asked him if he had any thoughts on Trump, and I carefully watched his face. He sat back and momentarily paused. “I can’t believe he still has people that follow him,” he said, distressed. “Talk about rude, arrogant and racist. He’s just awful for this country. It’s scary how the rest of the world is viewing us because of him.”

           Joe breaks a lot of common stereotypes about boomers, and this showed me the importance of recognizing the individual. I decided to turn to none other than Instagram and ask millennials for their thoughts on certain topics. About 100 people responded to each question. Fifty-four percent would rather live in a society with advanced technology than no technology at all. Eighty-one percent want to get married at some point. Seventy-one percent want children at some point. Sixty-nine percent consider baby boomers ignorant. Eighty-four percent said social media affects their mental health negatively. Seventy-six percent said finding a job or career affects their mental health negatively. Eighty-seven percent said money is on their mind a lot. Seventy-three percent have deleted their social media at some point to better their mental health.

I turned to statistics to get a logical point of view. According to the Pew Research Center, millennial women are more likely to participate in the nation’s workforce than prior generations.  The median net worth of households headed by millennials was about $12,500 in 2016, compared with $20,700 for households headed by boomers the same age in 1983. Millennials also have the most outstanding student debt compared with earlier generations. Student debt doubled from 1998 to 2016. So, it’s a statistical fact that, financially, millennials are in a horrible situation. Even Joe admitted that the stress of money is always there and always has been there. I turned to a millennial in my life to understand their mindset outside of my own personal experience.

I grew up next door to Hayley Richards, who would remain my best friend to this day. She’s 24 and I’ve never met anyone quite like her. When we were young, she had hair filled with dark curls and static all the way down her back. She had a freckled face and was always on a mission to create something. Both of us were, and remain, artists at heart. We would spend hours playing, no matter the season. As we got older, we had more in common than I think we knew. High school had separated us and, though we remained friends, she went through some heavy things that I didn’t recognize until I sat down with her.

Her long hair has been chopped since senior year of high school. Less makeup, more freckles. She has an androgynous look, which is drastically different from before. But it fits her with ease. She just spent the last hour showing me all of the art she’s been making when she isn’t working at her job in New York City. Pads of paper lay across the table in her childhood home, and we sit across from each other like we time traveled back to being 8 years old.

I asked her what she thinks about our generation being labelled as sensitive. “I would say we’re more emotionally intelligent than older generations,” she said. “Or more in tune with our emotions, which may come across to older generations as being sensitive. They were always taught to keep their problems to themselves, don’t show any weaknesses, and I think that causes a lot of problems in itself and may most definitely have trickled down to the reason why people think we’re sensitive.”

Her father’s father was both physically and verbally abusive; an alcoholic who didn’t show any emotion. She thinks that trickled down to how her father treated her and her three siblings. He worked a lot and didn’t say I love you often. She recognizes it was likely because of the way his father had treated him. Her parents raised her in a religious household following the United Church of Christ, alongside incredibly traditional, heteronormative views.

When we were sophomores in high school, she came out as gay to her mom who had asked her what her sexuality was. “I think for me it was so overwhelmingly something I couldn’t deny that I had to accept it otherwise I was gonna go crazy,” she said, looking down. “I felt a lot of shame.I struggled a lot with –  especially the way I was raised religiously – with my spirituality and feeling like who I was was wrong and seeking ways to change that which obviously is not possible.”

“I remember she told my dad and he came into my bathroom that night and he peeked in and looked at me in the mirror,” she said, lowering her voice, “My baby girl.’ And I was like I’m still your baby girl, I’m still your daughter. I didn’t understand the sadness in his facial expression.”

Although her parents accepted her being gay, she has struggled with her gender identity since leaving for college years ago. Attempting to have that discussion with her parents is almost impossible.

“I feel like I’m constantly teaching them things, which isn’t a bad thing. If someone’s gotta do it, I will. At the same time, they don’t put in any effort to research on their own or look things up and make sure that they’re doing things the right way, so it feels a lot like I can’t be myself because I have to teach them who I am.”

Amidst all of this, Hayley also realized she has borderline personality disorder. Before she made this realization, she would smoke and drink constantly in college, attempting to numb the pain. It wasn’t until this past year that she made significant strides with her mental health. “Seeing a therapist helped hugely,” she emphasized. “Just being able to talk about it is one of the biggest things that’s helped because when you keep it all inside, there’s nowhere for it go and there’s no way for you to understand it.”

She’s been working since she was 15 years old. She’s been a student bank teller, a waitress, a bartender, a shuttle driver, a camp counselor, a music tutor, an executive assistant, and now she works with animals. She graduated Wagner College with a major in music composition and a minor in psychology, but only one of her jobs has been related to her major. “That ties into my lack of sense of purpose,” she said. “If I feel good in a job and I think about moving up, then I’m plagued with anxiety and not being able to fulfill the needs of that job. Then, before I know it, I’m at another job, like oh, let’s try this. Ever since graduating college, I’ve been thinking about what I’m going to do with my life in case music doesn’t work out.”

She has plans to go back to school in two years and dreads the thought of finding a way to pay for it. She’s currently working paycheck to paycheck and has no idea how she’s supposed to save money while trying to survive on her own financially. “I live in one of the most expensive cities and I work on minimum wage, so money… I would be lying if I said I didn’t think about money every day,” she said.

I sat down with my mom to get her take on being a baby boomer. She’s 55. In 1979, her parents divorced, which was not a common experience during the boomer generation as it is for millennials. She graduated from nursing school and got pregnant with my older sister in 1986, by a man who was not my father. He told her to get an abortion. “I cried all the way to the appointment,” she said. “Just sobbing. I was raised Catholic, which was part of it, but I also just wanted to be a mom. Plus, there was that stigma of getting pregnant and not being married.”

She married my father in 1988, who ended up paying off her student loans; a “whopping” $9,000. I asked her what she thinks she would have done if she hadn’t got pregnant and married so early. “My friend Terry and I were going to go become travel nurses or nurses on a cruise ship,” she said. “Travel nursing seemed appealing to me because I wanted to go to different parts of the country. I think my life would’ve taken a totally different trajectory. I would’ve liked to go to California, I think.”

“I think I would want to experience some self-discovery before I have a kid,” I said. She paused. “Yeah, that’s something no one said in my time – self-discovery,” she stated, gently. “I think a lot of boomers needto do that, though. Like, later in life you realize you’re not happy and you have to go to therapy and figure out what the problem is. Like, why am I struggling? Because you’re looking for your identity.”

While talking with her, I reflected on how many conversations I have had with friends and how many thoughts I have on my own about finding purpose and existentialism as a whole. This seems to be consistently absent from the experience of baby boomers, at least when they were our age. “Me and my friends in nursing, you get confronted with a lot of life and death issues,” my mom said. “Maybe we were existential and we didn’t think about what that was. I think when you help someone to die, it makes you feel existential without putting a label on it.”

Maybe millennials feel so existential because they grew up in a time with so much rapid change. We remember a time when technology was only a small part of life. While we were going through our formative years, smartphones were placed in our hands and social media began to take over and shift the world in a way that no one thought was possible. Instant gratification has been ingrained in our brains so we have become impatient for more, but I don’t necessarily believe that’s a bad thing.

As for boomers, they taught younger generations the importance of hard work. I don’t feel that quality has been lost on us. What has been lost is taking the time to listen and learn from each other. A dialogue needs to be opened intergenerationally. Rather than following the sentiments of our current president, we should follow the trails that have been blazed by the generations before us that worked hard to be treated equally, allowing millennials to have a wider range of choices for what we want to do with our lives. Every generation has people who are power hungry, lazy and disrespectful. Every generation also has people who are empathetic and attempting to change the world for the better. It has to be each individual’s decision to listen to each other and learn these lessons.

[smokeybrandcompositions]

The Rising Tide Raises All Ships

I don't understand people who are so ardently against social systems. Like, it's pulling eye-teeth just to have what little we do. I can't tell you how many f*cking time some MAGA cultist attacks food stamps or welfare like it's the worst thing ever but it's like, the ones who abuse it like you say, look like you. They don't look like me. There's always bad actors in any system, but if the majority carries on the way they should, then that system should function regardless. We know it can because it's being executed in real time, all over the world. There's a reason why the happiest places on earth, have the most expansive social welfare systems. Its fine to drive capitalism, no one's telling you not to work hard, but if we expanded those processes, everyone benefits. If everyone contributes a little more to the pool, all of our boats rise with the tide. I mean, seriously, if 2020 has taught us anything, it's that the systems we have in pace right now, don't work. They are easily exploited, easily manipulated, and completely counter intuitive to living life. There is a literal f*cking plague going on and our president is forcing people back to work and kids back to class because the economy. If that don't scream broke and needs fixing, I don't what does.

Free Healthcare means no worries going to the doctor. Paper cut, baby delivery, broken bone, or f*cking cancer, there'd be no stressing over how to pay those ridiculous bills. They wouldn't be ridiculous. I think in Canada an ambulance ride is, like, $230 dollars, average, depending on circumstances. In some places, it's as low as $45 and others, as high as $385. The average here in the States is closer to $1200 f*cking dollars. For just the ambulance. That's not even beginning to address the hospital visit and hope you don't an extended stay. These mother*ckers gave me a bill for close to $50,000 for my two week stay the first time I almost died. Bro, there's no way I am ever going to pay that. The f*ck is you saying? I read an account of someone going to the emergency room in the Philippines and it cost her $15 dollars. To see the doctor. It would have been free but she's not a citizen. More than anything, universal healthcare would force Big Pharma to price their medications appropriately. There would have affordable prescriptions for everyone. When I left my job, I lot my insurance. When I checked prices on my meds, just a single prescription was $400 f*cking dollars for one month's worth. In Canada, that prescription would have been $15. The ill thing? The $400 dollar one was the cheapest I could find stateside. I take five medications for my heart. Uninsured, I'd be dropping close to $3800 a month, on sh*t I need to live. Who the f*ck has a loose $3800 when they have to pay that much in rent every month? Insulin is, like, $300 for 10 days worth here. In Canada, it's f*cking $30. Sh*t's even cheaper in Egypt. Small businesses wouldn't have to worry about employee healthcare or anything like that. If you have more than two employees, the cost you save in insurance coverage is more than enough to offset that tax increase. You'd be able to actually pay a more livable wage, while pocketing more profit at the same time. How is any of this bad? How can you spin this sh*t as a negative?

Free education means a more literate populace. We wouldn't have near as many Anti-Vaxxers and Flat Earthers. Motherf*ckers would understand the science of social distancing and mask wearing during a goddamn pandemic. I wouldn't be so f*cking mad having to dumb myself down just to interact with society. If we follow the Nordic system, you get your four years worth of education, graduate with a proper degree, and get placed into a position immediately out of college to tenure in your focus for the next four years. It's not an internship but a real job. You not only get a degree, but you immediately start earning a living in that field, while accumulating experience. Once you complete your four year employment obligation, you can continue your employment, start the process  over with a new major in mind, or you're free to travel abroad with four years experience and a BA in your pocket. Not only would the populace be more literate, more people would be employed thus stimulating the economy. Those that enter into science and engineering, would have to innovate in their fields for four years, minimum, so you'd have hungry minds creating the future, just like back in the day when “America was great” or whatever. More education, means more jobs, means a stronger economy, means less crime. Again, how is this a bad thing? You wouldn't even have to do away with private college or studying whatever you want. If there wasn't a free program to take advantage of, just pay for your classes. I'm sure there'd still be grants and scholarship and financial aid available for aspiring painters or wannabe film makers, or any number of vanity degrees. F*ck it, man, if you want to go to Harvard just for the clout, you can still totally do that. F*ck, dude, you can do it after getting your free degree even. Graduate school, bro. Motherf*cker can be making six figures paying that stupid, clout chasing, tuition out of pocket because you can afford it with the job you got with that free degree. That's the beauty of the Nordic system; Everyone gets what they want.

That's just the surface of these benefits. I'm not even going to go into what universal income, maternity leave, vacation time, strong unions, and subsidized child care. I'm not even going to touch on how prisons over there are built to rehabilitate, not to humiliate and effectively enslave. For Profit prisons are the modern plantations. Look that sh*t up. I'm not even going to go into detail about the benefits collective legalization for all drugs and how crime plummeted because of it, or how they treat addiction like a mental illness and not a criminal offense, or the way they house their homeless and treat them humanely, while transitioning them into society with counseling, job placement, and social work. All of this, for, maybe, an extra hundred or two a year. That's, what? An extra $30 a month out of your check? Less than $10 a f*cking week? That one trip to Starbucks. That's two Quarter-Pounders. That's nothing. How does that math not work? How do these universal benefits, not jive with everyone? How does this sh*t not make sense to people, when you can see it working the world over? The illest thing in this whole situations is the fact that we, as the US, have absolutely more than enough to implement this system, this type of social democracy which benefits everyone, if we just rearranged our budget. Admittedly, we couldn't just implement the healthcare out the box. I mean, we could, but that would entail getting motherf*ckers who make trillions, like Amazon, Facebook, and Tesla as well as Zuckerberg, Musk, and Bezos, to pay their fair share without circumventing said responsibilities Corporate Welfare is crippling the working American and people are too dumb to even pay attention to it, distracted by buzzwords like “communism” and “immigrant.” So we do the free education thing first. That's only $4 billion a year. I checked. That's pittance compared to the defense budget.

Motherf*ckers wouldn't even need to “tax the rich” or “hold them accountable” if we just cut the defense budget. We can keep pretending that trickle down works and that Wall Street works for us and not corporate gluttons and that Reaganomics works, and whatever else the conservatives want us all to believe. Whatever, right? The US spends $650 billion on defense. That is, quite literally, $400 billion more than the next country, China. The rest of the world, minus the US and China, spends a collective $831 billion. That's an average of less than $50 billion a year, worldwide. F*ck, if you add China back into that, it's still less than $65 billion a year. Did i mention that these are yearly budgets? And these are old numbers. My guy, we can afford to drop a few billion of that defense budget. We can probably skim $50 billion and enrich a lot of people's lives but we don't even need that much. Drop $4 billion off of that gratuitous $650 tril, and you can fund free education for everyone. Following the Nordic system, that means more jobs. That means more taxes. That means a better economy and more revenue to implement the universal health care, which would further lessen the burden of employers and employees, putting even more money back into everyone's pockets, which would grow the economy even more. Happy and secure people, spend more money. The only people this system hurts, are those hurting us with the current system. Are they literally too dumb and/or selfish to let go of a little extra and uplift all of us? How do you argue that math? No one loses but the people forcing you to lose right now, in real time. F*ck, man, 2020 has exposed this entire system and there are still people who will die for a country that won't even give you enough money to be safe during a whole ass plague and I don't understand that at all.

[byblacks]

MEET THE BLACK LAWYER ON A MISSION TO EXPUNGE THE CANNABIS CONVICTIONS OF HALF A MILLION CANADIANS

On the surface, Annamaria Enenajor was an unlikely candidate to become the face of cannabis legalization reform in Canada.

But as Canada edged towards decriminalizing marijuana, it was frequently Enenajor, as founder and campaign director of Cannabis Amnesty, on the airwaves pushing for the deletion of criminal records for the half-million Canadians with simple possession convictions.

“I think it’s hilarious,” the Toronto criminal defence lawyer says of her leap from strait-laced legal eagle to passionate pot advocate. “I had this joke when I first started Cannabis Amnesty that marijuana was as significant in my life as oregano, an herb I thought about occasionally and didn’t really use.”

As incongruous as it might initially appear, Enenajor’s path makes perfect sense. A zeal for social justice, combined with a determined focus to confront systemic racism, weaves through her life and a career arc that finds her now, at only 34, a partner in one of Toronto’s high-profile law firms and an emerging champion of legal reform.

That passion to give voice to the often voiceless was evident when she was part of a team representing prisoners at Rikers Island in a civil-rights class action against New York City to end the use of excessive force. It was evident when, also in New York, she represented LGBT asylum-seekers, and staffed a legal clinic for Hispanic immigrants in the Bronx. And when she volunteered at a New Delhi human rights documentation centre, monitoring refugees in India.

And it drives her work on the cannabis project. The government has proposed pardoning those with convictions, technically called a record suspension, but those records would still exist. Enenajor continues to rally support to have those lingering files completely expunged.

“Having come from a critical social science background which I tried to apply in law school, I had a strong understanding of how drug prosecutions in general were disproportionately meted out against vulnerable members of society, Indigenous people, people of colour, people with addictions,” she explains.

“That’s been sort of what drew me to criminal law as well. The fact that our criminal justice system tends to put away those people who are the most vulnerable, not necessarily those who are the worst members of society.”

That sensitivity in her approach to the law is what prompted the powerhouse boutique firm headed by Clayton Ruby and Brian Shiller to name Enenajor a partner last year. She was only 33 and had been with the firm since 2015.

“It is incredibly young,” acknowledges Ruby. “But she’s got the qualities we want; not just excellence and skills — I mean she clerked for the present Chief Justice of Canada — but mostly that sense of commitment to change. Somewhere along the line, she decided she was not going to just do great lawyering, because she can go down to the corporate world and make a lot more money doing it. She decided she really wanted to make the world a better place. That’s what makes her appropriate for us.”

While that might sound Pollyannaish, Enenajor’s compassionate approach not only peppers her resumé, it is evident in her voice. As she reflects on her career, sitting in her office on the second floor of a repurposed Victorian house on Isabella St., her words sometimes crack with emotion. That tremor is there when she recalls the concentration of “Black men in cages” in the New York penal system and it surfaces again when discussing the “devastating mental health implications” that overzealous policing and detention have on the marginalized.

That humanistic perspective can be traced back to her youth and the influence of her parents.

The daughter of a Black Nigerian father and a white Slovak mother, Enenajor moved from Slovakia to Edmonton when she was 6. There, her mother studied Slavic linguistics but when her student visa expired two years later, the family relocated to Nigeria.

Enenajor says her father, Gilbert, a doctor, had been active in student organizations, and on his return he started a hospital and tried to bring improved medical care to poor communities.

Annamaria’s mother, Anna, was a religious woman who put a strong emphasis on the “preferential option for the poor” principle, which stresses ensuring the well-being of society’s downtrodden and powerless.

Enenajor inherited the sympathetic tendencies of both.

“I was a very strong Catholic until probably about my mid-20s and then as I drifted away, the accoutrements and rituals of the church disappeared but that sense of justice and the beatitudes — like blessed are the poor, the weak and the humble — always stayed with me,” she says.

“The highest aspiration as a human is to serve others and to do so with love. There’s this great quote from (philosopher) Dr. Cornel West and he says ‘Never forget that justice is what love looks like in public.’ ”

When Annamaria was 10, the family moved back to Canada, settling in the Don Mills and Sheppard area of Toronto, a neighbourhood she recalls as a “happy bubble of multiculturalism.”

While her mother first worked teaching high school equivalency courses at the Mimico Correctional Centre, her dad spent his early days mostly at the Fairview Library. Gilbert had been a pediatrician in Nigeria and he was studying to be a licensed physician in Canada. Annamaria was often at his side doing her homework and surrounded by books that brought the world to her. Even as a preteen Gilbert recalls his daughter taking an interest in international affairs, politics and religion. She also had the un-childlike ability to sit and read for hours.

“She was a very inquisitive child,” Gilbert recalls.

Gilbert says he and Anna tried to shelter their three children from racism so they would “grow up to love everybody” and view everyone as equal, but even the cocoon of family life isn’t a completely protective bubble wrap.

“When she started to see how (some minorities) were treated, she said there’s no way you can say there’s no racism.”

Seeing discrimination, Gilbert believes, planted the desire in his daughter “to defend things that are not right.”

Annamaria remembers being bullied her in Edmonton school where she and her sister “were pretty much the only Black kids, and when I say Black, we’re half-Black.”

She thought it remarkably shallow that someone would judge another based solely on the pigment of their skin.

“That really instilled in me how devastating racism can be because it diminishes your sense of self-worth,” she says. “When you have a diminished sense of self-worth, there is no need for you to be a contributing member of society. So that’s what has always stood out to me as being incredibly toxic about racism.”

Once the family was in Toronto, Enenajor came to understand, even as a high schooler, that visible minorities were treated more harshly by institutions such as the police; she inherently understood she was subject to different expectations. It informed her behaviour.

“I would not touch drugs at all because I knew that if I were to make that mistake it would follow me for the rest of my life,” she says. “I had internalized this knowledge that I would be scrutinized more by the police or by authorities than my peers who were not of a minority background.”

A Toronto Star investigation in 2017 revealed that Black people with no criminal convictions were three times more likely to be arrested for marijuana possession than white people. Consumption rates tend to be the same between the two groups.

Enenajor immersed herself in schoolwork with a drive much like that of her parents. Her dad ultimately did become a Canadian doctor while her mom progressed to be a school administrator.

Upon graduation from St. Joseph’s Morrow Park Catholic Secondary School, Enenajor earned a prestigious $100,000 Loran Scholarship, from a foundation supporting Canada’s future leaders. Even with that, she considered devoting herself to religious works as a nun.

“She said, ‘I just feel I want to go help people. I want to go and feed refugees,’” recalls Gilbert. Neither parent was pleased with this apparent change in plan.

“There was an intervention,” says Enenajor.

Enenajor went to school and put together the resumé of a classic overachiever.

Enenajor aced everything she studied, graduating from the University of Toronto as the top student in international relations, which she had mixed with courses in Christianity and culture. Then she earned a Master’s degree in forced migration from the Refugee Studies Centre at the University of Oxford. That took her to New Delhi as a volunteer monitoring the rights of refugees.

Then her rapid progress hit a speed bump.

Enenajor returned to Canada to study law at McGill University and, for the first time, she struggled with the subject matter. She met an academic counsellor and was told “law school isn’t for everyone.”

An angry Enenajor adopted an I’ll-show-you attitude.

“I was always a very, very serious student. My parents instilled that in me,” she says. “Education is very important. It’s how you get yourself out of poverty. It’s how you make a name for yourself. It’s how you ensure your income. It’s how you participate in society. You have to become educated. No one can take that away from you.”

She ultimately graduated with civil and common law degrees and was awarded the David L. Johnson gold medal for highly distinguished standing while contributing to the academic, social and community life at the school in an outstanding manner. She served as vice-president of the Black Law Students’ Association of McGill, as a legal researcher at the McGill International Criminal Justice Clinic and she volunteered off campus as a math tutor in low-income neighbourhoods.

In 2012, she was hired to be a law clerk with the Supreme Court of Canada.

“She had this concern for fairness,” recalls Richard Wagner, now the chief justice, of the woman he calls “one of my best clerks.”

“Every time I would talk to her about any issues, not only the legal issues in our files but other social issues, you could sense that she had this sensitivity. She was sensitive to the human condition and to do the right thing and the fair thing.”

While it was her fascination with the O.J. Simpson trial as an 11-year-old that first gave her the idea that a law career might be an interesting life, it was her work on behalf of the Rikers Island inmates, after that Supreme Court experience, that pushed her to become a criminal defence attorney.

During her work at the massive New York firm Ropes & Gray, she was exposed to one of America’s notorious prison complexes. She catalogued the use-of-force incidents and she was stunned by how coldly the suffering was recounted in the records, even if a prisoner had been beaten so badly he lost an eye or suffered hearing loss. She was also troubled that there were men lingering in jail who hadn’t been convicted.

“It was almost like these aren’t humans,” she says.

Enenajor says their treatment made her despair.

“We pride ourselves as a western civilization as being progressive, and we have humans in chains for having done something that doesn’t warrant it. I thought it was so shameful, I felt I had to so something about it.

“It’s the prison system that turned me on to criminal defence because the stakes are so high.”

Enenajor maintained a busy pro bono practice in New York, which helped develop her skills. She loved the firm but yearned for something more.

“Should I spend the rest of my life making sure this billionaire gets enough millions from this billionaire?”

Enenajor took a “substantial pay cut” to return to Toronto, signing on with what is now Ruby Shiller Enenajor DiGiuseppe. She says both Ruby and Shiller encourage her to speak publicly about legal issues that concern her, particularly when the perspective of a woman or person of colour is missing.

While she’s been spending about 30 per cent of her time on the cannabis file, her day planner is full of the typical cases undertaken by a defence attorney: sex assaults, obstruction of a peace officer, assault with a weapon, living off the avails of prostitution, attempted murder. She anticipates being in court for a murder trial in February.

She concedes that most of her life is consumed by work but she does periodically get away to the Bahamas to attend a holistic yoga retreat. She is hoping to go for an entire month sometime soon.

“I keep saying I’m trying to change that (work/life balance) but it just never happens. I keep saying next month, I’ll work out more and I’ll try to go out more.”

Single, Enenajor lives on the top floor of her family’s home, moving in after she found living alone in a downtown apartment “just horrible mentally.”

Almost each workday, she has lunch at a restaurant with Ruby, akin to having her own personal Yoda.

“I always come with questions about my cases and say, look, this is what I’m dealing with, this is the kind of strategy I want to use. What do you think of this theory of the case? What do you think of this line of reasoning? This case law?

“They are always fantastic ideas I get from him … That’s why I don’t make a big stink about the fact I’ve gained 20 pounds since coming.”

Enenajor struggled with anxiety in law school and early in her career — fighting off doubts that she was good enough — but weekly therapy sessions have helped keep it “very well managed.” So does intense preparation before a court appearance.

“I can’t remember the last time it manifested itself,” she says.

Cannabis, even legal, is not something she’ll use to help with the issue.

“I’m into mindfulness meditation,” she says. “So I try not to take mind-altering substances.”

She has tried CBD, the non-psychoactive cannabis compound that some use for anxiety control and other medical benefits. Enenajor found it had little impact. As for marijuana containing THC, the ingredient that causes a high, she tried it twice and lost interest.

The first was during law school. She’d been surprised as she moved through her post-secondary education at how casual drug use was among students from wealthier backgrounds and how they showed no fear of begin stopped by police, frisked and arrested. It was a different world from her teenage years. Enenajor, a non-smoker, gave it a whirl, had difficulty inhaling and found “it did nothing.”

The second time was a few years ago on a visit to the Bob Marley Museum in Jamaica when the tour guide told her the property was covered by a constitutional exemption.

“I went with the flow. I took a brownie,” she recalls. Like the first time, she noticed no impact.

“So I took another one. An hour later, pfff,” she says, blowing air through her lips. “It was a terrible experience. It was just like the feeling of being very drunk, like being too drunk. You start feeling anxious (with) poor memory, poor co-ordination. Thank goodness I was there with my partner at the time and he was able to take care of me.”

Although she’s not finished with the cannabis file, Enenajor’s extra-curricular work will also focus on both prison reform and trying to improve the criminal justice system, particularly from the perspective of race.

“There’s systematic racism and historical injustices that play into outcomes that we still need to acknowledge,” she says, noting that “a lot of my experience in criminal justice has seen how law amplifies inequalities in many ways and is a disservice to people. It is an impediment to them improving their lot in life and it’s an impediment to them getting the kind of help they need.”

Enenajor feels there is an appetite for change and “a space for someone like myself to make those kinds of arguments and to make them in a compelling way to bring about reform.”

Enenajor recently sat on a panel at a Toronto region judges conference to speak on how to apply social context in the sentencing of African-Canadian offenders.

“One of the factors that a judge should take into consideration in sentencing a person is moral blameworthiness,” she says. “How morally blameworthy is an individual who has their choices limited by life’s circumstances?

“It was very well received. I was happy.”

As for prison reform, federal Public Safety Minister Ralph Goodale recently drafted Bill C-83 that the government says would effectively, eliminate solitary confinement. While it is progress, Enenajor questions why many prisoners are incarcerated at all.

“I think we overuse prisons,” she says. “I would call myself a prison abolitionist because I think that we structure our system as if the logical outcome of every case where there’s a guilty finding is prison. I think it should be structured as a last resort for people who are the most dangerous and need to be separated from society.”

She finds it particularly reprehensible that people with addictions or mental illness end up behind bars.

Enenajor says that while she was growing up, her value and self-worth were constantly reinforced by her parents and her teachers so she understood what she could go on to accomplish in life “had nothing to do with my background or skin colour. It’s all about who I am as a person.”

But she came to understand that some people of colour “are unable to do that because they’ve internalized that hatred that society has, those stereotypes and those doubts that society puts on you.”

That can sometimes lead to low self-esteem and choices that can, in turn, lead to involvement with the criminal system.

She believes all Canadians have an obligation to act when they see the system isn’t working for some.

Enenajor’s rapid ascent to partner — something she notes is easier in a small firm — has strengthened the potential for her to a leader in this belief.

When Enenajor became a partner at Ruby Shiller, she was so thrilled, she took a photo of the masthead with her name on it and sent it to her parents. She couldn’t help herself.

“It’s beyond my wildest dreams that I’m a partner,” she says.

“I’ve gone through incredibly stressful periods and worked with clients whose lives are on the line, and there have been difficult ethical decisions I’ve had to make and horror stories. None of that stress can compare to the stress of having the feeling that I was not doing what I was put on this earth to do. Being able to find that is such an incredible blessing.”

This article originally appeared in the Toronto Star, written by Paul Hunter.

Paul Hunter is a reporter and feature writer based in Toronto. Follow him on Twitter: @hunterhockey