Rain Brain

Sometimes when the weather gets a certain amount of dreary factor and overcastness, I start to feel my mood take a similar hue. When I woke up my throat was bordering on the sore side, and I took that knowledge with me to work, where I tried to disguise my feelings in a glass of tart sparkling pink lemonade. When I left work I found myself complaining about my day to a friend, so I immediately had to put a stop to it; I said goodbye, and switched my bracelet to my other wrist.

Let me explain the bracelet switch. I recently read from a book called A Complaint Free World. I actually got to talk to the author of the book the night I purchased the book because I visited the website, which you can find here, and called the phone number listed. I wanted to leave a message expressing my gratitude. Imagine my surprise when the very man responsible for the movement answered the phone: so surreal! Basically, the complaint free movement is a lifestyle and an attitude shift. You wear a bracelet (you can purchase some on the website for you and friends) or a rubber band on your wrist and each time you complain you switch the article from wrist to wrist. The objective is to go a full 21 day span without having to switch, no complaints. The first day I started I made it the whole day, but the next four days in a row I complained at least a few times each day: it's hard! If anyone is interested I have some bracelets left that I'd be willing to share. I think if people really lived with this goal we would be so much more helpful to each other with our lack of negativity circulating.

So when I have what I have coined rain brain, I think it's great to focus on pulling the gross mean emotions out of myself and channel the true me into other activities. It can be simple as switching a bracelet on my other wrist, or I can write about it, which you know I always advocate.

I think I will focus on making my appearance the catalyst for the rest of my mood today. Time for a post afternoon shower and a new ensemble to get the beginnings of how I feel to match the outside.

Peace be upon you,
Saira

Sayonara Saira

You know the feeling. Someone who was once quite new, and no longer is, tells you it's not going to work any longer, or at least not for the moment. What do you do? When I've been in this situation I have two go-to options, 1) cry, 2) complain. And as a recent third, go into a listless, apathetic, absolutely numb mode. That is by far the worst. Don't go there! It's natural to feel down. Revel in the downness and think about why you feel that way. Once you've had a cathartic cry and your friends are very familiar with the situation, then write it out. If you have a blog be classy and discreet with details, leave out names, but let it out. If you journal by all means go there. If the journal locks even better, and so vintage of you. :-) The point of this bit of writing is to not sweat the stuff that seems too big to handle. It's really not. It only completely and totally feels that way. Just to take it a step further with your worrying, let's go through why this way have happened.

When you make friends what kind of friend are you? Do you float along and go with what happens? Are you planning, planning, planning? The same question applies in the love department. I have realized I'm an overwhelming sort of friend. I am incredibly dramatic and loud and energetic. I want my new friends and the new people in my life to be my life. I've gotten better about this as I've gotten older, but the old Saira still lingers. It goes like this: bestestfriends for two weeks, a month, two months, but once that newness and excitement wears off people get plain tired. "How does she keep going?" they wonder. "Do her problems seem to end? No? Oh geez." That last statement is the one I imagine people saying from my past. I went through a healthy chunk of my life catastrophizing the smallest things. No text from said individual for two hours? Intolerable! Someone said this or said that? Unbearable. The key here, I think is to be the friend you want to be friends with. Now I realize we can't all change who we are, but we can certainly try to emulate those good qualities we are so attracted to in the first place. By all means don't kill who you are, but also recognize you will have to inevitably take on so much more to be a true friend and lover.

My current life plan involves so much meditation it's probably a bit much. But I never realized how much the inhales and exhales as primary focus is relaxing and reflective in retrospect. Just taking even ten minutes each day to clear my mind gives me more positivity and direction. I'm also loving music as therapy. Make some playlists based on your moods on Pandora. Feel like a sluggish blob of goop? There's a station for that. Spazzy Magees might enjoy some Vampire Weekend or The Shins, for example. People are great, good, fantastic to talk to, but every now and then people do not have all the answers: you do. So soul search yourself. Talk a thinking walk. Paint out your emotions. Or try this. You are going to raise your eyebrows at this one, but talk to an animal, even if it's your fish. Reason why is that they will not judge you at all. All they will do is unconditionally love you exactly the stinking imperfect way you are. What a refreshing thing! Make best friends with yourself today. Do it for life. It takes that extra effort each day, and pretty soon you will wonder what got you so down in the first place.

Your friends and the people you fall in love with are not permanent. It's kind of like when you watch the ocean and the tide comes in and brings some rocks and bits of debris, maybe even a starfish or five, and then it goes back out into the depths of the ocean. I think of the people in my life like that. God, sometimes I have been gifted with the most beautiful curious creatures, and then they go away. But. but. but. Chances are if they are the stuff of magic I thought they were, if they really and truly are, they will return. In some shape or another, they will be back. Watch the tide, wait for it, and live the amazing life before you.

I love me today. Do you?
Saira

bright pink balloon

Just now I closed my eyes and imagined the happiest most exhilarating object. I imagined a bright pink balloon, the joy I felt when I was a child and I got one of these after an auspicious event. I wanted to remember that jolt of happiness I felt because I have lately been in the trap of putting myself in a closed confined space in my mind. Sadness has washed away the memories of bright pink balloons. Instead of feeling instantaneous, unadulterated whee! I now see a wall of black, and every time I try to get past it I am reminded of its presence, looming over me like the great impossible.

I am still in transition. I am forming new relationships with friends, continuing to push through a new workout program, starting a new job, applying to graduate school this fall, learning so many "news." I'm finally taking the responsibility to become the person I have always wanted to be but felt too lazy, too scared, or too overwhelmed to become. I never had a good reason to start becoming before, but now I have no other choice. I must become the best version of me right now. Every day. With every breath I take and every choice I make I will become her, the person who smiles through her struggles and tries again, over and over, until persistence yield optimum results.

I like this Taylor Swift song right now. I relate to the lyrics, and I believe in them.

If you are in my life, I love you, and I can't wait for you to see the real me.

Love,
Saira

shameless shame

Night times are hard. I think about everything in my life I'm dissatisfied with and fixate. I've found a solution, though. I play a host of embarrassingly dorky songs and listen to my heart's content. You've probably heard Gangnam Style. Well, it's making me laugh and smile and be really happy right now. Before this I checked out Taylor Swift's new album. Some of the songs are rather catchy. As much as I'm embarrassed by these choices, I'm really not. They make me giddy, and I am learning that I don't need to apologize for what brings me joy. And joy is exactly what I need right now. Other than my own issues I'm dealing with, I have this horrible dinosaur cough from hell. I've been hacking and nearly vomiting from the exertion almost all day. I hope I get abs of steel after all these shenanigans.

I want to add a special thank you to the people in my life right now. Even those who are hanging on by a spider web thread. You mean the world to me, and right now you are giving my life meaning and validity.

Love,
Saira

a frenzied fall

Hello Beautiful World! Did you miss me? I'm happy to return to the land of the blogs after a super extended leave of absence. Since I've been away I have accomplished muchos with my life and then tore away parts of it and stepped back to examine what hid in the crevices. I've met amazing people with amazing stories. I've listened to friends cry and babies squeal in delight. I've become more family-centered, more balanced, and more loving of myself as a unique and special person. I started my non-traditional teaching track, and I eagerly await this summer when I start applying for open positions in junior high and high school English classrooms. As joyous as this past year has been it's also been painful and incredibly personal. I felt myself slip from God's Grasp, though I discovered God never left me. Some nights I lay in bed sobbing, wondering what would become of me and my life; was the journey over? In moments of desolation and hardship I found a maternal comfort in silence, and I felt nothing in particular stroke my back and smooth down my disheveled hair. I am strong and I am beautiful in my vulnerability. I honestly have never felt so accepting in my life!

What lies ahead is yet to be uncovered each day. I can only pray a prayer of gratitude and continue walking straight ahead calmly and surely.

It's good to be back.

The Flying Snail

As I once said, "I am a snail on a highway," I now believe I am the snail's much slower cousin with a bad case of The Humdrums. The Humdrums is a chronic condition that makes a snail believe it is much slower than it actually is, hence the place on the hypothetical highway, so to speak.

I have had a productive week and I got to see the Foo Fighters in concert, which was a colorful highlight of the week. A streak across a foggy window. I do have The Humdrums, remember? :-)

All right, all right. This needs further explanation. Lately I've been looking at a pond as if it's a ocean and flapping my fins miserably when I reach the shore no matter in which direction I swim. I have a humongous, fantastic, wildly imaginative dream that sometimes takes up as much of my brain as I can use. I squeeze my eyes really tight and click my bare feet together three times and whisper, "Please someday come true."

How does it come true, though? How do I graduate from a pond to an ocean? When do my fins morph into wings so I can set sail across the world and find my ocean?

I swim in my despair. In my dreams I fly.

One day at a time, hour by hour I work and I wait. And I pray.

What a funny looking snail I must be. Snaily discharge to travel to fins to wings. Maybe all at once.

something different

Longing for anything other than what I hear. I'm not upset. I'm not rejoicing. I'm troubled. I pray that peace is on your mind. And his mind. And her mind. I hope that we can learn that one death does not history change or make. Life continues as before until the leaves fall and the new trees grow where their parents fell.