What I have learned...so far

I am 34 years old.

Some of you may be older. Some of you may be younger. I suppose it's all relative. This however is my blog, and this is my opinion...so here it is.

I have learned that love comes and goes, often with the same person.
I have learned that the more frequently you fall in love with the same person, the deeper it becomes.
I have learned that as you age, the changes are so subtle that you always look the same and you were always prettier before.
I have learned that as others age, the changes are not so subtle as you see them less frequently.
I have learned that my beliefs are not set in stone.
I have learned that even though my age increases, my mind stays the same. My brain remains 21, as I my body ages.
I have learned that youth feels like power but power is knowledge and knowledge comes with experience and experience comes with age. Do not resent the youth for their sense of power for we once felt the same.
I have learned that my loud music is good, my son's loud music however annoys me to no end. How exactly did that happen? This is something I have yet to fully understand.
I have learned people are interested in themselves and stories that involve themselves. Keep your personal experiences to yourselves. I realize this sounds hypocritical.
I have learned to be humble, it's better (and easier) to admit ones mistakes and faults.
I have learned that letting go of judgments and guilt about not meeting up to others wants/beliefs/needs is good for the soul.
I have learned that...

This is my life, you have never or will never fully walk in my shoes. I accept you for who you feel that you are and  I accept how you choose to conduct yourself as long as you do not hurt anyone else in the process. I have chosen to let go of judgments and to have a so called Teflon mind. I will no longer hold myself to your expectations of who I should be as I strongly feel that the majority is controlled by today's media. I will not hold myself to those standards as I have learned that they are artificial and business is business...my life is my life and the two do not coincide...

Love me, or leave me...I just am.

I have learned so much in 34 years...what have you discovered in your life? We each live our lives within ourselves, within our minds. I will never fully understand you experiences and you will never fully understand mine.

I have learned that we each live our lives within a box called a brain...perception can not be shared as it belongs to the individual...

I have learned to accept you for who you are.

If you learn to do the same, you will truly be free.

The Wall is Weakening

I have created a scene of normality around me however I do not know what it is to actually be normal. Eventually everything is going to shatter around me, my children will turn their backs, my finance will walk away and with him, our friends. I don't know how much longer I can keep it all together. I feel the walls beginning to crack. Small imperfections that go unnoticed by everyone around me... I can not only see them, but feel them as well.

It's like a cancer, a growth that spreads from inside me to everyone around me. Only I can see it growing within them. Only I notice the changes.

I'm sorry. I just don't know what it is to be normal...

My Only Regret...

There is only one voice that makes me shiver...the whole night through. If you caught that, then you are automatically in my good books.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4xHl-P_arVA&NR=1

I only wish I knew how to post a YouTube video. Perhaps someone can tell me?

I remember the first time I rested eyes on his beautiful greasy locks of blonde hair. I was 14yrs old. In my biological mother's living room in Yellowknife, NWT watching Much Music. At the time I was a hard core "rocker" chic. I loved Metallica (still do) and G&R and I was still into the hair metal bands such as Poison and Skid Row. I wore skin tight jeans, teased my hair and wore heavy eye liner. The music...it tugged at my heart. My BPD was beginning to boil over and become a prominent part of my life.

"Smells Like Teen Spirit" flooded the room. I was immediately drawn to the warm and melty voice (that's the best way I can describe it in an emotional sense) of Kurt Cobain. I fell instantly in love. I felt alive.

I still feel as though I "discovered" Nirvana. Okay, I know I didn't but at the time, none of my friends had heard of them. I rushed out, purchased the CD and began my mission. I simply had to share it with everyone I came in contact with. It came to parties with me, it came to school. It never left my side. Eventually I found out that there was an earlier CD "Bleach" and I scooped it up too. This one at the time was harder to find. I was in Yellowknife after all. YK didn't even have decent radio coverage at the time.

About 6 months later I was sent back to Ontario out of bad behavior. Social services (I was in foster care by then) decided that I should live closer to my legal parents...they just couldn't handle me anymore. I was bounced around between foster homes and group homes until I turned 16yrs of age. This is when I decided to take Family and Children's Services to court and remove myself form their care. It's  amazing to me now, that they would let a 16 year old child go out into the world on her own...but they did.

I spent the next year living from place to place. Staying with anyone that would take me in. Sometimes sleeping outside in bus enclosures or on someones front step. I felt safer on someones front step. Just before I turned 17 years old, I ended up in a women's shelter. They helped me to get "welfare" and a basement apartment.  Soon after, I found a room mate. Shortly after that, I became pregnant by her older cousin.

As you can tell, I didn't exactly have the opportunity/funds to purchase concert tickets. I never got to go to a Nirvana show. By the time I was roughly 3mths along in my pregnancy, it happened.

In my tiny living room, I turned on the T.V. There it was. He was gone.

My heart broke into a thousand tiny pieces. He was the one who wrote what was in my head. I loved him without knowing him. Now...it was over.

I don't regret anything in my life. Not one damn thing. Everything I did, lead me to where I am now which is a pretty good place to be considering where I came from. I don't regret anything in my life...except not seeing him in the flesh.

If you have memories of Kurt, Please share them with me. Any memories at all. I would appreciate it, if you know any Nirvana fans, would you ask them to check out my blog too? Ask them to send me their thoughts, memories and video links too.

Courtney, I wish you would share some memories with me too.

Thank you xoxo

Date Night

I made an attempt to do something "normal" today. I suggested to my boyfriend that we go on a date. We live together however we have been leading separate lives lately. I with my illness and he with his work and love for technology. We seem to have lost touch.

I don't deal well with crowds at the moment. Perhaps a movie wasn't such a great idea. Especially when the movie we chose is still drawing people in droves. Avatar. We arrived late, well, five minutes before the show was set to begin. This in itself was anxiety provoking. The self serve machines weren't working properly which caused my heart to race. Despite all of this, we still found time to grab a popcorn combo (who in their right mind could go to the movies and not eat popcorn? Not I!) and found ourselves racing to theater number 10. It was packed. We stood there staring at a sea of people trying to force our eyes to adjust faster to the darkness. As I scanned the crowd I noticed right smack in the center of it all was two empty seats. I nudged B in an attempt to encourage him to take the lead. I was too afraid of the thought of asking all of those people to scrunch themselves up in their seats so that we could slip through. Now please understand that at this time I was holding a bag of popcorn, a giant drink, my cell phone (I had been texting), the ticket stubs and two pairs of 3D glasses. Over my shoulder was the newest addition to my purse collection, a very large cream colored Guess bag and of course I was wearing a coat.  B commented as we were sitting that I was spilling pop everywhere yet failed to notice that I was truly struggling and needed him to rescue me. Now any girl who loves a good hand bag knows that you Never, Ever put your pride and joy on the floor. This is why I chose to sit first...so that I could sling it over my left knee while shoving my cell inside of it simultaneously. My huge pop was being held between my forearm and my waist and pop was spilling all over my jacket. At this point I was losing my cool and had to demand that B help me out. My heart was jumping out of my chest.

Once we were finally seated and as comfortable as we were going to be for the next 162 minutes, things started to close in around me. The man next to me was wearing a very puffy coat which he decided to leave on. As the movie progressed he made himself more and more at home by leaning his head on his hand with his elbow hogging the entire arm rest. His puffy jacket encroaching my personal space. I began to panic. I felt as though everything was closing in around me. I attempted to use my DBT skills. Slowly, I eased myself into the movie, forgetting my surroundings.

Fast forward to the credits. Chaos. Everyone trying to leave at once. Puffy jacket guy not moving and in my way. Sticky coat, sticky floor. I couldn't breath. I felt as though I was gasping for air like one of the humans in the movie. I pushed my way out as quickly as I could. I stumbled into the light and turned to see if B was behind me. He gave me a funny look. Having BPD means that I don't deal well with funny looks. They are hostile to me. Cruel and insulting to my ego. I turned and pushed on.  I had tunnel vision. I just wanted to escape the crowd.

I'm not sure how but B ended up ahead of me and stepped off to the side close to the arcade and out of the crowd. That's when I noticed the unfamiliar jacket he was wearing. "where did that jacket come from?" I asked. I guess my body language told him that I was getting ready to criticize it. This is why he decided to answer my question with a question. "why do you want to know?" he asked. This is when I began to go ballistic inside. Why can the man not ever answer my questions with a direct answer. He always needs to know why I'm asking first. If I ask him when he is coming home from work, he needs to know why. If I ask him to go left instead of right, he needs to know why and goes the other way as I can't answer him quickly enough. I can't stand it. Just answer my freaking questions already!!! By the time we got to the car I was highly agitated, full of anxiety and was beginning to split. splitting is when someone with BPD goes from love to hate. There is no in between. B says when this happens, he can see it in my eyes. The hate. I love hard, I hate hard...there is not much of anything in the middle other than indifference. When I'm indifferent, I'm not really "there" anyhow. My therapist says that this is when I disassociate.

I have so much more to say about my relationship with B. Please know that I love him. Even when I hate him, I know it's temporary. I'll always come back to him. I just hope he knows that too. I'll save the rest for another post. Thanks for listening...oh and I highly recommend Avatar. It was beautiful.

Mish Mosh, Pish Posh

My illness is full of  hypocrisy.  When I'm in my dark place, I don't care about anything yet I worry about everything.  I want to die yet I am afraid of dying.  I want to be left alone yet I beg people not to leave me.  I hate everyone yet I am afraid that they hate me.

When I'm well It's not so bad.  I only fear that I will fall under again.  I am able to give off the impression of confidence.  I can trick people into believing that I am "normal".  I still have constant anxiety but I hide it well.  I continue to wrestle with my mind as it is always trying to "trick" me.  Now that I really think about it, as I type these words, I am realizing that I'm never really well.  There are just varied degrees of sickness.

I don't really know how I'm going to return to work.  My job is very stressful and demanding.  You always have to be "on".  I just don't feel like pushing myself anymore.  Not that hard anyway.  It's not that I've given up.  I hope I haven't given that impression.  I expect that I will do well...once I have figured out what it is I want to do.  I am not lazy.  Just uninspired.  I regret the courses I took in college as they got me no where.  I chose to get involved in retail instead.  Retail is a black hole.  It sucks you in.  Possibly forever?  I am REALLY good at my job.  I just don't have the strength to do it anymore.

It's too bad there wasn't a career in whining.  I would be rich!!

Reality T.V is one of my favorite guilty pleasures.  I love having a glimpse into other people's lives.  Sometimes it makes me feel really good about myself but...mostly I just enjoy being given the right to judge!  I also love, love, love wedding and decorating shows.  Since I have been off work for a couple of months now, I spend a lot of time with my new friends on the television.  Once I get my butt back to work I will have a beautifully decorated home AND have the wedding of my dreams.  Of course, you have to be engaged first to plan the latter...or do you?


This post is just a mish mosh of things on my mind.  It doesn't flow and it lacks consistency...just like me:)

The problem with being anonymous

I have so many things I would love to share with you.  Pictures of my children, my lovely little dog, my huge Christmas tree...the list goes on and on.  I took a risk by posting my cupcakes in my last post.  I may have to delete that photo. *sigh*  I could be "found out."

This is the problem with having to be anonymous.  I can only post so much.  In the beginning this was enough for me.  In the beginning I was really, really down.  I didn't care much about any of the things that usually make me happy.

I Googled myself today.  Well, I Googled Blissseeker.  The second hit was my Twitter account.  I clicked next and found a tweet I had made to someone.  I clicked next one more time and found "Rider Of The Storm".  My blog.  It's too risky to get personal.

Perhaps I will start a new blog.  I will secretly follow all of you!  You will never know it's me and then I can show you all of the things I love.  All of the other things, aside from BPD, that make me...me!

Blissseeker xo

A Wonderful Surprise To End A Wonderful Day

My daughter turned 8 today.  I have been stressing over it for about two weeks.  I really wanted to give her the best party she has ever had.

I baked cherry flavored cupcakes and then made a full hearted attempt at decorating them.  In my head, I envisioned beautifully iced cakes all pretty and pink.  The kind you see in magazines or on Martha Stewart.  I bought a 3 tiered cupcake stand, an icing kit and confetti sprinkles.  Please keep in mind that I am not the most "domestic" of moms.  I really want to be though!  I was happy with the finished result.  The cupcakes were pretty and they were pink.  I honestly didn't mean for them to turn out looking like they have nipples.  Hopefully, I'm the only one who noticed!  They won't be in the next issue of Good Housekeeping but...not too awful for my first baking session in 15 years!  More importantly, I really, really enjoyed myself. 

We planned a "movie theater" theme complete with a projector, screen and authentic movie theater popcorn.

The kids had a blast!  I heard a little girl say that it was the best birthday party she had ever attended.  When my daughter politely said "thank you" the girl exclaimed "no really, I mean the best"!

I was over the moon.

The second wave of the party began within an hour of the first.  This one was for friends and family.

I served an array of hors d'oeuvres, a meat tray with a large assortment of buns, the usual veggie and fruit trays and a delicious spinach, artichoke and cheese dip with pita bread triangles.  My mother made her famous money cake.  It contained $8.00 in loonies and toonies.  Don't worry, she cleans the coins really well and  wraps them in wax paper.  It's all very hygienic and everyone loves it!  The Coronas were free flowing, the children consumed waay too much sugar, there was tissue paper everywhere.  It was messy...and wonderful.  I loved every moment.

At the end of the night, after cleaning and putting everyone to bed, I decided to upload my photos from the day.  I uploaded them to Facebook and when I was finished, decided to make a quick visit to Bloggerville.

This is how I came to discover the wonderful surprise which awaited me.

My FIRST blog award!

Never in my wildest dreams did I ever expect to receive one of these lovely little gems.  There are so many fabulous blogs out there.  How could someone think that mine was one of them?  I am honored and blown away by all of this!  Thank you Jen, of "Starting Over" for including me as one of your 5 faves.  I am speechless...and if you ask the people I'm close with, that's nearly impossible!  Your comments always cheer me up and it's nice to know that someone out there is listening to all of my blethering and whining!

So, now it's my turn.  I must pass this award forward, to five more wonderful people.  This is harder than I thought it would be.  Especially because my irrational thoughts (due to BPD)  are telling me that people will be angry or even hurt, if I don't choose them.  This is actually turning out to be quite therapeutic!  I am going to use my DBT skills I have been learning.  In particular, the one called "opposite action".  Normally I would put this off until I drove myself totally CrAzY!  Not tonight.  Tonight, I am going to choose with no regrets!  I love you all but I can only choose five.  Here they are!

f8hasit
You simply must visit this blog.  She is able to take every day life situations and retell them in such a way that you cannot stop reading!  My fave is only pie, and nevermore....  I read it three times:)


365 Days of People
He has vowed to write everyday for 365 days.  He is currently on day 112.  All though he has to write on command, he certainly keeps it fresh and whitty.  Always!


Crazy People I've Worked With
Anita posts people's hilarious stories about strange and whacky people they have worked with.  This blog always makes me smile and I love, love, love Anita's dry sense of humor!  Her comments on each story are always filled with fabulous sarcasim.


Ride My Mind
Wonderfully written.  This "blog about nothing" is really something!  His most recent post, "Haunted By The Holiday Spirit" really tugged at my heart strings.


Nat The Fat Rat
Charming!  She lets you into her life and shares it all.  It's like you really know her.  She becomes your "bestie"!

So that's it then.  I could have gone on and on about so many more blogs but I stubbornly narrowed it down to five.  Thanks all, for your wonderful words:)