..to get caught up again.

I've been neglecting DA again and have a ton of stuff to read/look at/respond to in my inbox now.

*sigh*

I promised arts, didn't I?

Sorry, guys. It seems I'm still struggling with focus and the inability to ever FINISH anything. Ever. EVER.

Grah.

Aside from that, all goes well.

How are you all doing?

-CTW

~~~~~~~~~

..until our first anniversary.

And someone at work goes in and throws away our wedding cake.

Just two months.

Why was it stored there? Because we live in a home that houses four adults, all of which like to eat, and that share ONE (count them: 1) normal-sized freezer. So you can imagine it's always full. No space for our little cake box. Our managers said we could keep it there, and everyone knows us, so no one ever had a problem with it. No one uses the break room freezer anyway.

It's been in there for 10 whole months with no problems. Our names, "wedding" and "Do Not Touch" were written very clearly on it. Many people at work say they've seen it within the past couple weeks.

And today, sure enough, it's gone.

Someone actually took our WEDDING CAKE out of the freezer and threw it away.
_{And proceeded to leave a box of nasty, rotting popsicles and a random frozen glass in there.}

Now, let me ask you this:

WHY would someone do that?

Let's think about this-
You'd have to stand there and look in the freezer stare at a box with names on it, both of which are people who have worked there at that hotel for years, got MARRIED there at that hotel, and that almost every person knows... and without regard for anything other than the fact that you feel compelled to clean (?) a near-empty freezer that no one ever uses, you read the box, make the conscious decision to do what you need (?) to do, reach in, pick up the fairly-weighty box, and chuck it in the trash. And when you pulled that heavy box out, you wouldn't bother to look inside? You're going to throw it away.. shouldn't you know what it is and if it's gone bad and NEEDS to be thrown away? So IF you open this box, and see a BEAUTIFUL mini wedding cake inside, wouldn't you begin to think that maybe it's important? Especially since the box says "DO NOT TOUCH"..? Surely common sense must have tried to nudge its way into your brain at some point and urge you to, oh, I don't know, ASK one of the two people listed on the box? Especially since they're here almost every day of the week? It's not like one would have a hard time finding us..

I was furious.

I was HURT.

And after a loooong morning of insanity (which included our two coworkers that are better than everyone else [scoff] being jerks to my poor new easily-overwhelmed and mildly neurotic partner, which in turn caused problems for everyone else, which got people arguing, talking bad about others, and putting us behind in the laundry room a couple hours.. only to have everyone expect ME to go fix all the problems..even though I was never really involved in the first place..gah.) I miraculously managed to keep my cool, even with the knowledge that I was going to be working 5 hours more than usual that day. We decided to pointedly turn conversation to happier things, and my 1st anniversary was mentioned. The afore-mentioned new partner asked if I was going to have cake, so of course, I excitedly dashed into the next room to get my wedding cake to show it off... and found it wasn't there.

That was my breaking point. Kept randomly bursting into tears and having to go hide in the bathroom (I hate being so overly-emotional), and it took a while to compose myself.

BUT

I've calmed down about it now, but I can't tell you how much it still hurts me that someone would seriously throw our beautiful wedding cake away. I was upset yesterday because someone keeps throwing away my drinks (which also have my name on them).. but my wedding cake? Really?

I've come to terms now that there's no sense in staying angry over it, that there are bigger things, and the important part is that we still have each other.. and our housemates have survived our first year of marriage. (Congrats, guys, btw. We'll have to celebrate that too.)

I still want to know who's responsible, however. We're going to have a talk about common sense and respect.

Also, I hate football. That is all.

~~~~~~~~~

Well, thanks to , I've got another year of pretty journals ahead of me.

*HUGGLES*

Thanks so much, man!

I definitely owe ya one



Also, on a completely unrelated note:

We saw District 9 last Sunday and alsdfh;aslkfha.skfsalkj GAH!!! It was so amazing!

For some reason I was thinking about it again today..
Has anyone else seen it?

-CTW

~~~~~~~~~

Wow. My subby expires in three days.

Bummer.

I figured I'd make use of my purdy journal one last time.

It might be back later, but right now I think I have some more important financial obligations than a DA subby. It's okay.

I've been neglecting my account anyway.

Which leads me to my next thought: art.

I need an opinion, guys.

I feel that I've improved artistically quite a bit over the past few months.. now, while I can't prove that seeing as I haven't exactly UPLOADED anything recently, I'm sure you can just take my word for it.

My dilemma?
There's two actually:

1) I have quite a few in-progress pieces that were started months ago and worked on to near-completion before being pushed aside. And we're talking about pieces that I can't just easily modify. They're past the point of no return. Either I completely re-do them or finish them as-is.

Problem is I don't know that I have the energy to re-do them. I get emotionally attached to my artwork, and can often recall what I was feeling at the time I did a particular piece, so re-doing is it like killing a good friend and telling yourself that it's okay because a similar yet better-looking one will soon take his place.

What do I do?

2) Remember the emotional attachment thing? Yeah. I look into my gallery and see so much junk that makes me want to vomit because they're so terrible. But I almost can't stand to delete them because a)It allows me to see how my work has progressed and b)I'M EMOTIONALLY ATTACHED, GOSH DARNIT.

So.. what do I do?

Get rid of them? Keep them?

My gallery's getting cluttered with old, inferior JUNK.

*sigh*



------And now, a note about life-------


I would try to keep this short.. but we all know that won't happen. It's ME, after all. Plus, I have a lot to say.

So if you're uninterested in the major goings-on in my life, I understand if you quit reading now. (it has a very happy ending, however, unlike a lot of my journals. lol)

Where to start?

The past few months have seen such a drastic change on my part. Maybe not on the outside. But on the inside.

I can't really describe it, guys. It's like this overwhelming PEACE.

I used to be so angry. SO FULL of anger and bitterness. And I am, by nature, a negative person.

"I hate my life. I'm ugly. I'm worthless. I can't do anything right. My life's going nowhere. I never got to go to college. I'll be stuck doing nothing important my whole life. I'm stupid. I can't concentrate. The world won't let me be who I want to be. I'm crazy. My bits of talent are never quite good enough. I'm nobody. Every time I think I'm happy something happens. I'm in bad health. We can't afford the things we need. I always hurt the ones I love most."

etc etc etc.

This past winter was the beginning of my determination to overcome everything that was pulling me down. Mostly because I had to finally admit to myself that I had a problem and that it was affecting those around me.

It took a lot.. by nature I'm also a perfectionist, a bit neurotic, and someone who gets just absolutely SICK when justice is not served.. whether it be for an actual crime, or for a co-worker at work getting away with slacking off while everyone else struggled along.

But it all started with dealing with the anger.. and that started with an act.
When someone would do something that'd anger me at work, I'd shrug it off and pretend it didn't bother me. I'd tell people things like "It's okay." and "Don't worry about it." even if I was freaking out on the inside.

Then came talking more positively about others. If so-and-so makes everyone mad constantly and is just generally a bad person, I'd say "Well, yeah, so-and-so is kindof mean, but I'm sure it's because of problems in her life. That's unfortunate. I feel sorry for her."

When dealing with a difficult person, I found myself responding to hatefulness with kindness. And in a tense situation, found myself humming a song to myself.. which was almost like a shield against that negativity. It both served to calm me down and to give the other the impression that their hateful behavior truly didn't affect me, even if on the inside it DID bother me.

Verbally, I'd be more understanding, more sympathetic, more care-free.
Then I worked on my state of mind and my emotions. Every day I tell myself "It's okay. It's okay. That's okay."

My mindset just seemed to follow along behind, slowly changing as I forced myself to change my outward behavior.

It's kindof amazing, really.

I don't freak out now when people do stuff that used to bother me (and sometimes still does), and am much less high-strung.

Now, my poor friends (and hubby) at home get to see me blow off the steam that results from the effort it sometimes takes, though that's usually just a half- or pseudo-angry rant about how so-and-so thinks she's just SO much better than everyone else and gets away with picking on everyone, etc. And I'm still guilty of getting down and depressed occasionally, or even stressing out, but I'm human. It happens.

And for the most part, it's not nearly as severe.

Now, this past week served as a HUGE step in my life.

The evening of the Thursday before last, something happened that showed me that my life was definitely beginning to straighten out. Then, inexplicably, Friday night I began to get very depressed, lost it on Saturday, and on Sunday had an episode that convinced me that I had gone completely insane. I was terrified. And I was right back to every single one of those negative feelings I had had before. I hated myself. I hated my life. And worst of all, I was thinking suicidal thoughts again.

Now, this is big for me. I hadn't felt THAT TERRIBLE in AGES. It was a very severe break down. And it lasted several days and had it's ups and downs. By evening when I'd get a chance to distract myself with tv or the computer, I'd be halfway okay, but knew for a fact it'd start up again the next morning.. which it did.

So where's the good in that, you say?

The fact that it only lasted a few days, and recovery was instant.

If it had been just a year earlier, it would have lasted longer. I would have kept myself in this perpetual loop of depression, telling myself all these negative things over and over again. And I'd be CONVINCED that my life sucked. That I was unhappy and ugly and worthless and lonely. I'd have BELIEVED it. And I would have struggled to pull myself out of it, only to have lasting effects for a while.

This time?
I realized that nothing had changed to make me feel the way I did. NOTHING. It was a day just like any other, just slightly different goings-on. My life hadn't suddenly gotten worse. I didn't magically get any uglier or dumber. My work situation hadn't drastically changed.

THE ONLY difference was my perception of everything around me. Simple as that.

I live in a beautiful house, larger than I could ever have realistically hoped for at this stage in my life; I'm married to the greatest man in the world; I'm surrounded by an amazing, interesting, and entertaining group of friends; I have a family that loves me; I may not be in perfect health but I'm still functioning; I have a job that puts food in my cabinets and internets on my desk. And there are SO MANY people out there that have it worse than I do.

NOTHING CHANGED.

The cloud was lifted when I was able to talk to a dear friend (who happens to be a manager at my place of work) and ADMIT what was going on in my head and heart and soul, WHY it was happening, and the fact that I DIDN'T WANT it to continue.

At the conclusion of the conversation, that was it. I was me again.

Now, happy ending, right?

But the problem with this story is that I'm leaving out the key ingredient in what instigated this change. And the reason for doing so was out of "respect" for everyone else out there who would have instantly thrown up a wall the instant I began to be completely honest with them. Because the "G" word is such an insulting thing to some people, and in a lot of cases, I can understand why.

Fact of the matter is that for the past four years, I haven't exactly been the Christian example I should have been, and despite all my self-justification, it had a major negative impact on my life. Ben and I are now trying to get our lives back on track spiritually, and even just the willingness to do so brought along with it an unbelievable number of changes and an unmistakable (and at times near-overwhelming) feeling of peace.

But it all started with the desire for something better. I got fed up with the depression and the constant problems. As inspirational as my down-points were, it just wasn't worth it.

And I now realize that everyone who's ever told me that change starts (and comes) from the INSIDE, (every one of which I laughed at. After all, they couldn't POSSIBLY know the things I was going through, right?), was absolutely correct.

And out of continuing "respect" for those of you who would think less if me if I were to begin spewing fourth all the happiness and joy that's found it's way back into me, I'll restrain myself.

Just know that I can say truly, definitely, without question or doubt whatsoever that the biggest factor in all of this change was simply the Lord.

He was undeniably involved in each and every big and little even that's brought about these drastic changes in my life. And has been startling me for the past several weeks with such unmistakable answers to prayer.

It's eerie when things just start falling in place.

This doesn't change who I am.

Nor does it mean I'm going to start thinking any less of anyone who holds different beliefs than I do..(On the contrary, I find different beliefs or lack thereof intriguing.) And I would hope it doesn't negatively change anyone's view of myself.

So what does this mean?

I'm not sure yet. Maybe it'll mean less whiney journals. Maybe it'll mean I'll face even more tests and trials in my life.

But one thing's for sure, guys:

I'm happy.

For the first time in so long I can honestly from deep down within my heart say that I'm happy.



Apologies for the long journal.
And apologies if anyone is offended by my sudden and blatant expression of my beliefs. But right now, it's what's happening in my life.

<sub>I'm open to discussion, questions, complaints, light saber fights to the death, etc.

But then again, that'd be assuming that anyone made it all the way through this journal without falling asleep. HA. Ohhh, I do tend to ramble, ne?</sub>

Love you guys.

~~~~~~~~~

Three things:

1) Facebook, anyone? (Yes, yes, bandwagon, I know. Bite me.) [link]

2) I'll be posting some new art soon, I swear.

~~~~~~~~~