Pick Your Battle!

      There is no geater struggle when you feel alone than the battle between your own heart and mind. The people closest to me, as pictured in this post, have taught me the true meaning of unconditional love! I have two healthy great-nieces!!  I love you Ember and Violet. I love Karen and J R the Great. I love you Shane and Shaniah and Dakota and Kiana and Savanah and Emma and Sissy and Chloe and Mama and Colin and Daddy!!!  Also, a shout out to my homeland at Tomahawk and Reedville!!!My family always and forever! Please thank God for your blessings each and every night!


Please see my Facebook page for pictures!:

https://m.facebook.com/auntieashley34/
 

For Freedom A Cost Must Be Paid

       I loved and tried and dreamed. My supportive family were always behind me and always will be. Should I say SOME family.  Also, please remember family is not always blood.  I beg all teens of this world to think, at least as long as their extension span and hormones hold out!  

     I have turned into Dr. Brown-Still and Miss Auntie Ashley (as opposed to Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde).  The only dreams I sometimes have left are for my family's success and happiness, my freedom to sleep in any room I wish (same with trying to have my God and Music therapy), and to feel any freedom but at least freedom from unnecessary questions and walking on egg shells and being able to not fear an inevitable confrontation because I am required to be in whichever room someone else is in. The cost to pay is too high some days. The cost is sanity, self-questioning, at least when you hear them say they are by themselves hatefully and tell you they are alone so they are just going to bed and throw their hands in the air as all I do is listen to music and write, well you end up with that other person staring down the business end of a hissy fit!  Freedom always costs.  Peace and be free!

I Live A Stress Free Life! (Maybe not but let's pretend.)

     Does so many awesome things ever happen to other people besides me in such a short amount of time (say a few weeks!!!) that they start to wonder when the bottom will fall out?! It's easy for me to allow myself to sink into this line of thought. I have two beautiful and healthy daughters I love. Each has their own unique sense of humor and personality yet we all get each other and are very close. We have a lot of fun together!!! My niece is having my great niece Monday and my new niece (my nephew's wife) is having my other great niece shortly after. Two of my nephews' band White Fox Kill is taking off in this world and they are realizing their dreams! They have won Battle of the Bands and will play at The Shrine Mosque April 1st for the first day of Carnival of Ink. Many great musicians that literally changed the very nature, view, and love of music throughout the last several decades have been on that stage (perhaps you've heard of Bob Dylan?!). I couldn't be more proud of all my family. I also have another niece and nephew I love with all my heart! On top of all this I am fixing to be a proud owner of a Stevie Ray Vaughan Strat(see picture). With all this love, excitement, and anticipation building I should be bursting with pure joy instead of waiting for the ball to drop; therefore I am going to do something simple. This is something anyone can choose to do. I am going to believe I deserve to be happy and proud and have beautiful and loving friends and family. I am going to enjoy every moment as it comes without expecting all hell to break loose. I am going to laugh and love and rock out as much as humanly possible without reservation or irrational fear. I would suggest doing the same. Live without looking over your shoulder for the upcoming catastrophe!

Resolve for Repair Without Resolutions

     It's the beginning of a new year. One of my hopes for the new year involves Frog not asking me all year if it is 2018 (he asked this about 2017 throughout the last year). Most people have been analyzing and forming resolutions and have possibly already given up on those resolutions. I don't analyze myself and my life every new year because I do that constantly each day all year long. Resolutions involve regret that maybe we haven't made enough family time or learned something we've always wanted to learn. We may resolve to analyze and correct weaknesses in ourselves such as anger issues, bad habits, being a doormat, or addictions. The truth for me, though, is that I know a resolution could never be a solution. I am broken and need to believe in so much more than a miracle resolution to heal from the past. Every single day I could choose to change a bad habit or exercise more or practice more patience. My point is that I always know actions I should resolve to take towards improvement. I can also take those actions anytime of the year, should I choose to. Resolutions are only pressures that panic me and set me up to fail. They have the feeling of a time limit and hold me in fear of shame and failure. They also instill in me a nagging fear that if I fail a New Year's beginning resolution, then the rest of the year will be a continued failure. A choice to change and the motivation to do so may come under any circumstance, at any time, and completely unexpected. These moments are the ones that change my life. These are the moments I have learned the most and grown as a person. Congratulations to anyone that makes a resolution and empowers their life by continuing it. I implore the many, though, that either never follow through or try but can't make a resolution to stick to. Please take a few moments every day to reflect and just feel. If a change is wanted, then you will know the choice you need to make, and you will choose in your own time when you know you're ready. Success is within each of us and not held in a fortune cookie or a resolution. No matter your line of thinking around a new year, I do hope the best for everyone and a blessed year ahead (as uncharacteristic of me as it may sound to people that are in my circle)!

The Necessity of Emotions

Yesterday a friend told me about an ex of hers that believes emotions are unnecessary to the "human" life.  This, of course, has caused much analytical thought in my mind.  I know in my soul emotions are absolutely necessary (at least from a personal and societal point of view).  I wanted to put it into words, though.  Please humor me and imagine that every single person on earth shared no emotions.  That is the point. It is not that he thought there should be no emotions, but he thought it would just be best to not share our emotions with each other at all.  Society would break completely down.  There would be no empathy or sympathy, therefore no volunteers or charities or help for the helpless.  This would shutdown all mental health agencies, whether or not it's pro bono.  Don't misunderstand me.  Even as a person in the mental health profession, I am not trying to cry out for all people to open up and write down and share their "feelings".  I am only discussing those emotions and situations that make us different from all other species.  We help each other and work together. We do not do these things for our own gain (although we do) but because we understand and want to treat others the way we would want to be treated. Yes, the golden rule is still in play.  Emotions are also our soul basis of trust in each other. Even the coldest introvert should agree if you have not even one person's trust, you have nothing.  Can emotions be draining? Yes! Do they seem like a big fucking joke at times? Absolutely! We still need them and need to express them in some form (hopefully in a healthy way).  Love, anger, fear, happiness, and all other emotions will always be necessary if we want to be a contributing member of society. Human connection is sometimes all that keeps us alive. We feed each other, listen to each other, put roofs over unfortunate heads, and always strive to make the world better through improving and building up each other.  Maybe her ex or one of you can survive with no help from anyone or any emotional connection with any other person. My hat's off to you. I could never survive that way.

My Stairway to Heaven and Highway to Hell in a Small Town

     The road to hell is not paved, despite that old bit of wisdom.  I feel it sneaking up at times when I'm traveling an old dirt road.  Here the gravel in mud captures local sins and blood. Some are buried deep and some are fanning flames.  In a correct situation, wrong can be right.  Someone plots to take your darkness.  This will help you forget the pain.  You find these friends that "know" you need a release.  Friend lead to a belief that the answers can be found. I check into my trip to heaven with every step towards hell.  When everyone knows my weakness, they learn to fear my strength.  Does danger have a place on the stairway? Can kindness fool this highway into pushing pain away from my hope and Heaven's stairway?
I realize to some this post is strange. Maybe some won't understand. Basically, I have come to believe you must feel the evil and know it's temptation in order to recognize the light again.  Sometimes we lose the light. The only way to look for light is to travel through the darkness. I need to know others have darkness. I like to find each person's darkness in order to find a truth that helps me to see someone as completely human as I.  That knowledge helps me see each ray of light you also exhibit. I see strength that overcomes any weakness. These are the people that give me hope for all of us in this confusing world. Yet, as all humans seem to require experience to gain knowledge, I am sure each one of us continuing down so many different and difficult paths will continue to cruise this highway to hell. We must experience a justification and then a conviction of our sins in order to arrive on our stairway to Heaven. We can't believe in finding Heaven in our personal hell. Sometimes I scream. Nothing is simple. Questions haunt us. Love saves us. Answers will arrive.

I Forgot Love was a Verb

Everyone generally wants to have someone to love whether it be a family member, friend, or romantic, significant other. The problem people often have in today's time is that actions are no longer the measure we use in order to prove that love for others. I have been guilty of this and know plenty of other people that are also guilty. We often assume someone knows we love them. It is too emotionally draining in a world of stress to do the things we should to show loved ones how we feel. Between education, employment, and parenting, people feel they no longer have time to go out of their way to keep up social relationships. They take loved ones for granted and expect relationships to to take care of themselves. Relationships can not take care of themselves.  They take all parties involved working together to remain in loving and healthy and mutually supportive relationships. I was awakened to my assumptions when my 22-year old nephew, 'The Real Shane Quenzer', moved half way across the country to California from Arkansas.  I have watched him grow and was lucky enough to be able to influence his thoughts and choices. As his moving day came closer, my denial grew into a numb existance to prevent admitting to myself that I would have to say goodbye to someone else I love. After he did finally go, my denial mutated into a painful realization that I was out of time after 22 years to show him what he meant in my life.  Luckily, I realized how proud I am to see him make his own life as a writer/singer like his mother (my sister) and I always wanted to be.
Also, I was lucky I still have contact with him and have been able to make it clear how instrumental his own existance has been to my own happiness. I miss him, of course, and don't care a bit to tell him that. I am now more aware of the condition of all my relationships, especially the rest of my nieces, nephews, sisters, brother-in-laws, my husband, and my daughters.  I want the people I love to know their impact in my life, and I want to be able to see the impact I have in their life. I want my own impact to be positive and supportive.  It never hurts us to ask ourselves what we can do to apply the love we feel for others in those loved ones' lives. Time can not be regained and guilt is a useless emotion when it turns to regret instead of wisdom.