Speckles of perfection

You know those magical scenes in movies where for a moment everything is perfect? Moments that feel like they could never be ruined, because they feel so real and right. Well, those moments are staged, but in my life I’ve had a handful of experiences that seemed almost a bit too perfect in the seconds or minutes they were happening. 

These minuscule moments will forever hold vivid stories, feelings and memories.

(In chronological order)

[9 years old] It was a really hot day in June, school had just let out, and I was over at my friend Sophia’s house. We were in her kitchen that had a door leading to the back yard. We lived in Maryland, where summers are humid and sticky. There was a can of Sierra Mist on the table. We ran out into her yard where there were either sprinklers or a hose, and ran through them to cool down. I don’t remember much else from that day, but that moment has for some reason stuck with me as a memory near and dear to my heart. 

[15 years old] It was a Friday night and I was out with a bunch of people. I don’t remember much about where we were and what we were doing, but I do remember my friend Jana and I walking into a shopping center, looking for an ATM and speaking really loudly in British accents, finding it hilarious. All of a sudden, a man turned around and said “Oh my god, are you from England?! I’M FROM ENGLAND TOO!”. It was funny because 1) our accents were probably horrible and 2) we were in an empty shopping mall in the middle of Skopje, Macedonia.

[16 years old] My friend Iva and I were at our favorite bar, our friends were playing a gig that night, and everyone was drunk. We were all dancing, and the moment the band started playing “I bet that you look good on the dance floor” by the Arctic Monkeys, my friend Iva and I danced like there was nobody around us whatsoever. Everything felt right. I felt free and happy, and at those few minutes, life was perfect. 

[18 years old] My friend Simona and I went on vacation together, just the two of us. We were on a Greek island and we rented a shitty little scooter to get around. I remember us riding that scooter on the side of a mountain, the sun burning the top of my right foot, the wind blowing in my face, and I remember feeling a sense of overwhelming happiness. Freedom really is renting a shitty motor bike with one of your best friends on a Greek island.

[19 Years old] It was a weekday, and it was about 10 pm. Lindsey and I had been writing essays all evening, and I remember that she looked at me and said “wanna grab all our stuff and go sleep in the woods”? With no hesitation on my part, we grabbed everything we needed (sleeping bags, yoga mats, warm clothes) and took off. I remember one of our housemates looked at us being like, aaare you serious? We were. After that I remember falling asleep to soothing soothing sounds of nature. We woke up bright and early when an otter (or some other animal) jumped into the water nearby and made a big splash. We made it to our 8:30 am class the next morning with time to spare.

[20 years old] The particular moment I remember the most was 3 am, sitting on the pavement in front of train station in Pistoia, Italy with Tijana. The 24 hours before that moment consisted of a car ride, a plane ride, a bus ride, two trains, trying to find the room we booked in Florence, and an Arctic Monkeys concert. I remember that as we waited for the first train back to Florence (which was at 6 in the morning), I was still trying to mentally process everything that had happened – and it was perfect.

[20 years old] Kyle and I were in London, walking out of a Jake Bugg concert. We were free, happy, full of adrenaline, and I remember stumbling out of the venue and just feeling like “HOLY SHIT LIFE IS AMAZING”. Always a great thing.

[21 years old] My friend Hannah and I were at a diner near school, it was a Saturday at about 10:30 in the morning, and the diner was full of old people. We were eating farmers omelets that tasted like real, delicious food. I took a sip of my diner coffee (free refills) and felt a cold drop on my shoulder. Turns out, the roof was leaking right above me. It was a perfectly imperfect diner brunch date.

I feel like I could go on forever, but this is a good start. None of these moments were spectacular, but they’re all perfect bits of time that will forever be a part of me. 

-PositivelyCurvy

Anxiety and Depression: Neither here nor there

Do I have a loaded post for you today. Oof.

Hello, hi! How are you? I hope you are doing well. I, myself, have been in a sort of “funk” lately. It’s not really fair to call it a “funk” because it kind of diminishes the seriousness of what’s going on. I was diagnosed with depression when I was twelve years old. I really can’t even fathom the fact that that was ten whole years ago. I was on anti-depressants for three years, and have officially been off of them for seven. I generally cope well with life, and thus, not many people around me know that I have suffered, or let alone that I continue to suffer from depression. Something I’ve written continuously about on this blog (maybe not written per se, but definitely scattered around) is the fact that I have also been battling fairly severe anxiety for the last six or seven months.

It would be ridiculous to claim that I know how anybody who’s going through a similar situation to me feels, so I’m going to talk to you about my experiences of dealing with depression and anxiety simultaneously. To put it shortly – it blows. I’m always stuck with a weird pressure in my chest, which feels anything but physical. A lump in my throat that I can never really get rid of. Everyday feels like an internal battle that’s even harder to fight than the day before. I want to be active and productive, but most days I can’t. For instance here how this morning went:

–8:00am Wake up
–9:30am Still in bed
–10:15am Get up, make coffee, accidentally put too much Stevia in it, dump it out, back to bed
–11:00am Fight myself on whether or not to get up and do something productive. I’ve resorted to going into coffee shops to do my work because otherwise there’s no way I’d be getting anything done. Guilt myself into getting up because otherwise I feel like a worthless human being.
–11:20am – 12:00pm Get up, brush my teeth, start to apply make up on, get dressed, put shoes on.
–12:05pm Lose all of the will I’ve amped up and sit down on my bed for “a minute”
–12:10pm Kick shoes off and go wrap myself in my blankets, being careful to not get a lot of my make up on my white sheets.
–12:35pm Feel so awful about not being able to push through, that I drag myself out of bed, put my shoes back on and leave the house before I have to change my mind once again. I walk to the cafe, thinking “Damn it, I should have stayed home”, but I keep going because I know that this is just another destructive internal dialogue.
–1:08pm I’m here, and I’m so glad I am because otherwise I would have still been in bed, fighting the urge to cry (which happens fairly frequently).

And this, my friends, is the norm. My condition, mild as it is, is weighing me down immensely. It’s like doing a balancing act between constant anxiety, racing thoughts, racing heartbeat, all the works, and a field of nothingness, as far as the eye can see. I’m not always sad, but I am constantly battling whatever this is. I’ve found that getting into a TV show and binge-watching it gives me an escape of sorts. Sadly, it’s a fairly unhealthy escape.

Have any of you had any experience with mental illness? Let me know in the comments.

-PositivelyCurvy