from: "How To Stop Hating Yourself" (lifehacker.com)

"If you dismiss the things that do not matter; if you remove those things from your mind and focus on what must be done; if you understand that your time is limited and decide to work now; only then will you be able to get to the finish line. Otherwise, you will be dissuaded into living a life you aren't interested in.

Side note: You need to handle failure and obscurity better. You may be in a tough place right now where you feel lonely or like a loser. No worries, we've all been there. But it's time for you to realize how common these things are, and that they're experienced by even the most successful and happiest people in the world. Those people get past them, and you will too."

As things in my personal life have really started to get a bit overwhelming, I find myself disliking myself even more than usual. This article is really, really insightful and helpful:

 http://lifehacker.com/how-to-stop-hating-yourself-and-start-down-the-path-to-1688096718

 

from thoughtcatalog.com

I will say this for mean and painfully blunt people: you always know where you stand with them! To find out that someone who has always been civil, even sometimes very nice, to you actually does not like you is far more painful than knowing right up front that the mean person cannot stand you!

I think of this one person I know and how the way they look at me says far more than the words that come out of their mouth. :( 

Ralph Waldo Emerson said it best:

I think this would be less hurtful if I weren't also facing the inescapable inner knowledge that a friend I recently made has changed her mind about me and is slowly drifting away. :( All the signs are there and I know it is only a matter of time before I lose her friendship. I am not very good with making friends, I never have been. It is like all the bad things within me (my loneliness and even, I am ashamed to say, my sometimes intense tendency to show my feelings too much) can be suppressed for a while, then, one day, just rise to the surface and really scare people off...

I am struggling to deal with the conviction that someone I like a lot just cannot stand me and I found this article online which has a lot of good things to say, including this:

But in the end you realize something very important. She just doesn't like you. She just. doesn't. like. you. Something about the essence of you has her angry, jealous, annoyed, whatever.

This thought should be freeing to you. Because you're off the hook. But as it's freeing, it can be overwhelming as well. Why doesn't she like you? Aren't you so likable? Didn't Mom tell you that you're the sun to her shine? You think you're pretty swell. Are you wrong? Does everyone hate you but you, and you're compounding your dumbness by missing that?



Read more at http://www.relevantmagazine.com/life/relationship/blog/24294-some-people-just-dont-like-you#rrTw29br6XGFUX1E.99

Fringe therapy

There are times lately when I think the only thing I still care about is watching "Fringe" on what feels like an endless loop. I have no passion for food anymore and really only eat because I have low blood sugar and I cannot concentrate on a book for longer than twenty minutes without putting it down. Even music does not feel the same to me lately. I blame this on both me and my insomnia, which lately (because insomnia actually feels like it can take up residence inside me) feel like the same thing.

When I cannot sleep at night, which is often, I watch my "Fringe" dvds. I bought the complete series back in November and I am already on my third "start over." I only watch it after I am through for the evening and too exhausted to clean anymore or do anything even remotely functional. I am seriously starting to wonder if the fact that this is the only thing I watch anymore means there is something seriously wrong with me.

And then I realize, each time I start over again, that Walter is "Fringe" to me and that I wish Walter were real (not John Noble, whom I like but nowhere near adore as much as Walter, the character he plays) and that he is the heart of the show, though the entire cast is just magnificent, all of the ensemble creating wonderful nuances in each of their characters.

Whether Walter is trying to find the 'perfect' strawberry milkshake recipe or is playing his favorite music (on vinyl, ranging from Bach to Bowie), he is both endearing and brilliant in what he loves and how thinks. 

The double-edged sword of knowing you are not loved and knowing you have waited so long you would not how to love, even if you finally did ever find her. An unexpected song plays on the radio and it might as well have punched you in the stomach, it hits you so hard. 

The tears in your eyes are falling so fast and hard you have to pull over and you wonder how it has gotten so bad that the slightest little thing...a favorite song coming on, something forgotten at the grocery store, your phone left at home...can leave you undone.

You can feel so sad about how things have turned out in your life (and also mad when you realize a lot of it is your own fault) and how you strongly suspect you have met the person you could really, truly love but they do not feel the same, could never feel the same, and so you look for anything to help ease the pain and you see this and you think maybe you should not be beating yourself up for feelings you know you should not have:
 

 

Sometimes we love people who can only be in our hearts, not our lives...I like this pin because it says to me...that, sometimes, we have to just love people silently and that it is okay to do that when we cannot and should not out loud...♥

Sometimes I feel like I can exactly pinpoint the last time my sister and I really got along and were even maybe good friends who would have had a connection even had we not been related. It was 1985 and my sister was a Madonna fanatic...even going to school, like a million other girls across America at the time, dressed like the singer during her "Desperately Seeking Susan" days. I liked Madonna, too, but my like was very lukewarm compared to my sister's and other than that we had little in common with our music interests. We hadn't since we played David Naughton's 1979 "Makin' It" so much on our turntable we wore the single out.

One day, though, my sister came trough the door, having just returned home from shopping with her friends at the mall and she pulled out a cassette from a Sam Goody bag. She really liked the single "I Didn't Mean To Turn You On" and like me she would often buy an entire album just based on having heard one or two songs at the most. Back then you really had no choice unless the 45 single just happened to be backed with the other song you liked.

I didn't pay much attention to what she was playing until I heard this amazing and frenetic thumping coming from her room. Enticed, I went in and asked her what the song was and she told me it was Robert Palmer. And all I could think of was how different this song sounded from "I Didn't Mean To Turn You On" and how much better and less scary and dark it was too. The song title sounded like an insult (who wants to be called 'hyperactive' after all?) but actually proved itself to be a really poppy love song/anthem the more my sister played it.

There are days I think about how much we both liked that album and how I sometimes actually mourn the loss of the relationship we once had, the way we only really had each sometimes when our parents were not getting along or our mother was mad at both of us or it was too cold or rainy outside to play with the neighborhood kids. I hate nostalgia, I really, really hate it...not because I don't see the appeal of wanting to go back to better times, better days (I do), but because I don't see the point. There are no time machines, after all, and regression is hardly healthy, mentally or physically. Still, some things are easier said than done and you can't deny those times the heart misses what it misses...