note to self...

Sometimes, just doing this feels like a major accomplishment...getting up in the morning and heading out the door to where you have to go. Sleep and dreams can make nighttime such a horrible thing to face and recurring nightmares, in particular, can be a real and very painful challenge.

Sad dreams, while not always nightmares, have their own way of infusing your real world with something equally upsetting upon waking. 

I wish so, so much that we had more say in what we dreamed and that we could stop the bad ones (and sometimes the good ones that can hurt in their own ways as well) from happening...

Related articles:

http://dreamstudies.org/2010/09/02/14-tips-for-getting-rid-of-nightmares/

http://dreamstudies.org/2009/09/15/depression-ssri-and-dreams/

I saw this on a clothing website and the words just really hit home with me because there are some people in your life who are still there even when they are not...and that can be a good thing or a bad, depending on the person and how you feel about him or her.

It's a quiet voice, but it is still there and it is saying, things are going to get better...maybe not today, maybe not even tomorrow, but eventually. And eventually isn't necessarily a bad word...it really is not.

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I love this picture of Karen Carpenter. It shows a less sad, more playful side to her. I couldn't sleep the other night and watched a PBS documentary on The Carpenters and it is poignant and then there is that voice, the one that is unforgettable and unlike any before or after.

A comment online (via datalounge) about her voice maybe says it best:

"While her voice is hauntingly beautiful, there is also a genuine warmth to it as well. The kind of voice that would comfort you in your darkest hour of need."

As does this one:

"We all don't have to "love" the same artist. That being said, I thought Karen had the most beautiful alto, melancholic, perfect pronunciation of words, effortless delivery and a dynamite lower register. Her strength really."

That is why, despite all the sadness surrounding her life and the tragedy of her death that can make it hard to put on the Carpenters music at times, listening to her can still be so very, very nice.

We read to know we are not alone--C.S. Lewis

Despite thinking to myself that I can be alright with my parents not accepting me being gay, I still have these periods of intense sadness where I feel isolated and even "sick" (a word my mom uses to describe gay people) about myself. And I have no close friends who are gay I can talk about things with and who will truly understand and not think I am different because I am a woman who wants to fall in love with a woman who could love me back and with whom I could grow old. 

I once had a friend tell me he was okay with me being gay as long as I did not talk about it...as if my saying the day gay marriage became a reality in Maryland, back in 2012, that I wanted to meet someone and fall in love was somehow 'filthy' or not the same as his wanting to meet a woman and get married, a right he has always had as a straight man and that he has never had to fight for or even think about.

So, I continue to seek out fiction that can speak to me, fiction that can really, really understand that not all of us have understanding and gay friendly family and friends here in 2015:

"Despite the gains that the LGBTQ movement has made across the planet, many lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and otherwise queer youth growing up feeling like they are damaged, evil, dirty, and—perhaps most traumatically—alone."--from the introduction to Heiresses Russ 2011

 

from "Ghost of a Horse Under a Chandelier": 

Zillah finds she can’t stand being in love. She gets angry. The infuriating uncertainty. The not knowing. She mutters that it’s not fair. If only she could know what Joy feels; if her thoughts were written in bubbles above her head, or spelled out in capital letters under every scene. Zillah has nothing, no proof of love. 

And as far as love itself goes, you can be gay or straight and feel like the character above...