What a day it has been! Today or rather from the turning of midnight, yesterday, the Helping Hearts birthday program was put into action as we all celebrated the birthday of LdyPhoenix .
I never run late for anything but of course I was late to kick off the celebrations and everything turned frantic from there. I got up, turned on the computer, logged on, created the birthday room in chat, sent out the group email all while multi tasking with getting breakfast for the three kids, changing them into fresh clothes, washing dishes, getting them all drinks etc, etc...I could barely breathe, I was so worked up but everything calmed down and I managed to get the show on the road.

The turn out was not as spectacular as I hoped but a few people did stop manage to stop by and the door prizes were won. Ldyphoenix's ultimate birthday wish was to receive a trophy but unfortunately that was out of my reach but she was awarded with a plaque instead. A half wish granted and I was happy she was thrilled with it.

It was a great opportunity for some of the members to come together and speak to one another without the time restrictions of IM and email. I'm glad we will be continuing with the chat parties because it will give us all an opportunity to get to know one another much better.

I promised myself that I would use this journal as a means of getting out thoughts which I cannot form into a piece of Poetry or a short story. I vowed to write something, anything, each day to ensure I was writing SOMETHING! Already I have broken the promise and it has been a few days since I have visited these pages.

Life at the moment has been one giant rollercoaster, actually that is a bad example because rollercoasters go both up and down, a more precise example would be a landslide. I am getting to the point where I am starting to forget that sensation of elation which comes when something great has happened. It sounds ridiculous but I feel like it is me against the world at the moment. I jump one hurdle only to be presented with another and to be completely honest I am starting to lose any energy for jumping anymore and just feel like giving up. I am not usually a quitter and it takes a lot to discourage me but geez, I can't seem to get cut a break!

The kids have been unusually quiet and reserved and I am beginning to wonder if perhaps they are picking up on my vibes. I tell them nothing of anything that I feel is adult related because I feel this is their time to relax and enjoy their childhood. I don't want them reflecting when they are older and remembering a constant feeling of anxiety, I want them to be happy at all times regardless of anything which is going on.

There is no point in going into detail about the things that are going on because it can all be summed up quite neatly by just saying EVERYTHING!

I've been putting on the brave 'mother' face assuring them nothing is wrong that I am just tired, to ease any thoughts they may have but I don't know how much longer I will be able to stop this happy facade from cracking. Anyone who knows me is aware that I am not a religious person and those who do not know me would be made aware of this the minute they entered my port. This is a personal preference I have but by no means do I shun others for their beliefs, I think each to their own, but lately the walls are crumbling quicker than I can keep up with and I have resorted to praying because basically I have nothing else left to do. I doubt any of my prayers will be answered but hey I might as well take a shot and see what happens. It can't possibly make things any worse.

I have been trying to keep my head on an even keel because usually when I feel myself sinking I get into a pattern of self-destruct mode aka via self medication or if I am in denial I refer to it as self-preservation. I refuse to allow this pattern to take form as it usually would and I am guessing that this is probably why I am not dealing with things as efficiently as I usually would. Reality is a bitch.

It is surprising how writing all of this in here has actually made me feel slightly better. LOL

Goth Angel.


 

I have finally had somewhat of a break through! I have been nagged by a short story idea that is solid and have been slowly piecing it together. It will be at least a few days before it will reach a posting standard but after how long this writer's block has haunted me I am not complaining. LOL

I have not had the urge to write any Poetry lately which is strange for me. Sure, I write many things which never make it to my port, Poetry especially, but I am always writing it anyway. It seems I have been bitten by a different writing bug and let's hope it is a big which injects me with something worthy of reading.

I am so tired. I had a huge day today getting some RL stuff sorted out. The hectic activity of back ad forth, here and there, this place that place and the intensity of it all has really gotten to me today. Now I just hope the Insomnia does not hit me when I try to sleep. In general the insomnia has been very mild lately which is also another unusual event because it has always hit me to an extreme.

The world is a strange place and many things have been changing for me. My normal and very strict routine has been thrown out of the window and to some degree I have enjoyed it because it's out of the ordinary. Other things I have not enjoyed but at least it is different from living the same day each and every time I wake up. (If I manage to sleep hahah)

Time for me to go and try and get some sleep.
 

It is said patience is a virtue and if that is the case then it is one virtue I am definitely struggling with at the moment. I find my patience is being tested more and more lately and I know it is not being done deliberately which just angers me even more with the people who are doing it and myself for not being able to turn a blind eye.

I can slowly feel myself getting to the explosion stage I was at a few months ago. Life has a tendency of dealing out some pretty shitty cards to me and I find I am jumping one hurdle after another. I get to a stage where I sit and think for a while and for a few brief moments I feel content, but this is a facade because I am anything but content with anything at the moment.

When I was sick and unable to do anything I had lots of time for reflection but it seems the more I thought about certain traits I have the more confused I became and I would end up with nothing but a headache at the end of it. There are many things about myself which I am not completely comfortable with. I have a bad temper, zero patience, I can be very cold and unemotional when the mood strikes and like many others when I am crossed I can be a force to recon with.

Sway the pendulum and this is what you can get:

I can be completely sympathetic to others, to the point that I almost destroy myself in an attempt to help them all I can. I can be overbearingly nice and easy to get along with (something my other side would kick my ass for if it could). I am a loyal friend and a big believer of truth. I am of the belief that if you talk shit them you get it back each and everytime you converse with someone else so I have refrained from this since I was a child. However, I can never seem to find a happy medium nor am I able to mingle the two together comfortably.

I live a life similar to the old nursery rhyme of the girl with a curl.

When she was good she was very, very good but when she was bad she was horrid.

That is me all over and no matter how hard I try, each time I wake up, I am either one or the other and I never know which one it will be. There are many times where I feel like being nice and would love to be in a good mood but something within me won't let it happen so when my evil side takes over it does so to the extreme because I am angered that I am unable to be who I want to be. A life time of therapists, counsellors, medication, hypnotherapy etc etc has made no difference.

I am angered so much by this but yet the pendulum swings once again and I think: Would I be happy and content being the person that others want and expect me to be? I come back with a solid and undebatable answer of 'No'.
What is to say these people offering advice do not have their own inner demon? What is to say that these people are not the same as I and can completely change personalities from one minute to the next? How do I even know these people truly care about me and have my best interests at heart when they could have their own agenda?

My emotions continue to fight with my thoughts and my thoughts continue to fight with my morals and either way there is never a winner just a turbulent, vicious cycle which I used to release through Poetry to keep me calm, until the writer's block hit. Another vicious joke at my expense thanks to nature or could it be that I am inadvertently doing this to myself as a form of punishment?

The questions go on and on with no right or wrong answers, the cycle continues to orbit, the battle rages on and at the end of the day I am still me which leaves me no other option other than to think I am my own worst enemy and will continue to drive myself crazy until I am probably unable to live a life which appears as normal.

Goth Angel.

 

Sheesh, I have only just managed to recover from an illness which knocked me off my feet for three weeks and now I have the flu.
I've been following the doctors orders of resting, avoiding any stress and taking a vitamin supplement to get my strength back from the illness which just passed but I can't seem to get cut a break lately. Once I have finished writing this I think I will definitely be calling it a day and heading off here early. The last thing I want to do is land myself back in the hospital for another three weeks so it's medicine time and then bed for me.

When things like this happen it makes really terrified of growing old. Seniors always seem to be afflicted with one thing or another and now I feel even more sympathy for those people because I have been given a small taste of how debilitating it really is.

I am such an active person and it takes only one day of not leaving the house for me to become agitated. Not being able to do anything for three weeks almost cost me my sanity and I am praying that what I had is not attempting to return. I will be vigilant this time in watching my symptoms instead of ignoring them and if I feel I may need another trip back to the hospital at least this time I will have the opportunity to let my group and WDC friends know the cause of my absence.

Time for me to get some rest so I can make sure I come back tomorrow.

Goth Angel.
 

My mind has been thinking on so many different subjects at one time that I am not able to have one clear thought. Admittedly, I am playing 3 weeks+ worth of catch up which is not helping but this has been happening for some time now. When it comes to matters of my Helping Heart group, this seems to be the one area I am able to dedicate myself to completely. It is somewhat of a blessing because there were and still are many new things I want to do with the group and I am now being given the opportunity to do them.

It's just that I loathe that feeling of restlessness and discontent. That feeling you get when there is something particular you want but you can't seem to figure out what it is so it bugs you incessantly until it almost drives you mad.

While I was on leave with illness and began to recover I had the opportunity to do some reading. It was so refreshing and something I had definitely missed doing. Between 3 children, WDC and life in general it is hard to find some down time for anything else these days.

I know the main reason I am feeling restless is because I am terrified that I may never get my muse back and if it does eventually return who knows in what shape it will come to me. It worries me that I feel like I am losing my abilities, it worries me to a point that I am writing my thoughts down in this journal right now, just to write SOMETHING and keep those writing hands in motion.

At this moment I feel like the queen of unfinished business. So many pieces of paper with ideas for stories and Poems which I can't bring together. Ideas which get me excited enough for me to attempt to work on them but they fizz the moment I try. I have spent some time tonight reviewing and I am finding myself green with envy that they were able to write something to begin with.

I read something which seemed to be going in a good direction and with some extra attention focused upon it, it would have been a pretty sensational item. The condition it was in when I reviewed it would have taken a 3.5 rating from me on any other day but I rated it higher because I thought 'Who am I to criticize anyone's items when I can't string two decent words together at all?'

I hope things settle down and I am able to write again very soon. I miss it terribly but will not make a mockery of it by delivering something I would deem as 'unreadable'.

Goth Angel
 

I am completely blown away by how many promotions have taken place in my two and a half week absence! Way to go to all recipients. I think the promotion idea is a fabulous way for WDC to recognize the effort, skills, talent and dedication of certain members. When I was promoted to a preferred author some time ago it gave me such a confidence boost and most certainly helped me with my writing in terms of having the courage to put myself out into the mainstream community with my written words. I believe I would have found the courage to do this myself eventually but without the boost the promotion gave me who knows how long that may have taken for me to do. I may not have even found the courage yet.

I was thrilled to see certain individuals had not been bypassed who were more than deserving of this honor. This alone helped to reinforce my faith in the WDC staff that they do in fact make correct and fair decisions within the community and take all members into careful consideration.

As this is a journal created for my thoughts I will take the opportunity to think out loud for a moment. What I do not like about promotions is the ability it has to spawn negative views within some people. A promotion is not a token bestowed upon someone to say that they are better than others and it seems that this is a view many members seem to be voicing more often than before. When people allow a power that is non-existent to go to their heads and obscure their thoughts in such a way that they appear shallow and ridiculous it makes me furious and I begin to wonder if the person is in fact deserving of such a blessing, especially when their actions are showing us that they do not understand the true concept of a promotion.

Naturally all people lucky enough to receive this honor are going to be ecstatically excited and rightfully so, who wouldn't be? But celebrations should be made with some dignity and sophistication especially now that these people will be viewed as role models for newbies to look up to and turn towards in times of need.

I am friends with many wonderful people who are registered authors and display a black case and they are extremely talented writers. A yellow, blue or any case color does not make that person more talented than the next. I find most times these people have been promoted because they have a deep knowledge of how the site functions through experience. They have put in the time and 'earned' this status and people who are truly deserving of this honor do not use their case color as a book to slap fellow writers with and make them feel worthless.

I hope this negative craze slowly begins to ebb away and people who are doing this, show the story Master and the Story Mistress that they were not wrong in their decision.

I do sincerely hope that people who have been on the receiving end or been unfortunate enough to be around when these ridiculous conversations take place do not think all members or even a large amount of members are like this. We are all here because we share a common passion and that is to write. It is long overdue that this negativity come to an end and people begin to remember and remind themselves that they were also once black cases. We all were.

In closing I would like to say a very big congratulations to simply_complex and StaiNed WOOT! WAY TO GO! Congratulations to all lucky recipients of a promotion. Make WDC proud!

Goth Angel.
 

It seems my pen has dried up and my thoughts are not morphing into anything substantial that can be sculpted into something I would deem as 'readable material'. Whilst on this dry spell I have decided to create this journal in an attempt to at least keep my thoughts churning and my restless mind active. Hopefully somewhere in these entries I will find the kindle which will spark my writing back to life. What better way to keep myself active than to document my strange thoughts? Inspiration comes from the strangest sources at times so until my muse is resurrected I am left with no other option than to ramble out loud. Sorry in advance to anyone who stumbles across this.

It is widely said; One must first love themselves in order to love another.
I do not hide the fact that I am a sceptic (Warning-Australian spelling) of many different issues and this comes to me preferably in the form of famous and not so famous sentiments. Sure they sound good and their Poetic content seems to roll off the tongue quite nicely as Poetry is meant to do but it seems the more I ponder their meaning the more sceptical I become. I may be reading further into the general content than is required but it still does not change the fact that most of them are blatant contradictions or just simply do not make sense. I feel sentiments are there for people who need to believe in something. A small hope or minor promise that certain actions, beliefs or thought processes are rewarded in the long run.

The catchy phrase above is one that I have heard tossed around frequently in the course of my life. It sounds good and for a moment has the ability to encourage one to embrace themselves in a different and more positive light. However, I am not a person who is completely comfortable nor happy with the person I am. I have many flaws which need working on and I do not know of one person who is able to say they love themselves completely yet these people and I are able to love others. I love my family, friends, pets, hobbies and yes this love flows into the shallowness of my favorite T.V shows. All the things which I do love, I love whole-heartedly and without regret. I, however, do not love myself completely. Does that therefore mean that the love I have for others is false and insincere? Have I merely manipulated myself into thinking that I do love the things I do?

The saying is confusing and one which is debatable in terms of its authenticity. Admittedly I am not a romantic. I never have been and never will be but is this perhaps the reason I am not swept up in the poetic sentiments which are globally used each and every day?.

I think sentiments and their meanings raise just as much debate, views and opinions as politics or religion simply because they are based on a faith or a belief. There are many people who would agree with my line of thinking and just as many who would put up their hands to vote that my particular opinion is rubbish. I have firmly come to the conclusion that sentiments are a 'All you can eat buffet in which self service is required'.

Always the sceptic.
Goth Angel.