Tag: love

Social Issues

Beware Fear

by KimLeave a Comment on Beware Fear

I remember the attacks on 9/11. I don’t remember the morning very vividly, but I remember the backlash. I remember the attacks on Muslims because the attacks were connected to Islamic extremists. Particularly, I remember a middle-eastern man getting brutally beaten and his shop utterly destroyed simply because of his heritage.

Fear has a way of bringing out the worst in people. It catches and spreads like wildfire, unable to be contained by rational thought. After the attacks in Paris just a few days ago, the fear that America is next has caused a tidal wave of hatred toward groups of people that aren’t all to blame. Instead of focusing on the actual issue, anger and refusal to help the refugees trying to escape the same kind of pain that Paris was exposed to is running rampant. Denying help to the people who arguably need it most is a painful reminder that fear causes ripples of paralyzing pain. Pain that in turn only hurts others.

I think in times like these, generalizations mistakenly help people to cope with emotions they’ve yet to process. So many are quick to blame all of Islam for the tragedy in Paris. What we need to remember is that every religion has groups of extremists who claim to be working for their god. Just as ISIS claims Islam, the KKK claims Christianity and the JDL claims Judaism. Even Buddhism has their violent radical groups, including the Buddhist Power Force. Small groups can inspire hatred even when the larger entity does not agree or condone their actions. The actions and beliefs of the few can effect the world’s view of the larger group.

I don’t have the answers on how to solve the problems at hand. I don’t have proposals to help generate peace throughout the world. This is why I’d never be a good public official. What I do know is this: blaming the actions of a few on the masses because they share the same religion helps the problem become worse. Sharing ideas of killing off Muslims does not help. Stopping the aid for one of the largest groups of people who desperately need to be saved from the genocide surrounding them at every turn does not help. By refusing love and human decency for others, we allow fear to rule. Fear only breeds contempt and hatred. Shouldn’t those be the things we want eradicated from our lives most?

The Eiffel Tower, Paris, France - July 2014
The Eiffel Tower, Paris, France – July 2014
Reflections

Questing

by KimLeave a Comment on Questing

I’ve been on this quest to discover who I am for quite some time.

I think it started with my move to Germany. There I was in a brand new country with absolutely nobody who knew anything about me. That type of situation is just ripe for a new start, to begin again and truly start learning what makes up a person.

In that time, I learned that I can be bold when I need to be. When put into a situation when I really needed to start making friends and meeting people, I practically invited myself to this restaurant/bar-hopping event that led me to this wonderful group of people I’m still so lucky to get to call friends. Similarly, I had to navigate through train stations and countries that I had never been in before, knowing almost nobody. I was going to meet friends in both Paris and Switzerland, but much of my time in France was spent by myself. I learned that I can figure out solutions to almost any problem, which is an incredible feeling after thinking for years that I was just some hopeless waste of a person.

During that year, I also really started to cultivate my love for the written word. I started journaling almost daily and began to realize that when I actually tried, I had just enough natural talent to make an impact on others with my writing. I got several very encouraging emails from friends I hadn’t personally seen in years, and that support meant everything.

When I moved back to Texas, things were a little different. Looking through last year though, I’ve learned a few more things about myself. I’ve learned that I’m resilient. Being around people who actually knew about my marriage and who learned about all the actions that lead up to the divorce helped me see that I’m much stronger than I give myself credit. I can defeat those monsters and still have the ability to continue believing there is more for me out there.

I’ve also been a lot more emotional this past year than in the several years prior. I used to think of emotions, especially expressing them, as a sign of weakness. Even in the last twelve months, I’ve been so embarrassed when crying in front of someone. As a very wise friend told me once, after I apologized to him for losing it during a very difficult night and bawling my eyes out, that it was a real moment and I should never be ashamed of that. I was in tune with my emotions and trusted him enough to show how I was actually feeling. Learning my emotions has also made it possible for me to read other people’s emotions easier as well, which in turn allows me to help them through an uncomfortable situation or just to provide comfort.

So here I am, a bold, impactful, resilient, sensitive, and introspective person. I’m proud of those adjectives. They aren’t words I would have ever used to describe myself a few years ago, but I’m trying to be more confident, to be more invested in learning to appreciate who I am. People constantly preach “love yourself!”, which has always seemed like a selfish act, but I’m realizing that nothing can truly fall into place, nobody can really see the person that you are, if you aren’t willing to do that for yourself.

I typically don’t address any readers in my posts, because I like to think of this as a way to just get all of my thoughts out on a page, but if you are reading this, I encourage you to really sit down and practice this: get out a piece of paper, think through any hardships you’ve had in the past few years, act like they happened to somebody else, and choose words to describe that person after they’ve made it through to the other side. We often encourage others far much more than we encourage ourselves. Try to encourage yourself. It works wonders.

Israeli West Bank barrier - March 2014
Israeli West Bank barrier – March 2014

listening to: Tame Impala

Relationships

Self-Living

by Kim1 Comment on Self-Living

A year ago today, I had huge hopes and dreams.

A year ago today, I was leaving part of my heart in Germany, but I had a plan. I was moving temporarily to Texas as a stopping point until moving to Alaska at the end of 2014. A year ago today, I was in love.

Those close to me know the story. I had finally gotten out of a marriage that was only doing me harm, and I had reconnected with someone who was the first person I had ever liked. We hadn’t gone into anything with the intention of a relationship being the outcome. We were both still recovering from abusive relationships and found comfort in having someone to talk to who could understand those wounds. What started off as casual emails turned into long Skype sessions and eventually just constant conversation during those precious hours that we were both awake. I visited him that August, and those twelve days were spectacular. Nobody had ever understood me that wholly before, and I had never understood someone else on that level. I thought he was it. The end all in partners.

Becoming involved with someone so soon after my divorce wasn’t something I had planned. I was still in the stage of not wanting to ever be with anyone because I didn’t think I’d ever be able to truly trust someone again. I hadn’t given myself time to heal, because part of my moving to Germany was a way to run away from the problems and allow myself enough time to gather my thoughts before dealing with the serious issues lurking in my subconscious.

It shouldn’t have been a surprise when I moved back to the states, but everything almost instantly fell apart and I had no idea what to do. Suddenly, I found myself unwanted in Alaska, unwanted in Texas…unwanted practically everywhere I wanted to be. However, as I struggled though most of this, I began to realize part of the issues was that I was putting my value in terms of how other people viewed me.

I’ve been back from my reality break in Germany for exactly a year now. For a year, I’ve been trying to learn how to see my value outside of others’ opinions, outside of how people act toward me. It’s been a struggle. A massive struggle. It’s been something that I fail at on almost a weekly basis. The person I thought could actually love me through all the monsters changed their mind. Losing that love has caused a down-spiral this past year, but it’s thrown lesson after lesson straight at me.

In a week and a half, I’ll be getting yet another fresh start. I’m moving back to the only place in the states I’ve moved to solely for myself. I’m returning to school, I’ve got a new job, blah, blah, blah….the only important thing to me in this moment, in this reflection time leading up to my move is this: I’m moving to continue my growth as a person. I’m moving to learn more about myself, to prove that I can survive on my own, to fight my own battles, and to discover what I truly want out of my life.

In my life so far, I’ve tended to live for others. I’ve concerned myself so much with pleasing those around me that I’ve lost sight of who I am and what I can accomplish. If I could condense different advice I’ve gotten from a multitude of friends this past year into one phrase, it would be “you have to be more selfish”. I hate that advice mostly because I’ve been taught to not be selfish my entire life, so the idea of living more selfishly is completely opposite of what I’ve known forever. However, living that way has cost me so much in the past few years. Living that way has prevented me from doing things that I can truly be proud of. Living that way has stifled the life I want to be living.

So this year, I still have huge hopes and dreams. This year, I’ve got goals. I’ve got direction. I’ve got a version of me who is finally learning to be strong on her own. No more outside influences, no more giving up what I want for other people, and no more relationships until I can get myself on the right path. This is probably the most intimidating step I’ve ever taken in my life, but with great risk comes great reward, right?

Alaska - August 2014
Alaska – August 2014

listening to: S. Carey

Relationships

A Break

by KimLeave a Comment on A Break

I’ve found myself reaching a point of wanting to give up writing on a blog because I’ve started to compare my writing to that of others again. My words aren’t fancy or detailed, I border on being too frank and honest, and I feel like I’m pathetically whiney most of the time. I’m overly critical. I know this. I battle this on a regular basis. I’ve been racking my brain for a way to change this, to get back to a point of really liking what I’m writing and being proud of it.

I think this all stems from a bigger issue. It comes from a place of being too self-conscious, of not being able to really be aware my talents and gifts, of viewing myself as unlovable. Three months ago, I wrote about being the type of person that hides herself away, that makes it difficult for people to connect with beyond a surface level. It’s not that I don’t connect with others- I just don’t think others will be able to handle the trouble and pain I drag along with me in the most self-inflicted forms of baggage that I avoid letting anyone in to help me work through it.

I think this move will be good for me in more than one way. Even though my financial stress will be higher, not living with my parents anymore will be a giant relief. Out of all the things I’ve attempted in the past several years, trying to maintain a civil relationship with them has (shamefully) been the most difficult. There are enough issues there to fill up several books alone, but we do so much better when there is distance between us. What I’m most looking forward to, however, is really focusing on myself.

I realize this is terribly cliche, horribly overdone, and disgustingly cheesy, but I’ve been contemplating a complete separation from the idea of dating or relationships. A quick backstory: I didn’t have a boyfriend until I was 17. I didn’t even have many dates to dances…in fact, I got asked to exactly one dance before I entered the dating world. None of that is bad, but the fact that I was so disappointed, so heartbroken- that I placed so much value on the opposite gender’s lack of interest in me- that is the part I don’t like. When I finally had a guy in my life that was interested in me, I didn’t really stop to think about if he was the type of person I really wanted to be with. I just went with it. I settled into the mediocracy of it all.

From that day in August of 2006 until last November, I hadn’t gone longer than a few months without some sort of love interest in my life. Most of them weren’t worth the effort. We didn’t click or even really appreciate each other, we just kept each other from being lonely. That’s a huge stretch of my life of simply avoiding loneliness…eight years. Arguably some of the most important years in life for figuring out who you are and what you want from life. In that time, I can say with certainty that I was only with one person who even slightly understood the underlying thoughts driving my actions, who was able to get through the surface, get to know the real person underneath, and actually be supportive of that person.

I’ve had crushes since last November. I’ve been so interested in this one person that it’s torn me up inside. I’ve gotten my hopes up, those same hopes obliterated, and my emotions all tangled up that I haven’t been able to decipher up from down and good from bad. The most irritating part? I’ve taken all the blame. I’ve just viewed it all as something I’ve been doing wrong, that I’m not good enough. It’s a terrible way to think. Really, there is no blame to be placed. There is no wrong person in this situation. It’s just that there are feelings that aren’t reciprocated and nothing will change that.

I think accepting that fact is a good first step in beginning to appreciate myself. In stopping the blame and degrading attitude I have toward myself. It’s so self-destructive. If healing is going to continue, if I’m going to finally be able to be proud of who I am and what I’m doing with my life, the self-destructive behavior has to take a permanent vacation. I’m not giving myself a specific time frame for this break from the idea of relationships and dating, but I am making a very specific declaration for myself to end all ideas of being with another person until I can fully be content and joyful with who I am, what I’m doing, and where I’m going in life.

Alaska - August 2014
Alaska – August 2014

listening to: Bon Iver, Hozier

Relationships

Only One Love Song

by KimLeave a Comment on Only One Love Song

I’ve been lucky enough to see Damien Rice live..twice.

The first time I saw him was in October of last year. It was the second-to-last stop on the US leg of his first tour in nine years. It was such a big deal that a friend and I flew to Brooklyn 14 hours after I flew back to the states after my stint in Germany. It was an incredible trip and an even more incredible show (Glen Hansard even made a special appearance!). I had always known he was talented, always known that he was a very special musician, and seeing him live solidified that knowledge.

In October, I was still blissfully happy in a long-distance relationship that had started several months previously. We had reconnected after over a decade of not living in the same city, him being in Alaska and my home changing multiple times. Hours and hours of skype were part of every week, and my twenty-fifth birthday was spent in Anchorage with him. It was a relationship different than any I had ever experienced before. The communication was unreal. I grew to understand and know him better than almost anybody I’ve ever known. So at this concert, surrounded by songs that I thought were all about love, I thought they resonated with me.

The relationship ended about a month later for a multitude of reasons, and I think I’m just now finally able to look back on everything with a sense of thankfulness for the good moments that did happen. Of course, there are still twinges of loss, but overall, I’m glad everything happened the way it did. Since then, any sort of romantic life I might have had has been in a very strange place. I don’t mean for all of my posts lately to be about relationships and romance, but for someone who’s spent the majority of her last nine years (excluding this past year) in a relationship, the mental adjusting to single-hood is a difficult one.

Back on Damien-topic. The second time I got to see him was two days ago. I’m still on a concert high. Not only was I in a different emotional place, his raw emotion and connection to his songs was much more evident this time around. It was otherworldly. I brought a friend with me, and she and I sat in our chair in the second row enraptured the entire time. It was one of those shows where you just watch in awe of the artist on the stage. I’m fairly certain we both had slightly teary eyes the whole way through, and there were moments that his lyrics hit me and brought back memories from the past few years in vivid color. Memories of not feeling loved, memories of loneliness, betrayal, anger, sadness, but also memories of hope and learning to figure out what I want from life.

If you aren’t familiar with his back story, Rice had a very tumultuous relationship with someone that used to play with him. It was a very passionate relationship, but major ups and downs came with the passion. Many of his songs are about that relationship, and most of them are not favorable. At one point in the show, he started talking about how he was asked about all of the love songs he had written. He mentioned that he went through the songs he wrote and noted that there was only one song really about love: “I Don’t Want To Change You“. The lyrics are a complete surrender, a total giving up of the selfishness many people tend to bring to the table in relationships without realizing it.

In this past year, I’ve learned to really appreciate lyrics more than ever before. Being able to hear the background stories of some of his songs and seeing the different emotions tied into each song was key to bringing those lyrics even more to life. I feel like I’ve grown into a completely different person than even who I was a year ago. I’m constantly working on letting go of the cynical bitterness I feel like I’ve been using as a shield to protect myself from getting hurt and getting back to a place where I can unselfishly love people no matter how they might have treated me in the past. I’ve particularly been struggling with that the past month or two. These songs, this show, this phenomenal musician..they were a perfectly timed reminder to get back to the goal of forgiveness and love that I set for myself months ago.

Damien Rice at the South Side Ballroom, Dallas, TX - August 201
Damien Rice at the South Side Ballroom, Dallas, TX – August 2015

listening to: Damien Rice