Tag Archives: Goals

alcoholism, bipolar, depression, Goals, Holiday, Mental Illness, New Year, Regret, Self Care

Self-Care in the New Year – An Important Resolution

December 30, 2019 Sue St. Blaine Leave a comment

It’s approaching not only the end of a year, but the end of a decade, and I’m feeling reflective. Also, I’m going to call this decade “The Roaring ‘20s – Pt II” because it amuses me. Time for a revival of the Charleston and the phrase “the bee’s knees” because I laughed for 10 minutes straight the first time I heard it.

New Year 2 — A revival of Art Deco is long overdue, I think.

Anyway, the teens were an interesting time, weren’t they? One huge, life-changing decision for me (leaving a toxic job) ups and downs, shameful memories and glorious victories. Publishing my book “Life Songs” in 2018 was a lifetime dream come true. It was one of the most heart-filling things I’ve ever done. I never expected to get rich, I think my royalties were an amazing 50-odd dollars, but that wasn’t the point. It’s done, after 25 years, it’s complete.

New Year 5 — I’m going to retire, just as soon as royalties hit $60.00.

This blog is also a victory. After two years of false starts I’ve finally got a handle on it, I finally managed to get some traction in my mission to help and advocate. I also have a captive audience for my groaner jokes, and that’s just fabulous. I can call myself a writer again. That is part of my identity, and I’m over the moon. Next I need to pick up my poetry; I can’t call myself a poet until I do.

It hasn’t been all good of course, it never is. Bad things happen, either brought on you or that you bring on yourself. I have done the latter a lot. More than once I have considered closing this blog and its Facebook page because I felt like a fraud.

Who am I to encourage people to do their best, to make a true assessment, be gentle with themselves, get back up when they fall, when I can barely do it? I need this page to be honest, unblinkingly so, and yet I come and I cheerlead and I say things that I sometimes don’t feel in my heart at all. I’m behind a keyboard; you can’t see my face. I write when I’m cripplingly depressed and I say words I don’t embrace. Or I disappear, unable to muster any thoughts. Who am I to present myself the way I do? At these times I feel self-loathing and every bit a charlatan, even a hypocrite.

I have a very high bar for myself; it sets me up to fail, all or nothing. The pressure to be authentic, to say the things that come from strength and the need to be absolutely in control of myself, essentially be perfect or not write anything, is paralyzing. Am I dishonest with you if I don’t share the bad things too? I fear so much hurting someone else with my doubts instead of acknowledging that we all have them, that it’s the human condition. How can we grow if we aren’t witness to each other, if we allow our horrible thoughts to consume and define us?

And that’s the trick, isn’t it? My best friend once asked me, while I was sharing my horrible inner monolog, “If I came to you with this, would you say those things to me?” Of course not, not in a million years. I might say, “That’s not awesome, what you did, but you’re human, I love you anyway, let’s figure it out.” Or I’d just shove a cookie at her and say “Oh my God, eat this and let’s go play with your Legos.” She has a huge collection of Legos, just so many kits. (This is assuming she wasn’t in a real depression; that’s a totally different conversation.)

The new year, the new decade is just a number, it has no real significance beyond what we attach to it. But for most of us, myself included there is still some sort of magic, figuratively speaking. A new beginning, a time of resolutions and reflection and hopefully not an unhealthy amount of booze, if you drink.

There’s a thing I heard many years ago, you probably have too, that whatever you bring into the new year sets the stage for the next one. I don’t really believe that. I don’t believe in predetermination but I still try to have a peaceful night. If Chris and I and our middle-aged selves make it to midnight we toast with sparkling cider and collapse in bed.

New year 3 — This seldom happens, I find.

This New Year’s Eve we’ll be with two of our dearest friends at their home in Sonoma. They will toast at midnight with sparkling wine, I will toast with my Martinelli’s (seriously, you knew what I was referring to) and then we’ll probably all collapse because over 50 does not equal all-night partying. I’m at peace with that.

I am, actually. I’m at peace with my age; I’m fine with it. A lot of people would have lost a lot of money betting on me not making it to 50 or even 30! So every year I get is a treasure. Every year you get is a treasure. I’m going to try harder to remember that.

So I won’t be closing up this blog or deleting its Facebook page. I will continue to do what I set out to do. There are some changes to it I’m considering, but that’s also a conversation for another time.

I am excited. I am looking forward to the next year and what might be. New adventures, big decisions, new books out. I’ll write like so much about it.

I wish for all of you a happy turn of the decade. I wish for you to enjoy whatever it is that you do to ring it in. In the new year, I wish for you celebrations of your victories, and gentleness with your mistakes, and good friends who will help remind you that you matter, that you are a flawed and beautiful human, as we all are. And I wish to believe what I just said in my own heart.

And please, if you do have a problem with alcohol find a way to take care of yourself. Have a buddy with you who you can trust to keep an eye on you, go to a sober party, let your friends know you can’t drink with them, and make sure you’re with people who will respect that. And whether you are an alcoholic or not, if you drink, do not drive!

On that note, thank you for reading this, and my blog. Thank you for being a part of the community I’m building, it makes me so happy to have you here. That sounds trite, but I mean it.

Happy new year, a happy new decade. You are all just the bee’s knees. I will bring that back.

Aging, alcoholism, bipolar, brain, depression, Dreams, Goals, Mental Illness, poetry, writing

Creative Spark and Age – Keep your Brain Alive!

August 3, 2019 Sue St. Blaine Leave a comment

So I’m back from my writing escape to Boise, Idaho. While I did return with a lot of work done on outlines, three new ideas, inspiration from a few of the really cool spooky places they have, I did learn something interesting about myself.

Getting older 2 — Seriously Boise, well done.

I’m older than 30. I’m significantly older than 30.

I’ve never been coy about my age. Every year and especially every decade that turns for me is an achievement that I didn’t expect to see. I never thought I’d see 30. Then, 40 was unlikely. Now I’m 51, and that’s just shocking really. Wonderful, but perplexing. How did I make it to this age?

I made it here by working hard to address my demons and to come to peace with and even start to embrace my illness. This is wonderful, and it makes me happy when I realize that I am, in fact, 51. That’s just weird.

So here’s what drove it home over the last week. My plan was to hide away in a hotel, no commitments, no interruptions, I asked the lady when I checked in to please tell housekeeping I don’t need them, just blackout curtains, a fridge with enough to keep me alive, and my laptop. I have 15 stories I’m juggling, and I’m anxious to see them bloom. Or bleed. These are spooky stories. I wanted to do what I used to do when I wrote – look at the clock and wonder, is that 4 a.m. or 4 p.m.? I loved that, getting so lost in my art that I had no concept of time at all. Suddenly I’d look up and say, “What is that feeling? Why am I dizzy? Oh, right, food. I need food.” That is what I was hoping to recapture.

Getting older 1 — My personal idea of bliss.

Now, getting lost in my work, that’s no problem. I do that even when I write on the couch, as I’m doing right now. Becoming completely absorbed just comes with the creative process. Getting lost in time, though, that’s a different thing. When I was in my 30s, as I painted I could wonder if it was a.m. or p.m. Well, not anymore. My body shuts down around 10. I find myself fading, my brain not up to trying to figure out why my protagonist is near the creepy sidewalk in the first place, (spoiler!) so I just go to bed.

Getting older 5 — But for the fire-from-the-sky heat, this would be a fine goth retreat!

At one point, my eyes shot open about 3:30 in the morning because I had an idea. I leapt out of bed and wrote until about 5. I got some good stuff, I felt happy about it, but by about 2p.m. I was useless. I’ll mark this trip as the moment I realized a new limitation on my former habits. But this is not the first time. One by one through the years I’ve watched my body change.

In my late 20s, I wouldn’t even leave the house until 11p.m. because who gets to a club before 11? I’d be out until around 3, and get home around 4. My alarm for work would go off at 6. Getting two hours of sleep is worse than none at all, so I’d just stay up and work through the day, crash when I got home, and I’d recover fine. (This is not while I was drinking. That’s a whole other thing with no fond memories.) Then, when I was around 33 I think, I did this and the next day – even though I was not drinking – I felt hungover and wrung out. It was awful, and I realized well, I can’t do that anymore. It was a major change in my body, an “over-30” wake up call. I would still go to the clubs, but not if I had to work the next day. Huge bummer.

Then, pushing 40, more changes. I could no longer stay out too late on a weeknight or I’d be useless. For someone who’s playtime didn’t begin until 11, now I couldn’t stay out until 11. Huge bummer.

I hadn’t noticed anything new for a while until this trip. Now I know, while I can lose time, I can’t cheat it. My body starts to fade around 10. And my body is the boss. But you know what? This is not a huge bummer. Not at all. These are the changes in a 51-year-old woman who is healthier and happier than I ever could have expected given what I’ve done to myself all these years. Given the number of times I’ve walked to a bridge with no intention of coming back, held a knife tightly and purposefully in my hand, fallen into a manic/depression cycle so severe I spend two days in the hospital. After all of that, I still have my health, my husband, my dear friends and family, Crazy Legs, and…my mind. My functioning, powerful brain that can’t do math like at all, but still.

My brain is my joy and my treasure. My looks will fade, my body will change and get more limitations, but my mind, I will keep my mind sharp. If I have that, and my fantastically inappropriate sense of humor, I’ll be just fine.

Another thing I had to accept on this trip, writing fiction is really really hard! I knew that, but I did underestimate how difficult, how much I’m going to have to learn to do it. It’s a whole new world to me, entirely different from anything I’ve ever done.

I got discouraged at one point, so I changed gears and wrote the last article. Yes, I wanted to be sure I didn’t have too long a space between them, but quite honestly, I needed to do something I know. The last article came because I was feeling inadequate. I mean, I respect my readers, no doubt, but I also really needed to convince myself I can actually write.

This new thing I’m doing, this new craft I am years from mastering, is making parts of my brain spark that haven’t in a long time. This blog is my happy place, my comfort zone. “Life Songs” and its poetry, my happy place, my comfort zone. There’s nothing wrong with that. But my new work, it’s causing my synapses to sparkle. It’s also giving me headaches and self-doubt, but that’s part of the process I suppose.

48309 — My sparkling synapse which is the moon, apparently.

So I am 51, I can no longer stay out all night and function the next day. I can no longer stay out late and function the next day. And I can no longer keep my body up creating after about 11pm.

I truly don’t care. I am happy where I am, I am happy with what I can do and accomplish. I am awed that I have lived this long and still have a brain. I have some wonderful memories, I lived a colorful youth. I am not young anymore, but I am not done. Not by a long shot. I have plans and things to create. I have my advocacy and help for the mental health community as best I can, and that alone is a reason to live.

One of the best things about getting older is being able to help with compassion from a place of “Oh, I’ve been there.” I can help in a way I couldn’t when I was 30.

So this past week I wrote and fretted and got inspired by the organ in the Egyptian Theater (seriously, how cool is that place?) and I learned a new piece of information about my body. And that is as cool as a pack of ghost dogs at a race track.

Oops. Spoiler.

alcoholism, bipolar, depression, Goals, Humor, Mental Illness

Afraid but Doing It – You Are a Lion

July 1, 2019 Sue St. Blaine Leave a comment

All my life, I’ve been somewhat crippled by fear. I was afraid of failing, so I wouldn’t start, afraid of being rejected, so I wouldn’t put myself out there, afraid of looking foolish, so I didn’t try new things. I remember as a child being terrified to jump off the backyard fence, it seemed so high. I sat there for a while before someone helped me down. I just couldn’t make that leap.

When I turned 30, I decided I would try to not live in fear anymore, so when my friends decided to go skydiving, I jumped at the idea. (The joke there is just too easy, so I’m not going to take it.) I put on a hot pink jumpsuit and harness, took the mandatory class, and headed out to the runway. At this point I wasn’t scared which was unlike me since I was about to leap willingly from a perfectly good airplane at 15,000 feet with a man I didn’t know strapped to my back and a trust that he knew what he was doing. That 8-foot wooden fence had given me vertigo, but here I was, resplendent in pink and thinking of paratroopers in old movies.

There was one moment when I actually thought I might throw up, just as we were leaping directly into a cloud. In the pictures you can clearly see the what-the-actual-fuck-was-I-thinking look on my face. I’m sharing that moment with you because I’d rather be funny than cool.

Skydiving was scary and exciting and made me question my decision-making skills, but once I did it I felt like a rock star for a while. In the grand scheme of things though, it was a fun diversion and nothing more. I overcame a fear and then went to get pizza. Life changing leaps, the sort of make-it-or-break-it moments, those are far riskier. Ok, the dive was also risky had the chute not opened, but you see what I mean.

When the first tech boom happened in San Francisco in the mid-‘90s, I was working as an Administrative Assistant, which was good steady work, something I could do and make a livable wage, but I wasn’t happy and I wanted to do more. I knew nothing about computers; once a friend told me I could download my work to a floppy, and I had no idea what that meant. But I started to look at the techies sitting in their toy-covered offices and realized they weren’t actually any smarter than me, I just had a gigantic learning curve. So I made a bold decision; I was going to save six months of living expenses, which one could do in those long-gone days, and then quit my job whether I had a new one or not. I figured that would be a great incentive to hustle.

I lived alone with my cat, so it was all on me, sink or swim. I was terrified. I deeply questioned my decision-making skills. But I did it anyway, and I ended up working in I.T. for 20 years. It sounds as I write that like it happened quickly and easily, but it did not. I worked hard to get there, paid my dues, got hand-me-down equipment to tear apart and put together, learned what it meant to download to a floppy. I put in the time, and I succeeded.

Then, after 20 years I decided it was time to move on for a variety of reasons including my health, but that’s a story for another article.

My point here is that skydiving, and taking a giant risk to change careers didn’t make me brave, doing those things while every fiber of my being is screaming “Are you out of your damn mind? Terror! Death! Homeless!” is what made doing them brave. I was scared and unsure, but I did it anyway, I took the chance.

None of this makes me special. Like the techies rolling through their offices on Segways, I am not any smarter than you. I am pretty average and I can’t do math in my head. I can barely do math at all, honestly. I don’t like math is my point, I guess.

Bravery is not going in, metaphorical guns blazing, confident and bad-ass and fearless, bravery is going in when you’re scared and doing it anyway. Bravery is taking a deep breath, squaring your shoulders, and moving forward.

The things I talked about would never have happened if I had not taken the brave steps of saying the words “I am an alcoholic” and confronting the illness I was self-medicating. My book would never have been finished. This blog would not be happening. My art and my budding photography would be gone.

This does not happen overnight, it is not easy, and you may fall. I got sober, and then I relapsed, and then I got sober again. And each time I felt like a failure, and my illness agreed, so I drank more. But I got back up, did the work, and succeeded. Now I’ve been clean for years and work hard to live and thrive with bipolar disorder; I have the correct medicine and support and do the best I can, day by day.

None of this makes me special. But it does make me brave. Facing these demons, getting out of bed even now when I feel depressed, these are the regular, personal victories that should be celebrated and praised.

Whatever you’re facing, big or small, makes you bad-ass and strong, you are a lion or whatever image you like. You are diving out of a plane at 15,000 feet into a cloud, every fiber in your being screaming “This is a really bad idea!” but doing it anyway. Don’t forget that.

Oh by the way, contrary to what cartoons have told us, clouds are in fact not bouncy and soft. They are really really cold and wet. I had an ice-cream headache when we landed.

And it was one of the best things I’ve ever done.

If you are suffering, and afraid to ask for help, remember – you are awesome. You are bad-ass. And getting help if you need it is every bit as brave as taking that leap.

National Helpline
SAMHSA’s National Helpline is a free, confidential, 24/7, 365-day-a-year treatment referral and information service (in English and Spanish) for individuals and families facing mental and/or substance use disorders.
https://www.samhsa.gov/find-help/national-helpline

bipolar, depression, dream, Goals, Humor, Mental Illness, nightmare, writing

Self-Imposed Deadlines and Creative Night Terrors

June 14, 2019 Sue St. Blaine Leave a comment

I am an excitable person. This is not exactly a shocking admission like “I am the Dread Pirate Roberts” or something, but still. Honestly, I’m so excitable and I get so wound up about even the silliest things, it’s sometimes hard to tell a manic period from “that stop light is wearing a traffic cone hat!”

current goals 2 — I was alone when I took this, giggling and saying, “He’s a wearing a hat!” For some reason, no one would meet my eyes.

For the record, if I can sit back and calmly discuss what I’m thinking about, if I can relax and form a thought, I’m just excited, probably not in a manic place. It also helps if I’m not saying things like “This will be the best thing ever and I will make so much money and no one has ever thought of this before and oh my god I need to buy more crepe paper!” all in one breath.

I’m also a bit obsessive. When I find something I’m passionate about, that I feel good about, or is simply fun, it might overtake everything else for a while.

Enter Nightmares and Laughter.

Everything I’m doing right now involves the word “blog.”

“I need to finish an article for the blog.”
“I need to engage my readers on my blog Facebook page.”
“I need to moderate the thread on my blog Facebook page and delete trolls.”

Now, don’t get me wrong, except for the trolls, I am loving this. I get to do a few of my favorite things that do not involve raindrops on roses; I get to write, talk to people, be an advocate or comfort, make people laugh. The only thing that could make this better is if I wrote an article entirely about Hello Kitty.

I’m totally going to write an article entirely about Hello Kitty.

Bad times 3JPG — It’s done. I just wrote it.

My life pretty much revolves around this blog right now.

But there’s more I want to do that I am ignoring.

• I have two books waiting to be written, one has a working title of “Nightmares and Laughter,” because the content is related to the mission of this page. So, not really a skip through the posies to write. The other is an anthology of scary stories, and since I have never written fiction before, that one will take a while too. But if I don’t start it, I will never finish it. That’s just science.

• I have an idea for a business that could be fulfilling but will take a while to set up and whatnot, and probably won’t pay much. Ain’t that always the way.

• And finally, I want to work on some art related to this blog that I think I could sell without disrespecting my vision.

I’d like to make a living doing this manner of thing if I can. But that won’t happen overnight, and it won’t happen if I don’t freakin’ do it.

I’m going to tell you a secret. I wrote an article that I was going to publish yesterday. I wrote it during our heat wave last week, and it was meant to be about how I didn’t feel well, I planned to write it while I was down and talk about that, and how sometimes it’s just hard, but we get through it. And I did write that article. I got it formatted in WordPress, I had all the pictures and the banner set up.

Do you know I actually had nightmares Wednesday night that I had already published it? I knew it wasn’t good. I reread it and saw that what I wrote was three different articles, including the bones of this one. So I split it up and I’ll finish all of them.

My point though is that I’ve gotten so hopped up on getting articles out that I almost published one I actually had bad dreams about. I never want to publish something below my own standards, I respect all of you too much to do that. Plus I just don’t want my name attached to bad writing.

So I’m neglecting the other projects I want to do.

I love this blog, and I feel good about the mission of it and the hope that I can make a difference in some way. But I’m literally losing sleep to meet an arbitrary deadline.
Another thing that brought me down is that the article was such a Frankenstein’s monster, I immediately thought, “That’s it. My productive spell is over.” My last writing dry spell lasted 25 years, and the idea of having it back only to lose it again was too much.

Then I woke this morning, saw a video about goats that overran a neighborhood, nearly blacked out from laughing, and then immediately found a focus.

This is how I’m going to die.

So my panic has passed for the moment. But while I have some clarity, this is what I’m going to do.

I’m going to take a day “off” from the blog once a week. I’ve even scheduled it because that’s the kind of nerd I am.

I will try to publish on the Monday and Thursday schedule I set, but if I miss a day that’s fine. I have no editor screaming at me to get pictures of Spiderman.

I would rather be delayed a week than put up something substandard.

This is good. This helps me with my tendency toward “I’m perfect or the world is over.” Babies flyin’ out the door with bathwater, just a big noisy mess.

I love this blog, it means more to me than just words on a page, and I am honored to have each of you come along on this ride.

I promise that I won’t waste your time.

Humor, Mental Illness, writing

Happy Anniversary Nightmares & Laughter!

April 5, 2019 Sue St. Blaine 2 Comments

It’s been three years ago this month since I started this blog, and I’m feeling reflective.

It’s my first, and I have been slow to get moving, but I’m starting to get my groove. I have shared great times – my first book – horrible times when I could barely write – the Kavanaugh confirmation hearings – and simple daydreams.

And an article about goats because goats are funny.

Goats are Funny. They just are.

I started N&L to speak to, advocate for, and comfort people like me, people with mental illness, addiction, trauma issues, or a combination of those. It’s been my hope that my voice could reflect both the struggles and pain we face, but also the joy and silliness and dark humor that keeps us alive.

So, Nightmares & Laughter.

I have shared snippets of my life and pictures of my home and pieces of my history that I thought hard about before I hit Publish. I think it’s helpful to see the writer in their natural habitat, make them a human, a human adult who has a stunning amount of children’s toys.

This anniversary also marks three years since I’ve been unemployed. I have been using this time to live some dreams; finish my book, start a second one, work on photography and painting and basically mess around in my studio, write this blog, panic about money, live the life of an artist, the life I’ve always wanted.

Now it’s three years later. I’ve covered a lot of ground, and sometimes I think I’ve nothing left to say and stare at the screen whimpering (every writer just nodded), but I always find something. I write what is interesting to me and I hope it’s interesting to you as well.

To those following N&L, I want to say thank you so much, I will continue to write articles that you will enjoy getting an alert for, articles without sentences like this tortured mess.

Soon I will get a job, but I will keep writing and making art. And someday, someday I will get paid to do it. Someone will find this blog and say, “hey, let’s give her all of the money!”

That will happen any day now. Any day.

Brother, Cancer, Death, Dreams, Family, Goals, Humor, Photos, Regret

Dreams, Death, Second Chances

September 26, 2018 Sue St. Blaine 2 Comments

One finds the oddest things when going through old photos.

I have no memory of this postcard. I assume it was my dad’s since he was the musical one. It’s just an ordinary photo of a long forgotten group, who lived their dreams for a little while.

It’s what’s on the back that made me stop what I was doing and get lost in a time warp.

I think it’s the same person writing all those little quips, and I assume who drew that lovely lady and the rather odd…dolphin? Airplane? I think it’s a dolphin. Anyway, I have no idea which one of those young men did, and I never will except in the astronomically unlikely event that one of them sees this article, looks at the photo and says “Say, that’s me n’the boys!” I’m not holding my breath.

Besides the little sketches, there are the things one would expect, the name of the band and members, and of course the promotion.

“The One and Only Quartet – Good Nuts”

A quick (image search off) Google search turned up nothing, so it looks like these boys went the way of most bands and found themselves working at insurance companies or warehouses or, well, the photo isn’t dated, but I think it’s safe to say they could have left us in the war. It’s likely we’ll never know.

I started to read the little scribbles around the edges. Random thoughts and silliness written by someone probably around 80 years ago or so, things he thought were interesting or funny or little bits of truth disguised as mirth.

“Don’t ask me if I got married when school was out!! Imagine. Aah. I can’t.”
“I learned a new song, real cute.”
“On what grounds were her aspirations founded? Those are $10 words.”
“My man’s a garbage man.” (I assume this was meant to be said by the lady, but it still makes zero sense.)

But what stopped me, what made me catch my breath, sit down, and disappear, was this, “I have one chance, shall I take it?”

Assuming this photo is from the late ‘30s, early ‘40s, I think it’s safe to say these boys are no longer with us. So did he take the one chance while he had it?

Are you taking your “one chance” while it’s there? Am I?

Between the silly sketches of fur-coated ladies and dolphins with underbites, there is this one little snip of truth, this one doubt that we all share,

“I have one chance, shall I take it?”

The words of a young man, uncertain and maybe scared to take a leap, whatever it was. A new band? Writing songs? Putting himself out there somehow, at a crossroads in an old-timey car, the signs labeled “Safety” and “Risk” with a hitchhiking, bindle carrying hobo, for some reason?

This hit home for me because my life is at crossroads like that, has been for a while. I’m taking the chance in some ways, finishing my book and putting it out there, working on some future plans, even this blog is a chance of a sort.

But I’m not doing enough. I’ve let so many dreams die. So many years I can’t get back. But I have now. I have right this minute.

This is why the musings of a man who was living his dreams 80 odd years ago landed firmly on my heart.

I have been going through my photos and mementos to put together a display for my brother’s memorial service on Saturday. He died June 18 of prostate cancer. Family photos always take me away sometimes very far in the past. But this one, I have no memory of it. It won’t go in the display of course, but it did cause me to think.

Did this boy in a quartette called Good Nuts achieve what he was looking for? Did he at least take the leap and was happy for it?

Did my brother?

He died young, only 57. That’s too young, but cancer doesn’t give one half of a shit about our wishes. So ready or not, here it comes. Fuck cancer.

I will make you all a deal, ok? Let’s all hit at least one thing we’ve always wanted to do. Just one thing, even if it’s small. If you can, grab a dream and hold on, ride it out. I will do the same, and in a little while, I’ll report back. I would love it if you told me what you are doing.

You are alive. You’re filling your lungs with air, and your blood is pumping through your heart, and you feel hungry, and your arm itches and you get eye-boogers…you are alive.

Don’t let that slip away. Have your adventure, whatever it is.

“I have one chance, shall I take it?”

Yes. Whichever young man you are in this picture, I desperately hope you did.

Share this:

Like this:

Share this:

Like this:

Share this:

Like this:

Share this:

Like this:

Share this:

Like this:

Share this:

Like this: