When you doubt yourself and feel like you don’t deserve happiness, remember that you are enough. (Published on Medium)

You don’t always have to be awesome, steller, or even happy all the time. We all need a break from the reckless and unrealistic expectations that we can always be happy. The truth is, sometimes we’re just doing okay. And that’s perfectly fine. There is nothing to be ashamed of when feeling “just okay”. 

As I went through the month of May, I felt good at times, bad at times, and just alright at times. Now, it’s well known that given our social media exposure, we think that everyone else is happy, gleeful, and always doing awesome things. And because of this, we feel that there is something wrong with us if we don’t feel the same way: that feeling “just okay” equates to being the opposite of happy. We have to change this paradigm. 

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The Rambling Crazy Old Woman was created because my perception is that some of the “normal” people think that we are crazy.  After an intense therapy session in which discussing old age was the subject, I was driving home and the poem began to take shape.  In probably an hour’s worth of time, the poem was done.  I thought a lot about the poem and realized that it wasn’t the whole story.  Thus I wrote “I Don’t Mind”.  As I grow older, I have made a choice to become more of the woman that is reflected in the poem “I Don’t Mind”.

Rambling Crazy Old Woman

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There are times in my life when my creativity focused on journaling about my childhood torture and abuse.  Somehow I have survived that time and also as an adult.  This poem describes, without going into graphics, the childhood, the tortured mind of an adult and the healing that is always ongoing.  I hope that these glimpses into my life give others encouragement to continue on even when they believe they can’t.

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We all know the feeling…that feeling when you just can’t muster up the strength to get out of bed. Maybe it’s the work-week and your alarm just won’t shut up. Maybe it’s the weekend and you can’t find a good reason to plant your feet on the floor and make something out of the day. Whatever the situation, we can all relate. And for someone with depression, this can be especially difficult. 

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Creative outlets can be extremely powerful to help cope with hardships. In 2015, I turned to writing, specifically poetry to help me through some of my more difficult times. Along that journey, I started writing not just when I was distressed, but all the time. Whether happy or sad, there was something extremely cathartic about putting my feelings on paper. And I’m not alone, it turns out.

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