Peanut Brittle and Yorkshire Terriers

The tang of the spearmint gum turns from a pleasurable, mint treat to complete destruction. I wince as the gum slides slightly out of my mouth onto my chapped lips. One sudden pinch; a single jolt sends me out of my comfort zone and onto pain’s front porch. The taste that brought me so much pleasure has betrayed me as the flavor drills into the cuts of my lips. The muttering of my professor fades deeper and deeper until she is no longer audible, which does not really matter to me considering that my spearmint episode left me more awake than I wanted to be. The pain was not as bad as I made it out to seem, just the entrancing taste and smell actually gave me something to do besides listening about axons and reticular formations and I almost heard a part of the lecture when I was maliciously attacked by a piece of candy. God forbid I listen to whatever it is we're supposed to be learning about.
 Psychology has always been something I’ve wanted to be a part of. Something I could relate to, if you will. Critical thinking has always been my forte, and with as many crazy people I’ve had to deal with over the years, it has seemed altogether fitting that I can relate to the insanity. I’ve always been that person that everyone can turn to; The one single human on earth that “understands”. I’m often mistaken for a person who overanalyzes and I’ve been told I “think too much”. I’ve even gotten the whole “live simply, or you’re going to end up miserable and crazy” speech. Truth is, most psychologists are crazy. Why, you ask? Because when you’ve spent your whole life surrounded by people who don’t make a lick of sense, you tend to have a slightly skewed way of thinking, and therefore you can understand the disturbed. You can relate to the disturbed. You become the disturbed. Don’t get me wrong, I’m not going to run out and beat some old lady up or shoot up a building but I might do something like walk outside and lay down on the sidewalk in December with a rain coat on. YOU might say it’s crazy. I say, it’s what’s stopping me from going crazy (or turning into a zombie).


Sure, this might not seem like a lot of sense to anyone reading this, but I only feel that if I’m going to bother telling you how to live your life or what’s right and what’s wrong, I should let you know a little about myself. When you’re born and raised into a family with money, life doesn’t seem too bad. Life seems worth living. The sun is high in the sky and nobody can tell you that the world is cruel. Until you turn 9 and your mother loses her job, becomes depressed, you’re father’s company goes bankrupt, your adopted sister can’t make a good decision to save her life, and your head explodes. Or until you find out your mother is diagnosed with a fatal disease and your uncle has a brain tumor. Well, life sucks, my friends. That’s the cold hard truth. I’m not here to tell you everything will get better, or that you’ll get lucky and win the lottery. I’m here to tell you that life does throw some pretty heavy boulders in our way and we’ve just got to push through it. It can take is months, years, decades to finally overcome something that has hurt us or thrown us in the dirt, but we can not stop.


Truth is, I have had to deal with some things that I wouldn’t wish upon my worst enemy (if I had a worst enemy… I don’t know, maybe the burger king guy). My mother suffers from Multiple Sclerosis (MS), my sister was adopted from a family who were major drug addicts and now has problems in school, my uncle is a joke and fired my father before Christmas due to “financial issues” (right before he hired his new son in law), and I’ve pretty much been beaten down by some people that I thought I could trust (figuratively and literally). If anyone has the liberty to tell you that life is difficult, I’m one of those people. However, I’m in school trying to be a better person. I’m trying to help myself to get out of this slump. My only advice for this post is that you should not lie down and let the rest of the world trample you. People are cruel, life hurts, but you have to keep on living it. Don’t lie in your bed and wish things would get better, make things get better. This was more of a venting post for me, but I truly hope that someone got something out of this.


"Dance as though no one is watching you. Love as though you have never been hurt before. Sing as though no one can hear you, and live as though Heaven is on Earth. "



—Anonymous