An Impromptu Post - Hurricane Harvey

"Reports of hurricanes are unfounded." - Michael Fish   

Woohoo!  I got my wish, rain!  And lots of it!!

You jerk....

Crap, uh, you want to kill me because of that.  Don't you?

*glares

That would be a yes.  Sooo, I'll get back on topic, Hurricane Harvey!

There are plenty of jokes going around about Texas, but my current favorites are that we Texans are rockin' out to "Total Eclipse of the Heart" and "Rock You Like a Hurricane."  As a fellow rock lover, I approve!  After all, everything is bigger in Texas, including the need to party!  Ok, that might be a little bit of an overstatement considering Hurricane Harvey.  My phone started giving me those Tropical Storm warnings and weather watches since Tuesday (8/22).  Nothing like your phone blowing up in the middle of the night to help you sleep.  Now, I've been under the outer bands for a while and I love the rain.  It’s so relaxing, hurricane or not.

*glare intensifies

*clears throat*  Right, sorry.  Time to focus!  I'm here to give you updates!  But only for Houston, cause, that's what I know.

The area in red shows the potential path of the center of Harvey

Good.  Continue, please.

Harvey made landfall as a Cat 4 hurricane by Corpus Christi on Friday (8/25) night.  Since then, it has dumped buckets upon buckets of rain along the Gulf coast, Houston included.

Reports show that the creeks and bayous are going to go into major flooding stages.  There have also been tornado sightings.  One over a dear friend of mine!  The news has shown people waiting on rooftops for rescue.  Roads have gone under, major intersections downtown are drowning, suburban streets are lakes and rivers.  The Addicks and Barker reservoirs are having a controlled release done to relieve pressure on the dams.  Flooding is very real.  If watching the news doesn't prove it, look out your window.  We are living through a historic storm.

Rainfall forecast for the coming days

This is a point I hope I don't need to parrot: if you see high water, turn around, don't drown.  There are shelters if you need.  Be smart!  If you think you are in trouble or are going to be, leave.  If you need help, ask.  Call 911 for life-threatening emergencies.  The National Guard has been activated and the Coast Guard is helping.  It is insane out there.

For more updated information, check one of these out:

• ABC13 - Watch Live
• The Weather Channel - Hurricane News
• NOAA - National Hurricane Center

Emergency numbers:

• Police, Firefighters, Ambulance - 911 or 713.884.3131
• City of Houston (Emergencies) - 311 or 713.837.0311
• FEMA (Federal Emergency Management Agency) - 1.800.525.0321
• Harris County - 713.881.3100
• Office of Emergency Management - 713.881.3100
• Houston American Red Cross - 713.526.8300 or 1.866.526.8300
• Flood Control - 713.684.4000
• Non-Emergency Houston - 713.884.3131 or 713.884.3143 or 713.881.3100
• Helicopter Rescue - 832.776.4587
• National Guard (Houston Center) - 713.884.4500
• Coast Guard - 713.578.3000 or 281.464.4854/4855/4856 ext 55

What about you?

It has been raining for a few days.  Today, my husband and I ventured out to see the flooding.  The gulley behind my house is high and if it rises over the bridge on the road next to us, we might be in danger of water getting into the house.  To give us a good idea of the rest of the city, we went to a few hotspots.  The drive north to my mother's house was impassable because of an overflowing creek.  An intersection before town, known for its flooding, was a solid few feet underwater.  Getting to the grocery store near us was relatively easy but the parking lot was half flooded.  Took a mental note that there was plenty of water though, but no gas at that HEB.  Some more driving found flooding in areas that are not normally affected.  It was strange.  Once home, after driving through a foot of water on our street, we settled in for more rain.  That's all it is, rain, rain, and more rain.  When I checked my WeatherBug app, it showed another ten days of this!  That's ten, people!  Double digits!  Houston can't take much more.

My personal experience with this storm, not as exciting.  I look outside, see rain, some wind, maybe lightning.  It is fairly quiet where I live.  I'm fortunate to be this lucky.  There are others not as lucky (if you have seen the news, you would know why).  While the waters are still rising, I believe my location is my salvation.  I live north of Houston (from what I have seen on the news. it feels like the worst is on the south, southeast side of town).  My home is on higher ground.  Crossing my fingers and keeping optimistic may have helped, but I have lived here for twenty years and I have never seen this amount of water dumped this fast.  And it is not over!  While the weather was still good on Saturday, my husband and I made a trip to Huntsville to visit family (they are still okay, though the water is close to getting inside their home).  The worst at my home has had is water getting in the living room. Some flashing was blown off the side of the house last night which gave water the opportunity to creep in.  Other negatives would be the cat freaking out and the fact that grocery stores have been stripped bare. *grumble*  But, I have marshmallows so I can't complain.

Wait, marshmallows?

Yeah!  I have a few rules I follow for disastrous situations such as Harvey.

1. Don't panic, stay calm
2. Be prepared
3. No need to be a jerk, unless someone asks for it
4. Be optimistic
5. If power goes out, roast marshmallows

Those rules have been helpful for the past twenty plus years.  Even made pizza before Ike in 2008.  Ate cold pizza for almost week before the power came back on.  Was a stroke of genius I tell you!  Genius!

You're crazy.

All fun and games aside, I understand the seriousness of the situation, thus being prepared and remaining calm.  The worst thing you can do in insane situations is panic.  Panicking only causes problems.  You cannot go get water without running into the same two things: lack of water and people shoving their way past you to get the last bottles.  Water is important, yes, but going about preparations calmly makes for an easier day.  Be optimistic that you will find what you need.  If your store does not have water, gas, and/or dry goods, you can find them elsewhere.  Don't panic.  Remember, confrontation is inevitable.  Be it in the form of pushing and shoving or someone cutting you off (both of which have happened to me within the past few days).  Simply explain that they should be patient because everyone is in the same boat but, in some cases, someone will be a jerk and you'll need to knock them down a few notches.  If the power does go out, have a campfire.  Roasting marshmallows always lighten the mood.  Plus, marshmallows!  Who wouldn't want some?  Give me mine with extra chocolate!

Breaking the Grey Wall, Again

"Your preparation for the real world is not in the answers you've learned, but in the questions you've learned how to ask yourself."  – Bill Watterson

Before I get to my post, I wanted to thank you for taking the time to click on the link to my blog and reading my thoughts.  I cannot say enough how much I truly, honestly, and really do appreciate it!

Okay, for the main reason for this post, the Grey Wall!

What "Grey Wall"?  Are you making a really bad Game of Thrones reference?

Actually, no, and, uh, I don't really follow Game of Thrones....  Please don't send Drogon after me!

As to the "Grey Wall," it is what I have renamed the fourth wall.  What is the grey wall?  Simple.  To me, you are on the other side of this post, the other side of this blog, on the side of the internet in my grey zone out of my reach.  You reside in this world beyond my own in a twilight zone of sorts.  Because I cannot see you and we are communicating through a bunch of 1's and 0's, you are a grey face, a person I know exists, but cannot physically interact with.  I would have to somehow dive into my computer to break down this grey wall with a virtual hammer which we all know can’t happen until science pulls some sort of sci-fi magic.

Are you trying to be Thor?

Not at all.  I'm not going to Hulk Smash through the grey wall either.  Besides, I'm a Loki fan!  I just want to install a window!  I want you to see me as more than 1's and 0's.  So let’s break the ice with an Author Interview!  Now, every good author does an interview, or so I’ve been told.  However, I do not want to come up with my own questions to make myself look amazing.  Nor do I want to find a generic list of questions to choose from.  Instead, I am tossing myself into the winds of fate and handing the questions to you, the readers, viewers, friends, and passersby.  Whatever questions you ask, whatever you want to know about me, my writing, what weather I like, or what I daydream about, I shall answer as truthfully as I can.  

You want us to give you an interview?  What are we supposed to ask?

Of course!  I'm more interested in what my audience wants to know about me than what I think y'all want.  Probably because I'm terrible at guessing.  For those who would like to read my original interviews, here's the short list:

• Smashwords Interview
• Author Interview #1

How will we give you our questions?

First place is on my blog.  Leave a comment or send me a message!  Next option is to through my Facebook page, or even through Twitter.  Don't worry about asking the same questions or repeating something from a previous interview.  Time has passed and things have changed.  Most answers will change.  You'll only find out if you ask!

When will we have answers?

Once I have gathered all these new and interesting questions.  I will have the Interview up quickly, that is if you consider “in a few weeks” quick.  I’m trying to not be a grey face hiding on the internet trying to sell my books, though I am going to keep promoting my work and inform my readers of new releases, updates, sales, and events.  After all, that is kind of one of the reasons why my blog is here, right

Emotions Turned into Fuel

"I don’t want to be at the mercy of my emotions.  I want to use them, to enjoy them, and to dominate them."  – Oscar Wilde

What is the best motivator for a story?  Is it that the main character has a goal he must accomplish?  Is it that the author gets his message across?  Is it to kill time while sitting in a waiting room?  Personally, I write because of emotion.  Emotion is my great motivator.  I want to feel something from a story.  It is difficult to make me cry, but if I smile while reading, that’s a win.  It is more than simply engaging me, it is making me feel.  Very few books have really tugged at my heartstrings.

Why emotion?

Why not emotion?  Are you not fueled by how you feel?  Do you sing from happiness or joy?  Do you push yourself forward by sadness or anger?  Emotion is a constant yet it fluctuates like a living being breathing in the world around us and exhaling how your environment, family, friends, situation, life affected you.  In my case, emotion had dug its claws deep and refused to let go.  It would become too much and I would shut down.  There were times when I tried hard not to feel.  I started writing because I needed an escape.  My emotions were transformed into words and poured onto the page.  Every time I needed a way to sort through my emotions, I wrote.  If you read my old work, you could tell how I was feeling when I wrote a scene.  By doing this one little exercise, I overcame my internal struggles.  If you have read a previous post of mine, you would know that I struggled with myself.  While I never saw a psychologist, was never diagnosed, I believe that I suffered from depression for a few years.  It wasn’t until after I discovered writing that my self-diagnosed depression began to disappear.  It was a surprising change.  I never asked for it and was not expecting anything.  I felt good.  Even today I return to writing when my emotions begin to pile up.  If there is nowhere to turn to, it is my happy place.  

Why not turn stress into motivation?

Stress did not grant me an outlet.  Throughout college, I dealt with more personal problems and with that stacked onto my school work, at times I felt like I was suffocating.  I tried to play soccer, as I had done in high school, though I felt sorry for our goalie when we warmed up and he tried to block my shots (let’s just say that my kick grew stronger and, without trying, my aim was, um, accurate).  After a while, my usual stress relievers didn’t do the trick.  Our recreational team was co-ed (both boys and girls) and we were always short on girls which meant that I would play a whole game without a break.  It was tiring.  It eventually became that I preferred to write my papers over go out. 

However, I did pick up reading again.  For some reason, when I was little, I enjoyed reading, then I just stopped. And hated to read.  Because of that, I have no idea how I graduated high school (especially considering all the reading material for my dual-credit English classes).  Funny enough, I was organizing those books on my bookshelf last night and when I held Our Mutual Friend by Charles Dickens in my hand, I laughed at how thick the book was.  No, I never completed the book, didn’t make it halfway, instead, I cheated and watched the movie (which was surprisingly close considering book to movie adaptations are not always accurate).  Anyhow, reading became a begrudged pastime for me.  I tried my first year of college, but after finishing a book and a half, I gave up.  Reading was annoying and the stress of failing my classes, amongst others, sucked the life out of me.  Books were just shelf filler for the next few years.  Then, third-year, living in my apartment, I found the book I had half-finished and thought to myself “Might as well,” so I finished it.  After that, oddly, I wanted to complete the series, which I did.  Then I went to a Borders closing and grabbed a few more books.  I kept reading.  My dad picked up on this and got me a Barnes & Noble Nook Color for my birthday that year.  I still have it and it still works.  It became my favorite possession.  I went everywhere with that thing.  I would read while waiting for class to start.  I would use it as a bible while at a church thing.  I loved that thing.  Reading was no longer annoying, but relaxing.  I still remember during Spring and Fall, I would grab a book, a drink, and a towel and go to the parking garage roof to read when the weather was nice.  Then I would remember the paper I was supposed to be writing and read for another hour.

During that time, my friend had asked me to help her with a club she had started on campus.  I agreed on one condition, that I would be allowed to work on my homework.  She agreed, which was a relief because I did nothing but writing papers and sleep.  Then the Character Creation Contest came around and that was where I stumbled into this world of writing.  Because of the bonus points for a background story, I started writing and would not stop.  I created my own world.  I had my characters experience trials and tribulations that I created.  I used them to tackle the monsters that were gnawing at the edges of my subconscious.  It helped me breathe.   

How did you decide that emotion was your motivation?

Recently, my curiosity got to me and I opened that first story.  Generally, it is a mess.  It bounces all over the place, but considering I had no idea what I was doing, it was alright.  I read over a few chapters and shook my head.  My grammar was amazing.  I wrote from a third-person point-of-view, which I somehow now dislike, and it worked.  I cringe at the story overall, but there are a few scenes that I am proud of.  The emotion that I felt as I read made me smile.  It was a hard time in my life, my characters suffered because of it, but the words were calming.  I felt my anger, my confusion, my tension from when I originally burned a hole on my keyboard.  Other stories had followed, each channeling a different emotion.  Most are incomplete.  Most will never be finished.  One, I have no idea what I was thinking when I started writing (it kind of leads nowhere).  The point, however, remains the same: that I write to escape the stranglehold that my emotions trapped me within.  Writing, focusing my energy on something productive, cleared my head.  I was able to think and address my problems through a different point-of-view other than my own.  I could ask my characters what they would do in certain situations and how their different personalities changed the outcome.  The more passive the character, the more accepting they were.  The more aggressive, the more confrontational.  One of my characters, Kali, started as an incredibly passive, accepting girl.  Over time, she developed, realized what was going on around her and why she was in that situation in the first place.  When presented with the opportunity to gain what was viciously ripped away, she was hesitant, but soon saw the good in the change.  Kali started following her own path instead of being dragged along by others.  She was the character that I channeled myself through the most and wished that I could idolize.  I wanted to grow myself.  I wanted to do my own thing and not be told what I had to do.  I knew that I had to view my world differently.  It took effort, but I managed to force myself to see the positive.  All the underlying emotions, they needed an escape and I gave it to them through my pen.

Did it help?

I accepted the challenge of changing.  From my first quarter at college, I had been struggling, fighting to rebuild my GPA.  Due to circumstances out of my control, my grades plummeted.  I didn’t think it was possible to have a GPA below a 1.  That’s right, it happened.  So, every day since the end of that first quarter, I struggled, fought to regain my academic stability.  By the beginning of my fourth year, I had managed to get it up.  I also changed majors twice, but I landed in a place where I was happy.  My major involved a lot of papers, which I did not mind.  I researched.  I wrote.  I actually enjoyed it.  Weird, I know, but who are you to tell me otherwise?  I was doing my thing!  I was doing well in school.  My social life had suffered, but I didn’t care.  I had a few good friends and I was happy.  I don’t need a crowd of people around me.  A friend to sit beside and study and eat seven-layer dip and joke with was all I needed.  Still, I dealt with my emotional demons, but I was content.  I wrote or read during my free time, whatever little I had.  I had become a happier person.  So, I kept writing.  Challenges still bombarded me after college and I kept my head low to avoid confrontation, but it was unavoidable.  My sanity slipped and what little joy I had grasped slid through my fingers which lead to me diving into my writing when I could.  The little space that I created revived me.  In those moments where I could sit and create, I found what I wanted, quiet.  It was a place where I could break the rules, be who I wanted to be, and bend the laws of nature.  I eventually got out of a negative situation and moved, but my love of writing never left.  Happy, sad, angry, or depressed, my pen has always given me a way to sort through the confusion.

An Empathatic Response to Simple Words

"First and foremost, we meet as human beings who have much in common: a heart, a face, a voice; the presence of a soul, fears, hope, the ability to trust, the capacity for compassion and understanding, the kinship of being human."  - Rabbi Abraham Joshua Heschel

It seems oddly appropriate that it has been raining the past few days.  A couple days ago, I went to a memorial for a friend's grandmother.  He and his brother were surrounded by family and friends who had come together for respect and support.  It was a nice service.  The dearly departed would have been proud to see her family together like that.  However, to be honest, I couldn't understand most of the service because, well, I only speak English.  High school Spanish has failed me!  But it is not the occasion of death that I wish to write to you about, it is what I felt when I sat there listening.  As I said, I could not understand the service.  Why?  Because I cannot understand Spanish, not very well at least.  I could tell you my name or ask for the bathroom, but a full conversation and I will end up staring at you like an idiot.  Words were nothing to me that day.  Why should I care if I could not understand?  No, I did not understand the words, but there was more, something deeper that I did understand.  I know two of the grandsons.  I know how much they loved their grandmother.  I saw the people who came to pay their respects.  While I knew next to nothing of her, I understood the love everyone had for this woman.  I wish I knew her better.  When her family stood and spoke about their lives with her, while being unable to understand, I saw the tears, the smiles, the flashes of memories behind their eyes.  It was beautiful.  I would pick up a word or three during their speeches and put together from their actions what they were saying.  The two words I understood the most were "Lord" and "heart."  This woman was loved.  She loved her family.  She loved the Lord.  She was a true matriarch.  

After the service, I met up with my friends.  Tears were still fresh in their eyes.  As men, I am convinced they were trying to hide their pain, but everyone knew how influential their grandmother was to them.  She was essentially a mother to those boys.  The pain they feel was mixed with acceptance, love, joy, and sadness.  I say joy because, just like their grandmother, my friends have a connection with the Lord.  Their grandmother was in a good place and they felt comfort in that thought.  From what I heard, she was where she belonged.

Aren't you just being sympathetic, not empathetic?

It is easy to see how I am sympathetic, which I was, but I also felt a sense of empathy toward them.  First, we need to see that there is a difference between sympathy and empathy.  Where sympathy is feelings of pity and sorrow of another's misfortune, empathy is a different animal.  Empathy is the ability to understand/recognize and share the feelings of another, just like stepping into the other's shoes.  Some people often confuse these two words.  I get it.  Before I figured them out, I used them interchangeably, just like anxious and anxiety (it took me long enough to figure these two out; it was embarrassing).  If you want to know more, here is an interesting Empathy Vs Sympathy article I found.  It even touches on compassion which is one step further than empathy.

"The great gift of human beings is that we have the power of empathy, we can all sense a mysterious connection to one another."  - Meryl Streep

Why do you think you're empathetic?

It was an emotional day for that family.  I understood that and felt sympathy.  However, I had recently lost my grandfather and had gone through this exact scenario within the past few months.  I know the pain they feel.  I know how their hearts feel like they are being ripped in two.  I get the tears they are shedding.  I know that losing my grandfather is not the same to them.  While I refuse to compare my grandfather's memorial/funeral with my friend's grandmother, the similarities from the emotion in the air tasted familiar.  It was the same as when I shed my tears.  It was heavy.  It was filled with the emotional tug-of-war of acceptance and the question of why.  The day I went to my grandfather's memorial, I cried, a lot, which is unusual for me.  Since high school, I somehow managed to shut off the urge to cry and would only do so under extreme circumstances.  I simply refused to shed tears.  But that day, the tears came.  It told me how much I loved my grandfather and how much I missed him.  My tears showed others how much I valued my relationship with him.  While there was tension at the memorial (as mentioned in a previous post), I can soundly say that, for at least an hour, my family was on the same page.  Once it was over, certain people went back to their "holier than thou" ways.  I still remember talking to a relative and her telling me "I have been so strong through all this."  Sigh.  Okay, this is going to sound a little cold but to be honest, those words mean absolutely nothing to me.  Who cares how strong you have been?  I know you and I know that you are not strong and that you are putting on a mask to make me sympathetic toward you.  It was an act.  I knew what she was doing.  I hated her for it, but my respect for my grandfather tipped my emotional scale enough so I wouldn't open my mouth.  That moment in the bathroom I know I will never forget because of what I felt; a mixture of sadness, hatred, anger, pity, loss, regret, a whole list of other emotions that could probably fill this article.  The one that sticks out above the rest, respect.  Respect for my grandfather.  If he had been standing there and I cussed this girl out, what would he have said?  What would he have thought of me?  Would I have disappointed him?  The entire process from his death to his burial was stressful and filled with anger.  It is sad if you look at it from the outside.  Yet, it was through this experience that I not only sympathized with my friends, I empathized with them by remembering my loss.  Stepping into the chapel, my mind went back to my grandfather and his memorial.  I remembered how it stung to see the casket.  I remembered how i had hoped it was a lie and my grandfather was playing another joke on us.  I remembered how the words spoken during the service affected me.  I remembered how touched I was to see who came to the service.  I could only imagine how my friends were feeling.  I would guess that our pain was similar, though vastly different.  They have a close, tight-knit family, unlike me, and I envy them for that but it doesn't matter.  I envy everyone who has a close, happy family (it is a flaw of mine that I have long since accepted).

Again, I understood none of their words during the speeches this past weekend.  I was one of the few white people in that chapel and one of the fewer who couldn't speak another language.  The race difference did not bother me.  Surprise, I'm used to being a minority.  I live in a city where, while white is the dominant race, the group of people I have chosen to associate myself, while it is majority Asian, there is a good mix of people from all over under one roof.  Yes, there is a language barrier at times, but we always manage to find a way around it.  It was strange at first, but once seeing who these people are, I became comfortable.  It was through this group that I met these friends.  We all have experienced the language barrier.  I know I experience it often with Chinese and it doesn't scare me anymore.  While I may joke with my bilingual friends that they could probably get me to agree to anything if they ask me in another language (cause I will smile and nod), at least one thing you should learn by stepping out of your comfort zone is that there is another level to conversation that transcends words.  A level that goes past a simple sentence and into the intention, the heart of the speaker.  The memorial was a perfect example.  I couldn't trust my ears because I couldn't understand, but I could trust my heart if I listened deeper.  I had to read past letters and words on the program.  Watching the family speak was all I had to do.

Emotion, like golf, is a universal language.

It is amusing how words could mean nothing, but the emotion, the passion behind them conveys the raw emotion within a person's heart.  Everyone has the capability to understand this when it comes to another human being.  When it came to the memorial, emotion was heavy in the air.  You could tell they all wanted to hold her one last time, to tell her that they loved her and that they did not want her to leave yet.  It is an unfortunate pain that we all experience at one point in our lives.  We all want more time with our loved ones.  Death is the only thing that tears us apart.  It breaks a piece of our heart and reminds us that it is a natural part of life.  We have to accept it, even if we do so resentfully.  It is a sensation that transcends words.  Transcends what is spoken and escapes as tears or anger or as an action that one cannot explain.  Emotion is that powerful.  That day, any lack of understanding languages was meaningless.  You understood.  It didn't matter that we came from different backgrounds.  It didn't matter if words were unable to convey the message to those listening.  We knew why we were there.  We understood what was happening.  I still feel sorry for them and I do wish they had a little more time with her.  I am glad that I was able to be a part of that memorial.  I believe that the grandmother is proud of her legacy because even through the tears and choked sobs, you understood the love and respect they had for their matriarch.

Everything is Fine

"Writing is a form of therapy; sometimes I wonder how all those who do not write, compose, or paint can manage to escape the madness, melancholia, the panic, and fear which is inherent in a human situation."  - Graham Greene

Have you ever hit a point where you tell yourself that everything is fine?

Well, I'm finally back at that point.  You see, when I started this blog, I had planned to publish a post once every week or so.  Clearly, that hasn't been the case.  Everything was fine, then life happened.  The unexpected hit and everything was flipped upside down.

Sigh.

I'll start my little tangent from the top.  There have been a few medical emergencies within my family.  If you know me, my family is my top priority.  I will drop everything for them.  So when I realized that something was wrong, life was put on hold.  My father has been in the hospital three times over the past few months.  The first trip, it was sudden.  As in he was fine Monday, then in the ER Saturday.  The doctors were worried.  The things they were asking me made me worry.  But come Tuesday, he was healthy enough to be discharged, but I was still concerned.  He almost died, not joking.  Then the next Saturday, only a few days later, he was back in the ER.  We know why he almost died twice in a week, but we don't know what caused it.  Cue the doctors.  Multiple doctor visits to try to find the cause of this mysterious illness just to have everyone say he was fine, he was healthy.  Me, I'm the one driving him around and listening to all this thinking not fine.  Because of what he has, I'm the designated chauffeur to make sure he gets places safely since one of the issues was him passing out.  Anywho, some time passed, nothing else happened, we breathe again.  Whatever it was had simply vanished.  We were in the clear.  We get a call from our doctor.  She tells us to get him to the ER now because his blood work told her something was severely wrong.  We go.  Now, the closest hospital to us is horrible.  It is a whopping two stars out of five at best, but we go because of, well, reasons and it should have been an easy fix.  Hospital says there's something else and my dad ends up staying for a few days.  It has been a couple weeks since and we are waiting for results and to be able to do more tests.

During this time, we are dealing with my aunt.  Okay, some quick background.  My grandfather passed away a couple days after Thanksgiving 2016.  He and my dad were very close, even through his dementia.  My aunt, however, had been hiding my grandparents from us for a while and when we manage to find out where they are and what happened, the tension started between my aunt and us. My grandparents love my side of the family.  I was glad that I was able to see my grandfather before he passed.  I am grateful that I was able to tell him that I loved him.  My grandfather was an amazing man.  But my aunt, she's the worst person I have ever met.  Because of her, there was no mourning period for us.  It was straight chaos.  Since my grandfather's passing, we learned of the extent of her greed, her selfishness, her stupidity, her tendency to behave like a toddler.  It takes a lot to piss me off, but this woman has managed to do so plenty of times this past year, including scream at me over the phone then hanging up on me after I call her out on her crap.  It is non-stop with her.  I worry about her caring for my grandmother.  I am convinced that the stress from my aunt is the cause of my father's health problems.  Ug!  It's like talking to a monkey!  A big, stupid monkey named, uh, I'll keep that to myself for privacy's sake (Emperor's New Groove reference, woot woot!).  I hate that we are knocking on the door of legal action.  It is going to create a rift within the family.  All because someone threw a tantrum.

Double sigh.

It's stressful.  We worry, but we have managed to pull through everything so far.

I hate that word now.  Fine.  What's fine anyway?  Living in a state where it could be worse?  Or better?  I want to be comfortable.  I don't want my chronic bad luck to strike five times a year.  I want to not need to worry about if my dad needs to go to the hospital.  I want to be able to enjoy a nice dinner with my husband.  I want to not worry about certain people invading my life.  I want to not want to punch certain people.  I want to live quietly with my husband and build a life with him.  He married into this, into this chaos of a family.  I know my family isn't simple or sane, or completely tolerable, but despite the obvious flaws, he saw me and was still crazy enough to marry me.  I love him so much.  He's such a strong man and has been my rock during all the insanity since our marriage.  Without him, I would be in a million pieces.

It's that word again.  Fine.

But it's more than fine, it's okay.

To get away from my troubles I did what I do and shoved my nose into my writing.  Yeah, yeah, I know it is my answer to everything, but it really does help.  I can shove my worries aside to live in my head.  I can play with my characters and create new situations and problems for them to wrestle their way out of.  That is my idea of fun.  I am still avoiding writing book three because I feel like I'm still in the wrong mindset for it, but my side projects are growing.  One is a collaboration with a friend of mine, he can draw, and I have kinda gone off on it.  Went from two small chapters to six in one day.  Hard to stay away from my usual romance on that one too.  Another project of mine, Infected, has also been receiving love.  It started off as a little idea where I could practice my horror themes, which I am struggling with honestly, and I quickly became attached to the unpredictable nature of the main male character.  That's my problem with writing, I like my characters too much and they tend to hide their life story from me.  Greedy little jerks.  Jerks that I love.  Well, mostly.  There is this one girl that I plan on killing off soon.  She has played her part and she has become annoying.  Or maybe I'm venting my frustration through her?

Besides my writing, I have taken on a couple other projects.  For instance, my sister rides horses.  She asked if I could blackout a picture for her.  For those who don't know, blacking out an image is blacking out everything except your focus.  She had a picture of her on her horse going over a jump so I blacked out everything, background, jump, sky, and left it so you only saw her and her horse.  Easy.  Now I'm being asked by others if I could blackout their pictures as well.  I guess I'm good with Photoshop!

I'm fine.

And that's what I have been.  I have been fine for years.  I had plenty of hardships to fight through and I have always been fine.  The mask I wore hid the grumpy, jealous, bitter, lonely girl I had become.  It took a decade, ten years to fight my way out from under that mask.  Ten years of living in the world of fine where the pain was expected.  No, I was never suicidal but I did have those days where I wanted to crawl under the covers and sleep the day away.  During that time, I learned that no matter what you go through, there will always, always be challenges.  It is how you tackle them that echo your inner self.  I try to avoid trouble.  I don't want to deal with the stress it will bring.  That is what my life has become again, troubled and filled with conflict.  I don't want to hurt anyone, especially myself.  I broke before.  I am still held together by tape, and not the good duct tape either.  I don't show my timid self because I have learned to hide it.  Very few people know what is under my mask.  While that mask still sits on my face, it is off-center, revealing who I am while ready to hide again.  I am fine.

My mask makes everything fine.

That mask, while under it I am safe, I still reach out to find who I am.  Again I return to my writing.  It was through words that I was able to sort through my troubles.  You can tell through my writing, if you look a little deeper, what I was feeling.  The first story I wrote is long.  I worked on it for years by throwing scenes together, writing chapters that didn't connect, venting onto paper.  It became my crutch.  Every so often I return to that world to see how my characters are (they're fine, by the way).  Some of those old scenes I am tempted to use again in another story simply because I love what I wrote.  Then I remember the mask.  I see it staring at me as I reread that first story.  That mask watches me and I smile.  I overcame a depression that I fought to hide from the world.  No one knew that I was struggling.  I never wanted anyone to know.  I liked my mask.  But the mask slipped as I wrote.  It transformed into words that held my pain, joy, sadness, and hope.  Emotions tinted my words.  They still do.  And I'm glad because fine became okay which became good.  Writing helped me out of my funk.

I have adopted an it could be worse attitude.  I have also trained myself to think positively about the situations I encounter.  While I know that train of thought isn't the case for everyone, it works for me.  I have seen how things can be worse.  I know things can always be better, but it is the what-ifs that scare me.  What-if things were worse?  Life would be so much different.  Different how?  Different better?  Worse?  Would I have wanted that difference?  In truth, some things I have considered and wanted for, but with the life that I lead now, I am quite content.  At least it is not a boring one!  Afterall, it could be worse.  I could not have who I have or be where I'm at and I am thankful.  Because without some of the hell I went through, I would have never met some wonderful people.  I may have never found writing.  I may have never found the happiness that puts the smile on my face at night.  While things are stressful now, I know that it could be worse.

While my mask always sits at the ready to tell the world I am fine, it cannot hide me from reality.  The stress and the worry that I know is coming will be suffocating but I cannot idly sit by and watch it run wild.  While I apologize for making this post long and about my personal problems, I do not apologize for the fact that writing this out makes me feel better.  No, I do not keep a journal.  My journal is my writing.  Writing is what keeps me balanced.  Writing makes me better than fine.