Today I Got a Reality Check

Today I wasn’t planning on writing a blog, because I couldn’t think of anything, and truth be told I have been lacking inspiration lately. I can probably say, lack of inspiration has been in almost every aspect of my life for the past few days, as I’ve been struggling to find myself again. I’m sure we all experience moments or days when we feel like nothing is going our way and we are one second short of throwing in the towel and saying “I give up.” This may be our reaction towards school, work, a certain situation and so forth. I will also add that most of the time, to be more specific, maybe 90% of the time, we overreact, jump to conclusions and make our situation a world war issue. But today I got a harsh reality check, one that shook me to my core and made me realize the only one thing that matters; living and being healthy. All of a sudden, my reality got altered and I fully understood how short life really is. This blog post is not to depress you, but to share with you that tonight all the problems I thought I had instantaneously not only became laughable, but suddenly unimportant.

We always hear that life is too short and to live in the moment and so on. Yes most of these quotes are cliche and we don’t think about them, but tonight I realized just how short life is. There is so much more to life than our simple problems we focus on and magnify. Nothing matters in life except living, loving and doing both of those as much as possible. Telling our loved ones how much they mean to us. Telling our kids how much we love them. Going out and enjoying a simple cup of coffee with our friends or family, to just LIVE in that moment.

As humans, we tend to complicate things and look for the details, when we should be concentrating on the bigger picture. The bigger picture is nothing but the simple fact of LIVING LIFE and nothing more. It is not about anything else. And to live is to know that tomorrow may not be guaranteed. It is also to not fear death, knowing that today you fulfilled your destiny while you were alive. I am filled with so much emotion tonight that for the first time it’s hard for me to fabricate my thoughts before writing them down. But that’s ok, because sometimes words don’t need to be put into perfect sentences, as long as it comes from the heart. That is where I stand today. I want to live each day as I would a lifetime, instead of treating it as a day wasted in the sum of the days i expect to have been granted in my understanding of a lifetime.

Cancer's Not For Me

Today let’s get a little more personal. I wasn’t sure for weeks if this was something I wanted to blog about but I think it’s a very important subject and a sensitive one for that matter. I want to share my own experience with you, because from day one I decided to create a blog where I can be myself. Those of you who know me can see authenticity in my blogs, and those of you who don’t, this page is basically ME in every aspect.

At a younger age I loved laying in the sun and getting tanned in the Summer, having that GLOW to my skin that we are all obsessed with. I didn’t appreciate my whiteness and always thought I looked pale. I mean a lot of us in our generation will say we like a nice tan, it just looks sexy! I was never the type to go into tanning beds too much, but I did at times go to a few sessions just to add some color to my skin tone. I remember my mom and elders always saying “its dangerous don’t do that" but I mean when we’re young we think we’re invincible. Nothing can touch us and "cancer’s not for us.” Like “who me? No way! That’s just a foreign word thrown around and it happens to ‘others’ way over there!”

Well, years ago, there was something tiny I noticed on my right shoulder and it just looked like a bump. Simple as that; a skin colored bump and it was aesthetically not pleasing to me so I decided to go to the doctor to remove it. I mean, who likes extra bumps on their body right? At the doctor’s office, I was told it looks like a skin tag and if removed, the scar would look worse than this bump that was literally nonexistent. Long story short I was convinced and walked out. A few years passed and it seemed like overnight the bump had become triple its size and I wondered how on earth I didn’t even notice. Every time I would be talking to someone I would catch them staring, then asking me what it was. As if I was so happy about this stupid thing on my shoulder in the first place, that stare and eyebrow raise would throw me off the edge, internally. (Mind you, this bump was not as horrendous and big as you are probably imagining LOL. Some of my friends didn’t even notice it, until I mentioned and pointed it out) Regardless, I made up my mind to go remove it once and for all.

I went back to the doctor and this time said I rather have a scar than a bump, because a scar at least has an explanation behind it, while the bump didn’t. He agreed that it should be removed and explained that for safety reasons any time anything is removed, a routine biopsy needs to be sent to the lab, to clear any suspicion. We took the steps necessary. He told me not to worry, and honestly I wasn’t AT ALL. I just wanted THAT gone. This in-office procedure was painless with local anesthesia and I was out of there in less than an hour, happier than ever.

A week later I was supposed to go for the removal of my stitches and I was so busy cleaning out my house I had forgotten. The receptionist called me to remind me, and I told her to please reschedule my appointment, as she placed me on hold. She got back to me in a few minutes and said “its really important that you come in because we can’t have the stitches on there much longer. You SHOULD come in today".” So I did.

This is becoming a little long and I do apologize, but I walked into my doctor’s office and as I sat down, I heard “your test results came back". Mind you I had entirely forgotten about any testing we were doing, and before I had a chance to process it, I heard “what we removed was actually skin cancer.” My body literally went numb as I asked “you mean like potentially skin cancer” and he replied with “No, it WAS skin cancer.” I am not sure if anyone has gotten news like that before, and I pray not, but at that moment, I felt distressed, lucky, scared, happy, confused and any other feeling humanly possible. I was so relieved to have gotten rid of it, but I was so scared that CANCER had been with me for so long. That moment and news changed me forever.

Now, I embrace my skin color, and I try to avoid the sun as much as possible within limits of course, because we all still need sun light! I decided to share this with you, because for me, this is something I have to watch out for, for the rest of my life as my body is prone to it. At the moment I have another similar bump above my lip that I need to go get checked out ASAP. Every tiny bump I notice on my body, I start freaking out, but I try to remain positive with my reality.

If there is anything I want you to take from my experience, it’s to never think you are invincible, and to always take care of yourself. Go to your exams, do your research, but don’t freak yourself out. Don’t be so obsessed with the sun, it can really harm you and most importantly don’t tan in beds PLEASE! Take care of your body and yourself. After all, it’s the only thing you get to keep until you die, so treat it well.

What's Marriage Anyway?

I once read a quote that said “90% of being married is just yelling ‘what’ from other rooms” Yes, it definitely is, and in our house I’m the one doing the yelling most of the time, as I have an extremely loud voice. I can’t help it, but my voice is just not soft, and if I put my mind to it, the entire neighborhood can hear me without putting in effort. My husband is nice enough to say it’s because Im a singer, and I pretend I’m naive enough to agree with him. So, the reason I brought that up is because my husband’s pet peeve is yelling across rooms and my habit is doing so. LOL. That brings me to my point of what marriage really is, and that’s compromise. Now, that’s a simple enough example to give, so I can elaborate on what I’ve learned, being married now for 6 years.

Often times I hear couples saying I just want to be married and I used to say the same thing! I just wanted to be married, live in a hole with him, as long as we were together. Now, not to say that wanting to get married is a bad idea. It’s definitely the best step a loving couple can take to validate their love and create a family. The bad idea behind it is that often times, marriages end in divorce because people either had a different perception of marriage before getting into it, or they didn’t think about the reality of it. Another concept I have heard and love, is to think of the worst traits of your partner. If you can live with them for the rest of your life, then you are solid. If you can’t, then you will have a problem, because reality is people don’t change who they are. Now if my loud voice was something my husband couldn’t live with, then we would be in trouble, because it’s not going to change. I can try to control my tone for as long as I remind myself to, but best believe I will hit those high notes at least a few times a day.

Quickly I am going to lay down some expectations of marriage for you and then hit you with the realities. And so no one takes it personal, I will give my own experience. I pictured marriage to be coming home to my hubby every day, getting surprise dinners and flowers, being swept off my feet on rainbows and so on, and living in a “hole” as long as I get to be with him. Some of it proved to be true, and some of it is seriously laughable looking back.

In that perfect, pretty, glamorous and vivid image, we forget to calculate bills, stress, kids, the fact that we are human, and a few other MINOR things. I quickly learned that although being married has its amazing aspects, mixing everything in the equation blurred my vision from the “expectations” I had, and opened my eyes to the reality.

Here is my experience: Marriage isn’t always perfect. It is two imperfect people joined together to help each other through an imperfect life. It is two individuals brought together who are meant to be best friends, compromise and always lift each other up. Marriage is the perfect example of teamwork. No-one owns the other, and both work together to build their version of a good life, for themselves and their family. It is a constant learning process from each other and about each other. At times uncovering more about each other leads to different beliefs and disagreements. However, the key to any successful marriage is to know that these things are a part of being married, and communication and compromise are key. Without the two, marriage is nothing but a delusional fantasy; one that is just that.

I Need A Good Cry

Have you ever just needed a good cry? And no that doesn’t mean you are depressed, if you answer yes. This post is fairly simple and sweet. My belief is that we all as humans once in a while need a good cry. I believe tears were made as a release of emotions and somehow they make us feel whole and sane again, once they have been released and let go of.

When I first got married, I would sometimes tell my husband I needed some alone time. At first like any normal person, he would ask if I was okay and if he had done something that bothered me. It took him a while to learn that I am just that type of a person, who regardless of the situation, needed space and to be alone at times. I hope I am not the only one who is that way, but quite frankly it wouldn’t even matter, because alone time to me is very valuable for both my mind and soul. Usually this alone time entails a bit of crying, not going to lie.

Have you ever just felt like you go through your day so robotically and so quickly, that you barely have time to hear your own thoughts? Especially after having my kids, my day sometimes flies by without me having a chance to reflect on myself for even a minute. Even as I’m writing this and trying to concentrate my daughter is constantly asking me random questions, simply distracting me from any coherent thought process taking place in my mind. BREATHE.

As women, wives, mothers and whatever other role we take in our lives or others’ lives, we need to take time and also make sure we are simply OKAY. If our mental state or our heart is a mess, everything else will also become a mess. And that is why I sometimes need a good cry. I need to take time on my own, and release all the negative emotions that have drowned my heart and the negative thoughts that have taken over my mind. No matter how happy we are with our lives or how blessed, one element remains the same: WE ARE STILL HUMAN.

The most common misinterpretation is that something must be wrong if we resort to crying. We must be sad, not satisfied with our lives, depressed and so on. Why is it that only negative attributes are linked to the act of crying. How come we never consider letting out tears to actually be a healthy way of expressing emotions and emptying our hearts. I believe that to make things right within ourselves, one of the most essential tools given to mankind is the act of crying. Just like taking a day to go to the spa is beneficial for the body, sometimes letting go of the tears we hold in is beneficial for our soul!