The Social Porcupine

"You have such a colorful life," many a friend have told me in recent years. I always smile (in bright pink or yellow, right, though my teeth remain white) and say thank you (with a respectful shade of brown), and say it's all fun (green is life ya know). But something about the statement of my colorful life irks a dark, black part of my conscious. You see, my life hasn't always been colorful. Or wait ... it always has been colorful. But not with the shades or colors I like.  You see, much of my life has felt grey. You know, dull and pointless. It had its times of pastels ... almost, there were colors I liked, but "Why did they have to be so faded and out of reach of what I really wanted?"  Or, those times of life, when everything was awkwardly fluorescent shades of "I'm trying to colorful, but I'm really going to hurt your eyes". You see, my life has ALWAYS been colorful. But it's only now that it's of the colors th...

I have a question for you: "If you lived in Germany during the Third Reich, would you have been one of those that stood by silent as Jews were dragged away from their homes? Would have refused to believe that Jews and many others were being killed and treated inhumanly at several large concentration camps scattered throughout your home country?" Before I answer this question for myself, I want to take a break and share a story from my siblings and me.  When my Dad was in the hospitable last year for a month, my mom spent all of that time with him, I was mostly in charge of my ten younger siblings. The few just under me in age were able to take care of themselves and help out with the younger ones, too, but as the oldest one I ended up dealing with most of the messy, stressful situations that arose.  Such as making sure my younger siblings did their chores and school and not spend every moment watching movies or playing video games. The only problem was dur...

Everyone goes through those times when they just have to face their thoughts: the ones they don't want to face. And then they have to choose to be happy or not to be so. Have you ever found the busier you are the happier? And then comes that stale moment. Your thoughts hit. Doubt enters. And you have no idea what to do. Doubt is so easy to let in. So hard to rationalize away At times you are too afraid to use logic against it. Why ? Because doing so is opening yourself up for the options of hope. You become too optimistic. And that as often as not leads to hurt and pain and disappointment. Ah, yes. Those sort of thoughts. The ones that try to drain you of all joy. Even when GOOD THINGS are happening, I find myself constantly backing up - I can't just jump into anything. One minute I'm confident and happy. But the next? The next I'm trying to brace myself for something that will most certainly happen - because good things just don...