lifExposed

Life is full of obstacles; Just remember that there is always a way around, through, over or under them.

[katieperry1-blog]

Letting it get to you

When you let someone's drama and words hurt you, you lose. When you let someone inflict pain just because, you lose. When you let someone use you and mistreat you, you lose. How do you just avoid these things? How do you become so resilient to these things that they no longer bother you? I think as humans its hard not to show or feel emotions that you are not comfortable with. You can't hide things like this forever. As an emotional creature, we feel things that we know we want to avoid. We may be able to block out some of it and keep ourselves from getting wrapped up in all of the meanness and hatred, but we can't always escape it. We have to learn how to take the negativity and shadow it into an optimistic light. Once we learn how to do that. We can become better humans, and maybe eventually treat each other with more love than hate. Until then we continue to wallow in a emotional turmoil.

[katieperry1-blog]

Live and Let All Live

Who am I to say you cannot? Who am I to say you are wrong? Who am I to tell you how to live your life? 

With all of the questions in politics about who should marry who, what women should do with their unborn children, and other American political issues, so many questions arise. Then comes the realization.... Some people just care too much about how another person lives. WHY?

[katieperry1-blog]

Today

Today I feel like screaming everything that is on my mind. Today I want you to know I'm doing great and I have never felt better. Today I want you to be okay with the fact that you're no longer my happiness. Today I want you to say you've moved on and you're happy for me. Today I want to tell you that you can live and breath without me all on your own. Today I want you to know that I have found someone that I cannot live without. Today I want myself to be more private with the way I am feeling. Today I feel guilty. Today I feel hurt. Today I know I am hurting you if you're reading this. Today will probably be tomorrow, and it will forever be yesterday. Tomorrow will eventually be a better today.

[katieperry1-blog]

Think of looking at someone through the eyes of a sober individual. If they are constantly on drugs, do you see the lines and sorrows on their face? The hearrtache and withdrawal? What if your entire life you always thoought someone had tired eyes, but they were actually drugged up?

[katieperry1-blog]

Fits too well rights now..

[katieperry1-blog]

First tattoo... couldn't be more pleased with it!

[katieperry1-blog]

The grass isn't always greener on the other side, but if you never explore, you'll never know.

[katieperry1-blog]

Sometimes the last person you want to talk to is the only person you want to talk to. That's when you need to figure who is wrong, and why.

[katieperry1-blog]

Outer Body Experience?

Last night I had an odd dream, something I have never really experienced. I fell asleep quickly, probably no longer than five minutes after I hit the pillow. Soon, I thought I heard rattling in a plastic bag at the end of my bed. Was it my cat? Couldn't have been, the door never got pushed open.. then I realized, I was still extremely tired, and felt oddly removed from my body. I decided to ignore the noise and fall deeper into sleep. About one minute later, I heard a young child's laughter outside.. screaming, yelling, playing with their father.. so I sat up and could have sworn I was screaming out the window. "Excuse me! Some people are sleeping right now!" The laughter and words of the child did not stop so I yelled again. "I'm glad you're chasing cats, but I'm trying to sleep!" Then I realized this must have been a dream because who would be outside in their yard, laughing and playing with their child at almost 11:30 at night? I tried to wake myself, tried to tell myself to open my eyes, but I couldn't. I was frozen. I was completely immobile, but at the same time, I was completely at peace with myself. I was content, until I heard the child again. That was when I woke up for real. It was crazy, and it sounds crazy, and it felt crazy, but it was also one if the most interesting dreams I have ever had.

[blindbonesbradley-deactivated20]

You’re going to discover that conversations are best at 4 am. The heavier the eyelids, the sincerer the words. Those are the talks you’ll remember. It’s ok not to know the answer and silence is not awkward. It’s shared, so share it more often than not.

Jeff Stuckel (via h-o-r-n-g-r-y) The truth in those late night talks with those you love.

[katieperry1-blog]

Appreciation

For a very long time in my life, I didn't know what it meant to be appreciated by others. I didn't understand that feeling, the self-assurance that I was doing something right or helping someone out. Then when I finally got a whiff of that undying gratitude from another person, or someone said the words, "Thanks, I really appreciate what you did for me," I felt my own self-gratitude. This satisfaction coursed through my veins, like a powerful adrenaline had taken over my body. It was a different kind of happy I had never felt before, and it was a kind of happy that I wondered if I had ever given someone else? It became a feeling that I wanted more and more of, so I continued to stick my neck out for people, continued to try to be there and show people I cared when it might have been just what they needed. 

And now, I'm back at a place where appreciation does not come frequently. It is not a feeling that a lot of people I am surrounded by feel or give on a day-to-day basis. Some will even take that feeling I try to give them, absorb it, and never expel it to anyone else. I'm not sure if that is something learned or ingrained, but it is something else that I don't quite understand. And now I am finding myself thirsty as ever for just a lick of the satisfaction, a job well-done. I'm constantly trying to give and give what I think is right, what I think is above the expectation. But most recently I am finding myself disappointed by those continuing to take. I feel like an emotion junkie, looking for the next thrill. Is it something I need to do for myself, or is it something I just have to wait for?

[katieperry1-blog]

"I'm not gong to tell you that I know how you're feeling.. I'm not going to tell you.. that everything is going to be alright.. Because.. A world- YOUR world- filled with so much heartache.. will only be healed with time. I'm not going to sit here.. and pretend like things aren't different. And I WILL. NOT. SIT HERE.. and tell you things will go back to normal. Because.. Normal has changed. And I never want to tell you something.. that will give you a false promise."

I recently had a dream that I was speaking at an event held after a tragedy. Much like the recent ones throughout our nation. This was part of the speech I gave to those sitting in the audience. Is it something I would really say at something like that? Probably.

[katieperry1-blog]

Every storm runs out of rain. Needed these lyrics today.

[katieperry1-blog]

Sandy Hook

Do I know what it feels like to lose a classmate? Yes. Do I know what it feels like to lose a child? No. Do I know what it feels like to have my rights violated, but not be able to put it into words? Doesn't matter. 

The recent events that took place at Sandy Hook Elementary will forever be torched into the nation's brains. We will forever see the sadness and grieving of one small community, and the tears of children losing friends and role models. We will forever see the naivety of a few young children too young to understand the depth of this massacre, and the braveness of others. I refuse to act like I know what these families are feeling after such a tragedy; but, I also refuse to pretend like I don't feel any kind of shock, sadness, grief, horror or helplessness toward this situation that has struck my country. 

The last few days I couldn't find the right words to say regarding this tearful topic, nor could I pinpoint my emotions. Now I know that no matter what I say, feel, or do will never change what has happened. Nothing will ever make these families or this community feel less pain while they grieve and remember the angels lost. Helplessness is the only thing that can sum up everything for me. And until this day, it has never felt stronger through my veins. 

[katieperry1-blog]

Empathy

em·pa·thy  

/ˈempəTHē/

Noun

The ability to understand and share the feelings of another.

Synonyms

sympathy

I have a serious problem with some people that I encounter due to their lack of empathy. People who are more concerned with themselves at all times, but forget to acknowledge the problems of others. People that recognize someone else's problem and then try to top it with their own bother me, too; but those people do not bother me as much as the ignorant people that cannot even TRY to place themselves in someone else's shoes. Sometimes it even makes me sick to think that these people will never be happy, or never understand what another human being is going through. The worst part is that most of the time they don't even try to see what others encounter. Why don't some people possess even the slightest bit of empathy for another person? How is that even possible? I simply cannot wrap my mind around it sometimes.

"Don't judge a person until you walk a mile in their shoes." I remember hearing and being taught this phrase as a child in fourth grade. Fourth grade. Is empathy taught and learned? Is it something in a person's nature? My fourth grade teacher told me that this meant we could not call others mean names because we did not know why other kids were acting or looked a certain way. She told me that every single person is driven by something to do anything, and "doing that anything" was not something we would know unless we could picture "that little something" affecting us. I felt like I knew what she was talking about, even at a young age. I never realized that what she taught me that day right after lunch, before recess, would stick in my mind forever. She told us to close our eyes. Now I don't remember the exact scenerio that she gave us to imagine, but I do remember opening my eyes and looking at the goose bumps on my arm. 

This post ties in with my post about respect. I do not believe that you have to possess any kind of empathy to give or receive respect; however, I do believe that they relate to each other. When you have and show more empathy toward another individual, you get more respect from them and, hopefully, vice versa. But for something that makes so much sense to me, I just don't understand why people cannot or choose not to show and have empathy for someone else. I can't explain how much this boggles my mind. I do know that some people have mental health issues that may hinder these kinds of things, but how does a mentally healthy person not contain any empathy whatsoever? Can they just not imagine themselves in another situation that hasn't happened to them? Or they just don't care? Am I lacking the amount of empathy to understand why these people cannot or choose not to show it? 

[katieperry1-blog]

Respect

RESPECT. It's a word most people know well, whether you don't get it, give it, have it, etc, you still have a sense of what it means. Not sure what anyone else's views on respect are, but I can tell you that if I don't know you, I respect you. Even if I do know you, I more than likely respect you. My view on respect is that when we meet, you automatically start with respect from me, whether we have spoken or not. I don't believe that new people I meet need to earn my respect; I believe they should already have it. I do know that a lot of people do have the idea that everyone they meet needs to earn it from them, but I am quite the opposite. I want everyone to know that the amount of respect from me that you are given right away is like a prize. It's not something you have to work for from me. I might not know you, know your struggles, your background, what obstacles you have overcome or are currently facing. Knowing that I do not know your hardships makes me respect you.

Now don't be fooled- if you disrespect me for some reason, then you will lose my respect. And because I trusted a stranger with this prize when we met, it's very hard to get it back from me. I am not one to hold a grudge, and to me, a grudge and a lack of respect are different. I can forgive someone for a mistake they may have made by me, or if they have even crossed me in some way, but by golly, they better know that the amount of respect they once had from me has diminished. Getting respect back is quite difficult, especially if I feel that I did not do anything to make you disrespect me. 

That being said, I have had people treat me with an incredible amount of disrespect. Those people have been cut out of my life as much as possible. I haven't cut them out in a "I'm running away from my problems" kind of way, but more of a "I'm a grown up and I am not going to put either of us in an awkward situation" kind of way. I have been disrespected by family, friends, strangers, lots of sorts. Happens to everyone. I do feel that people that constantly disrespect others are people who are broken and have yet to be fixed. They are people who may or may not have had very difficult hardships that have lead them to be callous people. Yes, I believe they may be "broken," but I do not believe that I am the one that needs to fix them. If they are someone who is asking for help, then maybe, but other than that, I'm good. I don't need that kind of negativity in my life. It brings me down, and being down sucks. (Holler if you hear a sister!) 

So all in all, respect- it's just one of those things that people have different views on. Do I disagree with anyone else's views? No, why should I? It's what they want to believe. It's what makes a person's relationships the way they are, and even a person the way they are. There's nothing wrong with any of that!

[savdvddy-blog]

[katieperry1-blog]

love, love, love!