Always Remember the Divine

That a helluva' title, huh? Well, a word to the wise: if you're taking a new handful of medications and one is for peripheral nerve pain and can affect your central nervous system... you might come off drunk. Like so: Look, I'm just... uh, drugged. Good morning... er, afternoon? Also, I have all this timing stuff. Like, one pill half an hour before food and then the other two with food. This instruction operates on the assumption that I'm a responsible adult that's managing my eating... uhhhhhhhh... So I didn't do my medicine on quite the right eating schedule and now I'm drunkish. Which makes the eating schedule a little difficult to operate. durrr durr food. What is... box? So if I'm acting kind of drunk around you at any given time, just give me a sandwich. Problem solved. Love and cookies, Shareeta

What does that word mean?! I don't even know. Does it mean anything? It's had a lot of cultural pressure attached to it and has meant different things to me over the years, but to be honest I just don't like that word for so many reasons.  It limits what's acceptable for me to be, and I don't like it. I like the word feminine.  I think it's important to say that none of these words have meaning except to the user of the word. Like... what feels me feminine is a lot different than what makes someone else feel feminine and really, who the heck cares, be a feminine dude if you like.  In the grand scheme of things, it's just a label.  Today I feel feminine wearing the same shirt as I was yesterday. It's soft, so whatever. On that note, I will share my distaste for gendered descriptors of traits, but admit to my own cultural conditioning by telling you what I think is girly versus what I think is feminine.  Can you tell which term I prefer? Well, if yo...

In fact, they're almost never what they seem. You have to look a bit deeper. This is going to be a departure from some of the themes I've been writing, but it's my blog and I do what I want, dangit. For the purpose of this blog, let's do a little bit of Shareeta labeling. I'm not huge on Shareeta-labeling (or anyone-else-labeling), but I'm trying to give you a little bit of empathy for my perspective. So... at the risk of sounding conceited, this is what I look like on any given day at 3:12 pm when I'm sick and trying to pull myself together: Hello, friends, I'm awkward at selfies. And... uh, life. So there we are. Nope, there I am. Some days, I feel like I automatically speak in the royal "we." Hi, I'm not royalty, unless you count the child of God thing (which is awesome, but I digress). From a purely physical standpoint, I'm a pretty person. Now, I feel weird writing that and I will act real weird  if you tell me that in p...

I'm privileged to endure it first hand. Have you read The Fault in Our Stars ? I have, I just finished it. If you haven't, it's definitely worth the time. It's a story written from the perspective of a teenage girl with cancer, Hazel Grace. I started it because I love the sarcastic way the protagonist views her illness, got a little lost in the middle because someone loved her (isn't that just the way? I think I'm kind of predictable.) but I'm glad I finished it. I can't say that I cried. It was more profound than that. I think the message I take is one that I know in my soul but don't have confirmed much outside of the recesses of my own heart - there's something to live for. Looking at these funny (and very real) characters, their stories, their realities and daily lives... it makes me think. It makes me ache that they were here with me, to laugh at the rest of the parade of life, to play antagonist to this stepford world, to love...

Some five years ago, I wrote a poem one night as I lay alone in a hospital room at Parker Adventist. I was waiting for surgery in the morning, and my exhausted family had gone home to recoup after a terrifying and traumatic day. At a few minutes to six, I had awoken suddenly, needing to go to the bathroom, where I passed a gallstone and close to passed out on cold, tile floor. By the time I was in the ER, my heart was slowing. Shock had taken over, pain's grasp had pulled me down with it. This wasn't particularly unusual for me, except this time no one thought I was making it up or causing the pain. No one blamed me for my pain, they found what was wrong. So, laying there, thinking about the morning, I couldn't really sleep. Something about a fearful mind is more awake than a mind in any other state. Where were you? I was scared for my life, I was alone. Needles and the whir of an IV pump A dark room, a busy hall. The rush of life around me, stillness where I l...

Here's a picture of me on my 19th birthday. I totally wouldn't have known it was my 19th except... well, for the same reason you can tell it's my 19th birthday in this picture. Some of those memories fade together. That said, I remember some things about this time in my life. For a myriad of reasons, I was in pretty deep denial about a lot of things and I also was really into avoiding people. So what I'm saying is - I was such a winner and everyone wanted to be around me. (ha! Thankfully for me, there were in fact people who wanted to be around me... case in point, my friend Rudy's right half in this picture). There's something I said everytime I approached a specific situation  at this time in my life that told a lot about the things I wasn't willing to admit to or say. If anyone ever asked me on a date, I said, "Okay, but you have to make me a promise." Which really freaks guys out when you're 19 years old... but I digress. Anyway...

  You know I'm really sick of people lecturing me on how to not be sick. Or how to be more sociable. Or what makes an appropriate dream. Or what friends I should care about. Or which political party will turn me into hellspawn. Or what clothes I should like. Or for having my phone out when people are talking ( maybe they're boring me and it would be a lot more rude if I rolled my eyes every .5 seconds because I didn't have an out) . Or for eating junk food. Or for being in a imperfect progression of body peace. Or for trying and failing and going a different direction.   I don't know what the human race's fascination with criticism is (nor am I immune to the instinct to criticize sometimes) but I'm not a big fan. I believe in addressing things directly and constructively.  I do believe there is a place for talking things out to foster growth and improvement. I do not believe in criticism. "But why, Shareeta? How are people supposed to improve?" y...

...  does not mean it's okay to comment on my weight. Can I tell you something about chronic illness? I fight and battle and feel like I'm winning and in that brief moment of respite where I stop to breathe and do all the fun things that everyone does and feel just a little bit normal... I forget that I'm sick. I hide it. It's so much easier to move on with life and ignore it then it is to consistently battle it every damn day. Even more significantly, it's easier to hide it from the world because, for some reason, everyone feels like they can fix it (as if they know better than the person living with it). For example... (excuse the profanity in this link): http://invisiblyill.tumblr.com/post/47321767080/psa-if-you-dont-have-the-illness-dont-fucking-tell Yeah, I will suffer and not say anything about it because I want you to bugger off and leave me alone. You're not helping. Unsolicited advice on something you don't understand is rude, not helpful. ...

  Hi. I've gotten this far without you running away, you're reading this blog. Or maybe (more likely) you're someone who knows me better and is reading this blog because you care about me already. Either way, this letter is addressed to the people who will probably never read it... for catharsis on my part, but for empathy for my everyday situation for you.   In any case, hello you. We might have met in passing or had a quick interaction in one or two social situations. We had a class together in college, or met at church, or we had a common friend and you didn't really talk to me but you were just a witness to the spectacle that is my social interaction. I probably don't talk to you, I probably wouldn't initiate a conversation with you if I saw you somewhere, you may have never really talked to me and I guarantee you don't really know the first thing about me.   Let me address the things you may have heard about me... I can't say that I've heard m...

Here's something. I'm really inclined to something I call snail time. My snail time totally upsets people on a regular basis. I call it snail time because I go into my shell. It's protective, but that's not all. I'm working stuff out in there. I trust my intuition a lot and I take in a lot of perspectives and I integrate a lot of information simultaneously. I don't particularly like getting advice during this time because it will sway me strongly to a valid perspective, but won't be really true to the decision I would make on my own. I don't think other people solve problems with snail time. I think they don't understand what I'm doing when I go in my shell and it makes them upset, because they think its permanent. It's not. But - if you'd like me to put up a permanent wall between us, by all means, start knocking on my shell and panicking while I'm in there problem solving, processing and integrating all the varied per...

  Living with a very different perspective on life is unique and beautiful, but largely uncomfortable. I don't find a lot of common ground with most people, largely because my experience includes a lot of pain (physical, mental and emotional) and ambiguity. This lends to a lot of genuinity (it's a word. I mean. I say so, even if blogger doesn't agree), a lot more honesty than most people live with or want to experience, even in brief interactions with me. This also means that I'm honest about the things(not always things ) that comfort me. Here's a list... surely, an incomplete one. But one that I can think of off the top of my head: Soft, floral smells Pungent, spicy smells Epsom salt baths Freshly shaven legs (especially in clean sheets!) Cuddling, hugging, back rubs, having my hair stroked/braided/styled, sitting in someone's lap, jumping on someone, using healing touch, scratching someone's skin, touching someone with my nose, being tickled (with...

For the record, there's a really meaningful bit at the end of the sarcastic letter that is worth sticking around for ;) Dear Saint Somebody,   Yes, I heard you ask me whether I was in a skiing accident. Ha, ha. You are so incredibly clever, you're certainly the first person to have ever asked me about the braces on my knee and ankle. I wasn't in a skiing accident, and I'm going to quietly tell you that and yes, I will then walk away. I just LOVE IT when you call after me that what really happened must have been so much more embarrassing and that's why I don't want to talk about it.   Do you hear me laughing?   That's because I'm not.   I was just trying to buy this tin of arnica salve. I know this one works really well where others haven't. What's arnica, you ask? It's a flower/herb that has anti-inflammatory properties. I use it on my inflamed red joints for inflammation and pain relief. Oh, don't worry, this lady over here in ...