What is Love?

Hi all,
    Wow I know it has been a long time but I have been crazy busy from work and moving. I officially live in Nashville, Tn now moving here to be closer to family. I love it here so far and if anyone reads this leave me some suggestions as to where I should go here. Now onto the heavy stuff!
     So this topic is a little near and dear to my heart. It is about addiction, in all of its forms, be it drinking, drugs, sex and the one closest to me is love (or lack thereof). So you are probably thinking Claire what in the heck, love is something you feel with another person not something that can be addicting. Oh no my friends, love is sometimes just as bad as any drug. The brain when in love or having sex releases the chemical oxytocin which controls sexual arousal, trust, depression relief, and bond pairing with a partner. It is good for many of the all intensive purposes but this is why as humans it is very hard to be friends with benefits or have NSA relationships. Oxytocin combined with dopamine and norepinephrine are the combo to a happy and healthy relationship but the thing is these chemicals are all combined with sex, you see the dilemma? So in the movies that came out a couple years ago called No Strings Attached with Ashton Kutcher and Natalie Portman they eventually fall in love and everyone goes awwwww....Well the fact is that as charming as Ashton Kutcher is and as much as Natalie Portman didn't want a relationship the chemicals coursing through their body automatically made them closer since the first time they had sex making it almost inevitable that they would get together, especially since they 'did it' everywhere. So here is a warning to you whoever you are that casual sex is never just casual in the end you have a literal chemical reaction that make it feel good and connect you with that person. So why do you seek out sex? Is it because it feels good or is it another reason? Is it to find love? Why is it that people do things for love? Why do they have a burning need to be with the ones who treat them badly or are just not good for them? We can not blame it all on the chemicals we also can find fault with the people themselves.
      People as a whole a very social beings. I know that even me who likes to sit and home and not do anything on my days off still feel the need to be in crowds or go to read at the bookstore not because I need to but because I feel the need for human interaction. I also crave love like many of the people on this planet and hope one day to find someone who completes me. So what drives me and others to seek out people that I know are not good for me and try to fall in love with them and get them to love me? It is that sense of needing someone and the fear that I may be alone for the rest of my life. (partly for me anyways). I do not have a lot of self confidence; but when I am with someone that I 'love' I know that even with a lack of believing in myself I have someone to believe in me for me. Someone is always there for me and to look after me. That person is protection, a lover, friend, believer, and trustful in everything I do. They also challenge me and let me know I can do better. So falling in love gives us a sense of completion and even though sometimes we find someone who WE think fits that mark, we need to listen to our friends and family because we can have a skewed vision when it comes to them. Love it a very double edged sword and we need to learn to not be in love for the sake of being in love but to find that one person who encompasses what we need. Don't settle, don't compromise, and if you are in a relationship that is unhealthy tell someone because that is not love. 'Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. It does not dishonor others, it is NOT self-seeking, it is NOT easily angered, it keeps NO record of wrongs. Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, and always perseveres. Love never fails.'

Hope this is encouraging to you. As always you can reach me at my email address cassmarie16@yahoo.com or feel free to add me on twitter @ClaireCassidy15  
     

Moving Onward & Suppressing the Depressing (thoughts)

Hi all,
    Sorry I have not posted in a while it has been a really bumpy road and has led me to beautiful Franklin, Tennessee which is just outside of Nashville. I am happy to be here but it has already been hard because i don't know anyone besides my family here so I find myself a little lonely. Also more than a little broke due to the move and moving into a new place so that kinda compounds it. Although lonely it has given me time to think about things which can sometimes be good or bad.
      You see when I am depressed I tend to think about all the bad things that I have done and wonder what when wrong and how I could have prevented them. Hindsight is always 20/20. So I am really trying to get out of that mentality. What I do is meditate during these "depressed" moods because meditating is really a clearing of the mind. Also it is proven that people who meditate, at least 10 minutes a day, have more brain wave activities than those who do not. I am not a very mystical person so I am not chanting "ommmmmm" or anything like that but I put on very low classical music and just think 'smile.' I do that because when I get done meditating it seems like I am in a happier place.
     Another thing I have been doing is painting. I am not a great painter but I have highly enjoyed doing it because it lets me again let my mind wander and allows me to paint my emotions. When I am depressed it helps me to use that to use dark colors and eventually I am really enjoying myself and I start to use light colors.
     I guess what I am trying to not so eloquently put into words is that although my depression gets so bad sometimes I just want to curl up and never leave my room. I try to do things that allows me to normally go on with my life. I do not take medicine because it is not all the time and I am surrounding myself with people whether its in a mall or even at a bookstore. I try to take the small things that are happy and make them the highlight of my day. Painting a picture, reading an amazing book, or even listening to Iggy Azalea's Fancy makes me a little happy and if I can hold onto that then so can you awesome reader. Here are a couple of my paintings, which reminds me, I often give my paintings away because I rather someone else try to get some joy out of them than me (also I go on painting streaks and paint like 2 a night and my room would end up just being a shrine of my emotional roller coaster haha).
                                                          Arbor Vitae meaning Tree of Life

The Written Word

Hi all!
 
             How are you? Doing ok? So this post is going to be about some of my favorite poetry, books, and quotes. Hope you enjoy it! Links for things will be underneath each item.


Poetry:
  I highly enjoy reading poetry which I know many people find a little tedious because they always think of people like Longfellow, Blake, Keats etc but poetry is so much more than those aforementioned great poets. A good rap (no sit down Lil Wheezy not singing the same crap over and over) can be a poem along with a simple haiku or even words that don't rhyme all the time (that was on purpose by the way).
So here are a few to get you into new and interesting poetry and even one by me (not very good but poems are just as good for your soul as hot tea is).

The Tyger by William Blake
http://www.poetryfoundation.org/poem/172943
The link for you. This poem was one of the first ones that I memorized and it is truly loquacious. Some of the best lines I have ever read. "What the hammer? what the chain, In what furnace was thy brain? What the anvil? what dread grasp, Dare its deadly terrors clasp!" is one of my favorite stanzas (a group of lines forming the basic recurring metrical unit in a poem; a verse.). Read it!

We Real Cool by Gwendolyn Brooks
http://www.poets.org/viewmedia.php/prmMID/15433
If you can listen to the audio then do it she reads it sublimely. Her voice is great also her explanation of why she wrote it which was basically because she saw some people playing pool...no other hidden meanings at all, crazy I know.

Mother to Son by Langston Hughes
http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/mother-to-son/
A good poem about the hard knocks of life.

The Owl and the Pussy-Cat by Edward Lear
http://www.poetryfoundation.org/poem/171941
A good story poem. A little odd but full of great imagery.

The Road Not Taken by Robert Frost
http://www.poets.org/viewmedia.php/prmMID/15717
This poem is one of my favorites. It is about making decisions in life.

The People- Common
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S7B2VgRShew
Common is yes a rapper but he does not sing about women and exploiting them but about what is happening in the world around him and the common life. He flows really well.

Same Love by Macklemore
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hlVBg7_08n0
This is a really great music video along with the fact that it is more than a song. It is a message about how people feel. That to me is a poem.

Lastly here is mine that I wrote in a difficult time in my life. Hope you enjoyed this list.


The Purpose of Death by Claire

Cry, wail, lament, and mourn

The love you shared, and the fact

You will never see your

Lover,

Soul-mate,

Dearest friend again.

But rejoice, celebrate, and be joyous,

That their soul has left

The weak, sick, form they once inhabited.

They suffered and were in pain.

They cried out to be put out of their miseries

But held a strong face.

They watched the sympathetic faces of the blurring crowd;

But one stood out among the rest.

The true visage of their love

And the sorrow that clouded their eyes.

That sorrowful love made the pain

Better and

Worse.

In those last moments of life they want

That person beside them,

That last look,

That last "I love you,"

And that last image in their eyes,

Burned into their mind is

You.

To them that is the best. most wonderful sight

In the world.

In that moment they know

They have not died in vain.

While you cry after they pass,

They rejoice with the knowledge of seeing

You, one last time and that you are living on.

So be sad for today,

But remember they left you to live

And be happy.

So cry for today,

BUT

Awaken tomorrow with a new purpose,

The purpose of living for your love.

The purpose of Death.

Piece of Me--little bio

Hi all!
 
        I'm sitting here in bed at 3am watching YouTube videos and being sick so I decided it was time for another post. So I am going to let you peer into my life a little since, well, this is a musing and blog (that I hope you take comfort and advice from) and you don't really know me at all so if you could care less about this you can skip to my next blog post which will be tonight since I can't sleep at all.
          I am currently 22, working full-time, and going to school to become a pediatric nurse. My life started out in a small town in Kentucky and then I moved to Texas where I am currently at now. I guess the point of giving you a little background will help you understand why I am making this blog. I had a really great childhood filled with great family vacations and really great memories. I am adopted and so are my siblings. When I was around 11 or 12 my parents decided they wanted to adopt another child. At first I was jealous, which yes seems petty now, but I had been the baby of the family for a while and could not bear the thought of not being doted on. Shellfish, I know. We started the process of adopting, looking for the correct person, making sure they were willing, and started preparing the nursery. The person we found as a birth-mother was immature in so many ways although she was older. Hindsight is always 20/20. We brought this beautiful baby home from the hospital and cared for her for 11 days before the birth-mother decided to take her back from us. Even typing it out to this day causes me cry. In my little kid mind I had thought that I had wished the child away because I didn't want her at first. But she was so beautiful and I mean honestly how could you not look into a smiling baby's face and frown. We finally adopted again and I have my amazing younger sister but something like that leaves an internal mark.
            I started going to public school when I was a sophomore in high school and it was an eye-opening experience. I had my first relationship and well that didn't end so great. Looking back at my first relationship now everything about it seems so petty. I rarely make best friends because girls have been really mean to me my whole life and I have kinda closed myself off to them. I mean I trust up to a point but most of the time I won't show them the more exposed side of myself. I definitely put up walls. My best friend is a guy and he seems to understand me perfectly. He knows when I am feeling bad and when I need cheering up but is really honest with me and tells me when to get my act together, haha. Right now I am fooling myself in saying I don't want a relationship because I really do but with someone that gets me. I also don't really have the time for it (hehe still convincing myself this is a bad time). The weird thing that although I don't have the best track record in choosing guys people still come to me for relationship advice...actually any advice or for me to be a sounding board. Which brings me to the porpoise of this blog.
             If you are still with me then let me tell you that I want to help you if you need help and if you ever need to talk anything out I will provide my email below. I will be there for you internetly, yep new word there, and will help you out.
              I do have this bad habit though of giving a lot of my time and effort into people who don't want help but are 'broken' in some way. They can be immature, commitment-phobes, jealous, angry, spiteful, or all of the above. In my mind I feel that I need to 'fix' them and that they honestly want to be fixed. But I don't pick the ones that want to be 'fixed' I pick the ones that are egotistical and just want to use up my time and emotions. That sounds really spiteful but it is not just a fact. Many of my relationships have been with guys that I thought I could fix or that I thought wanted to be fixed but they don't. Girls usually use me for advice but don't really hang out with me because I tend to hang out with the guys a lot and tend to think that I am slutty or unfriendly. Which to be honest is not the case I just feel that guys judge me a lot less and I feel at ease when I am talking to them versus trying to make 'proper' or 'correct' conversation around women.
              So this blog is my little escape to be a little anonymous which thanks to the internet we can't be anymore so it is my little getaway to help or give advice without being specific to just one person. I genuinely enjoy helping people but when the people I try to help hurt me or turn on me then I feel that there was no use helping them. So this blog is me being shellfish and doling out advice as it comes and getting my 'I-need-to-help-someone fix.'
                So hey if you are still with me and don't think I am a total ass (because I am actually kinda a cool person) and you want some help or advice or just want me to write about something in my blog then email me and I will do it!

EMAIL (for anything): cassmarie20@gmail.com
So that is me in a nutshell. Hope to hear from you!

Stay strong and stay beautiful/handsome!
Claire

Impressed, Depressed, Regress, Progress...?

Hi all,
   A month that's not bad for a new post right? Don't answer that...how are you? Ready for the fall for those here in America? So hope all of you are getting along well. This post is going to be about a few things that have been going through and maybe you have at one point in your life, too. Recently I have been focusing on school and work and getting great grades that I sometimes drown in all of it. I get slightly depressed doing the same things everyday. The thoughts also run through my mind that I wont get anywhere kinda like a hamster in a wheel. The positive thoughts are sometimes hard to keep at the forefront of my mind. I am pretty sure everyone is like that though. So what do you do when you feel this way?
     You have to think about where you are going and what you want to do with your life. If you are like, Claire, I don't know what I am going to do 5 minutes from now nonetheless my life. That is OK unless you are 30 and still living in your mom's basement then you need to sort out your priorities. So take a few minutes and really contemplate about what you want to do. What do you excel at? What do you enjoy doing? If you enjoy gaming why not get into computer graphics or computer science. If you are a people person get into sales or customer service. My grandfather told me that if you enjoy doing something it does not feel like a job it is something you enjoy. So don't try to get into anything you don't truly enjoy because then you will be working and not living your entire life. Getting into what you want helps you live a more healthy life. You don't get depressed or regress to depression.
       So progress into something different. Don't be depressed with where you are now but remember that you are going somewhere. Think about where you want to go and get there. I know it sucks and, maybe you want to regress and be depressed, about the time it will take to get you there but just remember once you get there you can breathe a sigh of relief. You can feel so accomplished and live each day not just go to a job. So progress and impress yourself. You can make it!

Excelsior! Ever Higher!

Liar, Liar Pants on Fire

Hi all,
 
         How are you? This post is not as far away as the others so I hope I am getting the hang of this. No one has commented so I am hoping that 'you' are enjoying this blog. So today is a post about lying which we are all guilty of and if you denied that then congrats you lied. Why is it that humans lie? Why is it that sometimes we want people to lie to us? Most of us have been taught from an early age that lying is bad and it only hurts yourself. So why is it then that when you lie you sometimes feel better about yourself or so you don't end up on the couch (does this make me look fat)?
           Human nature from the very first moment we can talk tells us to lie when faced with a bad situation. Did you take that boy's toy? No I did not, Mommy...when in reality of course you took the toy. The little 2 year old face staring up at you lying like no one's business. Girls, boys, men, women and everyone in between all lie.
            Men lie to women because women want to hear the lie. Men say, "I love you" or "that dress makes you look great" or any number of pickup lines that men try on you. Women crave to hear those things. Men are the same way. The crave to hear women tell them that they want them, that they are the only man for them, and that they were the best ever in the sack. I mean for goodness sakes women lie about the big moment to make men feel better about themselves. We crave the lies.
              Lie to me, lie for me, and lie about me. We lie for other people, too. When we tell the truth and it endangers another's livelihood we call it narking or giving someone away. The lie seems like the more plausible decision then getting your friend or co-worker in trouble. You would be the perpetual pariah in the office or to the rest your friends.
               So if we all lie is it really bad? Lying causes us to mistrust and to second guess what people tell us. The truth although sometimes the harsher reality, I hope you like the couch, is really the better way. It is like trying to build a sandcastle and the waves keep washing it away. The sandcastle represents the relationship you have with other people and the waves the lies you tell. The idea is, is that lying is a cop out. Yea, whenever you get in trouble you immediately C.Y.A by lying. Lying though is never the answer however convenient. So are you a liar, liar, pants on fire?
 
             

Is Someone Getting the Best of You?

Hi all,

         So recently I have been thinking about relationships and the consequences of them. Which I use the word consequence because there are both good and bad things that come from relationships. Usually with me I innately always pick the wrong person. I always seem to pick someone who is broken and somehow I think that I can fix them. Usually I succeed in doing this but when the times come for them to help me with a situation that I am going through then they run to the hills. Which I suppose I understand because I have just helped them get out of their own funk that they run from anything that could ruin that again. The thing is though is that relationships are two sided and just like a coin when you first meet someone you are gambling a bit. You are gambling with something a little more serious than money though. because you can always make more of that, you are gambling with your heart. You put yourself out there for someone you think you really 'like' or 'love' but it turns out that he is not the 'one.' Don't get me wrong I still believe in true love and I believe that there is someone for everyone out there but I think when you first get into a relationship you 'know' deep down inside whether this is going to be the person for you. You know when you look them in the eyes that this person is already far away or in turn so in love with you that nothing distracts him/her.
           I think that innateness within us is something that we have largely turned off. I am not saying every relationship needs to be Cinderella like or good guys always finish first movies but we need to have the thought in the back of our minds to listen to that little voice inside us. People get married and divorced all the time but maybe if they had thought about what the consequences of what that would be they would have reconsidered or even listened to that voice. When you find that there is something wrong with your significant other and you can't quite place what it is then you know it is that voice. If you are reading this somewhere on your wedding day I am not saying for you to run away, no run away brides or grooms please, but I want you to really think and consider is this the person who you want to grow old with? Those vows you are taking they do mean forever. As much as you think that divorce may be an option someday that is a consequence of the relationship; you are just as involved in the relationship in divorce as you are married. Whether you have kids or not. 
              Like I said I am not advocating a fairy tale adventure with singing mice and chirping birds because some of the best times in the relationship can also be some of the lowest points. Take for an example my parents: they were living in England on practically nothing but as they talk about it now they laugh and look back on it fondly as hard as it was at the time.
              My mom as I said in previous posts has just lost her best friend and lost her father a few months ago. She is hurting in every way imaginable. Two years ago she almost died from a rare disease and her best friend was there for her everyday and that is not an exaggeration she was literally there everyday. My mom is at the end of her rope with grief and she just wants to leave where we are currently living. My family is worried about her and my father told me that he would do whatever it takes to make sure she is healthy and happy. He stated that he was married to her and that meant taking care of her til the end of her or his days. That might seem a little extreme to you but after 30 years of marriage my dad still loves her as much as when they were first dating.
              Sorry ladies my dad is taken but that is what I am talking about. My dad would do anything for my mom and innately my mother always knew that he was the right one for her. Men yes it does work both ways. Although women may not always make you that sandwich, in hard times women are just as much there to help you, as you are to help them.
             These are just some of the consequences of a relationship. So please consider and be considerate of whom you open yourself up to. Don't squish that voice inside of your head because people tell you 'you won't find anyone better,' 'he/she is amazing you are lucky to have them,' and
'they are a good match because of lame excuse XYZ.' You deserve someone that makes you truly happy. Someone that won't take you for granted or only be there when they have a problem. You deserve your soul mate so please listen to that innate voice inside you.

This has been a PSA from
Claire
Haha just kidding.
P.S. title is Dave Grohl/Foo Fighters reference because he is amazing.