Music Mix #2

As the summer season ends and the cool days of autumn approach, I couldn't help but dedicate a new music mix to the amazing summer that has passed. If you're returning to school for the fall, coming home from a vacation, or just saying farewell to another beautiful season, you are more than welcome to check out this 41 minute mix I made of the most prominent songs of the end of my summer.

---> Summer's End Mix <--- 

A lot of memories can be made in a short amount of time and I am just thrilled to say that the last summer vacation of my life has definitely been one I will remember for years to come. As the school year starts and I begin my final year of college, I only hope that I continue to grow and develop as a person, keeping the memories close to me and learning from every step that I take. Even the music that I listen to carries a bit of those memories with them. When a song plays I often feel as if a small part of me is going back in time to the moment when that exact song was playing during a particular memory.

TEDTalks Stories

I'm not surprised that we are now finding the topics of depression and anxiety in TEDTalks. It is so brave of these men and women to share their stories of how they live with these. They even say "in hopes that others don't feel so alone." Now that is a cause I can stand behind.

Here is a link to several talks covering various topics from depression to schizophrenia and anywhere in between. Even if you don't suffer from any of these disorders I hope you can find them interesting and enlightening.

--> TEDTalks <--

Identify and Overcome

After the loss of an amazing actor, who touched the hearts of millions though his comedy and films, we remember him for all of the great things he did in his life. Robin Williams will always have a special place in my heart. I grew up with movies like "Flubber", "Aladdin", and "Mrs. Dobtfire." There was always something special that he brought into his roles, a kind of passion that made his characters so lovable.

But with his passing brings up the topic of depression in the media. These topics have anyways been difficult to talk about and people often wish to shy away from bringing it up in conversation. But it needs to be talked about. I recently read an article on a popular site that I wanted to share.

--> Identifying and Overcoming Depression <--

Writer Lisa Winter does a great job of helping the reader understand what depression is and what you can do to help someone you love who might show signs of being depressed.

I can't say it enough. Those who are suffering with depression are not alone. There is always help and a shoulder to lean on. Life is too beautiful to give up on yourself.  

Gratification

I find it easy to be hard on myself about well...pretty much everything. Even the things that seem grossly insignificant. Once I feel myself getting to this toxic state of mind I have a bit of reminding that needs to be done.

I'll take a quick step back for a second. Yesterday in my post about music I had mentioned that I gave up early on playing the guitar. I got to a point in my practice where I had plateaued and could not get better. This is one of the most frustrating things to me and I notice it happening more and more in my life to the point where it's becoming a hindrance in enjoying the things that I love. But why? Why am I letting this silly hiccup stop me from enjoying myself? It's simple. I shouldn't.

In a world cluttered with over stimulation, high speed media, and instant information at the tips of our fingers, it is easy to see why some of us might fall into the category of being stubborn when it comes to gratification for the things that we do. Delayed gratification. It's a fairly new subject that has been brought up due to today's expanding technologies.

I thought that the hard work I was putting into work, school, and other new skills, would pay off faster than it really was. I was totally frustrated that after two years of graphic design work, my work still not up to the standards that I expected of myself. Why was this not enough time to grow? I work everyday, I study hard, I am dedicated and manage my time well. But there is one thing that I was lacking: patience. Punishing myself for not being as good as I want to be will get me nowhere. I could work as hard as I wanted and I could push myself to my furthest limits but a garden wont grow in a day no matter how hard you try.

Progress can be slow, especially if it is something you are new at. But the main thing is to have faith in yourself. Believing in yourself is the first step to overcoming the restlessness that comes with thinking you aren't good enough or should be better. You are who you are. Everyone works at their own pace and sometimes things just don't come naturally. So we work at it and we work hard, especially if it is something that you truly love to do.       

 In my fortune cookie (sometimes I love these things) I received a fortune that read "the value of a man resides in what he gives, not in what he is capable of receiving". This can be interpreted in many different ways. The first way that comes to mind is simply giving and not expecting much in return, such as charity work, helping a friend/family member, or just being a supportive person in general. But as I thought about it, it also made me think of gratification."The value of a man resides in what he gives," could also being saying that a person is defined by the hard work that they do, "not in what he is capable of receiving," without expecting the fruits of his labors to be handed to him in a neat little basket. It may be a stretch seeing as I've had gratification on my mind all day.

If you agree let me know! If you don't then I'd love to hear what you think about this quote.   

Music Love

If you followed my blog before you already know how much I love music. There is something absolutely magic about the way that music can lift the spirit and put you in the best mood. I find it to be such a great stress reliever. I wanted to take the time to give a little bit more insight on my own personal experiences with music.

I have always loved music, even before I was born I felt inspired by the sound of it. My mom recounts multiple occasions where I would be kicking her inside of her belly when a particularly good song came on the radio. I would always be dancing and singing as I got older. Not only was it fun but it was a great way to express myself. There wasn’t a car ride where the radio wasn’t on or a CD/tape wasn’t playing. Still to this day I enjoy singing along to songs on the radio either alone or with others.

As soon as the opportunity arrived in elementary school I decided to pick up an instrument. It was a violin. I was really excited to play and learn more about it but my young and spirited mind expected the classes to be less structured than they were. It wasn’t that I didn’t want to pay attention but I wanted to play what I wanted. It was also difficult to make myself practice outside of class. After a year of that I tried out for the school chorus and fell in love with singing immediately. I was in chorus all the way up until high school. When I got to middle school we had an amazing music teacher but due to school budget cuts she could no longer teach for us. And with that went my days of learning music at school. 

I was thankful for the internet at this point. Youtube was becoming a thing and so were music videos. It was so cool to be able to look up your favorite songs and then listen to them over and over again whenever you wanted to. For my birthday one year I asked for a keyboard. Why not try another type of instrument? I had a couple books and I knew how to follow the lighted keys well enough but I wanted to be able to play my favorite songs. Luckily there were tutorials on Youtube! When I wasn’t busy with school work I would sit myself down in front of my desk top computer with my keyboard in my lap as I watched videos on how to play songs like "Clocks" by Coldplay. The only problem I had with this was that it took awhile for me to memorize them but once I did it was all muscle memory. I didn’t need to know what the keys meant just where I had to put my hands. Occasionally I still let my fingers run over the keys mindlessly playing that one song that my muscles remember better than I do.

High school began and an amazing game called Guitar Hero appeared into my life. This magnificent rhythm game was everything that I could have hoped for. After playing for only a short while I was already playing on expert mode and it was just too easy. My uncle had watched me play this video game several times and suggested I put down the plastic guitar and pick up a real one. He had been playing guitar recreationally since he was a teenager so he passed his guitar onto me. It was a dusty old acoustic guitar but to me it was beautiful. I began taking lessons at a music shop not far from home and picked up the instrument almost instantly. I would practice my cords every day until my fingers bled. I was so into it that my dad bought me my own electric/acoustic guitar. I had been playing guitar for about two years before I hit the peak of my progression. For some reason I had just stopped getting better. No matter how many songs I practiced or how long I played them for. I was starting to feel really down on myself. Why couldn’t I get better? Maybe it wasn’t the instrument for me after all? I came to learn that guitar was one of the easiest instruments to pick up but the hardest to master. I didn’t want to be amazing but I didn’t want to freeze up every time my instructor motioned me for a solo. I took a break for it for quite some time. I only felt worse about myself because I couldn’t remember a single song I had learned except the intro to "Today" by Smashing Pumpkins. I felt like I had failed myself. I’m still a bit ashamed every time I look at my guitar standing up in the corner of my room. 

Music has always been a huge part of my life as well as a few of my family member’s. When my mom was a teenager she would go to concerts all the time. She has seen Metallica at least five times. I was pretty jealous when I found this information out but I am very lucky to be her daughter because I developed some interesting musical tastes. For some reason middle school and early elementary school was a time for ‘pop music’. All my friends liked it but I grew out of that fast. Now there are only a very select few pop songs that I enjoy listening to.

As I got older I started going to concerts of my own, my very first: Flogging Molly. To me this represented my Irish heritage and I fell in love with Celtic rock and traditional Celtic music. As a kid I enjoyed a lot of the rock music that played on the radio as I was growing up, especially Smashing Pumpkins. When I got the chance to see them live in Boston, I couldn’t have been more excited. My dad and I arrived so early to the show that we were allowed to go in for a meet and greet with the record club (which I am now a part of). Billy Corgan talked to us for a short amount of time and let us ask him whatever questions we wanted. I was so tongue tied that I stayed quiet and just listened. He knew music in a completely different way than I did. He didn’t care if you liked his music or not, it was an expression of himself and how he dealt with going through different parts of his life. This opened up a whole new view for me and made me listen to music much different from that point on. Then came Tool.

My uncle introduced me to the unusual sounds of Maynard James Keenan. It was unlike any music I had heard up until that point in my life but it amazed me. I guess you could classify it as alternative metal or progressive rock but it doesn’t really matter to me what it’s called. I was beginning to deal with depression and anxiety in my life but this music eased it. It is sort of trance like listening to this music. It allows me to lift my spirit in a way, allowing it to travel and dance, not being held down by the weight of my own worries. I enjoy every off shoot band Maynard has and they all give me goose bumps when I listen to them, even after the 100^th listen. That to me is what makes his music so amazing and so enjoyable to sing along with his unique vocals. They were just as amazing live as they are on any recorded album.

I don’t think my love for music will ever cease. It has been there for me through good times and bad. From classical to metal I love a wide variety of music and artists. What I like to listen to most always depends on my mood or what I am doing at the time but my head is like a radio; there is always some song playing. And I think I like it that way.

New Experiences

 

New life experiences can be tough. Being my mother's only child gave me a disadvantage when it came to experiencing new things in life. I was quite sheltered growing up (and still am as long as I live under my parent's roof), to the point where it was almost unhealthy. For example, I couldn't walk home from the bus stop until I was 15. By that point it was almost time for me to start driving myself to school so it didn't really matter anyway. I understand that I am her baby and she wants to protect me but now I am struggling to deal with simple things in life that people normally find ordinary. 

The first time I had to ride the train into work I was petrified. Sure I rode the train with friends before but never on my own. I never had to be the one to count the stops or remember what you had to do with your ticket once you bought it (and don't even get me started with the subway). I'm embarrassed to say that I did fumble around with my phone a bit once I got seated to figure out more on what in the world I had to do. Do you buy your ticket on the train or before you board? What platform do you have to get on to get home? I was pretty much a mess that morning. My anxiety was through the roof and I hardly ate anything all day because of it.

 

Cities are much different than the country. I grew up in a small farm town; population = more cows than people. It wasn't until college that I finally got a small taste of the city life; the hustle and bustle, having to watch for traffic when you cross the street, the noise of cars and sirens all night, and the incredible light pollution. It wasn't hard to adapt to, being protected by the boundaries of the campus (even if the campus was plopped down right in the center of a neighborhood). But there was always something empowering about taking a walk to the comic store with a group of friends or finding a cool new restaurant to visit. It was invigorating making my own decisions, a true sign that I was growing up.        

 

Now that I'm getting older I've started telling my parents what I'm doing instead of asking (ok well I still ask a little bit, but that's only because I don't want to ruin any of their plans they might have, plus my mom is sick and if my dad can't bring her to her doctor's appointments I want to make sure that I'm here to do it). I still text my mom as soon as I arrive at my destination so she doesn't worry but I don't think that will ever change. 

 

My next big adventure (I hope) is to take a plane without my parents. I want to travel and experience all that life has to offer. I want to break out of this shell and experience the true beauty of living.

Intro

After some time writing my blog on Tumblr, I arrived at the decision to upgrade and start writing on an actual blog site. I am excited to start writing a little bit more professionally.

For those of you who have followed me over to my new blog, welcome back! It's so great to have you here and I hope you continue to enjoy reading my posts. No big changes are planned for the context of my posts so I hope this new site does not deter you from continuing to follow me.

For those of you who are new to following me, or are just stopping by, welcome! I promise not to bore you with a sappy intro so I’ll just give you a quick summary of what I hope to accomplish with this blog (also found on my original blog site).

I wanted to start this blog for those of us dealing with depression and hardship in our lives. I have been dealing with depression for almost 10 years now. There is one thing to remember: You are never alone in this fight. I hope to be able to bring up things that have happened in my own life and reflect upon them so that others (as well as myself) can learn from them and learn to open up and live and love life again. Stay tuned for a wild ride of insight on coping, thought provoking questions, inspiration quotes, and a possible path way to personal enlightenment.