Ishy's Island

January 1st.
It’s that time of the year where everyone has listed their new year’s resolutions and has already broken most of them.
I used to do the whole resolutions and improve yourself thing too. But after reading an article somewhere about new years resolutions, I figured it’s better to make a list of goals/achievements.
You see, a new year’s resolution like “I’m going to quit drinking” is doomed right the moment you think of it, cuz you just KNOW you’ll never be able to stick to it.
A goal or achievement however, is something you can work towards. And though the idea is to achieve it that year, it’s okay if you don’t get to it just yet, as long as you’re working towards it.

So I’m making a list containing goals for myself, which I hope to achieve this year.

In no particular order:
# getting my propaedeutic diploma
# find something I feel more or even just as passionate about as the English language
# save up a nice amount of money
# get a bit more of a social life in the area I live in -> join sports team or club, etc.
# get (more) actively involved in organisations like TWLOHA, or at least help promote them more.

and very silly, but something I find difficult, but really want to do this year:
# walk into a gay bar, on my own, and just start conversations with people, get to know them.

Well that’s as far as my list goes right now. We’ll see if I achieve any of it, let’s hope so!

Happy New Year everybody, wishing y’all nothing but happiness and luck in 2012.

First let me explain what exactly TWLOHA is. TWLOHA is the abbreviation of the non-profit organisation/movement ‘To Write Love On Her Arms’.
In general people don’t like to read a whole story to find out what an organisation is about, so to explain what TWLOHA stands for and is about I’ll just copy paste their ‘mission statement’:

To Write Love on Her Arms is a non-profit movement dedicated to presenting hope and finding help for people struggling with depression, addiction, self-injury and suicide. TWLOHA exists to encourage, inform, inspire and also to invest directly into treatment and recovery.

Now of course that doesn’t cut it completely. It’s also there to support and inform people in the (direct) environment of those struggling. A few words that (for me) connect with TWLOHA are:
hope, strength, information, help, possibilities.

If you’d like to know more about how TWLOHA came to life and what they do exactly I would like to refer you to their website, which you can find here.
As you can see in the banner at the top of this post, they also have a Myspace. Apart from that they can also be found on Twitter and Facebook.

Something I like very much about the way they provide hope and awareness is that they use music and artists. Music is something many people can relate to and like. I think it’s one of the most widely appreciated forms of art that actually reaches just about everyone.
I love how artists like Forever The Sickest Kids, Anberlin, Jimmy Eat World, but also the even more internationally known Plain White T’s, Christina Perri, OneRepublic, and Paramore show their support for TWLOHA either through social media or by wearing some of the TWLOHA merchandise.
(I love their merch, actually have some of their shirts and longsleeves myself).

Enough general information for now. If you want to know more check the links I provided in the above.
Now let’s talk about why this organisation is so important to me personally.

When I was young my mother passed away. Obviously that is something big and traumatic to happen to anyone, especially a young child, and it has left its marks on our family and myself. My dad met a wonderful woman though, about 4 years after my mother’s death.
Then there were some more things that happened in my childhood and teen years that made things more of a struggle for me. I guess I could say I’ve had a hard time throughout my life so far. This translated into my behaviour towards friends and even more so family. I could only see the flaws in my dad and his wife, not realising they raised me by the best of their abilities. Not realising I wasn’t exactly an easy teen to be raising- far from easy actually.
After I moved out to attend University half way across the country our relationship got really bad to the point of having no contact at all. This all happened around the same time I got really depressed. Looking back at it, I’d had ‘dark’ feelings for most of my teen years, and I reckon they played a big part in how I pushed my family’s limits and eventually ended up pushing them, and everyone else for that matter, away. Once I had pushed everyone away, and lived in a completely new environment the feelings just came out. I got depressed to the point where I dropped out of university and just didn’t care about anything anymore. Thoughts of suicide crossed my mind regularly.

At that point there were 3 things keeping me going: my best friend, my cat, and To Write Love On Her Arms.

A person, a pet and an organistion. Sounds silly, but that really is what made me want to keep going. I saw how much I was hurting my best friend, but she didn’t go anywhere, she sticked by my side. My cat never left either. The unconditional love from those two and the hope that was provided by TWLOHA, the message that things really could get better was just what I needed at that point in my life.
Eventually I ended up getting professional help in a therapy group. I would go to the mental health center 4 days a week and in a group we’d spend those days doing creative therapy, drama therapy, psychomotor therapy, we’d get evaluated by a group of therapists, we had group conversations, etc. Aside from that I also met with a therapist individually once every 2 weeks and when I was doing worse it’d be weekly. This all was quite intense and heavy and I stayed in the group for a year. It was hard work and I faced most of my issues during that time. It definitely wasn’t an easy road but it was all well worth it in the end. Because I came out stronger and another very important thing; they pushed me to get back in touch with my family, especially my parents.
They guided us in how to approach one another and they helped us to set different expectations to one another. Which, I guess, was the key needed for us to ever be in a loving relationship with each other again.

This all happened throughout 2007-2008, and it’s been a rocky road, some bumps more difficult to overcome than others, but we got there and I’m now proud to say that I’m in a more loving and harmonic relationship with my parents than I’ve ever been.

Throughout all these years TWLOHA was there, providing hope that things would get better. And reading stories about other people who (had) struggled but were still there, getting better each day.. it made me realise that there was a light at the end of the tunnel.

In the end it was the combination of having a support system around me (my best friend, my cat and eventually therapy as well) AND an organisation like TWLOHA, providing hope for the future, making me feel like things really would get better eventually that got me better.

I’m not saying life is all peachy now, there is the regular bump in the road and I have my moments of feeling down in the dumps. But you know what, life can’t be all roses and that’s fine. Because I think that if life was perfect, we wouldn’t appreciate the good things for their true worth.

Looking back at my struggles and the way my life has been so far, I’m glad I’ve struggled the way I did, because it has made me value love, friendship, family and all the small happy things in life so much more. I can honestly say that, in general, I have taken the bad things in my life and turned them around into something good.
I wouldn’t be the person I am today if I’d had a different childhood and different teen years. And I would like to think that I’m a good person

So I’m forever grateful that TWLOHA exists. I know it has helped and will continue to help so many other people like it helped me. Thank you, Jamie Tworkowski and everyone who’s helped making TWLOHA what it is today.

Sincerely,
Ester.

Having 4 tattoos myself, with more to be added, I obviously am slightly biased in regards to this subject, but I wanted to raise it nevertheless.

Different people have different ideas on whether tattoos are okay, art even, or bad, maybe even a form of mutilation. I myself have 4 tattoos at the moment, and I will get another 2 in January, so obviously I like tattoos. But I can see where people who are against tattoos are coming from.
I think even most ‘tattoo-haters’ would have to agree that tattooing is a form of art. Even my dad, who does NOT like tattoos in general, said to me (when he saw the rose on my side): “it’s a beautiful picture..” (“just a shame that it’s a tattoo and not a drawing or painting” is probably what he was thinking at the end of that sentence).

To me, the beauty of a tattoo lies not so much in the tattoo itself, eventhough there are gorgeous works of art out there, but more in the story behind it.. Which is part of why I always go to Giovanni Malaihollo, aka Tattoo G, for my tattoos. Apart from the fact that he’s a brilliant artist and incredibly creative, he also asks for the reason for getting your tattoo and the story behind it. And if you give him some freedom in creating a tattoo; if you give him the story and the idea behind the tattoo and what it stands for, he comes up with something amazing for sure.

My tattoos all stand for something which has had an impact on my life, or a significant meaning to me.
On my wrists I have 2 starsigns. On my left the capricorn sign and on the right the saggitarius sign. These stand for my mother and myself, and for our everlasting bond, eventhough she’s passed away years ago.
On my stomach, towards the right I have a G-clef. This represents my love for music and how music helps me get to my emotions. This tattoo will soon be extended to a bigger one, as the sentence “Where words fail, music speaks” will be added to it and it’ll be made into one nice piece.
On my left side, there’s a black rose. It’s not pitch black, but more like shadow-y black, and this one is particularly special to me, as it stands for several things. It’s a bit of a tribute to someone who’s done a lot more than I could explain for me, but unfortunately passed away just over 3 years ago (she was also known as black_rose_13 on the internet). On the other hand it also stands for a very dark period in my life and is a reminder of how bad things can get and how bad things used to be for me, with seemingly no end to the tunnel of darkness, and how strong I came out of it, how it has changed me as a person and how it’s made me appreciate the small things in life so much more now.

So those are the stories behind my tattoos, I also explained how one of the tattoos I’m getting in January is an extension to an already existing one. The second one I will not say anything about just yet, apart from it meaning a lot to me and hopefully also to 2 other people…

That’s it as far as the stories behind my tattoos go. Now let’s talk about the whole idea of tattoos being a form of mutilation. Technically, it can be seen as a form of mutilation as mutilation is the “(permanent) damaging of something” and, if we’re being nitpickers I guess one could argue that you’re damaging your skin when getting a tattoo.
Also, being a bit of a masochist myself, I love the actual feeling of the tattoo being ‘engraved’ onto your skin. A feeling most would describe as “very painful”.
And I guess that feeling is part of why tattoos are so addictive. I can see some of you readers laugh right now, thinking ‘that’s ridiculous’, but I’m telling you, it IS addictive. 99.9% of the people with tattoos I know only want more and more tattoos as they’re getting them. I went in for those 2 tats on my wrists and that’s it. Now I’ve got 4 and another 2 will be added in January and I have another one (or maybe more) idea(s) for future tattoos.

Maybe tattoos are both art and mutilation. Although mutilation really is a strong word. I guess masochistic is a better fit.
The actual engraving of the tattoo onto one’s skin could be seen as masochistic, and the tattoo itself is a piece of art. (At least when done by a proper, artistic tattooist of course)

There are quite some interesting and beautiful expressions around the world. “Home is where the heart is” definitely is in my list of best expressions.
But then it makes me wonder. If home is where the heart is, do we ever really have a home?
I for one have no idea where my heart lies at the moment.. does that make me ‘homeless’?
There are a few people I love and I would give my life for them, but those people live far away. And as much as some people say distance doesn’t matter… it does. If home is where the heart is, and my heart is so far away, then my home is there, but I’m here.. lost and lonely. And lost and lonely is anything BUT my definition of feeling happy and homely.

One thing that does have the ability to bring me home, to bring me and my heart together, even if it’s just for a few minutes, is music. The expression “Where words fail, music speaks” doesn’t exist for no reason.

And in the spirit of “where words fail, music speaks” I’ll let a few vids do the talking.

It’s interesting how most we are shaped by other people.
Of course part of the way we are is just the way we are, genetically. But there’s so much that is shaped by the people raising us. For example etiquette, and the way we treat older people… our parents or the ones raising us, teach us how to behave toward them, and how to be polite.

Now that made me think. Sometimes an event in our life can change the way we act in certain situations. Does this count as a change of who we are?
Say, a person is always very open about basically everything and then someone betrays their trust in such a way the person doesn’t feel they can trust anyone anymore, and they turn into a very quiet person never sharing big things with anyone. Does this mean they have changed, or have they just changed their ways?
Or how about a 32year old woman that really wants 2 children, but she’s cheated on by her husband. As a result she doesn’t trust men anymore and she doesn’t want any kids anymore. What kind of change is that?
Sometimes it’s quite clear what kind of change is going on.
Take a woman who loves candy and is always eating crisps or sweets at night. One day she decides she wants to live more healthy and she goes on a diet and does not eat sweets or anything like that anymore. That’s obviously a change of habits/ways, as she still craves the candy.

Whether someone has changed or changed their ways… fact is people go through a lot of changes throughout life.
And some changes don’t say anything about a person, really (after all, what does it say about a person if they suddenly wear boots rather than sneakers?), but the way they react and/or respond to a change in their life say a LOT about a person.
And I guess that’s how we grow. We don’t necessarily grow from the changes themselves, but from our reaction and/or response to them.

So I guess the only way for us to grow is to stop ignoring changes in our lives. Goodbye ostrich policy, hello world of wisdom?

You know when there’s something, or someone that you really, really love and it’s one of the things or people that keep you going, and then for some reason that gets taken away from you for a while?
Not just for a few hours, but for weeks, possibly months.

At first it’s not so bad, because you don’t realize it yet, and it’s kinda nice to have a bit of rest from that person or thing. But then as time goes on you find yourself in that place where you just keep thinking about it more and more until at some point it gets really hard to hide the pain it’s causing.
You bite your tongue because you feel misunderstood. That could be due to remarks from people around you, but mostly it’s because you’ve created this yourself. You took it for granted and you didn’t enjoy it as much as you should. Not anymore anyway.

But then you lose it and it’s not there anymore – and you feel empty. People don’t understand, because you have been taking it for granted and you have been showing less affection towards it lately. People don’t see how much it’s affecting you, so you just bite your tongue because it’s your own fault and you were the one to bring yourself in the situation where you could lose it in the first place. But then you have to bite your tongue even more, because the ones around you seem to be enjoying that one thing that you can’t have and their lives are moving forward, or moving.. Doesn’t even matter which direction. You’re jealous because your life is on hold really. You’re not moving anywhere. And then at some point you start feeling like a zombie.
You just wake up, do your thing throughout the day until at night you’re glad you have gotten through another day, then you go to sleep and then the next day it’s the same thing all over again.

So yeah, you get lost, lost in the world where nobody seems to understand your situation and all you can do is wait. All you can do is sit and wait. Wait for that moment to come, where you can finally can get back that which brought that sparkle in your soul. Get back that sparkle and stop being the little girl lost in the big bad world.