T + BN + JC = Perfect Night

I absolutely love racquetball and would rather be playing it than most anything else, even if I am not the best. I like even more than Korean music, dramas and food. Only reading beats out racquetball. However, I recently learned to love tennis. It will never replace racquetball, probably because I am not a decent player. Tennis has the advantage of being outside and practically free! ;-)

Therefore tonight I combined three of my favorite things, my roommates (Clarissa & Joanna), Tennis and Barnes & Noble. Okay, so we didn't play tennis in B&N, but it was like the icing on the fabulous cake. I have found a new reward for accomplishing the things I need to in a day. It is head to B&N.

Public Face

Sometimes I wish I was that person who really said what they were thinking and feeling. Not that I am a liar. However, I certainly wish I could say something along the lines of "life is a piece of crap today"or when my crush looked my way and I want squeel like a fan girl. Instead I have to hide behind my public face and be "cool."

Nobody makes me do it. I don't think I can even blame my parents. Darn! I have an innate desire to please everyone around me and not to have anyone worry. It upsets me even more when people worry about me. What a complex! But I have decided to beat this part of my guilt complex and not to let this fear and guilt keep me from doing and saying what I want. I know I am going to offend people but at least I am not going to hide anymore...or at least that is the goal.

I have to write this down and hold myself to it. I am not going to be a people pleaser anymore just to avoid conflict or hurting people. I have finally learned that is okay to be who I am and to mess up sometimes. Thanks to my best friends and current roommates, I have finally found people who I don't have to wear my public face around. I think after my recent long-lasting-late-twenties' (hopefully not mid-life) crisis, I can finally feel like leaving the house and not living in the dark and admit that depression seriously can mess up your life if you let it.

Some say that depression is an illness. Others say it's all made up and an excuse. But for those who face the realities of it, you know you have to fight it every day. Every morning is a fight about who you are going to believe--the anxieties and fear or the logic and faith. But the scariest type of depression is the kind that comes from being sick all the time with some unknown thing and trying to fight feeling sick and depressed at the same time while trying to keep a public face. However, I think I've made all the right steps and can get my life back to where I was a year and a half ago thanks to people who love me for who I am.

I have to say that I am grateful that no one has criticized me (at least to my face) but everyone has been so good to me and have remained my friends through it all. Most people probably never saw past my public face, but for those who did, I am beyond appreciative. If not, I probably would have honestly tried to go home as I wanted to never wake up again. But God must want me to stay for some reason even if I begged him because I have way to many people who have called and wanted to see me even though I did cancel on them. I think my best friend saved my life because she wants to do something with me each week. She's the only person I really left the dark room for on a consistent basis, but I even let her down.

I feel that I have to write this down out of gratitude for every single person who texted or called which gave me another reason to exist. Also to not let myself fall into the patterns that led to my despair. I have to keep to works of faith and my work out routine so that this will be the only time I fail like this in my life. I hope that this experience can be turned to something good through God's grace. I know for sure that I no longer will hide behind my public face and will try to see past other's public faces to give support and to make that phone call. It might be exactly what someone who has struggled like me needs...a reason to exist...a reason to hope.