I am an expert in getting in trouble because I need to act according to what is true in my heart at any moment…

I might not always be right, but I am incapable of acting in the grey zone… Always Black or White… I am too rational for that… Which is also weird because I follow what my heart says a lot more often that I should… I am passionate on what I do… I love with abandone… How on earth do you fit logic into that??? That’s the thing that does my head in the most…

I struggle to find balance.

Yesterday I managed to lose a friend for something I said… It wasn’t the first time it happened… It just comes out… I remember when I got admitted to Uni for the first time. In Brazil we have a selective process called Vestibular where you basically get tested on all subjects you need to be admitted in the discipline you want to study. My forst one was History at USP which is one of the “most wanted” universities in Brazil. A Friend if mine spent 2 years studying in order to be accepted… I didn’t put any effort on it but paying attention in classes… I wasn’t even a big fan on doing homework mind you… I used to joke and tell her all the time ” Live a little… studying is for Dummies”… The day to get the results arrived and I told her to go look in the last names list, under Y and see that my name would probably be the last one in the list… well it wasn’t… there was a girl called Zuleika or something like that got the last name in the list. She laughed and looked for hername in the list… looked all over the place, asked to clerks about second instances, etc etc…

I stupidly turned to her and said: “See? I told you studying is for dummies”

It was a joke… But one that meant she wouldn’t speak to me for over a year…

I don’t know why people take life so seriously… For goodness sake… you have only one… LIVE it the best you can… and for goodness sake… LEARN to joke at things that go wrong… shrug it off… BREATHE and KEEP GOING.

Over the past few weeks I haven’t quite been myself… The friend I lost sent me an SMS telling me what I had done to push her away… I needed to know, because I had no idea… And reading her SMSs made me think… And it seems I have been spiralling into an all time high huge self destruction Pattern…

Analyzing the past few weeks I finally noticed that I have been pushing people I love too far, saying things without thinking and sometimes hurtful things, acting in ways I would NEVER do under normal circumstances, doing things without thinking of consequences, shutting people out I should be keeping close and simply throwing myself at all and anything that crossed my mind… Hell… I caught myself driving at 70mph in a narrow full of curves country lane in the middle of the night the other day because it fell good.

Reading my (ex?) friend’s text message made me think… And thinking I did, all the way to leave the boys back to their mum’s place… The monkeys were both sleeping so I cried quite a bit too… but putting things under that light made me realise what was going on…

If you follow the blog you might have noticed a post a couple of weeks back where I went away to find myself and ended up feeling more lost than before I started… Well… After the events in the sunday morning that weekend I wrote a note in my diary… It was something along the lines of “I can’t end things in my own terms because I would leave behind too many people who love me suffering…” and I wondered if I made me hate me enough beforehand if they would still suffer if I’m gone.

Yes, I know… it was a stupid thing to say… to even think about, but please note that my head was totally screwed up when I wrote it… Thinking of it now… I seem to have done exactly what crossed my mind that morning and didn’t even notice why or how I was doing it until last night… It seems I have been setting myself up for failure… I have been sabotaging myself and the way people think about me to make sure they are put out of my life and don’t hurt when I do whatever I’ve been setting myself up to do…

The good news are: I am not going to do it… And this time not because I because I feel guilty for leaving behind people that love me and 3 sons that would grow up without their dad… I love them more than anything in this world, but the reason I am not doing it is MYSELF! You might have to put up with me for a few more years…

I was surprised I didn’t catch up on what I was doing before though… I claim to be so logical and ended up lost in that logic mixed up with sanguine thoughts… Then again… Maybe I didn’t want to realise what I was doing… I just hope it’s not too late now…

I have been up to make amends yesterday and I have apologised to a few people that matter and that I know I’ve hurt over the past couple of weeks… If I did lash at you too, and have lost your trust in any way, please let me know how I did it… I am trying to work on it… and well… for all it’s worth I am sorry…

I am not going to lie to you and say I am going to change like water to wine…That’s what triggered it all to start with… Brains work in funny funny ways… but it is a Journey… and I’ve learned that the longest one starts with a simple step… That is my simple step…

Don’t take me wrong… I will still be me… Will still make jokes when I shouldn’t, will still do things without thinking… Will still be honest to you in all I say… I can’t change that… I need to speak my mind… I will however work on balance… and not letting logic take over ever again.

The Journey is long and it feels like a race most times… in the end, only against yourself… But persist… and believe it will go somewhere and eventually you will get there… no matter if you know where or not… And well… remember you will always have a few “angels” helping you up along the way… be mindful of them… and make sure you treasure them… Don’t push them away… It is now a sign of weakness to admit that you need help SOMETIMES… It took me a long time to realize that…

*Draws line in the sand & steps over it* Right…onwards and upwards! Now breathe… And keep going!

*It’s Mental Health Awareness Month and Livi is holding a Linky with posts on the subject. To see more, and to participate check her site out.