thoughts

A Letter To Self

~ NatalGalvan

You are so imperfect, its perfection. Don’t doubt who you are or what you’re becoming. Simply live every day getting yourself to the highest level of good feeling frequency that you can. Living positively is the force that will take you where you need to be. Believe in your intuition and if something gives off a negative frequency, steer clear. Take steps with love and kindness in mind, with no regard to race, gender, religion, or any other sort of diversity, and understand that that path will never lead you in the wrong direction. 

Life isn’t a race. You’ll get to accomplish the things you want and need to accomplish at its own time. Don’t compare where you are in life with those around you. See them as their own individual example of how others live their life. Contemplate the lessons you may take away by admiring their situation but don’t compare, for you are on your own journey.

Be mindful and stay present. The best way to live your life is to live right here, right now. Feel the breeze that just brushed across your cheek. Touch the petal of the flower that just caught your eye, give it a “thank you” for blessing you with its natural beauty. Listen to the laughter that erupts from children playing as you walk by your neighborhood playground. Let their giggles uplift you and ride its innocence to the depths of inner joy. Have no thought to the past for why reminisce and long after what no longer is. Don’t live in the future for there is no real future. You’re not promised the next 60 seconds let alone an entire lifetime.

Waste not your energy or time on things, people, or situations that bring you no joy. Forcing yourself to do things won’t strengthen anything other than the bond others will have a hold on you. Don’t allow the social chains to hold you back from taking advantage of this journey you’re on.

Laugh as much as possible and if you cry, cry from deep within your soul and let your tears nurture the ground below your feet. Allow its nutrients to strengthen the foundation for your rebuild. Don’t simply get over your problems, work through them, and move on.

Happiness is a choice and you have an abundance of it at your disposal, but only if you make the choice to seize it. Have faith in yourself because you are worth more than you know.

XOXO

Me.

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A COV(ert)ID Silverlining

~ NatalGalvan

When all of this “virus” chatter began, I will admit that I wasn’t fully convinced at the gravity of it all. I blame our government and media outlets for that. They have broken my trust on many levels, so pardon me that it took me some time to believe what was being said. Lucky for me I learned at a young age to look outside of mainstream media sources and to dig deeper when seeking out the truth. Slowly I began to ingest what was truly going on and instead of brushing it off as, once again, another media-driven hysteria, I began to heed what was being warned. For me, it went from being “virus” chatter to serious virus talk.

I am currently on day 8 of our “official” lockdown and although I have been able to see friends and family periodically, it was only in the last three days that I have chosen to completely isolate myself, and not for the reasons that you may think. 

Amid all the calamity this virus has brought to our front doors, I’d like to think of all this as a necessary evil for society and what’s left of this starving planet Earth.

I might get shit for calling this pandemic a “necessary evil”. How could I say such a thing when so many people have died? But like a war, a battle being fought for the greater good, it has its deaths by the thousands of the guilty and of the innocent alike; it is exactly that, war. This type of war, however, isn’t to bring together land and eradicate manmade borders. This war is an internal war, not only physically but spiritually and emotionally. It’s a war to remind us of where we came from. It’s a war for time, because humanity needed time. Humanity needed a break from it all.

The last three days have been filled with a lot of self-reflection. I’ve been taking a look inside myself, asking myself questions, and having discussions that I should’ve had long ago. I limited my T.V time and within the silence, I have found sparks of creativity. I’m able to connect with nature better and I even feel as though the Universe speaks to me louder and more clearly without all the every day static I had grown conditioned to. I have learned to be a little more resourceful and a lot less wasteful. I’ve become more aware of the immediate things I must change to improve who I am.  I’ve become aware of the things I will gradually give up in order to live my version of a better life.

Some people end up finding themselves while lost at sea. Some find themselves after veering off track and getting lost in the wilderness. We have been given the chance to find ourselves within the confines (and comfort) of our own home. We have been given that extra bit of vacation time. We have been given the chance to learn from crisis hoarders, that greed leads you nowhere other than to the land of Overloaded and Nowhere To Store It.  We have been given extra time with our family, with our pets, with our crafts. We have been given the space to work on ourselves; the time to detox from everything that has been pumped into our senses.

I have read that for us here in the U.S it’s only going to get worse before it gets better. I also hear that “getting better” still means that we’re going to be set back about a decade.  Whether any of that is true or not, I don’t know. We’ll call it what it is, speculation. I say that if at the end of all of this there is more genuine happiness within homes all around the world, genuine happiness within our own home, and with one’s self than I’ll pay that price. In the end, we are all going to be going through it together and there is comfort in that. This is a covert opportunity to change humanity in wonderful ways if only we begin to choose love before greed. We have the ability to rebuild a stronger and better world by going through such adversity together. I wish that through all if this social distancing and social isolation, after all the souls who have passed on because of this virus, we end up choosing to do good to one another.

“We will have suffered together, we will have fought through it together, and we will overcome together.”

 

 

 

Metal Monster

~ NatalGalvan

Powerful and black, strong and sleek, roaring in intimidation while holding memories so decadently sweet. With its back cab open, I easily peer into, and that’s when I see, a smitten young couple, wrapped up in each other, like twisted bedsheets. She lays her head on top of his shoulder, her body is snuggled up close. As the sun sets, the song “Cruisin'” blaring from the speakers, they bask in the love they chose.

In that old El Camino, with its rattles and its shakes, my memories of happiness and my memories of pain are the thoughts that the metal monster contains. My thoughts of you, our love, and those amazing Cali days while living in a Cali daze, only float back once in a blue, and yet once in a while, a metal monster will conjure things up when it roars on through. I refuse to suppress so instead I feel, and as the seconds tic on by, I begin to realize that it could possibly be that that life wasn’t meant to be more than a throw back story.

 

Ripples of the Mind

~ NatalGalvan

One’s mind is as deep as the galaxy’s core and at times can get as dark as the bottom pit of the Earth’s seas. Raging internal wars will occasionally interrupt our external lives making life difficult and at times unbearable. We fight with ourselves, with others, and with imaginary entities.  It’s only when we learn to control it that we can make it calm. Still, that only comes with practice and only after we have even acknowledged that we need to do so.

I found myself swimming in unchartered territory last night. I was watching t.v with my pup when she began clearing her throat and at times, gasped for air as if she was trying to catch her breath. My dog isn’t some young pup anymore. She’s 16 years old so during moments such as these my own breath will catch and my mind begins to wander. Dark thoughts begin to toss around my mind. Images of her falling ill and me not being able to do anything about it. It’s a reality that continuously lingers in the back of my mind. A reality that isn’t far from someday happening. As my mind played the unwanted scenario, my body began to act as if it were really happening. My heart began to beat a little faster. My eyes began to tear up. It was as if I was experiencing a loss that hadn’t happened yet.

This is where meditation and learning to silence the mind comes into play. Where before my mind would have continued to run with the thoughts that began to plague my mind, now I find that I can slowly still it. I relaxed my breathing and the thoughts that swirled my mind and suffocated my heart began to subside. I took myself out of a future; a moment that hadn’t happened yet, and brought myself back to the present moment, sitting on the couch, snuggled with my puppy who had stopped gasping for air and was currently staring up at me with happy eyes.

The mind can be trick There have been many times when I’ve found myself having a conversation with people who aren’t there over encounters and situations that hadn’t happened. I’ve gotten as worked up as I would have if the confrontation were to be actually taking place. Meditation has really been such a great tool in helping me control my thoughts. It also helps when it comes to me being less reactive and when it comes to situations that frustrate me or are completely out of my control. It seems strange or silly when Ii talk about it for I am no meditation expert but over the years of me slowly leaning into the practice I have come to truly understand how great of a weapon it is to have in your arsenal when it comes to overcoming one’s own mind.

If you find that your mind is one vast ocean full of turbulent thoughts, waves of ideas that come crashing down on you, debilitating you when you least expect it, try meditating. Slowly, with practice, you can guide your mind towards the stillness of peace. A place where the ripples of the mind become calm and as still, and nothing but tranquility governing your mind.

Throwback: A Message to My FL Fam

~ NatalGalvan

**A Journal entry dated 2 months ago. Here’s a message that still rings true.                           To: My FL fam.**

I’m packing away my life once again.

People often ask me what it feels like to move around so often. It depends on the situation I suppose. Sometimes, packing feels like running away. The pressure to get out mounts until you’re bursting through the doors with the last box or suitcase in hand. You peer up and look through the rear-view with a smirk on your face, realizing that the only time you’ll look back on this moment is to relive the feeling of fleeing for freedom.

Packing this time didn’t feel this way. This time packing was bittersweet. I cried a bunch; sobbed tears of joy, tears of sadness, tears of excitement, and tears of nervousness. I remember how I felt the day I first viewed my current FL apartment as this “potential” FL apartment, which later turned home (then turning in a place I never wanted to go to). I remember telling myself that I wasn’t going to be moving for a while after this. My roommate and I felt refreshed starting over in a more roomy place with better lighting, better neighbors, a better location, and simply put, just a better way of living. That’s when life happened. It shattered all and any hope of me wanting to continue this life here in Florida on my own, because in reality that’s exactly where I was, not only on my own but also all alone.

Between having to deal with my close friend/roommate’s relapse  (emotionally and financially), the feeling of being alone, and missing what has always been important to me, my family and close childhood friends I’ve had enough. My 11 years in FL haven’t been wasted. I’ve experienced so much; adventures, moments I would’ve never had if not for living in the “Sunshine State”. Still, I feel like it’s now time to go on home. I haven’t been doing anything here that I couldn’t be doing back home. Every time I go back home I see my mother just a tad bit older. These are the years that I can’t waste away because who knows how much longer I have with her. So I back home is where I go because for now, it’s where I feel like I need to be.

The irony is making a close circle of friends in the last few weeks before my departure. As I pack up the last bits of my life I reminisce on these last few weeks and although I’m sad to be leaving, I’m happy that I leave with the knowledge that I did make a family away from family. This family came to be unexpected and formed without me even noticing what was taking place. The people who kept tabs on me while I was sick. Those, that when they knew that I was undergoing tremendous amounts of stress, made sure that I remembered to breath, and to look at the glass half full, bubbly, and fun. These are the same people who would listen, understand… and who didn’t judge. These are the people that no matter the distance, I’ll always have my Florida family; a home away from home.

From the Southwest coast over to the Southeast coast, pieces of my heart left behind like bread crumbs. 

Unexpected Unpleasantries

~ NatalGalvan

Try as you might to avoid certain headaches in life, it is almost certain that your plans to do so may fall short or, simply put, may not go according to plan at all.

One of the many reasons I have chosen to not have children is because I am selfish and other than my own personal issues and struggles (trust me I have many) I do not feel like I’d like to add anymore challenges to the mix. Yet, just because I have decided to refrain from bringing into this world a nondetachable relationship (because I don’t care what anyone says, children are for life) that doesn’t mean that those that are already a part of my life won’t bring in moments of turmoil or heartache. Now matter how cold and selfish I may seem sometimes, the ones I have come to love unconditionally can always count on me for help.

I recently had a friend fall from the high ranks of sobriety down into the pits of darkness. It only took a few months for his life to snake out of control and in that time it began to affect mine. It’s crazy how the mind works because I knew the signs, I had observed the escalation for months prior to me finding out for sure that they had been using again, but still, I didn’t want to believe. Prior to this I had just ended an unhealthy relationship due to the person’s substance abuse problems. After watching what I had gone through with that individual there was no way my friend was about to put me in the same position, right? WRONG. It’s in the nature of this ugly beast to muddy up reasoning, rational, and selflessness. The person tainted by this monster  is no longer the considerate loving soul you once knew but instead the shell and the soul of a stranger is what’s left. My life was full of chaos and uncertainty. I was constantly wondering if the next time I’d see this person if they would be alive or dead. It was heartbreaking for me to have lost such a confidant and friend. The person who was always there for me in the last couple years was no where to be found and instead this unco was left in his place.  Stealing, lying, and self-destruction were now what this individual was into and although I tend to avoid all unhappy and unhealthy situations, this is not one I could just turn and walk away from. How could I? At the end of the day, it wasn’t me they were truly hurting. In fact, their embarrassment and humiliation as to what they were up to lead to him completely avoid me so as to not hurt me any further than our lost friendship had already done.

To make what could very well turn into a super long story short, I recently took my dear friend to a detox center. After a few days he will be moved to an inpatient facility for some well needed addiction treatment and mental health care. It’s been a few days and it is only just now that I realize how much strain this was putting me through emotionally.

Today, I laugh at myself at how naive I was to believe that I am somehow am able to control what crisis I will and will not go through in life. Sure, you can try  to reduce the amount of exposure you have to certain situations. For instance not walking alone in the city at night may reduce the number of chances you have of getting robbed. To say that you won’t form bonds with people in order to avoid unpleasantries in life is delusional. It is my strong opinion that if life wants you to go through a difficult ordeal of any sort, try as you might, you will go through it. These are the life lessons that are meant to help us grow and learn. These moments truly do help us to evolve into much better, stronger, and wiser people. Watching them go through their own struggle and me having to learn how to cope with the situation has allowed me take a look at my own life introspectively.  The only thing that we can truly count on is that the lessons of life will keep on coming, there is no dodging it, and it is up to us how much we take away from it.

Laundry Mat Lemonade

~ NatalGalvan

“School bus yellow” is the color of the chairs that line the windows at the laundry mat I go to. They remind me of subway seats except a bit narrower yet, I don’t find them uncomfortable. I sat and read a bit to pass the time and to be honest it was one of the most relaxing experiences I’ve had in a while.

I am a bit weird, finding pleasure in the most dull activities. My days spent at the laundry mat are an example of this. The sound of the spin cycle swooshing its contents around cradle my senses. The smell of detergent mixed with the warm air expelled from the dryers amplify the feel of comfort. The soft feel of the newly dried clothes when folding it into piles to be put away at a later date (because I’m not sure why it takes me days to put away my clothes). I find all of that so soothing to me. Sure, going to the laundry mat can take away from the relaxing bit of your time off if you let it, but I try to think of what many people would find annoying as positives.

Yes, it could get crowded with all sorts of characters, and yes you may have to wait for machines, or make small talk with a stranger. Those are all still “not-so-bad” kinds of situations. Yes, you’re hauling your dirty laundry around, getting more exercise than you had hoped for in the process. Still, not-so-bad kind of a situation. And yes, you may lose a sock, a button, or a set of your favorite pillow cases (true story) but doesn’t that happen to you anyways?

I observe. I write. I read. I take moments to enjoy how different it feels to be at the laundry mat. I look at others, be it employees or patrons, and I try to create enchanted lives for them. I may even daydream and create an enchanted life of my own.

No one ideally wakes up with the need and want of spending time at the laundry mat, but sometimes life will throw you a lemon. Don’t just stare at itor make that same old, same old lemonade. Observe it from a different angle and see what else you can make of it.

Out With The Old

~ NatalGalvan

It has been months since I’ve posted anything of importance on my page. I’ve been asked by people if I’m okay, if I’ve been reconsidering writing, if I’ve lost myself or my creativity for ideas. They’re all legitimate questions, I guess, for those who don’t really know me. Writing will forever be my passion and it will forever be the one thing I strive to do with my life. I will say that in the last 6 months I feel as though the Universe has been purging my life of any thing that is either holding me back or trying to guide me into a wrong direction, a direction that really isn’t where I want my life to go. Moments like these of course impact my writing and it can even lead me to going into hiding at which then any writing I do is all personal and away from public eyes.

These past six months I have been able to sift through some ideas I had been playing around with for quite sometime. I have also been becoming more grounded in the ways of how I want to be living my life; ways that best fit me and who I am as an individual, as opposed to what society may see fit for me. I have become prouder of who I am as a person and in the decisions I have made in my life. I have noticed the increase in my inner strength and courage, and have been an active witness to what a woman I have slowly become. There are aspects of my life that of course need improvement. That is obviously something that will always be a part of life, the need of improvement for mind, body and soul.

One very new self-revelation that I have come across is the the level of embracing who I am as an individual and wholeheartedly loving the being who is me. To me this is what matters above all else because this level of self love and acceptance fuels everything else. It’s what keeps the motivation going and the strength to always achieve the things that make you truly happy. Along with positive self-worth comes the knowledge of knowing that you do deserve happiness and all good things that life has to offer you.

Little by little I have been approaching a life that embraces more minimalism when it comes to the materialistic and it has in turn enriched my life in so many other ways, more valuable ways. Stress and Anxiety rarely live here anymore. Whenever I feel a hint of either, I dismiss it in my own way, be it by meditation, by simple positive thinking, whatever it is that I choose to help ease any anxiousness or stress. I feel as though I have begun to really believe the saying, “every problem has a solution”, because lately no problem seems too much to handle. I feel like after years of preparing myself mentally, I have finally gotten to that point in which I can really take a look at situations objectively and understand. I may not have the answers to why, when, where, how… the understanding comes with the knowledge of knowing that some things I cannot change yet I can still go with the flow of life and allow for certain things to handle themselves.

I’ve got a lot of “newness” coming into my life. After months of breaking down an old foundation and getting rid of the past, the old, and everything that no longer serves me, it is now time for the rebuild. I have so much more creativity due to this newness it’s time to give back, because with new opportunities, new adventures, a new way of living comes new stories, new troubles that will arise that I will find solutions to and then will later be able to give my own advice on.

There is an excitement that I haven’t felt in quite a long time and I embrace everything that is coming in to my world for the first time.

Contending With Honesty

~ NatalGalvan

My relationship with honesty has always been irregular.

As a kid, I would make up stories even about the most typical parts of my life. I had my reasons, though. It wasn’t because I loved lying. I used to hate to think about it as lying. I chose to think of it as storytelling. I told stories to fit in with the crowd. I used to think that all the kids I met had cool lives. I wanted a cool life too and so I would spruce up certain things about mine just to make me feel like I was like them.

I did eventually grow out of it. It was exhausting, not only portraying someone that you’re not, but it was hard to realize that others would in turn read me wrong. I felt like no one really knew me, let alone understood me, and how could they? I wasn’t giving anyone the real version of me. As I got into high school being honest soon started to become my new addiction. So much so, that I became brutally honest. That began a totally new battle. Instead of before when my battle with honesty seemed more internal, now it was starting to become a more physical battle with others.

I became explosive with my honesty. If I was feeling a certain way about something, I was letting you know whether you wanted to listen or not. There was no sugar coating anything. What for? To add confusion? To allow someone to believe that things were one way when in reality it wasn’t, or to soften the blow? I felt as though that was all wasting time and why do that? Arguments with people would ensue, be it with friends or family. Then that too started to become exhausting.

It wasn’t until my 20’s, once I moved away from home and began to really look into my self, that I began looking at life and how to handle it differently. Soul searching provided me with a different view on how to approach certain aspects of life, especially that of being honest. I learned that it was important to share your thoughts and your true feelings with others so that there would less confusion and more understanding. It was OK to be brutal but just as easily OK to soften the blows, and that there was a time and place. Yet, since then I have come to understand that I now have a new hill to climb. I now struggle with the patience that must be had when it comes to others and their understanding of honesty.

To me, I see honesty as a privilege that we should be allowed to have. It should be our prerogative, as human beings, to want to express it as well as be able to receive it. The thing is, people only see life and everything about it, from their own perspective. Human beings are so self absorbed in their own lives and feelings towards it, that they tend to forget that others that they are sharing this existence with my have a different spin on what they share as the same situation. That’s how feelings get dismissed and how lives become discounted and discredited.

Take, for instance, a “break up” (if we could even call it that) I had about 4 years ago. A good friend of mine and I were becoming reacquainted again after my move back from CA. We began going on dates here and there, which later then turned into midnight escapades. It was fun but only until I started realizing that he was falling hard and I, simply put, just wanted to have fun. I was honest and explained that him and I were on two different planes in life and although everything was fine, I simply did not see him “in that way” and felt that it would only be right to end what was going on. It was difficult for me to do because I knew of how he felt for me. Who wants to break someone’s heart? Yet, I couldn’t lead him on or waste his time nor mine. His reaction wasn’t good. He hated me of course and called me every name in the book. He went on to talk shit about me to all his friends, spewing all sorts of negativity to anyone who would listen. I was in shock. I knew he was going to be upset, but to the point that he had spoken so ill of me? I was in shock because I hadn’t understood what he had wanted me to do. Had he wanted me to lie to him and put up a charade all so his ego’s needs could be met? It took so much patience to not lash out the way I wanted to about that situation and that’s only one example. I see it everyday with the people I come in contact with , the battles we all have with honesty and all the internal and external struggles it comes with. So are battles with honesty that irregular then? Or is it actually more common than we considering human beings and how we think, which is in mainly an introspectively self absorbed way.

I place a high value on honesty when it comes to terms with myself and others. I choose to be a woman of integrity and want for my character to always be able to be described as open, honest, and approachable. I want to be receptive because if I want to be heard, I too need to listen in order to understand.

I guess maybe these aren’t even battles with honesty at all. It’s just learning life.

Keepin’On

~ NatalGalvan

There is an internal battle I’m having between what I am and what I want to turn “this” into. The problem is, I don’t really know what I am and I’m not too sure what I want to turn “this” into.

What is “this”? It’s my writing.

I have so many ideas swimming around constantly in my head and lately I’ve taken so much time off of writing that now my brain feels as if it is over flowing with topics and ideas to write about. Yet as I sit here and try to put something together, it all falls onto the paper as a jumbled mess. It’s almost as if my ideas have been puttied together and I don’t seem to have a clue as to how to pull them back apart. Everything from short stories, to novels, to comedy skits, to movie plots and story lines. I even have a fictional character whom I’d love to make into it’s own “thing”; its own entity.

I’m not sure if those that read this will understand what I’m currently feeling. I would suspect that most won’t and will look at this as a sort of “yammering on” type of blog piece but I’m sure there will be a handful that can understand my current struggle. If I were someone else giving me advice, I would say to me that time will disclose what path to take. I would say to not worry so much about where you’re headed but more on the “right now” since it is the present that is gifting you the experience for whatever ends up being your mission later.

It’s good advice if I do say so myself. It’s a great reminder that everything has a “season and a reason”. For now I’ll have to settle for simply sifting out my  thoughts while making sure to just keep on writing them all down.