Don't Extinguish My Flame

When I was born on April 7th of 1997, I was born under the sun sign Aries. Let me give you quick run through about Aries. It's element is fire. Aries' ruling is planet is Mars-- named after the Roman God of War. People that fall under this sun sign are: courageous, determined, confident, enthusiastic, optimistic, honest, and passionate. I can't say I, myself, am the most confident person, but it sure likes to shine when it does.

I have had some tough trials and tribulations through out my life, but when I was 23 years old the toughest trial had hit me like a ton of red bricks. Now, I guess a glance at Aries' weaknesses should be looked at: impatient, moody, short-tempered, and impulsive. One couldn't make me wait for the life of me. Moody? I have rapid cycling bipolar disorder, so it is safe to say I am pretty moody. I can go from 0 to 100 in the blink of an eye and if I see something the catches that eye in the action aisle of a Target, you can bet I'm impulse buying.

This day today could not have gotten any harder with my predicament. I've been sleeping the days away. I go through the routine of get up, get dressed [ in cleaner clothes], clean the floors of my apartment, put on Netflix, and fall asleep until 5 or 6 o' clock in the evening, make some food, go back to Netflix and crash just to do it all over again. No matter how much I sleep I am still exhausted when I am awake. I went to the doctor a couple days ago and I had put on 32 pounds. I was making such good weight loss progress until this hellish event happened. I would cry daily and now I cry maybe every two or three days now. Just waiting and waiting for the biggest challenge of my life to date to be done and over with-with a positive outcome. But then my future "mother-in-law" threatens to take my dogs away over Facebook and I start breaking down. I was doing so good. The temptation to tell her to go shove it and back off was the closest it's been to actually being said, but I still held my tongue because my fiance' wants to live closer to his family. He doesn't understand that I have been debating I can and if I will pack and leave after facing this demon.

So there I am bawling my eyes out over this woman I don't even like and scrolling Facebook when I see this video come up. It's a lady in a wheelchair giving a speech telling the story of how she ended up in the situation she was in. She was told she will never walk again and will never give birth again. She talked about how devastated she was with the news, but then she conquered her fears one by one to set herself free. I bet she's an Aries. She one particular line that resonated with me: "People will go and say 'failure is not an option'. But no, failure IS an option because you are going to fail and get up again and fail and get up again... Failure is merely giving up".

I want anybody and everybody that reads this story to understand that falling down is okay, what is not okay is staying down. In hindsight, no matter how far I fell or how deep the hole was, I always got up and went to bat again and again. Which is why I am here on Vocal, right now. I am telling you to get up and do something today. Make it something you enjoy. Lavish yourself with self-care. Break your own cycle. Whatever demons are haunting you right now are turning into your own personal demons. So why fight yourself when you can make an army of you to tackle what is really hurting you in this very moment? Don't give up, when life gives you lemons, cut them in half and squeeze them into life's eyes.