This week is Mental Health Awareness Week so I decided to post something different today. I'm a big fan of actor/screenwriter Wentworth Miller and follow his Facebook page. He has a wonderful way with words and talks a lot about mental health so if you are on Facebook and want a tip for Follow Friday
he is it. He wrote a post back in 2014 (and recently reposted)
which I think is important no matter who you are or how your mental
health is. The post is about how what we say is either to uplift or bring down and never neutral, especially in regards to what we say to ourselves.
"There is no such thing as a neutral word... Either you are speaking life... Or you are speaking death..."
I've had a lot of death spoken into me over the years both by
myself and others which may be why his post resonates with me. If you
got a couple of minutes today go over to Facebook and read it;
A Good Talking To
And I truly hope
that when it comes down to it you always chose to speak life, especially to
yourself.
On Saturday I re watched the fault in our stars, if you haven't seen it do. I've never watched a movie which made me cry so much but somehow still didn't make me feel awful, just a bit sad and, I don't know, contemplative maybe? Then today I read what in essence was a eulogy by Neil Gaiman about an author who I have to admit I've never read. The eulogy was old but he linked to it on his Facebook page and me being me I decided to read it (you can read it here). The whole thing was beautiful and I can only hope that someone thinks half the things about me once I am gone (and hopefully whilst I'm here). One of the sentences that made me think was about when he would go and visit, after they found out she had cancer
"Each time, I'd take a few minutes at the end and I'd make sure that I'd said to Diana anything I wanted to be sure that I'd said, because I knew I might not see her again, and unsaid things are the hardest"
It made me think if I had things I'd want to say but never do and truth is I probably do. I think when it comes to direct family here in the UK I do say that I love them and am proud of them etc but when it comes to my family in Sweden or my close friends here I don't think I am anywhere near as good. With my family it's hard because whilst I feel that way I don't see them as much and I think we've lost a lot of the connection we had, not so much with my parents but with my siblings. My sister made this fly away comment the last time I was home and I realised her perception of my character was based on how I was as a teenager rather than how I am today which in a lot of parts is very different. I know she didn't mean anything by it and it wasn't mean, it just makes me sad to think that in their eyes I've not grown, all the things I've accomplished somehow doesn't exist because I did them so far away from home. It also made me think that they might not know how proud of them I am and that I really should find a way to tell them and hope that somehow I can tell them over the gap that is now our lives.
As for friends I think my character can come across as quite cold, not because I am but because I say what I think without any emotion necessarily coming across, even thought I feel it. Saying you love something with a blank face apparently isn't the same as saying it whilst jumping up and down with excitement. I recently found out that when I started my new job I was seen as quite intimidating, at least until they got to know me, and people know I'm not keen on human contact, which isn't really true but it's hard to explain that I don't like it until I truly know you, once I do it's fine, so they all just assume it's best not to touch me. I hope that the people who really know me get that I do care for them a lot but reading the eulogy I think I may need to go out of my comfort zone and tell them, just because I don't need it affirmed in that manner doesn't mean that other people don't.
I guess I think about death a lot, which weird people out. Plus I spend a disproportionate time in graveyards to take pictures as I find them calming and somehow reassuring. So many people (including my family) seem to hate talking about death but I find some comfort in knowing its something which will happen to us all even if it's likely to come before I would like it to.
