Closure.

I see my life as a book sometimes, one that has some ripped pages, and stained pages. The book is unfinished, because there are chapters in the book that i could not get an ending to, but i still moved on to a new chapter, and each chapter seems to be a little thicker, and more interesting than the last. I have learned a long the way, that there are many people in this life who will pick the book up and open it from the middle, reading only what they want to read, and not what's truly there.. Not knowing the beginning of the story, they automatically place judgement. I have met people in this world who want to rip the pages out, and take things away from what's really there. I guess what I'm trying to say is, there are people who will only see what they want to see, they will take bits and pieces of a situation they don't know enough about, and throw there hurtful words around, smacking you in the face. There are actually people out there who you Will meet, that will put labels on you, and try there best to be able to see you fall down, all in disguise.

I believe that in this life, i have made mistakes, i have said the wrong things more than the right things, I've done things that i thought i wouldn't ever do, and yet when i look back on everything i can still smile. I have been hurt more than i have been loved, i have said goodbye to all the people i thought i would never have to say those words to. Recently, i came across a person who i took a great interest in. Being young and nieve, i gave him everything, i made sacrifices that i shouldn't have made, i tossed my life, and everything i knew aside so i could start this new one.. There were many times i looked back, and wanted to turn around. I gave this person everything and did whatever he said. It wasn't until i was so buried in a mess that i made, that i noticed i had forgotten who i was. I couldn't remember what it felt like to do the things i loved to do, i couldn't remember what it felt like to have my own opinion, or wake up in the morning and have my own schedule. I don't remember what it felt like to have a person in my life who i could trust, and tell anything to, without them shutting me down. I didn't realize that i was so afraid to walk away, and dig myself out of this mess, because i was afraid i would be alone, i was afraid of myself, and my own opinions, i didn't think i was capable of standing up. When this whole time that i was on the ground, i was more alone than i had ever been. I understand that when your young, you take yourself down roads that you don't want to go down, only to find yourself back where you started. It's a bittersweet journey, filled with twists and turns. But if there's anything i have learned from this journey, it's that i don't regret much... After all of these twists and turns, and places i didn't want to be, i know i did what i wanted to do deep down at that time, and the mess i created, shouldn't upset me at all, it should make me proud that i did what i wanted, and when i got lost, i found my way back to the surface. I take it as a lesson learned, instead of a mistake that i made.


We have limited time on this planet (at least in this life) and now that i am free and standing tall, putting closure to all the chapters in this book.. I am ready to be fully alive, and feel all of the wonderful things this world has to offer. I may have to take some baby steps, but I'm going to make sure i make the best of this life. I will do everything i want to do, i will feel everything i want to feel, i will say all of the things i want to say, i will be myself, and i will never regret anything that I've done at any time in this life, because at some point it's what i really wanted, at one point it may have been the right thing, but sometimes the right thing can go wrong. I just want to be able to put a happy ending to this book, and be able to read it in my next life, with a smile on my face, because even with all the disappointment, let downs, and twists and turns somewhere in between i was happy, and alive.

What happens when we die?

I was lying awake in bed tonight, and i started to think about getting old, and time, and how short it is, as i tend to think about more than most people probably do.. And i ended up getting really freaked out, as i'm sure a lot of people do when they think about this mystery, of where we go when we die, and what happens to us when our brain shuts off. It's a really scary thought, and of course not knowing how we got here, makes it a lot scarier.


Sometimes i think it doesn't matter how we got here, and it won't matter how we die, because those are two things that we have absolutely no control over. It kind of irritates me that people tell me "i'm supposed to do the right thing" What the hell is the right thing?!?!?! Like since when did it become a "rule" that i HAVE to live a life with rules, so that when i die, i go "home"... It doesn't make sense to me at all... It doesn't matter to me where i go when i die, i will be dead. And in my opinion it's just a transfermation into another body, to experience something else. It's almost exciting sometimes to think about what i could be in my next life. Instead of dwelling on how i got here, and who i was in my past life, i like to think about what i could be in my next life, after all, that's more exciting to me, because i've grown, and learned.. and experienced. In my next life i will be stronger, and smarter.

After thinking these thoughts over and over again in my mind, and trying not to scare myself so bad that i would have an emotional break down, I went online to do some research, thinking to myself, Someone out there has to feel the way i do, and surely, they wrote about it. Well, it turns out that there are a lot of people who feel the way i do, and there are also people out there who claim to have died, and came back to life, and having an out of body experience. This really caught my interest, considering my current thoughts.. I started to read a few articles, and i came across one that was about a group of scientists who are going to be doing some research, over the next three years, with an experiment they plan on doing. The experiment, is that they are going to be studying the patients who claim they have had an out of body experience. Also, they will set up special shelving in resuscitation areas. The shelves hold pictures – but they're visible only from the ceiling. So that means that if any patients recall the images, it would be the first hard proof that out-of-body experiences are real. Dr Sam Parnia, who is leading the study at University of Southampton, said: 'If you can demonstrate that consciousness continues after the brain switches off, it allows for the possibility that the consciousness is a separate entity.

Many people have interviewed Dr. Sam Parnia, and asked some very interesting questions, it seems in my opinion that this is one smart person, and i can not wait to see what the experiment unfolds for the future. Weather it's good news, or bad news, it ends up being an answer regardless, and answers might make us rest more easy. To me, it's like even if i live a long life, and i'm lucky enough to have a family of my own, and even some grand children, maybe even some great grand children, i feel like i will still be afraid to die. Sometimes i think it's so sick that i feel like i'm under a large body of water with no idea when my oxygen will run out, it could run out at any time, and there are billions of others swimming around me, and i keep watching them lose there oxygen and float the the surface, in fear, wondering when i'm next...

I talk to a lot of people who claim that the end won't be so bad when we get old, because we will be so tired from this life, that wares us out so quickly, that we will be waiting for this rest that will last forever, and we will no longer be tired. But it just takes me right back to the one question that burns my every thought, Will i be left in the ultimate darkness? When i die, there will no longer be any thoughts and i'm sorry but that scares me!

When interviewed, here are some of the Q&A's
Between M.J. Stephey and Dr. Sam Parnia

What was your first interview like with someone who had reported an out-of-body experience?

Eye-opening and very humbling. Because what you see is that, first of all, they are completely genuine people who are not looking for any kind of fame or attention. In many cases they haven't even told anybody else about it because they're afraid of what people will think of them. I have about 500 or so cases of people that I've interviewed since I first started out more than 10 years ago. It's the consistency of the experiences, the reality of what they were describing. I managed to speak to doctors and nurses who had been present who said these patients had told them exactly what had happened, and they couldn't explain it. I actually documented a few of those in my book What Happens When We Die because I wanted people to get both angles —not just the patients' side but also the doctors' side — and see how it feels for the doctors to have a patient come back and tell them what was going on. There was a cardiologist that I spoke with who said he hasn't told anyone else about it because he has no explanation for how this patient could have been able to describe in detail what he had said and done. He was so freaked out by it that he just decided not to think about it anymore.

How is technology challenging the perception that death is a moment?

Nowadays, we have technology that's improved so that we can bring people back to life. In fact, there are drugs being developed right now — who knows if they'll ever make it to the market — that may actually slow down the process of brain-cell injury and death. Imagine you fast-forward to 10 years down the line; and you've given a patient, whose heart has just stopped, this amazing drug; and actually what it does is, it slows everything down so that the things that would've happened over an hour, now happen over two days. As medicine progresses, we will end up with lots and lots of ethical questions.

But what is happening to the individual at that time? What's really going on? Because there is a lack of blood flow, the cells go into a kind of a frenzy to keep themselves alive. And within about 5 min. or so they start to damage or change. After an hour or so the damage is so great that even if we restart the heart again and pump blood, the person can no longer be viable, because the cells have just been changed too much. And then the cells continue to change so that within a couple of days the body actually decomposes. So it's not a moment; it's a process that actually begins when the heart stops and culminates in the complete loss of the body, the decompositions of all the cells. However, ultimately what matters is, What's going on to a person's mind? What happens to the human mind and consciousness during death? Does that cease immediately as soon as the heart stops? Does it cease activity within the first 2 sec., the first 2 min.? Because we know that cells are continuously changing at that time. Does it stop after 10 min., after half an hour, after an hour? And at this point we don't know.

My own worse enemy.

I don't understand how easy it is sometimes for me to just sit in front of an empty screen, and every word that comes to my brain, my fingers can type onto this white page, and somehow they always seem to make perfect sense, to everyone else. The words that come from my head, are always helpful to someone else, and i can always find words to say to someone else, or know the perfect solutions to everyone else's problems, but when it comes to myself, i'm supposed to be the one person who has all the answers to give myself.. Yet, it never happens that way.


It's almost like i know the answers, they're there, i can see the solution, but i can't ever seem to put the pieces together in order to make a solid stepping ground to get to the next step. I feel like i'm constantly watching myself get knocked down, like i am standing on the sidelines of my own failure and i'm not doing anything about it. The worse part is, that i CAN do something about it, i am capable, i'm just too afraid. So many things have happen in my life that were out of my hands, that i wish i could have changed, and so many people have walked out on me, i have watched my own masterpiece crumble to the ground right in front of my face, and every time i tried to put the pieces back together, there was always someone, or something trying to knock it back down, and I have always stood there and let them. It's so frusterating, knowing that i let people destroy me, there are no fingers to be pointed, only myself to blame.. And there are people who know this, there are people watching me battle myself in order to put these broken pieces back together, and they take advantage, by making everything harder, they'll kick me down when i pick myself up, and any strength i gain along the way, they will make sure it's destroied. And i can forgive these people, over and over and over again, but i can't forgive myself?

I can't understand why i am my own worse enamy, and why i'm pulling myself apart instead of building myself a solid ground to walk on. I don't understand why i let people push me down just so they have something to walk on. I'm watching myself fade out, and won't do anything about it? I feel myself getting backed into a corner, and i know that in order to get out and move forward, i am going to have to make some decisions, i'm not going to be able to stand there and watch myself drown anymore, something has to be done, and facing it will be scary. I'm going to have to grab ahold of a monster who has been pulling my strings, and make sure i'm strong enough to never let it happen again... but the hardest part isn't gaining the strength to fight this battle, and it's not the battle itslf.. The worse part is knowing that monster is myself.. i have to defeat the dark part of me that is too weak to move.

Time in a broken glass.

There are so many unanswered questions that we all have in the back of our minds.. Questions that hit us out of nowhere sometimes.. and we search for answers, and eventually when the answers don't come, we just throw the question in the back of our minds, where that percent of our brain that we don't use, eats away all of the information we forget about.. And we all have theories, and opinions that rott away in our brain because they eventually change so many times that they lose the core, and without the core, everything else just starts to fade out.. The funniest thing about this fragile life we are living every second our heart beats, is that everything in our brain Won't matter one day... Everything we learn, everything we see, everything we touch and smell... It all goes away one day. And for a lot of us, it's sooo hard to accept that fact, and we spend so much of our life wasting away trying to answer these questions that DONT HAVE ANSWERS!! They really don't have answers, and i hate to say that, because it sounds rather negitive and cold, but it's very true.. The reason they don't have answers is because they are questions that apply to everyone Differently, there is no right answer.. And even if there was a right answer, is it really worth spending a lifetime trying to find? Because to me, since nothing matters when we shut our eyes perminately, shouldn't we be able to do whatever we want? I mean to me, everything we have here could be taken from us at any givin time, and yeah that IS scary, but it's not the time that is scary, its the TRUTH that is scary, we do leave this earth one day, weather it is tomorrow, or ten years, or fifty years... NO ONE KNOWS.. and i believe once you accept that fact, you can really live, your eyes will open all of the way, and you can be alive more then you ever have before.. Because once we let the truth in, in ANY situation.. even if the truth isn't what we wanted it to be, once we take in the truth, and accept it.. we are able to move. There is a difference between knowing the truth, and accepting it.. Because you can KNOW everything, but if you don't accept it you will be standing still, or going backwards.

It's crazy how i can pick up a magazine and on one page, there will be a picture of the earth, with a bunch of people smiling, or a page with some amazing new discovery, or a new cute for a horrible disease.. But then you turn the page, and it has a picture of a metling ice cap in captions reaading, "will we all die soon?" Again, the answer to that question DOESNT EXSIST YET and the cold hearted truth is, WE WONT KNOW UNTIL IT HAPPENS, and when it happens (because yes we all do die ONE DAY) it WONT EVEN MATTER.. It will be too late by then for it to even matter.. So for such a huge question that seems so important, it has absolutly no meaning when you strip away everything and are left with the cold hearted TRUTH.


Sometimes i ask myself simple questions..
1.) Have i loved in this life?
2.) Have i learned in this life?
3.) Have i felt love?
4.) Have i accomplished anything?
5.) Have i succeeded in anything?
6.) Have i helped others in this life?
7.) Have i smiled and felt true and complete happieness at ANY TIME in this life?

The answers to these questions are all YES!! and to me, that is all that matters.. and if i make it to the next day, it just means i am going forward.. and that's all i can keep doing.. Sometimes there will be some unexpected twists and turns, or i might get knocked down or pushed back, as long as i open my eyes to another day, it's impossible for me to NOT get back up, and find my way.. That's the true meaning of "beauty in a breakdown" Because there is always light, as long as our eyes are open, and our heart is beating, there is light.. there is hope.. It's almost funny, that what keeps me going evey day is knowing the next day migh be my last. But i DO consider it strength that i accept that, because i have watched people let it concome them, and take over, i have watched people get lost in a darkness so thick that i wonder if they will ever come back.. I've watched people get knocked down, and never get back up.. And i myself have been knocked down over and over and over again, sometimes i felt like it would just keep happening.. but one day, i realized even if it does keep happening, I'm not dead, my hourglass has not yet been broken, and the time is not spilling out, i'm still whole, and i am still capable. And that is enough to pick me up, and put me back on my path.

Incase of breakdown.. . . .

It's really hard to understand the way we work as human beings, i wish that when i was young, learning everything, there was some type of Manuel i could have read about what to do in case of a breakdown. It would have been nice, considering i break down more then i would have imagined. Maybe, i am just very young, or maybe i put myself in bad situations, with bad people? I'm not sure, but i know that it happens, and it happens more then i would like it to, and when it does happen i never know what to do to fix things... Or maybe, i do know, but i just don't want the solution to be the only way, so i stick around and try to make my own remedies, which ALWAYS end in disaster. I always put so much love and passion into things i love, which can range anywhere from people to my writing, And i'm almost never satisfied by what i get back. i hate to be a complainer and write a blog about "poor me" (though, really i don't feel sorry for myself) Anyway, i feel like i constantly give, and give, and in return i get shit on in almost every situation. I have noticed a bit of a pattern, and i'm starting to believe that it only happens so much because i let it, i never stop anything before it gets too far, but why would i, when i have a mind set of a person who believes everyone changes, for the better? When i meet a person i want to care about deeply, i put them so high, that i put the idea into my head that they will never fail me, or hurt me, because it's a lot easier then the truth, which is everyone is capable of hurting you.


It feels like a lot of the time i waste (which lately has been a lot) i turn into another person, though i never lose the real me inside, it's too strong to fade away.. I just can't understand how to balance things, or organize things, to make things clear to me? Time starts to slip away when i feel down, and feel broken, and then it's like i wake up one day sick to my stomach because i don't know what day it is, and can't understand how i wasted so much time feeling "sorry for myself" when i could have been making amazing things happen for myself. I guess it scares me knowing that our time here is a mysery and very limited, i don't want to wake up one day from my life, and realize there's no going back, and i'm 86 years old, with a wasted life, waiting for someone to change, waiting for my life to change.. I want to be that 86 year old who has so many wrinkles on my face from smiling my whole life, i want to be that 86 year old who has a family and friends, who i constantly tell stories to, about all of the great times, and things i did... I want to be the 86 year old who feels like no time i spent on this earth was ever wasted.

Animals.

I find it so fascinating how smart animals are, A lot of people disagree, and think they are just "stupid animals" Well i find that a little silly, considering if we were to be locked in a small house, with a bunch of things we couldn't understand, or communicate with, and never be able to do anything but eat the same old crap, sleep on a hard floor, and never be able to talk to anyone, we would lose our minds. And I'm saying that because it's what i think, it's a proven fact that we wouldn't have a normal functioning mind. I mean, dogs can learn so much, if you have enough time and Patience you would be amazed at what you can actually teach a dog!! I've seen dogs go "fetch" a shoe in a pile of shoes, and the man told him what color to get, and the dog pulled out the right shoe, in a pile of a bout 20 shoes... How can that even be possible, i think to myself sometimes.. But it is, and they keep amazing me every day.


Interesting Facts about Cats:

• The nose pad of a cat is ridged in a pattern that is unique, just like the fingerprint of a human.
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• A cat's heart beats twice as fast as a human heart, at 110 to 140 beats per minute.

• The largest cat breed is the Ragdoll. Males weigh twelve to twenty pounds, with females weighing ten to fifteen pounds. The smallest cat breed is the Singapura. Males weigh about six pounds while females weigh about four pounds.

• Cats have 290 bones in their bodies, and 517 muscles

• The oldest cat on record was Puss, from England, who died in 1939 just one day after her 36th birthday.

• The more cats are spoken to, the more they will speak to you.

Some interesting Facts about dogs:

• The oldest dog on record is 29 years old. He was an Australian Cattle-Dog.
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• They have super sensitive hearing - some can hear sounds 250 yards away - 100 times greater than humans.

• Puppy's don't open their eyes until they are 10 to 15 days old.

• Normal body temperature for a dog is 101.2F.

• The Greyhound is the fastest dog on earth. They are capable of reaching speeds up to 45 miles per hour.

• It is estimated that one million dogs in the United States have been named the primary beneficiary in their owner's will.

• Any dog trained to guide the blind cannot tell a red light from a green one. He watches the traffic flow to tell when it is safe to cross.

• Paris, France has more dogs than people.

Interesting Facts about Bunnies:

• A male rabbit is called a buck and a female rabbit is called a doe.

• A rabbit can see behind himself, without turning his head, but has a blind spot in front of his face.

• A rabbit sweats through the pads on its feet.

• Domestic rabbits cannot breed with wild rabbits.

• Rabbits can jump to a height of more than 36 inches.

• Rabbits can purr, just like a cat.

• Rabbits cannot vomit.

• Rabbits eat their own night droppings, known as cecotropes.
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• Rabbits need to eat hay, in order to assist their digestive system and prevent fur balls in their stomach.

• The teeth of a rabbit never stop growing.

• The record for the longest living rabbit is that of 19 years, while that of heaviest rabbit is 26 lbs.

the spider who weaves the perfect web.

Sometimes it's so easy to judge people, so easy, that i do it a lot more then i want to. Infact, i don't ever want to, and i find myself looking down on people, i find myself looking at very capable people who are mothers (capable of being better) and they're just treating there childrean like they mean nothing to them. And it makes me so sick to my stomach, and it's so hard to understand sometimes how there are women out there blessed enough to have such a beautiful gift, and then there are women out there who will never know the love between a mother and a child. Sometimes i think that's so unfair and horrible that i don't realize how judgemental i'm being... It doesn't take much to look at ANYONE and be able to place judgement, i have made enough mistakes, and i'm very far from perfect myself, and i'm sure there are people out there who judge me.. I Just want to know, if there are actually people out there who do not place judgement at all? Is it really possible to see such failures out there and be able to say a prayer for them with out looking at them as if they are so pathetic. If it is possible, i want to achieve it.


Sometimes i really see life as one huge spider web, Everyone is so tangled in a never ending chain of webbing. It just means, that everyone has there own problems, there own mess of some sort, tangled up trying to find a way out.. There are so many people trapped in there web, and can't seem to find the next move to make. I guess, what i'm trying to say is that there are people out there who are so tangled up in there own mess that when it gets to hard, they give up, they never feel the relaxation of being able to move forward, without any work. It's really easy to just decide it's too much work, and stop trying. But is it easier then succeeding? If you really think about it, yeah it's a lot of work to work for the things you want in life, but is it really easier to give up on yourself? When, giving up means constantly untangling your web for the rest of your life? It's a lot to think about, and probably a bit confusing.. but when i think about this tanlged mess i weave sometimes, i think about how easy it is to untagle myself when i just apply myself to the fullest, and then i watch others struggling with everything they have to be where they want to be, and i try to help as much as i can, sometimes i try to help others so much, i forget about my own self. It's hard to remember sometimes, that we are always the creater of our own webs, at the end of the day when we're trapped in our mess, we were the ones who weaved ourselfs in the middle of it.