Posted on in LIFE IS BEAUTIFUL, MENTAL HEALTH, writing

BLUE MY MIND

Since the moment you started coming around, I kept a bottle of nail polish (OPI’s “Blue My Mind”) on the top right corner of my shower, for emergencies. The idea of you catching me with chipped fingernail polish could be likened to the horror that I would feel upon facing a firing squad, and it just wouldn’t do. So many nights I have jumped in for a quick shower before you came over & grabbed that bottle to touch up an imperfection while the steam clung to my body in the heat of the bathroom. It was exciting. It was thrilling. The act and art of readying myself for you was a ritual and routine that l always loved performing.

The polish remained long after you stopped coming around, but it was familiar to me, I didn’t want to take it down. I remembered the thrill, the excitement, it was a token of a time in my life that felt like being shot into space without warning – the thrill and the fear were delicious and always present. I looked at that bottle every day and thought of you and felt sad because I kind of missed the fear and the thrill. And that became routine, missing you quietly in the shower every day of my life.

I guess if I’m honest, I used to think that if I did take the polish down, if I did anything with it at all, it would mean something, would suggest something – would maybe even jinx something. I never know from morning to night what state of grace you and I are hanging in, if I’ll get a call tomorrow and be summoned to your side or if we won’t talk for six months – and though it was unhealthy to linger in that space with a fragile heart and a cluttered mind, I clung on to the hope that you would come around and I used this bottle of nail polish like a little life raft –  a bat signal, or a beacon or sorts – some little symbol that meant we existed, once, and that maybe you would find your way back if I left the light on (or the polish in the shower).

I have spent so much time in my life trying to fix what was meant to stay broken. For so long, I looked at my inability to reconstruct the ruined as a character flaw: it was wasted time, a failure on my part, I missed a bigger picture because I wasn’t smart enough to see it when it was right in front of my face. And I punish myself so hard for what I can’t control or change. You have been one of my greatest worries, right from the start. The way I felt around you at all times was like a human Jenga tower that was one block away from falling to pieces – and by God, was I determined to stay standing for as long as I possibly could, no matter the strain and effort. Because to care about someone so much, to feel that gross way your actual heart constricts when you watch them sleep and know that you love them so damn madly – to hurt for them and to go through hell with and for them – and then to shake hands and walk away from one another … it doesn’t feel real. It feels inhumane. You once knew all of my secrets and now we don’t even speak regularly. How can I let go of something so massive in my life? Doesn’t it HAVE to be something bigger than this?

It came to me the other day, as I was staring up at that little blue bottle –  maybe it doesn’t have to be. Maybe all we had is really just that. Had. Past tense. The realization was like finally exhaling when I didn’t even realize that I had been holding my breath. Somewhere between the shampoo and the conditioner, I realized that you might be my past, but that I also deserve to have a future that doesn’t necessarily involve you … and that’s okay.  It can all be just exactly as big as it was. We don’t have to talk about it or fight about it or try to reconcile it or make any big promises about doing better this time – we don’t have to do anything at all except just go on.

Just go on.

Somewhere, in another lifetime, perhaps, you and I are together, but we are different there. Maybe better, depending on how you look at it. Maybe I’m not afraid and maybe you aren’t selfish. Maybe I’m better at all of this, and maybe you are, too. Maybe we live together, or are married, or are just best friends. Whatever we are, wherever we are, it is fun and we laugh a lot. There is always blue nail polish in the top corner of the shower. That I know for certain. And this place is where we will stay, you & I. Never a waste of time, never a failure – just another lifetime.

I took the nail polish down today.

I may put it back up tomorrow. I don’t know. I don’t know. One day at a time.

You blue my mind once, it’s true – but maybe one day I’ll be ready to let someone else have a shot at it.

 

(also, please never read this, because I would actually die)

Posted on in FUNERAL SERVICE, SCHOOL, writing

GLORY DAYS

Below is the first submission I made to my first class when I returned to school in February of 2014 to become a funeral director. We were asked to introduce ourselves, and I remember how exciting that felt – I was saying it out loud (well, typing it, really) for the first time: I’m here to become a funeral director. I’M GOING TO BE A FUNERAL DIRECTOR!

Now that I AM a funeral director & am back in school once again, this time pursuing my associate’s degree in mortuary science, I had to laugh at how Miss America I was about it all in the beginning – because this time around, I’m pretty I’VE F’ING HAD IT, bloodshot eyes & constant thoughts of murder about it all.

Long story short – I guess it is kind of adorable to look back and see how sweet and excited I was about it all in the beginning. This first semester back has been so damn difficult and draining, I won’t lie – I’ve had a few moments where I’ve been up to my eyeballs in never-ending work & have thought “weeeeeeellll do I REAAAAALLLY need to embalm, too?” (the answer is yes) – so I kinda needed to get back to that vibe – because at the rate I’m losing sanity this time around, I’m thisclose to abandoning my career and going to sell pretzels at Disney World for the rest of my life. Anyway, read on!

“For the past eight years, I have been working as a Cosmetologist, with a focus primarily on makeup application and hair cutting. My time at Piedmont Technical College will be spent earning my Certificate in Funeral Services.  For some, the jump from Cosmetologist to Funeral Director seems like a huge leap, but many of the same qualities necessary for a successful Cosmetologist can be translated into a future career in Funeral Services. While the idea of re-entering education as an adult did seem intimidating at first, I am looking forward to the challenge. I am excited to experience the next chapter in my life as a student.

Aside from my professional aspirations, I am a native of Greenville, South Carolina. I love to travel and see as much of the world as I can. I am always up for a spontaneous road trip spent in the company of good friends. I also like to go to as many concerts as I can, because music is very important to me, and is a huge part of how my friends and I bond. When I am at home, I enjoy spending my downtime time reading a good book, knitting, catching up on TV shows, or spending time with my family.”

Cute, right? I know, I know.

Back to the books.

Posted on in FUNERAL SERVICE, LIFE IS BEAUTIFUL, MENTAL HEALTH, turning 30, writing

A LIFE WORTH WRITING ABOUT

Whenever I try to write these days, I feel a sense of panic that I can’t really put words to. Writing used to be my most natural and craved form of expression – every word, every exchange, every thought had to be documented once, twice, three times over. I was religious in my documentation, the telltale hump on the middle finger on my right hand always red and swollen. My diaries were my friends, my confidents, the only people who knew the truth about who I was, what I had done, and how I hurt. Like a fool, I took for granted the person I was and the life that I was naturally living, and instead used to cry to the fates and beg the universe for a life worth writing about. And then when one fell into my lap, when things were hot and fast and out of control, when I had EVERYTHING to suddenly write about – the pages slammed shut and I put away the pen.

I rationalized this because a lot of things that I needed to say were hard. And some things are just too hard to write about. So … I stopped, pretty much completely.

Can you blame me, honestly? It’s like, you try as hard as you can and work with a furious fervor to squirrel away the things that hurt into a place where they aren’t constantly falling back into your immediate line of vision – and writing is just purposely recalling blinding, white hot pain for the sake of …?

Of what?

What was the point of recalling what I barely made it through the first time? Then again, didn’t I always want this? Countless pages in countless diaries, wishing one life away to make room for another?  Oh, how I wanted to be a real, bonafide adult, like the ones on TV – to have all the mythical secrets of adulthood unlocked and for the taking. Wasn’t that the story that I kept waiting to write?

It is this narcissistic and frustrating combination of finite disinterest and fleeting whimsy that seems to be where I spend most of my time these days. All of the time that I wished away is exactly where I wish I could run like hell to now. Most days, I feel like a battery in a car that won’t turn over – you try as you might, but the damn thing just won’t do it.  Everything in my life, not just writing, falls into two categories – hard, or not. If it is hard, if it even SEEMS hard, I don’t even bother looking at it. Writing is hard, so I don’t do that anymore. Facing my fears is hard, so I’ll just turn away and not look. It isn’t that I don’t want to move forward, or that I don’t want to be present or progressive – I just can’t find the strength. But here I am. Ashley the adult!

Every day, I’m toeing the line between desperate to make a point and exhausted by the idea of even trying. Working around the deceased has made me siamese, one single body split, fighting two alternative visions. There are only so many times that you can artfully arrange the shell of what used to be a human being into a fancy casket before you make yourself look down and wonder what the hell we are all really doing here in this life. When death becomes real to you, really, really real, everything matters SO much. The fear of wasting a second of your life is all-consuming. I panic so often about not doing it (life) right – the same old fear of not living “a life worth writing about” –  yet similarly, I can’t help but feel that nothing truly matters in the grand scheme of things, because we all leave the same way – alone, and with nothing. Both viewpoints are right in their own ways, but there has to be some sort of middle ground that doesn’t leave me hollow inside and terrified of facing reality.

I have to laugh now when I think about the desperation of wanting to carve out “a life worth writing about” – it’s sort of like walking willingly into quicksand.  Before you know what you’ve done, you’ve gotten so far off track – one leg stuck in the muck, no escape foreseeable. I have spent SO much of my time in this life wishing for something better, something bigger, SOMETHING WORTH WRITING ABOUT – but I have very rarely been willing to actually work towards the promise of a better tomorrow. If wishing hard enough created reality, I would be the richest woman in all the world. But instead I am poor, because I have robbed myself blind. I’ve stolen my own ambition, I’ve bartered away my strength and confidence, and I’ve crippled and hobbled the purest and best part of me – my imagination – and replaced it all with cynicism and fear.

I wish I could go back in time and tell myself to stop wishing everything away, to stop questioning everything so damn much and just take each day one at a time. Because we do all die, and you don’t get a second chance, and you should never waste your time worrying or being afraid. Instead of letting that reality be my touchstone, I have spent nearly 30 years wringing my hands and wondering if I’m doing it all wrong. An entire life that has always been a game that I am playing against myself and am still somehow losing. If I could go back in time, i would shake my old self by the shoulders and tell her that life was and will always be worth writing about, even on the hardest day, and to never, ever lose that good and pure part of yourself. It doesn’t have to be extraordinary to be documented. Face your fears, every single one of them. Don’t NOT try because something might not come from it.

I’ve made a lot of mistakes in my time here – none of us ever really get it all right – but the biggest one that I ever made was putting down my pen and shutting myself up because I got scared. It may take everything that I’ve got, and it may truly be for nothing in the end – but a life worth living, much less writing about, would not mean a damn thing without this, my purest expression, my most honest release. And I know that I can do this, because just like I know without a doubt that I would go back in time to tell my younger self to never stop writing, my younger self would visit me in the future and be shocked that I ever had.

Posted on in MAKEUP/BEAUTY

JANUARY BEAUTY FAVES

Hidey ho, readers! Welcome to the January beauty faves blog. Sorry that I am posting this on the second of February, but to be honest, my nails are so long right now that I can barely gather the strength to type. Anyways, lets just get right into it! If you missed the December beauty faves post, you can click HERE to find it.

So, to start with, a December follow up – my skin has continued to be an absolute wreck into the new year (joy), but I’ve continued to be (mostly) diligent with the Murad Acne Starter Kit that I recommended in December. I have upped my usage to twice a day, and I can tell a DEFINITE difference in my skin texture/oil production when I skip it. So, I’m still standing behind ole Murad. On particularly oily days, I have added Biore’s “Free Your Pores” blemish fighting astringent, which works very well, and very quickly – if I apply it on skin that I can feel is getting aggravated or is forming a blemish, it will have dried it up by morning.

My first recommendation for the month of January is directly related to my skin problems (and then we will move on from talking about my nasty ass pizza face) – I have been using NYX’s Angel Veil primer for awhile now (it is a serum and is wonderful for dryer or normal skin) – but since the last thing I need is to add more oil to my face, I switched to NYX’s “First Base Primer Spray”, and I LOVE it. Unknown-2

 

I really don’t want to ever switch back. The spray application feels fantastic and refreshing at the start of my makeup routine, and I just take my fingers and lightly work it into my skin if I feel like one area didn’t get coverage. What I also love about this product is that it doesn’t cause my foundation/concealer to crease or separate, like a lot of serum primers do. The last thing I want is my under eye area to look like a crisis, and this product definitely helps me avoid that. My makeup stays locked and loaded all day long. $7.99 at ULTA!

Next, lets jump into some lipsticks. So great is my love and affinity for NYX Cosmetics, I really just want to have a big fluffy princess wedding with them so that we can be together till death do us part. They are by far the best “drugstore” range line, and I haunt the NYX aisle at ULTA like a sea hag. NYX has recently released a lot of neIMG_7393w lipsticks, but what interested me the most were the Ombre lip duos ($11.99 at ULTA) –

I love the idea of ombre lips, but they can be really hard to maintain – not with these babies! You can go as hard or as soft with your ombre as you want – and they last FOREVER.

The color I’m wearing in this photo is “Poppy and Lily”. I also have “Ginger & Nutmeg” & “Bonnie & Clyde”. If you are someone who is afraid or unsure of how to use lipliner, let these be your loving introduction to getting it right – because there is literally no wrong way to work with these. I’ve had a lot of fun using them.

Another thing that I’ve been really digging this month are the On-the-Go Fragrance Sprays (ULTA brand) – I love anything that I can toss in my purse, and these smell fantastic. 1325957_1371008127
I got Freshwater Mist and Lavender Woods on sale (regular price is $7.50, they are currently buy 2, get 2 free!), and I’ve been using the crap out of them. The older I get, the more I become one of those little old biddies that can’t take the smell of certain kinds of perfumes because they give me headaches, so the fact that they smell good and don’t make me feel like I have a brain tumor is the biggest selling point to me. So if you guys could all start wearing these too, that would be great. NO MORE PERFUME HEADACHES 2016!

Next on the list is a new favorite that I can’t take credit for – and that would be Urban Decay’s Minor Sin Eye Shadow Primer Potion. gateway_redirect.php During our December makeup swap, my makeup bestie, Stephanie, gave me a gaggle of goodies, and this was one of them. I didn’t really think that I would find a use for it, but I surprised myself – I love it! I typically use just my foundation or a NYX white eye shadow base to prime my eyes for shadow, so I wasn’t really sure what I would do with this, but love always finds a way, doesn’t it? My favorite ways to use this gorgeous champagne tinted primer are on days where I am not going to wear eye makeup, but just want a little sparkle on my lid, or when I’m wearing a lot of neutral tones that have a lot of shine to them and I want to amp them up. You can find this product at ULTA for $20.00, which I do feel like is a lot for an eye shadow primer, but not really if you take into account the fact that you can find several different uses for it. And a little goes a LONG way. Thanks, Stephanie!

Last but certainly not least, I leave you with another new favorite that I can’t take the credit for, because my mom introduced it to me. The Sigma Spa Express Blush Cleaning Mat ($25.00 at the Sigma website). My typical take on brush cleaning is never do it because I hate it and am lazy. I would literally rather buy a new brush than clean an old one, because I am tragic and wasteful. My mom ordered me one of these mats (I think she was 02956784-ea8c-45f2-a107-d71d6661420ftrying to politely tell me that my makeup table looked like a holy terror), and I let it sit around untouched for a few days until I finally opened it. I toted about 10 brushes to the sink, not expecting to feel any sort of way about the experience – but then it began. I WAS CHANGED. Holy moly. Dare I say this made brush cleaning … fun? You stick it (it has suction cups on the bottom of the mat) in your sink, squirt brush cleaner on to it, and basically paint your brushes clean. It takes NO time at all, seriously. I am begging you all to buy this. If this is the one thing I recommend that you ever listen to, it is this – it has honestly turned a chore that I dreaded SO much into the easiest, breeziest thing. Thanks, Sigma! And thanks, Mom!

So that is it for January. Next month, I’ll let you know how I felt about some recent purchases – the Too Faced “Born This Way” foundation, my first order that I placed at ColourPop Cosmetics (currently sitting by the mailbox like a crazed woman waiting in antici……PATION for its arrival), and the new “Lip Lingerie” matte liquid lipsticks by NYX.

If you decide to try any of these products, please let me know – I’ve really loved talking to those of you that reached out and told me they followed some of my suggestions. You guys are the raddest. Okay, BYEEEEEE!

Posted on in Uncategorized

SNOW-PEFUL

So, you may have heard that it snowed this past week. I hope and pray that all of my fellow southerners had enough milk and bread to keep them safe from any and all treacherous weather!

IMG_8075

We didn’t really get much, round my neck of the woods – just enough to make me fear for my sanity and get an insane case of cabin fever (I feel it is important to reveal that I was only truly stuck inside for one day, but damn, did it feel bleak). By the time I woke up on day two of the promised snowpocalypse, everything had already started to melt. Such is life, as a southerner.

The older I get, the more “typical adult” I get about snowy weather, wherein I am bothered by it and cursing the weather man and generally just being an overall curmudgeon (side note – thank God for spell check, because I DEFINITELY did not know how to spell curmudgeon) about it all. I hate that. We should never age out of being awed by nature. I stepped outside pretty late at night (or early in the morning, however you want to look at it) to watch it coming down, and it truly was beautiful. There’s just such a peace to witnessing snow falling. 2016, moreso than any other year of my life thus far, has felt so hopeful and promising – I couldn’t help but take a nice blanket of pure, clean snow as a good sign of things to come for us all.
IMG_8007

I kinda loved how this picture almost looks like lights or fireworks.

So, while the snow came just as quickly as it went, and while I did complain about it for nearly 80% of its short-lived stay, I was ultimately glad to see it. I guess you could say it made me feel snow-peful. You know, like hopeful, but with snow. And that is sort of a new way for me to feel (both hopeful and snow-peful), and I want to hold on to that feeling for as long as I can, because it makes everything feel fresh and clean and new – sort of like a snowfall. Damn. What a full circle moment.

PS – Nothing – and I do mean nothing – can beat a South Carolina sunset after a snowfall.

IMG_8058

 

I know, right?

 

Posted on in POP CULTURE

ALWAYS

Damn, what a week.

There is nothing that I could say about this wonderful man that hasn’t already been said by many wiser and better spoken than I could ever hope to be, but here’s my offering, my hat thrown into the ring:

I thank you, Alan Rickman, for the light you brought us all, for your talent, for your uniqueness, for your voice, and for everything that you did to help bring one of my favorite book series to life. Your enormous legacy will never be forgotten.

My wand is raised for you, my favorite head of house. Always.

Posted on in POP CULTURE

BOWIE

gallery_1423616289-bowie_hairstyle_gifgifcroporiginal-original

It always hits me really hard when a celebrity dies. I know, that seems silly and vapid and ridiculous, but it is true. You would think that at this point, death wouldn’t affect me very much at all – that given the amount of dead people and sad situations that I have been exposed to in my actual life on a daily basis, I would not feel this way – but I always do.

I can’t really say why it gets to me the way that it does. Of course, if I’m a big fan of the deceased (such as when Michael Jackson and Cory Monteith passed), I feel that profound sense of loss and despair that is a natural part of grief … but I tend to feel affected even if I was only a casual fan, or not even a fan at all. Maybe it’s the funeral director in me – because behind every stilled body is someone hurting, and I always think about that – the ones who are left behind. Maybe it has something to do with how loud their deaths are, how visceral. We have the outpouring of emotion and love from fans, the celebrity reactions, the career retrospectives, the dissections of final months, weeks, and days – it’s stunning, both disgusting and beautiful. It’s overwhelming.

Then there’s the selfishness of it. Until yesterday, I had never lived a day of my life that David Bowie wasn’t a part of – and I don’t mean that as a way to say that I have been a rabid Bowie fan since birth. I mean that he’s always been there, a wonderful and comforting piece of furniture in the annals of my pop-culture and music loving mind, a legend before I was even called into existence. And now we as a world have to come together in entering the post-Bowie part of our lives, and that feels weird and scary and sad. We (or at least I) always seem to take for granted that these people we adore and admire won’t go away someday, but they do, and life goes sadly on. Different, somehow. Lacking.

So for now, it is time to say goodbye to another legend, to another brave soul who bared and shared their heart and mind and reinvented themselves time and time again for the sake of creation – who changed the music world so profoundly that nearly half (if not more) of today’s artists owe him a thank you for boldly paving the way.  We will miss you, David Bowie. “Turn and face the strange”

Posted on in FUNERAL SERVICE, LIFE IS BEAUTIFUL

SMELL YA LATER, 2015

When the end of the year rolls around, you can’t help but look back in review at all that has happened to you and in your life throughout the last twelve months. That’s human nature. We tally it all up, all these events and changes and milestones, compare it to our neighbors and friends, decide whether it was a good year or a bad year, and then dismiss it. And a Happy New Year!

A year ago today was my first day at work at my old mortuary, and I remember thinking, as I walked into that place for the first time as an employee, “This is it. I’ll be here forever. I’m set for life”. I was going to work side by side with my best friend. I was finally doing what I wanted to do and have dreamt of doing for so long. It seemed like the best and maybe only way for me to get everything that I wanted. Maybe I was naive to think that, but I bought into what I was sold and I was committed to holding on to it, no matter what.

The coolest thing about life is how it will find a way to shake you up when you get too complacent, or when you settle for something that is beneath you, or that you weren’t meant for. I will always believe, with all of my heart, that I was always meant to work at that mortuary. I was. There was a reason for that. I was always meant to go through the hell that I did there – but I was never, ever meant to stay there, and once that became clear to me, I was able to address my truths: there is something more than this. There is farther to go than just right here.

So if anything, when I look back at 2015, and all of the pain and struggle and hurt that I endured, whether it be job related or not, what I think this year really taught me is that maybe we don’t always get what we want, but we do get what we need … and really, isn’t that better? One year ago, I really thought I had what I truly wanted. And what I truly wanted was to stay forever at that old funeral home with my best friend, even if it meant enduring mental and verbal abuse at a constant rate and being treated worse than an abused animal – because I somehow believed this was my ONLY chance to do what I wanted to do. But what I really NEEDED was to get out of that toxic environment so that I could discover my own freedom and greet what my future held.

I always get so sensitive about the new year, because it always somehow signifies aging and getting older, and the idea of 2016 definitely has the potential to be horrifying – I mean, I’ll be turning 30. I’ll still be a college student living at my mom’s house. None of these things are what I wanted – but they are what I needed. And no matter how many different ways I have tried to escape my eventualities, they have found ways to re-emerge and shake me up and humble me when I was lost.

I spent 11 years being friends with a girl that treated me like garbage, because I felt like I had to stick in because I had already devoted so much time. When I finally had the confidence and strength to cut her out of my life once and for all earlier this year, it felt like being born, it was that freeing. I felt so light and so happy and so able to be my true self without having her hanging over my head like a sick raincloud. Yet, like my time spent at my old funeral home, I will never look at that time as time wasted – I know that I was always meant to be friends with her, because in the end, she taught me a massive lesson about what good friendship meant, and her inadequacies taught me how to value and love and hold on dearly to the people I have in my life.

Similarly, I spent nearly two years on and off with a man that turned out to be married. I never knew until he slipped up and I figured him out. When I confronted him, he claimed that it was an open relationship, and he didn’t want anything between us to change. I thought that because I wanted him, that I could deal with it. Fear of the future and what it may or may not hold, fear of what I might never have again, fear of being alone … it all forced me to try to yield and settle for something that I “wanted”, even if I had to sacrifice myself and what felt right to me to have it. Eventually and thankfully, I realized, HEY ASHLEY. GUESS WHAT. You don’t need this. You don’t need this AT ALL. And I stopped speaking to him from that moment on. And what did I learn? An invaluable lesson about how I want to love and be loved in the future.

Her friendship, his love, that job – they were all things I wanted, but were never things that I ended up needing in the end. They were necessary evils, instrumental in teaching me lifelong lessons, but they were only ever just that. Placeholders on the way to bigger and better – and that is why they aren’t moving forward with me in life. Because I am learning to pay attention to the difference between what I want and what I need. And I am saying no to settling or cowering out of fear.

A month or two ago, I would have steadfastly looked back on 2015 and declared it the worst of my life thus far – but from where I’m standing here at the very tail end of it, it was actually the best. It was the freaking best.  What I lost could never, ever, ever be tallied up to be nearly worth what I’ve gained. I can happily say that I feel better and stronger and closer than ever to the person that I know that I was designed to be. I have grown so much in my life that I can’t help but only feel happiness, freedom, and excitement to see what comes next.

And that applies, shockingly, even to turning 30.

So goodbye, 2015, and thank you for all the things you taught me. I never saw you coming, but I’m so glad I finally learned to listen to what you were trying to tell me. And to 2016, you beautiful and terrifying beast, bring it on.