Unique and Uniquely Broken....

            Do you ever feel like you were born in the wrong time? I love old things. Vintage table cloths, old architecture, old tea pots. I prefer vinyl records over cds. I prefer old blues, old jazz, old swing music. I like the new stuff too, but I always go back to Billie Holiday, Perry Como, and good ole' Frank. When I was kid, I listened to the oldies channel over the pop music my friends listened too. It is how I got a love for Buddy Holly, the Big Bopper, and Aretha Franklin.  In my teens, I was rocking out to The Glenn Miller Band and big band swing music. I love vintage clothes and vintage furniture. Antiques make me extremely happy. Nothing bums me out more than going into an old house that someone has stripped all of the original character out of and made it "modern"....shudder. I mean, some things have to be modernized but leave the molding alone!

Right now, I am obsessed with old feed sacks. They are just so freaking neat. I also have an issue with old signs. I have a whole wall of them in my living room. My husband thinks I have enough, but just like books, I am not sure you can ever have too many. Of course, that could be my slight hoarding tendency trying to come out. I have to be careful or I could totally end up with a basement full of cheap vintage signs and old flour sacks....

I also love old typewriters, old radios, old cameras...ect. I just tend to feel like I was born in the wrong time. Or maybe, I am just weird. At this point, I can't tell the difference anymore. All I know is, I always prefer something old over something new. Like my great grandmother's chipped fruit bowl...I love that damn thing and it isn't worth anything. Except that it was hers and it was special to her because she grew up in the Great Depression and she got it around the time my grandmother was born. It is my most prized piece of china. It is my only piece of china but even if I got the most expensive china in the world, I would still only love this one chipped bowl. I love the vintage tea pots my grandmother gave me. They have lost all of their silver plating. One was from an old hotel in Texas that was given to her by one of her grandmother in law's husbands. Or the other tea pot that was made in the 1800's but has a huge dent in it, is no longer shiny and the lid hinge is completely broken so the lid falls off if you even breath while looking at it. They are worthless monetarily and yet they mean so much to me.


I love old, antique and vintage things so much that even my wedding ring is over a hundred years old. I picked it out myself thirteen years ago because it was unique, hand tooled, lovingly crafted for someone, and old.

 Maybe, I like old things because they are no longer run of the mill, cookie cutter objects. They have a history. I don't want new hardwood floors, I want hardwood that has been worn down for decades by the feet of living, breathing, loving, happily families. I don't want new furniture in my dining room. I want the table that has little scratches where the silver wear was placed for a century. I don't want the things that have no story. I want to add my stories to the things that already have one. I am fascinated by everyday objects that have little mars and scratches and marks from owners past that are a testament of their life experiences. A sign that they were here. I love the history of it all.

Obviously, some things have to be bought new but whenever possible I always go for the old. The down trodden. The underdog. The flawed and less desired because it is not perfect. I go for the tarnished tea pot, the well worn flour sack, the broken typewriter, the rusty sign and I utilize them to been seen in my home. They are my little artifacts of history. Worth nothing to most but so much to me because at one time they meant everything to someone else.... Maybe I like them because I see myself in each dented and cracked object...flawed, sometimes overlooked, bizarre, unique, broken, rusted, and well worn. Maybe these things bring me comfort because I feel we share a sameness. Our value is hidden but still exists just waiting for the right person to recognize it, not only in my little artifacts but in themselves as well. Maybe I like them because they are like tiny mirrors of what I see in myself. Maybe a bit dinged up but still beautiful, still interesting, still worthy of being seen and loved. I like them because they remind me that we are all unique and yet uniquely broken....and we all should be treasured.

Neurotic Nelly

To Those Of You.....

To those of you:

To those of you contemplating suicide, you are not alone. You are not ugly. You are not stupid. You are not worthless or a burden. You are not bad. You are not a slut. You are not a disgrace. You are not an embarrassment. You are not an abomination. You are not fat. You are not invisible. You are not hopeless. You are not clumsy. You are not unlovable. You are not less than. You are not a statistic.

You are a person. You are beautiful and unique. You matter. You are important. You are seen and heard. You are irreplaceable...

I know how bad the pain can be. I know that some days it is so heavy and so great that you just don't know how much longer you can bare it. I know that you feel lost and alone. Like no one understands....It's not true. Many understand. I understand.

I know that you think maybe your loved ones will be better off without you. Maybe your friends will be happier. Maybe the world will be a better place......They won't. It won't.The world needs you. You friends need you. Your loved ones need you.

I know that you feel numb. Like your soul is made of ice. Like nothing warm will ever touch you again.... It will touch you, again. You will become warm.

I know that you feel lost and so very very alone. You feel invisible. You feel like no one would notice if you are gone. Like no one would care......They care. Someone cares. I care.


Suicide isn't beautiful. It isn't romantic. It isn't Romeo and Juliette. It isn't like the movies or television. It isn't quiet or clean. It isn't lovely or inspiring. It is ugly. It is devastating. It is a black whole left behind for those that knew you to carry around where their hearts used to be, for the rest of their lives. It is a loss of a future and all of the things that could have been. It is a stain on the fabric of life where something beautiful once was. Someone beautiful. You.

Suicide has touched my life twice. The first was my Great Uncle when I was around two. He no longer could deal with the pain and he chose to end his life. Is wasn't romantic or pleasant, or neat and tidy. He didn't leave a note. He didn't see past his pain to realize that my great grand parents heard the gunshot. That they would break down the door in hopes of being able to save him. That his brother would find him first. That they would find his body broken and disfigured. That there would be a whole in the family where he once stood. That nothing could ever erase the emptiness he left behind. That no one in the family would ever get over it. They never got over it and to this day the ripples of his decision is still felt. The pain of him choosing to leave this world that way, was much greater than anything else. That no one ever could truly accept or make peace with it. It is a haunting. A phantom that hovers over the families of suicide victims in hushed tones and whispers. We don't know why he did and it wouldn't matter anyway. Nothing would make it less horrific. Less devastating.

The second brush with suicide was my mother's attempt when I was ten. She  swallowed a bottle of pills. She suffers from Chronic Depression, PTSD, Bipolar, and a touch of OCD. My Dad found her and she was rushed to the hospital. She had taken pills that couldn't kill her, thankfully, but she didn't know that. If it had been any other medication  she would have left me. My mother tried to kill herself. It's a knowledge that is hard to accept even now as an adult. She tried to kill herself. I sometimes think if I say it enough times aloud it will get easier to accept. That it will somehow lessen the sharp sting from the words. It doesn't and it never will. My mother tried to kill herself when I was ten. Because she was in pain. Because she felt alone. She felt lost. She felt broken and damaged. Mostly she felt numb. And so too would my life had been had she been successful. I would have never gotten over it. I was not better without her. She was not unloved or a burden. She was beautiful. She was unique. She was my mother. Had she successfully killed herself she would have missed out so many wonderful things that she has been a part of after she got help. Me growing up. My first crush. My first school dance. The birth of both of my children. The many birthdays we share ever year because I was born on her birthday. She would have missed the man she married two years ago that is quite possibly the love of her life. The good times. The days filled with our love and laughter. Days filled with what my oldest learned at school or the stick figures my youngest drew with crayons. She would have missed twenty four years that she has had since her attempt. 8765 days. 52594560 minutes she would have ceased to have. Those minutes filled with joy. Those minutes filled with beauty. Those minutes filled with her. My mother was lucky. She got help and even though she still suffers from her mental illnesses, even though some days are not the happiest greatest days on earth, she lives. Because she knows the truth about life and that is it changes. The world doesn't stay dark and lonely forever. Things will and do get better.You may not see it right now, but I promise you it will come.

To those of you who feel lost and alone and feel like nothing could ever be good again, I say to you please please get help. Reach out. Tell someone. Talk to someone. If that person doesn't hear you then go to the next person and then the next. Never cease talking because you are worth more than "an easy way out". You are important and your life has value. You have value....You matter.



Neurotic Nelly