As I lie here on my bed in a dark room with the hot afternoon sun competing with the blinds to get in, I take in the silence around me.

There are times I feel the world around us can just get so loud. Work and school responsibilities yell at us each morning with our alarm clocks. Bills and appointments chatter in the background. And social media…. Is deafening.

What is transpiring in the country and this world right now is not as much about the horrific events and reminders of past events that are occurring, but has everything to do with the voices we find ourselves to now have on a worldwide stage.

I choose not to share my core views and beliefs often, and usually only do so to people who have been proven trustworthy to hear without bias or prejudice. However, with every possible social media platform available, I take in a thousand voices everyday.

From political to religious to interpersonal and beyond, the views expressed sometimes concern me and sometimes make me proud. Regardless of all this, I have such a sensitive guttural reaction to those that speak one way and act another.

Hypocrisy may top the list for me on pet peeves. I cannot stomach when someone speaks of acceptance, love, and tolerance for all despite differences, yet they celebrate or show indifference to hate being placed on those that think differently.

I watched a video the other day, one of those motivational type – where the speaker described a professor who asked a question of his students. He presented the scenario of holding a hot cup of coffee and someone accidentally bumping into them and hot coffee spilling out of the cup. His question was “why did the coffee spill?” Several answers came, most being logical but essentially placing blame on either the one holding the coffee or the one who bumped into them.

The professor said no answer was correct, that the reason the hot coffee spilled is because there was hot coffee in the cup. The lesson being, whatever is in our cup will spill out to the world when it is disrupted.

Right now, what I am afraid of is that we are all consuming (filling ourselves) with tragedy, uncertainty, anger, hate, and negativity. It was evident yesterday, as a disruption to us all caused an overflow of immense emotion, opinion, and dissent.

I won’t speak of my thoughts on any of the events in the world this last week. I’ll just say, we should all make a point to find some silence, some peace. So when things get shaken again, we can hear what really matters.

Today I did something on a whim. Not exactly though, because it has been on my mind for as long as I can think back. I placed a permanent reminder of my constant mantra on my left arm.

four days til it’s all over and we’re happy

I immediately sent the resulting tattoo to my friend and family, and overwhelmingly I received the same response: That’s awesome, but what does it mean?

So, today I want to share the full story of how this came to be. Let’s rewind all the way to 1996.

My brother was a tech nerd. For example, he learned how to use tones from the rotary phone to connect to the Internet before the days of dial up and AOL. We couldn’t do much on this unknown phenomenon, but he was empowered to know he could access new things before anyone else.

First though, I will mention that in 1995, my 16 year old brother died from complications to brain cancer treatment. His reaction to this third treatment was vital organ failure and a doctor’s determination of brain death. My parents wanted my siblings and I to be okay with moving forward with the decision to turn off the life support, which we all stated we were. On that August afternoon, five days before his 17th birthday, my brother passed away. I was 12 years old.

Once dial up was up and running, we were engrossed with the new way to communicate across the globe. We accessed the chat world of mIRC, talking to people from Ireland and New Zealand and Canada, spending all hours of the day and night typing back and forth.

One of the things you come up with before chatting is your personal screenname. Originally I was just Sarah2001 (my first name and my graduating year). But in 1996, I felt I needed to make a change.

A teenage friend of mine from Kansas set out to help me figure out who I should rename myself as. I asked him how he came upon his own screenname, and he said well, Darrin (a friend of both of ours from Northern Ireland) asked him what he wanted his screenname to be and he answered “Not Sure.” Thus his nickname became NotSure.

So this led me to seek out Darrin’s help. He told me if I change my name it needs to be something that means something to me, something significant enough to carry me through the rest of my days. He asked me what I say to myself everyday that keeps me going, and my answer: “four days til it’s all over and we’re happy”

This is a nice story to explain how my email and blog and screenname became Fourdaystil, however, it does not adequately explain why it keeps me going every day to say this.

Let’s return to the details surrounding my brother’s death. His death created a deep grief and depression that lingered for decades for me. As a child, I often would ruminate on the alternate lives I might have should different choices have been made at points in time. To make sense of my reality, I needed to know how I played into the making of that reality.

One such rumination was imagining whether me speaking up at the hospital and asking if we could just wait three days to see if he showed any signs of life, would he be alive and with me today?

And I thought, it would have only been four days of my life and it would be all over and we would all be happy!

Of course this isn’t realistic. In all reality, my brother would not wake up, and even if he could sustain life, he likely would never talk to me or carry me on his shoulders again. And it wouldn’t be just four days…. It would be a lifetime of health problems and scares. And who knows if we would be happy.

However, I can now rest in the knowledge that life will always work through the hard times, and we can look forward to the day when it is all over and we can be happy.

This world we live in is not a pie. When someone gets a piece of the world for themselves, it doesn’t take away from the piece you or I have.

Recently, I have been expanding my social footprint and have come to find a wonderful family of friends. I had stepped away from this scene months back in a stage of isolation and depression. It turns out I really needed the support I denied.

However, I have found that the common progression of the inner workings of social groups will always be toward division rather than unity. It is an ebb and flow and often, if you are not careful, you can fall through the cracks that form.

It sparked a question within myself. Why do we see others’ efforts as competition to our own? How is it that success of another can equal failure of your own? I am convinced it is because we see the world as finite, with only so much available to those who fight for it.

I don’t want to live in a world where my hard work, even if mirrored after another’s path, is considered theft.

I don’t want to live in a world where I have to choose to support this or that, but never both.

I usually am oblivious to the drama happening around me. It has put me in unforeseen circumstances too much. I see a person as having value just as the next person has value, and I have a hard time with the idea of prioritizing one over the other.

Maybe my way of thinking is too idealized, too utopian. You see, my idea of the world is more like banana pudding. Everyone has a different version, some have the exact same ingredients but get different reviews from different tasters. No spoonful is identical, and no portion is measurable. Some don’t care for it at all, and for some, it is heaven-like. (I even have a friend who is allergic to bananas).

Generally, there is enough to go around. And no one owns the market in banana pudding. It is always easy to make more.

If you have read my blog before, you know i don’t really try to make sense or rhyme or reason of the thoughts I ramble. I do want to impress upon others though, in this post, that comparison will always tear us down. And that comparison is something we create ourselves. It is not an action of another. It is our reaction to another.

So if you feel defeated, just remember the world is not a pie, and go make yourself some banana pudding and feel better!

Tonight I got home from spending a couple hours at my sister’s house, and immediately got in the hot tub. None of the jets were running and I decided against turning on my music, which lately has been dark and drum-rich.

I laid back into the steaming water and just took in the quiet of it all. The next few days, Christmas Eve and Christmas Day, will be filled for many with so much noise and busyness. Mine will be the opposite.

Now, in my king size bed, by myself with a curled up cat by my side, I hear nothing but the white noise of the fan that is eternally running. I think about this year I have had.

This year has been one for the books, a hard fought year with little motivation. Three hospitalizations, two jobs (one of which I took a two month break and reduced my hours when I returned), start of a Master’s program, more medication changes than I care to count.

I used to chase the noise of the world, to see if maybe someday I just might fit into the laughs and joy and friendship and activity of it all. Today, I just sit with the silence and know that this world is not made to fit in.

A depressed person is sad about a lot of things. Being alone used to be one of those things for me. And i can’t say i have evolved or grown in any way. I have just acclimated to the reality.

I live for the people who love me. And that is enough. More than enough. In fact, it is a very powerful reason, I was reminded by my therapist this week.

I am working on reframing my thoughts. Redefining the meaning of the emotions I feel. Moving toward neutral. That seems to be a strange goal, but sometimes the goal has to be something in our reach.

I am not looking to inspire, or to wow the world around me. I’m okay that my thoughts, which are so much more than I write, are my only company. They are like the fan I never turn off.

This year was an insurmountable one. (Reframe – I’m glad I don’t have to do this year ever again.)

If all you do today is get through today, be proud of yourself.