Split Your Heart, Not Your Tongue

 " ...Every step feels so brand new. It's hard to jump with no net but I've jumped and got no regret." During the past two weeks I learned what living is and let me tell you...it's exactly what everyone hyped it up to be! Remember when I wrote about how important it is to dream and that daydreaming leads to living...I took my own advice and made my dreams into a reality. I spent my last few weeks in Australia (my dream place), Dubai, and Italy. It was as if one day I was wishing and hoping to see Australia at least once in my lifetime and the next, I was petting Koalas and Kangaroos at Steve Irwin's zoo in Brisbane! I went sightseeing in Newcastle and skydiving in Picton, Australia. Most of my time was spent in Sydney where I met new people and got a new tattoo.  It's not exactly what I did in Australia that made it memorable or that made it all worth it, it's what I learned. I learned about adventure and risk taking, but those weren't the mo...

"We're the kids who feel like dead ends...And the poets are just kids who didn't make it...and never had it at all..."  If you bothered to read the back cover text for my upcoming novel "A Tragic Heart" then you are already aware that the novel touches heavily upon the topic of mental illness. Although the concept of self-mutilation and depression are becoming more and more mainstream in our culture, my fear is that it is not recognized enough and never will be. The opinions and stigmas that are held by many people in today's society toward those who suffer from a mental illness isn't so far from the 1950s where many thought it was okay to perform a lobotomy on anyone deemed as "crazy" or "mentally ill." As a society, our actions from a medical standpoint may have improved but our beliefs haven't really changed at all. Even though recent studies have shown that people who are deemed as mentally ill tend to have some form ...