Category Archives: Moving on

Ernest Hemingway said …

“The world breaks everyone, and afterward, some are strong at the broken places.”

I believe this to be true. 

I’ve been broken so many times that I’ve lost count.

A couple of times, the brokenness nearly won, but for the most part, I came up with my head above water.

What breaks us doesn’t define us, but  having the desire to put the shattered pieces back together does.

I was many times, in the broken places, at my strongest.

I can’t begin to explain the transformation; but there was one.

I’m still looking for lost pieces, but I have faith that if they are meant to be found, they will be.

I do believe Hemingway was spot on when he, a very broken man, said that string of words.

If one hasn’t been broken, they’ve yet to be born and can’t possibly understand the beautiful array of colors that a skewed, broken and pixillated life has to offer.

Until you break it, you can’t begin to know what is inside.

A bit like a Sand Dollar.

Once you’re broken, you can’t stop looking at all the intricate shapes, shards and pieces.

I’m not much on working puzzles, but the pieces and parts of life fascinate me.

I don’t start at the corners.

Instead, I start in the center and build outward because the corners will always be corners.

Those broken already know where the corners are; it is the center that perplexes us and makes us stronger than we would have been were we not broken.

I, as we all do, struggle sometimes.

It’s part of the journey.

If we don’t struggle, we lack understanding and in doing so, give up.

If we give up, the broken places win and the corners cease to matter.

I’m not a poor loser but that doesn’t mean I wouldn’t prefer to win.

Romans chapter Twelve is my favorite place in the bible. Each verse speaks to me directly …

But this one, in particular, (Romans 12:12) speaks louder each time I read it …

It says “Rejoicing in hope; patient in tribulation; continuing instantly in prayer.”

There are times I’m certain God doesn’t hear me. I know, as any believer does, when these dark, silent times come.

The silence is deafening.

Unnerving.

Unwavering.

But at others, when the silence is broken and I know He hears me, I’m mesmerized.

Goosebumps threaten to overtake me and nearly make me forget what I was praying about to begin with.

Life is hard.

It’s hard for everyone.

None of us have the franchise of a life unriddled with trials and hardships.

But it’s also, if you pay attention, riddled with joy.

To give up or give in is a selfish act that says we weren’t willing to fight; to survive.

A coward’s way.

I was a coward for much of my life.

I refuse to be one through the rest of it.

I’ll look for those missing pieces, lost friends, severed relationships, missed opportunities.

I haven’t always, but I do now; but, if I don’t find them, so be it.

I’ll find them somewhere along the way or understand they weren’t for me to begin with.

I’m OK where, often alone, I find myself.

I always have been.

Whom shall I fear?

image

Trust …

a small word and yet it holds an incredible amount of power.

What is trust, anyway?

Mr. Webster defines it as “assured reliance on the character, ability, strength, or truth of someone or something”.

Assured reliance.  

What does that mean in reality?

To me, it means being able to take someone at face value, to believe what they say, to know that I can tell them anything and not be judged, betrayed or lied to.

It is one of those things that we all look for in other people.  Things we want to believe about those we hold dear in our lives.

But is it, in reality, something that truly exists?

I suppose that it does, sometimes.

I have trusted people in my lifetime and have, on more than one occasion, learned the hard way that I misread, misconstrued, misunderstood or simply made a bad choice.

Bad choices are not obsolete.  

We all make them.

Some, more often than others.

I’m not, by nature,  a trusting person, so I give it sparingly.  I suppose that is one reason that it hurts so deeply when the confidence is betrayed and the trust destroyed.

The destruction of it leaves a hole that can’t really be filled.  It leaves me vulnerable to further mistrust and, in doing such, I may miss out on relationships that could be to my benefit.

But if I lose the ability to trust because of betrayal, where am I?

Who am I?

When someone I trusted with the innermost secrets of my heart and mind betrays me, what am I left with?

Myself.

I can trust myself and know that I will keep my  own secrets.

I don’t want to be a person who cannot trust, however, over the years, I have learned by experience.

I trust my Lord, for He has never betrayed me.

I have, on occasion, betrayed Him and yet He has stuck by me, even during the worst moments of my life.

I am starting to think that I can, other than Him, trust no-one.

It is a sad state to find oneself in, but one that many people, far too often, find themselves.

When someone can trust themselves to be everything they can be, to stand for what is good, to hold their head up in the midst of adversity and controversy, then they can say they have fought the good fight.

I am still fighting, but I am not depending on anyone to help me.

I can’t do it myself, but with God, all things are possible.

I  have been betrayed, that is true.

But I have not betrayed myself and that is of utmost importance.

What others do, they are accountable for.  I will stand for myself and cling to what I know to be true.

In the end, I will be standing on the rock and as long as I stand on the rock, the uncertainly of the world cannot touch me.

On this certainty, I can rely.

Little else, once all the obstacles are cleared away, matters.

I am who I was created to be and while I am constantly evolving, learning and making strides, I will make mistakes.

That is the beauty of being human that saves us all from the burden of perfection.

Learning the hard lessons is what makes us stronger today than we were before;  without them, we would always be the same and I can’t think of a worse fate than always being what I was.

Be well, dream big, live every moment and know that you are cherished by One who will not let you down, not even when you deserve it.

And be trustworthy.

Be the one that can be trusted and counted on to accept, without judgement or deceit, that which is willingly given to you.

It’s important.

Love is the most powerful of emotions

Love and trust are the most powerful of emotions

It has been a long few days …

or has it been weeks?

I haven’t posted anything new.

No blog posts.

No photographs.

Nothing.

I have been in a holding pattern of sleepwalking, nightmares and erotic dreams that leave me confused, wondering and bewildered …

and all the while, trying my very best to make it, without losing my cool, through the seemingly endless days and eventful nights.

I have had patients cry on me, their families strike me, people pulling at my heartstrings which are linked directly to my tear ducts and during all of this, trying to find out if I am to blame for something I had no control over.

I wonder if I have severed a crucial friendship and have already began to mourn the loss of it.

I have a way of ruining beautiful things because I rarely feel worthy of them.

I have slept outside, sent messages I wasn’t aware of and tried desperately to hold it together.

A difficult few days, indeed.

But tonight changed all that.

It came a storm.

A big one, with lots of lightning and torrential rain.

Normally, during such an event, I would be set up on the porch with my tripod and camera, but this time was different.

This one wasn’t to be documented and photographed.

It was to set my spirit free.

And it did.

I stood on the porch with my jeans and t-shirt, getting soaked.

But as time passed, I wanted no earthly barriers between me and the blessing that God was giving me.

A cleansing.

A fresh beginning.

Letting the past be past and bygones be bygones and memories no more than a blip on my radar.

One piece of clothing after another was discarded until I found myself standing nude and vulnerable under the rain, with the lightning flashing, the thunder bellowing, echoing between the mountains and valleys …

tears running down my face.

I prayed to a God that I had decided had forgotten me.

He hadn’t.

I think He was just waiting for me to remember Him.

It was frightening.

It was freeing.

I was liberated from the hold this world had on me.

I was, for that span of time, one with nature and the God who created it.

I still struggle with the emotions and thoughts in my head, but He designed my brain and is well acquainted with my mindless and sometimes senseless ramblings.

He doesn’t hold them against me and so I won’t hold them against myself.

Not everyone believes in my God.  I don’t find fault with them.  I know what I know, they know what they know.

I can only be who I am and, despite all my faults, and they are many, I feel at peace.

And despite that, my friends who don’t believe in my God like me anyway.

I am humbled by that.

Just  as I accept them, they accept me.

With our differences of opinions and thoughts.

It is irrelevant.

Isn’t that what it was supposed to be like?

Love one another?

Are my thoughts still burning through my head? Yes.

Do I still sometimes feel out of control? Yes.

Do I have someone to share the thoughts and emotions with? Yes, and I am thankful for them.

Do I wonder if I am making the right choices? Yes.

Following Christ doesn’t mean that everything is just peachy.  In all honesty, it is the opposite.

I don’t do it right, I never have, but I hope to at least encourage somebody along the way.

And selfishly, I hope to be encouraged.

I wonder sometimes if I am nothing more than the punching bag of the universe.  I don’t mind it if it keeps someone else from suffering, but every now and then, it wears on the soul.

And then, an incredible storm comes, I stand in the rain, and all is right again.

The circle of life.

It is what it is what it is what it is.

It is what we make of it that counts.

So make it count.

a beautiful human, inside and out.

a beautiful human, inside and out.

Last night, or early this morning …

in the wee hours, however you look at it, I visited my late husband’s grave.

Yes, myself, a proclaimed chicken, was in the darkened graveyard with only a  flashlight, my phone and a blanket to sit on.

There is no cell service there, but my music is on my phone, and having that was imperative to my visit.

The music.

My car is out of commission at the moment, so I took my mom’s car.  It was ok, but I really missed being able to put the top down and feel the heaviness of the cloudy, brooding sky above me.

I was feeling broody, manic and a bit discombobulated … much like the sky above me.

Starless.

Moonless.

Dark.

I know that, for the most part, I am misunderstood.  Only a handful of people understand me, or say they do …  and even those … well, sometimes I wonder if they really do and why they bother in the first place.

I know how I am, how I can be and I live with it.

I don’t expect others to.

I don’t count on them to.

It has been nearly four years since he left without saying good-bye.

He isn’t the first to leave without saying good-bye, but at least death is a reasonable excuse.

At our wedding, while a lone bagpiper was winding his way through the cemetery where he (my late husband, not the bagpiper)  is now buried, I had Annie’s song played.

I hadn’t given that song to anyone before or since.

It was his.

Now, it is mine.

I played it at his grave last night when I told him goodbye.

I’m not going back.

I don’t want to go back.

I want to move on.

I want to sleep at night.

I don’t want to sleepwalk.

I don’t want to dream.

I want days that are not filled with uncertainty and second guessing myself.

I want to be able to look at myself in the mirror and not think hateful things.

I want loyalty and friendship and peace of mind.

I want to be free.

I told him that, at his grave, where he really isn’t anyway.

He would, were he here, say without malice as he did many times, that it was my Sagittarian spirit coming out … the plain speech and tell it like it is even if it hurts mentality.

I guess I do.

I don’t expect that to change.

I want to be free, but I think I said that already.

I don’t think that is too much to ask.

To be free.

Isn’t that what everyone wants?

Warm weather means one thing to me …

convertible top down!  OK, maybe two things, at least once my sister’s pool is operational, that is.

There is nothing like driving along with the convertible top down and the music loud to ease every care from my mind.  A balm to my spirit, it is.  And I love it.  Every minute of it.

I don’t mind that I get crazy looks as I gaze toward the sky and clouds as I’m driving along.  They bring me comfort and ease and I feel as though I am one with them.  Who doesn’t, I ask, want to be one with the sky?

One with the clouds?  One with the birds?  One with the stars?  One with the moon?

The music varies widely and can go from Ozzy Osbourne one minute to Bach the next to Styx the next to Wagner the next.  There is no rhyme nor reason, only joy; pure unbridled, joy.

Today, the temperature reached 92° and I was in my own personal Heaven.  The sun beat down, warm on my skin and in my eyes.

I was sun-kissed and it was awesome.

I spend way too much of my time thinking of things, places and people that I aught not be thinking about and my convertible time empties my mind.  It sets me free in a way that I cannot explain.

I am myself.  My thoughts are my own and if the tears fall, they are my own as well.  I still think of things and of people, but they are are freer, more beautiful, somehow.

Open and wonderful, without guilt, without compromise.  Simply mine.

I am me.  I am a Sagittarius.  I wish, I want, I will things into being and then, when they don’t suit me, I may mourn for them, but ultimately, let them go.

On these occasions, I am nothing more than a petal spiraling in the wind, wishing wishes and floating, as though weightless, above the earth.

The hay grass dancing.

The lightning bugs flickering.

I am a part of nature and it is spectacular.

Life.

The ultimate roller coaster with the ups and downs, unexpected and exhilarating,with its realistic to the point of detriment, dreams.

And I, from this moment forward, plan to enjoy the ride.  And, when the dreams, sometimes plain, oft times erotic and breathtaking, filled with music, come, I plan to enjoy them, too.

I will embrace them and become part of them, immersing myself in them.

I will thrive in the dreams that I dream and know that I, after all, am still me, with my hopes, longing  and desires.

Human.

Still me, always me, and relishing that which comes int0 my mind.

I intend to waste none of this magnificent existence, whether real or imagined, dreams or reality.

I’ve wasted too much time, already.

Beemer, a sweet Great Pyrenees, shows his Hollywood

I haven’t been manic in months …

so I suppose I am due.  It has been a peacefully wonderful time in which my mind has been moving at a pace that is within the realm that is called, by the rational world, normal.  Unprecedented would be the word that comes to mind to describe the amount of time that has passed since the last episode.  I knew, however, that it couldn’t last forever.  It never does.  And curiously, I am glad to have my old friend back, at least for a time.

That doesn’t mean that in a few days I won’t be wishing for silence and a functionality that I can live with, but I have (and I can’t believe I am saying this) missed the wild and random thoughts that roll though my brain like an out-of-control revolving door.  Since I started art class, however, I have been in a state of normalcy.  It is foreign to me, this normal thought process, and it took a couple of weeks to realize that I could control what entered into my brain pan.  I am certain, as I have been certain of little else, that my friends haven’t missed the random, rambling, incoherent and often off the wall messages that they usually receive when I am on overdrive.

I was, I must say, somewhat surprised that a complete meltdown did not occur last weekend after taking my nieces to Chuck E. Cheese.  There are few things that have everything conducive to a manic attack as the flashing lights, loud, repetitive sounds and cacophony of smells and voices to induce a full blown manic attack.  I was rather perplexed that it did not trigger an episode;  perplexed, and yet grateful as there was much to do during the limited hours of that particular weekend.

In my experience, which unfortunately, is vast, sudden, unexpected change seems to be the biggest catalyst.  While I have gone through many changes in the past few months, I say again that an art class that I began in February has had an amazing impact on the ability to focus and thwart manic swings.  My art teacher, an enigma unto himself and a genius in his own right, has had more of an impact than he could ever know, on my officiousness to harness my thoughts into interpretive ideas.  Art has, without doubt, changed the way my mind works.

But as anything else in life, it has it’s limits and eventually, the substance that makes me who I am will become evident.  I have spent many months thriving on the racing thoughts and have learned to cope with what most people would find overwhelming and unbearable.  The things that seem intrusive to others, I thrive on.

There is nothing wrong with being different from everyone else.  As time passes, I realize that being the “odd person out” is more of an attribute than a handicap.  Imagine, for a moment, a world where everyone was exactly the same.  It would be a slow and arduous form of torture.  I can’t even fathom a world with people just like me.  I am certain that, were that true, we would brain ourselves with a hammer within a week’s time.

I knew yesterday, when I caved and began listen to Billy Joel’s “Always A Woman” that times, according to Bob,  they were a changin’.  I had refrained for a long time from the over and over and over, et al, replaying of that particular song and the moment that I made a conscious decision to play it was like admitting that I was warped.  It has been on repeat now for the past 36 hours.  It isn’t that it is my favorite song of all time, but that seems to have little relevance.

I suppose, more than anything else, I am talking to the millions of others who face themselves on a regular basis and run, screaming, in the other direction.  We are who we are.  We live as we live.  We think as we think.  We cope as we cope.  There is nothing, inherently, wrong with us.  We are who we are and if the world cannot handle us as we are, then the insecurity lies within the world, not within ourselves.  I am me.  The music I dance  to is mine.  Regrets are useless as nothing that has passed can be changed.  I am comfortable in my own skin, even when my skin seems odd.

Love me or hate me, I am who I am and irregardless of others’ opinions of me, will continue to march to the drum that my God plays for me.  I am not ashamed of who I was for without my past, my future would be irrelevant.

creationkingdom-101

Romans 12:2 ~ And be not conformed to this world: but be ye transformed by the renewing of your mind, that ye may prove what is that good, and acceptable, and perfect, will of God.

I am just as at home everywhere …

as I am in only one place.  As I look over the past several years and think of the places I’ve visited, it occurs to me that the short stay I had in those various cities and towns, in the air and on the roads simply wasn’t enough.  I needed more time.  Weeks.  Months.  Not just days.  There were things I didn’t have time to experience, time I wasn’t able to spend wandering around in and absorbing that which, although unfamiliar, was as familiar to me as my own backyard; people I didn’t get to meet and sit down with.  There was food I didn’t get to taste and sheer beauty, of which, I wasn’t able to become a part.

I suppose such words are those that only one with wanderlust can understand.  Everywhere feels like home, at least for a time.  The people are different but so similar, the air smells different, but is, again, essentially the same.  The roads all lead somewhere, the sun rises, the sun sets, the moon shines, the stars twinkle and even though I haven’t actually seen it yet, I know it is will be beautiful.  There really isn’t anywhere on earth that I can think of that I could lay my head and not, at least for a bit of time, feel at home.

Last night, I started driving for no other reason than to be somewhere other than where I was.  I was driving West.  No radio.  No sound at all except my wheels on the road and the thoughts in my head.  It was very cathartic.  After about one hundred miles, though, instead of continuing on until I came to another ocean, I turned around and headed from whence I had come.  It wasn’t my time to go; not yet.  While my family and friends are perplexed by my consuming need to go, I know in my heart that there will come a time that I will leave them.  It won’t be easy, but it will be necessary if I am to fulfill what has been predestined for me.

That sounds so mystical, but it isn’t.  I have dreamed of it my entire life.  There is nothing mystical about hoping to see a life-long dream fulfilled.  I sometimes feel selfish when I think this way, but I have to remind myself that there will be no one else to live the dreams I dream; no one but myself.  I will follow the will of my Father God where His wind takes me and I will do my very best to honor Him no matter where I lay my head.

There are so many places I want to go; some I’ve already been and want to go back again.  I don’t care, really, if I have a place, other my car, to rest when I get weary.  Where I stay is the least of my concerns; what I see, though, well, now, that’s a different story altogether.  It isn’t that I’m not content where I am, it is simply that there is still so much of creation that I want to see.  No, that isn’t right. If I only wanted to see it, then it would just be a passing thing.  I need to see it.  To feel it. To breathe it.  To taste it.  To touch it.  To stand in it; whatever “it” may be.  And need surpasses want on every level.

I consider the people of the world to be my family and friends.  I don’t think of them in colors, religions or nationalities.  They are just people.  We are not, in our hearts and dreams, dissimilar.  I suppose some of my optimism spills over into what I perceive the world to be, but at the end of the day, I need to know, to learn, to experience.  I want to see for myself and not rely on the eyes of another to mold my perceptions; not live vicariously through the stories that have been told.

There will come a time, if God wills it, that the places of my dreams will become places of my reality.  I can wait, for nothing  truly worth waiting for is time wasted.

beachday1 542

Proverbs 3:6 ~   in all your ways acknowledge Him, and He will make your paths straight.

 

Encouragement …

is the word of the day.  It is no secret to anyone who knows me or anyone who follows my blog that I am a follower of Jesus.  I am thankful beyond words that He saw fit to redeem me, but not everyone I come into contact with on a daily basis can claim the same truth.  That does not make them less worthy of an encouraging word.  Everyone deserves to be encouraged by the people they hold dear and if they have no one who holds them dear, then where can they possibly find the encouragement they need to face another day.  Just because someone does not believe as I do or think as I do or do as I do does not make them any less worthy in the eyes of the Lord.  If I choose, willingly, to withhold my encouragement simply because someone does not follow the path I follow, then I am no better than the worst of humanity.  In fact, because I have been given a heart of encouragement, if I withhold it, I am worse than the worst of humanity.

I have been through some very dark times in my life.  Times when death seemed like the best option for everyone.  I know what it feels like to lie, broken and defeated, at the very bottom of the pool.  If I keep that knowledge to myself, what have I gained but bad memories and haunting imaginings?  It is important to share the things that have hurt me deeply with others who are hurting.  It gives them another rung when they are on the last one on the ladder … another knot at the end of their rope.  To keep that which hurts me inside and not share it with people who are experiencing the same hurts and disappointments that I have faced is selfish and self-serving.  If what I have gone through can help even one person to find their way, then it was worth it.  Maybe, at the time, it didn’t seem like it, but like gold, I have been refined through the trials and fires of my life.  And through the refining, I have gained knowledge and clarity.  If I keep that to myself, then the dark valleys I have passed through will remain only that.  Dark valleys.  But if I share what I have learned, then the darkness I faced becomes a light of hope for someone else who is, even now, in that dark valley.

My cup, even when it seems to be empty, is always half full, and more often than not, overflowing.  I am an optimist.  I always have been.  A dreamer, some would say, who always had my head in the clouds.  I won’t deny that.  I am a dreamer.  I have big dreams, but those dreams have cost me, at times, dearly.  There is nothing wrong with having dreams and hopes, but if those dreams and hopes end within myself, then I have learned  nothing.  I would hate to think that all the tears I have cried and all the prayers I’ve prayed and all the hurt I have harbored have been for nothing.  I have something, as so many others, to offer.  It takes courage to open my heart and hurts to others.  A courage that, at one time in my life, I wasn’t certain I possessed.  But I know it now, just as I know that, as time goes on, there will be more valleys, more fires and more refining.  I’m okay with that, as I know that what I learn, someone else, if I am willing to share it, can find hope in their own darkness by knowing that I have faced that same darkness and came out in the light.  I encourage everyone to encourage someone.  There is  no limit to what we can accomplish if we but offer ourselves as an example to those who are suffering.  I can only hope that I am an encouragement.  If I am not, then I have failed at the most important task I have ever been given.  Encourage one another.  Love another.  Find the good in one another.  Our lives will be richer for it; of that, I am certain.  I know mine is, and for that, I am thankful.

creationkingdom-101

Sleepless nights …

were made for blogging.  There is just something about being wide awake in the middle of the night that makes me want to write; makes me want to share things that mayhaps I wouldn’t share on a normal day.  I imagine many bloggers have an agenda that they follow religiously.  I have no agenda.  The filter between my brain and mouth fails with distressing regularity and ergo, the often off the wall, “what in the world was she thinking” blog posts become reality.  This night is no different from my life on a daily basis, a life that is filled with inconsistencies, confusions and ethereally beautiful moments.  Therein lies the problem; the differences are  not easily discerned until it is too late to turn back..

I have so many thoughts going through my mind right now that focusing on simply one is nearly impossible.  I am trying ardently to deal with, what I truly believe to be the answer to a prayer that I have been praying about.  The answer was not what I wanted to hear and not the outcome I had hoped for.  Nonetheless, I did ask for an answer and was given one.  So there you have it.  Question asked, answer given.  Whether or not I am pleased with the answer is irrelevant because it is not my will I am working to achieve, but my Father God’s.  He sees the big picture, the whole thing, all of the edges and I am left in the moment I am in at the  particular moment I am in.

That’s the thing about praying.  I ask for guidance and answers and, while I should be leaping with joy when I receive an answer from God, I find that sometimes, despite my best efforts, I question Him.  In this particular instance, I realize that I have been through a very similar scenario four times at this point and all four times, the outcome has been the same.  I am disturbed by this.  Not by God’s infinite wisdom, but that I am so predictable that I would take the same path, though with different beginnings, that lead to the exact same outcome.  One that offers no closure, but simply an abrupt end to what was thought to be a wonderful thing.

Life is confusing at times.  Though it has moments that are so beautiful, it hurts my  heart to look at them, I find that, for the most part, I am looking for answers to questions that have no answers.  It seems that the questions, more often than not, are riddles and I have never been good at riddles.  I threaten, in my  mind, to simply write people off and never try to correspond with them again, and then my conscious click in. There are times when I wish I didn’t have a conscience and could think and do whatever I wanted to whomever I wanted to do it to and not have a moment of guilt over it.  But were I to go there, then Satan would be as happy as a witch in a broom factory.

Throughout my life, I can think of four distinct relationships that have ended without closure.  Without reason or explanation.   Four distinct experiences that have, for reasons unknown, ended the same way.  I am certain that there is a lesson to be learned here, but obviously, I have not yet learned it.  I trust too much, share too much, give too much and then wonder why I am left standing, empty handed and alone, at the end of the day.  One would think that after so many experiences that end the same, there would be a red flag; a warning sign or some other type of blinking light that says “you don’t want to go there again”.  But there isn’t.

I am too trusting, too gullible, to easily manipulated.  I know this, but it doesn’t seem to help me learn from past experiences.  It is difficult, though, when each experience starts differently.  It is impossible to know, at the beginning, how it will end.  It doesn’t make being too trusting, too gullible and too easily manipulated any easier to swallow at the end of the day.  It leads to disappointment, as much in the deceiver as  in myself and adds layers to the wall that has to be rebuilt in order to preserve my sanity.

Friends come and go.  Some are much better at deceiving than others and, as I said earlier, being a gullible sort, I fall for the “we have so much in common”, “we are cut from the same cloth”, “I feel like I’ve known you forever” line.   I think that, in the future, I will be oblivious to this line of thinking.  I don’t like being used and am saddened that I have, once again, been simply a sounding board and ego booster that, once the course has been run, am nothing more than a  blast of wind on a summer day.

I wish I had the answers.  I wish I had the knowledge that is not revealed to me.  I live my life walking on faith and sometimes, the faith is misguided.  That is no-one’s fault but my own.  I am gullible and I do have a seeking heart.  That makes me an easy mark for those who’s only agenda is lifting themselves to a higher level.  I don’t hold it against them as they are doing what they do.  I hold it against myself for enabling them and allowing my thoughts and feelings to feed the fire and come to the realization that they thrive on this enabling and then forget me completely.

It is an humbling experience to learn that, even though I should know better, I still fall into the same traps of wanting to be a part of something important, something beautiful, something exceptional only to realize that I was only a stepping stone.

I want to be angry, but that is not in my nature.  I will cry and I will berate myself for being a fool, but know that, most likely, I will repeat the same cycle over and over again.  The complexity of my heart and mind is, in reality, simply too much for most people to comprehend and so they just pretend that I never existed.

I don’t mind it, overmuch, but with each transparency, I learn that I will likely never learn.  Such is the nature of my life.  But I’m ok with that.  I figure if I walk through a door with my eyes wide open then any surprises that come up are on me for, when I walked thorough the door, I did it willingly.  In my mind, I go to places unknown, with no stresses  or pain; no insecurities or moments of foolishness, but only the beauty of God’s Amazing Grace.  I am blessed even when I feel  more like I’m being punished.  No one can ever punish me as much as I punish myself and as long as I take it, it will continue.  Praying for the strength to break the cycle, even when it hurts.  I am me.  I am Gina.  I am not a doormat.  I will work each day to remind myself of these basic facts.

twitter

When you don’t get to say goodbye …

it leaves a void; a hole that can never be filled, a wound that never quite heals.  No one ever thinks that the last time you see someone will be the last time you see someone.

It doesn’t matter if it is a friend, husband, wife, mother, father, sister, brother, child.  It just doesn’t matter.  We always expect to have the next time.

But sometimes there isn’t one.

Sometimes life takes an unexpected turn that leaves us bewildered and wondering what, if we had  been given the chance, we would have said.

I found this out myself, first-hand, a few years ago.  I said goodnight to my husband and the next morning, as I did every day, left him sleeping when I went to work.  .

I, as every day before, left him a note telling him good morning and that I loved him, but didn’t wake him because there would be plenty of time when I got home for idle chat.  While I was working and running petty, unneeded errands, he left this world and when I got home, ready to share my day with him, he was dead.

There was no next time.

No next moment.

No next day.

I was devastated.

How could something like this happen?  How could there be so many things left unsaid?  So many dreams left unfulfilled?  So many moments that never found their way into the reality of every day life?

It is disheartening to find oneself with so many unanswered questions and unsaid words of love and devotion.  It seems that as time passes, there are even more words that come to mind that, if there had been the chance, I would have said.

We, none of us, have a promise of a single minute other than the one we are currently living in.  I learned a valuable lesson that day.  I learned to say what I was thinking, speak my mind and share my heart with the ones that are important to me.

But as all things, as the world continues to turn and time continues to pass, old habits find a way of re-entering my life.  I find that there are things I want to say, but wait because I am certain that now is not the time.  Or maybe I can’t seem to find the courage to speak that which is in my heart.

Either way, it means that I really didn’t learn anything from my experience and that all the pain and sorrow I suffered was for nothing.

What is it about being human that makes us hold what we feel so close to our vest?  To keep the thoughts and wanderings in our minds, hearts and souls to ourselves because we either feel that we will be misunderstood, ridiculed or simply ignored?

What is it that makes us feel that we are less than we are simply because we doubt our own importance in an ever-changing world?

I don’t want to be that way.  I want the people I love and care about to know that I love and care about them.  I want them to know that I think about them often, sometimes daily and sometimes several times a day.  I want to have the courage to tell people when they have hurt me so that they will know what moves my heart.

Time is fleeting and life is too short, even when there aren’t extenuating circumstances.

I look at my own life and instead of embracing it for what I have learned, I compare it to the lives of those around me.  I belittle my own experiences because in my mind, they are mundane when placed side by side with others.  I make excuses to keep my thoughts to myself and find reasons not to say what I need to say.

But if I don’t say what is in my heart, then if, while I sleep, I die, those words and thoughts will die with me.  The same goes for everyone.  There isn’t always another chance, another day, another moment in time.

Sometimes the last time really is the last time.

I try, sometimes, to remember the last words I said to my husband and I can’t.  I know at some point, I told him I loved him, but did he know just how much?

Did he know how I respected him for his knowledge and contribution to my growth in life and spirit?

Did he know that I needed him?

I can only hope where he is concerned, but in the here and now, with family, friends and loved ones, I have the power to tell them what I need them to know.  The power is mine and mine alone and if I choose to keep the words to myself, then if some unknown event occurs, the power that was mine will become a weakness I will be given no choice but to live with.

Life is short.  Don’t waste a moment.  Don’t miss an opportunity to tell someone you love them, are proud of them, are happy for them, miss them, are praying for them.  Don’t let the sun set on words unsaid for there is no promise that the sun will rise on that life in the morning.

Be well, my dear ones, and give each other the words that only your heart can say.  For tomorrow may not come and then the words will have no place to go.

spiritofjim