Scared of Daddy Long Legs

Castles

The castles that I have been building,

all have washed away~

No matter how large I build them,

they don't ever seem to stay

And so I cried out to the Lord,

"Oh why don't my castles stand?"

That's when my Savior answered me

"Because you've built them all on sand."

Diane Reed

Do Overs

If I could do it all again

would I make the same mistakes?

Would I bypass all the times

when I know my heart would break?

Would I still fall in love

with the father of my kids?

Would I do the dumb things

I remember that I did?

If I could go back,

and undo everything I’ve done…

Would I trade it all

to once again be young?

It is a tempting question,

to consider what I’d do,

to be able to wipe the slate clean,

To undo the things I wish I didn’t do…

And yet, I have to wonder

what the trade off would have to be

if I undid my life…

And could re-invent the one called “me”

Even with all I now know…

and the lessons I have learned~

The “Do Over” I could have,

and the places I’d return,

I would still have to choose

all I know of in this life

If it meant being someone else’s mother

and someone else’s wife!

For all the ones that I have loved…

makes it worth it in the end~

To live the life with the ones I’ve loved

Yes~

I’d do it all again.

Hopefully with lessons learned

to make some slight revisions~

To gift me with the wisdom of today

In tomorrow’s new decisions.

Diane Reed

Like a car accident.

Have you ever woken up on a Sunday morning and blinked and all of a sudden you find yourself smack in the middle of Friday? Have you ever meant to return a phone call or reply to a text or an e-mail on Monday and realized by Thursday you still hadn't? Sometimes I am just so overwhelmed by life that instead of doing what I know is right, even what I actually want to do, I somehow retreat so inside of myself that I miss out on my present life. I talk myself into thinking that I am too tired or that I need to rest or I need to turn my brain off and make the world go away. And before I know it, a whole weekend has passed by and instead of making a memory, I find myself right back where I started, back to work... in what you might call the Monday's of my life.  Over and over and over again... It always seems as if life is passing me by.

I don't want to have a list of regrets or a bucket list that never got touched. I look back at my life once upon a time when every minute was maximized with activities that I truly wanted to do. Boating, camping, even soaring filled my days. I went to bed tired and woke up with joy . You know, that is what is different. I don't wake up with joy anymore. Every day I was ready to do more.  Was it because I was so busy that I seemed to be able to fill my days with so much? I remember when my babys were little. I couldn't wait to experience life with them, to hear what new word they might say and to just live life with them. Today my parents live right up the street and I know that someday all my best intentions for having them over for dinner more often or stopping in for a visit will be lost. I know that when my children were two or three, it seemed like just yesterday and wasn't it just yesterday that I was nineteen or twenty?

I know that somewhere deep down inside I still feel like I am, nineteen  or at least thirty two. And now I have a son who will be that age on his next birthday and a daughter who is old enough to live on her own and really doesn't have to check in with me daily any more but still does out of the kindness of her heart, and at times I feel as if I am on the other side of the guage and wonder are my kids feeling like they need to spend more time with me or they will be sorry?  I wonder how did I ever find myself here? Slipping down this thing called life like sand through an hour glass?

Life seems to have happened to me like a car accident. You don't really remember when the metal hit the flesh, when the impact took your breath away, when you seemed to not be so in control of your body any longer. I feel as if I am back and forth in a mental kind of therapy, a wake up call so to speak.  I have physically challenged myself to be in the mode of self repair... losing 40 or 50 pounds depending on where I am in my journey at the moment, growing my hair a little longer, exercising a little more, actually learning how to jog again, taking care of my skin and teeth more deligently and really feeling more motivated to write and finally snatch the  dream of officially calling myself a writer. And then there is spiritually, as I try to somehow find my way back to God, sometimes clawing my way back, as I dangle over the cliff of letting go and grasping at anything I can to scramble back up and find Him.  I know He is there. I know He never left. I know because I have come back before to find Him patiently waiting for me in the very same place He always is, like a parent waiting for a tardy daughter.

Recently I have even succumbed to something I said I never would, I have found myself in therapy. I have never trusted anyone enough, to want to really go through that door. I have never felt that  I could, after working in that field for so many years, I had extreme judgements regarding it. But I had reached a place in my life where a little talk therapy couldn't hurt and if you know me, you know that talking is not where I fall short. My therapist is amazing. She draws ideas out of me that I never thought of before. She doesn't go for the most obvious but makes me dig deep down inside and start at the first layer. She explains about how we all have containers in our lives that we keep trying to fill, and depending on how many holes we have in those containers and how we fill them is the key.

 For some reason during our last session, I felt as if I left with more tools, and that I was finally "getting" where and what my holes were and that it was up to me to fill them... NO ONE else was going to do it for me, even if they wanted to. I have always been sad that I never got a chance to say good bye to my grandma or my dad or my ex husband before they died. My Grandma and I had a really special relationship when I was a child, but the selfishness of my youth and my busy schedule as a wife and mother and then my divorce and lack of finances and the miles between us always seemed to be an excuse as to why I never got around to visiting her when she got sick. My dad dropped dead of a heart attack jogging around the block at 51 and there was no warning and by the time my ex husband asked me to come see him and by the time I finally arrived, all he could manage to say was he was" sorry" and all I could say was that  it was all "okay" and in that moment it was but in the years since, I have had dreams of conversations I really wanted to have  with him, but never got the chance to and grieved the closure I felt that one last conversation might have given us.

But during my last counseling session it dawned on both of us that in all the things I was grieving, I was really grieving my youth. And for some reason just the knowledge of recognizing that filled a huge hole in my container. Recently I have had some "Aha" moments where the light bulb has come on and I am understanding what has become important to me. It is not so much "do overs"  or closure but me feeling satisfied that the ones I have loved in my life know it, without a shadow of a doubt. Recently when I hear a song, I think... I want that song at my funeral. I know, I know, what a morbid thought... but not really. I have come to believe that life is not wasted if it can be a lesson for someone else. I have a very special childhood friend who went to her friend's funeral. Her friend had been inviting her to church for years and my friend got so touched at her funeral, she started attending that church. Now she is so involved there and has brought other friends and family there to attend also. So even in her friend's death, the circle continued.

Life does not have to be like a car accident. We all need to stop driving so fast and slow down and enjoy the view in front of us rather than from the rearview mirror.

God's timing would be a lot quicker without us messing with HIS hour glass!

So maybe the next "Joyce Meyers" I am not... but I do like my little title here... Today I feel more sure that I am on my way to finding the answers to some of my questions. And when we really are honest with ourselves, we are on our way our whole lives but WE tend to take that fork in the road we knew deep down inside our soul would not lead us to the final destination that God was leading us to. We are constantly complaining about "God's Timing" but maybe He would have shown us the way a lot sooner if we had listened to that inner voice that told us to stay in the direction we were on and to NOT take that bend in the road. But what did we do? We ignored that voice and trudged ahead to the places WE wanted to travel.

 We are like rebelious children who want what we want...

The kid who climbs up on the counter to reach for the cookie jar only to have everything come crashing down. We didn't even get the cookie in the end when if we had done it the right way we could have had as many as we wanted after dinner but we just couldn't wait and now our cookies were spilled all over the floor, with broken glass and there would be no more cookies for us for that day at least.

How many times does God set out that proverbial hour glass as we learn our lessons and the sand has almost finished the journey down the hour glass and we come barreling in with our own plans, not understanding that God had put that hour glass there for a reason and see it and think we better start it now so we can get to the end and turn it over to have to start back at the very beginning even though God had been ready to give us what we had prayed for then?

 HInd sight is 20/20 but for me it is 350/350! The lenses always seem clouded lately and I am constantly turning over the hour glass in my walk with the Lord.

It's really not rocket science. I understand that Faith is about letting go. Letting God take control. There are all kinds of verses about it. 

Committ your way to the Lord.   Psalm 37:5

I am weary with my crying; my throat is parched;My eyes fail while I wait for my God Psalm 69:3,4

The Ephisians were a group of believers who were rich beyond measure in Jesus but lived like paupers because they were ignorant of their wealth. Maturity in Christ comes with the proper growth in each individual. Working on different parts of our lives, in some cases, not one is any more pivitol than  another. Each area needs attention. You cannot water only half a garden at a time. Sometimes I have forgotten to water something in my own actual garden and am amazed when at times, what once looked hopeless and dried up, begin to turn green again and come to life in due season.

In the same way we are  being rooted and grounded in HIS  love as we learn to trust not our ways but HIS, as we learn that even the deadest amongst us can be revived and restored to give fruit again.

And you were dead in your trespasses and sins, In which you formerly walked according to the course of this world, according to the prince of power of the air, of the spirit, that is now working in the sons of disobedience. Among them we too all formerly lived in the lusts of our flesh. Indulging the desires of the flesh and of the mind, and were by nature, children of wrath, even as the rest.   But God being rich in mercy, because of his great love with which He loved us, even when we were in our trasgressions, made us alive together with Christ (by grace you have been saved.) Ephesians 2: 1-5

Somewhere along the way, on one of those journeys where I chose a different path, I lost that message. I forgot about God's grace even though I was right on a path leading me to understanding it more. We mess up, and try to turn over the hour glass once more... But this time... I will wait for God to turn it over and give HIM back the control to decide where HE wants me on my journey.

A letter to me at Nine

The funny thing about growing up is you can do it at five or at fifty five. And I have been discovering that I have been kind of stuck for a long time. And yet the mistakes I have made along the way are very clear to me now. I guess that is a good thing. I mean, what a waste to have gone through everything I have and not have learned something from it.

This month Oprah had a section in her magazine where featured women wrote a letter to their younger self. I thought it was such an amazing idea that I just had to take a stab at it.

Here is my letter to my young self:

Today you are so filled with expectation and dreams, your whole life is ahead of you. Your life is virtually an unwritten story waiting to be written. Some pages, you may want to tear out along the way, some you may want to hurry through, some will keep you stuck and some will be happy memories. Embrace them all. Don't waste any of the lessons, learn from them and move on. Don't beat yourself up for mistakes you cannot change.

You want to grow up so fast right now. You can't wait to have a boyfriend, to drive, to be done with school. And then someday, to have babies and then you won't be able to wait until those babies talk and walk and I just want to tell you to SLOW DOWN!!!! And be a KID!!!  Life will fly by fast enough without you helping it along. LIVE in TODAY.  Don't worry about tomorrow.  These days will someday, become the "Good Old days" and you will regret not enjoying them as much as you could have. Always wanting the next step to happen too soon and not enjoying the moments that will only be sweet memories that you will wish you had enjoyed more.

Let things go. Don't dwell on the things you cannot change. Don't hold grudges. Things will happen in life that are just plain wrong. People will hurt and disappoint you. It is just going to happen. Nothing you can do, can stop that. But the way you handle those hurts and disappointments,"IS" totally in your control. Don't waste your time in regret, just brush your shoes off and move on!

Finally, you are a dreamer, and a story teller. You are one of the lucky ones. You know what you want to be when you grow up. Don't wait. Follow your dream. Fight for it. Educate yourself. Find out how to make it happen. Don't wait for someone else to make it happen. You have to go out and make it happen yourself. Write that novel you have always wanted to write. Write as many as you can. Touch people with the stories in your head. Ask questions, learn lessons.  But don't forget to be quiet. Don't interrupt so much.  You can find your own voice when you need to. Take the time to take turns and really listen. There is power in listening. Sometimes if you talk too much, people just hear the words.... when you are quiet and listen, you can find the true hearts of people and then and only then, can you finish the story you first began.

Age is all about the lessons we learn, the doors we open, the stories we live and what we do with what has been entrusted to us.

"The great thing about getting older is that you don't lose all the other ages you've been"
Madeleine L 'Engle

Oh yeah, and by the way. Don't let your mom curl your bangs like she does! You look like a goof ball!

Tester

AOL 'has been nothing but a problem while hosting this blog. This is just a test. I have been switched over to my gmail account and just checking if it is coming through correctly.

Thank you.

The Banquet Table

Soooo God has given us another "opportunity" to grow our faith. I got the call late one night. It woke me up out of a dead sleep. My husband had been laid off. We had prayed for other people going through the same and now it was our turn. And yet for some reason, I did not panic. I felt that God was working in ways that we did not have to understand.  I also felt that it was my husband's turn to find support from me that had been lacking for a long, long time. You see, I don't like being the strong one. I was comfortable for many years as my father's daughter. He took good care of me and I really miss him.

Today, I must grow up. I might fall on my face in-between bouts of strength but that's okay... because being down there, just brings me closer to my knees... which I have been on quite a bit lately. And there I have found new vision. I am almost excited about being at God's mercy. Watching the doors HE is opening and being quiet and listening, being patient and waiting to see all HE is doing. And it is the craziest thing but I feel new joy where I once was bored. I feel that there is a new horizon just waiting to be conqured... and at the very least, new seasoning for my faith banquet and new material for our testimonies!

I have gone through deaths and divorce, earthquakes and being jobless and yet I have no doubt that God will provide. We will never starve as long as He serves us even greater portions of faith than we ever knew possible. I am glad for this time that has caused me to return to the  banquet table.

You prepare a feast for me in the presence of my enemies                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                         Ps Psalm 23:5
  

There Is Power When I Am On My Knees

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bJwDxWddgSk&feature=related

Listen to the above words and that is where I am today. On my knees. Literally. In the course of my life I have discovered that there really is power when I am on my knees, on my face, in my most rawest form. I feel Mary at the foot of the cross, I feel Eve when she realized she was naked in Eden, I feel the prayers of those crying out to the Lord in desperation and I feel me....

I know that I have shared this song here on my blog before but really listen to the words this time. I mean really close your eyes and soak Him in and maybe, get down on your knees and see what I mean....

On my knees I find God in His purest form. Funny though, I can find Him in my car two inches away from another bumper that He helped me AVOID or in the waiting room of a hospital waiting for a loved one,  He was there during a test at school, after my heart was broken as a young girl and during my divorce or even in a silly moment of praying for a dumb parking place. HE is where ever I want Him to be. But when I am on my knees I feel that I am where He wants me.  Maybe because He knows that I will  find Him  in the deepest part of my soul and I wonder why I don't come here more often, just to praise Him. Why is it always when I need Him?

Today I make a deal with me to go to my knees more often. It feels good. I love our time together. I have been so caught up in me that I have forgotten what coming home feels like. The prodigal daughter, it really does feel like a party as he welcomes me into his presence and I can rest in Him and know that He IS in control.

Filling in the blank

For as long as I can remember, my mom was an artist. I can recall the smell of the liquid clay being poured into molds with thick rubberbands holding them together. The smell of firing the greenware and then I flash to scouring the beach for tiny shells with my best friend as we would run to show my mom the treasures we would find as she would gush her joy at us, inspiring us to run back for more. Even way back then, in those pre-school days, I remember my mom needing to be creative. Years later, I remember helping her set up for art shows with A-framed  pegboard easles that my dad had made for her to display her newest media, painting. Soon my house was filled with customers when I would come home from school. Sometimes it was annoying to have to babysit every weekend she was doing a show or to help her set up in the wee hours of the morning but it was kind of a comforting annoyance, because I was proud of my mom and the way people admired her talent.

Years later, she passed the baton to me. It all kind of hit me without warning. I knew what kind of work went into being an artist and though I loved to draw as a kid, I never really filled in the blanks with "ARTIST" as a career choice when I was younger, that was what my mother was. I wanted to be a writer. And yet slowly I found myself creating and selling and yes, pulling out displays and lugging my wares to show after show, setting up and breaking down as the other artists around me did the same. I remember wondering if our customers knew all the work that went into each show. Not only creating but the lugging of our things back and forth to each show we did.

My daughter is an actress. And yet her talents are endless. And I don't  say that just because I am her mom, she really is. She is an amazing writer, singer and the best actress in all the world (okay, well maybe that last part is me being her mom) but really she is amazing but I don't think that until lately, in the last few years, she would put ARTIST in the blank of things she would want to be when she grew up. Just like me, she grew up with a mother as an artist. She lugged things to artshows for me and sat bored waiting for me at a lot of them and she was the one babysat while I went to many of them. And yet something in our blood line, something that we almost couldn't seem to fight overtook us and made us fill in artist in one of those blanks. Recently, she got into her first real show without her mama and she is flying high.

My daughter never does anything halfway. I love people like that. She always had a talent for acting but was not seasoned or experienced when she first began auditioning but with each part she did not get, she gained the experience through rejection and soon grasped the confidence she needed in an audition, knowing she was good but got scared at the auditions, she just kept putting herself through one after another, until she began to enjoy the process and get the part!

As an artist,the process was the same for her. She has really evolved with each little creation she has  made. Each one, has become more intricate and  unique. http://www.etsy.com/shop/thenakedbird  I so pray that these first shows are a success for her and yet I know, the frustration of a bad show and the elation of a great one. She will learn by experience which ones to do again and which ones to not. All the shows I ever did were good learning experiences for me. I networked and made great  life long friends at some of the biggest duds and if you really want to get technical, I  even met my husband through a show I did. I became friends with a girl who did a show at her house and years later, she invited me to her church where my husband attended! So you never know...

Today, I know that I HAVE TO write. In all the years of filling in the blanks I think I have always known that. I remember for a long time, as a young girl,  I wanted to be a stewardess and then a model and of course a wife and a mother and my dreams of "what to be" seemed to go on and on for me with the regular ambivalence of youth.  For years and years after I was a wife and mother I filled in another blank.... a blank that I was surprised to fill in, to follow in my mother's foot steps... My drawings turned into paintings... at first for gifts and then as a business when I started getting orders. It surprised me at first but then I thought., "I can do this." And so the blank I filled in was ARTIST. For the last two decades to be exact. 

 My cards and writing the verses have helped to contain my desire to write for a while but now I feel as if I am bursting with words. I HAVE TO write. About my experiences, lessons learned, stories I have had inside of me for all of these years. For kids and adults. Parts of me that have wanted to write since I knew it in second grade still have so much to say. I can't hold them back any longer.  All day long I write inside of my head. I have always asked a lot of questions, been very interested in people, in their lives and their stories. I care about what they have to say, what their answers are and I have been jokingly asked...          "Are you writing a book?"      in response to all of my questions. And you know what my answer is today? Yes I am. A million of them if I have time.

Closer Lord To You

When the world begins to break me

And life just overtakes me,

Nothing here, will shake me... It will just draw me closer Lord, to You.

When my heart can't find a reason

to face another season

You tell me to keep believing, and then draw me closer Lord to YOU.

In the thunder of the sea,

You come and rescue me,

The storm has set me free as it draws me closer Lord, to You.

When nothing seems to matter

And my dreams are all in tatters,

You take my life so shattered, and draw me closer Lord, to You.

The world may try to break me down,

But I was lost BUT NOW I'M FOUND

I was blind but now I see...

The world just reminded me... of where i'm supposed to be!

By

Diane Reed 04/12

Like Frogs in Boiling Water

I have been writing to me.

 The concept is not a new one, but recently someone gave a friend of mine the advice to write themselves a letter  rather than the person he really wanted to send it to. So the deal is, you get it all out but you just save it or delete it. I have chosen to save all mine because I need to remind myself the craziness of it all.  It's funny because I have always resisted everything Psychological... since I started out in the field when I was younger and had gotten very dissolussioned by some of the Doctors I worked for.  (Perhaps that is why I am one hot mess at this point in my life....~smile.) Recently however, I have I have begun to give Psychology a shot and it has been funny how useful a lot of it really is.

This blog has been very helpful as I try to sort out different things since it allows me to think and reflect a lot. But because I have chosen to share it with others, I can't always share every little detail I might want to, since it would not be fair to the others I may write about. But the letters are different... they are just to me and no one else. And somehow they give me the satisfaction of getting it all out but not hitting that notorious SEND key which I have been doing way to quickly these last few months.

Life kind of hit me head on this last year and as I approach the anniversary of the beginning of some of my biggest mistakes, there is definitely a lot that I would do differently today, I am really reflecting on exactly how I even got to this place. My life has been very interrupted by the unexpected and even more to my reaction of it. 

 I liken it all to a little frog swimming cluelessly around in a pool of water as the temperature slowly increases and before that poor little guy ever knew what hit him, he has been boiled to death. Hence, the saying; "finding yourself in hot water" must have come from. In working at the mineral springs, I have witnessed many a poor frog caught in that situation and somehow I  can really relate. I slowly and very cluelessly have  jumped in the warm water without realizing just how hot it was becoming. As I look back, I totally see the water and the heat and the end result but then hind sight is 20/20. I just thank God that He gave me a second chance and the ability to turn down the heat! 

Sorry, I was looking for pictures of boiling frogs and thought this was funny... NOT that it has anything to do with my own boiling frogs... but everything is metaphoric in my world so who knows. lol!

Attitude is a choice

I am in a constant state of self reflection right now. Everything I think or reaction I have is under my own scrutiny. I say something and then suddenly, know I could have handled things better. In life changing ways and just in the little events that happen inside of each day. For instance today, a client came in. I was pre-warned how difficult she had been via phone calls and in scheduling her  and her mother's appointments. She had mentioned being a "writer" in passing to one of our staff when making her appointments and I may be totally wrong but I think that she almost expected that we were going to comp their services, due to her "dropping"  the information of being a journalist of some sort. Though later we tried to google her (you know you can google anything now days and find it) and nothing came up with her name.

She arrived almost 15 minutes late. She called ahead stating that it was not her fault but she was running late. She had also had the Hotel she was staying at call us to tell us she was running late, and when they called they  said  that she had not informed them that she needed transportation and they were waiting on the driver. So before she arrived we actually knew the real reason she was running late. When she arrived she was already angry and was feeling rushed and stated that she did not want to pay for her services if she was not going to get the entire time. Even if it cut into clients behind her... Well, you see where I am going... Her entitled attitude was crazy and by the time she dropped the "being a writer" card on the counter, I had pretty much had it with her and sweetly told her that we had a lot of writers as clients.... Okay, I know, I probably could have left that one out but come on honey... how transparent. 

I know that their day was ruined before they ever arrived. This miserable woman was not going to be made happy unless maybe we offered to pay and we did not have the authority and at this point no one was going to give this poor soul anything for free. I am not sure anything else would have helped. But the thing that made me sad was her mother looked mortified. She quietly told us she was sorry and her daughter jumped down her poor mother's throat and raged at her "Don't apologize we have done nothing wrong!"  At that point, I felf so sorry for her mother. I suggested that perhaps I could ask the Therapists if they could give them the full amount of time and they all stepped up to the plate and agreed. By this time, the woman who had worked herself up into a frenzy before ever opening our door and walking inside agreed and proceeded to go change where she told one of the Therapists that "since she was a writer she felt she should not pay and was appalled." Ultimately, she ended up canceling her appointments. The Therapists were relieved because they felt that she would have found something wrong in the massages. It was an unfortunate experience that left us all on edge for the rest of the day.

I have to stop and reflect and ask myself could I have handled it differently? Probably. But this entitled woman is just an example of the many different encounters life throws at us. Thankfully, 90% of our clients arrive pleasantly and leave floating out of our door. It is usually a happy place to work but inevitably that 10% can ruin your day and send you in a tail spin. I am working on not allowing the negative things to effect me and all of a sudden realize that I have. I mean, I soooo have in the past to the point of taking on a stranger's anger. I mean, obviously, that woman was angry way before she ever reached us.

Somedays I will handle people like that as a challenge. I can almost play a game with myself...Trying to get their day to turn around. Today, I wish I had, more so for the sake of that poor mom who had to deal with spending the rest of the day with all that anger. I wish I could have just made a difference for her sake. But the new me will not take on the anger of the world. I can only do as good as I can, one day at a time. I may not always be in control of how others treat me, but my attitude back at them is totally my choice.

Life Interrupted

I am officially back! I think they used to call it "Taking a powder" Whatever that means. I guess I could google it and find out exactly where that saying came from but the context that I am using it in is I checked out for a while and now I am BACK! It feels so good too. The whole process has been a series of attempts and failures but today I feel that I can get past this interruption. Everything I have written about lately points toward the direction I am going!

One day at a time, I am getting stronger and am one more day closer to being free. Stopping the habits of thinking the way I have been for so long takes a lot of effort but maybe it is a little like a diet... each day, gets a little easier until you see the results on the scale and you feel inspired to set another goal and yet another.

I have been so convinced that my life was stuck that I stopped living it. I mean I functioned, I got up every day, went to work, paid my bills and lived my life where others on the outside looking in might not have guessed what was going on inside of me but if they could have only seen the torment. The war in there was not a pretty sight. I had myself so convinced of not being able to climb out of the fox hole I had found refuge in. But slowly I am seeing the light. And you know what? This life that God has given me, is not so bad. The people I call my family and friends are actually blessings. The silly little annoyances that I had been so bothered by are actually not annoying anymore. I am beginning to see the glass half full rather than half empty, stopping to smell the flowers and enjoy the rain, see the silver lining in the clouds and have realized that today is the first day of my life>>>> UN- interrupted.

The Light Is ON and somebody is HOME!

Sometimes it takes falling off a cliff or a Mack Truck hitting me head on for me to really GET how I am screwing up my life. Other times it might just take a year of red flags for me to finally shake myself and say "Sister what the hell????" Sorry but I am in a state of reflection and this one is going to be strong so if there are children in the room... back away from your computer screen now!

I came home the other day and all the lights were on in our house but nobody was home. We just got an electricity bill a while ago, that would knock your socks off so it was annoying to say the least. But there are only two people living in our house now and one of them is me. So that narrows it down a bit. And don't tell anybody but the guilty party was me. The saying "The lights are on and nobody is home" comes to mind in a humorous way that somehow does not make me laugh in this case. I think that it dawned on me then in a way, that all of my life I like to blame the other guy for my dumb decisions. This time, I have nobody to blame but myself, and I am not talking about leaving the lights on.

My life has been one hot mess for the last year. I feel like Rumplestillskin finally waking up from the fog. NO ONE could tell me how off the track I was. I had to make all of the mistakes myself. Just like our kids, have to learn. A car accident or a ticket makes them drive more cautiously, and hopefully along the way, they are just little annoying mishaps, lessons a lot easier than the one I have had to go through this last year.

I guess it is a process. Letting go of the things you know are just dead wrong. I kind of felt like the kid again. Rebellious and so angry about my life. I had a year long tantrum in a way. And I think that there was no other way for me to fully appreciate the stains on my carpet rather than the huge stain this one could have left on my life and everyone who loves me.

Another saying that comes to mind is; The hell you do know is better than the hell you don't know. Not that my life is hell by any sense of the word! But as I begin to look back and reallly see the warning signs of jumping back into a frying pan of old pain, I cling to the life I once cursed as boring and stuck. I thank God for turning on the light and giving me the free will to make all the choices I have. But to know that without a doubt this last choice in this particular case means that the lights are on and somebody is home!

WHAT was I thinking????

There have been times in my life, where I have found myself in a valley, in a ditch, face down in the mud! At other times I have found myself on a mountain top, in a field of lilie's and in a rich, lush forest. I think that I have been on mountain tops more than I noticed.  The joy I experienced was sometimes lost in the chaos of my life. Kind of like planning a party, you are so busy making sure that all the details are dealt with that you don't get to enjoy it.

At other times I have found myself looking back upon the valleys, dark clouds seem to hover over the memories and I feel a chill. It is painful to remember the sorrow that brought me to those places and yet I realize that if there were not valleys, we would not learn to recognize the peaks when we got to them. To be able to stand up on top and survey where we have been and wonder why we chose the forks in the roads that we did.

Just recently I have come face to face with my own choices and have actually heard myself asking "ME" out loud, "WHAT were you thinking?!"

I quietly admit ...in a small voice ... "I wasn't. I wasn't thinking at all." As I head up the hill to the next peak, hopefully learning how to stay up there longer.

"For every minute you remain angry, you give up sixty seconds of peace of mind."

Anger has paralyzed me in my life. It comes out in different ways. Frustration, sadness,  passive aggressiveness, being selfish, being secluded, and sometimes even rage. I am not proud to say that those closest to me have probably witnessed some or all of these times in my life. Others would be suprised to know that about me. I can smile and act perfectly okay in front of the people that I choose to not share that dark side of me with, which really makes me realize that it ALL is a choice. Maybe anger is not a choice but the way that I choose to control it or not is. Sometimes I have said things or raged things that I wish I could suck back inside of me the minute I have said it. At others time it may take a few minutes for me to process and feel the guilt and shame that I ultimately always will feel after an outburst.

Lately, I have been really working on my choices. Trying to control my attitude behind the rage. Like a lion tamer inside the bars. I sometimes feel as if I can see myself from the outside looking in and I don't like what I see. I have decided to take control of that lion and feel the impulses don't have to overtake me. I have more power in each right choice I make. The control strengthens me more and more as I choose to not react.  There is power in others not knowing every stupid thought in my head. Sometimes the secret can be between me and myself.

I am not entitled to be angry. I am allowed to have feelings but that does not give me the right to lash out in frustration and selfishness because I am upset. I am learning that everyone is allowed to make mistakes or disappoint me or even be angry with me and I need to choose to try to stand in their shoes and hear them from a perspective that is not just mine.

I have wasted so much time not seeing the other guy's point of view. Like sand in an hour glass, my anger has stolen precious minutes from my life. Ralph said it best when he said... "For every minute you remain angry, you give up sixty seconds of peace of mind." From now on, I choose peace of mind.

The MOST Perfect Gift

You walk through your front door, tired and weary from another day at work and then fighting the rush hour traffic on your way home. You drop the mail, mostly bills, on the table by the door and notice something there that you didn't notice before, A brass lamp sitting on the edge of the table right next to all of your bills. It looks oddly familiar, it has an iridescent shine, you pick it up and run your hand along the gleeming metal, polishing the brass and  you are suddenly taken by surprise as a burst of beautifully colored steam escapes from it's stout and it is knocked from your hands as a Genie appears. You would laugh out loud if you could breathe but somehow everything stands still until you let out the breath you didn't realize you were holding. "It's okay to breathe" laughs the Genie. Ahhh he is friendly you think to yourself, feeling relieved and then mock yourself thinking "As IF this could really be happening... The Genie proceeds to tell you that you have been chosen...to be granted three wishes. And the story goes on from there...

What would you do? I have always thought, my first wish would be three more wishes....I mean I am not going to waste my opportunities. But then I begin thinking... I mean really thinking. I have this stupid wish of wanting a new floor... carpet, wood, at this point, I don't care! I mean how long does it take to grant that wish? It's been over ten years. I have had new cars in-between and I know that I could have had ten new floors for the price of one car, so maybe it is all just relative. And so I ponder, what do I really want? Well, materially or what? I mean I want my kids to have their hearts desires, to be able to have enough to give to them... I want to be able to pay back our parents for all they have given us... to gift them something wonderful while they can still enjoy it... And sure... I'd like new carpet... smile... but even more I want all my loved ones healthy and happy. I want my kids wildest dreams to come true, I want my husband happy in what he is doing. I would love to be able to just write and have what I write have some kind of redeeming quality that helps others.

I see that proverbial Genie as I ponder further... If I could not walk, I would wish to walk, if I could not see, I would ask for sight. If I could not hear, would I not feel that hearing music or laughter or even annoying sounds would be an amazing gift? There would be my three wishes. And how amazing that I already have all that. Am I grateful. Well sure. Do I remember to thank God for the basic gifts I already have? No, not nearly enough!

Really, when you think of it. How often do we stop to think of what we do already have and appreciate it? Why are our prayers always about what we need or want? Why don't we stop and thank HIM for the relationships that are good, rather than focusing on the things wrong with the ones that are broken? Why don't we see the life we are given as an amazing gift? I mean I know how to read, to write, and I have the freedom to do both. Even though gas and electricity, food and water, all cost money and bills keep coming, My life is good. My friends are wonderful. My family is awesome. And my God gave me the perfect gift. Along with all the extras, He gave me HIS only son so that I might know Him in this life and then live forever with Him in eternity.

I don't need a Genie in a bottle or wishes granted... well maybe just one... to live my life as successfully as I can, in honor of the gift I have in Jesus. As we remember Him,  this coming season, perhaps we can reflect on all we do have and start remembering to be grateful  for the most perfect Gift.

God Is Like A Lifetime Movie...

The other day I was watching a Lifetime movie. It was about this mother who was having visions of where her lost daughter was. It was  totally contrived and most of the actors were horrible but it still made me cry. Those silly Lifetime movies always seem to do me in. Throw in a mother and daughter and a happy ending and you will get me every single time! But it was funny, as a writer, I pretty much could have guessed the formula and yet I sat rivited for two hours between cleaning, watching that silly old movie.

Lately, I have related a lot of my feelings to my spiritual side. In that movie, that mother was not going to stop until her daughter was safe. I so related. The mother would try to send her daughter messages via her vision, trying to let her know that it was going to be okay, that she was going to find her in the abandoned underground whatever it was that her baby was locked inside of. Of course there were some twists and turns...the boy who had locked her up was suddenly killed and so couldn't tell her where her daughter was... It is funny now that I was crying through the whole contrived thing but like I said anything with your child needing you is going to touch a part of me that will never not be touched. Heck Dumbo and his mom, Bambi and his mom, cartoons will even do it to me.

 And yet isn't that what God does also... He sends us messages that HE will save us. That HE will not stop until we are okay. To just sit tight and believe!  Over and over again in my life, I have felt Him. And over and over again He has saved me. And our reunion has been aweome..... To lean back in my trust and know He was in control through it all.   To recognize that HE is our rescuer is that moment we get to experience, like forgiveness when we think for a second we can see HIS face.

What an amazing time that will be when we truly can see HIM. But for now, I need to remember that God is like a lifetime movie.... always the same formula, He wants that happy ending for us, to be confident in Him and to feel safe. He is the one who won't stop seeking us when we are lost or out of the fold,  to find us and make sure we are okay.

One Day Closer To Being Free

Recently I heard someone say... "Everyday that I was able to stay away, was one day closer to being FREE". She was talking about an abusive relationship that she had experienced years ago. All of a sudden a lightbulb clicked inside of me. An aha moment happened and I realized that all of our lives, we struggle with things    "one day at a time"    and each day we are able to resist whatever it is that we are doing, that we know disrupts the lives God would have for us, the closer we are to HIS perfection in what He offers.  If only we would listen to Him and not our own flesh. One day at a time sweet Jesus... the song goes... it all sounds so easy but is it really? Oh Lord, why did you have to give me free will? And yet thank you Lord because the choices mean that much more when I choose correctly.

I guess guilt is a good thing. It is our moral compass between doing what is right and wrong. But guilt can also be used to wreck us! Self appointed guilt which is not of God has destroyed me in my own life at times. I have lived with the guilt of my divorce for all these years. And even though Godly people have told me that I did the right thing, I still wonder what "For Better or Worse" really meant. I was not cheated on, which in my mind is the one OUT God gives us to free of us our vows. In my case, it was drugs and alcohol which was the mistress that finally made me give up. Years later, on his death bed, my first husband told me that he was "so sorry" He died shortly after that. The life he chose to live had shortened his. But I still wonder, if I had stayed, would he still be alive? Could I have saved him? Maybe, but would it have been at the expense of my children? And what about my vows? I may never know but I do know that even if I did make the wrong choice, I am forgiven. And yet can I ever forgive myself?

Move forward, a couple of more decades and I have made many more mistakes that I know God has forgiven me for. Some whoppers. But I was in a process in my journey and I seemed to keep moving along. Today I feel stuck. I am in the train wreck of my life. The process seems to be caught like a rotary chain off the track, just stopped. Slowly I force it and it may move a link or two but for some reason it is hard to get past this place I am in. This spiritual war inside of me that seems to need more tools to help it along than what I have. And so I set out to find the tools. At first I wanted to find a place where I would hear that it is "okay" kind of like my divorce. But then again, I never truly believed that it was okay. I still feel horrible about it. And then I looked for that tool box that would maybe make it okay to merge it into my life. For it to be "okay" to have it as a lesson learned, turned spiritual but that is definitely NOT going to happen. And so now comes the painful place... the place where I have to let go... One day at a time.... And hearing that short little story by someone saying that each day she could stay away was one day closer to being free... made me reailize I CAN do the right thing and I WILL be FREE! And maybe someday when I am ready to share the whole story, I can help others by the whole story or maybe just one little sentence.... One day closer to being free.

CRAZY

For most of my life I have avoided really thinking too deeply about anything. You might not believe that if you have ever read my poems. But I think that they have been my only outlet  for my heart. Other than that, I have made every effort to drown out the daily trappings of really feeling. I am not sure where it all began. My childhood wasn't perfect but it was defintely not horrible. My parents were married until my dad died at 51. I did not worry about money or divorce. But for some reason I was always worried.

When I was a young girl, I had my usual childhood crushes and love fantasies but did not really fall in love until the summer before my junior year. In that relationship I experienced many firsts. Love, heart break, joy and pain. Our break up was horrible. It caused me to build very tall walls for all my future relationships. It also caused me to form a kind of hardness when it came to compromise. When my first husband and I divorced, I was filled with guilt that I have carried for almost two decades and yet in a way, it gave me new strength. A strength I think that I have carried since that very first relationship. An awareness of my own instinct of survival.

Sometimes I feel as if I am hanging from a cliff and yet, I am too stubborn to let go. I know that eventually I will find my way back up and actually  have over and over again in this journey I call my life. But lately, I feel as if I have been second guessing myself. I have found myself close to the edge again. I am dangling over the proverbial cliff and can't find my footing. And as crazy as it sounds... I feel as if I am at war, with my seventeen year old self, fighting to save her... as I try to pull her back up and yet reel her in and gain control of the impulsive side of her that fell off the cliff.

 The me who I am today, seasoned with experience and hopefully wisdom and the young impulsive girl have come face to face and it feels so crazy trying to find a place where both of me can exist.

I thought that I was grieving my youth but maybe... just perhaps, I have been grieving a part of me that I lost long ago. The part of me that allows me to really be happy when I am happy. Because somewhere along the way I lost the joy and I am ready to find it again, to not let go, to take that hand and climb back up and finally know it's going to be okay.

Age is just a number!

When I used to work in the adolescent department of 4EAST in the Psych Ward at San Pedro hospital years ago, the kids would tell me: "Age is just a number!" They were vieing for more privileges and also for the respect of their point of view. I was only in my twenties in those days and in charge of their inement futures. I had the power to give them time out and low scores on their score cards which in turn bought them privileges or took them away. At first, I was pretty easy. I wanted them to like me. Eventually, I grew a backbone for their sakes and realized that I was not doing them any favors by making it all about me and if I was liked or not. I began to exercise some of my authority and took my own emotion out of it, holding them accountable for their actions. I realized that their parents were paying good money or at least their insurance was, to give them the best lessons that they could get in a very short amount of time.  I have had my past patients contact me over the years and it has been rewarding to see that the ones I was tough on came back later to thank me.

The lesson that I think I learned from all that is ~ that the things that aren't always easy, or the most popular or comfortable for us at the time, the structure and hard work of it all, will eventually pay off. The ones that I was hard on, grew up and appreciated the structure they needed.

Age really is just a number and it is all relative in the scheme of things. My dad once told me that in his experience in work and just in life, he had run into some amazingly wise twenty years olds and some very immature forty year olds.  Lately, I am surrounded by kids who are adults in their own rights but to me, are my kids age but I see them at my level. They are wise beyond my own years and I learn from them everyday. But they are "my kids!" They come and go  in my daily life but each hold a special place in my life like footprints on my heart.  I  pray that I leave footprints on their hearst as well. I think of the ones who have touched me more than others and miss our times together and yet realize the things I have learned from them have been better than any education I could ever have gotten at an accredited school.

From my perspective these "kids" have wisdom and insight beyond a lot of my friends are even my elders around me. I am blessed to have had them in my life and I pray we stay connected somehow forever but always in my heart and hopefully in their's, that they have learned from me in some small way as well and to remember no one is too young or too old to change or learn or teach and that age is just a number.

Adult Parents of Adult Children

There are all kinds of things that describe us.... Adult Children of Alcoholic parents come to mind as one of the slots that some of us have slid into in order to give us a label and a place to belong. Sometimes we describe ourselves with that label in order to explain certain things about ourselves or just to give us comfort to know that we are not alone. I remember realizing when I fit into that slot and I cried because I had felt that I was the only one who had ever felt the way I did. To realize that there was a whole community of us some how brought me comfort in a weird way.

Recently, I have decided that I fit into yet another slot and wonder if others can relate. It is the "Adult Parents of Adult Children" category. There should be a special place for those of us who have not quite reached the place in our lives where we have come to grasp the fact that we have adult children, therefore we should definitley be adults ourselves and yet when did my kids become smarter than me?

My daughter has always had the voice of reason and I have learned to appreciate it. On the other hand, my son has always been the jokester. From the time he was a little baby we could always crack up over his sense of humor. When he was three years old, his grandpa (my dad) died. I am not sure that I ever really realized the impact he made on my son. One day, I remember hearing my dad as he laughed out loud in another room in the house. The kind of laugh that you want to share in. I came running in to see what was so funny and there was Chad, all three years of him, leaning over the pacman game as they both watched baby pacman dance across the screen. My dad was so proud. It had all just begun as a little game, teaching him how to manuever the little pacman guys. I really think my dad had been surprised when Chad caught on and actually started playing. I mean what three year old do you know who actually gets to baby pacman? I still can't.

I was so glad that I had given my dad a grandson.They had a sweet little bond. My dad bought Chad a jeep that last Christmas he was with us. I am glad that at least one of my kids got to meet him. I tell my daughter that she met him in heaven when he handpicked her for me. And you know what? He did a great job. I miss him a lot.

Something has happened in my life recently, that has made me miss him and think about him more these last few months.
I guess I never really understood the impact that my dad had made on my son, since he had been so young. That little boy is now a man who remnds me so much of my dad. There is a picture of my dad squatting down and it looks as if it could be Chad in the picture! (Bottom Right Corner) They are so much alike in so many ways. .Extremely intelligent and yet a little bit of a rebel, and pretty stubborn sometimes which could be pretty frustrating for me, but he could always make me laugh and with a very dry sense of humor that could drive me crazy at times, and yet a serious side that believed in honor and loyalty and integrity that amazingly has been passed on down to my son who surprises me at times with his sensitivity and soul. He is truly a descendant

Happy Birthday My shining STAR!

Twenty four years ago today... I was sitting up alone counting contractions.

When my son was born seven years earlier,  I had made the mistake of going to the hospital at  the very first sign of pain and being stuck there  for the next  twenty hours before he arrived.

 The next time, I was NOT going to be trapped in a hospital bed for almost a whole day and soooo I shaved my legs, and took a bath and painted my toe nails and counted the time in-between pains while my dear husband slept soundly.

 Finally around 6AM I could stand it no longer and woke him up. He groggily asked me if I was sure... Ahhh wrong question to ask someone who spared him the last 8 hours of painful contractions. "YES, I am freaking sure!!! I told him. By the time we were told that I was already 6 centemeters, I thought my dear heroic hubby was going to cry from sheer joy after having been stuck at the hospital with me for the last babie's delivery for twenty hours. It still was another five hours of waiting and then just fifteen minutes of pushing and when they put my sweet Brooke Lindsay in my arms for the first time, I immediately forgot all the pain in an instant as she looked up at me with her bright blue eyes. She definitely had me at hello and has swept me "away" ever since. I actually gave birth to my very best friend.

When she moved away, it was probably the hardest thing I have ever gone through. But I have to say that I would not want her to come back in the way I would have when she left. Because I love her enough to want to set her free to live the life she is supposd to be living. To find her own way and make her dreams come true. As long as she visits me and makes time for her old mom and dad from time to time, I am fine. I have realized that her dreams are my dreams and returning home without making those dreams come true is not what I want. Though I do have to admit I like being  one of the first ones she calls when something good happens or still needs me when she needs someone who she knows will listen without judgement when she needs an ear and a shoulder.

I sit here tonight and remember how twentyfour years ago, we still hadn't met, how I could only imagine who that baby inside of me was going to be. And it all seems to have gone by like a blink of an eye, I used to give the slumber parties and bake the birthday cakes and plan every year trying to make each one more special than the last. Even though I am so very proud my bright and shining STAR that has gone out in the world and made a difference and is still knocking their socks off... I have to settle back and remember that night so long ago when it all was just beginning and think... it all went by way too fast.

I love you Brookie Baby,

Happy Birthday!

Standing in front of the mirror

In the depths of hell, in the midst of a crisis, in the bottom of the pit, are we thinking "Oh good, someday my story will help others get through their own bottom of the pits?"

 Hell NO!

I don't think so.

 When I am in sinking sand, all I am thinking of is;       Throw me a line!!!!                                                                                                                            NOW!!!!

 And sometimes NOW doesn't come. At least not in the way we want it to.

I have come to the conclusion that not everyone is going to understand me or do they need to but there is one person who does need to figure me out and that is me. I need to gather all of the tools that I can, to learn how to come to terms with my own reflection. All of my life I have been avoiding the metaphorical mirror. Wow, all of my life? That is a long time.

I feel as if I have been chasing myself around trying to get to know me but just like everyone else, I have to scale my very own wall.
The me that has been hurt and misunderstood all of these years is having a hard time intergrating with the me who has been like an open book, willing to share my story. I finally have something that I want to keep all for me. Me. How crazy is that? Well, pretty crazy when you figure I am writing this on my own public blog!                                                                                                                                                                                                What a nut I am.

But here I am. Finally.

Standing in front of my mirror and really looiing at the one looking  back at me.

And you know what? I am not as scary as I thought I would be.

Outside of Me

Have you ever asked yourself the question... "Who do they see, or what comes to mind when someone says my name?" Ahhh wouldn't that be wonderful and simply horrible if we could actually know what people were thinking? I guess in my case, each of my kids might have a different definition, my husband, my friends, my parents or my co-workers, aquaintances, parents, in laws, siblings, and strangers all may have different perspective of who we are. If only we knew. It might be like getting to peek inside your own funeral service. What would they say about you? What do you want them to say about you may be the better question.

Maybe I am just going through some sort of mid life crisis right now but I will hear a great song and  think, I want that song at my funeral. Not so much for some morbid reason but because I want my life to have a message. I want to leave a legacy. I want my life to have mattered. When someone thinks of me, I want to have made a difference. If someone asked me today what my biggest fear would be, it would be not to hear the words "Well done good and faithful servant." Though I do understand that the message my life will leave should not be at my funeral but today, everyday that I live it.

Lately, I have been relying on knowing that God had a heart for David. How he messed everything up time and time again and struggled to be in God's favor. He committed adultry and murder and everything on top of it while loving God. To know the story of the prodigal son and wonder am I like the son or the jealous brother? Or the story of Martha and Mary, am I the one sitting at Jesus' feet or the one complaining? When my dad died....he didn't have a lot of lose ends left untied. He didn't have anything but a packed room of admirers left at his funeral. I remember looking for as many signs of his faith in God as I could find. I was desperate to know that he was in heaven and I found a letter that I am sure God allowed me to find that spoke of his faith when he was a young kid in the air force. But I realized his life was my evidence that he was in heaven. He didn't talk a lot about his faith but he lived his life and loved his God in the best way he knew how.

I have to wonder would my life be enough? Thankfully it doesn't have to be. God's grace has sufficently covered me and yet is that all I want to depend on? Of course it is and it is enough and I am grateful that  with all my faults and failures, I am covered in HIS grace and God sees none of it . But.... Sometimes I feel as if I am on the outside looking in, shaking my head at what > I <  see and want to be better, grace and all, I want that grace. I need that grace but is there ever a time when we don't think; Oh Lord, why do I know the things I should do and yet find myself doing the things I should not?

 I have a lot of anger inside of me. I am not sure why. Lately I have been slowly peeling the layers back trying to understand. It is a slow process. When I started, I thought it was going to go a lot quicker. The realization that months could turn into years is overwhelming. The rage, the judgment and critical spirit of my own nature scare me sometimes. Have you ever heard yourself say something and wanted to suck it back inside your mouth before the words actually hit the reciever's ears? Or even raged at something and watched helplessly not being able to stop? Do I sound crazy? Maybe. But more than not, I have had other people share with me times at being at their own wit's end and appreciating their honesty. Maybe we are all just a little bit crazy?

All I know, is that sometimes I feel that I am outside of me looking in, seeing what you may see and it scares me to death!