punkerdoos

A decade, three jerks, and some gratitude.

2012-01-23T08:11:00.000-08:00

When I was 13 me and my mother and 2 men broke into Great Falls National Park at 2 am. She snuck off with one of the guys who happened to be my brothers English Teachers son who she was “dating” and left me in the woods in the dark with a guy she met at the bar that night, who was a man from England who belonged to the Queen’s Royal Airforce. I don’t remember his name… I just remember in my mother’s drunken stupor after this whole escapade she gave him my grandfather’s flag from his coffin and I was mad.

When I was 14 she set me up with a 30 year old Egyptian man whom she also met at the bar where she worked and sent me off on one of the most horrendous and uncomfortable evenings of my life.

And when I was 15 she would come home and wake me up after her shift at the bar and drag me out of bed to drive over to her boyfriend’s home to see if there was another girls car in his driveway. She’d drop me off a block or so from his home and then I would walk down the street in the dark and spy to see if lights were on and if there was a car and if there was I got a full description and would report back and then we would go home and she would cry and I would console her till she passed out and then I would go to school.

And when I was 16 she moved in with her boyfriend and I lived in the apartment alone and paid for groceries with the money I made at Subway.

My life is filled with crazy stories like that, my mother was absolutely insane and drank like a fish most of her life and her parenting skills were terrible… but she would have been the first one to admit that.

But here is the funny thing…. Last Friday was the ten year anniversary of her death…. And I miss her…

Yeah she was insane

And yeah she was a mess

And yeah she drove me crazy and made me want to scream

But when she died it meant both of my parents were gone…. And I would never get to sit on a couch and be someones daughter to anyone again…. And even if they are jerks … you still miss that.

Both my parents missed the mark in a myriad of ways…. I guess we all do somehow when it comes to parenting…

But you know when I look at my son the sun rises and sets on him even when he is being an idiot

And my parents looked at me the same way even when I was being an idiot…

There was not much consistency when it came to either of them. I flew back and forth from Virginia to Idaho most of my life….

And when I was in either of their homes for too long I drove them nuts because I never really just accepted most of the stuff they told me…

I figured if I had to parent them then I should get a say in how I got parented too

They yelled a lot …. Both of them

And they did things that were insane for a parent to do…. Both of them

But there were moments of greatness…. In both of them

And they weren’t overt gestures…. I mean my mom did lots of outlandish things to spoil me but I don’t miss the shopping trips

I miss the way I would walk into her house and plop on her couch and set down Brayden and let him roam and just become a daughter again.

I miss the way she would hang onto every word of every story I told her

And how you could see the wheels turning in her brain when I came to her with a problem because she was hell bent on figuring out what I should do about it

I miss making her laugh and I missed the way she would talk to me like I was a child….

Strangely I miss that from both of my parents…. The way they would lecture me when they thought they knew what was best…. It used to annoy me and it isn’t so much of the words and what they said but it was nice to have someone in the world who was so concerned about me and my wellbeing that they would passionately lecture me on my behaviors and choices…. Now the only people that can do that are outsiders who do not have a vested interest in me the way a parent does and siblings who are all younger and it makes me roll my eyes when they do.

I miss the way my dad would clear a path to my door at night in my messy messy room just in case

And the way he would tell me not to take a back road home from work

And how he would lock the door and jump when he woke up if any of us approached him

I miss the way he would sit attentively hanging on every word that we said just delighted at anything we did

I cringe sharing this because I am certain there are many who will want to console me with the standard “God is your Father” whole shebang…because they think feeling a void means I am somehow distant from him…and don’t realize that I actually see the beauty of God in this very feeling of emptiness…

Because It makes me realize that even in the most flawed human there is a love that transcends failure.

My parents both sucked in a lot of ways….

But there were moments when I realized that the sun rose and set on me to them too and they loved me the best way they could.

I could spend my life thinking about the horrible things and sometimes they creep up and I take a day to yell and scream at the air hoping they hear my frustrations…

But even if the moments were few it was really nice being a daughter to someone and I miss that. I miss feeling the way that feels and I realize that regardless of how close I am to anyone ever again I will never get that experience.

It’s a gift

It can’t be manufactured…. Its forged through reckless and uneducated encounters day in and day out.

And when I see people who are distant with parents because they are idiots… a part of me understands because I was there too….

But a part of me wants them to just breach that uncomfortable divide and just stick with the relationship even if it sucks because if in 365 days you only get 30 minutes of them being present and looking at you with the look only a parent gives…. That is the moment that you think about when they are gone….and that is the moment you can’t ever get back

You are ordinary to so many people in the world but even to the most idiotic of parents you are extraordinary…. And possibly the only taste of a miracle they ever know… and when you get to taste that with them…. It feeds a part of you that is screaming…. “you are amazing”…. Because you are and no one knows it better than those two people.

She was a jerk…. My dad was a jerk…. And to Brayden I will be a jerk…. We are all pretty much jerks at one time or another…

But I was loved as a daughter….if even for little teeny moments and I miss that… a lot and hope somehow they know that….

A decade doesn’t make that ache get any less…. But it does make me more grateful.

Not just an ordinary day... ohh noo it isn't!

2012-01-18T07:42:00.001-08:00

Today may seem like an ordinary day…. But it isn’t because today in fact is the day one of the most brilliant people I know was born

The girl in the blue that’s Glenna (she’s brilliant too) but see that girl in the pink…. Yeah that’s Carla

She is my friend

No, scratch that….she is more than my friend she is my soul sister

I met her when we were nannying in New York back in the 90’s.

Carla has the charm of a southern bell and the mouth of a sailor. She loves interior design and is an amazing artist and has a food storage that should be cataloged and given it’s own show on TLC. She home schools and takes photographs and writes and is a closet foodie and sometimes when we go to Wal-Mart when we are hanging out she will wear summer shorts and winter boots and not bat an eye when I wear my pajamas I been lounging in and no bra.

We can sit in silence and watch reruns on the DVR… and we can talk till we are both hoarse.

When you go to a movie with her she will bite you and hit you and dig her nails into you during a suspenseful part and then after it is all said and done she will sit with you in the theatre and review it with you piece by piece like Siskel and Ebert and not care that everyone is gone and they are cleaning up around you.

If she is talking she is impossible to interrupt and if she has a thought she will move heaven and earth to be heard…

When we go to a new restaurant it takes her approximately an hour and a half to peruse the menu and ask a million questions before deciding and then while she eats she will give you a play by play of the entire meal from a taste buds perspective all the way down to how it is digesting.

She does not merely have a conversation with you… she interrogates… she probes… she probes more than even I probe and I am pretty proby. She likes to think and pick things apart and dissect the how’s and why’s of what a person does…

She is tenacious and does not give up easily especially on those she loves and cares about

When I broke the news to the nannies that I kissed a girl and I liked it…. She snuck upstairs to the door when I was leaving to take a minute to get me alone and see how I was doing after sharing such a big thing

And when I moved without telling her she got mad at me and said she was disappointed because she thought our friendship was stronger than that

And when I said I was a putz she forgave me but not without discussing it first

She feeds my Twilight addiction…and is my go to girl for when the movies are released

She is opinionated

And brilliant

And kind

And beautiful

And if I go seven days without seeing her I start to itch

I adore her in every single way and she makes me laugh… like the kind of laugh that makes you double over and start crying

She is honest

And authentic

And I know we are all grown up now but when I am with her I feel like that 20 something nanny again and just let go and have fun

Today I am thanking the lucky stars she was born

Happy Birthday my friend….you are a beautiful soul and I adore the heck out of you…

The Snow Queen.... it's a story

2012-01-16T06:46:00.000-08:00

Once upon a time there was a girl but not just the ordinary type. She was a Snow Queen with long silky hair that looked like frost on a tree and eyes the same gray color as a frozen lake. She was peculiar to say the least and lived her life on the branches of a tree far up in the mountains where the clouds meet the earth and everything seems a bit misty.

She spent her day perched on branches, happy to sin with all the birds and whistle with the chime of leaves caught in the breeze and it was rare to see her feet at all because they didn’t touch the ground.

Though she was young she had within her the wisdom of the sages and it was that wisdom that held her tightly during the warm summer months and kept her from interfering with the seasons and moons and weather. It took great patience all those months to sit quietly and watch the world bloom around her. As she watched blossoms spring and butterflies break from their cocoons and children and lovers spread blankets on the ground below her tree, it was hard for her not to covet the life of the Spring Maiden or the Summer Goddess who everyone seemed to love and adore. Their gifts seemed greater than hers, and the Snow Queen was often jealous of the way everyone seemed to cling to their world.

But, just when she would begin to envy and wish that perhaps she had been born under the first spring moon or had the summer solstice in her blood line she would look to fall. Poor Man Fall, whose entire legacy was one of dying. He seemed to have the roughest job of all, stripping trees of their dresses, taking the green from the grass and gently but purposefully taming the sun and shortening days, causing folks to put away their picnic baskets and drag out sweaters and coats. She thought often how happy she was to not be a cursed season of transition and as she remembered this suddenly those sages spoke to her soul and she was content to wait on her branch to blow the cold air south down the mountain and into the valley.

She thought of her satisfaction at seeing that first covering of snow. The excitement she felt at seeing her very breath drip off the eaves of homes and limbs of trees and she lived for those frosty mornings when she could create wonderlands in meadows that photographers and artists tried to capture with canvas and camera.

Yes Spring had birth and Summer had leisure but she had artistry and magic. She knew the world waited eagerly for their first glimpse at it each year.

Last year had been her finest work ever, so fine in fact that the accolades made her linger longer than necessary. She wore out her welcome by gracing them with one final frosted scene in late April and it seemed no one was appreciative of the extra effort she made just for them.

The Snow Queen was wise, but she was still all girl underneath those eyes like a frozen lake and hair like frost, and when she heard the complaining, and as he travelled throughout the countryside, she was upset to see the grumbled faces of the people throwing her snow off of their cars and muttering loudly as they cleared paths to their homes. There were no children laughing and sliding down hills, no artists in parks looking at trees and how delicately her breath was perched on a wire. It seemed that last snowfall in April no one could see anything other than how all that snow was ruining their day, and she realized that even with all her hard work sometimes people are just too busy to look up and enjoy a winters day the same way they do a summer one that creeps into late September.

She was resentful as she looked out on the world below. It was two weeks past Christmas and she still had only dusted them with a little frost here and there. She exchanged her breath for cold bellowing wind and decided if they did not appreciate her last year than perhaps she would show them how miserable a winter could be without her magic.

It seemed to be working because birds carried back messages from pigeons on roofs where men and women and children stood staring out across the valley, wrapped in robes, waiting for a sign of snow. She would dust them occasionally but then retreat back to her tree letting the sun ruin her work before they could blink.

The spring maiden and the Summer goddess prodded her and tried to coax her from that tree and when they realized that she would not budge they would take the trip themselves down the long mountain and into the valley to spread their gifts among the town hoping to relieve some of the unrest they felt in the air.

But, sun and warm was not what they wanted and even as the people stood outside looking up and soaking in the warm they grumbled because what they really wanted, what they were longing for were trees weighted down with snow, and piles of it packed to the side of their walk. They wanted mountains that turned from brown to white and a reason to wear snowbooots and fur slippers. They wanted to sip cocoa by a window and watch large chunks of white fall from the sky, to drive cautiously, to have blue hands and pink noses and snowball fights. They wanted the Snow Queen, anything else just wouldn’t do, and the very people that spent their time looking down were now looking up toward the mountain where she stayed perched high on a tree with arms crossed and brows furrowed and stubbornness seeping from every pore.

It was the wind who finally changed her mind. It caught her unexpectedly one early morning in January. And as it rustled through the trees it asked the very question the world was asking too… “Why won’t you come out to play?”

The Snow Queen buried her head and refused to answer but the wind was relentless as it always was and kept pressing.

“Do you no know this is your time to shine? The world awaits your gift, the gift that only you can bring.”

“My gift was unappreciated. They do not know the love I share in it. They want it on their terms not freely and so I will show them what it is like to not have me with them.” She answered with her head still buried deep in her lap.

“You know I am nothing without you. I am just a cold blowing annoyance, but when you are with me and we dance you and I create magic. We create scenes dreams are made from and plays are written about and songs are sung to. We have danced the dance as long as I have known you. How can you leave me now?” The wind asked the Snow Queen.

“I am not leaving you, I am leaving them this has nothing to do with you.” She answered looking toward the wind.

“Oh but you see my friend it has everything to do with me and with you. By denying the gift in you to punish another only ends up punishing ourselves. Your purpose is to share, to love, to create, it is not to be appreciated. You do not create wonderlands to hear a thank you, you do it because you are the Snow Queen and it is what you are put here to do. You have magic in your soul, but that magic will turn to poison if you do not share it with the world around you.” The wind answered.

The Snow Queen listened to the wind and knew it was the truth. Never had she been more miserable than these last few weeks perched in that tree.

She thought about how it felt inside as she covered the town in a blanket of snow. Thought of how much she enjoyed giving the world a reason to slow down and cuddle up and stop for just a day. She remembered the way her heart would burst inside as she watched men become kids as they slid down hills, and mothers become angels as they laid on the ground next to their children and taught them how to make wings in the snow.

She missed the feeling of peace that would wash over her after she spent a full day decorating roofs and trees and woods. How wonderful it felt to be emptied and then refilled.

It was the creating not the accolades that made her glow. The knowing that she was sharing a piece of herself with the world around her and it was beautiful, the fulfilling of a call, the dispensing of a gift, that caused her heart to beat to its fullest.

And so without word or warning she rose from her perch on that tree and jumped into the arms of the wind and danced through the town for two days straight creating a masterpiece more beautiful than the town had ever known. It was a snowfall of epic proportions, one that went down in the record books. Schools shut down, business closed, angels were made, hills were enjoyed and for a few days the world stopped and rested peacefully under the blanket of the Snow Queen.

Birds eye view.....

2012-01-10T08:37:00.001-08:00

“Most birds were created to fly. Being grounded for them is a limitation within their ability to fly not the other way around. You, on the other hand, were created to be loved. So for you to live as if you were unloved is a limitation, not the other way around.” – TheShack

A friend of mine shared this quote with me a week or so ago. It has basically rocked my world since then and has made me evaluate how much time I spend on the ground vs. how much time I spend flying.

This world is a tricky tricky place…. The momentum of the spinning can cause us all to just keep trotting along paths just hoping to not fall off somehow. Our belief in gravity and energy and positive and negative ions are formed in our heads and stay there only getting applied when we talk of science of physics but rarely do they seep out into our life… and yet they are there every day. Invisible truths we blindly walk past… invisible laws we read about and think about but rarely sink into and trust.

Since I was a little girl I knew I would have to have a job… it’s just part of life

I knew I would have to have a home…it’s just part of life

I knew I would have to save… it’s just part of life

I knew I would have to pay bills and taxes that I needed to learn basic home repair, that tires go flat and cars are necessary and eating three square meals is needed and that the goal was conventionality.

To dress and act and support myself like I saw everyone else doing

And now I am an adult and realize how far along the beaten path I have wandered… how distant Robert Frosts road less taken really is….. and to look for negative outcomes in my life because of this path would be fruitless because there are none.

By every visual standard I am living a good life. I live in the cutest apartment I have ever lived in. Have a job with a company that saves lives and things seems smooth….I am healthy and have stuff and save and change tires…

But if you crawled into my head at night you would know… that the truth is… I am a grounded bird on many levels. It’s a truth that causes unrest in me daily because there is this voice inside of me that says….there’s more and you’re missing it.

Not more stuff

Not more things

Not more success

Or more promotions

Or more accolades

But something more

A whole life filled with the opportunity to love all day long… to taste those things which cause my heart to beat faster, that inspire me and then due to that inspiration cause good to pour out of me like a faucet.

There is a world of energy, and enlightenment, and power and love that I am so finitely tapped into now it’s like a jumper cable instead of a hardwire into my system.

He loves us…. Oh how he loves us…

And yet so little of my day is focused on that love and the many many forms it appears in and is instead focused on excel spreadsheets.

He reaches for me and yet I only feel his touch on the rare occasions I stop and silence the world and feel it

He cares

And yet I wander the earth wondering who else does…

It makes no sense that the very things that are at my disposal to make me fly I only tap into 10% of my time and the very things that keep me grounded and disconnected I devote my life and thoughts and gifts and talents to…

And then I wonder why I don’t fly

I am a bird… with wings made to feel the air below me

Feathers meant to soar

I am a bird made to love and be loved and that is my true heartbeat and blood flow not this medical science version of an organ with chambers

I have energy pulsing through me… more than some light bulb I flick on and off in an office all day

I have positive ions… which reach out to connect with other positive ions to create a canopy of good more than some AA battery I put in my remote to watch TV all night

There is a force… a divine force which keeps me from falling…. Larger than Newton’s apple, more powerful than the weight of the world….more dependable than physics and less changing then the scientific communities definition of a planet

I was created to be loved… not to work or pay bills or do what needs to be done according to some definition that man made years ago….

I was created to be loved

You were created to be loved….

And so my big question is… how much time is spent fulfilling the very purpose of my creation…. And how much time is spent fulfilling the world’s definition of it?

I cringe at the answer to that… I cringe at my answer to that

And I wonder what this world would be like if we somehow tapped into those things that make us soar with the same tenacity as we seek out and expand that which gives us a paycheck, or status, or some manmade version of security.

I don’t know much…. But I do know I am on the search for Robert Frost…. And his road less travelled because I hear it makes all the difference….

I don’t know where it is… or how to get there… or if by chance I am already there and just cannot see it…I am directionally challenged you know…

But I guess that would be the benefit of flying…. The world is much easier to navigate with a bird’s eye view.

Once Upon a Time...

2012-01-05T10:18:00.001-08:00

New year’s… it’s a time for resolutions… goals… all the things we want to do which is really just an optimistic way of thinking about all the things we didn’t do in the last year. I’m usually a fan of the resolution but this year I just decided that maybe instead of thinking about all the things I didn’t do last year and how I failed and setting some goal based on those things… that maybe what I would do is just be grateful…. Grateful for a year that taught me great things.

I have been going through each month in the last week, looking at pics, trying to remember significant events and what I was up to. Some of those memories made me laugh and some of them made me cry but the one thing they all had in common was how grateful I was for them. I felt more this year than I have in any other year and 2011 made me realize what a numb life I had been living out of some sort of desire to protect myself.

I used to dissolve myself in the land of books… a place where it was safe to feel in a disattached kind of way. Getting emotionally involved with fictional characters is far safer than delving into the messy lives of real ones. But this year I have put my books down and have gotten to know the people around me….to really try to see them, not for who they could be, or who I knew them to be… but for who they are right in that moment, and it has been eye opening and wonderful.

I have discovered outlets of creativity I didn’t know I had…. Wrote an entire book, began painting for the first time, made jewelry, and t shirts and cards and even began to love to cook. And I cannot help but wonder if this surge of creativity is not directly connected to this new world of feelings.

2011 taught me to redefine family… that I am not the patron saint of assholes, that people can still fool me, that intention are like boomerangs and when you have impure evil ones even if you are smiling they are uncovered and they bite and if they are pure and true.. eventually they are discovered and valued.

I also realized one of the most powerful aspects of love I never knew before …. And that is love is an independent feeling. It does not rely or grow or exist because of another and it does not dissolve just because you stop feeding it. It is powerful and healing and if you surrender to the love and just recognize the pain instead of surrendering to the pain and just recognizing the love…. It will transform you. It is brave and courageous and it empowers me to know how deeply my ability is to experience it and how unconditionally it lives inside of me… and in a strange way all of that has made me realize and taste and experience another dimension of what God means when he says I am his beloved and his desire is for me.

I am a different person today than I was January 1^st 2011….very different….and in some ways people may judge that to be good and in some ways they may judge it to be bad…I don’t really think it is either… it just is. And I am grateful for this year… so grateful down to my core at how well I was taken care of emotionally and physically and spiritually. What a gift my life has been these last 365 days. I feel alive… I feel on fire….I feel strong and sure and solid…. And none of that could come from anything other than what this year has forged in me.

My resolution for 2012? Is to experience it that’s all….every day.. to soak it in…. and draw on the love I have been given… and share the love inside of me….to not make excuses or try to find reason… to live that is all.

To revel in the days of a glorious sunset…. And to revel in the days I want to stick my head in the sand and hide…

To love in a way that is true to my heart and no one else’s definitions or desires.

To follow my own compass even if it means getting lost and wandering in unfamiliar territory.

I don’t know who I will be at the end of this year and for the first time in a long time I don’t really care because I really am enjoying this Rebecca right here in this moment and all that is happening to her.

I don’t have it all figured out and I hope I never do

I don’t know what I want to be when I grow up

I don’t know what great thing I was put on this earth to do

All I know is that love brings all the good back to you… and that pain is so fleeting….and that people are beautiful if you really see past all their outside words and walls and image…

I know I have a voice and when I listen to it and I am true to it the best things in life come from that

I know I am loved…. In a way I never knew before by the divine and by the not so divine and both make me better.

And I know what I want

Hans Christian Anderson wrote some of the most amazing fairytales we know, they have lasted for years and we pass them along from generation to generation. His stories are what little girls dreams are made of…. They are what my dreams were made of at one time.

But I think he knew something we didn’t….he said “Life itself is the most wonderful fairytale”

Each year there is a phrase which follows me…. Last year’s was Bob Marley that got me through those 365 days… his constant reassurance that “every little thing’s gonna be alright”.

But as I begin this new year this Hans Christian Anderso’s is the quote which is ringing in my ears replacing those reggae words.

2011 was a gift

But what I know is 2012 will be also, how can it not? It contains 365 opportunities for my Once upon a time.

I glitter you!!!

2011-12-22T08:46:00.000-08:00

This week for the first time I attempted to make homemade Christmas cards. It doesn’t sound like a huge accomplishment I know but for me to find time and still enjoy myself while not getting frustrated that what is happening on the page in front of me is nothing close to the image I have in my head, is nothing short of a miracle.

I wanted them fun…and so I decided to tiptoe into the world of glitter. I haven’t been there since around 2^nd grade. But nothing says festive like globs of glitter and so I took the plunge…. And it was just as horrifically messy as I remember.

It sticks to everything, and is uncontainable. It flies everywhere and crawls onto every surface and is easily swept away with a breeze. And the thing with glitter is…. It attacks you…. It is absolutely unforgiving and paws at you like a drunken man groping you at the bar and even after showers and repeated baths and new clothes three days later I still found remnants of it stuck to me.

What amazes me about the stuff is that it is so tiny but even one speck is still glittery, it doesn’t take a lot to realize what it is. When it catches the light it sparkles like Edward Cullen in a meadow and it transfers from humans easier than herpes. For the first day after working on the cards anyone that came within breathing distance inevitably found glitter on them also.

It’s been over a week and my carpet will never be the same…. But all of that was worth it because it took a flat ordinary card and some plain old paper into something wonderfully magical.

I was thinking about all of this on my drive into work because “Glitter in the Air” by Pink came on. It’s one of those songs that makes me melancholy and achy for some love….and I realized that love is a lot like that glitter.

When we tiptoe into its world or it tip toes into ours our lives are never the same.

It’s horrifically mess

And sticks to everything and is uncontainable

If flies everywhere and crawls onto ever surface that surrounds you when you have it

It gets carried away easily and attacks

It gropes and has its way into every place regardless of how hard you try to protect yourself.

And even after you try to clean yourself off and cleanse your life and room and heart of memories and shreds of existence…. You still find remnants that stick to you and don’t let go

Even the smallest shred is still visible as love and it doesn’t take a lot to realize what it is

And when it catches the light it’s breathtaking and cheesy

It transfers regardless of how far you reach… just brush up against someone on a day you are feeling supremely loved and they too suddenly feel that same love.

And like my carpet… my life will never be the same …. But it is all worth it because it takes a flat ordinary life and some plain old Rebecca and transforms both into something magical.

I don’t know if maybe the reason I attempted glitter for Christmas cards was because somewhere deep I am wishing I had love instead….

And maybe in some way putting that glitter on all those cards and sending them off to the people I love was some way of sharing the little bits of it still left inside of my soul…

But this morning as Pink asked me if I had ever thrown glitter in the air….

I smiled a little…. And said yes… because I have literally and not so literally… and I hope you do too.

Black Tie- Optional

2011-12-16T08:46:00.001-08:00

Black Tie Optional….. I have never been to a benefit where an invitation said that… but I always liked the idea of it. The chance to get dressed up as far as you feel comfortable. Especially at a society event where there are rules and codes implied and expressed in the spoken and not so spoken way.

There are a lot of rules and conducts I thought I had to include within my invitation to life.

Rules about how I dressed

And what I ate

And how I ate

And what I said

And what my life was suppose to look like

When I was 14 I thought I was suppose to be married to the love of my life who adored me and we had two girls and one boy and I cooked casseroles and ran a daycare while he was at work.

I thought I was suppose to live in a house that I owned preferably with a red door

I thought I was suppose to stay at home and raise my children and bake cookies

I thought I was suppose to go on a mission for my church

I thought I was suppose to be a Republican

And never cuss

And never let anyone know I was mad

And to squelch every emotion I had unless it sprouted rainbows and unicorns and inspired leprechauns to feed daisies to wild mares

There are a lot of things I thought were not optional

Like having to put up with family and or friends that treated you like crap

And shaving my legs all the time

And always smiling and being filled with cotton candy and never a tone of dissension

I thought I was suppose to believe even when I doubted

And that I couldn’t yell at God

And that my religion was the only way

And that if I felt fear in my belly it was some warning to stay away from whatever was causing that burble to boil inside of me

I thought that I had to do good to have some guarantee of a good life

That safety only came from obedience

That I would only love one person

That I couldn’t question leaders and thoughts if great men or women came up with them

And I thought that I needed to look a certain way and act a certain way and say only certain things and feel only certain emotions if I wanted anyone to love me or admire me or care for me …. Including God

This morning in the shower…. I realized that most of those things…. are like a black tie at a fundraising event….. optional

Optional beliefs that I can choose or not choose

But just like that black tie has no real impact on anything other than my comfort level so do most of those beliefs I have held onto

I hate to shave

I really hate it

It’s a pain in the butt and bending over in the shower and propping up a leg is like a Cirque De So lei Act for me….and no one sees my legs except me…. So who the hell cares?

And religion… it annoys me and what I say to God and how I say that is really just between me and him and so decorum and some implied ritualized lifestyle is ….optional

Owning a house…. Would be way to overwhelming for me…a nd frankly I don’t want that kind of responsibility looming over my life and tying me to one place forever….and so even a home… my biggest material dream I have realized…. Is optional

Sticking with family or friends or lovers that treat you like garbage…. Optional

Feeling guilty ….. Optional

Being obedient just for safety sake….. Optional

One by one as I go through my life I realize there is so little I really absolutely have to do….

Love God

Love my fellow man…. That’s it

The only two absolute things in my life

The rest is really just a black tie … something I string around my neck to choke myself and live uncomfortably so I can appear well coiffed and impress the world around me

And this is just me I am in no way implying if you choose to believe these things you do it to impress….please know that. I have many friends who are salt of the earth people and go to church and own a home and I have realized we all have our own path….

I just sort of like having my outer eyes continually saying “Meh”

The joy is…. If you want to act a certain way

Or believe a certain thing

Or live a certain way

Or have a house

Or vote republican…… it’s all optional

There is so much freedom in our lives and I adore that aspect… I love that just because I don’t care doesn’t mean that I’m right

And just because you do care doesn’t mean you’re right

Back Ties are really awesome…. And at times I do think it’s fun to wear one…. But what I am realizing more and more is …. I’m not really a black tie kind of girl…. I prefer red boas…

And even those are really just ….. optional

The 360 degree view... amazing!

2011-12-13T08:27:00.000-08:00

If every day was a degree my life would have turned full circle from the worst day of my life last year. I was thinking about that last night.

If I were a CNN program I would be called “Retrospective” …. It’s true! I have done it ever since I was a teenager…. I remember the week after my prom working at Subway making sandwiches and going hour by hour in my mind thinking “at this time last week I was riding in a limo…. At this time last week I was riding around the capital with my head out the sunroof”… I’m a weirdo I know…

But in some ways I love doing it….

Last year at this time I was Henny Penny and I thought the sky was falling in on me for sure. It was a devastating time and in that moment I thought my world was ending….

360 degrees…. 360 days and I wish I could go back to that girl last year and take her out for coffee and tell her a few things before the rest of the week unfolds for her….

Like every little things gonna be alright

And that God knows what he is doing

And that things unfold the way they are meant to

And that she is better for the pain of this situation

And she is better for loving and loosing

And that this experience will free her in a way nothing else has in 41 years

That in the next 360 days she will experience this again

That she will try again

And fail again

That she will fall down

And get back up

She will get out of a situation by the skin of her teeth but she will get out

She will be devastated

She will recover

That she will loose two people she thought of as best friends

And find two more that teach her what that really means

That she will begin to see things and people in a new light

That she will go from being a girl that talks about God a lot to a girl that realizes words aren’t necessary when he’s there

I wish I could tell her she will be stronger and better and smarter and kinder from all of this

And I would go back and tell her to realize that she is the gift in this situation and I would tell her to not let bitterness consume her for as long as it does after this

That she will become friends with the girl that she will want to kill in about five days

That in 360 days her life will be at the most peaceful place it has been in a very long time and she will see things in a different way that changes everything for her in the best possible way.

I wish I could tell her that what she thinks is important now isn’t so important and that people only do what they can do

That she is stronger than she really knows

And that nothing not even love or deception can break her

And that she is ending her year with a lot of holes in her life

But ending the next one with an abundance of new people and faces and hearts she loves

This year I have tried things I didn’t know I would and lived a life I wasn’t sure I could

It was the most devastating on paper…. But the most fulfilling in experience

And I feel like I am the most authentic version of myself I ever have been

And I wish I could go to that girl who is about to crumble in five days and tell her it is all worth it every drop and then let her see inside my heart so she could see the change that takes place because of it.

360 degrees…..so weird to think that last year at this time I thought it was the beginning of the end

And now 360 days later I realize it was the beginning of a beginning….

I am so grateful to my life for heartache and experience and pain and even bitterness. I am grateful for legs that still stand and a hear that t loves and for 360 days to give me perspective. Grateful, for a God who is so infinitely patient with me and does not spare me the rod at times in order to refine me. Grateful for eyes that can see beyond the circumstance and realize the gift my entire life has been and a heart excited at the prospect of finally living it.

I am blessed I am blessed I am blessed…. And my bed is still my own…. I still sleep alone… I still feel alone at times… I still ache and hurt and cry and ask God why about a lot of things… I still yearn for a certain image of a life I dream about…

I still want to know what it is like to have someone say they love me and mean it enough to hang on no matter how steep the cliff is that we dangle over….

I still want security and love and assurance and guarantees…..

I still worry

And rob Peter to pay Paul

But I am the most grateful I have ever been in my life… and that gratitude stems from pain

This too shall pass…and I wonder what 360 more days will bring…. and find myself wondering ….

If pain brought me to this….. where will all this happiness lead me to?

360 days and I’ll tell you …..I’m sure

12 days - free tags I wanted to share

2011-12-12T13:19:00.000-08:00

Nothing like waiting till the last minute…. I know I know!

This Christmas is an oddity to me…. I am knee deep in festivity and it has been many many years since I have got to have this much fun during Christmastime. So I thought I would try a little something fun to enjoy it and do the 12 days before Christmas for Bray. Not really using or getting him anything big , just little treats and fun stuff each day to give a 16 year old a justifiable reason to get excited for Christmas.

I thought I would make up little tags for each of the days to leave with his gift and of course any excuse I have to rhyme I grab a hold and so I made up a little 12 day jig to go with the gifts.

I know it’s last minute but posted it on here as a pic just in case anyone else might be doing the 12 day thing also and want to use them!

Tis the season!!!

xoxox

You're safe!

2011-12-08T11:11:00.000-08:00

Yesterday I was reading one of my favorite blogs called “In Pursuit of Happiness” and she shared this image of Maslow’s hierarchy of human needs and well it was sort of surprising to me.

See I have always thought that love was what we most needed or wanted. It was love I thought I was pursuing throughout my life and it was love or the lack thereof that has made me end or start a relationship.

And this is where I have gone wrong… and deeply off track.

Because the truth of the matter is Maslow… whoever he may be is correct. The constant pursuit of my life has not been love it has been safety.

To feel secure emotionally, or physically, and even at times spiritually

When I examine the thread of silver lovers I have become enchanted with throughout my life the number one factor that drew me to all of them was safety in some form or another

Mr. Twinkley Eyes provided economic safety

And my thug provided physical safety

My Jamie girl…(though it is ironic saying this) provided me with emotional safety…when it was good her heart was a haven for me

And even my relationships with churches have been about safety more so then love…. Trying to find some guarantee that I am eternally protected, that the forces of this world can’t penetrate my soul if I work hard enough or do enough good deeds.

Love was what I always called it…but now in my life as I examine it…. Love is not a factor… it is a root. An understanding that exists so easily and naturally inside of me that I do not need foreign hands to validate or prove its existence.

I am loved beyond this world and I am loved in a way that makes me feel fabulous deep into my core. And when I examine myself through the eyes of that love there is no flaw that can measure it’s stance.

But safety…. That’s another factor all together. It is the one part of my life I have never felt quite steadily. My parents loved me this I know…. But I was never safe with them and that has stuck with me like a burr on a stocking throughout my life.

I can put up with a lot in a relationship… and I tend too but most of the time as soon as I feel unsafe that’s when it goes south. As soon as I realize that this person I am with is not some immortal God in flesh form that is capable of protecting me in whatever manner I have deluded myself into believing…. Well, we are doomed.

And I feel bitter and let down, because they were not capable of giving to me what I needed most

But mostly what I realize is that the real anger is because I can’t seem to give myself what I needed most….. safety.

It’s hard for a girl like me to play it safe…. It’s a contradiction to everything I believe. I like leaping, I like trying things, I like the freedom necessary to pick up and move and go whenever or wherever I feel led. I’m not a tree with big deep roots I’m more of a sage-brushy kind of girl but unfortunately that tends to get me trapped under the front wheel axle of cars most of the time.

So I am not sure how to reconcile my need for safety with my need for adventure and feel like many times that is why I feel like a woman on a tightrope with a weighted bar tipping me one way or another most of the time

I’m not sure what to do with all this information….and I guess the only thing I can do is what I usually do when I am faced with some new fact or realization about my life that makes me so uncomfortable I itch…. I’m gonna have to have a come to Jesus talk with…. God and ask him what in the hell he wants me to do with this information now that I know it because I cannot un-know it regardless of how hard I try.

I’m 42 and it is a little unnerving to realize that I thought I knew what I was chasing all these years…. I called it love… I thought that was the big old piece to my puzzle….and I thought that was what I was supposed to be looking for and hoping for and giving in order to receive…..

And I find myself at the starting line again… realizing that this time that little black dot I am on the tail feathers of is not love but in fact safety….

I want to feel safe

Deeply I know this

And I guess that is why sometimes I beg God to somehow grow legs and just come live with me as a human because… I can cradle my spirit into his arms anytime I want, but sometimes this flesh would like to feel that too.

I don’t know…. Right now it’s all just a big swarm of thoughts rolling through my brain like a dust storm… and I’d like to get my hands on Maslow and ring his neck for snapping me out of my delusion…

But it has made me wonder if maybe I am missing the mark with some people around me…. And that maybe all this time I’m dishing out love…. What I should be first dishing out is a little reassurance …. Like an umpire at a baseball game and letting them know that they are safe.

Voices....

2011-12-06T12:23:00.000-08:00

Well meaning advice….

I’m full of it, really I am. Growing up with a mother who turned to me since I was about 8 years old to solve her problems made me a natural born therapist. Now, whether my advice is good or not is another subject but the fact of the matter is if you got a problem I can talk my way through it.

But the older I get the more I am realizing advice is just that… an added vice. A crutch to lean on so we don’t have to use our own legs.

It’s handed to us or we hand it to others when we are not sure they are strong enough to stand on their own decisions, and make their own choices.

I have a friend going through a lot right now and I dish her out advice hand over fist…. My list is filled with should’s and would’s and when I was fluent in speaking Christianese then I threw in words like faith and trust and testing to spice it up a bit.

But I had a realization about my friend the other day…. The woman is brilliant and strong and as smart as they come. It’s why she is my friend. I trust her with the deepest secrets of my life…. and I heave upon her weighty matters because I know she has shoulders that can handle them….

So why is it that I do not trust her to make her own decisions? Why do I think if even for a moment she needs my well meaning advice? It’s funny to me to think that suddenly because she is surrounded by a problem she is incapable of listening to that heart of hers that I go to so often with my own dilemmas.

What I have realized is that the greatest gift I can give to her is my trust. Trust that I believe in her enough to make the best decision for herself. And more than well meaning advice or my own thoughts on matters that only her heart knows the entirety of, perhaps my greatest gift as a friend is one where stop telling her my thoughts on how she should handle something and instead remind her of all the things she already knows about herself and may have forgotten in the midst of this

Like she is smart

And brave

And has a heart that already holds every answer she needs

That she is loved

And strong

And absolutely able to handle whatever road she goes down.

Because in the midst of a trial, or problem, or worry the truth is most of the time we are less concerned with how to handle the problem that surrounds us and more concerned with just trusting ourselves to make the right decisions. Our faith waivers internally much more than externally with our surroundings.

Here is the truth for me…. I screw up… a lot. I make horrible decisions that people balk at and can’t understand. I trust more than I should, I jump faster than I should, I linger longer than I should, I decide to undecide. I am a freaking moronic mess most of the time.

And nine times out of ten I will hear what someone says but rarely listen to them when it comes to decisions in my life. It’s how I have always been because I have learned that if I don’t listen to that voice inside of me it will scratch and claw it’s way up until it is heard.

And I don’t think I am alone in that. Most of the time people tend to do what they want to do….what they feel led to do. And some may follow advice but eventually it backfires because you can’ t live someone elses version of your life. We learn that the hard way… and eventually cave and do the thing inside ourselves we thought we should do in the first place.

We all have a voice inside of ourselves…. A voice that is always telling us exactly what we should do….

But time and bad decisions and pain and fear of judgment make it hard to listen to that voice sometimes.

But , when I can somehow listen to that voice regardless of what the world around me thinks or says or feels it’s weird, it feels like it’s just me and God right there in that moment…. Like we have some sort of partnership and he’s the only one that knows the same thing I know right in that second … and when I feel that I know that regardless of anything… every little thing is gonna be alright.

Some people have told me that voice can’t be God

Some people have told me that voice goes against God

What I believe is that voice is God….

Aat the end of the day that voice is my only companion… and it holds every ounce of faith I have. It has been the only thing that has guided me since I was little…. Really little. It is what told me to move in with my father when I did and to move back out when I did…. It told me to move to New York, it has led me to bad relationships that taught me good things and good relationships that taught me hard things, it led me to a baptismal font, and to an alter, it led me to my family and away from them, it has led me from the east to the west and from the north and to the south and when I listen to it regardless of what happens along the way I am able to look myself in the eye and know I have been as true as I can be to it and to God. He and I do not have a perfect relationship but we have an honest one and it is because of that voice.

That is our meeting place

And it is my hope that it will be my friends meeting place also. That she will hear it and follow it wherever it leads her.

But if I keep yappin my jaw I make it harder for her to do that

And so I am going to try to keep all my well meaning advice to myself…. And trade it in for some arms…. In case she needs a hug

And a couple of ears in case she needs to talk

And an incredible belief in her and her absolute ability to listen to her own heart above all other voices.

Two in one day I know but it's such good news I had to share!

2011-11-22T09:51:00.000-08:00

Write a novel in November is a challenge I have known about for going on three years. And when I tell the people in my world about it they always start cheering me on and saying I should do it but the truth was…. I wasn’t sure I could. You see the goal is to write an entire novel in the month of November. 50,000 words…. And I honestly did not think I had 50,000 words that would meld together cohesively for a story.

It is why I write blogs and children’s books, they don’t require 50,000 words, only about 2,000 instead which I can spit out in about 30 minutes if it’s flowing.

Children’s books and blogs seemed achievable… novels were a different story. And the truth that lied inside of me was that perhaps I am not really a writer because I only have 2000 words available at any given moment. Writers write… I spewed… it’s what I have always known, or thought.

But this year for some reason I just had this idea on the first day of November. It was like one little sentence that came across my brain as truth that said…. “You can do this” and for some reason I believed it even though all the years before I never had.

My life leading up to this point has been kind of in the gutter. Because of a failed relationship, one where I truly was all in and went for broke, it did just that or so it seemed. I felt broken, lost, kind of like a shell of myself. I really could not even recognize the girl I saw looking back at me in the mirror some days.

I counted breathing as luck…. Seriously. And I was worried that I was perhaps broken for the first time and that my resiliency had worn off. I felt like a shadow…. Melodramatic I know but true. Even homeless I don’t think I felt that black inside.

And maybe it was that amount of despair that made me realize I had nothing to lose, maybe it was grace, maybe it was just timing. But this challenge has woken me up…. And I feel more alive than I have ever felt before in my life.

Not in a crazy manic way but in a way like suddenly all my cant’s have been replaced by can’s. It’s like by trying, by just attempting this challenge suddenly I realize there is no harm in at least trying anything my mind thinks up.

It’s strange, but I feel alive and I feel like this person. This girl that writes and creates is the person I have always been meant to be and she has been inside forever and all those layers of fear have just kept her in there. I don’t know why this challenge was the key that unlocked a lot of it but I’m grateful… like really grateful because I suddenly feel limitless…. And it’s like I’m this kid who for the first time realizes that I don’t need anyone to approve or like or validate those thoughts and creations in my mind, and I don’t need those thoughts to do anything or become anything I just need to let them taste air, to let my hands create what I see in my head that’s all and in that, every time I do, I become more “me”.

Sounds like psycho babble I know….. But if you could spend five minutes in my mind and compare it to the mind of the girl I was before you would understand how different my life seems now.

I always thought that that our gift was something we were suppose to give to the world but what I am realizing now is that our gift is actually this thing God gives us and if we pay attention to it suddenly there is a whole bunch of lessons he has tucked inside that are meant to get us through our life.

So far these are the lessons I learned writing about Brown Sugar Sassy.

1) If you can get through the tough parts there is resolve

Some parts of this story were hard for me to write. There was a part that was necessary yet icky and I paced in my bedroom for three days trying to just get it out of me. I knew it had to happen and I kept just muttering under my breath that I didn’t want to do it or write it. Brayden thought I had lost my mind. But I also knew I had to and that if I could just get through it on the other side it was worth it. And I started to realize in my own life how often this is true. The other side of anything seems to always make the ick worth it.

2) Sometimes ugly characters are necessary but they always have a back story. No one is inherently evil.

There was a woman when I began this book that I was just going to make evil. I didn’t want anyone to like her or to know her or to take any time to understand her. But as I wrote the story I realized that was not the way it was suppose to be. She had a back story, and there was a softer part of her. And all her hardness and rough edges were necessary and served a purpose. Brown Sugar Sassy would not be the same book without her. And as I wrote I started having compassion for her and realizing that I wanted people to understand what was beneath that layer of razor sharp skin. And oddly enough it made me begin to look at the characters in my life that rubbed me the wrong way. The ones I just wanted to discount as evil or mean or horrible people. The ones I was not interested in understanding only blaming or judging. And I realized we all have back stories, every one of us…. And we are all necessary parts of the story and my life would not be the same without them… they serve a purpose.

3) If you show up the words will come

This is the biggest for me. In my head I know the story…. But it’s in a synopsis version and some nights I don’t know how I am going to crank out 2000 words. I don’t know what I’m going to say or how to explain it or how to roll out a story line. But inevitably if I turned on the computer and sat in front of it a sentence would come…. And then another…. And then another…. And sometimes they came fast and other times they came tortuously slow and it felt like I was wadding through mud. But they always came as long as I showed up.

And life,man, how many times in my life have I not known what to do or say or think or be but if I just show up somehow it always gets figured out. The key is not to hide away and ignore and walk away from it. Sometimes it’s fast and sometimes it’s slow but we always get through it and we always have the answer or the word we need and they will keep coming as long as we do too.

4) The story moves slowly when it is pivoting…. Go slowly through the corners be patient it means there is change on the other side

This one was hard for me. For the majority of the book the story moved along quickly, events , seasons, months they happened fast but then there was a point where everything slowed down to a snail’s pace and suddenly my 2000 words did not get me through entire chunks of the year they only got me through a couple hours of her life. But what I also realized was this time was also pivotal. We were getting ready to turn a corner in Brown Sugar Sassy’s life and so we had to take that corner slow so none of the readers and the story got lost along the way. It was changing direction.

And it was like a light bulb went off in my head when I realized why sometimes my life crawls at a snail’s pace and other times it flys by….. because in those moments when time seems to stand still and nothing moves quickly and I feel like I am dragging myself through mud day in and day out it is because it is a pivotal moment for me…. My life is changing direction though I can’t see it but God does not want me getting lost in it.

I learned that foreshadowing is everything…. Along the story I dropped certain key moments…. Ones that might get lost and seem inconsequential to someone at the time but at the end hopefully they will see why they were there and how they were all leading up to certain parts. Hindsight in life is 20/20 but I do believe there are always hints…. Small little whispers everywhere left like clues to lead us up to certain places in our lives…. And most of the time it is only after we reach that place and we look back do we realize how often they are there.

I am a writer…. This I now know…. And it is an absolute privilege to hold a pen and to create a character and write a life and determine a destiny. It is beautiful to take the journey with a girl that only exists in my mind. I love Brown Sugar Sassy, love her like she was real and that girl now owns a large part of helping a soon to be 42 year old woman finally find herself.

And now I hope beyond hope that everyone gets the chance to taste their gift…. And to try…. …. And not worry about what will become of it or if its’ done right or what anyone is going to think….

And they just show up and attempt because I just think the world will be a better place if we all just started doing that.

It's all inisde

2011-11-22T07:35:00.000-08:00

There is no white horse that is going to come and save your ass
There is no prince or glass slipper or magical kiss
No moment where you are awakened and discovered by eyes that are not your own

Hans Christian Anderson wrote of a fairytale world, you live in reality
No castles or gardens
No bluebirds singing or mice that sew

You have your life…. and a pen
You are your Once Upon a Time
This is your Happily Ever After
You hold it all

The answers, the questions, the dream, the power it is all in you
Placed there like seeds in a pomegranate
Surrounded by flesh that is inconsequential

Dig with a spoon
Cut away with a knife
Get messy
Pray and seek with your hands and fingers
Trying to find the center where it all lives

And just like some prince with a fairytale slipper
Discover yourself, dance with yourself, love yourself

Do not strive for the life of Sleeping Beauty
Caught only dreams waiting for magical lips to set you free
Awaken yourself
Stop taking care of the lives of Dopey, Sleepy, Grumpy people
Clean up your own life, sweep your own floors, get your own house in order
No living underwater swimming and swimming too afraid to land
Stop singing in meadows hoping to be overheard
Use your voice, use your legs

Rise inside from the tide of thoughts and trial and error and moving forward
YOU are the princess
YOU are the prince
You are the Queen… good or evil it is your choice

And to wait for some power outside of yourself to hand you your crown, and give you your throne, and use their scepter to set you free
Is a disservice to them and to yourself
Because inside we hold the makings of our greatest fairytale

Free Stuff,Breaking Dawn, and my delusional existence

2011-11-17T16:10:00.001-08:00

Call me delusional but this is what I believe..... that somehow God knew that my birthday got shoved into the rear end of a turkey like cornbread stuffing and that perhaps I needed some sort of celebration to herald my birth. And so he created Stephanie Meyer, dropped a dream in her head of a Vampire named Edward and an epic love story with a girl named Bella and then inspired Summit Pictures to turn it into a movie which is always released around my birthday just to give me something to live for.

Call it narcissistic, call it delusional, call it irrational, you can call you whatever you want behind my back... but let me have my fantasy.... please.... I live for so little you know.

I am an epically, infatically, ridiculously obsessive Twilight fan.... and if you are rolling your eyes right now I do not even want to know.... I will have to rank you in the same category as those that do not like Nutella.... and you don't want to be there.... I mean I'm still nice to you but secretly I always believe that you are inferior on some level... or have no taste... either way it's not good.

So unless you have been living under a rock you realize what today is.... it is the day before the most important day in 2011.....the day we get to finally see the wedding.... the day we finally get to see the feathers flying.... the day we finally get to experience the culmination of years of anticipation and dreaming...... BREAKING DAWN!!!!!

And so in honor of the movie coupled with the fact that I am way to much of a cheapskate to ever buy Twilight paraphenalia at full price.... I have created a few iron on designs which I am posting on here for any other Twilight fans who might want to make a shirt or two.

You can find the iron on transfer paper that you can run through a regular printer in the craft aisle at Wally world and it's easy to use...
just click on the reversed image of the tshirt you want and save the picture to your desktop.... remember to use the reverse image or else your gonna have to carry around a mirror all night for your shirt to make any sense.

Enjoy!

Time, Sisters, and Birthdays not necessarily in that order...

2011-11-15T14:34:00.000-08:00

So my birthday is right around the corner…. It usually gets all mushed together with Thanksgiving and so I usually just let it slide and forgo any celebrating. It’s too hard to get everyone together. But this year I decided that I wanted myself some sort of birthday, nothing big but something…. So I sent my sisters a message. Letting them know that the only thing I wanted for my birthday was to spend one day with all three of them because we haven’t done that in about a decade. No hubbies or boyfriends or girlfriends or kids just me and my sisters like it was waaaayyyy back when.

They came through for me…. My sister Mandi flew all the way in from Florida and Jodi and Sherri both found time to come into Salt Lake and spend the day with me minus kids and men. And the day was fantastic which I will absolutely get to in a minute but I don’t want to move on from this moment because really for me…. This was the part that moved me… .this was the part that I sort of relished in and rolled over and over in my heart. Doesn’t seem like much but life is busy….. really busy…. Especially when you have children and families and jobs and stuff. And the very act of these girls taking a moment to put their lives on pause just so they could be with me…. Well…. It made me feel valued in the most amazing way…. Mandi gave up vacation time, parted with money for a plane ticket and left Florida weather to fly into snow for me… her sister…. Who moans and complains to her more often than I should and lectures her when she starts getting down on herself.

And Jodi…. Her girls had a birthday party that day…. And her hubby took care of it for her so she could come. Doesn’t sound like much of a sacrifice but this woman is like Mother Teresa to her children…. She is always there for them… and is the glue that holds that house together so to have an entire day with her was an amazing amazing gift…

And Sherri…. She is the organizer to a breast cancer fundraiser up in Park City that was taking place the very next day. She had shirts to make and goodie bags to get together and last minute tasks that needed to get done. Plus she is a mom and works but she still found time to come see me.

Really folks…. Doesn’t matter really what happened after that… because the most beautiful part to me…. The gift was really their time… and I treasured it… I savored it.

You know to have all three of my sisters with me for an entire day was like some miracle of epic proportions…. And when it was first happening I had plans up the wazoo for us…. Wanting to squish in five million things in those 10 little hours….

But as it got closer I just decided to let go of the time frames and schedules and just let it all unfold the way we wanted.

People ask me what we did that day and the truth of the matter is we didn’t do much. We went to a thrift store, we ate, we went to a home décor store and we drove…. Sounds boring I know…. But the thing that I loved about the entire day was the memory for me will not be held in any event but in the time spent together…..

The laughing we did up and down the aisles of the thrift store, the ooing and aahing over the Christmas decorations, the gabbing and plans for what we want to do for the holidays, the joking and laughing over nothing that was even remotely important.

I love these women….they are my sisters but if we were not related I would choose them as my friends.

We have been through a lot especially this last year or two…..

But with them it is the one place I can absolutely be myself. I do not think about how what I say will be perceived, I do not think about what they are thinking of me, I do not think of anything when I am with them except for that moment. There is a freedom in being with a group of women that know you so deeply…. Your inside and your out regardless of what image you choose to put out to the world.

They know I love tuna casserole, they know what I looked like coming out of a jail cell, they know what I said the day Brayden was born, they know how it felt when my dad died, they rescued me when I was homeless, they know my anger, my frustration, my sadness, without me even having to explain it.

They think I can do anything

They tell me when I am wrong

They disagree

They agree

They laugh

They hug

They yell

Unfiltered access is what we have together.

The last day Mandi was here we were sitting on the couch watching Little Women and it made me realize how much I missed just sitting on a couch with her. She is a comfort to me….

They all are

And I don’t care what they do or don’t do… or how mad I get at them or how irritated they are with me… or how much good or bad…. I love them…. It is an automatic response inside of me…. The most effortless thing I do next to being a mom to Brayden.

They are the most amazing, brilliant, wonderful, funny, sassy, intelligent, beautiful, sexy, kick ass humans I know…. Seriously…. And I am amazed that I get to call them my sisters. Our family is tore up from the floor up…. We could be our own Jerry Springer show and have enough content to last an entire 4 seasons. We have all made mistakes, all screwed up brilliantly, all done things we wish we could take back….and all wish that maybe our family didn’t make us wince as much as It does…. But the fact is I wouldn’t trade it… any of it…. Because it brought me them and I love them like they are my daughters.

I said on Facebook that I hoped they knew how much I adore them and one of my friends commented and said “They will if you tell them”

But the words adore don’t really touch what I really mean and so I hope in some way…. they will always see it in my eyes and hear it in my voice…. And know how grateful I am for the gift that they gave me this year as an early birthday present…..

I cherish it….like a diamond… in my soul.

Sometimes we think we have to find the perfect gift, and we look for that one item that will be just what they want but what I realized this year is that sometimes the only thing we really need to give in order to make a difference is our time….that is the true treasure

So thank you girls….

I love you sissies… you are the BOMB DIGGETY…. I really mean that.

Advice to myself .....

2011-11-09T09:52:00.000-08:00

Cry if you must

Bury your head in the sand or the pillow on your bed

Scream

till it hurts and the lump that sits in your stomach like a loaf of day old bread rises to your throat and tastes air

Sob

Like a child

Till big drippy tears fall on your desk and wrinkle the paper sitting beneath you

Be ridiculous

like a fool with your nose dripping and your heart aching and your world shattering

Hit something hard

Like a brat

Beating the life out of the pain that keeps taunting you

Yelling unjustly at people and places that have no ears to hear your side

Worry uncomfortably

That you may never love deeply

Or surrender thoroughly

Or invest unwisely

Glare at your toes

Make them feel foolish for dipping in water that was too cold to stand

Swim in your mind

Drowning in the choices and efforts and hopes made in foolish vain

Sink deep

Into the chair of discomfort and let it surround you elbowing its way in to every crevice till you feel like you can’t breath

Cast off hope

Dwell in despair

Shoot down reason

Reel in remorse

Feel

And let your heart sit like one of those extra pancakes you make on a Saturday morning

on a plate you are too lazy to clean up

getting harder and harder with each passing hour

There is no reward for strength

And there are no accolades for courage

Maybe in war

Or Sports

Or books

But not in love

Strength is not the victors song

Courage is not the winners steed

Happy endings are not the evidential proof of success

To feel is the only victory one will taste as a triumph of love

So do so deeply

Cry

Longingly

Regret

Honestly

Not for the bow to wrap it all up

And not for the promise of it one day making sense

Not for justice

Or Health

Or Hope

Or Cure

Feel

Because that is the only gift

You are given

And it is more

Than some people taste in a lifetime

Soul Pancake knots.....

2011-10-31T07:40:00.000-07:00

“What if we could replace the desire for fame with the desire for service” this was a question I heard posed by Soul Pancake this morning….and I have to say it was a question that stirred up a hornets nest in me.

They were discussing how people in this day and age are interested in fame more than fortune… it’s a desire almost every young person has…. and they posed this what if question…. And well it kind of rocked me because truly I know deep in my core that service is what the ultimate goal should be about.

But I think I need to redefine service because my go to definition is one defined by church people… and to be frank it irritates the hell out of me. Service has always been one of those Christian ideals that are good in theory but seem so polluted. In my opinion we have taken this concept of something so beautiful… and sacred and made it wordly…. And measurable… and I just don’t want to be one of those people that think that because I serve dinner to homeless people… or because I gave some bum on a street five minutes of my time, or because I bought a single mom some Christmas gifts I “served” them.

It’s just so silly to me to think that an act which takes five minutes and no effort really at all…. An act that I chose when it was convenient for me and on my terms can be classified as the kind of service Jesus talks about.

It drives me nuts when people post stuff on facebook… when I post stuff on facebook talking about some great kind thing I did or am going to do like suddenly I have this whole service thing down to a science.

It just feels like sometimes I serve not for the pure act of serving but because I can’t wait for the accolades that service provides… and I am so freaking impatient and want that immediate gratification so instead of just doing it as some gift to a person and to God… as some great and sacred moment of worship and gratitude… I advertise it and muck it up and dirty it by seeking the applause of the world around me….

And how is that service?

What I really believe is that those things….. feeding the homeless a meal….buying a single mom Christmas presents…. Cleaning up a yard…. Those are all acts… acts of kindness… moments of light we bring into another humans life… but they really only touch the surface….

They are a bandaid…service is serving…. the soul and heart of another and there is no way spooning food does that especially when you are not even making eye contact with them… and you are busy talking to the service team you came with more than the group you are serving.

To connect…. Truly… with another human…. To look them in the eye and see them exactly where they are. To abandon our need to be heard and to be right and to be important. To let go of who and what we think they should be…and to listen and love and hope and pray deeply…. Authentically for a person…. That to me is service…

And the results are not really measurable…. Nine times out of ten you leave not even knowing if it mattered… or what will happen to them beyond that point….often there is no way to even translate that kind of service into a facebook status because well…. “I sat quietly and listened with both of my ears and my heart to a guy at a park today “ seems fairly underwhelming.

And I do realize that I might be jaded because my whole life I belonged to a family that was the recipient of many a “service projects”

We had Christmas gifts delivered to our house more times than I could count…. And I have stood in bread lines and gone to food banks…. And as a teenager people opened their doors to me to let me stay the night…… and all of that was really appreciated…. But truthfully in most scenarios I could see that my misfortune made someone else feel happy because they got to serve me… and I could see it in their eyes and in their face that they really felt great about the things they were doing for me…. I felt like a service project with legs…..which actually left me feeling worse than when it began….

But there was one woman…. A young women’s teacher from my church….she didn’t buy me anything… and she didn’t feed me dinner….and she didn’t really do anything that was tangible… but she changed my life. Kim Hulme…. That was her name…. and she would come pick me up and take me for a drive and if she was going out of town she invited me to go and when we went she talked with me…. Heart to heart… not about me or my problems…. She opened up her own life…. talked to me like I was a person…. She saw me beyond all my problems and family life and she made me feel like a person…. A real legitimate person and not a service project.

She “served” me… I believe that deeply. She looked into my eye and got to know me and listened and talked and shared her life with me and her home and she was a saving grace to my soul. She didn’t do it when it was convenient…. She didn’t set aside certain days to do it… she didn’t gather supplies to do it…. She didn’t need a team to do it…. When the occasion arose for us to connect she just stayed open to it and was all in… all the way with me…. And because of that she was one of the most influential people in my life….. I went back to school after dropping out not for me or my father but for her… to somehow show her that I suddenly felt “worthy” enough to be a normal kid again… and to try to have a normal life…. she never knew that… she still doesn’t. In fact she has no idea what became of me or where I am and we never had any kind of conversation where I told her how my life changed because of her… she served and never looked for some measurable symbol of success for her time invested in me…. And even in a small town where everyone knew everything… no one ever really knew what she was doing for me…. I love her for that so much and I have carried that around with me in my heart for years because she really taught me the difference we can make when we truly serve another human beyond a project or random act.

It’s scary to me when I think about all of that…. Scares the hell out of me to really serve the world around me if that is my definition….. I would much rather stand in line and dish out soup and call that service….

But my problem is this, deeply…. I want to live a life of more than just acts of kindness… I want to live a life of service and to do so by my definition means opening yourself up genuinely to the world around you….. and that scares the shit out of me because people ….. are scary.

You never know what they will do or how they will react and what if they get too attached and start expecting things and then you disappoint them…
What happens if you get emotionally attached and begin to hope for them and then they do something that disappoints….

Heart to heart and soul to soul connections are heavy business and there is no turning them on and off just because I have had a bad day….

Truthfully that is my fear all of it right there…. People ask me “why haven’t you opened up that home for single mom’s you are always talking about” and I always tell them I don’t know here to start… or I need funding…. Or I need training… or a I need an education….

But at night alone in the dark I know right there is my main reason…. Because I am frightedned of the can of worms that kind of service can open up…. I am afraid to live a life of service…. Point blank and simple.

And I have tried to find a million options for doing something lesser…. Like what if I just started an organization that helped single moms at Christmas….. or what if I started one that helped single moms get their GED…. What if I could get them a car… or a house….what if I could teach them to sew or decorate or fix a flat…..I try try try to get to a place inside of myself where I could settle for that sort of thing… justify it by saying it is just a “jumping off point” because we “have to start somewhere” ….

But I cannot…because in my heart I know that what many of these moms need goes far beyond anything tangible…. And what I want to give, what I feel compelled to give them, and how I want to serve cannot be summed up in even words….

Haven is the only word that comes close….in the tangible and intangible sense of the word.

But as of now I am too chicken shit to do anything about it but complain on this blog and type my frustration out on this paper and let what I know sit like an uncomfortable knot in the pit of my stomach

But I am learning that being a little uncomfortable is actually good because if I don’t squish it down then eventually I work through the mud and untangle that knot….
But just so we are clear….. I do wish I could take the easy way out and just desire fame because…..that seems more attainable than this.

A Flock of Seagulls kind of week.....

2011-10-28T08:54:00.000-07:00

This week has been …. A week…marathon style…

And well I’m quite exhausted so I thought I would take this opportunity to summarize it…. In song

Monday – Eve 6 ‘Inside Out”…

never has a day made me “want to put my tender heart into a blender and watch it spin around to a beautiful oblivion” than Monday… the whole day was a catastrophe… let’s leave it at that

Tuesday - Outkast “So fresh, so clean”

– marathon laundry day… 8 loads three hours and then a shopping excursion to buy pants with Brayden… who will happily buy shirts and coats and sweatshirts at the thrift store but is more particular about his pants than the Maestro on Seinfeld…Shopping for pants for him is comparable to water boarding…but it had to be done I had put it off long enough and his last pair were hanging by a thread. I mean that literally… at any moment I was waiting for the police to call me and tell me he was arrested for indecent exposure. But after finally finding the semi perfect “I’ll wear them and not complain” pair of pants and putting on clean pajamas we were both agreed “Ain’t nobody dope as me I’m dressed so fresh and clean… so fresh and so clean clean”

Wednesday - Frank Zappa “Stink foot”…

Bray was gone for a few hours so I decided to surprise him and deep clean his room…. He’s a teenager… he’s a boy…. Enuf said. This song sums up my sentiments on that experience.

Thursday – ZZ TOP “Sharp Dressed Man”

Bray informed me late Wednesday night that he needed a suit for his first debate tournament this weekend. Thank goodness the boy does not mind thrift stores. We perused the aisles of the DI (a Utah thrift store) and found a classic gray suit with suspenders…. The suit could have been pink and he still would have bought it because he wanted the suspenders…. We tried it on it fit and boy does that kid clean up nicely. He even shaved…. Which I was very happy about because he was starting to look like saskwatch and he informed me last Tuesday that next month is “no shave November” which means by December 1st he might be eligible for casting calls if the Sy fy network does any Breaking Dawn “Team Jacob” spin offs

Which lead us to Friday…. Today…..and what other song could I possibly post other than the infamous Rebecca Blacks “Friday”

no song summarizes the deeply felt, intellectual monologue that strings through my subconscious more than this song…. It’s transcendental meaning, it’s philosophical symbolism….the lyrics well they express the words my soul longs to scream but can’t seem to find words for….. Rebecca Black, LOL cats and Justin Bieber are the creative geniuses of this generation…. Yeah …nothing to worry about there.

But on a more serious note…. I did find this quote this morning “She said she usually cried at least once each day, not because she was sad but because the world was so beautiful and life was so short” I don’t know who said it… it was actually a tattoo I came across and well… I pretty much love it….really.

It got me thinking about how much empty space I leave in my life to stop and look at life long enough to realize how beautiful it is. Which led to this post about my week and it’s activities…. It was a Flock of Seagulls week…. “I ran” a lot….

I do that often… life has a way of just intruding into empty space…it pushes it’s way through and convinces me a lot that I HAVE to take care of this or that… But the truth is I don’t….
And there are moments when I get the chance to just soak the world around me in…. I go in sunset spurts where I take time day after day to recognize them and soak in them but then I stop looking up and get caught up looking down at my appointment book, or computer, or calendar, or phone.

I am realizing more and more that if I am going to find time to soak in this beautiful world around me…. And let it seep in deep enough that it wades past all the muck of the daily grind, and my list of to do’s and my sinking swamp of “should’s” and let it reach that silent part of my soul where I can really not just see it but feel it deeply… deep enough to appreciate it… well, I have to be intentional about making that time…
It doesn’t just happen….

But when it does…. That feeling that you get when you look around and really see the world before you…. It usually does make you cry because it is brilliant… and gorgeous… and it’s sort of amazing that we get to taste it every day…

And so I’m hoping… beyond hope that next week… I’ll only have one song for the week… an oldie but a goodie Simon and Garfunkle “Sound of Silence”

Pinteresting Possiblities

2011-10-25T15:46:00.000-07:00

In every other arena of my life I am a compulsive purger.

But when it comes to Pinterest….. I would need 10 lifetimes, $4.5 million dollars, a team of assistants, and stock in hot glue to even begin to accomplish, taste, or visit, a tenth of the pins I have posted.

It is slowly becoming an obsession…

And at first I was like “oh wow look at all the great things I’m so inspired” and now after a few months I’m all “oh hey look at all the great things I haven’t done I’m so lazy”

It is almost unreal the amount of creativity that is out there…. Until two months ago I thought the only thing you could do with Nutella was drown your sorrows in it by dipping pretzels in the jar and licking it off your fingers… now I know you can make hot cocoa, fondue, milkshakes, fruit dip, cookies, brownies… it’s the gift that keeps on giving.

And if I had long hair I would know how to braid it, and bun it and headband it in every form imaginable…

I have learned how to turn old t-shirts into roses, vests, headbands and scarves.

I can make a rosette out of just about any material you give me except for fondant…

I have found quotes on motivation, frustration, infatuation, and imitation… I have seen the sunsets of Venice, and Ireland, and Africa. And if I ever need a five dollar gift in under five minutes I could turn to Pinterest and find 358 options with one click.

I would imagine that if we could somehow illustrate what goes on inside creative genius’s minds like Dr. Seuss, and Tom Ford, and Tyler Perry Pinterest is probably what it would look like.

It is a world of endless options and just by simply clicking on little pictures you find yourself thinking… “I could do that, I could make that, I could go there, I could wear that”

It’s a brilliant concept… a place where nothing is off limits, people post sayings and inappropriately funny cartoons that one would never share on a public forum but in the privacy of Pinterest we find ourselves laughing out loud to them.

There is no personal profile dictating who you should be, no friend stream, no conversation, just ideas, tossed about to and fro. If you like it you repin it if you don’t you move along…

There is a quote that has been following me around for the last 6 months… its from Emily Dickinson and it says quite simply “Dwell in the Possibilities” I have this hanging two places in my house and it is a quote I find popping up everywhere I turn.

Pins really are just possibilities… that’s all…. Just little pictures that get you thinking and keep you open to trying something new. And because of that I just don’t think you can have too many of them.

It’s an addiction with most and I think that is because we are all just desperate for creativity, desperate for options, and where else in the world do we get to just look and pick and choose our likes and dislikes in such an uninhibited manner…. Where else do we get to organize our possibilities and look them in the eye every single day…. What other place allows us to pick each other’s brains…..and catch a spark off of someone else’s fire?

It sounds a little far stretched but I do imagine in some ways that Pinterest is sort of what I imagine heaven to be…

A place thoughts and ideas are translated without conversation, and boundaries and limitations are words that hold absolutely no weight…

And images are used in place of conversation because regardless of the language you speak…. A picture needs no translation.

I can begin to feel a little overwhelmed at all that I have not done… until I remember this truth…

That just because something hasn’t happened…. Doesn’t mean it isn’t going to…it just hasn’t happened yet

And when I do remember that, I realize that makes everything…. A possibility.

And who doesn’t want to swim in those all day long?

Here's to 12 months...bravery... and cathartic writing

2011-10-21T11:45:00.000-07:00

Loving her is one of the bravest things I have ever done. And right now I would rather do anything than write this post but writing is the only way I know to get soot like this out of my soul.

It is her birthday today. A year ago we were in Sedonna and she helped me set a blackbird free. A blackbird that had haunted my heart for a decade. In one look she healed me… sounds silly I know but it's true.

And now 52 weeks, 365 days and one broken heart later life is so different.

I’ve been heartbroken before but not like this….it feels almost like this is my first time and in a way it is because I loved her differently. She stretched me and I in turn let her into places in me I have let no one in.

I adored her and to me she was the most beautiful soul I’d ever come across

A lot has changed

Circumstance

Geography

Perception

Track records

But none of that seems to affect how deeply I miss her

I held her in my memory for 20+ years

And only got to hold her heart for less than 12 months

But those 12 months I went for broke

I gave her all I had

I reserved nothing

I loved… deeply, ridiculously, embarrassingly

And I more than loved her I adored her

And today on her birthday I cannot do anything but think of her

Because even though I know it is over

And even though I know all the bad

And even though I know that it has all changed and I realize in all the good sensible and healthy ways that I need to move on

It doesn’t change the fact that I loved her deeply

And the fact remains that when you truly love another human…. It is impossible to wash the remnants of their memory completely from your heart

And to do so

devalues the absolute bravery it took to let them in that far.

And knowing that makes all this hurt today… a little more tolerable.

Because I know that when it comes to love…. I can

And that means one day again…. I will

Happy Birthday Jamie. You were a gift which I will always treasure regardless of the mess it was wrapped in.

Guppies in the Atlantic....

2011-10-19T08:57:00.000-07:00

It’s on the tip of my tongue….all the things I want to say…. But there is such a rush of them that it’s like they are clogged up because they are rushing out too fast…. I hate that feeling.

I was driving to work today….thinking about the same set of verses over and over and over….It’s that story in Matthew 19… where the rich guy walks up to Jesus and says “Hey what do I have to do to enter the Kingdom of God” and thinking he’s got this one covered and waits for Jesus to reply

So Jesus says “well you don’t kill anyone, don’t steal anything, don’t lie, love your neighbor etc”

And the guy thinking he has got this covered is like “Yeah been there done that got the t shirt…. What’s next?”

And Jesus was like “Well then you can go sell all your stuff and give to the poor and follow me”

And the guy was all “uhm….no thanks” and left dejected.

I was thinking about how it is so easy to think that this verse is just all about money…

How it can be used to challenge us to not get too attached to possessions

But to be honest that part never really sat right with me…because I don’t ever think it is really the possessions one holds but more the position those possessions give us that sort of make us wince when we have to step away from them…

I don’t think it was the “sell all you have” part of the statement that made him so dejected but the “come follow me” part that was a little hard to swallow.

Because following implies submission and for a wealthy guy who is confident enough to go up and ask an expectedly rhetorical question to a guy like Jesus obviously he is used to running the show…. And is obviously confident in his belief system and who he is as a person and was not expecting nor is used to being asked to go from being a big fish in a small pond to a small fish in a very large pond with not just his financial stature but his whole belief system.

If Jesus was asking him to follow him that would mean that he still had more to learn…. That there was still more out there…that he didn’t have it all figured out…. And that had to be unsettling for a guy who thought he knew enough to come face to face with Jesus and ask him the questions he asked.

It’s a scary as hell feeling to realize you have more to learn…. Especially when you think have it all figured out.

You know the word “rich” in those verses comes from the Hebrew word…”plousios” and when I looked that up I found that it not only means abounding in material possessions… but also in “Christian virtues” I thought that was interesting

It’s hard to abandon our belief that we got the market cornered when it comes to our Christian virtues…

Hard to take a step back and say “hmmm maybe I don’t know everything and I guess I am open to something more even if it shakes my sugar tree”

It’s so easy to let our belief system become as much of our identity as any material possession…. I learned that the hard way…

When I left the Mormon Church it was strange to hear people call God “God” and not refer to him as “Heavenly Father”

Weird to hear people pray a different way

Strange to watch worship

The lingo the culture the sermon the atmosphere the music it was all different.

I had come from a place in the Mormon religion where I pretty much thought I had a lot of it figured out. I was a good Mormon girl…. I’d gone through the temple, taken out my endowments, held callings, knew the Book of Mormon inside and out, new the D&C, church history, I went to Seminary in High School…. Got up at 5 AM to do that… went to church even when I was the only one in my home going. I immersed myself in that culture, in that religion….

And I remember the first night….when I was home… by myself…after walking up to that alter and telling Christ I was willing to see Him and learn of Him in a new light… that I wanted to follow him all over again…I remember how absolutely clueless I was sitting in that bed. I felt weird. I didn’t even k now where to begin…. The Mormon church uses the Bible absolutely but I was much more familiar with the Book of Mormon and so now to suddenly study this book which my whole life I viewed as secondary and only correct as far as it is translated correctly….well….the whole experience made me feel like a very very very small fish in a very very very big ocean

I was uncomfortable at church during worship… it was not what I was used to

It was weird to talk to people… because the language was different

And in so many ways it did feel like starting all over… and it required a huge deflation of my spiritual ego. And it was the first time I realized that to let anything even religion define me was to block myself off from a portion of God

It was easy for my Christian friends at that time to encourage me to explore and discover this new world… easy for them to see my curiosity as a blessing…they were grateful and encouraging as they watched me discover this new world and test the waters as I walked away from my old one….

But I find myself on that path again…not in the sense of abandoning Christianity because Christ is and always will be my Savior… even as a Mormon I believed that… He has been the one rock steady friend along this journey….

But just as I was challenged and my beliefs were challenged and this little voice whispered in my ear so many years ago “Sell all you have and come follow me” meaning…. “Let go of all those ideals and open your mind so I can show you something more” I hear that call again….

I am challenged to tread in water that is unfamiliar… where the comforts of the culture of traditional Christianity are not surrounding me…. I have questions…. Lots of them….I find myself studying and digging and like that girl staring at the Bible that first night I find myself on my knees talking to God in a new way and telling him I am clueless

And I feel small

Again

And this time it is a lot of my Christian friends that are reacting the same way my Mormon friends reacted the last time this happened. They worry about the same things the Mormon friends worried about…. Terms like “eternal salvation” and “sin” enter in….

And these people that once got fired up at my curiosity are now taken aback and fearful at the questions I ask… at the boundaries I push back on… at the new language or lingo I weave into my vocabulary

And it’s strange to me to realize that we all react the same way when it comes to our religion and the traditional customs and beliefs of our religions if we are Mormon or Born again Christian…. Our reactions are not any different. We encourage curiosity, and encourage the challenging of old belief systems as long as the new ones agree with our tradition….

And if I had not survived through the last round of this…. I would not be brave enough to really survive this round…

I remember how grueling that process was all those years ago…. How uncomfortable it was and how unfamiliar and small I felt…. But I also remember what happened to my heart and to my mind as I sat those nights with that Bible propped up on my knees and asked God to teach me because I didn’t know who else to turn to….

We forged a friendship in those moments…. That is when He became more than a Deity to me…. More than some great mass that lived in the clouds… He became real and we had conversations… and he probed and asked hard questions and made me think and dig and discover and decide what it was I really believed. He taught me…. And because it was Him who taught me and not some man those teachings became a part of me… like marrow in my bone that does not go away regardless of circumstance or blessing.

I am at that place again… where I have questions….I have heard him ask me once again if I am willing to abandon it all…. My version of Christianity… am I willing to look at culture and lingo and language in a different way? Am I willing to traverse scripture with him once again and see something new…?

Am I willing to give up my comfort and identity in the traditions of Christian Culture to discover something new?

Am I willing to sell all I have and come follow Him?

I dare say I am because right now… He is all I have

I have never in my life felt more misunderstood

Never have I had more questions than this

And there is immense pain in having to give up your identity when it comes to Him

But He got me through it the last time and I was better for it on the other side

And so I am trusting He will do the same thing again

And I have realized Christian Virtues are as overrated as any material possession because neither fulfills you…

But knowing God… intimately

Fills every crevice

Even if your just a guppy swimming in the Atlantic Ocean.

Small town regret....

2011-10-17T10:25:00.000-07:00

I grew up in Idaho…. Well let me rephrase that… I grew up right outside of Washington DC and spent years alternating between Fairfax and Idaho for most my high school years…

Who da ho?...... I DA HO!

I remember the first time I flew into Salt Lake and my father drove me up to Montpelier. I thought I had perhaps entered the set of Mayberry R.F.D I had never seen anything like this before in my life. Culture shock was an understatement.The main town had two grocery stores and one stop light and a theater that only played the movie if more than 10 people showed up….

Past times included “cruising main” which consisted of driving laps around a ½ mile strip in town circling under the overpass and heading back up to sit in Broulims parking lot, and going to the Ranch Hand Truck stop for cheesy fries… The key to survival was finding the right group of friends….who were brilliant enough to create their own version of fun…

And if Montpelier was not bad enough my father moved to Nounan…a little blip of a dot 30 minutes from Montpelier in a house with a water tank filled by the local water truck belonging to the fire dept and a wood burning stove…. Used for heat and cooking….

This life was a stark stark contrast to the high rise apartment I called home in Fairfax. A place where busses and trains could take you to museums, and parks, and the White House. I went from one of the largest schools in the country to one of the smallest….and I went from being an only child with a mother who left me to roam and live in an apartment all by myself to a home with a father and a stepmother and three sisters and a brother. Every single aspect of my life was different and sometimes when was roaming the floors of my 10th floor apartment I would miss the sound of little sisters and yelling and dinner cooking… and when I was in a home surrounded by fields and cows and going deaf from the yelling and noise that surrounded me from siblings and homelife I would miss the solitude of my 10 story view and how quiet that apartment was and the freedom I was given to do whatever.

Small town life is an iconic existence to me…. I marvel at those that thrive in it…. I really do….I am in awe of those that love the solitude and don’t mind the absolute lack of change… I am in awe of their ability to find contentment….

And I wish I had that in my DNA…. But this weekend as I went to Idaho to visit my friend…. The scenery was beautiful… and the company was beautiful…. But being in Idaho made me feel like I was losing my mind…..

I was uncomfortable….uneasy…and easily irritated…. I was defensive….and felt guarded….and if it weren’t for the opportunities for these emotions to escape through fits of giggles and laughing I think I might have absolutely gone insane. It was a tough weekend…. Which I feel badly about because we were there to see a friend… a friend who I have known for 20 years… a friend who is the type of girl that has this little golden heart and feels everything deeply and genuinely….

I wanted to go and dote on her…. To just listen to her stories and catch a glimpse of her life and be with her… I wanted it to be like old times….

But being in Idaho brought back every rush of frustrated emotion I have thought about for the last 20 years…. But especially this year….

It was only a year ago I came out and shared with the world I like kissing girls….

And from the moment I came out and started to be real about this part of me…. It feels like a 50 lb weight has been lifted off of my shoulders…. It is still hard for people in my life to associate me with that…. Many still believe that I will fall in love with a guy and this will be a phase….

But you know what I kept thinking about this whole weekend in Idaho…..

How mad I am that I had to wait till I was 42 years old to finally let this part of me exist….

How angry I am that all those years ago when I kissed Jamie for the first time how I wished I lived in Fairfax when it happened so I could have let this blackbird in me free and I could have lived this life for years….

How many years I lived with this inside of me and felt bad and horrible for feeling this way…. for feeling that little butterfly in the pit of my stomach when I saw a girl I was attracted to….for just giving into the fact that I would just be with a guy and find all the good qualities in him and live with the fact that there was no vavoom….but it was okay because it made everyone feel okay….

How I somehow believed that I could not be gay and still adored by God

How I thought I had to choose between kissing girls and my spirituality

For years I denied it… stuffed it down…. Deep down…. And it wasn’t just the Mormon religion it was the small town mentality that I was surrounded with when I first recognized this part of me that made me swallow it… and keep it a secret… and ignore it…. And try … miserably for years to find a suitable socially acceptable substitute for what I really wanted.

This weekend being in Idaho I faced that internally for the first time… the anger I felt for all those 20+ years of not being able to just say what I wanted to say that first time she kissed me….which was “wow… so that is what it is suppose to really feel like…. I get it now”

But this morning I realize the anger I feel is not really toward that small town…. Or the narrow mindedness of the masses….. I would like to blame them….. but the truth is what and who I am angry with is myself…

For not being braver

To just live the life I felt in my deep down…

Regardless of who thought what….

I cannot regret it too much because… it did bring me Brayden…who is grace defined to me…..but I am resolved from this point forward…

I am resolved to honor my feelings and the truth of who I am deep down…. I am happy to finally feel at liberty to say I am adored by God and in love with Him … I revel in the book of Isaiah… I am entranced by the symbolism of the Bible…. I love the parables of life he offers…. I believe he creates sunsets to just make me smile and I am in humble awe of the Christ who is my Savior who died for me and who is always with me… and empowers me… at all times… to do and think and believe the impossible.

And in the same breath I am a woman who stares at the beauty of another woman…. I am a woman who finds a girls skin and curves and soul beyond beautiful and dream of finding a girl whose heart I can hold and whose soul I can nuruture and whose fingers I can entwine.. regardless of who looks at us cross eyed and squirms in their seat because it makes them feel weird.

And I am realizing that the more I honor these parts of me…. Both of them which seem as contradictory as the city Rebecca and the country Rebecca….. The more I shine and release all the goodness that He has stored in me to share with the world….

And after this weekend what I am hoping is that from this point forward I am brave enough to live that truth out loud because regret……

Well quite frankly…. It sucks.

Im in love with an inanimate object....$20 chandelier project!!!

2011-10-11T10:04:00.000-07:00

So if any of you have known me for any length of time you know I am slightly obsessed with HGTV and decorating blogs… and I believe that there is nothing in the world a bottle of black spray paint can’t fix. The dilemma is that I have triple digit taste on a double digit budget….

Which would be fine except for the fact that when I want something…. I want it… and I am relentless about it but I am also Cheapy McCheaperson and refuse to usually pay retail price for it…. So I have spent the last 15 years of my life trying to figure out ways to make “knock offs” of what I want…. I usually wont’ do anything until I figure out a way to do it for under $20 because let’s face it….pretty things are nice but if you go broke having them…. They suddenly aren’t as fun.

For about three years my current obsession has been a chandelier…. My dilemma….A) I rent…. B) wiring electrical components scares the pee out of me… and C) I would have to sell my son in order to afford the nice fru fru ones I want… and so I have appeased my craving with black vinyl chandeliers that I have applied to walls in every apt I have had…. Until I could figure out how to do this C-H-E-A-P.

And so I tell you this endless back story so you can maybe understand the breadth and the width of my undying affection for my latest inanimate object…..my very first chandelier!

I am in loooove… seriously…. I sat all last night and made goo goo eyes at it like I was a 16 year old waiting for my first kiss.

It all began with a stroll through a thrift store where I found the light itself for only $12 measly dollars. I was instantaneously in love…I knew it was the perfect one for my master plan because it had all the right lines and the lighting fixtures on the arms had “cups” on them which was necessary because my plan was to de-wire it and use candles for light.

So as I hoisted the gem into my cart I started thinking about all the components I needed to make the vision in my head come to life and I scoured the aisles for all of them…. Because truthfully if I bought them retail it would have shot my cost past the $20 mark and even for a dream chandelier I won’t pay that much

So I was DELIGHTED when I found these beauties in the Christmas aisle…

the crystals from that tree made me squeal…seriously folks even acrylic crystals are expensive and my head was buzzing trying to figure out what to use….

I took it home…. Unwired the whole thing…. Hung it in my coat closet and began hot gluing beads to it like a crazy woman….then I attached the crystals to the beads using really fine wire…. Attached the Styrofoam ornament to the bottom to give it just a little added length and dimension....

and then spent the next five hours on my couch trying to figure out how I was going to paint this sucker…

I eventually wound up just taking it outside onto my balcony and tying it to the underside of a card table and began spraying it with about 15 layers of black spray paint until it, my toes and my lungs were completely coated.

Once it was dry I (and by “I” I mean “made my son”) bring it in and hang it with a heavy weight ceiling hanger and then spent the next day and a half staring at it with stars in my eyes and trying to figure out what I was going to use for the lights.

My original plan was to use candles but where this is hanging is right under a heat register and so if that came on it would blow the candles out or at the very least make them melt funny…. And candles were not giving it the glow I envisioned….so I spent all day long trying everything I could think of….I tried tinted votive cups… clear votive cups…flameless candles….and none of it was working it all made it look “cheap”

Then I remembered the 1$ lanterns I got for my porch (looove me some Dollar Tree!!)

I grabbed them and disemboweled them on the kitchen counter so I could have just the bottom led light….but the light was a bright white and I wanted a golden glow so I found an old book that had some yellowed pages. I cut them to the height I wanted and burnt the edges ( that was Brays idea and I love it!) and glued them around into a votive cup wide enough to fit the led light and put them on my chandelier….. and well

I AM OFFICIALLY IN LOVE WITH AN INANIMATE OBJECT!!!!

I share this with you because….. I don’t know I thought maybe someone else might want to make one…or it might inspire you to try your hand at maybe making something else….that you will Looove and make googly eyes at in your home….

If you do try it here are a few tips that might help

- When looking don’t worry about the color (sometimes it is hard to see past that) always just look at the shape and the bones because ANYTHING can be changed with a coat of paint

- When you paint use spray paint it’s a heck of a lot easier and don’t bother investing in the “expensive” crap… I buy the cheap $1 black spray paint from Wal-Mart and I have used this for every project under the sun and it works just as well as the expensive stuff

- When spray painting do lots of thin layers instead of one big thick coat or it will drip

- Always choose the glossy black over the mat because it just dries nicer and gives you a deeper black

- Before going out and buying anything for a project think about what you have at home and try everything… I literally tried about 15 different options for the lights before discovering the book votives so just don’t be afraid to try anything and everything….

- If the thrift store fails you try the dollar store especially now because they are starting to put their Christmas decorations out and Christmas decorations always have great lines….(BTW the paper lanterns I found in the “wedding decoration” section so make sure you look through all the aisles for treasures)
- Use tons of hot glue for the beads or they don’t stick

- Do not get hung up on minutia…. Yes it’s good to make it look pretty but this isn’t and will never be a Niemen Marcus chandelier…. You will probably see lots of goofs and imperfections but let them go and remember the overall view instead of zoning in on the microscopic…. If you don’t this project will not be fun and you will get stressed and suddenly this really great thing turns into a really big wart on your derriere.

- Most importantly ENJOY YOURSELF AND STRETCH YOUR CREATIVITY because …you’re a genius…. Seriously!

By the way if you do try it I would looooove to see your pics because I’m sure you can teach me a thing or two!!!

PS.... sorry the pics stink... remember the whole "Cheapy McCheaperson thing....I'm a tightwad so I have no camera other than my phone and frankly don't think I can ever imagine spending that much money on a real one....so hopefully you will get the jist... thanks!

An audience of one....

2011-10-07T07:48:00.000-07:00

Sometimes I can begin to feel a little moody that my life is not what I had planned at 42. I had thought for certain that by now I would have been a published author, or an interior designer, or had a successful relationship for longer than the gestation period of a cow. I was certain by now I would have opened up that women's’ shelter I dreamed of, positive I would spend my days speaking and teaching and sharing the plight of young single mothers…and when I realize that not one book is published or even fully written for that matter, and it is only my living room that is decorated with the dreams and ideas in my mind…and that most relationships have ended before the succession of two major holidays…I get a little mad at myself, disappointed…and can begin to feel like a big fat failure.

And then my son comes along and opens that sarcastic mouth of his and begins talking to me and laughing…and I listen to him share with me texts from his friends that make him laugh or think… and I watch him making crazy observations about the animal kingdom and sew patches on his thrift store camo jacket and I realize…. That I may not have large and looming audiences in any realm…. But I have a captive audience of one…. And he is my biggest fan.

From the time this young man with facial hair was a little boy he has been my largest and loudest cheering section. When I first began writing I would sit in my bed at night with my scriptures and notebooks propped up on my lap and study into the wee hours of the night… and I would go in and check on him to find him propped up in bed with his notebooks and scriptures writing and studying just like his momma….

If I take a picture down in the house… he notices… if he sees me bring home a thrift store find he revels in it… He has opinions about the size of crystals I want to hang on a makeshift chandelier, ideas about the handles I should put on the drawers of a remade dresser, insight into not just the colors or pattern of fabric I should put on chairs but also on the texture.

He watches… he listens…. And even when watching TV it will take us two hours to get through a 30 minute show because we will pause it and get into 90 minute conversations on a stream of tangent topics and forget what we were even watching in the first place.

I have not been a June Cleaver mother by any stretch of the imagination…. I’m flighty, and inconsistent, I yell and get so mad it looks like “I’m gonna stick a pencil into his jugular” (that’s a direct quote from him by the way), I have geographical schizophrenia and have moved this poor boy all over the United States, I have been known to feed him for entire weeks on Ramen and Cereal, we haven’t eaten at a dinner table since 1995(the year he was born) and he was watching Sex and the City with me when he was 8…in a lot of ways I literally suck at parenting. I’m horrible with boundaries and rules…hate checking on things like homework, and grades…despise parent teacher anything…and truthfully usually wing this whole “sacred calling”.

We have had great years and horrible years… But the truth of it is that when I see his smile… and I hear the compassion in his voice and his thoughts, when I see his kindness, and laugh at his sense of humor…when I watch him… really watch him and how he is with people…. Strangers and friends… religious and rebellious…big or small…. fat or skinny…rich or poor…. dirty or clean…. I glow because He is magnificent…. Truly he is…that heart of his is golden and absolutely precious to me.

He is so kind and so sweet and so insightful and even at 16 he can see so far beyond the image that is in front of him… When he talks to you he cuts to the matter…. He is so compassionate and his heart strings are still bendable and tugged on…. He is open minded… feels passionately…treats women of all ages like they are goddesses…and forgives so easily.

There has been no one on earth that has taught me more about the true nature of God’s unconditional love for his children then this boy….. not because he has given it… though I am certain he has… but because as his mother…. It flows from me… like blood in my veins. I love him… regardless of how he looks or acts or decisions he makes…. I adore him no matter what his mood or temperament is or the music he listens to… I think the sun rises and sets on him even when he by all accounts by society is not living the ideal. F’s on his report card, court dates, long hair, shady friends, caught in lying, I hate those things only because I want more for him…. But they do not deter my absolute adoration for him in any way shape or form…. And if I as a fallible human can feel this way toward another fallible human…. Then it is easy for me to believe the Divine and unconditional love God has for me… and for all his children.

I am not a success that is defined by a title or a following. My bank account rarely rises about anything with 3 zeros behind it….I have no book… or interior design store…I have no non profit…and I sleep alone at night…but I have an audience of one….a son… who I have poured my life into and will continue to pour my life into until he has children and then I will share my spout with them too…..

And if he is the only great thing that comes out of me in this lifetime… it is enough…. For my dreams and aspirations are for things that are tangible and seen…but the chance to have a legacy…. That is carried on in the heart of another human…to me that is a gift and I am profoundly…and undeniably…reverentially in awe… that I get to be this kids mother…. Because I love him insanely…and he is a ripple… that already I see affecting the lives of others….

And I am grateful….

but...I have an eraser

2011-09-28T09:37:00.000-07:00

What am I investing in…. this is my question. I tend to invest in the most typical of things yet then feel disappointment when I realize I do not live an a typical life. I am grateful….for what I have… but I am more grateful for the possibility of what is to come. I think sometimes gratitude goes hand in hand with settling and contentment goes side by side with stagnation. Gratitude is a breath… just a moment. It is a pause to me in life when the world stands still and I have the chance to take it in and taste it’s flavor and experience joy in the now. But it is only a breath not anything you can hold onto and as you release it you open up your mind to dwelling in the possibilities of what can be.

It’s scary to say that … scary to be constantly looking forward and wanting. It makes me feel greedy. I feel like I am a “gimme” girl ….. and my appetite is insatiable. I am hungry for things…. Big things, big experiences, a big life.

I use God as my excuse…I don’t want to seem a bore with all my wanting… don’t want to be a greedy pious pig with all my requests… He has much bigger fish to fry … there’s a war going on…and diseases overtaking…and entire species of animals going extinct, couple that with some global warming and the Mayan demise of 2012 and suddenly I can convince myself that my small little thought s are blips on his radar screen and it is silly for me to bug him.

But here is the secret I know for sure…..that’s not true. It is a mask for my fear… a good excuse to not have to believe in something more. It is the justification to my complacency, and if I really let myself believe it I can then even feel good perhaps even noble for “accepting” my fate and being content with what is.

I read this quote the other day on Pintrist and it has stuck in my head so much that I wake up and go to bed thinking about it. It resonates like an old Debbie Gibson song in the 80’s on a constant loop in my brain….

“At any moment you have the power to say “this is not how the story is going to end”…..as a writer I know it is true… it is why I write with a pencil and why there are backspace and deletion keys on the keyboard.

As a person…. I forget that….often…and submit to the tide and the direction it is carrying me for whatever season.

But for the last week I have been asking myself “what if”…..and really thinking about how I would want the story to end….

What is the summation of my life to be?

What do I dream of it being?

If I had only two chapters left what would I want them to look like?

I don’t say this in a morbid way but I am slowly realizing that I sort of have to know the end I am going for in order to understand the direction I am heading…. Just like in a story I somehow must weave and sway my life and its characters… my plot and sub plots to the final conclusion.

What does my happily ever after look like? Is there a prince or a princess or a glass slipper or a flip flop?

Is there a coach or a carriage or a kingdom or an island?

A castle or a hut?

A retirement or an adventure?

I keep still waiting for certain loose ends of my life to tie themselves up… I keep waiting for justice to prevail in certain situations….

Keep waiting for some of the characters in my story to have sudden awakenings…
I just keep plain old waiting….

It’s another excuse….easy enough for people to swallow because they get it…. But once again the truth is….it’s fear

To really realize you do have the power say this is not how this story is going to end…is a wonderful thought but absolutely scary as hell because it seems almost insanely indulgent to just live the life you dream.

“Who are you to be powerful brilliant gorgeous talented fabulous?.... Actually, who are you not to be? You are a child of God. Your playing small does not serve the world. There is nothing enlightened about shrinking so that other people won't feel insecure around you. We are all meant to shine, as children do. We were born to make manifest the glory of God that is within us.”

Thank you Marianne Williamson.

So my next question is….another what if…

What if for 30 days every day in and out up and down I let that be my identity…. I stewed in it.

I am brilliant

I am powerful

I am gorgeous

I am talented

I am fabulous

Absolutely inside and out even when my reflection and friends and media and feelings say differently.

What if I woke up saying that to myself and went to bed saying it also?

What if I stopped worrying about how it made other people feel or think about me?

What if I stopped caring if anyone else agreed or disagreed?

What if I stopped looking for outer validation and permission and just lived it?

30 days that is all….. Could I do it?

Could I let myself be all of those things… yes I could…

I think the real question is…. Will I?

God I wish I didn’t care what other people thought about me so much……

I am my own worst enemy….

But I have an eraser.

My Foolish Serenade...

2011-09-19T10:50:00.000-07:00

Yeah… it happened last night…it was a moment. Brayden had closed himself up in his room and so I snuck out onto my balcony… the air was cool enough for slippers and a blanket wrapped around my shoulders. The lanterns were lit and the sky was black and from where I was sitting I could see the big dipper.

It was silent… except for the cars buzzing by on the road which made kind of a white noise and I just sat and rocked back and forth and watched the sky and looked around…and it was just one of those moments of such utter contentment that I wasn’t quite sure what to do with it.

At first I looked around and wished I had someone to share it with…and then as I sat in that silence I remembered I did… the same one I always share it with….

You know I tell people stories from my life…. Bits and pieces I share in conversations and in this blog…but really He is the only one who knows it all. The only one that knows what my heart was feeling some of those nights when it hurt so badly I thought it might just liquefy and ooze out of my chest and onto the floor.

And last night as I looked around on this little balcony with all the tealights lit… and once again saw in all it’s completeness how far He has brought me…how golden my life is… how absolutely beautiful candles, and weather and stars and quiet can be…. I felt this surge of gratitude build up inside of me and could do nothing but cry….

Happy tears for the first time in a while… and like a fool I sang to Him….

Full tilt…off key…serenade like a crazy woman and I thought my heart was going to rupture from it… really I did.

It’s so easy for me to look at my life and see all the things I don’t have or all the things I want or all the ways I wish it would be…

My life is far from perfect…. I am far from perfect….but the truth is I live the most beautiful existence.

Beyond bills, and troubles, and worries, and life when I wade past all of it…. I live the most blissful existence and when I look back I realize I always have. Every day I have these shiny happy golden moments that I know are just little secret kisses between me and Him.

I am loved…. So loved that even right now if I really let myself stew in it I will be a dripping snotty mess…. My soul is in a constant embrace and even when I have let go He has not and that astounds me.

Life is so beautiful….the pain of heartbreak, lonliness, financial worry, familial troubles they can all seem so daunting… so looming… so overwhelming… but when you put them in the midst of this great and terrifying love that exists from Him….suddenly I see what a vapid powder filled ball of dust all that other garbage is.

I wish these moments would stick with me… like fly to a fly strip….I wish I would be in tune and in touch enough that I could always remember this…. But I can’t and I don’t and nine times out of ten my flesh wins… and my shoulders droop from their victory.

But I guess that is why I savor little windows of time like this…. Next morning moments when I can still feel and taste and sense the wonder and excitement of seeing life for what it really is instead of the burdensome alternative.
I am blessed….

You are blessed

Really I hope you know that… regardless of where you are or what you are doing or what you believe…

And I wish with all my might that today at some moment you will feel it

And see it

And taste it

So strongly that you can only stand and serenade Him like a fool because frankly being that foolish never felt quite as lovely.

Happy Monday Beautiful…. May it be gentle and kind and a whisper you won’t forget

Craigslist, Utopia and Channeling my Inner Jasmine.....

2011-09-15T08:01:00.000-07:00

Did you know there is a whole world where people exist that let you say and do and feel what you want without absolutely going nuts on you and making you feel horrible about it. I had heard stories about such a place… had imagined its existence but to me it was always some Utopian Society miniseries on the Sci Fi channel were based on. But last night I had an awakening… granted I am 41 years old and perhaps this awakening should have taken place two decades ago but I’m slightly behind the developmental curve.

I have a vast fear of saying what I want and an even more horrendous one of speaking my mind and I become paralyzed when I am forced to make a choice because with most of them there are only two options …. Do what I want to do and then deal with the guilt, yelling, anger cocktail that ensues or do what I feel obligated to do to avoid the reaction.

I’ve based most of my life on those two choices and have always tried to do the thing that will cause the least amount of waves to the loudest and squeakiest wheels in my life….. The other alternative is just avoiding the loud squeaky wheels but usually that isn’t possible because they tend to be the ones that are the closest to me.

It’s why when I do what I want to do I leap most of the time…. I keep quiet and don’t tell a soul and then just do what I’m going to do and brace myself for the reaction….because I have found it is easier to shoot and ask questions later than it is to interrogate, go through the legal system, find a jury, gather evidence, and locate a weapons permit and then take aim. People generally “get over it” faster when it is after the fact than if it is before hand and they think they may be able to still change or sway me or my decision.

But last night after a trying situation where I decided to be proactive in voicing my opinion and then dealt with the fall out… Suddenly it was like this little voice said to me “You know there is a whole other world out there” and I began to realize that there are probably a whole lot of people in the world that get to just tell the people around them what they really think and what they feel like doing and what they want and their reaction is inaction…they actually just listen and at the most muster up a supportive “you want fries with that statement”

There are people that actually will see where you are coming from, and people who will let your decision actually be your decision and not some underhanded plot to destroy their lives or happiness in some way.

There are people that will actually go so far as to talk with you about it in a clear and concise way so you can talk it through and actually have a sounding board
And most importantly there are people that will disagree with your decision and just tell you that and not try to make you feel horrific for it

I need to locate these people…. I’m thinking of taking an ad out on Craigslist

I think these are the type of people I want to surround myself with…. But more importantly this is the type of person I want to be…

Someone who cares passionately and expresses an opinion when asked but does not entangle a conversation or decision of another into some web of emotion I use like a puppeteer to manipulate them into doing what I want them to do.

I want to be the type of friend that can listen openly and see both sides and really hear them instead of spending the whole conversation calculating how their decision is going to affect me either negatively or positively.

I want to be the type of person that can feel disappointed but still be able to ask “you want fries with that?” and do what I can do to support them in it.
It is crazy to me that I am 41 years old and just realizing this whole dynamic with the world around me… and I wonder how different my life would be if I had realized this 20 years earlier… what would I have done? What choices would I have made differently? Who would I be?

I don’t know the answer to that… but I’m not sure it really matters because the world has just opened up to me in a really wonderful way…. and I have one less reason to distance myself and separate myself from people…

I have a choice… and I can choose who I fill my life and circle up with… and for the most part they can be strong and have opinions and still be supportive and that is seriously like a fairytale to me. I can choose friends that will listen and not take things personally…. I can be authentic and real and say exactly what I think when I think it, and instead of contemplating the ripple effect my words and decision will have on them….I can think of the ripple effect it will have on me and Brayden…and I can be smarter and wiser and walk instead of leaping to the destinations of my life.

And I can be a better friend, sister, and mother…. Oh how excited I am to realize a new way to parent… a better way to help Brayden become the man he wants to become… a more effective and supportive way to help him find his way…. I am thrilled at the prospect of raising a man who thinks for himself and does what is true to his heart instead of worrying about how his mother will react … because the truth is his heart is just golden and more than anything I want him to learn to listen to it intently.
I feel like Jasmine….I feel like twirling about on some flying carpet and singing about a whole new world…. Except heights scare me and I would look horrendous in that outfit…

I’m a redhead now and so yellow is not my color…

George Costanza knew what he was doing!

2011-09-01T08:15:00.000-07:00

You know that episode on Seinfeld when the group decides to abstain from s-e- x and George suddenly becomes a genius….Yea I am totally going to try that… except not just with sex but with relationships period. I have a hunch my heart has an exhaust system that leads directly to my brain. And when I am lust or love or even severe like and my heart is workin like a steam locomotive uphill all that exhaust gets pumped into my brain and it starts foggin up the works.

I have no actual scientific proof of this except to say that I am the most productive human when the only stars I have in my eyes are the ones one the tips of my false eyelashes and the occasional rub on tattoo variety you can get from a gum machine.

I am a woman that gets things done….in the brief moments between twitterpation… and it is not until the whole shebang is over that I realize how absolutely lethargic every project, task and goal becomes in the midst of said wonderlust.

It is in retrospect that I realize that my budget is blown from lack of attention

My diet is blown from the inner need to make meals that only require small amounts of functioning gray matter and pittance of pennies due to that budget issue

My projects have cobwebs

My hot glue gun feels foreign in my hand

I forget the subject matter of the book I left off reading before my amorous adventure

I need a haircut

My toenails need trimming

My eyebrows need plucking

And I need a mask because my pores are the size of the Grand Canyon

I forget how to cross reference data when researching

And my To Do list has suddenly grown so large that it feels more like a Slackers Decree

Here is the cold hard truth sister…. I am a relationship addict. I love the fuzzy caterpillar crawling across my heart feeling they give…. I love the stars in the eyes, oh my goodness will they call, they are so cute, can I spend every waking moment dreaming of you, oh this is our song, let’s get married, let’s get married on the beach with our toes in the sand kind of feeling.

I don’t necessarily like the work, or the compromise or the worry or the trust issues, but they are things I put up with in order to have someone look at me like I am a large Coke Slurpee and they are an Arab who has been stranded in the Sahara for the last fifteen years.

It is because of this that I usually spend more time in a relationship with someone or at least in severe twitterpation with the possibility of a romance more often than I spend as a single gal
Thus the reason I rarely get things done because of the aforementioned exhaust system drainage clogging up my brain activity…..

I was going to do this whole “Falling in love with myself thing” again… take a shot at it but who are we kidding… I am not really that evolved yet…

And so I am doing the next best thing… and entering the VCAP (Voluntary Costanza Abstinence Program)

I’m swearing off boys

And girls

And everything in between

And I am going to fall in love with my freakin To Do list

This means I will need to avoid romantic comedies at all cost, Pride and Prejudice marathons on A&E, Smooth Jazz radio stations, and fireplaces…

I think I can do it…. My only moment of weakness might be November… not because of my birthday or the upcoming holidays...You see I have a real gift for finding people that break up with me right before those holidays so they don't have to buy me a gift....

November will be difficult because the last of the Twilight Saga is coming out…. and well nothing makes me want twitterpation more than Vampire Love…

That’s a few months away so I will at least get a few things accomplished off of that list…

But after Edward and Bella and the marriage and honeymoon ordeal… My goose might be cooked… I’m just sayin…

One Golden Brick....

2011-08-15T17:50:00.000-07:00

It was about four years ago….hard to believe it was such a short time. I had found the church because of the Women’s Center where I worked. I had heard a few things about this church… and was curious so I went.

I will never forget driving into the parking lot… I had to park on the grass the place was packed and I was there for the afternoon service and I could feel the tingle rising in my belly from the moment I entered that parking lot and I remember thinking “This is going to be good”

Good was… an understatement. I walked in and everyone was on their feet and they were in the middle of praise and worship. For those of you not familiar with Christian churches praise and worship is the “singing time” and oh boy howdy did this church know how to sing. I remember standing in this sea of bodies… most of them African American…. I was like a single white drop in the midst. Black or white should make no difference but can I tell you what I learned there…. It does because for some reason, I don’t know if it is because of the epic struggle African Americans have faced or their deep heritage or what but they worship in a whole other realm and it was absolutely breathtaking.

So powerful I could feel the souls of these people….. I could feel the praise flowing off of their words like honey. Every word they sang was not just a string of letters… it had meaning and breath and understanding….. and that first Sunday I sat in awe of these people surrounding me because I had never seen anything like it in my life…. And I thought…. I want what they have…. I want to know that God deeply and be that in love with him that these songs I sing are not just words but a serenade from my heart….

I was hooked after that and went back every week and once midweek… twice when the occasion arose.

That church grew my heart for God…

It was the first place I had ever seen a pastor forgo a sermon or a chance to stand up in front of a congregation and speak just to hear himself speak…he did it often… he would stand and say “I am not speaking one word today because I think we all just need to love on Jesus just a little bit more today” and we would spend the entire hour doing just that… singing and loving and crying and praying and I would leave there absolutely hypnotized and resolutely in love with God.

But when he did preach….oh how he preached. The man would make me jump out of my seat on more than one or two occasions and I would find myself cheering and yelling in agreement with him right there in church… clapping my hands and stomping my feet and yelling out loud “yes” because when he spoke I felt his words resonate with a truth that I knew deep down in my belly . He inspired me to hope… he taught me to pray.. he taught me about devotion and pressing and faith and he caused every ounce of that to rise up in me.

He was absolutely brilliant… but I was reminded early on that he was still just a man and all of that gold came from a stream in his spirit not his flesh… because his flesh… well… it fell… hard
I walked into church one day to find him crying at the pulpit and as I looked around I was astounded to see the entire congregation crying also as they walked out. It was a solemn mood…and the tingle I usually felt changed quickly to a chill.

He announced that day that he was removing himself from the pulpit because he could no longer be our leader. He had been having an affair and was no longer able to be our Pastor or the father of our congregation.

I was devastated…all of us were. This man of God… so great so magnanimous so beautiful had fallen so hard and it was devastating to realize that. I thought of all of those Sundays… all of those words….all of the love I felt from him and from this church… I felt the Spirit there stronger than I had felt it anywhere and it rocked me to my core because I could not understand how that could be possible. I was scared and worried and upset and wondering….who would lead… and why would God let this man fall like this?

He answered my question in the hardest but most beautiful terms imaginable.

See the community at that time was almost joyous at the news of this man falling… it felt like people were reveling in it… even other churches…. Even other pastors… this man whom I had only known as a great leader who had done amazing things for this church and this community, a very impoverished community, and the children that lived in it was suddenly summed up in one bad choice… it seemed the world and the local Orlando Christian community turned its back on him…

But not the church….

This church which he built and led rallied around him and his family. They did not abandon… they turned up the love. We held a special congregational meeting and we formed prayer teams three teams for every day of the week. Morning, noon and night…. And we promised him and each other that we would take our assigned times for the day we were assigned and spend that entire time praying for this pastor and his family and this church and this community. I had Tuesdays 7:00 to 10:00 I still remember that.

They opened up the church 7 days a week and invited us to come and pray to wander the halls and pray to wander the sanctuary and pray to wander the church grounds and pray. It was open 7 days a week 24 hours a day and then we had special morning prayer meetings where we would all gather before work and surround this pastor on the steps of our alter and lay hands on him and his wife and pray… and pray….and pray.

We had special Friday night prayer sessions, we had pastors come in from all over the country to lead us, we had women’s groups praying, and we had the men praying we had the kids praying.

Never in my life had I seen a church rally like that and it was absolutely beautiful

This man slowly rose from it, we slowly watched he and his wife rise up from those ashes and I watched this church grow stronger in the midst of something that was meant to destroy it.

Our faith, our prayer life, our understanding of the Word, or relationships with each other and God they all grew exponentially and in the strangest of ways his affair turned out to be a blessing in disguise.

I was so proud of them, so proud of my church family for not abandoning this man in his time of need or his wife or his children. So proud to watch how they handled all of this.

And after months and months of this process finally one Sunday this man stood in front of his congregation again and spoke publicly for the first time.

It was only a week later I moved but I never forgot that experience and have always cherished it as one of my life turning events. It formed me and molded my belief system and what I think a church really should be about in so many ways.

It reminded me that we are all human

But filled with the Spirit of God

It showed me the impact a group of people all fighting for the same cause can have

And it developed my prayer life

I am grateful for Pastor Tims in more ways than I can ever express

I share this today because I read an article on MSN about a pastor of a mega church being found dead in a New York hotel.

That Pastor was Zachary Tims form New Destiny…. The leader and the man who lead the church I spoke of.

My heart is so saddened for his children and a life cut so short but I am grateful to have brushed shoulders with that kind of greatness.

And for the golden brick he will always be in the path of this girl’s life.

Room with a View

2011-08-09T08:31:00.000-07:00

Live more worry less

Four little words but can I tell you sometimes those are the hardest four words for me to carry out.

By nature I am a worrier…I guess worry to me was the glue that held my world together. It was the way I avoided that dreaded sucker punch of surprise.

And I guess if we went into the psychological background of my childhood and experiences growing up its easy to see that this was a trait learned early for good reason…

But I am 42 this year… and really how long do I get to blame my crazy mother and alcoholic father?? I think that card has sort of run its course because….I’m older now… and I know a little bit more… and well I sort of have a belief system that trumps all of that. So I guess there is no resting on my dysfunctional laurels anymore….

The thing I have realized as of late is that I thought worry and life go hand in hand but what I am discovering is I was wrong…. Worry and life actually repel each other. They are opposing forces. You can either be focusing on what will be (worry) or focusing on what is (life) but you can’t focus on both.

I spent my life thus far on a railcar of worry… and watching life as a passenger speed by me.
But for the past few years I have tried to jump off that train and on the occasions I do…. And those moments I get to really taste life and walk through it and feel it’s leaves and breath and experiences on my face….it has astounded me

At first it scared me…. A lot… life requires us to feel and does not let us merely think about feelings like worry does…. It’s an uncontrolled environment totally outside of my head with a million things to stimulate every sense good and bad and at times all of that makes me go running back to the comfort of my bed and my problems.

But the more I taste it… the more I brush against the shoulders of life the more enticed and entranced I am by it.

Lately I am balls to the wall, head over heels, in love with life…..the sights, the sounds, the smells, even the experiences… even the bad ones are just absolutely beautiful to me.

I am just barely figuring out what a gift it is to really feel…. Joy, sorrow, happiness, stillness, people, pain, laughing, trees, grass, views, mountains, deserts, dirt, cement, carpet, dogs, cats, jobs, coworkers, crayons, trips, computers, letters, food, cooking, reading….what an amazing amazing thing that is to feel and taste and touch all of that…

I have this balcony….it’s my first balcony… and if you look directly down you see a road with traffic… and a ton of construction… but if you just look beyond that you see this gigantic field and these beautiful mountains and every night I get this spectacular view of the sunset….

And I was thinking the other night as I was looking at that view how easy it would be for me to miss it if all I kept looking at was that traffic….I mean the cars and construction demand my attention…. They scream at me where the other stuff just sits quietly….

Cars with their lights, construction equipment with their beeping, dirt, traffic noise… it’s where my eyes and ears are tuned to go…

But if I just look beyond and ignore it regardless of how loudly it screams… I am treated to the most inspiring view every single day…

To me, those cars and noise and distraction are like worry…. It is constantly loud and vying for my attentions… usually right in front of me… buzzing back and forth in my mind like the cars on that highway….

Situations loom and beep at me as loudly as those backhoes… confusion flies up at me like the dirt from those roads…

But if… I ignore it all and just look beyond I see what is really there….and I begin to taste life and soak in the truth of what is really in front of me…. beauty.

My life is such a gift… I am in awe at times of how beautiful it is…how wonderful my world is…how absolutely loved and well taken care of I am. I have spent years missing that…

but I think maybe it’s about time I started enjoying this room with a view….. don’t you?

One little year....

2011-08-05T09:21:00.000-07:00

Most people wait till January to do a yearlong retrospective…. But for me, August was a pivotal month. It sort of changed my life in a lot of ways last year and so I guess that is why I found myself thinking about it and all that has happened in 12 little months.
It feels like I lived two lifetimes in that time…. Maybe three if I am really counting.

In one little year I
I fell in love….with a girl
I told my friends I fell in love with a girl
Some stood by me
Some left
Some came back
Some didn’t
I told my family I fell in love with a girl
Some stood by me
Some left
She moved all the way to Utah to be with me
I let her
She cheated
She left
I forgave her
I fell in love with that girl all over again
I toddled to her
She cheated
I left
I haven’t forgiven her
I set a blackbird free
I got another one trapped
I reconnected with my best friend
She disconnected
I moved from Ogden to Sugarhouse to Mesa Arizona to Draper Utah
My son skipped 86 days of school
My son went to court for the first time
We survived that
We still love each other… more importantly we still like each other
I reconnected with one of my dearest friends from the Florida days
She didn’t disconnect and is still here
I let people into my home for the first time
I finished two of my children’s books
I said hello to new friends
I said goodbye to old friends
I stopped speaking to a sister
A sister stopped speaking to me
another sister dropped off the face of the earth again
I got a brother back
I quit my job
I got a better one
I drove through three states two times
I packed boxes
I unpacked boxes
I leaped
I flew
I fell
I hurt
I laughed
I loved….oh how I loved in so many new and wonderful ways

And in the process ….
I learned to value what I have instead of thinking about what I don’t
I learned life is too short to stay in a job you hate
I learned you can still love someone but realize you can’t be with them
I learned that not everyone has to agree with your choices
I learned that friends are there for you
I learned that friends let you down
I learned that I’m there for friends
I learned that I let friends down
I learned to trust
I learned to let people in a little further than I have
I learned to say what I need to say
I learned to let go
I learned to hold on
I learned to reach
I learned to stand
I learned sunsets and trees speak louder than any circumstance regardless of where you are
But most of all I learned that Bob Marley knew what he was talking about…. “Every little thing’s gonna be alright”

And that in all of it….God… His word…. His love… His hope…His peace…His comfort…and His relationship with me…..is unchanging….it’s the one rod of steel iron I have had to cling to in all of it….. at night in the dark… in the day in the sun… regardless of if I was happy or sad or confused or sure of anything else…I absolutely know He was and is there with me through all of it….and was and is my rock.

This year was horrifically messy and at times an Epic Fail…… but it was also stupendously glorious and an Epic Success.

And when I ask myself “would I do it all over again”…. My answer undoubtedly would be Yes…. A screaming million times over yes because I lived…. I tasted life in so many new and profound ways and even the pain has a little golden sting to it because I know all of it this year… every ounce of ouch comes from something magnificent… some absolute personal hurdle I overcame….to love is a miracle….to learn is a gift….and to discover that regardless of the shifting sands when they all settle you are better than you were….is a treasure you just can’t buy through anything else except experience….

And so … I am grateful
Deeply

Waiting...

2011-07-10T10:50:00.000-07:00

There is a moment when
the light breaks
and tides shift
and dawn begins

You know not when it will arrive
You do not hear it's rumble
It's approach is unaffected by your despair
or circumstance
or fear
or optimism

Though no change happens in it's immediate response
Deep inside
feels the release
and fear is replaced by hope
and pain subsides
and relief begins to trickle in though you have no idea why

You cannot create this
You cannot force it
It is quite simply a gift

The tide changes
Chains are broken
Seasons are passing
Dark becomes light

And deep within you can hear God's voice
telling you
and telling the world
"It is finished"

And you know you will never be the same again
but you are grateful
because you survived
and He carried you through

............

I am waiting
to feel

that shift

The only way I know to say... Thank you

2011-07-08T18:19:00.000-07:00

I have a voice inside of me
And for years I ahve been angry because it felt like my world and the people in it and situations were all too loud and always drowned it out

But I woke up today and for the first time I realize that I was wrong. It is not the world
or the people in that world or their troubles or situations that drown out that voice...

It is me...my ego...that flesh covered human, fallible part of myself.

It is the part of me that is reactionary, and untamed. Loud, it does not know how to temper it's voice, or control it's emotions, or show compassion.

We all have it... that one half of ourselves that is more human than divine...and for me she has been my own worst enemy

She is the part that speaks in the midst of crisis or hurt, usually loudly, demandingly, accusingly, protectively. She speaks before the other part of me even has a chance to figure out what it is thinking...and her voice is so strong... so loud...so brash...so unforgiving that she sort of forges me in a direction and gets to dictate my path

She has no perspective...ultimately selfish she has no real ability to see or feel anything from any other perspective other than her own.

She is untamed... and even when I try to reign her in and hold her down she finds ways to escape and be heard...she bides her time to get her dig in...so she can feel vindicated

But there is another part of me...another voice inside of me that is not as loud... and not as quick...it gathers all the information...it processes the entire situation... it has compassion and understanding and has tasted mercy and grace and wants to pass it on to others.

It is not as demanding as that ego of mine... and is quite unassuming. It whispers while the other roars. It will not elbow it's way to the forefront of my mind but requires that I seek it out instead. It only exists in the space of peace...

There are only a few times that voice has ever tasted air instead of the other...only a few occasions I have had enough strength to not follow my impusle but instead push that part of me back down and choose love over justice...

There is a saying I have heard "When given the choice between being right and being kind...choose kindness"

And truly the only the only way to do that is to learn to silence that loud roar of my ego that cries for vindication and push it out of the way to make room for that kindness.

Because that voice... the soft kind voice... the one that can find forgiveness and love even in the midst of heartache and pain....it is a beautiful thing when it touches air and lands on anothers life.

To find the strength to quiet all that flesh in me and somehow channel the divine and for one moment get the opportunity to share a drop of the grace I have been showered with, not only makes me kinder but it also makes me more grateful because in that moment I am reminded of how much I have been forgiven ...by a God who has seen worse from me than I could ever see from another human.

The loud sarcastic roar...the justified clap of thunder....the part of this girl that knows how to form her lips into a tsk tsk...she is bold and brashy and could be admired...because the world and it's comrades believe there is strength in standing up for yourself... power in speaking your mind...and growth in releasing that voice...she is cunning and smart and savy... she sees things she pieces them together and like a lawyer she builds her case to create her song.. but when she is released I do not feel lighter...or empowered...I do not feel strong...or that I have grown...I feel appeased, and for a moment my scratch is itched and I get this brief moment of smug satisfaction at how big and bad I was....but when the dust settles and there is quiet again...I feel nothing but regret... no life is ever made better by inflicting pain to another be it justified or not.

But there is a voice from a better part of my soul... a part that has tasted goodness beyond what I deserve...mercy far past what I should taste...and grace more outlandish than I can comprehend...and because of those things it gives that part of me perspective.... and understanding... and compassion...it gives me eyes with better sight than these fleshly ones have and I see beyond the circumstance and all my anger seems horribly out of place and I begin to realize i have more in common with those that have hurt me than I dared to realize before...and suddenly I want... I need them to taste love..not just for the sake of them but for the sake of myself also.

I want so badly for that voice to rule me... I want so much for that to be the place I automatically run to... and I fear if I do not learn somehow to quite the other one I will never give this quiet subdued one a chance to sing it's song....

the thunderous one...despises humans...and can only see what they are capable of in the worst terms...

but this quiet one...makes me feel connected to them...and hopes for what they are capable of in the best of terms...

What it really comes down to is this question...does my need to feel justified outweigh their need for love?

I'm sure we all have our own opinions on the matter and many will argue with mine but the only truth I know is this...

That the only thing that counts is faith expressing itself through love....even when that is damn hard...

And I hope when I somehow find the ability to do that...that maybe God knows it is only because He has done the same for me... and this is really the only way I know how to say.... Thank you