Why can't I be free of you?

Every day, you are with me. Your smile, your laugh. Your eyes. The way you look at me. Your eyes...

I wish I knew what you are thinking right now. I want to look into your eyes again.

I often wonder what you are doing, who you are talking to, what kind of mood you are in. Did you workout? Are you eating well? How are your kids?

Are you dating someone? Do you think it will go somewhere or are you just enjoying the moment? When was the last time you went fishing?

How was your last hike? When is your next one? Who are you hiking with? Are you still writing? I hope you are.

Do you think of me as often as I think of you? Are you sad like I am? Do you miss me at all? Do you love me at all? Did you ever?

Will you always be my ghost that I carry in my mind and my heart until I am gone?

Will I always think of you this way? How do you think of me? Do you think of me?

Do you dream of me like I dream of you? Does your heart ache like mine?

I will always love you. Nothing can change that. Nothing.

I miss you so much.

You just ran across my mind...

I was having a somewhat somber conversation with my husband the other day. We were discussing a friend of ours from high school and some of the sad and tragic things that have happened in his life.

He is an amazingly strong person and a true inspiration to me, well, to both of us. Our conversation then shifted as my husband revealed our friend had called him, and not to return a call, but to encourage HIM and to admonish him to reach for a goal they had previously discussed some time ago.

I was in even greater awe of our friend, and my husband was also because, during his grief, our sweet, loving friend reached out to encourage and move us toward a goal. Wow.

Who do YOU need to reach out to and do the very same thing? Who do you need to call, write, text, email, speak to and encourage them in the midst of whatever YOU are going through?

All of us are going through, coming out,  or going into our own storms and trials. There is something wonderful, beautiful and blessed about encouraging others as you work to encourage yourself. I'm going to reach out to some friends today, and I encourage you to do the same.

Lost in Thought...

Tonight, I've got lots on my mind. This is normal, but, tonight, I'm thinking about old friends, friends I don't see often, best friends, and people I have given my heart to.
You can give your heart, not just to a lover, but also to friends. You can be hurt by a friendship breaking up as much (or worse) as a relationship that was amorous. I know, I went there, but it's true. In some ways, I am still recovering from the loss of sister friends when I was in college.
To be very truthful, my friendships since then have been evaluated in a different light. As much as I love my newer best friends, I wonder if they will know me the way others who knew me before college do. I hope they do. Friends, especially sister friends, are hard to come by, and I love mine as much as I love myself.
I will sit and ponder my thoughts a little more. Before I go, though, the thought of old and current amorous relationships has come to the forefront in my mind. Honestly, I realize that I love hard and deep. I am super intense. If I love you, I LOVE you. No one will love you more, except our Heavenly Father. I mean it.
It has been for this reason that I'm so selective and protective of my relationships. I nurture them, give them the best environment to grow, and, I work hard to make sure to keep negative elements away so that the relationship will thrive.
My goal is to love everyone who has been given to me to love. To show them love beyond what they have known, not obsessively, but deeply, honestly and fully. Trust me, I need my space, too, so I would never smother someone or stalk them, lol. I will, however, love them to life.
Well, I guess that's all I've got for my ramblings and musings tonight. God bless you all.

Peace.

Happy New Year!

Happy New Year, everyone! I hope the first eight days of this year have been good to you.

I'm glad to be here. Honestly. It seemed like 2016 took so many people, well known and friends and loved ones of my family and friends.

It's good to be on this side. As my dad always says, "It beats the alternative."

I am looking forward to this year and all that I will conquer. I have so much to do and so many plans. I am very excited to see what God will bring me as well.

This year is a year of elevation. It's time.

I'm soooo hype!  What are you going to do this year?  Steve Harvey has a challenge to people to write down 500 (yes five hundred) things they want.  I'm in my 70s, and I'm working hard to have 100 written before the end of January.

What do YOU want? Let's go, everyone!

Happy 2017 to you.

Peace.

Interpersonal reflections, thoughts

As 2016 comes to a close, it seems that so much has happened this year. For the good of some and for the worse of others.

This year has been full of revelations, joy, sorrow, and hope for tomorrow. I honestly can say that there have been many things that I would like to do again, and some that I wish I had not done.

I am so happy to be here, right now, in this moment.

It is truly a blessing to be alive. To be able to breathe. To know that God is able to do exceedingly, abundantly MORE than what we could think of, ask, or imagine.

I need to start walking in my authority and claiming the truth. I need to pray more and move my body MORE. I need to take care of ME. There is no one else who will.

I'm so over trying to make sure everyone else eats and I only have scraps left for myself. My nourishment means that they also will be nourished. I cannot allow myself to die of starvation.

One of the things I am planning to do before the end of this year is to complete a new vision board for myself.

My visions have changed, and, more importantly, my desire to please others who are not God has begun to dwindle. I need to make sure I AM RIGHT WITH GOD, and let the rest take care of itself.

Of course, it's so easy to say that and infinitely harder to walk in that truth, but I am going to put my best foot forward, and continue to press. God has called me for GREATER.

God wants MORE OF ME. I want to deliver, and do my job with EXCELLENCE.

I hope that you all find your happy places and your sweet spots and you start to operate in the spirit which God has given you. Let us use all our God given gifts and talents to uplift, magnify, and glorify HIM. He will never leave us nor forsake us. We can do it. 

We must do it.

Peace.

The Day After Christmas

...and all through the house, our thoughts were racing, scurrying like a mouse.
Stockings all down, presents opened, wrapping in disarray;
Santa Claus came and went on his merry way.
My family is snuggled up with their new gifts,
And I'm fighting a cough, runny nose and the sniffs.
In spite of my low energy, I'm happy to report
that all are quite happy, my family's a jolly sort.

I hope your Christmas was Merry and Bright,
and I wish you the best of the evening - Good night.

Peace.

I know my blog isn't really heavily frequented

So it's quite all right with me that I post this here. I suppose I should go back to my journalling, something that I love, honestly.

But, I'll reiterate here, the purpose of my blog was to share. Something that is so difficult at times for me to do, and I honestly wanted to make this a safe place for me to write.

I love writing. I love the sound of clickety clackety keys and spacebars. I love the old school, the typewriter sounds. I love the sound of pencil to paper, the furious, continuous writing of someone who is literally flowing from their brain directly to the paper.

Ahhh...it's a beautiful image, isn't it?  If you aren't a writer, but, instead, you are a reader exclusively, then you understand what I mean. You can get lost in words. Writers always get lost, sometimes to the point of continuing and forgetting exactly where you were supposed to end up.

The words take you there. The words lead you and guide you along the path. It's amazing.  Then, once the fury has subsided and you look up, you've written five or ten pages and you can't believe that YOU wrote that.

Wow.

Sorry, I was on a tangent, lol, see? I love it.

Well, I'm about to be very transparent. I'm struggling a bit. I'm...sad. Very sad.

I don't think I'm depressed, in fact, I think I'm very clear about my course of action and what I need to do, but I just don't want to do it. I want to put my head back in the sand, I want to pretend my eyes don't see what my eyes see.

I want to be ignorant again. To a degree, ignorance really is bliss. It can be the place you find comfort and...well, it's kind of like your warm fuzzy blanket that you use to shield you from the "real world".

I can't go back to ignorance, though, and what I'm seeing, what I'm hearing is, well, that what I thought was a glittering, glistening, beautiful dream is not. It's not a nightmare, either, it's just, not the package that I was presented.

The package is an all right package that someone would be thrilled to have. In fact, there are some who would be so happy to have it, they wouldn't understand why I want to place it to the side or return it.

The problem is, when you are presented with a glittery, glistening, beautiful dream and it turns out to be just a vision that never really comes to fruition, that can be beyond frustrating.  You can end up feeling resentful, that you were hoodwinked and bamboozled.

You can end up feeling...sad. And stuck. And like, well, like you don't have any options.

Or, that the only option you have is one that causes you to lose sleep, to cry yourself to sleep many nights in a row, to distance yourself from those who love you the most and who love you best.

Well...

I just hope that whatever I decide to do with this package that I was handed that I treat it kindly and do the very best for it that I can.

I have always wanted to do the RIGHT thing. Always.  I will pray and hope that I continue to do that.

It's better to know that I've done all I could to make this package the one for me.

I don't want to let it go, but that might be the best thing for me...I've never thought about that scenario.

It frightens me and paralyzes me at the same time. I have to keep moving. I can't stop.

One foot in front of the other.

Here's to doing the best thing for everyone.

Peace.

Reflections...

I don't know where to begin or what to think. I'm so full of emotions, and, honestly, I'm all over the place.

My heart is hurting. I feel...bruised. I feel...misunderstood. I feel...attacked.

By the one I'm supposed to love the most. Who's supposed to love me the most.

I just can't take it any more. I just can't.

All I know is that something changed somewhere along the way, and now, all I am is...

half crazy.

I feel like a robot, just going through the motions.

What will become of me? What will become of us?

I'm so sorry, my love. We are supposed to make it. We are supposed to be forever.

Forever.  And beyond forever.

What am I going to do?

May God be with us.

Peace.

I wanna be loved...

Listening to this song by Eric Benet, and I realized something.

Marriage is not easy. The person you marry most likely will not end up the person you are with. And the same goes for you. The both of you will go through changes, through ebbs and flows, ups and downs, and everything else in between.

Is marriage for you? Maybe. Maybe not. It isn't for everyone, that's for sure. Do some people get married too soon? Absolutely.

I love my husband with all I have, but I am telling you, sometimes...I need a vacation from my life. I bet he feels the same way about me.

I'm glad for our relationship, and I am open to all God has to teach me through it.

Well, here's to marriage.

Peace.

So...

I was having a really great conversation with my husband about friends, my perception of people versus his perception of people, and other things as well. He was encouraging and loving, as he always is, and also, he did his best to be objective.

Believe it or not, he does a great job, and I think that has a lot to do with the fact that he is truly a counselor by nature. He listens really well and helps people with their problems and making decisions. I love this about him. He can be absolutely amazing and this is what I cling to when I feel differently some days. :-)

Anyway, back to the reason for writing. I am always on a quest for deep, meaningful relationships, and I feel this is an area where I do not do my very best; honestly, I feel weak in this area. While I do have some true deep sister best friends, the number is small. Now, truth be told, I prefer a tight circle anyway. I don't need a "tight knit group" that consists of 20 people. No way could I have deep, meaningful relationships with all 20 unless all I did was spend time with them, and frankly, I want to have a family and my own private time, so that's just not realistic.

My question and self evaluation come because I have tried (and in my opinion failed) at fostering relationships with other women who, in appearance, have so much in common with me, and should, based on how we gravitate towards people who have some similar traits as our own, should become great friends.

This is not what has happened.

I, as always, am hopeful that I will find a place of comfort with people that I meet. I don't just want to have my friends from my youth, I enjoy meeting new people and making them part of my life, if they SHOULD be.

Here's to hoping for the best, and guarding my heart, but keeping an open mind and point of view.

Peace.

Summer Days and Nights

So, I'm sitting here, typing on my tablet keyboard and thinking about the events of this past week and the one before. I have a lot of planning and such to do, and I need calendars and a space free of my son and husband so I can work. I plan on going to the library or something like that so I can get some work done. My goal is to have my classes planned out through the first semester, orders sent off to Copy Plus, and some back mapping of my engineering curriculum for middle school completed.

That might seem like a lot of work, but it's really not if I have an opportunity to actually sit down and work uninterrupted, which is my true goal.

I also might get some work done on securing field trips for the seventh grade class.

Looks like this is going to be an amazing school year. I will be in prayer that this is the case, and I look forward to working with Mrs. C, my new partner in leading the seventh grade team.

Here's to new beginnings...

Peace. 

Wall-E and kids

Tonight, my son invited me into his room to watch Wall-E. It was the best hour and some that I have spent in a while. It was so great to sit and laugh and cuddle with him.

God has blessed my husband and I will such a great kid. I am so grateful and so thankful.

Plus, Wall-E is a great movie. Thanks for this day. I wouldn't have traded my movie date with my son for anything.

Cherish and enjoy those who love you and make sure they know how much you love them. Be good to them, because you just never know.

I hope my son remembers tonight as I will. Great time spent with a great kid. I love him so.

Peace.

What About Your Friends?

I understand more and more why it is important for people to have a strong sense of family. In fact, I would almost make a case for having more than one child. My son's ninth birthday was this past week. My blessing. My sweet, wonderful, kind, loud kid. I love him so. All he wanted was a party full of friends.

I'm so glad he's such a great soul with a kind and loving spirit. The majority of his friends didn't come to his party.

My husband is fuming, stewing, brewing mad. I, on the other hand, am calm on the surface. Meanwhile, I'm contemplating my next chess move.

Why is it that adults get in their feelings and why does it always affect the kids?

I hope my husband's theory - that our friends thought we planned our son's party on purpose during their event - is false. However, their silence and lack of acknowledgment of my son's party is suspicious.

I need to bring in the big guns on this one. Time for a phone call to mom to get her opinion and advice on the situation.

Hopefully this will all turn out with a happy end.

Peace.

What to do

Right now, this very moment, I'm up watching TV. I'm not sleepy, but I should be. My mind is racing because I'm very unhappy.

This post will be short because I really don't know what to say. Things are not what I hoped they would be at this time of my life. I really need a breakthrough, break out moment.

I have said often this year, I need some really good news. Today is no different.

I need to get out of this funk, but to be quite honest, I don't see my way out of this one.

Maybe I need to take a walk...

Peace.

Summertime and Lemonade

So, today is my official first day of summer. Technically, that's really tomorrow, but I plan on staying up late reading and being a hermit...and doing some girly beauty treatments, lol.

I am slightly obsessed with Beyonce' and her newest project, Lemonade. I am a fan of hers, and while I haven't always liked every single song, I appreciated the anger in this album. It was very passionate, and whether or not it speaks to her relationship with her husband, it hits on a lot of different emotions women of varying ages can identify with.

I especially love the songs "Sorry" and "Sandcastles". In my opinion, there are lots of good cuts on this album.  I also appreciate the visual work, and watch it privately at every opportunity I get.

Well, I think I'll get back to watching Lemonade and maybe watch it one more time before the boys get home from baseball practice. Watching this givees me some great story ideas...maybe it's time for a little writing before dinner.

Love and Peace.

NSWR

What is wrong with me????

I need, want, and crave your attention. I live for five seconds of your time. This cannot begin to satisfy me and I long for more. I LONG FOR MORE. Desperately, hungrily, I search to check my phone to see if I have missed your call. I am worse than an addict going through withdrawal. I want you. I need you. Just to hear your voice and to talk to you makes me right. My body relaxes and my blood pressure returns to normal. You stabilize me. How is this possible when I have someone I love with my whole life and soul and heart and mind? Or is this a lie and are YOU the one I truly love? Why can't I get you out of my head? My heart? My everything? Why does this separation feel like punishment? What did I do wrong? Don't you want me? Am I not good enough for you? I need to know.

My desire borders obsession and I stalk you, silently, without you knowing. Behind the scenes on every social media outlet you habitat, I am there. Looking to see if you wrote anything,  checking to see if you might possibly be thinking of me....

Do you ever think of me? Am I the only one who can't eat, sleep, or drink without checking to see if you've called or texted? Do you smile when you see I have called? Does your mouth make that grin only you can make when your phone beeps because of a text from me?
If I don't call, do you worry?

Did you ever love me? Do you love me now? Have you ever been in love with me? Do you miss me at all?

...what is wrong with me? Why do I care so much when you make it so clear? I am so foolish when it comes to you. I embarrass myself to the point of shame. What is wrong with me???

You might be the death of me....I have to find a way to get over you.

Ten years later...

and you still take my breath away. I still fight every urge to call you, to the point I make myself physically ill so I won't call you. But I still call you. I have no willpower when it comes to you. One word, one glance, one breath from you and I would come running, abandoning my entire life for you. I would leave it all if you said, "Come." One single syllable would bring me to my knees and my entire world crashing down around me. I am crazy for you. I am desperate for you. My heart skips a beat at the mention of your name. I can't eat or sleep. I toss and turn, trying to make myself stop thinking about you. You consume most of my waking thoughts and all of my sleeping ones. Your touch, your scent, your voice...the feel of your hand on my cheek...I feel lost without my thoughts of you and yet, if I had you, I don't know if you would want me. You are my personal enigma, the challenge I cannot conquer. The puzzle I cannot solve.

You make me crazy. You make me sane. You would complete me if you would take a chance.

You will never know how deep my love is or how long it would run. My heart is yours to break or to heal and to cherish. But I know you won't.

You never will.

And so, I will pretend to ignore the lump in my throat at the thought of your name. I will pretend I can't sleep because of work. I will blame my unhappiness on my new life changes that happened suddenly and without my doing.

I can act like a Hollywood Star.

Only you and I will know the truth.

I just want....you.

Interesting how this keeps coming back up in some form or fashion...

So...I wanted to post this to my blog, partly for the healing that I get from writing and getting all this stuff out, and partly because I need to vent.  I can't keep holding on to this stuff.

It's so funny, when you honestly walk away from people and situations and you do your best not to say anything negative about them or the situations that caused you to separate, but yet and still, in some way or another, you end back up in their mouths.   Or their conversations with other people.  Or their writings with others.

I don't write anything or say anything about anybody else in general because I want to be happy.  And if I do say something about someone else, it's because I want to uplift that person.

I promise.

It's so funny how people who think they know you or who thought they knew you never did.  NEVER. DID.  I truly believe that I loved people that did not love me.  Or, at least they did not love me as much as I loved them.  It was a very hard lesson for me to learn.

And I'm not saying that I think I was the greatest friend or even that I was a best friend to each of them.  I was a friend to these people, though, so for me, this is extremely personal.  And I'm a sensitive person.  Things that have to do with friendships really touch the core of me.  Part of this I believe stems from being an only child for almost six years; it was just my mom, dad, and me for a time.  I remember that time.  I can only say that I fondly remember that time, but I was alone.  I have always felt a little alone, even in a crowd.  Just alone.  Not necessarily lonely.

For once in my life, with these folks that I believed were my friends, I didn't feel alone.  I felt that I belonged.  With them.  I did.  I loved them.  I cherished them.  And I gave my 100% into our relationships.  Maybe even more than that.

Looking back on it it's so funny.  My father used to tell me I was trying too hard.  He felt like I was running behind them.  WOW.  Parents have eyes to see things that you think you know.  I value my father for his wisdom.  I should have listened MORE to my Daddy back then.

I definitely had a broken heart.  And it's so funny, people tell lies even about why you do what you do when they have no earthly idea about what and why you are doing what you are doing.

I thought they were my FRIENDS.  I honestly thought that.

What was I thinking?

Even after all these years, even after all this time passing, and for me, leaving and not coming back, it still hurts.  It still bothers me.  And I need to tell this story.

I need to get all this out of me.  It has no place in my life, and I feel that this keeps me from being closer to the people I care so much about.

My husband told me I need to write it out.  And I will.  I started a book and I need to finish it.
The book is pure fiction, but it's so funny; he read part of the story and feels like it's semi-autobiographical.

As much as he might be right, he's not.  It's really just a book that incorporates some of my experiences into the story of four girls and two guys.  :)

I think that it will be what I need to get over this once and for all.

I better get back to it, huh?

Thanks for reading. :)

Peace.

I watched the Stellar Awards...

and do you know what my greatest takeaway was?  Honestly, the people of God need to get healthy.  I'm talking to myself, more than I'm talking to anyone else.

Watching all the different groups and recording artists perform, I was a bit shocked by how many people were winded after a performance.  I was struck by the size of the artists, also.  Now, I'm a big girl and I've been that way most of my life.  That is not the problem.  These people were GORGEOUS, do you hear me? Handsome, beautiful people...

BUT

They were very out of shape.  Even those who seem to be in good shape (aka "thinner").  No, most of them needed to lean over or hold their side, or catch their breath, longer than a normal type of catching your breath after a performance.  I know being on a big stage brings adrenaline, and you do move around, but you shouldn't be holding your side and practically wheezing directly after.  Sheesh.

I mean, folks weren't dancing on stage like at a Michael Jackson concert, no, there was only some light choreography.  Seriously.  No one was running across the stage non stop for five minutes.  They were singing, yes, but no real extra strenuous activity.

WE.  ALL.  NEED.  TO.  GET.  HEALTHY.

Yup, and that was my biggest takeaway.  I'm serious.

I'm taking the challenge.  Will you?

Think about it.

Peace.

Thinking....

recently, one of my co-workers challenged me to start journaling again.  I love to write, truthfully, and honestly.  One day, I plan to be another writer, a YA writer because I have lots of stories to tell.  And I have lots of ideas and imaginations that I think others would find entertaining.

I'm also looking forward to one day living in more than one location. I firmly believe my family will be located in two states; my husband and I will own homes in both Maryland and Texas.  The idea of Mary-Tex will be very real for us.  I know that sounds so far-fetched or crazy, right?  It's not just a pipe dream.

I'm looking forward to deeper and richer and more meaningful relationships with people that I love and people that I know.  I am looking forward to taking them along on the journey with me, in having more fun, doing more, going more places.

I can't wait to travel all over the world.  I can't wait...I cannot wait.

Right now, I'm listening to this amazing man, Eric Thomas.  Have you heard of him?  He's a motivational speaker.  He's a minister, and this is his time.  He's been steadily getting bigger and bigger, reaching more and more people across the world.  I love his testimony, and the story he shares with people all over the world.

He's dynamic, and most of the time it feels like he's yelling at you, but honestly, he's just so HYPE for himself, and I truly believe he's filled with the purpose given to him directly from God to reach people and motivate and inspire them to reach the levels God planned them to reach.

I know that listening to him helps me push a little harder.

I have goals and plans, and I will reach them.  God has plans for me, and I will fulfill the plans He has for my life.

Okay, I've got a lot to think about right now, and I need to do some listening.

God bless you all.

Peace.