Only Time Will Tell.

As I sit here thinking about life,relationships, and love I have come to realize something. There is no plan, no script in which to follow. Nothing prepares you for how to feel or what to say. Oh how I wish there was. I realize that trying is not what is needed. Letting life happen is how the romance is evolved. If you just sit back and watch life roll by like the gentle breeze or the tide, you find that things come full circle, no matter how lost you think it has become. No, it may not be exactly how you pictured it but it happens. I have started to learn that putting away the hurt and the fear is the only way to find true peace within yourself. I am not completely there yet, in fact I feel I have a long, long way to go. However, I have started to let go of some of my anxiety about life and my shortcomings. I have started to understand that just breathing in and out is all that can be done on certain days. Sitting still in a dark room, closing your eyes to hear only your breath and "Sweet Baby James" sifting softly from the stereo is all that can be accomplished to keep your head above water. It is a lonely road, love and "LIKE" when you get right down to it. Not one person perceives it the same. It is a mix of emotions and ideas that can get jumbled so quickly. Some perceive it as a gift, some perceive it as a curse. Sometimes, both. In the end, we all find it and embrace it. Whether it be for a lifetime or for just a few moments. Which ever it is, I think that at this point in my life I am better prepared to handle which ever comes down my sandy, palm lined path. I will be sitting in the beach chair, watching the waves calmly roll in, waiting for a chance at my "happy". I do not know how or why that will happen. Maybe it won't. All I can say is " Here's Lookin' at you Kid' when it does.

Never Again or Never Say Never

Is life now so jaded for those who have lost in love that we might just never recover? This is the feeling and question I come across more often than not when talking with others about love. More to the point, when talking to myself about love I have the inability to convince myself that optimism can lead to greatness. It is just a greater feeling of relief to allow myself to sit back and just say “never again”. Should I really be saying “never say never?” It is a perplexing thought to me when trying to think of the opposite sex in anything other than friendship form. Can we really let go of those feelings of despair and loneliness from past experiences and relationships to forge new ones? Or do we just go through life piece mealing each relationship into the next, trying to make the perfect match instead of just letting it happen? I have found that we become just so sensitive to our own thoughts and agendas that we forget that the other people that we are “involved” with may have an opinion of their own. Or more importantly, may have more to say then we do. It is a never-ending, up-hill battle that seems to find many of us tired and at wits end. As I recall a conversation with a very close friend of mine, he stated to me that “He felt as if he had to control all things for that way he had the power as to control the hurt”. Are we all going to be in this endless power struggle because neither side trusts the other when all is said and done? Are we to that horrid point in life that no one is to be happy because romance and genuine feelings are a thing of the past? It is such a sad state of affairs. I will admit, I am guilty as charged in the “Please do not hug me-I might break” society. Maybe it is a shield to protect myself; maybe I am missing a sensitivity chip and will never be able to openly accept affection. Is it a defect or is it just from years of constant pain, sorrow, and let-down that has brought me to the notion that it is just easier to not have love than it is to lose it?

Who is that Old Broad in My Bikini?

As we grow older, we find ourselves looking in that mirror wondering “Who in the HELL is that?” Who is that person with the wrinkles around the eyes or the sagging body parts that used to be so perky? We wonder when did gravity strike us and have others noticed? We start to doubt ourselves when we are in our intimate moments. Can we recover from this immortal damnation that we call aging with something other than the knife? I say yes my friends. It is called humor. For humor is the only thing that can get me through knowing that my chest now proceeds me on the roll over to the other side of the bed while turning. We must all learn to laugh at our little peccadilloes. We must embrace our saggy boobies and droopy behinds. We must learn to giggle at the fact that we can no longer laugh without needing to bend over a bit in order not to tinkle on ourselves. We women must learn to embrace that little pooch that is our mommy belly that no matter how hard we try or how many sit ups we conquer it just isn’t going to go away. We can yell at it, we can curse at it. Hell, we can even vow to cut it off. The best we can do is name it and call it our own for it is there for the long run ladies. Men, we women embrace the changes in your bodies. We giggle at you but we have grown fond of the fact that we are not the only ones that jiggle in new places. Let’s face it, gravity just plain sucks! There is no better word than that to describe it. Life runs its course then runs straight across our face, it is a cruel force of nature that should be met with a grain of salt and a heap of laughter. For humor is what you need when you look in the mirror and you say " Who is that old broad in my bikini?".

Comfort

The following is a message I sent to a friend who was having a very hard time dealing with a loss of a loved one. When I read the words back, I realized that even I had not done what I had written to my friend. I had not just taken a step back to breathe in the world, to just live.

"People come and go, that is the truth and the circle of life. However, our lives are molded and shaped by those who have come into it. We could keep everyone at a distance shielding ourselves from the probable hurt and discomfort we would feel upon their leaving, whether that leaving be by choice or by nature. We would only be left with this empty void that we would have no way of filling. Our souls are not made by instinct but by example and by experience. We are who were are by what we have done in our lives. It is what makes us unique and makes us real and human. Things hurt, believe me, I should be the shining example of that statement. However, the hurt fades and the realization of that fact that life is still moving, breathing, and livable hits you. You move on. You get out of that bed, smiling occasionally. You will notice the sun is shining brighter and the trees are a bit greener someday. Maybe not today, nor tomorrow. But one day you will notice, and it is that day that your "happy" will be back. I promise, it is waiting somewhere. You just need to step back and wait for it.."

Use Your Heart, Not Your Words

Changing schools is always a huge ordeal; you have left your friends and your comfort zone. You have put all your energy into the school you have just left and now are expected to try and build a whole new life in this vast, strange world. Yes, that was what was expected of me between my 6th and 7th grade year of junior high in 1987, but it did not stop there. Not only was I asked to change schools, I was asked to start school right after a major surgery in which I was to start school on crutches. It would not have been so terrible had I been in casts or in a wheelchair, which I could have handled. However, to start with normal legs, or so they appeared, and to have to walk with crutches was so horrifying to me. You see, I have clubfoot. A deformity which I was born with in both the left and right foot, leaving me with over 15 surgeries on each leg up until the age of 18. I was never ashamed of my legs, until that day. I wanted to crawl into a hole and never return to the light. I did not make to many friends that day. Some people remembered me from when we went to the same grade school from before, so they had said hello, but kids are cruel. I received stares, laughter, and humiliation throughout the entire day. It was probably the most horrific day of my entire life. The problem was, it stuck with me and the rest of them forever. No one forgot that I was handicapped. I forgot the minute I could lose the crutches, but they still saw them. It is so sad that people cannot see past the physical and see what is on the inside of people. I truly believe there is more to life than a crutch or a wheelchair. People have more to offer than the speed at which they can run, walk, or jump. I believe it is what is in you heart that moves you neither your feet nor your body.

This post was written for the People History. You can visit this website at www.thepeoplehistory.com

Does It Really Come Back Around?

When you lose in love, you feel like all is lost. You can hear every sound, every motion made by the smallest of objects floating along the breeze. The breeze is cooler, the leaves rustle louder on the tree in the gentle wind, and sun is just a bit stronger in your eyes. You look at the world as if it just became so large that it will swallow you whole just by stepping outside the door. Love and relationships have this enormous way of consuming every inch of your soul, taking all of your senses and manipulating them to see what it wants you to see. When that is gone, or if it was not real or hidden, the pain that was there all along is palpable and so compressing it feels as if your being crushed at all angles. As we emerge from this state of repression and smallness, we really must ask this question: Does it really come back around? We all become re-involved in relationships and life, but do we really reclaim the trust, that sense of calmness with the person in which we have found? Our hearts are so eager to feel that excitement, that passion; can we really be sure that we are so trusting of that other person or do we immediately implant our preconceived notions of failure onto that person because we have subconsciously failed to let go of the past? Do some of us avoid relationships just because we are afraid of love and afraid of being hurt so that we just cannot let ourselves feel that intimacy again? That we feel that we cannot let go of the past so that we just isolate ourselves to a life of unfeeling and loneliness rather than feel that joy even if it is for just a moment? Maybe the question of it coming back around will never be answered? Maybe we just can never know why we are why we are. This also could just be the ramblings of a hopeless romantic still looking at the stars with all her might knowing that someday that somewhere it will come back. It has to, right?

Who Knew Forrest Gump Had It Right?

Who knew that those few words of that catchy little phrase would hold so much meaning, so much power? "Life is like a box of chocolate's, you never know what your going to get". No truer statement has ever been uttered has it? It is the truth that you must first take a bite out of life before you realize what it is your going to get out of it. The same goes for love and relationships. You have no clue what is going to happen until you try. I guess you could just sit alone in your room, watching old movies waiting for the the world to change. Believe you me, I have pondered the notion as of late. But, where would that get me but a tired,lonely heart with no memories to share and no one to have shared them with. I would rather have a few moments of wonderful than a lifetime of nothing special. For that is what life is all about really. Those few moments, the moments that make you realize you are alive. That is what life is made up of, that is what your legacy is about. It is about the people you have touched while you were here that matters the most, not what you have left behind.