My "help" quote that I send with the boys.

"Every day you're not dead in the ground, when you wake up in the morning, you're gonna have to make some decisions. Got to ask yourself this question: "Am I gonna believe all them bad things them fools say about me today?" You hear me today? "Am I gonna believe all them bad things them fools say about me today? You hear me today?" All right? As for your mama, she didn't pick her life. It picked her. But you, you're gonna do something big with yours. You wait and see." Each day I speak to my children at night individually , quietly. I try to tell them each something that they will remember when I am gone. That they can look back on and say " my mom loved me". We are not here forever, we must instill the bond so that even when gone, they feel that love wrapped around them as tight as if we were standing there.

Matthew Sweet "Sick of Myself"

Hopelessly-hopeful Romantics

Sittiing in my room, a movie container caught my eye. Love Actually, it said. It got me to thinking. What is love, actually? It is not the same for every person, nor for every situation. Love can be what we mold it to be so that we can accomadate what we find ourselves in. Love can always be what we strive for, what we live for. For others, love can just be notion of things to come or things that have past. We all have thoughts, desires. We all have needs to be filled either physically or emotionally. Some of us can accomplish that with just having enough friends to fill the void, others need to have that total physical response. Then there are a few, a small few, that have those quiet aspirations, that linger on the impossible, possiblly those who have seen Casablanca way to many times or truly believe that somehow someone made Cinderella a glass slipper somewhere and is going to drop it in front of them at some point. That hope is not hopeless, that still wishing on that falling star may lead to happiness, closing your eyes and breathing deep when you see that someone might actually help in getting them to notice you. Hopelessly-hopeful romantics, this is what I call this group. They still exsist, I found this out. I thought they were extinct, you don't see them very often as in this day in age you don't see a lot of people being overly robust in their romantic notions, but they are out there. You just have to look. It is kind of endearing to watch, puts a little faith back into the heart of those who steeled it shut and closed it off. Maybe it makes the hopeless feel a bit more hopeful, but we won't jump the gun on that just yet.

Life: beauty and the beast.

As I scrolled down through my posts, I stumbled upon one I wrote about my grandmother dated 2007. How cruel life can be I thought. I read through it realizing how she had slipped away then, glimmering back and forth from reality to dementia and it took until Saturday, June 23rd, 2012 for her to join my grandfather in heaven. Life sparred no mercy, no quiet grace for her. It was a cruel death, a life sucking, painful , heart wrenching journey for my mother, myself, and my grandmother. Watching the life being dragged out of her is something I will never forget. I held her hand each and every day since she became ill. Helping her eat, changing her clothes, washing her face, brushing her hair. I loved my grandmother more than life itself. She was my mother as much as my mother was. She made sure I knew I mattered, that no matter what I did I wasn't a mistake, that I was loved. In her final days, somehow, she found in her to hug me, as if to remind me I wasn't alone. It was the most beautiful thing I have ever experienced and I will never forget. The experience of sharing the fact that she was there when I came into the world and I was there when she left is something that I will cherish forever. Life can be so cruel, so hard and then there are those in it that make it so amazingly glorious you forget.

Better Than Ezra - Desperately Wanting

caging the animal.

You left her there, alone. What did you expect her to do? Did you expect her to sit and wait patiently for years and years while you lived your life the way you wanted before you decided it was time to pay attention to her? A young, vibrant woman put in a corner to be locked away in a tower on display only. You act surprised and hurt that she decided to live her life, to break free of the shackles of loneliness and become what she once was, ALIVE. To feel what everyone needs and craves- affection, friendship, passion, and love. You still beg her to be yours, to live this one sided fairy tale. To live by your rules, your way of thinking. This is a woman who cannot be tamed, she is wild, carefree. She was a wild animal trapped in a cage only to break free. You were naive in thinking that you could keep her away from life, from being herself. From being so full of tenacity and over whelming spirit. It is painful lesson you still haven't learned.

Each shell is different, each edge reflecting the wash of the ravage of the wave. You pick up , inspecting deciding on if this particular shell is right for your collection. This process much like the one we use for friends, lovers, partners, etc. Why do we pay so much attention to edges? Why can we not look past the edges and look to the deep insides first? The parts that matter most without worrying how the outside reflection might matter to others before deciding if we proceed?