Once all the best was mine...Tipp City yea, I'm still here.

So, ummmm, yeah. For e'ry bit woohoo hallelujah positive and able to leap tall buildings in a single bound that I was yesterday, I am the penultimate today.

Life is like that I guess. I don't know, I am fully just guessing. I having one of those days when I am thinking of that shirt that says,"Jesus Loves You...Everyone Else Thinks You Are An Asshole" and thinking the opposite applies to me. E'ryone loves me, Jesus thinks I am asshole.

I am. I am willfully disobedient in a few very small areas and I kinda think that I would like to be Nicole Arbour's BFF 4 life. I am not even kidding. It'll be me and Nicole Arbour and Lisa Lampanelli and we'll be toking it up with Johnny Hopkins and Slone Kettering. Okay, maybe not, but oblige me, I am in a massive funk today and I trying desperately to pull myself back on course.

I slept poorly. Had crazy, crazy dreams about my doctor and trying to get to an appointment, and so when I came back from dropping the boy off at school, I curled up on the couch. My "old mangy, transient" husband stopped by while I was sleeping and that's when I went downhill. He doesn't speak to me at all anymore, not even about things that matter. About six months ago, I thought that we were over all that but I guess is skank-ass girlfriend heard we actually had several civil conversations in a row and freaked out.

(Queue "Where is God?" by Oliver Adams)  (So obscure, I can't find it anywhere for the link.)

I know you are probably thinking at this point, what does Tammy and the Amps have to do with any of this? Well, I am glad you asked.

Tipp City has been on my mind a lot lately. I have no clue why. Not really. I mean, it's about equidistant to the grandparents so there's a bonus. It's closer to a lot of other family. It's closer to things that keep my daughter happy. It's a bit like whence I came from but without me having to constantly relive my backstory that involves being a complete douche to people who didn't deserve it. I could be me without having to prove or disprove any notions about who I am.

It's not the first time in my life I have considered Tipp City as a place to call home. Several years ago, sigh, for whatever reason, my husband (who grew up in Miami County) always wanted to go spend our free time there...despite saying he hated everything about Miami County. There's a great park in Tipp City that we would end up at occasionally. A great park where we by the end of the journey would have met new people who actually sat and hung out with us as we all watched our kids play together. At the time, his parents were helping us out quite a bit and moving to Tipp would have made sense. (My mom would have moved up there eventually because she's good like that.)

Anyway...so I totally feel like I don't fit in, don't vibrate right, don't something in my present situation. Everyone so concerned all the time with matters of consequence. Everyone so booked to the gills with stuff. I know some of it is the way that this pending divorce, the bankruptcy, the complete and total lack of ability to claim any sort of worldly success is totally f****ng messing with me. I don't need to be mega anything, but honestly no part of my life plan ever involved having to hang my head in shame and mortification as I told people my husband left me for livestock. No part of my life plan ever, ever, EVER saw me 29 days from 40 and so broke I can't even pay attention.

Shrug. This is not exactly inspirational. I am not there today. I want to be. I have cried out to the Lord so much since this morning, I think He is letting all go straight to voice mail.

What did I ever do so horrible in my life that I deserved to be cheated on and all my dreams shattered?

NOTHING.

God allowed it. No clue why and still working through some emotion on that. I am not the woman I was when this started. There is good in that but so much bad. I don't think that a lifetime in prayer and therapy will heal this gaping chest wound that my husband and his self-centered malady left me with. There is no beauty for ashes today. Today, once again God chose not to make all things new or to work all things to the good of Jen who loves him, I willfully and willingly stepped into being a full-on, stay-at-home mom. I don't regret the time. I only regret that the world is not so accommodating and that further exacerbating the annihilation of my confidence that has come from the actions of my husband is the clear cutting that comes every-time I unsuccessfully try to sell myself to some prospective employer.

I can not press any further in without actually going home to the Lord himself. That my friends is the truth of my situation. I have nothing but God and his promises. That I have survived this far in this situation is nothing but the grace of God. No joke. Pressing in doesn't mean you don't feel the pain. I feel the pain. Daily. Some days hourly. I live in a world where hypocritical women's studies lecturers fuck husbands because of their own damned brokenness. Your actions destroyed my world, my life, my peace. I fucking hate you both. May God deal with you ever so severely.

I hate this world.

I am tired of so much.

I just want to move to Tipp City and live out the remainder of my years in the relative peace of Miami County. Once...all the best...it was mine. I never once took it for granted. I really didn't But here I am. Busted and broken and abandoned. Tipp City, yeah, I am still here. And it beats the hell out of moving back to Germantown.

I never claimed perfection.

I just want to be content.

Get Busy Living Or Get Busy Dying (Do Your Part To Save The Scene And Stop Going To Shows)

Sometimes, little things in life act as confirmation. Confirmation that you are on the right track. A nod that you are doing the right thing. A wink that you are in fact in the right place at the right time. This past Sunday was one of those times for me.

The ladies in my mom's group (and a few other really) have teased me before about my propensity for using movies to apply spiritual principles and moral concepts. So, you can imagine my utter joy when our pastor began to preach out of "Shawshank Redemption" on Sunday morning. The sermon entitled "Get Moving" is the first of four about spiritual growth. Now, if you know me, you also know that I revel in using song lyrics as blog titles and so as I headed home that morning, I found Fall Out Boy's "Get Busy Living or Get Busy Dying (Do Your Part to Save the Scene And Stop Going to Shows)", stay with me, and give me a few paragraphs and I will tie it all together.

Get busy living or get busy dying. Those words have been bouncing around my head the past several days like a truckload of Superballs in gymnasium during an earthquake. Get. Busy. Living. Get. Busy. Dying. There is no in middle. I know this because it is what I am discovering through this particular trial of my life. To chose nothing, to chose complacency, to try to balance on the fence is a passive choice toward death and decay and stagnation. It's okay to have a bad day. It's okay to react in anger. It's okay to plot to send twenty-five pounds of micro-fine red glitter to those who have harmed you. It's not okay to stay there. To stay in the dark is to stay imprisoned.

But how, Jen, how do start living you don't know what I am up against. I don't, you are right but I do know what I have waded through in my life and I am still standing. I am currently living in a season of my life where if I was not actually living it I would very much think that I was making some of this stuff up. I made a conscious choice in this trial early on that I was not going to live in the dark side. However, I am not skipping through a field of poppies with a song in my heart and a gleam in my eye every day. No, no, some days the feeling is much more that of being in a bog covering quicksand covering a black hole. Some days the weigh of my comforter is too much to deal with, let alone a failing marriage, a financial crisis, endless unemployment and all my motherly duties. I get it.

The Fall Out Boy title resonates with me because I married a musician. When he started making connections that were counter to what we had said we wanted for our family, I took a step back. Spirit led me that way. I don't belong there. I miss it sometimes but truth be told but I would rather suffer as a daughter of Christ than reign as the queen of the underground. I am just too sparkly to be that dark. I know that I am none of the things his band mates said about me and none of the lies he told his girlfriend about me are rooted in truth. They keep their folly, I keep my soul. It seemed like a fair trade.

Our circumstances may be different but the suffering is the same. So while you are there..."alone in your electric chair"...what is it going to be? The choice is entirely yours, that's what freewill is all about. I made my conscious decision way, way, way before the sneaky behavior, the lying, and ultimately the cheating happened. I didn't just make a declaration that life was going to be a certain way and then POOF! Snarky, sardonic Jenny was suddenly transformed into Polyanna. It's been a journey. You can't change without movement, reaction, refining and pruning. There is mourning involved. There are tears. There are walls. There are choices to be made.

So, what's it going to be are you going to get busy living or are you content to spend the next forty years dying?

Get busy. Get moving. Go

*********
Below is the sermon entitled "Get Moving" from Christ United Methodist Church in Kettering, Ohio. I encourage you to follow the sermon series on Vimeo or if you are in the greater Dayton ares come out and join us on Sundays at 9, 10 or 11:15.


September 13, 2015 Barry DeShetler Get Moving – Exploring Christ from Christ Church United Methodist on Vimeo.

Guinnevere

Original Poetry by Jenny Reibert-Wolfe ~ Copyright 2015

Shards

Sometimes, I write.

Sometimes, it's good.

One of those things may be true here.

Without further adieu, Shards....

Shards - Original Poetry by Jenny Reibert-Wolfe Copyright 2015
Graphics arranged by Jenny Reibert-Wolfe using picmonkey.com

It's a never-ending circus ride, the faint of heart need not apply.

Today's blog is brought to you courtesy of life. My life has unwritten the content and has secured the funding for what you are about to read.

"Mi Vida Loco" was running steadily through my head earlier today. I have thought of it from time to time but not like it was hitting me early this afternoon. This country hit from 1994 has a special place in my heart, and today that heart and these lyrics seemed as one.

See, once upon a time I was a 19 year old I don't even know what I was, maybe just 19, maybe 19 needs no adjectives to describe it because it just is what it is and whenever someone starts a sentence with when I was 19 everyone should just graciously say, that there is nothing else you need to say. So, once upon a time I was 19 and I owed a friend money but I didn't have cash but I had credit so I offered to take her to dinner to be even. So Bert and Ernie, as we were affectionately known, headed to Denny's because it was the only place open where we met Nick and Dan.

Nothing about him would have ever made me think his senior to me was as many years as it was. By the end of the night, we were inseparable. And I knew he would call me because I had his jacket. What ensued was, sigh, what ensued has only ever been matched and superceded by one other person in the history of my life thus far. Being 19, no red flag ever showed up on my radar. He treated me like a queen and I enjoyed every damn minute of it. I could be me and not all hung up on worrying about if I was cool enough. We enjoyed some of the same music and had enough glue that the differences were irrelevant. He would tell me that I looked like Tori Amos and that this song made him think of me.

The ultimate gift, trophy of that relationship would be my daughter.

I don't know nor will I probably ever understand why things went the way that they did. It's not even worth dragging out tonight. I certainly got the better end of the deal, a wonderful, beautiful daughter all to myself, no custody drama, no alternate weekends, no split summers. Just me and my Jo. I am sure it wasn't easy. I am sure there was always wonderining. I wish that I had had answers.

Fast forward and disregard everything else. This afternoon, his dad picked her up. She made contact with the other side as it were several weeks ago and it going to be spending the next several days getting to know them minus her dad. I am grateful. I am grateful that our God is a God of reconciliation and redemption. Grateful but unprepared.

I never realized that all of this would hit me the way it is hitting me. I am happy for her. But I am wondering about myself and my own life that after going through all of that I would find myself in the exact same arrangement with my marriage. Here I am, twenty years later, dealing with a man who walked away from me and our kids and not really sure what I am supposed to learn from all of this.

It's little consolation that God always loves me when the two greatest loves of my life willingly walked away from me and their children. What did I do wrong Lord? Because tonight to be honest, it doesn't feel like I have ever done anything right. It's like everyone else always gets the credit even though I am doing the work. I am kinda salty about that. I don't what to do except write this.

So, yeah, "Mi Vida Loco" it was assigned to me in the summer of 1995. I don't feel much like a wild rose anymore. I do think once upon a time it was a perfect song for me but then a shit-ton of bullshit got in the way of my happily ever after. Shrug. You can't win them all I guess.

I'd like to win one though.

Maybe someday.

I don't know.

If I made you feel second best Girl I'm sorry I was blind

Last couple of weeks, I have really, really been missing someone. I haven't really connected with this person in awhile. I used to totally love to hang out. It's really sad how people lose touch through time and circumstances. It's even sadder when the person you miss is yourself.

Sigh.

This summer, this last couple of months, the last year, the last two years, it's been a particular season. It seems like I am constantly off kilter. So busy merely surviving that I can't live. It's deeper than this season. I have been an adult in the eyes of the law for long enough that my daughter is now an adult in the eyes of the law. Parents make sacrifices. Big hearted people make sacrifices. I made a lot of sacrifices. Some I am 100% okay with but some in the last 2-4 years, maybe longer, were not wise.

Someone once told me that they believed that for me writing and breathing were pretty much the same. I never really thought about it. I just like to write. I like art. I like to write. I like to create. It's just what I do. Creativity is the closest one can get to knowing what it is like to be God and to be one with God. Everyone always thought I would be a writer when I grew up. (Good news, according to my runaway husband I haven't, so there is still time!) I started out college in theater. I always recognized that poets needed to eat. But I never really attempted anything huge. Always so scared of the rejection. My biggest writing accomplishments to date are winning a Bill Morrissey CD from WYSO because I penned a quick poem to Vick Mickunas of which all I remember is"Oh why, oh why must they disparage me and my 91.3"  and getting honorable mention in a poetry contest for a piece called "Easter" that was a nice piece of angst about my imaginary boyfriend calling me up drunk on Easter eve. As an aside, the imaginary boyfriend is a real person, imaginary is just a title he fell into somehow.

Anyway, as this consciousness streams on, as I keep on keeping on, keep on pushing, I have these moments. I miss a random something I used to do. I don't know why some other thing stopped being done. I get flashes of consuming creativity at inopportune times. I know all of what was still is there. But you know sometimes those first few cookies out of the press are not so great, so I just quietly thought is was some random whatever to cope or you know the system just clearing itself out of junk.

Then I went to California. I didn't even have an aching in my heart. I had a long time to just be and observe and apparently some rapid decompression happened. I wrote. I wrote poetry. Mostly I have been stuck in blog and journal mode which is mostly non-fiction. Oh but I wrote something. Something that made me wish I had study hall next hour because I was so in love with my brilliance.  Moments like that, they are rare when I write.

So yeah. I miss me. I miss being creative. Writing, painting, drawing, sewing, some where, somehow I got lost in the shuffle of my own life.

Some day, I will write about it.

But until then, I will just share the poem I wrote on the way to California. I hesitated at first because of some things but then realized it was stupid because I know damn well that even though his music doesn't always have lyrics it's about me. Not delusional, I just know how artist process life.

Stop reverse that. I really want to share this poem. Really, really, really I do. It's not time. I can't quite defend myself on the back end. It's a beautiful poem. It's just that it's a scathingly honest, wistful, sorrow-filled piece of free verse. Maybe some day I will share it.

No, today, or tonight rather, I am going to serenade myself with multiple versions of this old gem.I let myself, let me feel less than. I have no excuse. It's time to move to the next level. Until then, sing it with me...

Maybe I didn't treat you
Quite as good as I should have
Maybe I didn't love you
Quite as often as I could have
Little things I should have said and done
I just never took the time

I'm thinking of things that I just can't abide

Heh, I am of an age where the word "abide" makes me think of the Dude. I don't really care for that movie but hey, at least I got the reference for it.

Another small victory for Jenkind is that in searching for the video to go with this post, I decided to search for my personal Holy Grail which is an old SNL sketch about parliament. And I found it here heeeeehaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaw!

Today has been fantastic. That is my story and I am sticking to it. At some point, I did find myself preaching to myself. Over and over saying, it's not a setback, it's a setup. Over and over reminding myself that I will see the goodness of the Lord in the land of the living. Reminding myself because well, I was thinking things that I just can't abide. So yes, at some point, this song popped into my head.

I truly don't understand how things in my life are playing out right in this moment. I have to keep repeating things I know to be true because I 100% do not have any natural understanding of what is going on or why things are playing out like they are or if this is new normal and I missed the memo. I know it to be patently false that the darkside has cookies, so I try to avoid it at all costs.

I have been believing that God works all things to the good of those who love him. I have been believing that God makes all things new. I have been believing that I will see the goodness of the Lord in the land of the living.

I ask Him to direct my steps, He says be still.

It's the hardest lesson ever. I am ready, willing and able to do so much more but He says wait. Don't look left or right, but look right at Me he says. Some days it is so easy to do. Today, not so much. It is what it is and it will pass. I struggle with anger at this whole situation, these circumstances. I don't want to be still. I want everything to be better. I want to wake up with a heart that doesn't hurt anymore.

I want to see what the setup was for. I want to see the goodness of the Lord. I want to get to shore so I can stop swimming.

I want everything to come into perfect alignment.

Maybe today...

Maybe today...

But until then, I am just going to roll with it.

If you're going to San Francisco, you're gonna meet some gentle people there

Came home today from 4 days/5 nights in beautiful downtown San Francisco. I would post a picture from the trip but none, nada, zero, zilch, null set of my pictures saved to OneDrive. (Seriously Windows, seriously!)

I am probably going to write about my trip extensively over the next several days. Seriously so fantastic, not bragging, truly grateful for the journey made possible by the grace of God and my brother's loving-kindness.

I picked the title I did because it was my experience with my California trip.

I can't count on one hand the number of times I was hit on. It's good for the soul to be randomly complimented. Apparently, I have a fantastic ass, a beautiful smille, great legs and some kid on a fishing pier wants me to be his "sugar mama." It's flattering really that he perceived me as the kinda gal who could make that happen for him. The award for best line of the trip goes to a homeless gent in Tenderloin. It's the best line because oh honey if he only knew and him saying it is vindication. As I walked past, he said...I do not mean this with any disrespect but your husband is a lucky man with great taste because you are beyond sexy and you made my day just because you smiled at me.


I do smile at everyone. I can't help it. It's who I am. At my core, I am sparkly and shiny and I enjoy the adventure of life.



Speaking of adventure, one of the things I had the opportunity to do is attend Joel Osteen's America's Night of Hope at AT&T Park. I had planned my day to chill until late and then head to 21st Amendment Brewery for lunch then hanging out in the South Beach area. Soooooooooooo...

By Saturday, I had my thousand foot stare perfected. I blended beautifully with the natives. I was walking down Folsom toward my afternoon destinations. A voice next to me suddenly said,"You have beautiful toes." It was a female and a quick side glance prompted me to respond,"Thank you, I get that all the time." I do. No lie. I have people, complete strangers compliment my feet of all things all the time. Conversation ensued. This my friends should be the norm. Two people just having a fantastic conversation on 3rd and Folsom on a lazy August Saturday afternoon. There is hope for humanity after all. I am grateful for the time with that random stranger. Neither one of us offered name, rank or serial number. There was just one moment, that moment and it was she and I and God and nothing else mattered. She shared a story that completely blessed me. It was one of those "random" things. She didn't know me or my background but here she was telling me something about someone she knew and what happened to them and BOOM thank you God for that little wink. Seriously.

I have heard so many horror stories of Bay Area douchebaggery that I was totally prepared for that sorta of seething, smarminess that requires a full set of shots and full armor. Thank you San Francisco for being the San Francisco of the gentle people. Maybe next time I'll buy flowers on Union Square to put in my hair. Because there will be a next time...

Doing the Unstuck: Discerning the Next Dimension

The song"Doing the Unstuck" by The Cure is probably one of my favorite songs.

it's a perfect day for letting go
for setting fire to bridges
boats
and other dreary worlds you know
let's get happy!
it's a perfect day for making out
to wake up with a smile without a doubt
to burst grin giggle bliss skip jump and sing and shout
let's get happy!

I am a particular individual that I would be watching a T.D Jakes sermon and have this song pop into my head.

Admittedly, I have not been in the best of spirits the past few days. It's not a depression, seriously it's more of an oppression and my own damned flaw to have to know as much information as possible. It's so easy to be still when the river of life is smooth but man, oh man when you reach that Class 5+ part of the journey things get a little hairy.

So, yeah, there have been parts of this day that I really just had to push through.Not the whole day, just parts here and there. I don't know if it was tiredness or what, but I sat down to journal and floodgates opened up, along with a whole barrage of questions for God. I finished and pulled up YouTube on the Roku and flipped through the recommended videos. T.D. Jakes "Discerning the Next Dimension." was one of those recommendations. I picked it because I have a favorite sermon by another preacher called "Next Level"

Yeah, so, you know how when something random is so appropriate and spot on and it kinda totally gives you some confirmation because after all the YouTube algorithms could not have known the day that I had or what was weighing on my heart. It's pretty much a sermon about getting over your own bullshit and once and for embracing the purpose that God put you here for. It was pretty much a sermon about not letting the continual beatings of life deter you from following what it put on your heart. More or less. It's probably better if you watch it yourself...and don't think of it as a sermon, think of it as a motivational speech with a Biblical reference point.

So what does one have to do with the other?

I think the summation of the Jakes talk is reflective of the following verse of "Doing the Unstuck"

but it's much to late you say
for doing this now
we should have done it then
well it just goes to show
how wrong you can be
and how you really should know
that it's never too late
to get up and go

Maybe I do know what I am supposed to do. Maybe I have always known my next dimension but I let all this insanity cloud my vision and disconnect me from my purpose. I know that I am guilty of this because I used to be up this late all the time writing and creating but I let the shadow in someone else dim my own sweet light.

This verse of the song:

kick out the gloom
kick out the blues
tear out the pages with all the bad news
pull down the mirrors and pull down the walls
tear up the stairs and tear up the floors
oh just burn down the house!
burn down the street!
turn everything red and the dream is complete
with the sound of your world
going up in fire
it's a perfect day to throw back your head
and kiss it all goodbye

It reminds me in a modern way of Isaiah 43:18-19  (NKJV):

¹⁸ “Do not remember the former things,
Nor consider the things of old.
¹⁹ Behold, I will do a new thing,
Now it shall spring forth;
Shall you not know it?
I will even make a road in the wilderness
And rivers in the desert.

 Next level. Next dimension. Doing the Unstuck. It's all possible. Hopefully soon, I'll get to write a post called,"Break on Through to the Other Side."

First Day of the Rest of My Life: Take 14,524

As I start this, it must be the right thing to do because Matthew West's "Day One" is playing on the radio right now.

Day one. 

No day before.

Clean slate.

The beginning.

It's late evening as I write this but that's because that is the time I have available to write. I have never been much of a conformist and the older I get the more I see the complete illusion that is calculated time. Shrug. Call me a weirdo. It's okay, I am totally fine with that. 

Lamentations 3:23-24, that's the whole His mercies are new every day thing. Sigh, but in full disclosure...I struggle with this and the idea of hope these days. Shrug. At some point, in a relentless beating, you just give up and shut down. 

That feels awful to type but it is so totally how I feel right now! 

I keep hearing that the opposite of faith is not doubt, but worry. The first time I heard that it was comforting because I have really been wrestling with well, anything and everything. 

Why wouldn't I be? 

My husband left me for a woman who somehow despite working in the women's studies department at the local state university and having done some work she feels worthy of noting involving Christianity...well, she seems to fail to recognize or even implicate herself in the ongoing financial abuse or any of the past verbal, mental, emotional or physical abuse. Plus, she has totally ruined the Beastie Boys for me because now when I hear the lines,"And beatnik chicks just wearing their smocks/ Walking high and mighty like she's #1 and /She thinks she's the passionate one." I for whatever reason think of her. But I digress...

Where was I. Oh, yeah...my husband left me. It's been almost two years. I am still in disbelief. How can a man who says that you are his whole world and that he is so grateful that God gave me to him suddenly decide that livestock makes a better romantic alternative? In my best Church Lady voice,"Hmmmm, could it be Satan?" Damn Skippy.

When all of this broke, I hit my knees and then hit the pavement and came up short. No better job, no better income, and a whole mess of other issues that have me very much fully doubting just about everything. I mean everything! As I sit here on my patio typing this, I am gonna lose this house. I have tried and tried to get more income, to get support on paper, pray, plead, hope, wish. Nothing. I love my little house. And stupidly, part of the reason I love it is because my husband worked so hard and without complaint to get us here. Wanna see the view from here? 

Okay, so the webcam takes a horrible picture. There is so much peace in this backyard. That right corner where it's all bushy should be a vegetable garden but all the rain and lack of time for weeding and um, my love of morning glories has lead to this abomination. You can't see the apple tree or the fire pit or any of the memories of all the good times in this backyard or how absolutely gorgeous the sky is tonight.

I don't know what I am supposed to do with myself. Yeah, pretty much you would not be wrong to queue up that White Stripes song of a similar name. I didn't need him when I met him or have any weird issue that made me make poor decisions. He was in my life because I wanted him and not just haphazardly, willy nilly. Fuck. (Sorry.) That's what makes this all the harder. I didn't enter into this half-cocked or aimlessly trying to fulfill some need. I repeatedly put him off. I was good in my condo with my daughter and all my friends. Something though said give him a chance.

Famous last words.

Seriously.

He just dropped our son off and he treats me like some two-bit whore he never gave two shits about. Dropped some money on the table on the porch and does not acknowledge me. It's pretty unnerving.

Anyway...

Where was I?

I am not even sure. Seriously. Seriously.

First day of the rest of my life: take 14,524. How many of those days were wasted? I shudder to think. But God's mercies are new every day. Every single solitary stinking day! This is good. It means that no matter how bad I screw up today that tomorrow is a new day. And I do screw up I struggle with forgiveness for my husband and that skank whore he is shacked up with. I struggle to be okay with a world that is okay with what is happening to me and my kids. My kids are absolute proof in a higher force to me, I don't deserve such loveliness, such awesomeness in my life, yet there they are...somehow still calling me Mom and relying on me for things despite the fact the I know without a doubt I have totally dropped the ball of providing sanity, comfort, security, peace. Ugh. I feel very bad about this. This...all of what is going on in this moment...it is not what I ever wanted or envisioned for either of them. I wanted more. Every mother does...

The mercies are new everyday, but the residual feelings of failure never seem to fade.

Maybe I am doing this all wrong.

Please advise.

Maybe I should do something with all these drafts

I have four drafts just sitting here, incomplete, unposted, neglected.

I have a lot of incomplete, neglected, unfinished, unposted business in my life.

I don't like that theme.

Deep breath.

Maybe I need that guy from Moral Kombat to pop up in life with the command to finish...whatever it is I need to finish. Finish the dishes. Finish the business plan. Finish the blog. Finish the cinnamon rolls.

It's not that I lack motivation. I just can't get past this sense of futility in life, in love, in only eating one Pringle. I am not depressed or super discontent or anything except discouraged and mired in fear.

Every step forward seems to be met with a donkey kick backwards.

I don't like that theme.

Maybe I should do something with all these drafts. I just don't know what yet.

I Don't Know

I don't know. Seriously, this is probably going to be one of those full of sound and fury, signifying nothing sort of post. I actually have entire journal entries lately that pretty much are I don't know written over and over with some other ponderings in between. So, if you clicked in for something profound, sorry, you picked the wrong week to click.

Oh, I could write volumes about all the crazy, messed up, inexplicable stuff going on in life lately. Seriously, I could. Just out of what happened today, I feel like I have lived a thousand lifetimes since I woke up this morning. 

But I can't write about what's going on in my life because people are sensitive and as much as part of me wants to just scream "BRING IT!" I don't need to fuel this drama fire that seems to be camped around me. 

Life would be less dramatic if people would be honest. I don't know, just something I think about sometimes. 

And much like Ricky Bobby, I don't know what to do with my hands. 

I don't know what to do with baseless accusations I am contending with. I don't know what to do without bass. I just don't know. 

I don't know nothing about nothing and I don't know how this is all supposed to play out. I just don't know. 

My inner Stuart Smalley wants to remind me that I am good enough, I am smart enough, and gosh darn it people like me. So, I don't know why I keep getting rejected. I don't know why I feel so stupid all the time. I don't know why people would like me. 

I don't know why people would like me because someone in my life keeps telling me that I am horrible. It's been their M.O. since they decided that they wanted to pursue other interests. I really want to start writing in the pubic forum about the insidious nature of emotional, mental, and financial abuse and I don't know how to start doing that without inciting a riot. 

I don't know. That's all I can say anymore. I don't know about my job situation. I don't know about my financial situation. I don't know what I want to wear today. I don't know about my housing situation. I don't know about this book I am reading. I don't know why I can't have nice things. I don't know why the dudes in my life that leave me never leave me for younger, prettier woman. I don't know how to process things. I don't know what's going on with any of the now four legal battles I am involved in because of someone else's poor choices in life. I don't know why I just said that. 

I am frustrated. Why? Because I don't know. I don't have to know everything or even half of everything but the whole stalemate, land of illusion that my life is anymore has me completely befuddled. I don't know what I am supposed to make of all of it. I don't know, as my good friend is prone to saying. whether to shit or wind my watch. 

I don't have this expectation of life being something easy. 

But Jesus, I don't know why it's got to be so brutally hard lately. 

I don't know. I just don't know.

What's In a Name: A Memory and Lesson in the Power of Our Words.

What's in a name? That which we call a rose
By any other name would smell as sweet." Romeo and Juliet (II, ii, 1-2)

What's in a name indeed! A friend sent me a text the other day that very succinctly outlined how to play a game with a narcissist. The long and the short of it, you don't. So much going on right now that I can not put into the public forum. It's not my heart to put out sensationalism and low common denominator stuff. That's what I text my girls for because they get it and it ends with them. My venting is not my heart and even them I am extremely careful about my words.

Words have power. Lots and lots of power and despite great advances in medicine, technology and the delivery of over a hundred beverage options from one fountain, human brains continue to not get it. Biblically, Proverbs tells us life and death is in the power of the tongue. Buddha tells us, "Whatever words we utter should be chosen with care for people will hear them and be influenced by them for good or ill."George Michael cautions,"Time can never mend the careless whispers of a good friend." Law of attraction, power of positive thinking, so much is out there about our words and how they affect us.

I am not a perfect practitioner of this. Lawd, if you heard some of the things I tell myself about myself some days you'd probably smack me as a matter of principle. But I do try to be mindful of this and work on being kinder to myself and others. What's got me on this jag starts with that text the other day and the winding path of the past couple of days. I remember when the initials that someone clung to for identity stood for something other than a horrible mental condition. When did that point come when this personal identifier stopped being about detox and started being about disorder? How has every day since then shaped the outcome of life? There's a story in all that. A sad one but I keep hoping that the ending is happy.

I guess today friends I am just keenly aware of words and the actions that follow them and how they can create or destroy peace. I am keenly aware of the truth in being careful what you attach your "I Am" to. I am more aware than I care to be about how people stop speaking life into other people and the decline that follows. I wish people would quit being so mean and unforgiving and judgmental and gossipy about each other. Especially when they say they are family, friends, lovers, whatever.

Detox is so much better than disorder but it takes work.

Just something to think about.

Be well until next time friends.

Getting What You Ask For: An Exuberant Declaration of Faith

A tad over a month ago, I posted on Facebook that I was in search of a vehicle under $4k and that I wasn't really picky about make and model and honestly what was important to me was sunroof, leather seats and a stereo system good enough to drown out everything mechanically wrong.

I got what I wanted. Isn't she a beauty? Sunroof. Leather Seats. Stereo with cassette AND six-disc CD player. Bonus, nothing mechanically wrong. Yes. Yes. It is a Lexus. It's irrelevant. Just more icing.

I am grateful that I got everything I asked for in this vehicle. I am astounded at how it all happened.

There are some very specific challenges in my life that I have been leaving off the blog because I really don't want to give them anymore life than they already have taken on. So that being said, the night that I met with the bankruptcy attorney rather than get down about the long and the short of things outside of my control, I decided to kind of poke around and see what vehicles would be under the exemption limit. This popped up on a search on the high end of the criteria. A few other things that caught my attention as well but then I just sort of filed it all in the back of my head. I had a number of things to do before I got to that point.

About three weeks went by before I sold the vehicle I needed to sell. The check hold gave me a few days to really do some legwork on what was next. At the time, I still had another vehicle but not one that was going to last long-term. This car was still coming up in searches. Being on the high end, I dismissed it. Well, at least I tried too. A strange chain of events caused me to be on the phone with my insurance agent. So, I figured I would ask for a quote and that would end the fantasy of this vehicle. My jaw dropped. About the same as I had been paying.

Hmm, okay. Then, my thought was this Lexus RX300 has to be a teaser car. Emailed the dealer. Nope. So I scheduled a test drive that night. She's not perfect but she's better than a lot of what was out there in my range.

I need to back up. Around the same time that I met the bankruptcy attorney, Psalm 27 started popping up all over the place for me. In whole and in part. For those of you not familiar, Psalm 27 is titled in the New King James Version as "An Exuberant Declaration of Faith" and goes as follows:

An Exuberant Declaration of Faith

A Psalm of David.

27 The Lord is my light and my salvation;
Whom shall I fear?
The Lord is the strength of my life;
Of whom shall I be afraid?
² When the wicked came against me
To eat up my flesh,
My enemies and foes,
They stumbled and fell.
³ Though an army may encamp against me,
My heart shall not fear;
Though war may rise against me,
In this I will be confident.

⁴ One thing I have desired of the Lord,
That will I seek:
That I may dwell in the house of the Lord
All the days of my life,
To behold the beauty of the Lord,
And to inquire in His temple.
⁵ For in the time of trouble
He shall hide me in His pavilion;
In the secret place of His tabernacle
He shall hide me;
He shall set me high upon a rock.

⁶ And now my head shall be lifted up above my enemies all around me;
Therefore I will offer sacrifices of joy in His tabernacle;
I will sing, yes, I will sing praises to the Lord.

⁷ Hear, O Lord, when I cry with my voice!
Have mercy also upon me, and answer me.
⁸ When You said, “Seek My face,”
My heart said to You, “Your face, Lord, I will seek.”
⁹ Do not hide Your face from me;
Do not turn Your servant away in anger;
You have been my help;
Do not leave me nor forsake me,
O God of my salvation.
¹⁰ When my father and my mother forsake me,
Then the Lord will take care of me.

¹¹ Teach me Your way, O Lord,
And lead me in a smooth path, because of my enemies.
¹² Do not deliver me to the will of my adversaries;
For false witnesses have risen against me,
And such as breathe out violence.
¹³ I would have lost heart, unless I had believed
That I would see the goodness of the Lord
In the land of the living.

¹⁴ Wait on the Lord;
Be of good courage,
And He shall strengthen your heart;
Wait, I say, on the Lord!

Back to the story at hand. After my test drive, I made an offer and while I waiting I noticed the number on the dealer plate that they had slapped on for my drive. 2710. So, in an effort to not worry about what was being done with my offer I pulled it up. The second verse jumped out at me...then the Lord will take care of me.

I am by no means a prosperity theology person. I don't believe that obedience brings material wealth or some other ways Biblical truth has been twisted to justify less than Biblical gains. But I do believed that God provides. And on April 7, He provided me with exactly what I asked for: leather seats, sunroof and a kick-ass stereo. I am grateful, so grateful for the way it all worked out.

As for the fact that it's a Lexus. I am pretty sure that can be filed under the way He uses the foolish to confound the wise. Or maybe it really is that He contends with those who contend with me and a little something about living well being the best revenge or something like that. I don't know. I am not bragging. I just want to encourage you to not settle. Don't let your circumstances dictate your choices or your critics get in the way of you receiving your blessings. Playas gonna play and haters gonna hate but a little faith and the right intentions who knows you could be driving a Mercedes Benz and get that color TV and your night on the town.

Don't think, just believe.

And be careful what you ask for you might just get it!!

I Don't Care About Making Money, I Just Love Writing Blogs...

There was a Paula White post on Facebook tonight that prompted me to repost with my own commentary and commenting that I want to do something as much as Buddy loves selling carpet. 

I am or rather I have let myself get separated from my purpose. I have let circumstances and a whole mess of bad ideas, bad behavior and negative bullshit from others distract me from what is important. 

A friend once commented that she felt that if I could do nothing but draw and write and entertain people all day that I would be a happier person. It's true to some degree. Writing and drawing have always been strange pressure release valves for me. Once upon a time I was good at both, I don't know so much anymore but I do enjoy them both still. Actually, to be honest she said the she felt that writing and drawing were the same as breathing to me and that she was fairly certain I was suffocating from lack of output. That was a long time ago but still some truth there. 

I blog for me and the ten people who read it. I let one very negative critic hinder me. I let fear render me silent. I should have been sharing the story of my life as it has unfolded because well, I should have. I have in the past written about things very much from my heart and received some very grateful thank yous from ladies who thought they were alone in that particular thought pattern, that particular frustration, that particular despair. There is too much quiet desperation in the world.

There are things I need to say. 

For me.

For you.

Just because. 

Are you in? 

Circle yes or no.

Be well friends, the best is yet to come.

Happy Mother's Day!

This one goes out to all the mamas and all the baby's mamas and the baby's mamas mamas and to mothers and all other mentoring souls this Mother's Day. May your blessings be neverending...like your laundry!

Celadon Road Earth Day Enrollment Special ends April 30,2015

Join today at www.myceladonroad.com/mygreenheaven

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As a founding consultant, I invite you to start on your road to success by reading more about this April Enrollment Special here and then clicking the "Join My Team" link. Interested in the products but not ready to join? Then take a minute to subscribe to the Celadon Road Purely Speaking newsletter.

First Day of the Rest of...

March. Yep, that's true but I was gonna say life. 

First day of the rest of my life.

First day of the rest of your life. 

I had something more profound rumbling around in my head but the laziness of snow has brought about some amnesia. 

I like the stillness that snow brings. 

How suddenly our busyness becomes unimportant. The millions of things I might have done today gave way to a quiet(ish) day at home with my son and daughter. 

All and all, I'd say I am off to a great start. 

What about you? How did you spend the first day of the rest of your life? And if it were the last day would you regret the way you spent it? 

Be well friends, until we meet again.