The Quite Bearable Lightness of Being Sparkly

Just a little something I threw together for this post.

I just posted this on Facebook:
Wide awake with insomnia of contentment and too much iced tea...thinking about how much has changed since last year and getting another glass of tea and staying up to write all night. Couldn't tell you off hand the last time that happened but suffice it to say that it's been awhile.

It's true. I want to start writing a book. I still have some things to research so that I can tie all my little ideas together but I have officially put this book thing on my bucket list. I used to write a lot more than I do. Mostly for personal enjoyment but every little tiptoe into something more in-depth with it was generally met with positive feedback. I figure, if I get cracking at it now it could be released just in time for the 2017 holiday shopping season with the blockbuster movie released the next year.

I am quite content today. I wish I had really truly embraced the whole attitude is everything mantra earlier in life. I wish I had really fathomed once upon a time what it really mean to trust God and God's plan. I really wish I could bottle this and sell it. I suppose my second book could be how I got to here from where I was. I mean, to some degree, my core has always been sparkly I just could never sustain it for long because I was relying much too much on myself. Took a lot of dusting and polishing to get it where it is right now.

There were multiple moments today that showed me that I am different than I used to be and I am grateful for those moments. The one that most sticks out is the moment a co-worker walked by and exasperatedly said,"Is it time to go home yet?" I didn't step on the downward spiral and add weight to ride it down. I smiled and replied that is wasn't but it was a minute closer than it had been so that was something, right? I know it seems insignificant but once upon a time someone told me that if I was a Care Bear my name would be "Black Sunshine" because my sarcasm was hilarious and made people laugh but it wasn't necessarily motivating.

I see it too. The first time was about a month ago. I could see light in my eyes again. Other people are seeing now too. Not that I need the validation but the fact that others notice means that I am being consistent enough in the care and feeding of Jenny to produce results. I like that.

I can't sit here and say it's an easy task. Making the conscious decision to be the light, be positive, that's easy enough but once you make the statement to your soul you have to commit to the work. You have to be willing to sift through yourself, although some days it will feel more like a cut-and-burn operation. Proverbs 27:17 says in the I just adapted this to fit this blog version of the verse: As glitter sharpens glitter, so a man polishes the sparkle of his friend. (Probably upset the Baptist and the feminist with that one because I am just that awesome. But anyway...) I have been blessed to have some first-class glitter polishers and light shiners in my life. It helps. It helps a whole lot. In the process, I have found that am highly allergic to negativity and some days people's countenance, comments and crassness pierces me like nails on a chalkboard. Change begets change I guess. 

I am so much better than I was a year ago and you know what? That just makes me that much more excited for tomorrow but not to the expense of the best thing I have learned on this leg of my journey. One. Day. At. A. Time. Don't worry about tomorrow. Again, there is a learning curve there, but I am so one day at a time right now I expect Schneider to walk through my door to fix something. It doesn't mean you don't plan. It doesn't mean you don't dream. It doesn't mean you stop living. I have big plans and big dreams and I am living better than I have in years. It mean you change your focus. It means you identify what you truly want and have the boldness to walk away from things that are outside of that. 


I genuinely love my job. I genuinely enjoy the people I work with and the people I come in contact with through work. I have a nice apartment overlooking the courtyard. I can get everywhere in five or ten minutes. I have two wonderful children. I have a family that loves me and friends that do as well. I have more time for personal pursuits that I have in years. I get to wake up every morning and see what new adventure awaits me. I can choose to focus on the dark, shadowy parts of life or I can look for the beauty in every moment, the lesson in every letdown.

I think the pinball guy in "Waking Life" put it best when he said,"There's only one instance, and it's right now. And it's eternity." You can spend eternity in heaven or hell, purgatory or paradise. That's what free will is all about, you get to make the choices. You can choose to try and piss on my parade and beat me down with matters of consequence or you can come with me to buy and umbrella and a latte. Regardless of what you believe right in this moment in time, you still have a choice on how you are going to respond.

Contentment has nothing to do with belongings or status. It just has to do with you and your decisions. And this my friends is not a new or a New Age idea. One merely has to flip their Bible app to Philippians 4:11-13:

I am not saying this out of need, for I have learned to be content regardless of my circumstances. I know how to live humbly, and I know how to abound. I am accustomed to any and every situation — to being filled and being hungry, to having plenty and having need. I can do all things through Christ who gives me strength.

Do one thing today, my friend, that polishes your sparkliness, makes your heart happy, puts a smile on your face. Going forward, it is my prayer that we all find the joy of contentment in the rest of our lives.  

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.

I am predicting a posting drought....

I am starting a job next week, so there is a 99.9% probability that my posting my drop off for a bit.

I know I said I wasn't going to do contract jobs anymore, but it isn't exactly like anyone else is picking me for their team. We've been running at a deficit for awhile. Well, kinda, I realized that when my husband told me this that he probably figured it on only his income and I have had some income coming in so we've probably been marginally okay the past couple months. Anyway, as much as it feels like every temp job is just a step away from ever getting hired on anywhere, I couldn't say 'no'.

Maybe my thrilling call center adventures will give me something to write about. I've spent so much time in customer service I am really amazed that I even like people anymore. Anonymity sure brings out the worst in people. Kinda makes you want to remind some of them that you have their address right in front of you and that you know people who will do things for a case of anything and gas money.

Maybe it's the distraction I need to get somethings in order. When I am working things have a way of falling away and falling into order. Well, okay, not always, but I think they will. There was a day back in October where I felt good about everything. I took a grocery trip with my son on a Sunday and just I don't know how to explain it other than it just felt like everything was looking up. Then, four days later my contract got cancelled.

Just wanted to put that out there because I know that there are some readers who don't actually know me in "real" life.

Winding down another day...

Got home from work at a tad before 9pm. I assumed that my husband and son were in bed because except for my daughter's light the house was completely dark. Within minutes, my daughter was in the kitchen with me talking my ear off and a few minutes later my son scooted in. Having such a good conversation with my daughter, I didn't even care my son was up past bedtime.

These last couple of post haven't really been as focused as I would like them to be. I get such plans for this blog thing and end up just doing whatever the hell I feel like. In general, a lot of things aren't how I would like them to be. Yesterday or the day before, I had posted something cryptic (surprise, surprise) about having a bad penny of an issue and not knowing what to do about it. Oddly enough, I have no issues know. I am learning to love the way life works itself out...without my input or say so or whatever other grandiose notion I have at the time.

So my blogs aren't focused and pretty and tied with a bow. People are reading. I am assuming people, maybe it is bots. I don't know. The point is that if I posted and posted and posted and never had hits, I would have quit. I really would have. But I post and post and post, sometimes very raw and very off the cuff and my hits will realistically reach 5 digits by the end of the year, so I must be doing something right.

I have entertained that I am a trainwreck and people can't help themselves. I don't think that is the case. Gruesome freak shows eventually get boring. Based on what I can see in my stats, I resonate with a few of you out there. I am grateful to have been given the opportunity to be relatable to you. I think of all the times that I have felt so lost, alone, out of control, crazy and think of what it would have meant to me to find something that I could hold onto and feel a little relief.

I have nothing against positivity and motivational slants BUT 24/7 happiness is not available without a prescription. I would rather be real and have people attach to me for my realness than to have a throng of adoring fans attached to a fabrication that I can not sustain. I am so Popeye in that I am what I am. And the phrase "I am" makes me think of a lesson I once heard a Unity minister deliver a lesson cautioning to be care what you attach your "I am" to. (Oh snap! I ended a sentence with a preposition.)

It makes a lot of sense really. Of all the things that I could say that I am...which ones REALLY matter? I am a job? Nope, not really in most cases. No fooling for a lot of a j-o-b is a means to an end, so why weigh yourself down with something like that? I am a social status. Sorry, wrong answer, take it from me and Frank Sinatra "riding high in April, shot down in May."

I am a wife and a mother...and a daughter and niece...a sister...a friend...a lover...God expressing at the point where I exist...love...those things seems worthwhile attachments to what I am because they are always and only dependent on one thing...me.

Nothing in my whole day mattered to me more than the time with my kids tonight when I got home. They never gave me time like that when I was home, so it makes me feel better about the cosmic scheme of how I ended up back in the work force in a job title I swore I would never hold.

I guess what I am saying is that you my friend should never cloud what you are with what you need to be because in the words of Loretta Lynn "God Makes No Mistakes."

Where ever you are, what ever you are doing, despite what you are feeling, it's all part of the ride. Trust me, hang on through that next dip, that next bend, sometimes even a couple of loop-de-loops, It's only the end of the world if you give up. I regret it took me nearly 37 years to figure that out.

How's that for a wind down? I am off to bed. I hope that whereever you are peace finds you and you are able to be a blessing to someone else. 

single book of matches gonna burn what's standing in the way

I've had Kings of Leon running in my head all weekend. Not Pyro tho, not sure which song to be honest. My brain for some reason is not capable of producing more than the tune inside my skull or more than the lyrics "Whoa, whoa, whoa..." The reason for choosing the Pyro lyric is my own and somewhat inexplicable at this point.

I'm taking everything back and starting over. Or something like that. Seriously. Didn't the use of song lyrics as a subject line give that away.

There's only one of me God help y'all and that one of me needs to be happy...even if it means not being very popular. I really meant what I said before about being happy when I only had one reader. Plus, there's been a whole chain of events that I've been paying attention to that lead me to believe that organic growth is much favorable to explosive growth.

So, over the next couple of months if my posts are sporadic, it's because I am building a cocoon because I have put off being a butterfly way too long!

Greetings from Monday...at least I think it's Monday!

Northern Exposure
http://www.markhenspeter.com/images/20050520170938_pict0031a.jpg

Does anyone else ever feel like they are in some sort of time warp or other sort of tear or wrinkle in the space/time continuum? It's Monday, May 14, 2012 and honestly I feel like I have lost a month or two somewhere!

I am seriously not complaining, a lot of details fall out of focus in times like this. Been offline more than on, and debating whether that is a sign I need a smartphone or if it's a sign of something else.

Despite all the seeming chaos, life has been quite peaceful lately. My husband's schedule has been regulating and he doesn't need to travel far, far away for sometime. School is winding down, so there's less to do there. Driving school is almost done too, just have to get her on roads and her test and that's done. Got a bit of a regular schedule going with the boy, too.

Despite my lack of post I have managed to cross something off my 2012 to do list...giveaways. I am currently running one and participating in two. May Daze Grab Bag is just something that I whipped up and it ends 5/31/12 and is open to US only. Chic Algene's Birthday Bash is open worldwide and ends 5/30/12. And finally, the Father's Day Mancave Giveaway is also open worldwide and ends 6/8/12. It's more work than I realized to organize and execute these giveaways but I am thankful for the opportunity that has presented itself to be a part of them.

I think that my looking at life like a centrifuge lately has helped me keep my sanity. Instead of getting upset at all I haven't gotten to, I've been looking at it more like all this shake up is separating out what I need to be concentrating on from what I've been wasting time on. Like, I am still active with Do You Bake and Clever Container but am seriously evaluating my place with both companies. Don't get me wrong, I love the products but do they fit long term with my life? I don't know the answer to that yet.  I did change the name of my old Clever blog, and I have a grand plan for that but it seems to be one of those things that has filtered out at the moment.

Anyway, enter some giveaways and have a great week! I know I plan to :)