'Cause there's this tune I found that makes me think of you somehow

So, yeah, I haven't written in four months. Well, written online because if memory serves I have burned through three notebooks and various scraps of paper. I had shied away from writing here because well, everyone keeps telling me to be careful what I post in public while I am going through this divorce.

Ah, this divorce, the gift that keeps on giving like a continual white elephant party. It has been 27 months since he said he didn't want to be married anymore. It has been 19 months since he filed for divorce. It has been 15 months since he moved in with that tranny looking thunderslut. It has been eight months since the bankruptcy he pushed me into was filed and four months since it discharged. It has been one week since our last court date. A court date the was supposed to end it all, once and for all, per his wish. But for some reason, the man who has constantly and repeated screamed at and bullied me that I am dragging things out and being difficult decided that he wants a trial. Thus, prolonging the agony.

It is the best word to describe this dreadful holding pattern.

But thank God for my friends and family who have been perpetually been handing me shovels while I dig through all this bullshit.

I know as I sit here that I need to push forward and get fully reconnected to purpose. I know that there are things that have been revealed to me in this cold season of my life that I need to use my talents and gifts to shed light on. I know everything right now and nothing at all and I am good with that.

I have been making playlists like a frenetic toddler with markers and a freshly painted wall. It might not seem like much but to me it signifies significant soul healing. My daughter is really the one who started that process with her sharing her favorite band with me. Having a job I love and a little more stability has helped as has the reemergence of an old dear friend and kissing and making up with my cousin.

I know very much during parts of this journey people thought me insane for constantly searching for the silver linings, looking at the sunny side. But here I am. Still standing. Better than I ever did. Looking like a true survivor, feeling like a little kid. Drinking coffee and throwing Elton John into casual conversation. I regret more that I lost myself in marriage than that I lost the marriage. It really is better to have loved and lost than never loved at all and what positive thinking and good girlfriends don't help, brown liquor smooths over.

My faith has helped as well but that is a series of post for the future because my faith has certainly made me well. Prayer and meditation and number of ordained and lay ministers that I count as friends and confidants. That aspect of my life, I really can not write about extemporaneously.

But yeah, in the past couple of months, my creative side has reemerged and so help me I will walk away from people or things that tell me I can not be who I am. Comfort over purpose is a death sentence I regret that I accepted.

The best is yet to come.

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.

Driving Miss Jenny

Behind the Wheel at Disney 2006

My daughter turned 16 a few weeks ago. She has had her permit since the day she could get it at 15 1/2. She drove a short part of the way home that day, and then not again until a few weeks ago... ostensibly because I yelled at her. To be fair, it wasn't yelling it was the kind of panic that happens when you are a passenger in a car that seems like it's about to hit a parked car.

We have graduated driving rules here in Ohio. It means that ya can't just rush through classes and get out on the road and wreak total havok anymore. Permit at 15 1/2, lessons with a lot of classroom and lesser amount of on the road training, and 50-hours of additional driving. Sure, it's a safe bet that there are parents out there who probably just sign away the affidavit much the same way people blindly sign their financial responsibility when they renew their tags but that's irrelevant to this story.

We have logged a quite a bit of time over the last couple of weeks. It helps too that she now volunteers to drive places. Fifty hours though it's still a ways off. It seems almost unattainable and I am just the passenger. As a matter of fact, I think if you really did the math, factoring school and parental schedules and sibling conflicts, it seems like it would take a year to get all those hours in.


We drove last night for an hour or so. As her skill gets better it is quite a bit more like joyriding and less like work. No more white-knuckling...and she's pretty relaxed now too. I do sort of enjoy being driven around like this. Sure, I drive around alone and with my husband but there is something different about driving around with my daughter.

Some of it I think is the wonderment, the world that opens up. I find myself having some of the same feelings during this driving experience that I did when she was younger and their were all those skills being learned and mastered in rapid fire. The curiosity of it all. Where does this go? What does this mean? How long has that been there? Exploring new worlds together, on purpose for the first time in years.

We have miles to go still, and I'm just going to enjoy the ride.

All it takes is one.

Some one once asked me about my blogging habit. Specifically, by what criteria did I consider it "successful". My answer? One hit. One hit a day is all it takes to make me happy. They thought that was stupid. They thought I should be striving for big numbers and world-wide blogging fame.

For the record, there are many more hits a day than one. And this blog has had steady growth over the past year. I am completely thrilled and thankful for all the silent and not so silent readers out there.

I have been more sporadic than normal in the past couple weeks because of life. Some how the time I carved out for me has been eaten by the monster called Motherhood. Not complain' just sayin'... and things are starting to get normalized as far as my hubby's new job so I believe I will be getting back on track.

If you have ever really looked at the sidebars and what not of this blog, you'll notice that I chose to highlight a quote other than the Lao Tzu quote that contains the blog title. No, I chose Emerson:

To laugh often and much; to win the respect of intelligent people and the affection of children ...to leave the world a better place...to know even one life has breathed easier because you have lived. This is to have succeeded.

I chose it because I think it says what most of us think about success in life.

I know a lot of people who would read that and deem it an impossible task. I fell into that group once upon a time. It took me a long time that  you can't just set the world on fire quickly and easier than you can start your campfire with the biggest log available. No, you start small if you want it to last. Your starters, your kindling, your patience, and sometimes a lot of matches.

Who will you help to laugh today? Whose respect will you win? How will you endure yourself to the children around you?

Will you leave the world a better place? Will one life have breathed easier because of you?

Just answer yes. Believe that the answer is yes, and enjoy the ride my friend because everything else is just details. And if you need a little extra assurance, the fact that you are reading this means the world to me, so you are already on your way to finding your success!

Abscence makes the blog grow longer...and the heart fonder too.

So, we are in week three of my husband's training schedule. Week three of chaos being the new normal. I thought I had post a few weeks ago that I had a blog topic rattling around my brain but I just couldn't string the words together to get sentences. That was week one, the content is richer but unfortunately, my brain is feeling a bit overwhelmed.

When he was one hundred miles away, it really wasn't any less rough. There is something though about that distance. It's manageable. Well, manageable in that we can meet halfway for dinner about midweek. Manageable in that it's a city and town I have been to and through and it just doesn't seem like a big deal.

Now, he traveled with his old job but this training rotation is such a different beast. This week marks the longest number of consecutive days that we have ever been apart...since we met. It makes me smile a bit because it reminds me of being a teenager and having similar thoughts about shorter time frames. I know that it seems really weird to a lot of people that since we met this marks the first solid week we have ever been apart.  It is what it is. Some people just hit it off I guess, and next thing you know they are hundreds of miles apart. She's listening to heavy rotation of sad sap songs and blogging about it while he does his homework and his own ironing.  Seriously, when I got off the phone with him a bit ago that was why.

I thought I really missed him the first week, even drove all the way out to see him. The first week reminded me of a few things, like how much things had changed in our marriage over the last six months. Lord, then I watched Marriage Retreat on NetFlix and that really through me for one. But ultimately by the end of the first week, I was okay. Full of gratitude and okay.

Week two, no biggie. We Skyped a couple of times. Did dinner. We all survived...intact.

Week three, started a day earlier than the other weeks and involves two time zones. His internet is sketchy, so there's been no video chatting. He calls every break he has during the day to try keep in touch with our son. Texting is sporadic. He missed a birthday. I'm tired. I'm cranky. I just want to cry. I am not sleeping well because honestly our bed sucks and without him to be my counterbalance I can't get comforable...and he's snuggly. I have got roughly 48 more hours of this and it will truly be by the grace of God that I make it because I feel quite defeated, quite lonely, and so uncertain about how in the world these next few weeks of this training schedule is going to pan out.

I started the night just listening to my Pandora quickmix but that went horrible wrong when a Cure song came on. As I type this, I have clicked my way through YouTube video to "Come Undone" by Duran Duran. I kinda wish I had heard that first, instead of "There Is No If" by The Cure.  From "There Is No If" I started clicking though the suggested videos. I could have chosen any of them, but this one is the only one that 100% fits my head and my heart without bringing on the waterworks.

Maybe by the time this is all over I will be able to cover that topic that has now been on the back burner since week one and completely nail it. Assuming I haven't fallen completely apart by then.

Sixteen Candles rotting my sponge-like brain that looks like a pinata

A little bit of an unintended hiatus there. Seriously, seriously off track...but the good news is my husband assures me that once he gets going this is going to be better than our wildest dreams.

True confession time...I often...while alone in my vehicle pop this CD and play this song at maximum volume. This is one of those songs... When it came out, I loved it. I didn't fully understand it but nonetheless looooved it. Flash forward, um, a few years...this isn't a song that I have listened to religiously but rather one I rediscovered. On some levels, I can see my life playing out as the video.

I know, my life as the video. How crazy! Then, this song was a catchy tune with a pop culture reference. Now, well, now I am an old married lady who has been on both sides of the "I wish I loved you" conundrum. A whole lot this song makes me think of someone with whom I was associated with on and off. I guess there is this whole thankful melancholy for me surrounding that song. I can wistfully remember those days of yore when seemingly dreamy guys continually fell short in the shining armor department. I am so glad that I do not have to worry about that kind of rejection and insecurity anymore.

But that whole "I wish I loved you" ugh, for me, even as a happily married woman it invokes such a feeling for me, a memory. When I hear those lyrics, my brain goes to specific moments in time that I was on either side of those lyrics more or less. I think that may actually be the worst feeling in the world...to be the person saying that. I have been on the other side, and it hurts but I think it's worse to be the deliverer of such news. The times I can think of in my life where that was the case, I did feel so awful that despite all else that part just didn't click.

I should probably find a new song to blast. These things go in cycles for me anyway. But what, what should be my next song? I think I have learned all I needed to from this one. It is certainly nice to think about these memories and be Mrs.Wolfe. If any of those non-reciprocating jokers had loved me, then I would be stuck with them right now. I believe stuck is the right word because well, I know...knew them. I can not imagine that I would be nearly as happy had things been different.

I do mean that. Both about the happiness and these things going in cycles for me. Not so long before Molly, the blasted song was Garbage "When I Grow Up". I wish I was half as hot as Shirley Manson. Most days I feel like I look more like Marilyn Manson. Perhaps, I need to latch on to "I Feel Pretty" from West Side Story. But yeah, for some reason, that Garbage song really resonated with me for a long time. I think most of it was in an ironic way, but still.

As I am writing this, I realize that I think that the new song obsession is already fading in, I just hadn't realized it. I don't know though, if I am ready to admit my love affair with Oasis, though. "Roll With It" is in heavy rotation, just as heavy as "Molly" so maybe that's the one. Hmm, in light of the fact that I was singing it, it's more than a maybe...

...oh, who knows...

Enjoy the Sponge video that doesn't end with Bob Square Pants! I know for some of you a sponge without square pants is a real treat!

This one goes out to all the pagans, and all the pagan's mamas, and all the pagan's mama's mamas

Happy Valentine's Day everyone!

Yesterday, a friend of mine had posted the origins of Valentine's Day. I am no scholar, nor do I claim to be. What struck me in this, and other histories of the holiday I have read is that is very strong rooted in Christianity.

Commercialism as it goes is pretty God-less, and given way our modern Valentine's has become I couldn't help myself and had to use the subject line that I did.

See, I don't really care what people believe. It's really none of my business, but if you are going spend every minute of your waking life spitting out that old gem about Christians "stealing" the pagan holidays and making them their own, then every once in a while. I'm going to have to direct you to something like this.

Sorry to go into second person there. This isn't really directed to anyone specifically. It just is a major pet peeve of mine.

So anyway, check out History of Valentines Day from the Holiday Spot. Have a beautiful day everyone! XOXO Jenny <3