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!

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