Stuff...

I have no idea which is worse, remembering a painful past or ignoring an excruciating present. I do know what they have in common, and that is rubbish. I also know that moving on isn’t as much about taking a few steps forward as it is about being willing to untangle and the cruelly uproot whatever’s holding us back.

As I look around my office at the stacks of books on the floor waiting to be reshelved; the piles of file folders containing the years of research of the past lives of my ancestors, magazines, clothes, empty prescription bottles (good to put more stuff in), slippers, shoes, piles of fabric sorted by color and the unfinished quilting projects, it’s difficult to believe that all this is surrounding the working space I have created for myself.

My closets are crammed so full that I need Houdini’s help to organize them. My drawers don’t just hide my disorder; they hoard it. I pick up something to put it away in its proper place and look around in appalled curiosity because I set it back down who knows where.

I think of “stuff” as being co-dependant. We allow it to accumulate and it enables us to stay stagnant. Sometimes it keeps us in an unhealthy situation that we should have dealt with years ago. Our “stuff” adapts to its surroundings and like little chameleons it adopts the color, shape, and texture and settles in for the long haul in closets, drawers and under beds, and not likely to be a trip to the landfill.

I’d be the first to admit my home needs an exorcism; then I would need help with the methodical task of letting go of all my stuff. I could always justify my hoarding by saying that it makes me happy and keeps me safe. I love it and it loves me. I only need to lay my hands on that box of scrap fabric or that winter jacket I hadn’t worn since I left colder climate for my mind to start screaming, “You can’t get rid of me!” I touch old letters and photographs and I am bound by them insisting I hear their stories over and over again. “We’re family, you can’t get rid of us!” Eventually, our possessions take on a life of their own and our “stuff” embodies what is outworn or unfulfilled in our lives and that’s why it’s so hard to give it away.

A day came recently that my “stuff’s” life with me is over and we both need to move on. Move is a powerful word and movement is life and/or the beginning of reality. I thought about the time many years ago that I had to sort through my mother’s possessions after she passed and wondered why she would keep such “stuff”. I know, because I have inherited that hoarding gene and it’s time for me to break the cycle. I’m now separating the guilt stashes from the legitimate ones because I would rather my children not have dry eyes sorting memories instead of messes.

Dog and Pony Show...

Dog & Pony Show…

Thank you, guys! I think I finally understand the whole concept. The idiom meaning of an elaborate presentation orchestrated to gain approval. In this particular case, a convoluted attempt to sell me on working for their company. Wine me, dine me and court me with a glitzy presentation. Suck in your stomachs and hold your breath, persuade me with no real information or content and perhaps this anxious job-seeking indigent will avoid the bottom line and not say, “Show me the money!”

I went to my not so typical standard dog and pony interview. I listened to them trying to sell me on the advantage of starting on the ground floor of their company’s new division. In between the rhetoric, like reading between the lines, my interpretation translates like this…I would need to curry favor to even be considered to climb the corporate ladder.

Imagine, little ole me, in session with the Knights of the Round Table; I sat poised and erect, while they searched for the best vein to insert the needle of inquisition Then the onslaught of prepared but not original questions began:

1. What is the most important; safety, quality or production?
2. Do you want to climb the ladder?
3. Are you a team player?
4. Can you keep the ball rolling?
5. Can you meet deadlines?
6. Can you handle stress when it comes down to the wire?
7. Can you tighten your belt?
8. Can you work out kinks?
9. Can you pull your weight?
10. Where so you want to be 10 years from now?

This is my interpretation with a slice of imagination:

1. Yes, this is a trick question; the answer is the same as the question. (1) No company wants OSHA on their butts. Period. (2) Quality says that the company emulates perfection. Duh? (3) Production is a number’s games, no production, and then the ump calls the play, “You’re Out!”
2. Doesn’t everyone want to advance their careers through promotions while collecting brownie points?
3. A committed employee (brown noser) who works well with others on the clock then disses you in public.
4. Ensure them that a project is progressing effectively and on time or you can keep rolling with the ball.
5. Meeting the time allotted for a particular project, before you fall dead on the finish line.
6. Stress? What’s a little stress? I knew I had one nerve left before I started this job!
7. Reduce operating expenses when the cash cow dies.
8. Improve a flawed product or service or they may pull the plug on you.
9. Share the workload and help others carry the dead cow away.
10. Is it a crime I hope to be in a happy place and not working 10 years from now? After all, I will almost be at my full retirement age.

Did I get the job you ask? Will I be age or sexually discriminated against? Am I over or under qualified for the position? I’ll never tell because I am still waiting for the answer to my question…”Please, won’t you show me the money?”

Play Me...

Music sparks wonderful memories of my childhood. My mother had a Spanish guitar that belonged to my grandfather. The dark as ebony finish made you believe you were looking into an endless black gazing pool and if you touched it, your hand would truly become immersed in the wood.
Before she started to play, mother always closed her eyes as she lightly strummed the steel strings. She hummed the notes while she adjusted the tuning keys to make sure it was perfectly tuned to her ear and mind before she continued to play. In spite of the fact, my mother never learned to read music, she had a gift for creating her own melodies and lyrics. Some of these songs were silly juvenile ditties that made me laugh and dance; while others were so compellingly beautiful your senses were free to drift away. I was certain when I looked at her calm face, her thoughts did move her to another place as she became one with her instrument…



Play Me
by Monica Sharpe

I sleep under his bed
Safely in my case.
I hear him as he lies down
Every night.
He prays for the future
And yearns for the past.
He dreams for the days
I spent with him…when
He pulls me out from my slumber
And places me on his leg.
I cannot see,
I can only feel.
His fingers flutter across me,
Caressing my neck.
Familiar again.
We speak no words to one another,
But I understand him completely.
The melody he creates tells me everything.
I feel his ambition,
Desires.
Frustrations,
And joy.
I cannot speak,
But convey what cannot be spoken.

Thoughts...

You can say that you will never matter if you win or if you lose. The world won’t care. You can change a stranger’s life by letting yours begin by taking a chance. Chance is everywhere, like the car you drive to work or the cool rain that falls on springtime air. On and on chance flies, like the time we’ve lost, it’s either running out or covers our dreams in rust.

Every night the TV shows one more day’s bad events on the news, a world away from what I know. If I could save a stranger’s life…if I had only one single clue…and on and on it goes. I don’t remember a voice on that lonesome road when I started my journey long ago. I was only just trying to outrun the noise and there was never a question of choice.

Life is just something that employs us until we die, knowing that the sun will come up every morning and set every night. So, I say people, gather up your life story; your old love letters, your faded pictures, books and records, every sunset in the sky and carry them along with your maps to the future with the friends who make you sing. Let the stars guide you to help you find your place with your music, your hope and amazing grace. Let’s not worry; I think we will all be just fine…

Quote for the day...

Finish each day and be done with it. You have done what you could. Some blunders and absurdities no doubt crept in; forget them as soon as you can. Tomorrow is a new day; begin it well and serenely and with too high a spirit to be encumbered with your old nonsense.
~ Ralph Waldo Emerson

It's Saturday and not yet seven in the morning but I've been awake for several hours. Reading, lazying close to the fireplace sipping coffee laden heavily with cream. The music is softly playing in the background. A friend recently told me that I think too much but I want to take advantage of the last days that I can spend by myself before starting another chapter.

Every now and then I come across a passage perhaps only a phrase, which has meaning for me, and then it becomes a part of me. I’ve got out of the book all that’s any use to me, and I can’t get any more out of it if even I read it a dozen or more times. When I read a book, I read it with my eyes only. You see, it seems to me, one is like a closed bud, and most of what one reads and does has no effect at all; but there are things that have peculiar significance for one, and they open a petal; and the petals open one by one; and at last the flower is there.

I was thinking about what I have written lately and what it is that has made me so cynical. It must be some kind of self-defence to hide behind irony and sarcasm. But I guess self-defence is only used when it is needed...right?

This is a test only...if you are not getting your emailed posts, you may need to check your Spam folder. If you are still not getting them, please let me know. ~M

Can you ever go back home again?

Can you ever go back home? Maybe the old familiar cliché is true, “You can never go back home again.”

The quote really means that once you grow up, leave home, find your own place, etc, you can’t return to the atmosphere of your childhood. Sure, you can technically go back to where you once lived, but you can’t recreate the environment, because it's completely different. Your parent’s and siblings have grown older, moved out, or passed away and all of your old friends and neighbors are gone...

Last year I had the opportunity of going back to the magical atmosphere of my childhood. It’s been over forty years since I last saw my childhood home. It was the day I described in my blog, Girlfriends 2 when I wrote about finding my childhood best friend, Sue.

My heart was filled with anticipation while I drove up one street and then down another until I finally arrived on “my” street. I don’t remember the streets being so narrow and the houses looking so small. I was so lost in envisioning my life in the 50’s and 60’s that I drove right past my house. I drove up a couple more blocks and turned around. All of the homes were vacant, it was surreal to be here when nothing but emptiness occupied the once elm lined street.

I turned into our driveway and before I could open the door the tears began to flow. I was so filled with emotion that I froze. The last time I stood in this very spot was the day I heard the slide of the steel door on the moving truck and a slam, the indication that everything was loaded and they were ready to roll. One of the movers started the engine while the other went inside the house to have my mother sign off on the paperwork and confirm the delivery date and time. I slowly walked past the truck and trailer running my hand down the side leaving a wave of disapproval to the adventure and went into the backyard and stood there recalling all the times I pretended to be the human sundial.

I smiled as I reminisced of my mother’s prize roses and peony bushes. Freshly picked flowers graced the little kitchen table while the soft fragrance of the lily of the valley and sweet peas permeated through the open windows. I looked through the bay window and saw the walls and floors were savagely exposed leaving her for all to see in her nakedness. I imagined my childhood refuge weeping, and feeling unloved because she had no one to protect within her aged walls. She was abandoned, beaten and broke down for the first time in seventy years.

I closed my eyes, and for a moment I imagined all the mothers calling out our names when it was time to come home; the endless summer days playing tag and hide-n-seek and the winter ice-skating parties at Sue’s house and drinking her mom’s special hot cocoa to warm up.
I walked all around the little white house touching her and looking in her windows for the last time with every step a memory and another tear.

The bountiful trees that lined this street were no longer standing to block the setting sun from falling on my shoulders then I remembered my first kiss was under the streetlight just up the street. The longer I sat there I felt the warmth return to my heart and the sweet memories of growing up here made me smile.

I smiled because there was much I learned here on Jackson Street besides taking my first step or riding my first two wheeled bicycle. I learned from my parent’s their most powerful example was a distillation of all the others. Life is doing. Beyond all lessons, beyond the role model they provided, my parent’s gave my siblings and me the ultimate gift. They made us feel loved and good and it all started in this home within her loving walls.

Hello, Friend...

Charlie Brown’s wisdom with a few words of my own. I think it applies to everyone…

Wouldn’t it be grand if we could get all the people together that we really like and then just stay together? We all know that wouldn’t work. Eventually, someone would leave. Someone always leaves…sometimes they leave for a short time and we say “so long” or we bid them “adieu”, “farewell”, or “see ya later alligator.”

“Sometimes they’re gone forever. Then we would have to say good-bye. I hate good-byes…I know what I need. I need more hellos.” Charlie Brown

Thanks to the Internet, I have said “hello” to many friends and a few family members I had left behind while I struggled against the wind to make a life I could call my own. The saying, “there is a reason they didn’t make it to your future,” was who’s fault? Was it their lack of wanting a lasting friendship, or was I so caught up in my own life and didn’t notice I left them behind? Who knows…it’s a question that can be pondered upon or pounded to a pulp…it doesn’t matter because there is no right or wrong answer.

I am very thankful for those I have found. A few I left behind because I didn’t give a rat’s ass about them then and I still don’t care. I see those people with their pictures plastered all over the popular “friend” sites, and try as I may…I still don’t want them for my friends even if I am nosey about their lives. Oh, and I’m also certain the feeling is mutual when they see my pictures or blogs plastered all over Facebook. I see you laughing now!

“Hello,” to the few that were left behind that I didn’t know was still hanging on to a single thread of friendship, hoping that the sweater I had on didn’t completely unravel before I discovered they were still a part of my life. That was my loss and I’m sorry.

“Hello,” to the one or two who had a major impact on my life way back when… and have caught up to me to make a profound difference in my world now.

“Hello,” to my new friends. The friends who were looking and I didn’t see.

“Hello,” to my new friends that didn’t see me, when I was looking at you.

To all my friends…I am privileged to be a part of your life, however small it may be.

When you pass through this blog, say “Hello” and let me know you stopped by…I’d love to hear from you!

Today's Quote

I Believe....
That it's taking me a long time
to become the person I want to be.

I am still evolving.

Today's Confession...

“Boy, how many times have I told you to leave things alone?  Ta next time you break somethin’, I not gonna  take responsibility for yo. Ta policeman can a come an take yo away.”  The little chubby cheeked boy with the innocent big brown eyes looked imploringly up at his towering overweight mother…now a tear trickled down his beautiful golden-brown skin and his mother slaps him for crying and making a fuss in public.  “You are ‘barrassing me and yoself.”  She sternly pointed to a place on the floor and told him to sit there and don’t move until she got done talking/laughing with her friend (on the phone).  He whimpered a little and she clamped down on his little shoulder; obvious from the contortion of his face it must have hurt.  It was a silent cue to be quiet or suffer the consequences when they were out of anyone’s sight.  He obliged without objection.

I witnessed this heartbreaking scene in the emergency room today while waiting for word on my own husband’s tests. I wanted to pick him up and hug him and tell him I thought he was being a good boy.  My eyes evidently didn’t see what his mother saw when I watched the child sit on the cold gray tiled floor, seething with germs and disease.  I saw a child starved for affection and wither before me like a flower without nourishment.

Mothers variously answer, yes, I am responsible for you. Yes, I am responsible for your protection, instruction, recognition and more than anything responsible for loving.  If a mother has conflicting emotions; so does the child until he screams, “love me!” 

There are many ways of living with a child, of nurturing, understanding and teaching.  I am a mother and like all other mothers, the process includes many possible shades and intensities…I am no better than she…or she no worse than I…

“She said as she tumbled the baby in…There, little baby, go sink or swim…I brought you into this world, what more should I do?  Do you expect me always to be responsible for you?” ~M

On The Bike by Monica Sharpe

On The Bike

crystal blue skies overhead

warm wind

whipping my long braided hair

again.

i look over his shoulder at

his strong tanned arms

golden bronzed by the sun,

hands gripping the handlebars

again.

i close my eyes and feel

the familiarity of my youth

again

and reminisce of the days

how those arms held me
before my hair turned gray.

Pondering...

I wonder how many people think of someone very special in their lives when the Lady Antebellum song, 'Need You Now' plays on the radio.  I wonder how many people look at the time and when "it's a quarter after one,"  reminisces about the special moments with that special someone again...and reflects...

Zilch

Zilch.
Mister Dobelena, Mister Bob Dobelena...
Zilch.
China Clipper calling Alemeda...
Zilch.
Nevermind the furthermore, the plea is self defense...
Zilch.
It is of my opionion that the people are intending...
Zilch...

The Monkees had it spot on for today's blog...it all makes sense in a crazy sort of way...the creative juices are not flowing today...otherwise, "Zilch."

Confession reposted from FaceBook...

Little White Lies…

I signed up. I committed myself to make a difference… Today will be the first day; I will take the first steps. Yes, I CAN DO IT! Noon…I simply can’t wait to go…2:30…uh, oh I feel excuses coming on, maybe I will….4:15…Nah, I’m not sure if I will….5:45…Nope, I don’t think I am…6:15…Fifteen minutes to go…6:30…I am not going…8:30…Damn, I don’t know why I didn’t come…

Pee Wee Herman said it best in his movie, Pee Wee’s Big Adventures, “Everyone’s got a big but.” Not a big rear end, but the big excuse! BUT…the real reason we make up little white lies is to cover up the “buts”…We want to, but on second thought, we don’t really want to. We start to sense the makings of an internal tug of war. We commit ourselves to doing something we’ve wanted to do and as the clock ticks, hour-by-hour, minute-by-minute, and lastly second by second we begin to make excuses because…

· But…I might not be good enough
· But…I might embarrass myself
· But…Nobody wants to hear what I have to say
· But…I will not make a difference
· But…I can’t make a difference
· But…I will be laughed at

Then, I think of the malevolent instructor who is only a shell of what she was when she first entered college. Where did all her desires go as she sits on the edge of her desk crossing her legs, frowning when she sees the new scuff on her black patent stilettos? She wonders, when will this class ever end? Every time she called up time on her internal clock and read it in the corner of her cornea, it was only a minute later when she last had to evoke it. I watched her obsess over the scuff instead of the aspiring minds that sat before her, until I could no longer stand the shallowness she displayed…I walked out and thought to myself…

· I will not forget who I am
· I will encourage others
· I will use the gifts I have received
· I will pass on the love that has been given to me
· I will let this knowledge settle within my bones
· I will allow my soul the freedom to sing, dance and praise others

I will do these things without pretense. No ifs, ands or BUTS…

Quote for the day...

"Even if I don't reach all my goals, I know I have gone higher than I would have if I hadn't set any at all."

Girlfriends...

Girlfriends 2…

What an awesome find to discover your first besty’s whereabouts. Forty plus years flew by at the speed of light, but every year around our birthday’s I feel her presence and know she’s probably thinking about me too…

My bestest friend was Sue. We were born three days apart and lived one house over from each other. When we were young there were very few experiences we

didn’t share, including the same Sunday morning we were baptized. Our mother’s were friends so it was natural that we did so many things together. We were little tom-boys who loved to climb trees. We made “forts” within her dad’s prized gooseberry bushes and terrorize the boys on the block by throwing rotten fruit at them and calling them names. We were always together and we did everything together. I was contented to be around her and so pleased to be her friend.

I can still hear Sue playing the piano. No one was allowed in the house while she practiced. I wonder if she ever knew I used to curl up next to her front door and daydream while she played. My fingers playing the notes she played on the invisible keyboard before me. When I insisted my own children practice their instruments, I thought often of her diligence...

Then, the saddest day of my life came…The sky was overcast with layers of heavy clouds waiting for the perfect opportunity to unload it’s contents and drench the workers loading the last of the furniture and the boxed remnants of the only home I have known. Every box was methodically labeled to which room it will be placed once the moving truck arrived at our new home and the workers began to unload the van’s contents. Why shouldn’t it rain today? My tears were brimming in my eyes, I wouldn’t allow them to flow as I was feeling a little frightened to leave a home that I knew every inch of, from the first step I took and every square of the sidewalks where I roller-skated, rode my bike, played endless hours of hopscotch and years of walking to school.

I sat in the middle of the front yard with my legs crossed in front of me plucking one blade of grass at a time and as I split the blades of grass into curling little slivers, I wondered what it was going to like to live in the country where most of our neighbors would be seasonal residents and any shopping a teenager would be interested in was miles away. I sat on this lawn hundreds of times making clover necklaces and having Kool-Aid tea parties with my little friends who have lived on this street all their lives too. No tea parties today, nobody was invited and nobody came. The closeness I shared with my friends as children drifted into different directions, as we became teenagers with diverse interests. Some went to public schools, while some of us stayed in parochial schools and all explored new groups of friends…

I don’t remember saying good-bye to Sue on that humid day in June, but I remember saying “Hello” again when I asked her to be my Maid of Honor a few years later. How could I not, she was the one person I knew all my life and it was important to me for her to know how much I loved her.

Ours lives moved forward…college, babies, careers, marriages, and grandchildren… years ticking by with the constant tempo of life’s metronome until recently when I found her again.

“Hi Sue, how have you been? You know what? I’ve really missed you!”

Girlfriends...

“I feel there is something unexplored about women that only a woman can explore.” ~Georgia O’Keefe

In many ways there are similarities between becoming friends and finding romantic love. Just as there is love at first sight, a friendship can began with a blink of an eye or the initial click of the send key. Every woman remembers when she found her girlfriends ~that special moment when she recognizes a friendship will bloom. The common characteristic that sets them apart from our other acquaintances is when we recognize them as mirrors of ourselves.
We’ve known some friends for years meeting and sharing under the same roof and yet have never met, then one day, out of the blue, you find that someone at first meeting and knew deep inside you were old friends. Those unique soulmates come into our lives unexpectedly and unannounced. We understand each other immediately without explanation as if we’ve known each other before we met.

“You meet your friend, your face brightens~you have struck gold.”
~Kassia (c 840)

"Be thankful for what you have and eventually you'll end up having more. If you concentrate on what you don't have, you will never, ever have enough."

Constipation...

Constipation…A condition in which the emptying of waste matter is infrequent and difficult.

Day after day you keep the internal gases building before you can’t take anymore and just BLOW! You know you have this condition when you look at yourself in the mirror and see only a shell of what you could be. Then the light goes on, and you realize you are exhibiting the symptoms of an acute case of opticalrectitis; the condition when your optical nerve is connected to your ass and thus, produces a shitty outlook.

I have to confess I have been constipated for almost my entire life, dating back to when children need to be seen not heard, always remaining prim and proper. If you can’t say anything nice, then don’t say anything at all. I turned the other cheek and the sticks and stones and names did hurt me. I’ve listened to monotonous stories over and over about things I’m not interested in then politely smile while my ears bleed.
We learned to keep our mouths shut to avoid an argument; after all it’s their word or no word. No compromise. Don’t make waves. Don’t grow in education or socially or else he’ll think you’re trying to be better than he is. You knew who he was when you got married and don’t expect him to change. Please put the toilet seat down. Please, honey this. Please, honey that…

It doesn’t matter what walks of life you are from, rich, poor or somewhere in between; just know ladies, we are all bitches and our men will agree we don’t give them any rest. As bitches, we will not forget every little thing that a man, and as matter of fact, anyone else has done to us. We will not forget every sweet word and definitely not every hateful word said to, or about us. The lethal combinations of words and actions begin the gases to build over a period of time. We feel it churning and wrenching our stomachs till we are so bloated we release it by spewing harmful rhetoric…then wish we remained constipated…and then, the cycle begins again…Smile!

Special thank you..

I want to thank a very dear friend of mine for giving me the courage to forgive and move on with my life.  The quote, "Butterflies don't carry rocks," will be forever with me.  You know who you are...

You Are My Sunshine

You Are My Sunshine by Monica L. Sharpe

“Truly, I say to you, unless you turn and become like children, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven. 4 Whoever humbles himself like this child is the greatest in the kingdom of heaven. ~Matthew 18:3

The last thing I remembered before waking up in the hospital was the traffic light turning green. I was the first car to cross the busy intersection. I glanced to my left and saw the pick up truck run the red light. I was unable to avoid the collision.
I was in a coma for eighteen days before I opened my eyes to see my first glimpse of light. It didn’t register in my mind where I was. The pain was excruciating and I found myself unable to move. It’s a blur exactly what happened next. What I do remember is that I woke to the sound of a soft angelic voice singing the lyrics of a familiar tune. “You are my sunshine, my only sunshine. You make me happy when skies are gray. You’ll never know mom how much I love you. Please don’t take my mommy away…” I felt the warmth and smelled the familiar sweet aroma of my son’s head resting near my face. When I could focus clearly, there was my husband smiling with tears of joys streaming down his face and my son with his beaming little face. He looked up to his dad and said, “See dad, I told you it would work. Mom loves that song.”
It was a slow recovery. When I was finally able to go home I spent the first couple weeks almost entirely in bed. During that time, family and friends took care of me until my husband came home from work. One afternoon my sister called and said that she was unable to come over because her daughter was sick. I heard my son tell her that he was there with me and things would be fine until his dad got home. Philip bounced into the room with that big smile on his face. He told me he was going to take care of me and I smiled. When I asked if he would get me a glass of water, he quickly darted to the kitchen. When he returned with the water and handed it to me, there was a loud clear smack. Philip’s hand touched his cheek, “Mom, someone kissed me!” I was shocked as well. I told him an angel kissed him for helping me.
Twenty-five years later my son clearly recalls that moment. He chose to be a paramedic as his career attributing the decision to the day the angel kissed him.
I thank God for giving me another day, another chance to become a better individual, another chance to give and experience love. I thank God for “My Sunshine.”

I used to have such a good imagination as a child. I wandered the worlds inside my head like most children do. I imagined stories, futures, invisible animals and wonderlands and also believed in them. I used to draw all the stories I made up, or write them when I was already in school. The future was full of possibilities and I was free to draw any of them and make it true. I was praised for my drawing and writing skills and dreamed of becoming an artist or an author.

I gradually lost appreciation for my imagination and stopped using what was once a source of great energy to me. I may not had actually stopped, but started to blame myself for not “getting real.” The reality also got a little bit too real at times and it became hard to ignore it. Depression is very effective for making the darker sides of life visible. I still didn't want to give up hope that some things could also get better, not only worsen.

Hope requires a certain amount of imagination. Without imagination there is no creation. Creation as an opposite to annihilate is a goal to aim for. Sometimes you've got to leave and destroy something old before you can start something new. I did that when I left the previous chapter of my life and started to hone my creative spirit again.  Often I revert to the past and question my imagined future, but I found the confidence to soar and open my eyes to see new possibilities and be brave enough to finally implement them.

Your time is limited, don’t waste it living someone else’s life. Don’t be trapped by dogma, which is living the result of other people’s thinking. Don’t let the noise of other’s opinion drown your own inner voice. And most important, have the courage to follow your heart and intuition, they somehow already know what you truly want to become. Everything else is secondary.
~Steve Jobs

Today's Confession...

Don’t you just hate it when you wake up in the morning and you wish you were somewhere else?  I feel like that all too often in the past few years.  Where I want to be is unclear or even what I want to do is unclear.  But, I know I want to be by myself.  That is my confession today.

I don’t know about other people feel, I can only speak for myself.  The illusion of free will is so strong in my mind that I can’t get away from it, but I believe it is only an illusion.  But it is an illusion, which is one of the strongest motives of my actions.  Before I do anything I feel I have choices, and that influences what I do; but afterwards, when the thing is done, I believe it was inevitable from all eternity.  The trouble is, I don’t act on my choices and they remain illusions of what I would like to do and that is to stand on my own two feet answering only to myself.

Now, if I said this to my doctor he would probably suggest:

1. I’m depressed.
2. Maybe a little bi-polar.
3. What happened to make me to think like this?
4. Empty nest syndrome.
5. Sexual issues.  Yes, that’s it.  Doesn’t all our problems stem from a sexual issue?
6. Change your job.
7. Quit your job.
8. Yes…you are definitely depressed.
9. Do you think it’s your marriage, you are married aren’t you?

 Then I would say, “You see, it seems to me, one’s like a closed bud, there are things that have peculiar significance for one, and they open a petal; and the petals open one by one; and at last the flower is there.”  I am satisfied with this metaphor.  I don’t know how else to explain a thing that I feel and yet was not clear about. 

The doctor would look at me and lower his eyes to look at the new smudge on his polished black loafers. Wishing he was in another room because he doesn’t know how to answer.

Now after starring at me he suggests that I am definitely:

1.      Depressed.

2.      Maybe a little manic.

3.      Unrealistic about life. 

4.      Did I have any recent trauma, such as a death in the family?

5.      I need to find a job.

6.      I need to get involved…  With how many more things?

7.      Definitely depressed…that’s it, depression.  The symptom that masks all the things wrong with a person. 

8.      Are you contemplating something permanent, like suicide?

9.      Are you happy in your own skin? Sexual disorientation?

10.  Yes.  Definitely depressed. Take this little pill and it will make things better and I’ll see you in two weeks.

He didn’t say I needed an extended vacation.  Darn!  I was hoping that’s all I needed.  Time to refresh and renew body and soul.  A sabbatical of the senses and learn to like the person I am.  All this will be cured by a little yellow pill.  To be continued…