Three months later…

After my epiphany in August, I got busy. Not your normal type of busy, but the type of busy where you just don’t want to move forward. I look back on my Facebook, blog, IG, etc posts and see where I’m wanting an inward change but, when it is time to really do it, REALLY do it, I freak out and shut down.

Is it the fact I am lazy, no because I really want this change. I want to be different. Is it the fact I cannot do it; no again I can do this. I’ve come to the conclusion, I’m scared. I am frightened to make these changes because they are so outside my comfort zone, err rut.

Is it because I care what people think? Nope, if I cared what people think I would have curled up into a ball at age 7 or 8 and died. Am I afraid of the work involved, no I think I kinda like that part.

I am afraid of failure, I’m really good at whatever I put my mind to. Not boastful, it is a simple truth. But, I think I am afraid of that one thing that I cannot master. Like running into one thing that I cannot do, what would happen? I really never wanted to find out.

Now, I find myself back here thinking of true mental change, and what I want, and I’m tired, not terrified. I am tired of being in the same place, on the cusp of change. I’m like Lysa Terkeurst when she was holding on wanting to jump, but afraid of the fall. She had a rope but, it did not feel like enough. But, she was and is more that enough. She is a powerful angel in the lives of so many. I WANT THAT!

I want someone to be inspired by my life, not look at it and see something mediocre. I want to be this beautiful flawed creature, that helps someone in pain fly. I want my pain, my past, my mistakes to be so meaningful they can not EVER be ignored.

Hooo RAR! Right? So now to begin. I have been working on some short stories about my youth for a book call SNF (So Not Fair). I think I am going to pick it back up and, write more. Maybe I will take time and think about how I want my impact, I had been terrified to post video’s but maybe now is the time to post something

Just Because… Should You?

Okay, here is the disclaimer… I DO THIS, not the point of this post. This post is to perhaps open someone’s mind, even mine, to change! So no hate mail saying “BUT you did that last week”

Here we go. I have been telling my girls the last few years, “Just because you know it’s true, does not mean it should fly out of your mouth. ” I know your thinking, but uh sure it should. But, really should it?

Think about all the fights you have been in all the arguments, the one consistent thing was that you were trying to convince them that what you think is right, but what you probably don’t get in these situations and what we all miss, that is also what the other person is trying to do.

Think about it, Your view is your view, it’s a personal theory about subject matter based on your experience. Think about this, it’s the same for the other person in the argument. They are thinking the same mechanics you are. I know this is true because of this experience, and that solved problem, etc.

Also, if you find someone who is hot on the other side, or you are, they are NOT listening to you. They have but one mission, one purpose, one mission in that argument, to be right, to be the victor! Honestly, when we (and yes ME) are in this mode, we are NOT listening. So the point to consider is when you realize you are in this situation what do you do?

Best Case – stop and tell the other person you are in that situation and see if they will also calm themselves enough to have a lighter conversation

Next Best – make a joke and try and lighten the mood, sometimes this works others it makes more issues

What I do- run and hide and don’t engage in the conversation, to begin with!

All kidding aside, the best we can all do is try and realize that if two people are in an argument, try and find a middle ground.

And, honestly, sometimes you have to gauge the relationship, what matters most the argument? (continue on :/) Or the person? If it is the person you have to concede defeat EVEN if you are not wrong and let them have it. perhaps you can fight again under better terms and conditions.

I know not a really positive outcome but, you live and you still have your friend. Right?

Ah yes, another road rage story

Let me tell you what happened yesterday to me on my way home. I was heading down a pretty busy street when the person in front of me stopped suddenly, I looked over and saw I could fit in the lane next to me and dodged over into that lane quickly. It was exhilarating, to say the least, there was just enough room, and when I say just enough room, I mean like an inch. I was so scared. I calmed myself and continued to drive down the tree-lined streets.

Now, what I didn’t know was this little SUV behind me, you know with the inches between her/him and me. I had apparently scared, irritated, insert your own adjective here. Now it’s spring, I love trees so I’m clearly oblivious to their anger. Also, I have to point out that the truck in front of me was doing JUST the speed limit. While that did not bother me in the slightest, it might have made this situation worse.

Anyway, I get a bit further on my route and I move into another lane. This SUV speeds past like it’s on fire and I’m wondering if the truck and I have delayed it and I start to wonder if maybe that car is angry. But, what people think of you is none of your business right? So I have to get behind this SUV for a few blocks.

Here is where it gets interesting. We pull to a light I need to turn at, right? I move to turn and I look up to see this driver is giving me the finger. See I know it was meant for me because there was no one else around. That got me thinking.

I continued to drive down through tree lines streets thinking, I drove 2200 miles in the last, through five states, AND Atlanta and no one had ever even honked at me. Here on my way home in my own city, I’ve pissed someone off. How retched!!

To the person I irritated, I’m sorry it was not my intention!

To everyone else, this situation has made me pause. Sure I’ve had a lot of road rage in my day. I have combat driven as well, but not perfect. But, when I’m in those situations I really do not think about the other person. Did they mean to cut me off? Are they blocking me for a reason? What is their motivation? The next time I’m in this situation I kid you not, I am going to attempt to put myself in their shoes and see if maybe something unrelated to me is going on. And give them a bit of MERCY and try not to get mad.

Let’s face it I’m not going to succeed all the time, but at least my heart is in the right place, right?

Your opinion could be right….

I saw a cartoon in the paper the other day that had an old man labeled 2021 walking out and a baby in a whirlwind trying to hang on. The caption said something to the effect of “hang on kid”. It was in the KC Star, probably on a political page. One thing I did in 2021 is get a print subscription to the paper. It is pretty expensive, but it is very worth it. It would pay for itself if I used the coupons which is what I intended to do, one of the many reasons I started taking the paper. Another reason was to try and get a full snapshot of what is going on.

So many times we watch the news and read the paper and we forget that these programs are the viewpoints of others. When someone is reporting the news they are doing it through the lens of their life. Their viewpoint. We all need to remember, that the viewpoint being offered might not be the one we really want with that being said, here is the following.

I have agreed with Anderson Cooper, with Tucker Carlson, with Abraham Lincoln, with Stonewall Jackson, with Maya Angelou (I tend to agree with her more than anyone except Pope Benedict), and so on. The point is that not every person is completely evil, nor are people completely good. We are all fallible human beings, prone to utter things based on things we have learned in our lives.

No, I do believe there is evil in this world, and I believe there are wonderful people too. I think the choices you make are evil or good, not you, yourself. So what is the point of this? Simple, our viewpoint is based on our life experience. If you find someone who has a different viewpoint than you do, you should ask them why they believe the way they do, and then actually sit and listen. More than likely if you had the life that person had, you would believe the way they do. But, you haven’t, true. You could also respect that person’s life.

So many times in this world we sit back and down others saying that they are wrong. Which they are wrong, from our point of view. Also, you are wrong from their point of view. That does not mean that you cannot listen and glean something from what they feel is true. You just have to want to. Most of us don’t. I don’t either most of the time if I’m honest. I like being right, I like having the knowledge, it feels well powerful. It really doesn’t mean I’m powerful it just means I know a lot. To all those I’ve acted superior to, I dreadfully apologize, and I concede you are right.

Maybe that is the point, to grow and understand. To realize that your viewpoint is not really the right one, maybe there is no right one. Maybe it is only an opinion with what is right, right now. Tomorrow with new information it might change. It makes me scratch my head and sit back bewildered asking “Are you kidding me?”

Maybe I do need to go to law school …lol

And she grew

I looked out on my days, and saw that their were many. Many different kinds of days, some good some bad. But they were pretty even in distribution of good and bad. So why is it I recall more of the bad things than the countless good ones?

I think as a race humans focus on what stops us, what we trip on and those things that constantly get us down. Those things that keep us from enjoying the wonderful things around us. We literally say “Stop this is bad , now wallow in it” rather than the “Omg that’s bad get it away from me”. We want to understand where we went wrong, or were wronged so we can not feel that way again.

A lot of the time though, we get caught in that “wrong” we forget to learn. We sit down on the stump of pain and refuse to get up because we are afraid the next feeling or situation will be worse than this stump, and this stump did not kill us so why should we move? You don’t feel that way? It’s just me? Are you kidding me, come on you know you feel this way too.

It’s hard to get up, get over, crawl our of that disgusting pit of pain and heartache, but now that you know heartache, pain and the like you will seriously treasure and savor all the good relationships that come your way. You will hold on a bit tighter to those you have, those feelings you have , well as long as you let the pain and suffering go.

Pain and suffering are meant to teach us what NOT to do. They are only supposed to be felt BRIEFLY , not forever. I so miss this sometimes. I get down there and figure there is nothing else, no one else, and that life can never get better. But, I have a bunch of people and family around me who remind me just how wonderful life really is.

Lesson: Let pain be something temporary and small and something grasped then dropped, not something clung to as it is life.

Someday I’ll be a grown up, just not today =^.^=

Bat Cap Crazy

I had a dream last night where someone I admired called me Bat Cap Crazy. I woke up with this unsettling notion about myself and, have been thinking about it ever since.

Am I crazy? Should I go get tested? The more I think about it the more I realize i’m not like anyone else, i’m quite unique. I think and understand things on a whole new level. Most of the time people i’m close to get me. (Or they love me enough to pretend that they do <3)

Others do not. And, I am beginning to understand today that, that notion is not about me. What it really is about is them. They do not have the mental space, are tired, or generally don’t care about “getting me”. And, that is very much okay. Because, I realize that there are eons of people in the world that i’m that way about. Doesn’t mean they are nuts. or weird, it just means I don’t have the strength to get them at this point.

Maybe next year i’ll have the mental space to “get” them and them me. But, right now I think we are still trying to hang on to life with cat claws. I read what I wrote about the virus last year, omg that was wishful thinking. All the people who have gotten sick my heart and bones bleed for them. I had serious delusions of grander, but that is okay a lot of people did. A lot of people hoped for the best and had the rug yanked out from under them. It will be okay, even if it’s not okay.

In conclusion I think we are all bat cap crazy at least once a day 😉

Outta my way!

How many times do you get in the own way of your happiness? How about how many times to your trip yourself up on the things you over analyze? Or, then there is kneecapping yourself because you are afraid of what might be around the corner so you don’t even attempt to go around the corner?

As I get closer to my birthday, the more I think about where I wanted to go that I have never been. Last year I put out a list, and because of world events, I didn’t get anywhere. I have gotten a bit healthier, and I have taken better care of my mental health but I see so many places I can approve. Then I stop myself.

Who said I have to be perfect? Who said I have to know where I am going? Isn’t half the fun getting there? Why am I putting myself in a box to where I have to be specific. Why in the wide world can I not be my own mess and be okay with that? As long as I am healthy and reasonably happy isn’t that what the goal of life is? To be as good as you can be? To strive for better BUT! not to overwhelm yourself to the point that you are only concerned with being perfect and you miss how wonderful you are as an individual.

Those things that make me think and wonder why in the H E double LL I do this to myself.

Bleh, time for a plot twist and a paradigm shift!

Rawr… I’d say I have been busy but…

That’s a lie, or is it? I have been very fortunate enough to keep my day job and work from home. I’d like to think that i’m talented and good at what I do, which I am, but I am also extremely, EXTREMELY lucky.

What have you been up to lately? I know at the beginning I was all like running the numbers and trying to convince myself that this pandemic was really nothing to worry about. Now, yea experience tempers us doesn’t it? We look back and see how naive were, or are. We understand that what we thought was tradition, or history, sometimes is a brand of hate.

What do you do with those things that have wonderful memories but are based in hate and oppression? Do you get rid of them? Change everything? Or do you keep the reminders around to remember the lesson? Such a double edged sword. Myself I do not do hate in any form. I accept everyone as they are. Everyone has a level of f upness. I’ve also noticed lately that i’m a hippie. Bohemian, flower loving, etc and so on.

anyway much love from your strange duck,

What I tell myself

When I was young and going though hard things, I told myself to get up, and educate myself. So, I read and I got though those hard things and grew up. About 6 months ago, I decided my body was a mess. I got on a treadmill and started running 3 miles a day, then switched to swimming a mile and a half. I would get to that point where I would be down, and wanting to give up. I would visualize myself crying laying down wanting to quit. Then I would imagine myself, my soul yelling at the crying figure GET UP, GET UP, you can do this. YOU ARE ALMOST THERE, GET UP. And, my little crying self would get up and finish and feel so much better for doing it. Silly Story? Perhaps.

Isn’t this how we all feel, like giving up, blaming everyone else for this mess? Why not instead of pointing fingers we GET UP educate and go on? It’s hard, damn right, anything else would not be worth it. You can lay in the ditch and scream and point fingers but, you will have to get up eventually and educate yourself. Why not now? Sure sitting in the ditch is easy, but, it might kill you. Don’t do that!

GET UP!!!

Somedays…

There are those days where you get out of bed with great determination and it lasts, and lasts and lasts. Oh wait, you either. Yea I know right! While today was not in the 8th circle of hell it sure the hell felt like we were in Egypt during a plague. Oh wait, we are in the middle of the plague but, we cannot see Egypt from here …… damn….. Maybe, I should start again…

You know when you get up and you think it’s going to be a great day? Oh right, me either.

Okay, realism. You knew you were going to wake up. HA! I got one positive thing there, let’s go for another. You are alive reading this, HA there is two. For the third, how about I am really grateful that you did take time out of your day to read this. I don’t know how many or how few actually read blogs like mine, I don’t give you anything, or make promises. I just try to give some enlightenment, or share what i’m thinking at the time. So, I’m glad you are here, wait, let me rephrase, I’m glad you are over there ;).

Drinks soon!

❤