Category Archives: be yourself

One more orbit for this girl

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I “borrowed” much of this post from last year on this very day because new words would not come today.

Today is an important day in my life…..today I am acutely aware of the number of years I have been on this ever revolving planet.  A birthday is not a number to me but a moment to celebrate the day I entered this life. (and it’s 45, but I still feel 29 so that counts, right?…..right?)

Today, however, is a difficult birthday.  This is my first birthday in 45 years that my mom hasn’t been the first one to call me in the early hours of the day with birthday wishes.  I did awake at 12:11 this morning and could have sworn I saw my mom and dad standing side by side.  No words were spoken but I guess they were the first to wish me happy birthday in their own way.

I celebrate with many people, some I know well, some I’ve never met, but there is one important celebration that mirrors mine – my Winnie The Pooh.  My mom created a stuffed version of the beloved character for me when I turned one and, to this day, I still have that somewhat tattered foam-filled creature.  McCall’s created a Disney series of patterns in the 1960’s that she duplicated for my brother for his first birthday and again, almost four years later, for my birthday.

He has seen his share of joys and tragedies.  He has undergone facial reconstruction and some botched plastic surgery (thanks to an over-excitable Labrador Retriever that belonged to a roommate) but he still never fails to hang in there to share year after year with me. He and I have weathered many successes and many ominous periods together, but he still remains the same source of comfort he has always been.

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Although it may seem somewhat childish to hang onto a toy that I have long outgrown, Winnie still holds an immeasurable value in my life. He represents a part of my childhood that I hold dear and he continues to represent the faith that I hold in my friendships.  He and I may not be able to communicate on the level that is deemed normal for friends but I still feel comfortable confiding in him, knowing that he will always be there to listen when I need him.

He has been a valuable part of my grieving process over the last three weeks and has found his way back into that comfortable position, tucked into the crook of my arm while I sleep.

Happy birthday Winnie…..may we continue on our journey and have a very long life together!!

Last Trifecta

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A chorus of silent voices,

joining in harmony around the globe.

Embracing passion,

creating relationships,

making friends.

We placed a bet on the Trifecta,

wagered everything we had.

We all came in first.

trifecta

~~

(image credit: trifectawritingchallenge.com)

Written for the last ever Trifecta challenge – 33 words of our own choosing.  It saddens me that the doors to the Trifecta lounge will be closing but I am thankful for the friends I have made in that lounge.  Thank you to the creators of Trifecta for giving us the opportunity to hone our skills and choose our words wisely.  And thank you for creating a community that will live on in our newly developed friendships.

Is there a right way to write?

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When I began to really delve into writing poetry and short stories I was more comfortable writing in long hand.  It freed my mind to truly compose the ideas, the rhymes and the drama, and felt much more like a natural flow from brain to hand to ink to paper.  The archaic version of computers we had at that point did not lend much ease in the writing experience since it was a behemoth that was no more moveable than my car.

In the bygone days of my youth (I make myself sound 100 years old), when I began to read voraciously, I would always have a pen and paper handy to write down any words I found challenging and words that I was excited to use in my writing.  It went on for pages.  I still have those pages and, although they are now collecting dust in a storage bin, they still remind me of my hunger for words.  My hunger now is much more easily satiated.  With the ease of Google, on-line dictionaries and thesauruses I no longer have to put the word to paper and look it up in a bound, hard-cover dictionary.  I even have a dictionary in my Kindle should the need arise to define a foreign word.

Nowadays, I’m sure a chimpanzee would have much more success with that foreign writing object we call a pen.  I used to have beautiful handwriting and now the things that come out of the pen slightly resemble a modified version of shorthand.  (It would be far more beneficial for me if it were shorthand since I currently have no clue what I’ve written!)

shorthand

(photo courtesy of commons.wikimedia.org)

With the ease of the digital age I use a voice recorder if I am overcome with inspiration.  Random thoughts that used to be scribbled on scraps of paper are now stored in my phone for easy access.  My calendar is on my iPhone and so is my shopping list.  Even with my creative stream, that long steady flow of blue ink has been replaced by the gentle tapping of the keyboard on my laptop.  I have finally been able to train my mind to tune out the incessant clicking and it no longer derails my train of thought.

What do you do?  Do you still give the ink a chance or are you a slave to your keyboard?

Questions that beg the question

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People are nosy.  No, let me rephrase in a more eloquent way – people are inquisitive by nature.  No, I was right the first time, people are nosy.

I’m sure every single person on this revolving planet has a few people in their life who ask the most unprovoked and personal questions that are really none of their business.  It takes us off guard when it happens, but we do our best to maintain some composure before responding.  It never ceases to amaze me that people feel so compelled to ask for information that is quite obviously not for public consumption.  If it were, we would not repress the desire to shout it from the nearest rooftop.

What aberration of human nature makes people so interested in obtaining information that has no relevance to them whatsoever?  It is reminiscent of being back in school and being able to boast “I know something you don’t know”.  Clearly, if they were supposed to know,  they would.

My friends and I have had the same discussion on several occasions and it is a subject that we deliberate on at great length.  I’m sure I’ve been guilty of being nosy as well, I’m not presenting myself as unblemished, but I’ve also learned to recognize that part of myself and stop asking questions that are quite obviously beyond my security clearance.

I have also experienced the opposite side of that fence and had people impose questions on me that were outwardly challenging and highly personal.  Before gaining the upper hand that I now possess I would stumble, quite inarticulately, searching for a response.  Now, without losing the eye contact they seem so boldly willing to hold, I simply ask “Why do you want to know?”.    Color drains from their face more rapidly than a sun sinks into the horizon.  They are suddenly and unwittingly speechless.   They feverishly work to find a suitable retort that will explain their abandonment of common decency and their attempt to invade my personal privacy.  Most times my question abruptly ends the interrogation.

A phrase so simple, yet so effective will put them on the defence and put you back on the offence.  Stand your ground – you don’t have to tell them any more than you want them to know.

Lonely Boy – 100 Word Challenge

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We always find each other.  In each lifetime, on each plain of existence we come together again.  Our lives converge and our eyes meet.  We know we are two old souls being reunited and, with each meeting, the feelings become more intense.

But our timing is never perfect.  Each time fate brings us together the black keys on the piano play that melancholic refrain of longing.  It’s too late.  We both ignored the yearning from the past and forgot to wait.  But you are forever a part of my soul.

You are the lonely boy I carry in my heart.

~~

Written for the 100-Word Song Challenge at My Blog Can Beat Up Your Blog.  The song is Lonely Boy by The Black Keys.  (I even managed to get the band name in the story as well!!)

If it’s broke, stop trying to fix it

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“Each relationship nurtures a strength or a weakness within you.” ~ Michael Murdock

Have you ever had that moment?  The moment when you hear a quote and it sums up an entire period of time in your life that you had yet to define?  I just had a moment very reminiscent of that.

My marriage was a great learning tool in the school of my life.  I do not hold any ill-will towards my ex-husband but there were moments early in the marriage that I knew our relationship could be the recipe for disaster.  I allowed myself to ignore those blatant warning signs, took the wrong turn and careened along the highway of our marriage at full speed.  The bumps in the road got worse as the journey continued.  Soon, I couldn’t even navigate the straight stretches of the journey without getting dizzy.  It was then I realized I was on the wrong road.

Everything about our time together nurtured my weaknesses.  It became easier, as time went on, to not confront those weaknesses and keep some peace in the house.  After several months of pulling in my head and playing “turtle” I began to realize some very important things, not only about him but, about myself.

After spending a lifetime trying to “fix” the broken people in my life, I succumbed to the fact that I couldn’t fix them.  My ex-husband and the roller coaster of our marriage made me realize that.  This relationship which flagrantly displayed my weakness in the past now nurtured my personal strength.  When I finally awakened to that reality, once that awareness had seeped into my brain, my resolve was filled with a growing sense of power.

I took that power and changed my situation, and my life.  That relationship which initially nurtured my weakness came full circle and devoted its influence to my strength.  I would never have fully appreciated that strength had I not been weak at that fork in the road.

I’m a Raggedy Ann in a Barbie Doll world

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I have never been a slave to fashion trends, apart from those few unfortunate years in high school when big hair and “preppy” collars were all the rage.  Wanting to fit in as a teenager led to unfortunate wardrobe choices and spectacular photographic evidence that seems to keep reappearing.  Even the fires of Hell could not burn those outfits from my memory.  (Somehow I think the pictures and the negatives would survive incineration as well.)

80While the above image was taken from sweirt.com and does not do my teenage wardrobe any justice, I’m sure you get the general idea.  Nothing says 80’s fashion like big hair, neon and leg warmers!

After leaving high school and finding myself in the “real” world, I came to the realization that I could care less about fashion.  I was happier slipping on a pair of jeans and a sweatshirt and sliding my feet into some loose-fitting sandals.  While the girls around me spent hours teasing their hair, applying make-up and picking just the right outfit, I would be dressed and ready to go and waiting for them to emerge from their cosmetic cocoon as a beautiful painted butterfly.  I admired their dedication, I just didn’t understand their obsession.  Give me a tube of mascara and some lip gloss and I’m set.

I’m sure there were moments in my impressionable years that I wished I was more like a Barbie Doll.  Now that I can look at my life from an adult perspective I realize the world needs Raggedy Ann’s as much as it needs Barbie Dolls and I’m happy to be one of those Ann’s.

First love

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The Daily Prompt asks:  Remember your first crush? Think about that very first object of your affection. Oh, the sweaty palms. The swoony feeling in your stomach. Tell us the story of your first crush. What was it about this person that made your heart pound? Was the love requited? Change the names to protect the guilty or innocent if you must! No judgement here. Happy Valentine’s Day!

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He had red hair and freckles and was the cutest thing I’d ever seen.  His name was Andy Keen and we were in the same first grade class together.  I was six, and although I was too young to really comprehend what romantic love was, I spent hours gazing at him across the classroom.

My family lived in a cozy neighborhood in Oakville, Ontario.  Back in those days it was safe for kids to play in their front yard and wander back and forth to the neighbors.  On my way home one afternoon, I saw a white bunny rabbit hopping down the middle of the street.  I was elated.  I had been asking for a pet rabbit but couldn’t have one due to allergies.  I scooped up the bunny and took him home.  I named him Thumper and was allowed to temporarily set him up in our home until we found his owner.   As fate would have it, his owner was Andy Keen.  At the tender age of six, I took that as a sign that we were meant to be together!

At Show And Tell the next day, Andy was at the front of the class expounding on the traumatic events his pet bunny experienced as a runaway on the hard streets of Oakville.  During his emotional tale, I was overcome by desire.  I ran to the front of the class and kissed him on the cheek in front of the entire class.  I’m not sure whose cheeks burned hotter with embarrassment, but I took off like a shot out the classroom door and left Andy standing in front of the whole Grade One class, mouth gaping open, completely speechless.

Our love affair was short-lived.  Andy was mortified after the Show and Tell episode and made every effort to run the other way when he saw me coming.   I hope his therapy was brief and inexpensive.  🙂

Of snowflakes and serial killers

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snowpocalypse

The beauty of a white world all around,

but I cannot see it beyond my window.

I am entombed by reality,

gestating in the womb of Mother Nature’s swollen belly.

Her raging emotions unsettle me,

her fury becomes my anger.

My sense of peace is replaced by the need to kill.

Thousands of individual victims lay in wait

and my I raise my weapon.

I lose track of how many bodies have been discarded on my property

as my shovel throws more snowflakes to their grave.

I’ll take a bowl of Super, please.

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Broncos   VS.  seattle-seahawks-team-logo

My most favorite and least favorite day of the year has arrived!!  The culmination of a great season of football and some hard-fought battles with the pigskin bring us to the moment that the Vince Lombardi trophy will be awarded.  My efforts as “The Commish”  in a 17-week long football pool as well as a playoff pool also come to an end at the pinnacle of the football season.  It is a bittersweet day.

Superbowl Sunday is like my Christmas day.  I awake excited knowing what the day will bring and can’t wait to unwrap the gift of football.  Unlike Christmas day, however, I fidget throughout the day in anticipation of the moment I can sit in front of my television set and scream obscenities at will.  My dog has had four weeks of pre-season, seventeen weeks of regular season and three weekends of playoff games to learn how to properly tune out the expletives that undoubtedly cascade from my lips.

This year’s rivalry between Denver and Seattle should be a close game and a well fought battle.  The pure, raw desire for each of these teams to reign supreme is evident on the field and the energy is palpable from both sidelines.  The deeply etched scars of the carnage on the field are proudly worn as badges of honor, but there is another carrot dangling ever so close to Peyton Manning besides putting his lips on the Vince Lombardi trophy.  Should the Denver Broncos emerge victorious, he will be the first quarterback in the NFL to win a second Superbowl championship throwing for two different teams.

Superbowl Sunday has become one of the most anticipated sporting events.  There is something so enticing about the spirit of Superbowl Sunday.  Even if you are not a fan of the game, the camaraderie and the game-day snacks are enough to draw in a crowd, if only to nibble the offerings and watch the commercials!

When the game is done, the trophy is presented and the celebration is carried on beyond the cameras, there should be a rehabilitation program for dedicated fans, like myself.  I admittedly feel a sense of loss and wander aimlessly on the Sunday following Superbowl trying to overcome that loss.  The sudden deviation to absolutely no football requires an intense effort to fill those weekend hours and I am forced to find sufficient entertainment to fill the void.  Thank God for blogging!

But for now, I will focus on Superbowl XLVIII – the throw down between the Broncos and the Seahawks.  It’s gonna be loud, it’s gonna be tense and it’s gonna be the Broncos 34 and the Seahawks 28.  Happy Superbowl Sunday!!

PS: If  you’re looking for me next Sunday, I will be signing up for an out-patient program for football withdrawal.