One of my favorite bloggers Ryan over at http://pacingthepanicroom.blogspot.com/ is currently having an amazing contest all based around a book trailer he recently did.
The prize is a seriously drool-worthy Elemental Land Camera that I would love love love to have as well as a copy of the book Instant Love! Fingers crossed.
I spent a beautiful day with my mom on Mothers day. I picked her up and we went for the most relaxing drive up 410. I spent yesterday putting together a special picnic lunch, the same picnic lunch she would often make for us. I stopped the car at a viewpoint and we hiked a little ways into the trees until we found two perfect little logs next to each other and ate in the quiet peacefulness that is nowhere. After lunch we drove some more, looking at the endless hues of green and feeling the hot spring sun on our skin. It was one of the nicest days we have had in a long time.
It was mothers day and even though my pockets were empty I put a lot of thought into what I could do to make this day special for her. I used the same thought process that she has used all these years and passed on to me. It is not about money spent or hoops jumped through it is about kind gestures and thoughts of the person it is intended for.
As I was driving with the windows down and the fresh air whipping through our hair I briefly thought of how much our lives have changed. I saw a car jam packed full of our family, out for a ride just like we were doing now. And with a snap the silhouette that was my brother disappeared out of his seat. Next was my dad whose seat was left empty, and then like a florescent light on its last leg, my sister flickered for a long time and then her seat too, was left empty. All that is left of the family I was born with is my mother and I. Holding on to each other like we are the last people on earth and really, on the private planet that belongs to each family- we are.
It is really no secret that the relationship my mother and I share is often strained. It is complicated and often challenging but I hold my mother closest to my heart and I will never let her go. We have gone months without talking on more then one occasion and my heart ached each day that passed. But as the years go by those days of separation become fewer. Part of it I think is my growing up. Part of it is the increased effort of tolerance on both of our parts but most of all I think we both really see now more then ever that the love we have for each other far outweighs any conflict we could ever have.
As I grow older I see more of my mother in me then ever before. When I look in the mirror I see her when I never did before. We have the same knack for cooking and entertaining, the same creativity while hers is demonstrated by painting, sewing and endless crafting, mine is shown through photographs and writing. We share the same crooked smile and too loud laugh. But most of all, we share the same heart. The way we express our feelings and our care can often be polar opposites but under the surface they beat the same. As each year passes I see myself listening more intently to her words, taking intentional mental snapshots to always remember these times with her. My biggest fear in the world is losing her too soon. I pray to God each and every day that he gives me many, many more years with her.
I want my mother to be proud of me, to see that the values and talents that she shared with me all my life were listened to and put to good use. I pray that she is there on my wedding day, on the birth of each of my children and thee as they each grow. I know that I am not the first daughter to ever declare during their childhood that “I will never be like her!” only as an adult change that to “I am honored to be like her.” My mother is the strongest most beautiful woman I will ever know and I wish that everyone could see what I see when I look at her. I try my hardest to be a light in her often difficult world. Out of three children two have grown into people she never could have imagined. One walked out of her life seventeen years ago never to be heard from again. And the other while physically very close is so absent even her own brain doesn’t know who she is. I am her last chance, her last hope to be included in the adult life of one of her children. I want to give her that more then anything. Each person is given one life and one mother and what you chose to do with that will forever stay with you. Someday I hope to be able to help her financially to a point that she can worry less and enjoy more of this time in her life. But until I am able to do that I will try my damnedest to make sure she feels loved, wanted and cared for.
My favorite Incubus song! If I don’t get to see them when they come to Tacoma next month I will not be happy! And if I do get to see them, I’ll immediately hump Brandon Boyd s face off 🙂
This picture was taken almost 2 years ago and without even having to close my eyes I can feel with such intensity what it was like, how I felt, what the sun felt like shining on me through the window. How sticky and hot it was that day, what I was looking at on the computer [Craigslist], everything…
Browsing through my picture files I scroll over this picture and stop dead in my tracks. The vivid memories this summoned up so quickly it knocked me off my tracks. Pictures can convey many feelings for me but this one, this one is different. I look at this picture and the smell of that room washes over me, not bad just… foreign. This was on the bed in the room of my friends parents house. The room that I stayed in for 2 months after I broke up with my ex, the room where I have never felt so lost. Emotionally, mentally, physically every which way I was beaten and tired. Looking at this picture gave me memories to realize just how different my life is now compared to then. Two years to change and grow. Two years to live and find love. Two years to change your outlook, your views, your opinions, your very being.
Leaves me speechless.
Peacocks: Beautiful, stunning, majestic creature on the outside. Terrifying nightmare monster on the inside ❤
This feeling is all too familiar. Defeat at its finest, in all its dream crushing pride stealing glory. The crazy thing about failing so badly in this way is that it happens so fast. Everything is great for months! Going well, very few complaints and then in less then two months its like you sit back and watch the train wreck unfold in slow motion. Frame by frame. Impact, Each car folding in on each other, the final fiery end, and then silence. Silence as you watch everything you’ve worked so hard for burn right in front of you, just sitting there watching because really? What else can you do?
I lost my job today. That is number 2 within about a year and a half. I was feeling positive today, really believing that with the office change would come positive changes. Really give me a chance to prove myself, to clear my name of all the lies and negativity that had surrounded me for the past 2 months. I really believed that this would be a move that could change everything. Four hours into my day and it was over. All of it. Gone. It was a stupid mistake and I won’t even try to defend it. I said nothing during both of my termination conference calls. And now I am sitting in my living room at midnight on a Monday and the fact that I don’t have a job to wake up and go to tomorrow is weighing heavily on me. Sometimes when I can’t get my head around something. When it is too much to process, when there is too much to say, when my thoughts and words run into each other like a over occupied chickens coop I try and slow it down. Put my creative energy towards constructing snapshots instead of lengthy entries. Capture what I can to remember this day. Now that I think of it, I’m not really sure why I want to remember this day. It was terrible and leaves so many fears wide open sitting on the counter just staring at me. But as hard as it is, this event was apart of my life. Apart of my story, and will be apart of my history.
The sun was shining all day today. A really strange occurrence since it is April in Washington. While I sat there at my new desk I looked at the window, felt the escaped sun rays fall onto me from the outside. It gave me strength, led my attitude. And as I walked out of that same office, shaking, in shock, stunned the sun was warm on my skin as I made my way to my car. I didn’t cry, which was a change from the last time I was let go from a job. I think more then anything I just felt lost. Completely stunned. Very down on myself. I smoked almost a full pack of cigarettes within a few hours, feeling like each cigarette which would usually bring a calmness, had to be defective. I was so numb I couldn’t even feel the excess of nicotine I was flooding my body with. And just like the last time, I went to Michael. I ran to him, licking my wounds. Barely able to speak any words. He was there with me when I got the final call. And I am so thankful that he was.
So what do I do now? I’ll go through the motions. Apply where I need to apply while also searching very hard for a job. I’m trying to keep an optimistic attitude, but I’ll wait until I get the word on my unemployment to actually let my guard down. I have a lot of If’s on my mind right now. If you could open my brain you would just hear the soft slithering whispers if if if if if if if. But you know what, I dont know! I dont know what if to any of these open ended questions! Right now, I need to focus so hard on maintaining my mental health. Becuase if I let that go to shit, I’ll still be in the exact same place I was before, but much more miserable.
Last night as we laid in the darkness of my quiet bedroom, your arms wrapped around me you told me for the very first time that you love me. When you said those three words my heart stopped and my stomach did a flip and instead of laying on my old mattress in my small room I felt like I was nestled in the soft fantasy of my endless dreams. In that moment I felt like my life changed. In that moment I felt like a whole new me, in the moment I felt like a whole new us. It sounds drastic and exaggerated and silly but I felt myself change and a whole new chapter of life open all at once. Because with love, anything is possible. With you, I feel like everything is possible. I didn’t anticipate that great of a feeling. I knew I would be touched, I would be emotional and raw and real in that moment when you finally spread your lips to say it but what I didn’t know, is that with those words you broke down walls, swept out fears, freeing me from one life and carrying me into the next.
We’ve both been in love before but this love is different and more wonderful then I ever could have imagined. The love before us was a very immature love. The love I had before was a I’ve-never-felt-this-before suffocating I-can’t-live-without-you love. Strong and intense, unhealthy and unforgiving. If that love was I cant live without you love, this love is I want to share my life with you. If that love was never leave me alone love, this love is go, go and have your own life but always be back to kiss my goodnight. If that love was I don’t know who I am without you love, this love is I know who I am without you and when I’m with you its like the very last piece of my puzzle has been added and I finally feel complete. That love was characterized by possessing one another, by invading one anothers mind body and soul, by adding condition on top of condition until we would allow the other to be loved. This love is characterized by a softness in each others eyes, respect in the way we speak to each other, kindness, giving, unconditional, beautifully mutual love.
I’ve had a feeling those words were coming. It’s been incredibly challenging for me to be patient, to not doubt, to wait and give you the time you needed to know 100% that you love me. And the last few weeks you’ve gotten closer to me. Holding me tighter, snuggling me longer, kissing me when you leave in the morning, when I woke up coughing in the middle of the night and you pulled me close making sure I was ok. I don’t know why you chose last night but I couldn’t be any happier then I am right now. And as we laid in the darkness arms wrapped as tight as they could get around each others bare skin I don’t think I have ever felt as loved, content, free, hopeful, happy and optimistic as I did in that moment. Even writing these words of love and hope and confidence I have the flicker of fear in the back of my head, telling myself to write down words of if it doesnt work out, if it’s this, if that happens, if if if if. I don’t want to do that right now, right now I wish I could bottle that feeling I had inside my stomach when I heard your words so that I could relive it over and over again. Right now I just want you to hold me close and never let me go. ❤
“Joe Walsh: Birth control debate ‘Not about woman'”
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/blackberry/p.html?id=1288822
Hey Joe Walsh thank you for clearing up that little issue about the all male contreception panel. Your absolutely right! How silly of us to think that the contraception controversy is about woman!! I mean why would it be? Woman are the only the ONLY PEOPLE ON THE PLANET that take oral contraception but you sir, you sir are correct! How silly of me to think that my uterus is my business? My uterus is definitely just a pawn for your gray haired white man asses religious freedom! My uterus just needs to stay quiet down there in my lower abdominal cavity and let people like you, Mr. Walsh talk for it. Because clearly, you know whats best here. God bless Amurrica!
twentysomethingfails 