Playing with Puzzle Pieces

I don’t feel the doom and gloom. I know it’s lurking out there because I have seen it on many faces I pass in the shuffle of my everyday life. It seems many people are cashing-in and checking-out. Life is hard especially with the media reminding us just how unhappy we ‘should’ feel. However, in my little world something is different. I see the bills stacking up on the entryway table in my house, all the while, knowing that my position at work is shaky. I know that I have a lot of goals I have recently set for myself which might possibly be difficult, but some sort of shift took place. It was slight at first. The morning I woke up and didn’t feel like crying was the middle. The beginning was just one good choice I made for 'me' that snowballed into... what one can only define as... happiness? Nowadays, I just smile at the piling stack of bills I need to pay. I intend to pay them and I will, but right now I can’t so … I smile instead. Did I crack? Nope. I just changed. Eating right and working out use to seem like this huge mountain I looked up at but felt to afraid to climb. Now, I enjoy it – I can’t believe I wasted so much time not making it an essential part of my life. Losing weight is good for my health and the 13 pounds I have lost feels great, but there is something even more impressive I discovered. One night while exercising I thought “what other changes can I make?” and it inspired me to change everything else in my life I didn’t like! Like spring cleaning for the soul. If something doesn’t fit into who I want to be – I just throw it out! Gone! Just like that! This might seem like an infomercial on selling "happy" but indulge me a little further. I even changed how I felt about the people in my life who use to make me feel bad about me – FLIP! I smile at them too! Just like that! And what’s really fantastic is the changes I have made make me like this new girl more everyday! Like a puzzle – I am putting me back together – starting from the edges and working my way to the middle. “It starts with ME first!” it’s my new mantra!

My Mirror Friend

I'm really trying to focus on an important relationship I have neglected. I spent some time with myself today trying to become my friend again. I think somewhere along the way I forgot to be kind, understanding, and tolerant to the girl looking back at me in the mirror. I don't remember the last time I spent a day alone with myself, my thoughts, and calming household tasks. I discovered I actually enjoyed spending time with her. Perhaps the greatest failed relationship is the one we have with ourselves. If we don't take care of this relationship - no other connections can succeed. Sometimes in the simplicity of scrubbing a sink with a sponge in silence a friendship can be strengthened. Today for the first time, I smiled at the girl in the mirror and she smiled back and... she meant it.

Nothing Is Priceless

"I will not cry - I will stand tall and proud" She says outloud in the vacant space. She wears the clothes of someone defeated. Outside in the dark on a quiet street staring at the rendezvous spot she sat alone. Secret meeting of lovers in the middle of the night. It was the perfect night - the shifting breeze rolled across the shoulders inviting, and the bright Moon cast a glow across the freshly watered lawn. The crisp smell of the air was seductive. Only tonight, she was on the outside... knowing behind the blue door and down that hall inside that little house someone else was with him. With the sadest smile placed across her face she shook her head. She had been a fool. She just needed to know it was true. Like the bright lights of vegas - she saw who he was in one brilliant fragment of time. Images projected before her tired eyelids of laughter, stolen moments, places they had gone, and talks they had shared. A human connection shattered like glass thrown on the pavement. It was done. Choices. She was done.

He knew he was caught. He stared out through the window in the dark room trying to see the figure inside the car. He couldn't see her - he couldnt be sure she was in there- but he knew. He knew the way the nights moon knows how to cast shadows. Frozen, he watched as the car started with a violent hum breaking the silent calm of the slumbering street. She didn't see him standing there. Of that he could be sure. He can almost hear a whisper as if she is there in the room with him "The choices we make... dictate the life we lead." Some moments change everything. This moment would. Doomed - he would lose again. He has lost so much in his wasted life. Choices. He watches the car fade into the night and after a moment he turns - walking back down the hall . Walking through the bedroom door he stares down at the girl waiting for him. She stretchs out her arms to him. Choices. Laying back down he knows he will not sleep again tonight. This night would haunt him. Shadows would shift on the wall before him playing images of all he had lost. His own worst enemy... was his very soul.

The Reason Night & Day is Divided...

Perhaps someone offered me a pill and I took it and it made me see you in a different light or maybe I am just a silly little girl twirling around thoughts like a ballerina with images of pretty flower petals in my hair and beautiful dancing ponies. But, the how I got here doesn’t really matter. I danced on the wave of you and soaked in the sun until the clouds started rolling in and the rain started to fall. The text book manual of you is filled with descript condemning words like glass shards and tears – where all hopes and dreams go to wither and perish. The unwritten you – the tale you’ve made me see was so bright like a halo around everything so jaded. How similar the two of you are, the Moon and you – illuminating the sky surrounded by a veil of darkness it can not escape. I care so freely and love so deeply, but I prefer it to the silent emptiness of midnight nothingness. I will miss the thrill and the excitement of seeing your smile and the light surrounding you -only I can see. You do not belong to the dark night like the renegade Moon. You belong in a field of yellow flowers for miles, or shape shifted into the cool night breeze caressing the skin as a lover. I have lost nothing because I never really had you – you are preoccupied letting the nights sky own you. A man addicted to the pattern of the Moon-standing still and shinning only from far away. I risked my heart, but can not risk anything else for you. When the veil I wore was lifted and the choice became me or you... this blond girl whispers out loud standing tall in her silent damning victory barefoot on the porch “I choose me.”

Mind-Sick and The Bumps to Prove it!

I’ve been saying a little phrase – out loud and in my head “I’m allergic to my life!” These are very powerful words… in-fact so powerful that I have hives on my stomach and my arms! I thought I was being so funny and clever with my witty saying… and now it’s manifested its self to be true. The mind is a powerful thing which of course got me thinking… if I can create hives from stress what can I create with peaceful feelings? And isn’t this what the entire guru’s of the world have been saying? Did I really need hives to stop the negativity flowing through me? Perhaps I did! Most importantly, if I can believe everything will work out and I will be just fine… would I? Just a little lesson in perceptions and flip! I go over to the positive side!

New. Change. Fear.

I’m not sure where I thought I would be. There wasn’t a checklist I made when I turned eighteen on who I was going to be ten years later. Something doesn’t fit with this imaginary plan hovering like a ghost above my head. In the middle of the night its as if I am the only audience to the world. Staring out my bedroom window at four in the morning calmed by the stars who feel like old friends. We have sat in this same bright darkness together in comfortable quiet on many occasions. Tonight I feel change taking place without me… I know its time. My nemesis and my greatest ally. Change will move forward feet planted firmly in the desert sand with its head down carrying its burden on its back towards the new. Do I go quietly or make a scene? If I choose to fight I will be walking with bound hands and tattered clothes staggering behind Change. If I go peacefully I’ll have to let go of the comfort of Fear. Being afraid has been such a comfort -it lets me shake my blond curls as I nod “no” with arms crossed and regress back to five years old again. How did I grow up and still manage to bring Fear this far with me? Letting go of fear and accepting change… the battle is on!

The Paper-bag Princess ... Is Me?!?!

Writing to calm the squalls of my mind… Like my own little Yantzee party only the dice are my thoughts rolling around in a great vacant space. Time to reason with myself on what is important and what isn’t. Evaluating what can and will take the cut in my life. Unfortunately, the house will be the first to go. I keep reminding myself that a lot of people are downsizing and struggling.

Why do I hold on to an image – or need a pretty picture on the outside? The car, the house… all those things are just “things” – pretty things, but not NEEDED things. This princess-like mentality I find myself battling with is not only annoyingly unattractive but also disappointing. Perhaps the biggest lesson to be learned is to simplify my life… in everyway possible. I have been living outside my means and struggling to hold on to the picture that everything is OKAY.

What I found interesting is that I was holding onto this image for myself. Was I afraid I wouldn’t like me if I didn’t have these things? Was I valuing me on what I HAD? Did I really think - If I can pull into the driveway in my pretty green mustang and walk up to my huge house turning the key and walk inside then I was and will be ‘okay’. The fear of change that I have carried with me since childhood – the need to keep everything in order and the ‘same’ has dragged me into what I can only sum up as - quite a little pickle.

This pretense is only making it worse and I find myself flailing like a drowning man looking for a life preserve. It is time for me to grow up – make the best choice which isn’t always the prettiest and requires owning up and making a change, so I can learn to tread water once again.

Moving on… and moving out…