"As it seems"

"As it Seems" by Lily Kershaw

Well I knew what I didn't want to know; and I saw where I didn't want to go.

So I took the path less traveled on and I'll let my stories be whispered when I'm gone..

When I'm gone

When I'm gone

When I'm gone

Well in this life you must find something to live for, cause when the darkness comes a callin' you'll go back to where you were before. Cause this life is as fragile as a dream, and nothing's ever really as it seems...

As it seems

As it seems

As it seems

Well I lost my innocence when in I let him dive, but the way that he looked at me made me feel alive. And now I know nothin' at all, but the release that comes when you're in mid fall...

In mid fall

In mid fall

In mid fall

Cause in this life you must find something to live for; cause when the darkness comes a callin' you'll go back to where you were before. Cause this life is as fragile as a dream, and nothing's ever really as it seems... 

As it seems

As it seems

As it seems

Tristan Prettyman - New album out October 2nd!

"I Was Gonna Marry You"

I gotta go
Time to spread my wings and fly
Higher than the blue sky
Never did me any good
Waiting around
Only so much that my heart can take
It doesn’t matter what you say
Wishing for all we could-have-been

Just so you know just so you know
I never thought you'd let me go
I don’t even know the truth
Yeah we were fine, yeah we were fine
Then all at once you changed your mind
And I was gonna marry you

I gotta stay
As far away as I can get
Cuz a part of me hasn’t left
If I get too close you're gonna pull me back in to
Thinking everything you said was true
But the ring around my finger proved
That I was your girl
But in the end it wasn’t what you wanted

Just so you know just so you know
I never thought you'd let me go
I don’t even know the truth
Yeah we were fine, yeah we were fine
Then all at once you changed your mind
And I was gonna marry you
Yeah I was gonna marry you

Take all the words you’ve spoken
And the promises you’ve broken
And throw them all into the ocean
Just to let it be
And late at night
When you're lying in your bed alone
Wishing you were still at home
But we both know its too late

Just so you know just so you know
I never thought to let you go
I don’t even know the truth
Just so you know just so you know
I never thought you'd let me go
I don’t even know the truth
Yeah we were fine, yeah we were fine
Then all at once you changed your mind
And I was gonna marry you
I was gonna marry you.

Reduce, Renew, Resuscitate

source

Sometimes silence is golden.

Sometimes silence is lonely.

Sometimes silence is just an opportunity to catch our breaths.

I've been silent on here for a while. This isn't an apology and I'm not going to offer any excuses.

For me, this blog is at times a diary, a confessional, a scrapbook, a release valve..... It's here for me in a way that I don't have the courage to ask any people in my life to be. It does not judge. It's not too busy. It doesn't care if I call it at 2 in the afternoon or 3 in the morning.

But sometimes I need a break from even the best of listeners, I guess. So I went away...sort of. In some ways I think I was just trying to find cover until the dust had settled.

source

Back at the beginning of January when I begrudgingly welcomed in the new year, I complained about this sort of cloud that seemed to cover everything from my physical and financial well-being to the sad state of my bedroom and love life. Little did I know that my world was going to be turned upside-down in the month and a half to come.  In that time, many people and possessions moved out of my life. Some I chose to discard. Others were things I would have preferred to hang on to.

 Either way they are things that the universe knows I no longer need for the future ahead of me.

So I come here now having cleaned out the purse that is my life. There are new people in my life. There is a new list of adventures to keep me busy and interested in life. There is a new future ahead of me. I have no idea what it looks like, but perhaps it's time for me to stop being silent and to start making noise again.

101 in 1001 List #3

101 in 1001 List #3

04/16/2012 - 01/11/2015

1. Answer 100 questions from Proust.com
2. Ask 3 people what their favorite movie is and watch it with them
3. Ask someone out on a date - Completed 5/11/2012
4. Attend a family reunion
5. Attend a late night movie premiere
6. Attend a spinning class
7. Attend my 20-Year HS reunion  - Completed 9/29/2012
8. Attend Trivia night at a pub
9. Build a sand castle
10. Complete 3 incomplete items from List #1 - (1/3)
11. Complete 3 incomplete items from List #2 - (2/3)
12. Complete a 1000 piece puzzle  - Completed 7/15/2012
13. Complete a coloring book
14. Complete the 100 Snapshots list #2
15. Create an inspiration board
16. Crochet a sweater
17. Crochet socks - Completed 7/3/2012
18. Crochet something for charity
19. Decorate my bedroom in a way that is totally me
20. Do 3 minutes of stretching each day
21. Do something fun and fabulous for my 40th birthday
22. Do something fun at 12:12 on 12/12/12
23. Do brunch  - Completed 12/1/2012
24. Do the 200 sit-ups challenge
25. Dress up in a homemade costume every Halloween
26. Eat at 10 new restaurants - (5/10)
27. Eat no fast food for a month
28. Feed an animal at the zoo
29. Fold 1000 paper cranes - (955/1000)
30. Get a tattoo
31. Get asked for my phone number  - Completed 12/12/2012
32. Get up without hitting the snooze button for one week
33. Give a 100% tip
34. Go on 10 first dates  - (2/10)
35. Go on 5 second dates - (2/5)
36. Go on 2 third dates - (1/2)
37. Go on a scavenger hunt
38. Go to a roller derby match  - Completed 12/29/2012
39. Go to Burning Man
40. Go to the ballet
41. Go to the opera
42. Have $xxx,xxx in my 401k plan - (83%)
43. Have a maid service come in and clean 3 times
44. Hike 5 miles of the Appalachian Trail
45. Host a game night
46. Join RPUMC
47. Kiss someone at midnight on New Years
48. Kiss someone in the rain
49. Kiss someone under the mistletoe
50. Lay at the edge of the water on a beach and let the tide wash over me
51. Learn how to decorate a cake
52. Learn to make one really great appetizer
53. Learn to make one really great salad
54. Learn to make one really great entrée
55. Learn to make one really great dessert

56. Learn to play 3 songs on the guitar 57. Learn to play 3 songs on the piano 58. Learn to roll sushi 59. Learn to swim under water without holding my nose 60. Make 3 things from instructables.com 61. Make a 100-song play list that I never get tired of listening to 62. Make a list of 10 great things about me and post it somewhere I'll see it 63. Make a pie on Pi day (March 14th) 64. Make a video about a day in my life 65. Make homemade doughnuts 66. Make pasta 67. Meet someone famous 68. Paint a picture and hang it in my house 69. Participate in 4 breast cancer fundraising events 70. Participate in 6 Devour Downtown menus 71. Participate in a mini-triathalon 72. Participate in Project 333 73. Ride in a gondola 74. Ride my motorcycle across the Mackinac Bridge 75. Sew a dress and wear it 76. Sew a shirt and wear it 77. Sew a skirt and wear it 78. Sew some pants and wear them 79. Spend a day at the beach 80. Spend a day in the desert 81. Spend a day in the mountains 82. Spend no more than $8/day on food for the entire 1001 days ($59/$8,008) 83. Start a birthday tradition 84. Take a 1000+ mile road trip 85. Take a photo in the capital of each state in the contiguous US  - (1/48) 86. Take a photo of the same place every month for year and then turn it into a calendar       for the next year 87. Take a vacation by myself for at least 2 days at least 100 miles from home 88. Throw a Cinco De Mayo Party 89. Throw a New Year's Eve party 90. Throw a Superbowl Party 91. Throw away all of my underwear and start again 92. Unplug for a weekend 93. Use the Wii once a week 94. Visit 26 cities - one for each letter of the alphabet and take a photo by a sign with       the city name on it 95. Visit 3 National Parks/Monuments/Historic Sites/etc 96. Walk Sasha an average of 20 minutes every day 97. Watch 26 movies I've not seen (1 for each letter of the alphabet)  - (9/26) 98. Watch the sun rise and set in the same day 99. Win more than $10 on a lottery ticket  - Completed 1/18/2013 100. Write Madi a note every week 101. Create another 101 List

Kindness

Before you know what kindness really is 

you must lose things, 

feel the future dissolve in a moment 

like salt in a weakened broth. 

What you held in your hand, 

what you counted and carefully saved, 

all this must go so you know 

how desolate the landscape can be 

between the regions of kindness. 

How you ride and ride 

thinking the bus will never stop, 

the passengers eating maize and chicken 

will stare out the window forever.

Before you learn the tender gravity of kindness, 

you must travel where the Indian in a white poncho 

lies dead by the side of the road. 

You must see how this could be you, 

how he too was someone 

who journeyed through the night with plans 

and the simple breath that kept him alive. 

Before you know kindness as the deepest thing inside, 

you must know sorrow as the other deepest thing. 

You must wake up with sorrow. 

You must speak to it till your voice 

catches the thread of all sorrows 

and you see the size of the cloth.

Then it is only kindness that makes sense anymore, 

only kindness that ties your shoes 

and sends you out into the day to mail letters and purchase bread, 

only kindness that raises its head 

from the crowd of the world to say 

It is I you have been looking for, 

and then goes with you everywhere 

like a shadow or a friend. 

—Naomi Shihab Nye

It is a wise woman who learns from her mistakes

Aging is not lost youth but a new stage of opportunity and strength.
Betty Friedan

It is sad to grow old but nice to ripen.
Brigitte Bardot

While one finds company in himself and his pursuits, he cannot feel old, no matter what his years may be.

Amos Bronson Alcott

Today I received an email from one of the HR people in Seattle (the headquarters of my company) requesting an electronic copy of my employee photo for a conference that I will be attending in March. I guess that 10 years ago when I started, the only copies that HR received here actual photos which they then store in paper files. After talking to a few people here in the office, it was discovered that my old administrative assistant had an electronic copy of the photo which he sent off to headquarters. He also copied me on it.

I remember thinking at the time the photo was taken that I didn't like it at all. I critiqued it and picked out all of my flaws. My face was too fat, my eyes seemed too small and I hated the way my hair refused to curl on the left side. It wasn't a photo I remember being proud of in the least. So imagine my surprise when I opened the file and thought, "Oh my! That is a pretty young woman!" THEN I remembered it was me 10 years ago!

I remember how I was 10 years ago.  I was spending a lot of time on my appearance.  I was working out for real for the first time in my life, but the results never seemed to come fast enough or to be enough. I was sad because there were no boys that liked me and more of my Saturday nights were spent home than out doing the fun things I imagined other people my age were doing.  I just KNEW there was something fundamentally wrong (and consequently unlovable) about me and it was my job to spend every waking hour ferreting out what that could possibly be. As a result the drill sergeant in my head was very vigilant and always ready to squash the slightest bit of a thought I might have that I was funny or pretty or great to be around.

.....You know.....kinda like I do to myself today.

Oh how horrible and ashamed (and motivated) I felt when I saw that picture. I want to go back and tell the young woman in that picture that she is loved and she is worthy and she is AMAZING. I want to tell her that she has wonderful adventures ahead of her and that she will endure pain but she will also know love in a way she never has. I want to tell her to put her chin up and her chest out and to face anything that comes at her with the courage and resilience I know she has.

But I can't do that.

Or can I?

What's the old saying? If you want shade from a tree, when was the best time to plant that tree? 40 years ago. When is the second best time? Today.

I don't want to be sitting here 10 years from now chastising the 38-year-old woman in the second picture above for doing the same thing the 28-year-old woman did to herself.

So, here's the message the 48-year-old Me has for me today:

"You are loved and worthy and  AMAZING. You have wonderful adventures ahead of you. You will endure pain but you will also know love in a way you never have. Put your chin up and your chest out and face anything that comes at you with the courage and resilience that I know you have."

On Finding Love - Part 1

“Life isn't about finding yourself. Life is about creating yourself.” 

― George Bernard Shaw

Life is a complicated thing. Often it gives the test first and the lesson afterward. There are times when we think our heart will overflow with joy. There are other times when our heart breaks into a million little pieces and we're sure it will never be able to be healed again. We bump into one another and, like the ball in a game of Pong, our paths are permanently changed. With the smallest word, we find we are loved in a way we never imagined. With the tiniest slight, we are overwhelmed with loneliness.

As anyone who is a friend of mine on Facebook knows, the last month has been a tough one for me. I am fortunate that my family members are well, I have a stable job, and my health is good. But my heart has been broken and the loneliness I feel often overtakes me. A friend, who used to be a lover, has moved onto a new love. Yes, I split up with him. While I do love him, I am not in love with him. It's not a relationship with him as a lover that I miss. Our relationship had morphed into a deep friendship. We spoke every day and saw one another at least once a week. We had wonderful conversations of a kind I've never had with anyone else. I knew that he would always be there.

And then he wasn't there anymore. He had found a new love and was steeped in the beginning parts of a relationship when life is amazing and your world and your time are centered on that person and getting to know them and spending as much time with them as possible. Time's a funny thing, you know. It's finite. It's a pie that can never get any bigger and when you give a bigger piece to one person, that means all the other pieces have to get smaller. So that's what's happened.

And I'm happy for him. But for the last month I've been trying to figure out why this change has been so devastating. Tonight I feel like I made a breakthrough. The overwhelming sadness I've been feeling is not about him and me wanting to be with him. I broke up with him for reasons and those reasons haven't changed. This sadness isn't about him. He's simply a concrete thing for me to center my pain on. No, it's not about him. It's about me.

I'm sad because I'm lonely. I have lots of friends who are wonderful and supportive and always there to sign on for whatever crazy thing I want to try next. But that's only a part of the love I think we all need in our lives. I need people to lean on and talk with and laugh with and cry with. But I also need the kind of love that can only be shown when a man takes me in his arms and kisses me deeply. The love that comes from someone who wakes up early in the morning because he can't wait to talk to me. A man who sees something he knows I will love and can barely hold in his excitement as he shares it with me. Someone who likes the curve of my hips, the feel of my skin and the way I can't help but laugh hysterically at those videos of animals doing silly things. Someone who knows that when I say I'm okay, I'm really saying, "Please drop everything and come take me in your arms, listen to me and tell me that everything is going to be okay." And that's exactly what he does.

Maybe I'm expecting too much.  Maybe I've watched too many "chick flicks". Maybe the best I can expect is someone who doesn't take up more than his half of the bed, takes out the garbage and kills all the creepy crawly things. I hope not.

But that's what it's all about, isn't it? It's about the hope. It's about the hope I have that I will find him and he will find me and we will bump into one another and change the paths of our lives in amazing ways that we had never imagined possible.

So I will probably still cry and I will still feel overwhelmingly lonely, but there will be a part of me that knows it won't always be like this. That's the part that will remind me that I am wonderful and witty and amazing and worthy of a love that is good, true and beautiful. That's the part that will remind me that I am already loved by God and the universe and my friends. That's the part that will remind me to hug more people and to tell those loved ones that I care about them more often. And with all of that love bumping into those around me, it's only a matter of time before it bumps into me again.