Dang, You Guys Are Awesome

My post, What’s in a Name, garnered more appreciation and interaction from all of you than I imagined when I penned it. And I think that’s so stinking cool.

Seriously, thank you.

Like many of you, I have intimate knowledge of depression, hopelessness, loneliness, weariness, and the struggle required to make it through one more day. The thing about social media is that it can be a vehicle for so much deception. We can post photos that we’ve specifically curated to portray a life that seems dazzling, but reality often tells a different story. Because of my struggle with debilitating depression, I love to try and find beauty within the darkness since it’s incredibly difficult to experience true beauty and joy in your spirit when you’re locked in a battle with demons. Often times, I turn to my blog and the community on here to lift my spirits when I’m too tired to continue the fight.

So, again, I just wanted to say you guys are a cool bunch and I appreciate you ♥️

Also, check out this funny video that made me shriek when I saw it 😂 This makes me feel ooollllldddddddd 😂😩 (tell me if you understand what this convo was about.)

Every girl should love a horse at least once in her lifetime

My pretty girl

Kisses for Sweetie

Can you look at me, please?

That’s a good girl

Happy New Year and all that

It’s been a whirlwind of a new year so far, I feel like I’m caught in a type of tornado and can’t quite catch my breath. But thankfully, it’s a tornado of positive happenings, so I’m both buoyed and exhausted. I don’t know how that even works but it’s really a thing.

I sincerely hope everyone’s year has begun on a positive note, or at least has the potential to become positive. Back when I was taking psychology courses in college, I remember learning about self-fulfilling prophecy and how we can become the authors of our own fate, and I’ve been on a journey of discovering how that works. The pandemic has really made the entire thing play out in a rather dramatic way, at least in my own personal little world. I spent Christmas in Paris on a solo, self enlightenment journey of sorts, and I’m happy to report that faith really does make things possible. I think for the Christian, the psychological phenomenon of self-fulfilling prophecy is better known as faith, and that all it takes is one tiny little step.

Anyway, I came back home refreshed and with new perspectives and I feel like I’m sprouting new shoots and unfurling new branches that are eagerly stretching towards a life well lived.

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Fever Dreams

I search for you in my blackest

midnight,

my drunken, misguided North Star.

Born of cunning and velvet

and the spaces between stars,

you were clothed by your maker in all the ways I yearned for you.

Were you a fever dream I restlessly brought forth

or were you sent to torment me

for all my wanton sins?

I’ve repented of each one a thousand times

if only to remove the scent of you from every layer of my skin.

Between pleas flung into the inky night,

I pray,

are you come as my salvation or my ruin?

Snowboarding Adventures

Who says paradise has to be tropical?

First snowboard of the season

I have a crazy story about this day

Celebrating the Small Things

Pretending at Living

Is this who we are, then,
choreographed echoes of moments
long since faded,
like the photographs in the stack of
albums hidden in the bottom drawer
of the china cupboard,
where we still remembered how to smile
in the way only a child can.
Before disappointment came and
leached the glittering hues of innocence
from the years wrought with failing
and flying, and the terrible sepia
that stole in with the loss of childhood.
A chorus of repetition greets the day,
where mimicry is mistaken for flattery
and empty words fall like spent
bullet casings. I string them together
and loop them around my neck,
try to remember how it felt to embrace
a kaleidoscope of living color.

Leaving Eden

Silence descends heavily in the wake of
your retreating footsteps,
desolate,
cruel in its unrelenting neutrality.
My thoughts are a startled murmuration
of starlings
with desperately flapping wings
resounding mournfully into the middle distance.
They settle delicately on my shoulders,
unable to bear the weight of our
existence.
We were the beginnings
of a dream,
a building crescendo,
the first strokes of a masterpiece
that fate or folly deemed never know
the fulfillment of completion.
A bitter wind sends its piercing cry
through the spaces of my ribcage.
Cold as a January frost.

Thank You Tim

I’ve been thinking about this post from the moment Tim nominated me on his blog. It was such a beautiful thing of him to do because I’ve unintentionally been so absent from the blogosphere that I thought for sure everyone forgot about me. But this was a post in the back of my mind that was like a little beacon of light consistently calling me to return. I don’t usually participate in blog awards on my blog because I applaud everyone who is brave enough to take up the pen and write down their most intimate thoughts to share with passersby, but the questions Tim asked intrigue me and I find I am curious to answer them. So without further ado, let’s dive in.

• What is your favorite Star Trek episode? All spin offs, generations and films count.

I feel like the following will be an admission of guilt, but it’s the truth so there’s no getting around it. I’ve never watched Star Trek. Not even a single episode. But in my defense, we didn’t grow up with a TV so you can usually catch me reading something..

• What line from a song makes you say, “I wish I had written that!”, every time you hear it?

To be honest, it’s not a song that comes to mind, but rather, two of my most favorite poets that I happen to know here on WordPress. Rachel and April bring me to tears with their poetry and each time I have to sit back and dream of what it would be like if the enchantment they weave flowed from my pen instead of theirs. Sigh. ErroneousChoices is another WordPress siren whose words ensnared me forever into their depths. 

Oscar Wilde is another favorite of mine. I wish I said a lot of whatever he said first. 

• If words could only be written a finite number of times, would you write them not knowing if it they could be written again?

Yes. I would. Words deserve to be given life, whether shouted from the rooftops, or whispered in the dark of night. Perhaps the written word would be all the more eloquent if they could never be penned again. 

• If you could walk a mile in someone else’s shoes, who’s shoes and why? (any person, any time, any reason)

This one is so difficult to answer because there are so many many people I would love to walk with for a while if I could. But if I were forced to choose, I would choose to walk in the shoes of one of the men on the road to Emmaus.

• If you find yourself standing at the intersection of ‘Right’ and ‘Legal’, which path would you choose?

Right. By the grace of God. 

• Dogs… or cats?

Cats. Without question. If you argue with me on this you are wrong. So sit there in your wrongness and be wrong. 

• Is is okay to benefit from knowledge, technology or skills that were gained by morally questionable means?

The jury is out on this one. I mean, advances in medicine could not be accomplished without men and women practicing on cadavers or people who were close to death, and in those times, that was very questionable indeed. 

• How much better, or worse, is your singing voice than you believe it is?

This is timely 🙂 I was belting along to a country song this morning at the tennis academy and a stranger told me she really liked my voice. I often get complimented on my singing voice but I don’t actually have the talent for it. So my answer is it is worse, and people’s answer is it is better. 

• Where do you think all the lost socks went?

They return as tupperware lids. But really, I have absolutely no idea where they go. It frustrates me to pieces.

• “I think, therefore, I am”. I feel, therefor, I _______?

Can enjoy carnal pleasures… yep, my mind went there. Not sorry. 

• You have a magic wand, you waved it. What happened?

World order was restored. Coronavirus vanished forever. The stock markets skyrocketed. All the racial injustice stopped, utopia commences…

I know the rules list a few things that I am supposed to do and I’m also supposed to nominate others who I feel are amazing. But to be honest, you are all amazing. So I nominate everyone who comes across this post. Feel free to answer the above questions in the comments section if you are so inclined.