Joy & A Glass of Wine, Raised High

Baby girl is managing editor of the national award winning paper at her school. I just can't contain my joy! If you are out there trying to be a good single parent, keep trying, it pays off in the end...

You make your daily sacrifices, choices in the best interest of the one you Love. People criticize, shake their heads, tell you to do it differently. You skirt the edges of paycheck to paycheck, give up a career and cry alone at night.

And then, like some sort of certificate of merit, your baby grows up and starts to make her own decisions. They are good ones. She is happy and fulfilled. She is just at the beginning but it looks bright.

You breathe and smile and acknowledge how full your heart is. You thank God and you plan for your future for the first time in 18 years. You become more spontaneous, start a happiness project, have hope for your own Life again. You thank God and rejoice.

I thank God and I rejoice!

Anonymity

I think I have been away from this blog for so long that anyone who knows me has given up on it. I like that idea because it leaves me free to say anything here. I have been wanting a space where I could be wholly myself - good, bad, indifferent, outrageous, stupid, fearful, tired, smart, wholesome, hard and strong or weak and shaking. I've needed a space where I could express the truth without being overheard by someone who has a different picture of me.

Now that I'm here, I'm going to give internal honesty a shot and maybe I'll be able to take that into every moment of my days and nights.

There's a place I need to go on the inside of my Self but I'm not sure where it is, I have no map and I'm lost. I have the sense that if I can find my way to the core of my being that everything will sort itself. And, not surprisingly, I am hopeful that I'll find my way.

Better Days, Greater Love

I hold for you
tenderness;
a warm amethyst crystal
in my left palm,
glowing with power,
promising balance and peace.

How can I write what you have been to me?
Little of what I wanted and yet everything
all at once.
How could I measure the weight of your mouth
on my belly,
speaking to the unborn beauty I carried there?
I find it impossible to regret what Life brought me
just because I was angered
by what it took in exchange.

Tenderness in my heart and soul
wells up
at the sound of your mighty voice,
I will you to feel it across this VOIP connection,
knowing it doesn't make right
what has gone wrong in your Life.

I wish this tenderness could go back in time
and change everything,
making me long to wrap you in my arms,
cradled, like the 2 year-old I chose to Love completely
instead of you.

My love may seem almost useless to you now,
separated by 850 miles and too many years
of unfulfilled desires;
I can do no more than stand for you.

Looking out across my backyard
listening to the clacking keys of teenage homework
in the background of your pain,
I would have this far away Love be as sustenance,
a force to hold you up
until a greater Love finds you.

Too Much

I watched a coworker bury her 28 yr.old son today and I thought, 'this is too much'.
I was rejected by a lonely, awkward and interesting man this week after asking him out on a date and I knew it was too much.
I am not sure why I keep putting one foot in front of the other each day but, I do, and it feels like too much.

Somewhere along the way I got it all confused and now I am overwhelmed or maybe I am underwhelmed. Yeah.

One of Those Days

Don't quite know why but I feel lost. A recent dose of rejection has knocked me off my stride but I want to get up and move on. My 14 years of self-imposed nun-like behavior have taken their toll.

In my head I know that Life is good and getting better. But, somewhere in there I am afraid. It's that fear I want to release. I want to be the woman I know in my heart and soul I truly am. I want to step into me - fully and completely.