False Wall

I'm home again. My work downstaffs a lot due to low census. You might think that I am overjoyed at the prospect; you would be wrong. This gives me the time to begin that introspective journey that I can't seem to quell. Those tired questions of where is my life headed, will I ever find the one, what does it all mean, am I a good enough person. My head screams with these and so many other doubts. The overwhelming mantra that forms into a question is, When will my life begin. This can't be it, I tell myself.

I haven't written the great novel yet. I haven't published my poetry or even allowed someone to be touched by them. I didn't join the Peace Corp and travel the world to help people. I haven't met , The One, and lord if I have ...I screwed that up because I'm on my own again. I haven't figured out exactly who I am yet. Do I continue striving for some perfection or do I finally admit that this is me, warts and all. I haven't left my mark upon the world. Maybe above all these things I haven't built my heaven yet.

I haven't even began the blueprints to create this magical place where none of these questions would matter. Here, in my home, a palace I envision, just for me, nothing but peace and love abide. Time doesn't make me tremble here. The what ifs and what I haven't done's are so far out of my mind because I have this, a place that welcomes me everyday with no pressure. The very air will impart a sense of magic that erases all pain. Every corner of my house will be filled with symbols of love and light.

I want to live this life so badly. That is where I am today. I am dreaming of the life that has yet to appear. I am wondering if this little life I exist in now, is enough. Time is passing so fast; please slow down. Perhaps God will hear my prayer...this time.        

Welcome to a day "off" in my life.                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                        

Mother's Day Thoughts

I think I'm supposed to do a Mother's Day blog. My brainstorming before pounding these keys gave me little insight into what I  want to say about it. Actually, I don't  have a lot of feelings on this day. Isn't it another trumped up holiday to aid the card industry? The thought is that there needs to be one day a year were mom's are appreciated. As unrealistic as this might sound, shouldn't that happen everyday and at the very least, happen when it is felt, not forced. Personally, this day is almost a slap in the face to me because I would prefer my son remembers every so often and tell me how much I mean to him, not one day a year. As for gifts, I have never needed them, merely words(written are always nicer) of caring sustain me. Perhaps the name of this day should be, "Mother's Day for those children that are selfish and self-absorbed". Yeah, that would go over well, besides not being very catchy.

On this day, we mother's are supposed to be granted the wish of our hearts. Ironically, if you ask most mom's what they really want from their children it will be things like; leaving me alone for a day, cleaning the house spotlessly without being asked, cease and desist all fighting and back-talking, or like me, just a card/letter telling me you care. This may seem like my opinion only but the radio station G105, actually had mom's call in with these answers. I would say 80% of mothers said they just wanted a day of peace.

My fingers fail so poetry time

Deafened Joy                                                                                                                                                                   

You swept in                                                                                                                                                     

And carried me away

To a magical place

Devoid of distance or time

Neither of us hearing the hazards

Only our hearts reciting,

“I am yours and you are mine”.

The childish happiness

Fed us all the life we needed

I believe we tempted the Gods

With our limitless joy abound

We, each lost in the other

Never knowing fate had other plans

Until the end was shockingly found

I think we always secretly knew

Our  path was a twisted fork

Sensing this result with time

Separate and left crying

Now I am merely pleading

That  life would accommodate

The last request of a heart left dying

Short-term Love?

So it turns out I might be needy. Is there a way to define or qualify that word, I wonder. In a relationship, specifically is there such a thing as too much affection? I want to know everyday that I am loved. I want to be touched all the time, just for the sake of showing affection/warmth. I demand some form of quality contact from the man I love at least everyday.Although sex is very important there has to be time when the touching doesn't lead to that too. Are these things too much to ask, especially when they will be reciprocated tenfold? Does the initial honeymoon stage always have to end? How long do you endure changes to a relationship and/or the person you fell in love with before you cut and run? If these phenomenon are destined to happen in a relationship (which seems to be my experience) then why do we even begin? Therefore, if dating is this hard...does that mean marriage is merely settling for these "realities"? These are the questions that haunt me. They bring me to a rather ... slightly ridiculous, yet relevant proposal: Should relationships only be short-term?

Seriously, I'm thinking that the three to four month period of bliss is all I want. Would that really be so hard to maintain? Can you imagine just enjoying the whole falling in love process over and over? Sure the end would suck but it seems to happen anyway, so if I prepare for it...no surprises! no pain! My mother told me that I am too old to be "playing the field"(her term for dating or...is she calling me a slut? hmm), that I need to settle down with one man. I wish dear old mom's advice was as easy to follow as to say. Her and my father met and married in 3-4 months. I guess they never experienced the out of love stage before they married. Maybe that is the answer. So my choices are fall in love and wait for it all to fall apart or fall in love and get married and have it all fall apart but AFTER I'm married.

Is love one of our human needs? I wonder if I could boycott that one. Maybe if I get down on my knees long enough and pray to God he'll make my heart stop wanting it. On the brighter side of it all...I have some wonderfully bad, sad, poignant and crappy poetry to document it all.

Do-Over

You'd think at the age of 30-something, I'd have most things figured out; wouldn't you? Frig I know I thought I would all those years ago as a young woman, planning my entire life ahead of me. Funny, how plans go. At the very least aren't I supposed to know what I want and how to get it? Wrong again, fate laughs at the very thought I believe. When you have childish questions that should long ago be answered, who do you ask? When you finally find what you think you wanted and you still find yourself unhappy, who do you blame? When you realize you made a mistake, a rash decision, that cost you something beautiful, how do you get it back?  I would like to reinstate "do-overs" from our childhoods. That is what I am upon my soap box lobbying for today.

In a moment of frustration I tell my son, he is a disappointment. Stop. freeze..do-over! I'll take a deep breath and explain to him I am disappointed in his behavior right now and expect better from him.

My pride and anger allowed him to leave my life without a fight. Stop, don't walk out that door yet...do-over! I will remind him that this fight is temporary and what I really want is him forever near me, holding my hand through life.

I tell my co-workers and boss that I don't need or want this job. Stop, whoa forget those sounds...do-over! I am so grateful for this job and look forward to further growth in our company.

My goodness if I could only claim do-overs. I could fix every problem in my life. Oftentimes, as soon as one of these mistakes are uttered from my mouth, I recognize they are just that. Okay, so I changed my mind, the point of this blog is not to demand do-overs but to demand that I gain superpowers to reverse time...do-over!

The Rhythms of our lives

When I say that music has power in my life, I'm not sure how to express the depth of that statement. Music can change my mood, like magic,  no matter what the circumstance. Let me expound upon that and say that music will always have a positive impact on my life, minus one event: Breaking up. Again, the power of music is evident even in this dismal time. The music begins and at first I am lulled by it, as a visit from an old friend but then the lyrics kick in and drown me in rivets of lost love, hope and all those notions that went out the window with the man I lost. This is where I am right now. Life has kicked me temporarily and I am musically down. That said, my love for the Rhythms of life has not diminished, merely on a sabbatical while my heart heals.

Now this is not a blog about my broken heart, it is one desperately trying to explain the necessity I see music should be in everyone's life. I'd like to open a window allowing someone to see inside my heart and mind where music floats. I wonder if mentioning that musicals are Kryptonite to me explains a little more. I cannot pass one down, even if it were a Western (I tend to hate Westerns). Currently, the show Glee is something I look forward to every week. It brings absolute joy to my life as I sit down and allow my ears to drink in the songs, pitches, altos and tenors.

I'm going to take this one final step further. Music is absolute therapy.  As a medical professional I am speaking on a very visceral level as well.I wish I could convince the world of its importance. I have many plans that I will pursue via my career in order to accomplish this goal. One such example is fully researching and proving via the dreaded M (math) word and statistics to prove that music can heal emotionally and thereby the human body. I intend to submit this to the hospital that I work for persuading them that music should be wafting from every possible corridor, bathroom or clinic.

Can you imagine how much brighter the world would be if we all danced to our own soundtrack? What if as we walked, we heard theme music, uplifting and encouraging the very best in us? When I feel lonely in public, like I am an ant, amongst the animals, I put in my headset and turn the music on. Immediately, my spirits are not only lifted but in that pure happiness I am reminded that I am not alone. I begin smiling at strangers, wanting them to feel my joy. Sometimes the music transports me to a place in time that brings back a special person in my life. In that moment, I am out of my head and lost in the rhythms of life, as I see it.

The Royal Escape

I'm taking a break from deep thought to address this recent phenomenon: The Royal Wedding! Our society...the American one, has become obsessed with it. It's not even our people! Did you know that 80% of "Brits" do not care about this event, even more to the point they oppose it. Because they have to pay for it. Yep, let me repeat, their taxes pay for a certain percentage of this grand wedding. Amongst war, a dying economy, and the general depressive attitude of the common man we are going to stop everything to watch just two people get married in the most posh of circumstance? I believe one might call that escapism. Personally, it feels akin to worship and I am never party to that.

Silence

Have you ever sat still enough to hear the crickets through a house window? Have you ever been in a crowd of people or with your friends, seemingly wanting to talk to you but never noticing you aren't saying a single word back? Can you imagine not speaking to anyone for every second of a twelve hour period? I have and I can tell you it is almost beyond words to describe to you the ... clarity I receive. The most obvious and generalized concept you learn from this speech fasting(yep it's a word) is that people aren't actually listening most of the time anyway. The second most result I found was that the cues given away to understand what someone really feels are derived from non-verbal language the best.

We enjoy talking, especially about ourselves. That doesn't have to translate into being a bad listener every time. It can signify that our lives really are more hectic and busy than ever before. Some of the results I found are as follows:  The other person(s) is assuaged with a mere nod of your head when asking one of those rhetorical questions, rather than insisting on real feedback which is an indicator of a good conversation or communication between two people. They might ask, as is the social etiquette, how you are doing and again, a small noise, smile or head nod, convinces them sufficiently they have done their duty in being a good and caring human being. Yes, these are my findings from this little social experiment but under no circumstances do I consider them negative or disheartening, merely another fascinating study of the human psyche.

Now let me speak on the significant value that this project has on me personally. Well, I am not exempt from the behaviors of a person described above so doing this forces me to be a good listener. It reminds me that there is so much to be found in what we don't say, in as much as we do. I am not only listening to what the people say around me, without my own verbal cues interfering but I am noticing body language, voice changes, etc. I don't think any of us, including myself ,are aware of the extent we give away in our facial movements, our body placements, the tone of our conversations. Perhaps we are all so used to not really listening to others that we rely on that fact in hiding our own emotions. Therefore we can convince people of whatever we want to about ourselves and keeping the scary, inside, squishy parts safe and alone. Personally, I don't want to be alone. I want to live among my fellow human beings. I was happy to do this so that I can get out of my own head and realize that we are all suffering because we can't see that we are all the same. The same people with our own set of fears, prejudices and habits.

I'm Back

Ahhh to feel my fingers stroke the keys yet again...to lay waste to the monsters in my head by casting them into the light upon these pages...I won't allow that silly number, or lack of quantifiers listed under "followers" to control me any longer. Nor will I ache over the fact that my best friend will never read the words that come straight from my heart that only he knew first. I am not going to take the words of one person or even many and let it still my hand. Nothing will keep me from pouring my soul into this medium for this, is my God... this is my religion... my saving grace. Nearly twenty-five years ago it began and who am I to challenge the fates of my true calling?

I was twelve years old. For some reason this was the year that my life seemed to alter the most: I finished 6th grade with a best friend named Allen and during that summer I realized he was a boy--let the bad poetry begin. I met my best friend's cousin, which would be my husband 10 years later--cue the teenage angst plagued upon my college ruled bound paper. I became a woman, as my mother tried to explain without making eye contact in her Catholic way--now throw in some physical incentive when my emotions were screwy and Judy Blume, watch out. My 6th grade teacher, whom I adored, sat me down and said she cared, "what do you want to be when you grow up Catherine and has anyone asked you that?" A nurse was born in that moment--this is what created a large facility's recognized poem and there will be more. 

See, every one of those moments stirred inside my heart and mind, sensations I didn't know how to control. I was unable to process them. I was never the girl to talk to my friends candidly. My family was so dysfunctional, I felt more normal than them so scratch that outlet. So there I was laying on my bed, racked with feelings that were threatening to overwhelm when words began appearing in my head. The words ran over my eyes and every fiber of my being as a rainbow does for a child who has seen it for the first time. I searched for help, meaning and I found paper and pen instead.

At first the process was more rudimentary such as random words, brainstorming. A diary was introduced. The words kept speeding through my mind. I wrote some more. Then one day eight lines of the worst poem I ever wrote was produced. Every line roughly detailing my fears of success, failure and just staying alive were represented on that tree that sacrificed itself for my prose. Yes, seldom will you find a "happy" cluttering of words from my fingers because happiness needs no help; it can stand on its own, in its own glory. Give me tears. Give me pain. Sound the trumpets at all the undue stress that remains...that is what you'll find in my words. You will see the manifestation of my soul bearing witness to the atrocities and the fears of my life and everyone or thing that touches it in some way. You will understand that these words are wrenched from my very being in order to make sense of this life, to experience joy again, to ease the burdens that a life worth living finds. If, for some reason you don't understand that then I suggest you put a pen in your hands, or lay your fingers upon the cold keys and tell me what you write about. You just might find something as interesting and shocking as you found my words.

There is no box

Whenever someone gets close to me the normal song and dance begins. There are the things they find out that are either hated or loved. This is when the compliments begin. Immediately, I set that person straight, correcting them that I am not this paragon of virtue. Oftentimes, this a manipulative tool to fish for more compliments. The other reason someone would deny this positive feedback is because their self-image is bad. I've been accused of both on many occasions but let me set that straight now. Every time I halt this offender it is because of what I have been taught spiritually. 

Unlike most things this was not my mothers workings, I learned purely on my own and alongside my best friend, DeVeer. When I was young,during childhood, I felt the stirrings of ...more. The answers the Catholic religion gave, or rather did not give, never satisified me. I was forever asking my mom and all our priests, "why". Their answers were always, "don't question God". All of my friends seem to be Baptist so I tried their churches and received no answers again. My father became religious for a season in the Holiness religion, as was the religion of my mother-in-law in later  years and still nothing satisfied my thirst for knowledge. I began reading. I was crazy attracted to the Eastern Philosophies. Tao being one of my all-time favorites, alongside, Buddhism, Hindu, Judaism and others I can't remember. From each one I found a truth...normally corresponding with some components of Western Christianity but it was always in bits and pieces. That brought me to where I am now. No religion has it all right. It is the basic manifest of them all...treat people right, fairly, and equally. We are absolutely ALL God's creatures and in order to be near to Him (our goal throughout our many lives in my opinion) we must understand that we are all same: We will make good decisions, bad ones, regret many and seek vengeance...we ALL do this at one time or another. 

These people become enamored of the decisions I make in the present. They fail to understand that in the next moment I may do or say something that is highly offensive in their eyes. I , like the rest of my brethren...the human race, I can go from good to bad in no time flat. My temper, once riled can be one of vast proportions For instance, if anyone hurts my family or those I love, I become viscious. You wouldn't want to see that side of me. Another negative confession of mine is I kinda like violence! I'm enthralled with people that master their bodies.  I'm not saying I want to see people fight sporadically but I love the mechanics of it...the art. I used to go with a doctor I worked for to boxing rings. I got to stay ringside and assist with vitals and their physical conditions. I learned how to watch, evaluate. I don't enjoy cussing. There was a time I would say I even disapproved of it period. Now I recognize that there are times when it is necessary. As well that anyone has the right to do so if they deem it necessary. That said, let someone begin calling my friends names or spouting racial slurs. Not only will you hear me cuss but I will attempt to belittle that person to the greatest degree I can climb to verbally.  I'm way off track here, let me return.

My point is ..that these things might very well be considered far from warm or  womanly or kind. You might see that side of me and hate it...see in that moment you won't think me wonderful. I am ME...I am sometimes good and sometimes bad just like the rest of the whole wide world. I need you to know that so when you see the bad you won't be shocked. In conclusion, it is not a lack of confidence nor a need for more flattery that leads me to deny the lovely compliments given; it is merely me, practicing the ideals that I have struggled to adapt.