Generally, this is a dessert that I save for select lovers and enemies, but this time, it's all mine!
Growing up is not easy to do, and some of the lessons leave scars. I have a fresh wound from beating myself up, and I don't wish to forget it any time soon. I had a self-reflection about a year ago when I realized that (I think) I am not as loud as I was in my teens and early twenties. However, this was a realization that pertained to volume levels alone. Since then, I have had many reminders that not only should I speak softly, but carefully and more scarcely than I do.
I don't suppose this entry is for anyone's sake but posterity's. I needed to write for my own therapy and as a reminder that history repeats itself. So in that case, JaNelle, I have a few things to share with you:
1. work is work. life is life. leave it that way.
2. drama is your business not your lifestyle. keep it on stage!
3. not sharing your opinion does not equal lying.
4. some things *are* better left unsaid.
5. your heart can be on your sleeve without it diarrhea-ing out of your mouth.
---> sub point: diarrhea-ing is not a word.
6. often, a good stretch and brisk walk will chill you out, you hormone-ridden female.
and lastly, but likely the most important reminder to us all:
7. sometimes people just don't give a damn!
This will be enough to start with. If anyone else is looking for reminders that we often need to leave our loquacious tendencies at the door (different ones at different doors), I will share more. I'm still pretty new at this--which anyone who knew me in the 90's can attest to ;-) And for those of you in my life who actually *need* this info, you don't know where my blog is so FIGURE IT OUT YOUR DAMN SELF!! Dang it, there I go again. Strike that.
much peace and even more love.
Wednesday, July 22, 2009
Tuesday, July 14, 2009
love is patient, love is kind
....but sometimes, nothing else is!!!
I have three family members who are earning frequent flier miles on local (to them, not me) hospital beds; I have a three story building and about 50 tenants to keep from killing each other, and a laptop that can't get out of the blue screen of death!!!!
Lord, please grant me patience...
I have three family members who are earning frequent flier miles on local (to them, not me) hospital beds; I have a three story building and about 50 tenants to keep from killing each other, and a laptop that can't get out of the blue screen of death!!!!
Lord, please grant me patience...
Tuesday, July 7, 2009
Living Single
...yes, I was joyriding. Sorry I have not kept up lately.
I have had a few of the best months of my life since I decided I wanted to live alone. I have made and kept new resolutions, I have encountered tough decisions and weathered storms with all the grace I can muster. I have cooked and baked up storms, I have hiked to the ends of my world with my four-legged partner, I have found my peace alone, which is something my family wouldn't even believe. I realized about a year ago that if my life had gone like many other people I knew, I might have never lived alone--straight from the hometown, to college roomie, to spouse and kids. I know that as little as I am a "loner," I believe I am stronger, more able, and more peaceful person to be alone with. I am certain that I am a product of my past and choices, and I am certain that in those respects I have been blessed. A new experience is on the horizon for me and my K9 companion...
Let me start where most things in my life begin--Texas. I was home for a couple weeks in June and had some happy realizations: Many of the friends I have back home have been my friends for ten years or more. My family is quite possibly the coolest bunch of thinkers and doers on this planet--and we all get along! Despite health concerns, I have two parents and two grandparents that still make me very proud, and some people have none of either. And since I was also in part home to visit my long-distance love, I noted a few things on love: You never stop loving your siblings. My cousins have incredible taste in spouses and partners, and they were all coupled at different stages in their lives. My grandparents have been married for 62 years, and while they were not all smiles and laughter, they all count.
This last realization hit me. Sixty-two years is as long as my dad has been alive. That's a long time. If I got married today, in 62 years I would be 87. My grandfather is 87. He is a machine of a man who takes incredible care of himself. When he says with so much pride that he has been married to my grandmother for 62 years, I am not sure whether it is the length of marriage or the length of his life that pleases him more. To me, the former is divine.
I took sociology and philosophy classes that often dissected the reasons why humans pair up and why they marry, and why they divorce. Love is a complicated emotion and in all of the history and future of neuroscience and philosophy, I do not think we will understand even a fraction of what it means, how it feels, or why we do. I do know that I am in love. I know that the man I love and I are a long way from marriage and kids, but we are not far from our future.
He and I have been discussing how to get the distance out of our relationship, and he has decided to push all of his chips into the pot and head to California. I have some of the expected apprehension about sharing my apartment and changes in my life, but they do not compare to the excitement and confidence I have in him. In us. I can see the beginning of the rest of life unfolding. He is the realization I have every time I come home. He has been a dear friend for ten years. He embodies the values that I came from. He makes me melt.
Let me share another experience from my trip. The last night I was home, I asked Patrick to take me to see some live, local music--something I often ask him to do, and he always manages to deliver. It wasn't easy at first, but if there's one thing I can say about him it is, don't challenge the man, you'll only fuel his fire. He drove us to the center of Houston--a place that taunts me with the exciting life he has established there and the palpable happiness it could bring me if I were with him--and after circling a couple of blocks, he found me not one venue but two. Based on the lights and color and not too much else, I insisted on a place called Sambuca. He had never been there, but he's always willing to try new things with me, so in we went. I was instantly engrossed in the community, the spirit and the music at this place.
A woman named Yvette Williams was on stage heading a funky blues/soul quartet. It was her birthday. She was expressing precisely what I was feeling. An overwhelming, unabashed, irresistible love of the moment. The moment is something we studied ad nauseum in acting class and something that I try to embody wherever I am. Yvette had it. I was enjoying great sax solos and the mean bass riffs coming from the back, but I was touched by that beautiful black woman belting out amazing notes with an enormous amount of joy and soul. She had the humor of a woman you could only meet in Texas, and the style of a musician you would only meet in the Bayou. At one point she stepped over a small fan and laughed into the mic with her thick accent, "Look y'all, I'm Marilyn Monroe!" She was no Marilyn in the way she looked; in fact, she was arguable her complete opposite. But Yvette had taste and class and an ear that I was infatuated with. The first song we heard was a soulful rendition of What a Wonderful World by the genius, Mr. Louis Armstrong. In the moments between watching the music with starry eyes, I would turn and look over my shoulder and there he was--my reason to sing, my partner in adventure and laughter and most of all, love. Then she'd point the mic at the audience, "all together, y'all!" and we'd sing to her, but mostly to each other..."I. LOVE. YOU!" We were in the moment, together.
During the performance (or party, as I saw it) Yvette would pull her friends on stage and make them sing, and they were all great. Her husband took the mic at one point and made a toast to his lady love, of 39 years. They were perfect, and beautiful and happy. So 39 years, 62 years, 100 years, it doesn't matter. Find your love, know your moment, and live it.
I had many more experiences during my refuge that I will take with me always; too many to tell. They were all trials of love, in one way or another. Armed with a better understanding of who I am and what I want, I am ready to make a step into the great beyond with the man of my dreams.
Patrick, you have been a standard of manhood for me for many years. You are a steward of intellect, integrity, respect, and propriety. I have coveted the intimate friendship we have shared and now I embrace our romance. I respect you, I adore you, I admire you, and I welcome you.
"To love is to admire with the heart; to admire is to love with the mind."
- Theophile Gautier
I have had a few of the best months of my life since I decided I wanted to live alone. I have made and kept new resolutions, I have encountered tough decisions and weathered storms with all the grace I can muster. I have cooked and baked up storms, I have hiked to the ends of my world with my four-legged partner, I have found my peace alone, which is something my family wouldn't even believe. I realized about a year ago that if my life had gone like many other people I knew, I might have never lived alone--straight from the hometown, to college roomie, to spouse and kids. I know that as little as I am a "loner," I believe I am stronger, more able, and more peaceful person to be alone with. I am certain that I am a product of my past and choices, and I am certain that in those respects I have been blessed. A new experience is on the horizon for me and my K9 companion...
Let me start where most things in my life begin--Texas. I was home for a couple weeks in June and had some happy realizations: Many of the friends I have back home have been my friends for ten years or more. My family is quite possibly the coolest bunch of thinkers and doers on this planet--and we all get along! Despite health concerns, I have two parents and two grandparents that still make me very proud, and some people have none of either. And since I was also in part home to visit my long-distance love, I noted a few things on love: You never stop loving your siblings. My cousins have incredible taste in spouses and partners, and they were all coupled at different stages in their lives. My grandparents have been married for 62 years, and while they were not all smiles and laughter, they all count.
This last realization hit me. Sixty-two years is as long as my dad has been alive. That's a long time. If I got married today, in 62 years I would be 87. My grandfather is 87. He is a machine of a man who takes incredible care of himself. When he says with so much pride that he has been married to my grandmother for 62 years, I am not sure whether it is the length of marriage or the length of his life that pleases him more. To me, the former is divine.
I took sociology and philosophy classes that often dissected the reasons why humans pair up and why they marry, and why they divorce. Love is a complicated emotion and in all of the history and future of neuroscience and philosophy, I do not think we will understand even a fraction of what it means, how it feels, or why we do. I do know that I am in love. I know that the man I love and I are a long way from marriage and kids, but we are not far from our future.
He and I have been discussing how to get the distance out of our relationship, and he has decided to push all of his chips into the pot and head to California. I have some of the expected apprehension about sharing my apartment and changes in my life, but they do not compare to the excitement and confidence I have in him. In us. I can see the beginning of the rest of life unfolding. He is the realization I have every time I come home. He has been a dear friend for ten years. He embodies the values that I came from. He makes me melt.
Let me share another experience from my trip. The last night I was home, I asked Patrick to take me to see some live, local music--something I often ask him to do, and he always manages to deliver. It wasn't easy at first, but if there's one thing I can say about him it is, don't challenge the man, you'll only fuel his fire. He drove us to the center of Houston--a place that taunts me with the exciting life he has established there and the palpable happiness it could bring me if I were with him--and after circling a couple of blocks, he found me not one venue but two. Based on the lights and color and not too much else, I insisted on a place called Sambuca. He had never been there, but he's always willing to try new things with me, so in we went. I was instantly engrossed in the community, the spirit and the music at this place.
A woman named Yvette Williams was on stage heading a funky blues/soul quartet. It was her birthday. She was expressing precisely what I was feeling. An overwhelming, unabashed, irresistible love of the moment. The moment is something we studied ad nauseum in acting class and something that I try to embody wherever I am. Yvette had it. I was enjoying great sax solos and the mean bass riffs coming from the back, but I was touched by that beautiful black woman belting out amazing notes with an enormous amount of joy and soul. She had the humor of a woman you could only meet in Texas, and the style of a musician you would only meet in the Bayou. At one point she stepped over a small fan and laughed into the mic with her thick accent, "Look y'all, I'm Marilyn Monroe!" She was no Marilyn in the way she looked; in fact, she was arguable her complete opposite. But Yvette had taste and class and an ear that I was infatuated with. The first song we heard was a soulful rendition of What a Wonderful World by the genius, Mr. Louis Armstrong. In the moments between watching the music with starry eyes, I would turn and look over my shoulder and there he was--my reason to sing, my partner in adventure and laughter and most of all, love. Then she'd point the mic at the audience, "all together, y'all!" and we'd sing to her, but mostly to each other..."I. LOVE. YOU!" We were in the moment, together.
During the performance (or party, as I saw it) Yvette would pull her friends on stage and make them sing, and they were all great. Her husband took the mic at one point and made a toast to his lady love, of 39 years. They were perfect, and beautiful and happy. So 39 years, 62 years, 100 years, it doesn't matter. Find your love, know your moment, and live it.
I had many more experiences during my refuge that I will take with me always; too many to tell. They were all trials of love, in one way or another. Armed with a better understanding of who I am and what I want, I am ready to make a step into the great beyond with the man of my dreams.
Patrick, you have been a standard of manhood for me for many years. You are a steward of intellect, integrity, respect, and propriety. I have coveted the intimate friendship we have shared and now I embrace our romance. I respect you, I adore you, I admire you, and I welcome you.
"To love is to admire with the heart; to admire is to love with the mind."
- Theophile Gautier
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