"All my life I had been looking for something, and everywhere I turned someone tried to tell me what it was. I accepted their answers too, though they were often in contradiction and even self-contradictory. I was naïve. I was looking for myself and asking everyone except myself questions which I, and only I, could answer. It took me a long time and much painful boomeranging of my expectations to achieve a realization everyone else appears to have been born with: that I am nobody but myself." ~ Ralph Ellison
This!
Thursday, October 20, 2016
Monday, October 3, 2016
God and Babies
"I have learned that success is to be measured not so much by the position one has reached in life as by the obstacles which one has overcome while trying to succeed." ~ Booker T. Washington
This is an inspiring story for any woman that wants to get pregnant later in life. And cheers to God and babies!
This is an inspiring story for any woman that wants to get pregnant later in life. And cheers to God and babies!
Wednesday, July 20, 2016
Tuesday, July 12, 2016
The Possibility
"It’s the possibility of having a dream come true that makes life interesting." ~ Paulo Coelho
Friday, June 10, 2016
AARP
"Hope is the thing with feathers that perches in the soul - and sings the tunes without the words - and never stops at all." ~ Emily Dickinson
This article helped me get out of my five day funk... though I have to say, it kinda freaked me out that it was from AARP!😳 It's a really good and inspiring read, though!
Thursday, June 9, 2016
IDK
"Life shrinks or expands in proportion to one's courage." ~ Anaïs Nin
I don't know anymore. I'm lost. For the past five days I haven't left the house and barely gone outside my room. I've treated myself terribly; reminding me - with descriptive detail - of all my failings and flaws .
My oldest sister, knowing that I have been going through a hard time, sent me a video of a little girl loving on her baby sister. She wanted, I think, to let me know she had that same sisterly love towards me. It made me sob, but not because of anything to do with sisterly love.
This is a the video she sent me.
She also left me the following gift:
I haven't talked to her or my two other sisters in these past five days. I usually text or chat daily with each of them. I haven't wanted to do that. But I wrote my sister the following message just now and thought I would post it here because I'm still on the journey. And I still want to share what that journey looks like.
"The video is very sweet, L... so much emotion for me... and cuteness in it! ❤
Also, thank you for my heart "Strength" rock. I appreciate you thinking of me and giving me that gift. I am having a hard time right now because I don't know how to believe my dreams will come true - like the card you gave says you're hoping for.
It is difficult for me to not believe in miracles, but I don't want to get hurt any more by living in a fantasy. I'm sad. I know everybody has their difficulties in life, I'm tired of not being able to handle mine. I'm just tired.
My problem is that I never ever in my life wanted to be by myself. It was never in the realm of my thinking that I would end up single, never married, spending my life without a family of my own. I wasn't prepared for it; I'm not prepared for it.
I'm not some feminist woman who doesn't want a man in her life. I have craved intimacy since I was 12 or 13 years old - for 40 years! - and I only ever had it for six months, 25 years ago. Really all I ever wanted for my life, the thing I thought I would be best of all at, was being a mother. I thought that would be the best job I could ever have!
I can't explain it other than I never wanted anything else besides having a husband and children. I wanted six kids! I've had names picked out to give them since I was 14 years old. I've really tried hard over the years - especially during the past 8 - to BELIEVE that those dreams of my heart, and mind and soul would come true!!!
I concentrated on, and practiced, everything "they" tell you to do to get the life you want: visualization, repeating affirmations, writing your dreams down on paper, listening to the positive-mind tapes I made. I worked on trying to understand the spiritual realm better; looking for signs, talking to my angels and anyone "out there" who could help me; asking for their help. But nothing seems to ever change. I just get older. I just see my dreams passing me by with every year.
There's a part of me that's a fighter and that part doesn't know how to give up on my dreams; that part knows that miracles are real! It feels like both a blessing and a curse. Because I don't know how to give up on believing. I don't know how to let go of my faith. But then the reality is that I'm 52 years old. 52 is young for doing a lot of things in life, but it's not young for the things I want most for my life.
I just looked up from writing this and I see the video image of the little girl loving on her sister. Her small hand placed on her face and I remember how, in the video, she just petted her, just wrapped her arms around that little baby and gave her all the love that she could give and I just cry and cry and cry because I know that's the kind of love that's inside me wanting to come out.
You may read this and have all kinds of things you could think to say to me about how I should be, or what I should do. But right now I just don't want to hear any thing. I feel like I'm mourning and I just want to mourn. Even as I write that last sentence I know it - mourning - isn't what I want, at all. I want to rejoice. I want to be happy. I just don't know how to do that right now."
I don't know anymore. I'm lost. For the past five days I haven't left the house and barely gone outside my room. I've treated myself terribly; reminding me - with descriptive detail - of all my failings and flaws .
My oldest sister, knowing that I have been going through a hard time, sent me a video of a little girl loving on her baby sister. She wanted, I think, to let me know she had that same sisterly love towards me. It made me sob, but not because of anything to do with sisterly love.
This is a the video she sent me.
She also left me the following gift:
I haven't talked to her or my two other sisters in these past five days. I usually text or chat daily with each of them. I haven't wanted to do that. But I wrote my sister the following message just now and thought I would post it here because I'm still on the journey. And I still want to share what that journey looks like.
"The video is very sweet, L... so much emotion for me... and cuteness in it! ❤
Also, thank you for my heart "Strength" rock. I appreciate you thinking of me and giving me that gift. I am having a hard time right now because I don't know how to believe my dreams will come true - like the card you gave says you're hoping for.
It is difficult for me to not believe in miracles, but I don't want to get hurt any more by living in a fantasy. I'm sad. I know everybody has their difficulties in life, I'm tired of not being able to handle mine. I'm just tired.
My problem is that I never ever in my life wanted to be by myself. It was never in the realm of my thinking that I would end up single, never married, spending my life without a family of my own. I wasn't prepared for it; I'm not prepared for it.
I'm not some feminist woman who doesn't want a man in her life. I have craved intimacy since I was 12 or 13 years old - for 40 years! - and I only ever had it for six months, 25 years ago. Really all I ever wanted for my life, the thing I thought I would be best of all at, was being a mother. I thought that would be the best job I could ever have!
I can't explain it other than I never wanted anything else besides having a husband and children. I wanted six kids! I've had names picked out to give them since I was 14 years old. I've really tried hard over the years - especially during the past 8 - to BELIEVE that those dreams of my heart, and mind and soul would come true!!!
I concentrated on, and practiced, everything "they" tell you to do to get the life you want: visualization, repeating affirmations, writing your dreams down on paper, listening to the positive-mind tapes I made. I worked on trying to understand the spiritual realm better; looking for signs, talking to my angels and anyone "out there" who could help me; asking for their help. But nothing seems to ever change. I just get older. I just see my dreams passing me by with every year.
There's a part of me that's a fighter and that part doesn't know how to give up on my dreams; that part knows that miracles are real! It feels like both a blessing and a curse. Because I don't know how to give up on believing. I don't know how to let go of my faith. But then the reality is that I'm 52 years old. 52 is young for doing a lot of things in life, but it's not young for the things I want most for my life.
I just looked up from writing this and I see the video image of the little girl loving on her sister. Her small hand placed on her face and I remember how, in the video, she just petted her, just wrapped her arms around that little baby and gave her all the love that she could give and I just cry and cry and cry because I know that's the kind of love that's inside me wanting to come out.
You may read this and have all kinds of things you could think to say to me about how I should be, or what I should do. But right now I just don't want to hear any thing. I feel like I'm mourning and I just want to mourn. Even as I write that last sentence I know it - mourning - isn't what I want, at all. I want to rejoice. I want to be happy. I just don't know how to do that right now."
Tuesday, May 10, 2016
How Old is Too Old
"Seek the wisdom of the ages, but look at the world through the eyes of a child." ~ Ron Wild
How old is too old to reach your dreams?
I'm sure there is a moral or ethical dilemma for many people on this issue, I just don't happen to be one of those people.
For me, if God didn't want this couple to have a child they wouldn't be holding their child. I also believe that a child, out there in the ethers, gets to pick its parents. Like, it's a two-way street: the parents feel the want and need of a child and the child wants and needs those particular parents.
Some of you may have heard stories of little children - around ages two or three years old - say some profound thing that they shouldn't know or understand about being born or about life. I remember when I was in high school my father, a dentist, told us that he had had a three year old girl in for her first appointment. The mother, he said, seemed more anxious about the procedure than the little girl. The little girl, my father told us, looked at her mother and said something like, "Momma, don't worry, everything will be fine," and then added, "when I was with God, before I came to you, I chose you out of all the mommas." My dad said the little girl's mother just looked at him strangely like, where in the world did that come from? My dad, who was a believer in the spiritual realm (though he would most likely think of it as knowing there are unknowns) was struck by the child's words but not dumbfounded by them. He believed what she said was probably more truth than not.
In my own experience, I once had a colleague who had an appointment to show real estate to a client. Something unexpected came up and my colleague asked me if I would show the properties. The client, a young woman, wanted to follow me in her car to the mapped out locations... most likely because she had her three year old daughter with her. I told her I would meet them at the first house and they could follow me to the others.
So I got to the house, opened it up, and shortly after the woman came toward me with her adorable little girl. The little girl saw me, ran to me, wrapped her arms around my legs, looked up at me and stated excitedly, "Mommy!" Her mother and I looked at each other and just laughed. But what ended up happening was that every time they followed me to the next property the minute the little girl was out of the car she would run to me and call me, "Mommy." Finally, after about six times of this happening I asked her mother if she ever called someone besides her - like grandmothers or aunts - Mommy? The young mother was dumbfounded and said she never heard her little girl call anybody but herself "mommy." She didn't know "what has got into her."
But outside of the pure strangeness of this child I had never seen in my life calling me mommy from the first instant she met me, was that I could not have been more physically different than her mom. I'm 6' tall, her mother was closer to 5'. I'm pretty skinny, her mom was generously full-figured. I was 50, her mother was just over 25. And lastly, I'm white and both her parents were black.
When I thought about it later, after I had said my goodbyes and was driving home, I kept remembering all those stories I had heard over the years of little children being especially close to the spirit realm. And though I could have put no stock in what was happening between the darling little black girl and myself, I kinda just thought like my dad did: knowing there are unknowns.
The only thing I know is that it would be difficult for me to judge this old couple and their newborn daughter as being anything but God allowing each of them to have a gift.
I'm sure there is a moral or ethical dilemma for many people on this issue, I just don't happen to be one of those people.
For me, if God didn't want this couple to have a child they wouldn't be holding their child. I also believe that a child, out there in the ethers, gets to pick its parents. Like, it's a two-way street: the parents feel the want and need of a child and the child wants and needs those particular parents.
Some of you may have heard stories of little children - around ages two or three years old - say some profound thing that they shouldn't know or understand about being born or about life. I remember when I was in high school my father, a dentist, told us that he had had a three year old girl in for her first appointment. The mother, he said, seemed more anxious about the procedure than the little girl. The little girl, my father told us, looked at her mother and said something like, "Momma, don't worry, everything will be fine," and then added, "when I was with God, before I came to you, I chose you out of all the mommas." My dad said the little girl's mother just looked at him strangely like, where in the world did that come from? My dad, who was a believer in the spiritual realm (though he would most likely think of it as knowing there are unknowns) was struck by the child's words but not dumbfounded by them. He believed what she said was probably more truth than not.
In my own experience, I once had a colleague who had an appointment to show real estate to a client. Something unexpected came up and my colleague asked me if I would show the properties. The client, a young woman, wanted to follow me in her car to the mapped out locations... most likely because she had her three year old daughter with her. I told her I would meet them at the first house and they could follow me to the others.
So I got to the house, opened it up, and shortly after the woman came toward me with her adorable little girl. The little girl saw me, ran to me, wrapped her arms around my legs, looked up at me and stated excitedly, "Mommy!" Her mother and I looked at each other and just laughed. But what ended up happening was that every time they followed me to the next property the minute the little girl was out of the car she would run to me and call me, "Mommy." Finally, after about six times of this happening I asked her mother if she ever called someone besides her - like grandmothers or aunts - Mommy? The young mother was dumbfounded and said she never heard her little girl call anybody but herself "mommy." She didn't know "what has got into her."
But outside of the pure strangeness of this child I had never seen in my life calling me mommy from the first instant she met me, was that I could not have been more physically different than her mom. I'm 6' tall, her mother was closer to 5'. I'm pretty skinny, her mom was generously full-figured. I was 50, her mother was just over 25. And lastly, I'm white and both her parents were black.
When I thought about it later, after I had said my goodbyes and was driving home, I kept remembering all those stories I had heard over the years of little children being especially close to the spirit realm. And though I could have put no stock in what was happening between the darling little black girl and myself, I kinda just thought like my dad did: knowing there are unknowns.
The only thing I know is that it would be difficult for me to judge this old couple and their newborn daughter as being anything but God allowing each of them to have a gift.
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