back from a short hiatus.... :)

ok, here i go with this 30 truths about me... had to take some time off after that last question ~ too depressing!!

day #7 ~ the question is: 

someone who has made your life worth living?

gosh, could the question be more specific????  i mean, i have people in all aspects of my life who make it worth living ~ for all kinds of different reasons.

there is the hula girl ~ who, although we live in the same town ~ we don't see or communicate with each other much but we totally understand each other in some goofy way that only makes sense to us.  sometimes, if it weren't for her and her head in the clouds way of living and loving life,  i would think there was something wrong with me.  she makes me know that i am normal... whatever the hell normal really is.  she brings bits of happiness and sunshine to my life that i do not know what i would do without.  it can get really dark for me sometimes and she will pop in from nowhere and make things better ~ and she probably doesn't even know it !   thank you hula girl..... you make my life worth living.

then there is the girl friend i tell everything to  ~ she makes me want to believe in the impossible.  she has had junk,  i mean a lot of junk in the past year ~ crazy stuff ~ and whatever it is that she holds onto to get  through it ~ it works!!  i wish i had what she has... she knows more about me than i would say anyone ~ and she still loves me and accepts me and sees in my life what i do not see.  she has been this rock for me for about 7 months and however it was that she ended up in front of me ~ whoever placed her there ~ i could never thank them enough.  she is my angel ~ my wild and crazy and amazingly strong angel ~ she makes me want to stick with it ~ because there has to be something better out there than what i know i am seeing ~ and she is trying to get me there and help me see it !     you make my life worth living   xoxoxoxo

my sisters ~ definitely make my life worth living... we have gone through a lot of the same life experiences and they have shaped us to be who we are today, for better or worse.  the three of us are so different in so many ways, but so similar as well.  we have been taught to overcome our hurts and struggles ~ but they are still there, deep within us, and between the three of us we know what triggers the tears and the laughter ~ what we know we have lost in life, but also what we have gained through those losses.  none of us have had it easy ~ we have each struggled with our own deep emotional hurts ~ but family ties you with binds that are stronger than steel and we love each other through all of our junk.... they make my life worth living.

my children ~ gosh, how God ever thought i could be responsible enough for three beautiful souls to take care of i have absolutely no clue.  i can't take care of myself, how am i ever going to take care of them?  in the still of the morning or late at night ~ i will sit by their beds and stare at them and think "what am i doing as a mom?  please don't let me ruin their lives".  like someone is really listening to me in the great out there.  my kids, i would die for them to make them happy.  my heart breaks for them knowing the heartaches they will endure in their lives in the future... am i raising them to be able to handle the hurt they will encounter, the disappointments that no doubt happen in life.  if i could give them the world i would... i also just hope they know that i am doing the best i can, and i know it isn't good enough, but sometimes it is all i have to give.  when life gets to be too much for me.... they are my reason for living ~ they make my life worth living.

as i look at this, i believe had i tried to answer this question a year ago my answer would be very different.  as much as i hate to accept it, but have to,  people come and go in our lives... even when you don't want them to go, they do.  sometimes i tell myself that i am not going to let people near me ~ emotionally ~ because i am not good at letting go... in fact, it is wore than death for me!!  at least sometimes, death makes sense.  when people leave your life for no reason that i can understand, it is heartwrenching for me because i get so wrapped up in sharing my life with other people ~ relationships keep me going ~ they are part of what i live for ~ they make my life worth living.  take that piece or that person away ~ and sometimes i wonder, how do i go on without that person to share my life with.  and it hurts, a lot.  maybe slowly, over time, the hurt goes away, but sometimes, i wish i could erase the memories of those people who are gone as well, because i would rather live like they had never existed than to remember the good times that are no more.  maybe that is why i have these people, who i have mentioned, in my life now ~ to make new memories for me, to help me forget the people i have lost and to fill those holes in my heart that i have from their absence.

we'll see ~ i know i love them all ~ they do make my life worth living........  

ahh, an easy question....

the question for the day is this:

what do you hope you never have to do?

i hope that i will never have to bury one of my children before i die....

hope for the future...

day 5 ~ question #5:

something you hope to do someday?

had this question been asked to me five years ago my answer would be so completely different than it will be now ~ but i am sure that five years before that it would have been so completely different from what it was five years ago.

something i hope to do someday... here goes:

• i hope to have answers to questions that haunt me on a daily basis ~ or if not answers, i hope to get to the point where these questions don't bother me anymore

• i hope to have contentment ~ to be happy where i am, with what i have been given, and not feel that subtle urge to wonder if there can be more

• i hope to have courage to make changes in my life that i am afraid to make but know that i should

• i hope to have fulfillment from a relationship ~ a career ~ my children's lives

• i hope to walk down the beach, at sunset, with the man who i know i could not live without

• i hope to find my passion for life

• i hope to see my children happy ~ strong ~ compassionate ~ loving ~giving ~ loving life

• i hope to have peace and calm inside of myself when things in the world around me are in a constant state of chaos

• i hope to listen and hear what is being said without questioning

• i hope to no longer regret, but to come to acceptance of things that i can not change and of things that i have no control over

• i hope to tell all my friends how much i have loved them in my life

• i hope that i do not wait until my parents are dying to let them know how thankful i am for all the things that they have given me or taught me in life ~ and for doing the best they could when they knew our world was falling apart

• i hope to become someone i like again

• i hope that i am forgiven by those i have hurt, both knowingly and unknowingly ~ and i hope that i can forgive those who have hurt me

i hope to find God again ~ i hope to trust God again.....

easier said than done....

day # 4 ~ question:

who do you need to forgive?

john

paul

like i said... easier said than done.... sorry, this has to stay between them and me.

the truth can be a very scary thing ....

here it is, day 3 of the 30 days of truths about me. this question for day 3 is a doozie ... now, the question becomes ~ how truthful am i going to be out here for everyone to read. sure there are people who read this who know me, or think they know me, but when it comes to a question about what i need to forgive myself for... maybe that becomes way too personal and the things that deep down i need to forgive myself for are really only those things that i should keep between me and, God, if there really is a God out there who knows me.

here goes: question #3 ~

what is something that you need to forgive yourself for?

maybe i am being way too serious and deep with these questions ~ maybe i should just go with the first answer that pops into my head ~ like i need to forgive myself for never losing those extra 20 pounds after having my last baby ~ or i need to forgive myself for not going right onto grad school after undergrad ~ or i need to forgive myself for choosing to work instead of staying home with my children ~ or forgive myself for, well, you get the picture. just sitting here thinking about what i need to forgive myself for i can list probably 20 things right off the top of my head that obviously chip away at me in some way, every day.

but, if this is about soul searching ~ and thinking, when it comes right down to it, what is the biggie (or one of the biggie's) that i need to forgive myself for ~ i would say that i need to forgive myself for choosing to stay in my hometown and get married instead of moving away and trying to make a life for myself, out there somewhere, where i think i would be much happier. the choice to stay here and get married ~ yah ~ i made that choice, but it is most likely the one choice in my life that i have made that, admittedly, the older i get, the more i regret. yes, that choice brought me 3 wonderful, beautiful, smart, creative, and talented children ~ and it allowed me to be close to my family (we all still live in the same town which is sort of unheard of in today's world ) and i do have a nice, comfortable, pretty much stress free existence ~ but in so many ways my life is not what i ever expected or envisioned it to be ~ i am not where i ever wanted to be ~ and i am not doing what i thought i would be doing. hmmmm, see what i mean when i say the truth can be a very scary thing.

you know the movie IT'S A WONDERFUL LIFE where george bailey, aka jimmy stewart, asks the angel for help because he thinks that his life is worthless and that he has nothing to live for and he wishes that he would have never been born basically? and then the angel shows him what life would be like in bedford falls if he would have never been alive? well, sometimes, i think if i had 3 wishes (yes, i think in that way and wonder if that could ever happen! ), one of them would be used asking for a glimpse of what my life would have been like had i made a different choice 20 years ago and took a different path in life than the one i chose to take. where would i be living? would i be married? would i have the career that i had always wanted to have? would i even have had children? what would i be like? would i still be this person i am with the same values and beliefs and compassion that i have? what would life here, in my hometown, be like had i never lived here after college?

yes, i would like to see what life would be like had that 1 choice been made differently ~ where would i be now? and, truthfully, that is what i need to forgive myself for... for actually thinking that ~ and wondering ~ and in some ways, mourning the life that i never really had that i thought i wanted. i need to forgive myself for thinking those things ~ because it is human nature ~ and if i have learned anything about anything in the past 4 years it is that human nature can be a very crazy thing to handle at times.

so, since i can't just give back this life i have ~ i have come to realize that i need to try to mesh them together ~ the life i have with the life that i wanted to have. i am working on it and trying to find the way to have some of the best of what both worlds might have to offer ! :)

day # 2... i am on a roll ! :)

so, truth # 2 about me ~ the question is:

what do you love about yourself???

i sort of thought that this would be difficult for me to answer seeing as there is so much about myself that i do not like ~ certainly if i dig down deep enough there should be something that i DO like about myself. i knew the question, and pondered it for awhile, jumped on facebook to see what was going on with all of those friends of mine ~ and then it dawned on me **epiphany** ~ the thing that i know that i do love about myself.... I LOVE THAT I HAVE FABULOUS FRIENDS... :)

ok, so i am forty ~ something ~ and i have to say that i have always (and i know always seems unrealistic but i think it is true) ~ always been surrounded by wonderful friends. i honestly can say that i do not know what i would do without them ~ they make up my world and, i am guessing, love me for who i am and don't ask questions for things i do that they don't understand. they just accept me where i am ~ which is a lot in today's world because i think, for the most part, we all have tons of junk but they choose to look past the junk and see me for who i am ~ and love me just the same.

there is something to be said for those people who come into your life who you know have been sent for a reason. the friends you laugh with, the friends you drink margaritas with, the friends you cry with, the friend you ask "do these jeans make my butt look big" and you know even if your butt does look big they will always lie to you and say "no". the friends you tell all of your deepest dreams to, the friends you share all the awful secrets of your life with, the friends you text just to say "i love you in my life" ~ because they give you courage, they give you hope, they give you sanity when you think you are totally losing it.

i love the people i have surrounded myself with ~ each of them equally but for very different reasons. they are beautiful, wonderful, amazing, strong, courageous, intelligent, creative, talented, fun, caring, loving, compassionate, spiritual women. my friends are the one piece of concrete evidence that i cling to that tells me that God is taking care of me. (which if you knew where i really stood with God right now you would know that just my saying that is HUGE). they each have a special place in my life and although i am sure that i do not tell them enough ~ i love them and i love that they are on this crazy roller coaster ride of life with me ! there are a few that i wish i had on a more regular, day to day basis, but they are not far from my thoughts.

yep, if i had to choose something that i love about myself ~ it would be those people who are my friends... i could not do life without you!!! :)

30 truths about me...

i haven't been on to blog for awhile ~ the holidays and such (read "my inlaws") consumed my time and energy and i am hoping to get back to some sort of regular blog mode again. i have always been hit or miss anyway so, we'll see how i do in 2011 ~ **huge gulp** ~ i can't believe we are into 2011. wow, where does the time go????

i am going to do this blog thing that i have seen others do. one of my sweet friends gave it her own little twist ~ which was very creative; she is just that way ~ but, me being somone who doesn't quite know what to blog at times, will do this the long, drawn out way because it gives me 30 topics to blog ~ while i keep track of other things to blog as i go along.

30 truths about me.... well .... here goes:

1.) what i hate about myself

i laughed as i read down the list of what the 30 questions were because, i thought, wow ~ the first thing they want you to put out there is "what you hate about yourself"... nothing like jumping right into the thick of things :)

as i read the question it seems like i should only be giving one answer ~ well, i am sorry to tell you that i could probably go on for quite some time about the things i hate about myself.

where to begin ... i hate middle age and all the crap it brings. not just physical changes, but emotional changes and realizations as well. technically, i am barely middle aged ~ and they (whoever "they" are) say that 40 is the new 30 so, really i am not middle aged ~ i am in my prime!
what i find about middle age is this: the physical changes suck ~they include gaining weight, the puffiness under the eyes, wrinkles around the eye area, my lips are actually getting thinner ( it must be a loss of collegen or something because i have NEVER had thin lips), sagging of all things that never used to sag with no way to firm them up to keep them from sagging. hair issues ~ not just the beginnings of noticeably gray hair, but thinning and brittleness and ugh ~ things that i have never had to deal with before. i used to have tons and tons of naturally curly hair ~ now it doesn't even remember that it is curly anymore ~ and it isn't VOLUPTUOUS ( as one of my college roomies told me one time) it is sort of a disaster area and i never worried about my hair ever like i do now.
middle age makes you stop and take stock of where you are in life ~ what have you accomplished ~ are you where you want to be ~ do you still have goals that you want to achieve. i am sure that it isn't bad when you are comfortable with the way your life has played out ~ but if you are at a place where you don't feel like you should be and you don't have any future goals for your life ~ that stinks because you look at your life and say, "what happened, how did i get here, this was not where i was planning on being at this time in my life."

plus, all my girlfriends are younger than i am ~ i hate being the old one in the bunch.

so, i guess that is it, that is what i hate about myself. it is the fact that i am getting old.