Playing the ball where it lands.

I was reading a book this week.  In the book this woman is telling her friend the story of  a golf trip.  They were golfing in Trinidad and these monkeys sneak up and steal the golf balls, run with them and drop them somewhere else.  She was explaining that you have to learn to play where they drop them.   The rules were changed to accomodate the monkeys.

It got me thinking.  Sometimes in life you have to play the ball where the monkey drops.  Just take it as it comes.  It is what it is.  You do what you have to do to get by.  I need to stop getting my panties in a wad.  I need to stop trying to orchestrate my life.  I need to let life happen.  Have faith that it will work out.

It was a pretty powerful lesson to learn.  Something I needed to learn.  Things have been havoc in my life lately.  Good things, bad things and injuries.  For the most part, I have done a pretty good job of just keeping going.

Happy Fall, Yall!    It’s a great time for some new prospective.

Six Words.

In the end, as much as love words, my life can be summarized in six:

Pick Me.  Choose Me.  Love Me.

Life is cyclical, it all come back to one thing.  I have grown, changed and gotten stronger…but in the end, it all comes back to one thing for me: Love.

Have you ever loved something so much you that you would do anything to protect it, to make it better or stronger?   Holding on is difficult, much more difficult than just letting go.

I have to know that this magic I felt, that it was real.  That the touch is real.  That the feeling the lives in my heart, the one that makes me fearless, is real.  That is was not for nothing.

Love brings out the best in me, but it will eventually kill me.

As I sit in this place of indecision, of where to go with my life, I think.  Where do I go from here?

 

Five things I am grateful for:  Pepsi.  Having my own washer and dryer.  The Internet.  That love, or serious like, has found it’s way to people in my life.  Heros.

 

Gratitude.

To say the least, my 34th year has started with a jolt.

I find myself working through things.  Struggling, restarting and constantly analyzing.   I realize in recent weeks, I have lost site of one of the things I like best about myself – I am an eternal optimist.  My sister will tell you on any given day, I wake up shooting sunshine out my ass.  I love people, and my positive attitude.  Sometimes, I forget what I have to be grateful about and I am holding myself accountable…listing 5 things EVERYDAY!

1.  That my conditioner faintly smells of cherry blossoms.

2.  That I have great friends, friends who stand by me, who support me and love me:  Scott & Trish, David, Steve & Stacey.  Thank you.  They like me even when I am an asshole – I know it’s unbelievable, but it happens.

3.  That I am able to have an open conversation with the big guy upstairs.  Sometimes prayer does it.

4.  My sister is freaking amazing.  I love her.  She  always knows what not to say.

5.  The comfort that a grey t-shirt can bring.

6.  That I have an amazing manager.  When today just proved to be more than I could take, and I found myself balling and turning red in the dishpit, he was there.  Instead of yelling at me for ignoring my table, he put his hand on my shoulder and said:  What goes around comes around, You put great things out there, it will come back.

After being up every hour on the hour last night, that’s all I got.  I am self medicating with Nyquil and Aleeve.  I am a fat waitress that worked a double today – I need it!

Things I learned in my 33rd year.

I know – You are shocked.  33.  Me too.  I have been walking this earth for many years now.  Here is a list of things I learned in the 33rd year.

1. You are never too old to need your mama.
2. Attitude really is everything.
3. How to make an amazing peach breakfast cake.
4. You can do what you think you can’t.  It is just a matter of pushing through.
5. Kids grow up way too fast.
6. Treat others with compassion.
7. Starting over sucks.
8. Making your fat ass walk a 5k feels awesome at the finish.
9. Love is scary.  Love is worth it.
10. Sometimes you have to listen to be heard.
11. Be thoughtful of other people’s feelings.
12. Sexuality is your own- Own it, don’t be afraid of it.
13. At some point you have to quit living in the past, and live in the now.
14. Grits should not be fried.
15. Whatever you want is out there, just don’t be afraid to reach for it.
16. I freaking love twitter.
17. I have an amazing virtual and real life support system.
18. Hope dies last.
19. Riding on the back of a motorcycle is freedom in the physical form.
20. That I really should stop drunk texting.
21. You get over it or you don’t.
22. I hate moving.
23. I love living alone.
24. Apple Juice and Vodka is the shit.
25. I love having a dad.
26. You can’t make someone love you.

There you have it, the things I learned in the 33rd year.

Not enough?

 

 

 
Tonight as I was reading old blogs I looked down and realized what my problem is:

I literally wear my heart out there for all the world.  It’s there for the good and the bad, taking the beating as I work my way through life.  I have always thought my heart was everything that is good about me, turns out it is everything that is weak about me.

I remember not that long ago, I was feeling strong.  Maybe tomorrow I will feel strong again. I even blogged I felt empowered.  Now I find myself struggling with self-doubt.  Why am I not enough?  Why is my best not good enough?  Why am I coming up short?

I hate this feeling about myself.  I hate the weakness, the vulnerability.  The uncertainty.  I know, it’s the abandonment stuff.  How do I defeat it?  Will I always be afraid of being left?  Will it always be hiding in the corner waiting for me to let it in?

 

 

Birthday Bliss, Lessons Learned & Change.

Can I just say my absolute favorite day ever is Lisa Brant day.  I had a great Birthday, and am celebrating all week actually.  I even got great presents: a shiny new bracelet, cake,  books, flowers, gift cards… and even a kindle.  I am liking 34 already.  All the love on facebook had this girl choked up.  Can’t wait for the rest of the week.  It’s slapped full of celebration.  When you have as many years as I do to celebrate it can’t be contained in one day.

Also with age comes reflection.  So much has changed in a year.  How quickly we are off the path we thought we were once on.  I know Change is good, necessary even.  I just don’t happen to be a fan of it.  As a girl with deep rooted abandonment issue, it is not my friend.  It makes me feel very uneasy, and kind of like I have been punched in the gut. Repeatedly.  No bueno.  I like it when things are the same.

I was walking around this nice path through the woods, it was scenic and safe, I just fucking looked down and I am on the top of a very high mountain – I don’t like it.  Things are shifting. They are different.  I am scared.  Things are changing.

I know life is an evolution, change is necessary.  Change hurts.  I like it safe, and right now I have no net on a very high mountain.

Missing

I used to think the worst type of pain was heartbreak.  I was wrong.

Missing someone,  that is eternal.  The knowledge that someone is right there, just beyond your grasp.  That you can reach and not touch.  That you are not wanted as much as you want.

This empty feeling, it doesn’t just apply to relationships.  There are many things in my life I miss.  I miss my Katina so very much.  There are things that once I had, but now I don’t – and I miss them.

Missing someone is very underrated.

When I say I miss you, what I really mean is that I can’t quit you.  It mean I want to just be near you.  It means my life is empty without you in it.  It means part of me is missing.   It’s a true longing.

Sometimes, no matter how much faith we have, we lose people. But you never forget them. And sometimes, it’s those memories that give us the strength to go on.

 

Self-Love.

I found a post I wrote back on June 8th … just a piece of poetry, but it fit with what I was thinking about writing today.

When I came back I was not the same me, I was broken, wore down and the pieces were all you could see.

I took this time to discover who this girl is, the girl who survives when she is no longer his.

I am a stronger better version of who I was before,this strength and self  love you cannot ignore.

Now that I am who I was meant to be I find myself wanting more,this loneliness, it stays with me to my core.

I see now why I never published it, it is unfinished.  My story is also unfinished, so it works I suppose.  What I have been thinking about today is love.  Your first and last love should always be  self love.

In relationships, even non romantic ones, I try to love the way I want to be loved.  On occasion I find myself feeling disconnected, because I don’t always feel loved the way I need to be.   Sometimes it makes me cranky and feel inadequate.

I have been thinking lately, and it’s okay to tell someone how to love you.  I did it with my mom, and we are currently having the best relationship we have ever had.  I am glad we talked things through, worked on baggage and are enjoying the relationship we have today.  I am also glad we didn’t get our nipples pierced yesterday like I wanted (too many Vodka and Apple Juices for this girl).

The roadblock for me is though how do I want to be loved?  I want to be loved by a man of action.  I want to be loved by someone who values me as much as I value them.  I want someone to not only say I love you, but live I love you.  I want to have in-depth conversation and out of this world sex.  I want to be cherished.  I want open communication.  I want someone in my corner.  I want the fairy tale.

Aren’t I too old to believe in fairy tales?  Even though in relationship history I am rocking a solid D+, I still believe.  I have hope.  I still want it all.  In the end, I want to love someone who loves the way I do.

The key.

When Ryan and I first got serious, he gave me a key to his house.  I loved it.  It was pink and girly and had a little tiara on it.  I thought it was so sweet that it was something I liked, that was so symbolic of me and my personality.  In exchange, I gave him the key to my heart.

It has almost been eleven months to the day we broke up.    We have been broken up longer than we were together.  Finally today, I woke up and I realized something epic.  Even thought R didn’t give me back the key to my heart they way I returned my house key, I changed the locks.  Ryan can’t get me back.

There  is a Warren Barfield song “Love is not a fight”,  they lyrics say:  Love is not a place to come and go as we please, It’s a house we enter in then commit to never leave.  So lock the door behind you throw away the key. We’ll work it out together, Let it bring us to our knees.    I remember when first hearing that song , that I wanted that.   Ryan wasn’t willing to lock the door.  It ended.

When we split up, I waited for R.  When she moved in, I waited.  When he got married, I waited.  This is the point where you can call me stupid.  If a man really loves you the way he says, he doesn’t marry another woman.    It wasn’t one of my prouder moments.

I heard through a mutual friend that R was in town this weekend.  Forever I had this fantasy about him just showing up in my life.  Flowers and grand gestures, coming back to claim his lost love.  I realized I didn’t want that.  I didn’t want his charm or grandiose.  That’s when I figured it out:  I am better.  I am better emotionally, and better for loving him.  I learned the beauty of unselfish love.

It was and always will be a great love story, but it’s the end of our love song.  R and the boys will always have a place in my heart, that spot you keep things you cherish, but it’s  time to open up my heart to different things now.

I guess what everyone said was right.  You can’t die from a broken heart.  I am still here, standing strong and looking pretty.  I wish R & J the best, I hope they love each other the way I loved him.  I hope the boys blossom in their new family.

Peace is a wonderful thing, and I finally have some.  I have harnessed my own power, gone through a battle and emerged victorious.  I will live to fight another day if I can ever harness the courage to do so.  I am done crying for what will never be again.  I will remember the best, and throw the rest down the river of forgetfulness.  The scars I carry remind me love is worth it.

So, as I begin this next stage in my life I seek wisdom, faith,  strength and courage.  When I started this blog I named it “such a pretty girl”.  At the time I was battered and bruised and thought that was all I had going for me, the fact that I was pretty.  Life is different now, it’s time for change.

The Journey

I have recently found myself on the back of a motorcycle.  It’s one of those things you either do, or don’t do.  Most of my life I didn’t.  When kurbis first asked me to go, I was kinda hoping for rain.  He was so excited, I was so scared.  I have friends that ride.  I have dated men who ride.  I have an aunt who has her own bike.  It just wasn’t me.  I don’t have a problem with motorcycles, I just never pictured myself on the back of one.

As I was getting ready to go, my anxiety was at an all time high.  I called my sister and said I love you twice.  I readjusted my helmet three times.  My palms were sweaty.  In my head, I couldn’t even fathom how I was going to get on this thing, or why you ride a motorcycle when you have a perfectly good Lexus in the driveway.

The first challenge was just getting on.  I have this weird right left thing going on.  I am right-handed, but the left side of my body is much stronger, so it makes coordination a bit of an effort.  I also have very short legs, they are only the length of my arms.  Lastly, I am fat.  These three factors combined with a tall  bike and bad nerves = EPIC FAIL.

Miracle of miracles, I got on the bike.  For the first ten minutes, I just concentrated on not throwing up all over him.  We went over a bridge and it was absolutely stunning.  The next ride was even better than the first.  Now I would venture to say I am comfortable.  I am not buying chaps or anything but it’s nice.

When on the bike I can’t resist stretching my arms out like a kid and letting the wind push them back.   I fight the urge to scream against the wind, and overall I feel pretty free.  What I have learned is I notice everything more.  When not in the bubble of the car, everything seems a little brighter.  When on the back of a motorcycle, Life is really about the journey and not the destination.  I may not me a part of the whole thing, but I get how it brings people together.

And that my friends, was a pretty cool adventure.