Growing through change

Today, help me God, to let go of my resistance to change. Help me to be open to the process. Help me believe that the place I will be dropped off will be better than the place I was picked up. Help me to surrender, trust and accept. even if I don't understand. ~ Melody Beattie

Let's never stop falling in love

A cynical view of womanhood

From John Gay's The Beggar's Opera, 1765:

Virgins are like the fair Flower in its Lustre,
Which in the Garden enamels the Ground;
Near it the Bees in play flutter and cluster,
And gaudy Butterflies frolick around.
But, when once pluck'd, 'tis no longer alluring,
To Covent-Garden 'tis sent (as yet sweet),
There fades, and shrinks, and grows past all enduring
Rots, stinks, and dies, and is trod under feet.

I'm not taking this well

Last night I had a nightmare. I won't go into any detail but it had everything to do with how I'm feeling about being menopausal. I think that I am now at peri-menopausal stage, and I'm having a really hard time with this.

I'm having the hardest time with the fact that I'm no longer young and desirable. I know for some women that really isn't an issue--it really doesn't bother them. They feel freer and happier, less pressured. I know it wasn't an issue for my mother. It is for me. It's a big issue.

I'm a Cancer and great deal of my self-esteem is rooted in my sexuality. I was married when I was not quite 22 years old. I was young and very pretty, and when I walked into a room, I could make every guy in the room's mouth drop open--all except for my husband. I gave my most beautiful, most desirable, most sexually charged years to a man who didn't give a shit. Eighteen years I gave to him, and then by the time I found someone who did care, she was sick and I was pre-menopausal and starting to decline. I feel like I've been robbed, and I'm grieving over it.

I want those lost years back.

My world: a picture of my expectations

You see and feel what you expect to see and feel. The world as you know it is a picture of your expectations. The world as a race of man knows it is the materialization en masse of your individual expectations. As children come from your physical tissues, so is the world your joint creation. ~Seth

Ten reasons why menopause sucks

(There are a whole lot more, but these seem to be the issues that are biggest for me.)

1. You get fat, (or fatter).

2. Your skin starts getting funny spots all over it, and it dries out and grows thin.

3. You can't see or hear as well.

4. Everything sags.

5. Your hair is dull and lifeless.

6. If you have allergies/asthma, they get worse.

7. You tire more easily.

8. You have horrible mood swings.

9. Your joints get achy.

10. You lose your memory.

All you young women who read this blog--don't ever complain about getting your period. Welcome it! Rejoice when you have it, for it's your fountain of youth! Whenever you're tempted to curse the day every month that your period arrives, come back to my blog and read this list.

(You've got to watch the following. Just don't laugh so hard that you pee your pants.)

Still working

Although I finished the writing of my novel, this weekend, now I'm in the midst of final edits, which I'm finding to be almost as challenging as the original writing. Now it's about fixing and fine-tuning, which can get a little tedious. But I have to admit that it's a great feeling to have finished my first novel. I have a great sense of accomplishment!

P.S. I just looked back at my old posts to this blog and the date that I decided to start writing this book. The first post was dated, January 12th, 2009. Not bad at all!

It's finished

I finished writing my novel this afternoon. Now all I have left is to complete the final edits and have Steph help me put it into publisher's formatting, and then the real work begins...finding a publisher.

Any ideas?

Our deepest fear

Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate, our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure. It is our light, not our darkness that most frightens us. We ask ourselves who am I to be brilliant, gorgeous, talented, fabulous? Actually, who are you not to be? ~ Marianne Williamson

Just because it's my favorite

I can't resist posting this today because for some reason I keep being drawn to it. It's my all-time favorite movement from any of Mozart's concerti--the adagio from Piano Concerto No. 23 in A major. Perhaps it's because I'm in the throes of writing the end of my book, and this particular movement reflects the mood perfectly.

Creating my reality

Whatever we plant in our subconscious mind and nourish with repetition and emotion will one day become a reality. ~Earl Nightingale

The Irish

This is one race of people for whom psychoanalysis is of no use whatsoever.
Sigmund Freud (about the Irish)

We know very little

I'm nearly finished with the 2nd draft rewrites on my novel as well as writing the ending. I'd been blocked concerning how I was going to write the end of it. It has a sad ending and I'm going to have to redeem it somehow, to keep it from ending on a tragic note.

It dawned on me, last night, as my block dissolved and I was able to see how I would end it, that although I have followed documented dates, places, people, and events with precise detail, that I really know very little about these people and their lives. I've been following a biography on Nancy Storace's life as an historical outline--a skeleton of events--and then fleshing it out with my interpretation of what went on "between the lines", and I came upon a passage where the author of said biography stated that a certain event that took place in her life "must be considered simply as...". I thought to myself, "Why 'must' it? How do you know that it 'must'?" Then I realized, that for all the facts we have on these people, we really don't know. We don't know what they felt. We don't know what they saw. We don't know their most private thoughts or emotions. And even though their life events leave us some big clues, we still don't know for a fact. We really don't know much.

From now on, whenever I read a biography, if the author tells me how I "must" think or feel about a certain event in the subject's life, I will put that biography down and go look for a different one. For I've learned through the writing of historical fiction, that we really don't know much about these people at all, and to claim that we have the corner of understanding and insight into their lives, is nothing but sheer arrogance.

When old friends reunite

I found my best friend from high school on Facebook last night. We were up until well past 2:00 a.m. chatting. What a blessing it was to find her and know that she is doing well--a bit lonely after a nasty divorce and the deaths of both her father and a step-dad with whom she was close. We gave one another many virtual hugs and kisses and vowed that we would stay in close contact. It's been over twenty years since we last spoke, and I've missed her. There have been so many things happen in both of our lives since then that there just wasn't enough time to share it all in one sitting. We have a lot of catching up to do.

When one loses all hope

I went to the funeral today of an old school mate, a sweet guy with whom I shared many fond memories of playing in the high school marching band--getting up early to make it in time for 7:30 a.m. rehearsals, weekend trips on buses to play at football games, standing out in muddy fields and marking one's spot, and the friendship and comaradarie that go along with it. Although I didn't know him extremely well, I knew him and I remember him with great fondness. He was sweet, funny, considerate, and someone that everyone loved. He was the oldest son of one of my co-workers and I didn't make the connection until yesterday--that he was someone from my past.

On Monday evening he took his own life. He was only 48. I wonder what happened to him that would bring him to such a painful choice. My heart breaks for his mother and family, who all loved him so very much.

The dreaded Bradford pear tree

Every year I dread March. Don't get me wrong, I love the spring, but I hate what it does to me. The biggest culprit is the Bradford pear tree. Yes, that gorgeous tree laden with thousands upon thousands of tiny white blossoms is poison to my system. I go through about two weeks of pollen hell every March because of them.

Today I feel as if I have an entire bag of cotton stuffed in my head and an elephant standing on my chest. I'm counting the days until the end of the month when they're all bloomed out.

Respect yourself

Self-respect is the cornerstone of all virtue.

Spirituality vs. Religion

Someone posted this in a web forum to which I belong and I thought it was so good that I wanted to share it with you.

SPIRITUALITY says that God/Goddess is within us and that we don't need anyone else to make that divine connection for us.

RELIGION says that we are separated from God and that we need "Them" to make that divine connection.

SPIRITUALITY says that we are free to make choices on our own and that we must take personal responsibility for our actions.

RELIGION says we must make their choices and act their way.

The theme of SPIRITUALITY is unconditional love.

The theme of RELIGION is fear and guilt.

SPIRITUALITY does not require us to make monitary donations.

RELIGION is big buisness.

SPIRITUALITY doesn't teach hell, judgment, no angry god or goddess...we are loved uncondtionally.

RELIGION says there is a hell, God is angry and judgmental ...we are not loved unconditionally.

SPIRITUALITY says we are free to choose our own path to god.

RELIGION commands us to do it their way.

SPIRITUALITY says we go to god to lighten our burdens.

RELIGION teaches us to fear god.

SPIRITUALITY says we shouldn't be ashamed of our sexuality... that it's a sacred expression of love.

RELIGION teaches us to feel ashamed, dirty, and guilty about our sexuality.

SPIRITUALITY teaches us to honor and respect the planet.

RELIGION tells us to be "fruitful and multiply" and "subdue" the planet.

SPIRITUALITY reminds us that we are one with god and with one another.

RELIGION teaches separation from god and from one another, creating disunity.

SPIRITUALITY says we are born in innocence and purity.

RELIGION says we are born in sin.

SPIRITUALITY teaches that we are on a long spiritual journey which will ultimately end by reuniting us with our source.

RELIGION says we have only one life to get it right and that our ultimate destination is heaven or hell.

I hate time changes

It's nearly six in the morning, but my body thinks it's only five. I don't understand why we continue this useless and archaic ritual known as "daylight savings time". When I was a mother with little children I hated it even more. It threw my babies completely off schedule for weeks, making them tired, grumpy, and out of sorts until their little clocks could adjust.

Grrr...I want to go back to bed!

On knowing God

The best way to know God is to love many things. ~ Vincent Van Gogh, 1853-1890

Let me love you

Come, let me love you. Let me give my life to you.

Love is love

Do not judge and you will never be mistaken. ~ Jean Jacques Rousseau

The futility of regret

There is no value in grief or regret because regret is always talking about the past, and you have no power there. You can't vibrate in your past. You are doing all of your vibrating in your now. So whenever you are feeling regret or grief, you've vibrated out of the range of your Inner Being and you feel the emptiness of it. ~ Abe