On Life and Words

Are you where you are in your life due to chances or choices? If you have to stop and think too hard about the answer to this question, perhaps you are not ready to live a life of authenticity with light and love. I'm not intending to sound harsh or as if I know everything, because I certainly don't know everything, but there is a certain level of self-awareness and self-honesty that is required to admit that a lot of things in our lives is due to choices of our own making. When we can stop and be truly honest with ourselves and admit that we've made some not-so-great, even BAD, choices, then we can stop blaming chance and blaming others for our problems and the struggles in our lives and move forward. There is a certain amount of chance in life, chance can sometimes cause some degree of difficulty in our lives. But when it comes to chance, even when we cannot control our circumstances, we still can control our reactions or choices that result from chance events. So, a...

Life is funny. One minute you're on the straight and narrow path and you've got a plan, the next you've come upon a giant tree in the road and one side of the road has a cliff on it and the other is water. So what do you do then? Jump off in the water and hope you can swim? Do you dive off the cliff and hope you magically learn how to fly? Or do you try to find a way to go over that tree in the road? What if I told you that, sometimes, it's a combination of the three? Sometimes you have to swim, sometimes you have to fly... other times you have to figure out a way over or through your obstacles. Life is full of changes. Indeed, in a single moment, things can change in the blink of an eye and it can seem that all of your well-made plans evaporate right before your eyes. It's really easy to get discouraged and frustrated when things happen to mess up your plans, especially when it seems like you'll never get out from underneath the current crisis or stress. I...

Are we true to ourselves, our hopes, our dreams? Do we live within our proclaimed values and morals? Do we feel like we can be our true selves or do we feel the need to wear a mask or to be someone we are not? A life lived in disguise, lived based on what others think we should do, is a life wasted. I wish someone had told me that years ago, instead of learning it the hard way. For too many years, I lived within the ideals of what I believed was best, simply because it was what everyone expected of me. I attempted to hide my true self and attempted to avoid confrontation or doing anything to "rock the boat" in attempts to make others happy. I found myself hiding my true thoughts, feelings, beliefs and ideas. I wore a mask that I never took off, even with those who were supposed to be closest to me. That's absolutely no way to live. I found that in trying to please others, I pleased no one and I made myself absolutely miserable. It's like I kept waiting for pe...

Wow, this has been a crazy few years. Starting in 2010, when my marriage began to crumble right after my youngest child was born, then meeting my new love, whom I've now been with for 3 years, to starting college and now being a year away from graduating with my Associate's degree in Psychology, it's been a rough ride. Finally, last year, the May 20th tornado of Moore, Oklahoma took out our life as we knew it. Then, a month ago, my boyfriend had a massive heart attack. I had an epiphany this morning. Even when life is at it's lowest point and even when you seemingly can't go anywhere, the only option becomes to move forward and go up from there. So, even though I've been down for the last few years, it's all UP from here. Our life path is our choice, we CHOOSE the direction we move in. Starting today, I'm choosing to go forward and up. While I haven't been writing much the last several months (obviously, I've been horrible at keeping a blog!...

Negativity is one of the many pitfalls of life. Too often, we allow that negativity to consume us and ruin our day, we find ourselves dwelling on the negatives and forget all about anything that might actually be positive. I'm here to remind you that it doesn't have to be that way. If you find yourself dwelling on the negative, you'll find yourself living in a bubble of darkness, you'll find that you have no enjoyment in life. Focusing on the positive will balance out the negativity in your life, it can even help to minimize it. All you need to do is simply find one thing each morning to be thankful for in your life. If you can find one positive thing to focus on, then this helps to keep negativity at bay and you won't drown in the waves of negativity. Negativity will always be there, it's a natural part of life, but you needn't feel like that is all there is in your life. Simply choose to focus on the positive and you will find that life doesn't se...

After the crazy week we've had here, with Sweetie's heart attack, his hospital stay, getting him home, me starting a new job and trying to work around everything else going on, I'm definitely exhausted! I have come to the realization that there are many different levels and types of exhaustion. I think that there are at least three and then there are combinations thereof. Physical, mental and emotional would be the three types of exhaustion and any of them can be extremely draining, but even more so, if you are dealing with a combination of the three. I'm not sure what level I'm at, I just know I'm very tired. I'm just feeling drained and slightly overwhelmed. A simpler word for what I am feeling right now, would be "stress." Yep. Definitely stressed. Life has a funny way of throwing things at you when you least expect it and feel the least equipped to handle it. Knowing or suspecting something could happen and it actually happening are two di...

My boyfriend had a heart attack Wednesday afternoon. It's been a rough week. His heart attack actually started late Tuesday night, but it didn't get bad enough until Wednesday afternoon for him to realize how serious it was and then he finally had me take him to the emergency room. I picked him up from work, dropped him off at the emergency room, went and picked up my kids from school, then I went back to the hospital to find out what was going on with him after I handed the kids off to his sister. When I got to the hospital, they were getting ready to transport him to the Heart Hospital to have a cath procedure done on his heart and put a stint in where a blockage was. So, I rode in the ambulance with him to the Oklahoma Heart Hospital and then waited while he was in surgery. I have never been so worried in my life! The procedure went well and after he made it out of recovery and was put into a room, I finally got to see him. He said, even coming out of anesthetic, that h...

Well, it's been a year since our world was turned upside down and life as we knew it ended. I can think of nothing in my life that has affected me or my family as drastically as the May 20th, 2013 tornado in Moore, Oklahoma. In a single instant, due to circumstances beyond our control and a natural disaster, our way of living was destroyed and our city was destroyed. The outpouring of love, support and emergency efforts from not just our home state, but our country and even the world was amazing. It was awesome to see that there were so many people out there who cared about us and others who lost their homes and way of life. Those emergency support efforts were very much appreciated, not just by us, but by everyone affected by the tornado. While my children and I didn't lose our home specifically, we lost almost everything inside, our vehicle was ruined, and the kids' school was demolished. My children lost classmates and friends, which has proven to be devastating. Du...

I ran a Yahoo Group for many years, with many difficulties over the years. Some of it was stuff simply between members, other stuff was between admins and myself. Over time, the group simply fizzled out, especially as it couldn't take the pressure of issues I myself (as the group owner and primary admin) was having and disputes about the group and focus of the group. I see here, a great group with a potential to be a completely awesome place for support for everyone.  What troubles me is the seeming discord between admins and former admins, not simply about how much one should pull their own weight or what each one should do, but also about the purpose or goal of the group. To me, a place of support, is just that. A place of support. Where, members support one another through common issues and realize that they are not alone. I may have this entirely wrong or my memory might be off, but I don't remember during my time running my Yahoo groups ever expecting an admin to be ...