Dumb

Dumb, stupid, nonsensical, oblivious, annoying, avoidance, irritation, trivial, weary, over it, ire, dander up, ass on shoulders, frustrated, confused.

Whew - I might not be over it all, but I am gonna fuss like that in my head for the next couple of hours and then move on....and I mean "On"...

So if you have something to say, better pull your head out of your butt and get to talking.

Thank you,

The Management

Meeting Him

I will celebrate with you today. I extend my hand in greeting and take my seat in row next to the others. I will be genuinely happy for you. The text message went off at 7:30 a.m. signaling that you had a newsflash. The one we joked you about during our 4 bottle of wine session Friday night.

He had waited 5 dates - and three months to kiss her. He really liked her and pursued dates with her more than just the calculated fashion of Tuesday night face-to-face and Thursday night chats on the phone. He told his family about her - and how wonderful she is. He took her to nice restaurants and cooked for her and made her slow her pace down to what dating used to be.... we all learned a lesson.

So today we get to meet Giovanni - seven girlfriends together at once. We will be wearing our Sunday best and be polite, never joking the way we do in private. We will be smiling out of genuine happiness and absolute joy for our friend. She is smiling again, she has found someone that just might be something....

Happy Sunday everyone!

Bug

Some Days...

Some days are just plain harder than others. We smile to strangers and get on with our day and keep on doing what we do best...coping with the turns in life. But even during the days when we are smiling on the outside so that no one sees the hurt and frustration..there is a little person on the inside, looking out - and wondering about it all.

I Dream

In the peaceful hour of dusk, I think about you coming home to me, wrapping me in a sweet embrace, your chest rises and falls against my neck. My hands find their place against the flat surface of your back. I exhale, and hold you.

In the quiet moment between darkness and daylight I dream that you are here with me. My hand reaches out to touch your chest, feeling the rise and fall with each breath. Skin warm against my touch. I exhale and curl my body into yours.

Kisses on foreheads and hands held tightly. Love in the moments before sleep and thoughts of you lingering long after winding into my morning.

You see I dream of you, I believe in you and I long for you to come. This house and this heart are waiting for you.

Until then, I dream..and wait.

In The Past

I think a lot about reaching out and how to bridge the gap, but I don’t really know how to do it. Twice now it rang and twice I hit the red button to stop it. Not sure what to say anyway. Better sometimes just to let sleeping dogs lie.

In a world of measuring sticks and uncertainty, it is hard to let go of what we know – or what we thought we knew. It is easier to look back sometimes to what seemed so right to us.

You seemed that way to me. You were the flip side of my coin – the same in value but different in look. Legal tender in either direction it seemed.

Fire and ice, or as someone once said gasoline or water…I am gasoline, I am fire and passion and I smolder inside just waiting to be fanned into life again.

Contentment is all around me, but with that contentment is silence, and a little too much peacefulness. It doesn’t feel normal really – the embers are still burning just under the surface….waiting for fuel.

Taking The Wheels Off

Sometimes in life it is time to grow up and ride free without the safety net. I think one of the hardest lessons in life is to trust that your own power will sustain you and the balance provided by your comfort zone items are not needed anymore.

Greg snapped this photograph at Chastain Park on Sunday while we were out walking Maggie and when I saw it for the first time, I knew exactly what this little boy felt like. There is such a joy to know that you can do it - no matter what it is that you are attempting. This is a beautiful reminder of the freedom we feel upon finally taking off the training wheels and pedalling away at a faster pace..than you ever have before.

The comfort of having those we trust and look up to for protection still close by is the icing on the cake. This is how life should be for all of us - full on, but wearing a safety hat and keeping our protectors close at hand should life make us take a spill.

xoxo,
Bug

Not Gonna Happen Like That....

At the end of 2006 I sat in a spot in Geneva with a friend of mine, talking about life, and the things I needed to do to change mine.

One of the things we discussed was to live authentically, to be true to myself first. It is o.k. to put yourself and your best interests at the top of your life list of priorities.

So today I enacted that principal and put me first. I said "this is not going to work...for me" and I felt absolutely horrible about it. I have become so used to allowing others to be a priority that my knees were weak and I had a lump in my throat..but I did it - I said it out loud and for the first time, in a long time - I made myself a priority.

It felt really good. Life is waiting - and I am learning to live each day - with doing what is best and essential for my health being at the number one spot on the list.

Work has it's place, and so does having a personal life. Today I chose the balance...and am smiling with pride that I had the guts to change it.

Thank you again P - I have not forgotten our talk.

Measuring

This morning is a quiet one here in Atlanta, Maggie has decided to become a traitor and cling to Greg, curled up beside his feet. I am having coffee and listening to the sounds of my neighbor waking next door, the water from her shower running down the pipes behind my head.

This morning I woke up thinking about the way we measure things, or weigh things. Each person has a different system, different tools, and different aptitudes for sizing things up properly. I don't seem to be as adept in math, so my measuring skills are a bit rudimentary in the grand and simple things in life.

I guess I like to measure in the units of "dash", "smidge", "bit", "pinch" instead of "degree", "sign", "sixteenth", etc. I am much less exact in how do describe a measurement, but I know exactly how much I mean.

Relationships are like this as well. Two people are measuring each other, calibrating possibility. The bad thing about that is that it requires the participation of the two people. One can only stand from afar and size the other up for so long before closer inspection is warranted and proper. I mean you don't want to fall in love with a sofa, for example that will never fit in your living room. So you look at it from a far, you like what you see, you read up to make sure the quality is there in the making, and then there is the final - measuring of the piece...and sometimes no matter how much you love something or just think it is what you were looking for, you are afraid that that measurement stick will tell you a completely different story.

My way of completing that would be, "I just loved that, but it was a smidge to long for the room." and then I would move along to what was right for me, but wouldn't soon forget that one I thought was right. I am pulling out my tape measure....and hoping.

xoxo,

Bug

SO Excited!!

It is Thursday night and I am at home enjoying a glass of wine making plans for the weekend. Greg is coming in to see me tomorrow night and I am absolutely thrilled to have the opportunity to spend more time getting to know each other.

I can't tell you how refreshing it is to have someone that does not play a game. He is just earnest and sincere and very down to earth. Not at all the type that needs to look around the corner for "next" and that is exactly what I need right now.

It is funny, how twisted dating has become in this day and age. I had had my fill of men coming and going from my life - mostly at my insistence that they move along as they were not healthy for me, nor aligned with my goals. I guess it just took taking time to say that I am o.k. alone and I really am now. Fully o.k. with my own life - and now a little blessing has come along to make me smile.

I hope you all are doing well and looking forward to your weekend plans. As for me - I will be cuddled up in the big arms of someone I like a lot - and smiling.

xoxo,
Bug

POST SCRIPT - WOW - was I ever a moron on this one.

Letters From Home

Today when I came home there was something very special in my mailbox. A letter from home. It is from my mother. She is the very heart and soul of our family and goodness flows from her like no other I know. To be praised from her is the highest compliment I could ever get in my life. You see, she is my teacher and my example and my greatest inspiration when I think of the way I conduct myself and lead my life.

January 7, 2007

Dear Mellissa

I don't tell you often enough how proud I am of you; how good you are in your heart, and in your spirit toward others.

I love you and I know that this year, 2007, will be the year that all your dreams are realized.

With all my love,
Mom


There is no better way to have ended my day. I love you mother.

xoxo,
Bug

Letting You Go

In bits and pieces I have let you go. People ask me questions and I realize that I did not investigate that angle - instead choosing to take the bits you told me and move on. I think when I saw you the last time, with your papers in hand, it was the last act of sacrifice I will ever make for you. I completed, stamped and dropped the parcel in the mailbox and then I prayed - that the Lord would release me fully from the covenant we entered into so many years before. In his amazing mercy and benevolence, he removed you from me and left only peace in the spot where you had been all those years.

Recently, someone asked me "why?" and I told the truth, wondering if they believed me. I know people think there are two sides to every story, each containing only perhaps 75% of the truth, but what I said was accurate and truthful and just so matter of fact. "I was useful and faithful, a good wife. When I demanded to be a priority, he left." It was the truth, not in a twisted way, but just in fact and with no bitterness.

So this is the last of it. I hope to see no more emails from you with subject lines of pain. It is not my job to ease you through loss or talk to you about your dreams. You gave up the right of that when you left me four years ago. I am sorry that you lost your best friend to a tragic death recently. I will pray for you, and for his family...but I wont ask questions, or reach out to you. I have let you go...and I wish you well.

Perfect Morning

I am already missing my vacation time. This is what a morning is supposed to look like. Time to just look out the window, holding your coffee and dreaming about what the day will hold.

Well, I started a new position here in Atlanta - so this is so not my morning now. I just finished gulping my coffee and now have to run to be at the office by 8 a.m.

xoxo,
Bug

Keep It Simple

This is a photograph I took last week while I was out with Greg having a "Photo Challenge" afternoon.

As I was sitting here this morning looking through some pictures to create a calendar, I thought about this one again. It is funny, but it reminded me of something.

I recently saw an Industrial Psychologist for some career testing. We went a little deeper into our discussion and one thing he said really struck me...and has bothered me since because I don't know how to change it. He told me that I have deep trust issues with people. That I tend to do everything myself and keep myself slightly separate because I don't trust my wellbeing to another person. It makes sense that I do this, as other than my family, there has not been one person who has followed through on actions or promises they made to me to be there for me. I do not know what a safety net feels like.

You see, in my personal life this picture has become a reflection of me. I am standing off in the distance thinking that I am protected by a little sign I show people that says Posted - No Trespassing. I am having awkward moments getting to know the new man in my life. I tend to ask him open ended questions or just lay a line out there to see how he will react. Is he trying to trespass on my heart - or is he coming to tend a long overdue garden? I need to just remind myself that it is simple right now. I am not sure, but I do know that I need to remain relaxed and calm...observing from that barn in the distance, watching the gate....with a shotgun tucked safely under my arm just in case he is only coming to poach.... (o.k. ha ha I just had to add that in there because I am a big smarty pants).

Wishing you all a wonderful morning!

xoxo - Bug

For You

Saturday morning and music plays in the background. It is pure you. Your fingers move along making strings of song in the air and I adore you more with each expressive strain you play for me.

I don’t want to leave this house – and the wonderful company that I have found inside these walls. Walls filled with the sounds of the guitar and piano, and smiles and touch and goodness. It overwhelms my spirit to know that there is such a thing….as I had forgotten it – or rather put it away to try to forget.

Today is a simple morning, following a simple afternoon of hand holding and barn scouting and dog barking and a sunset on a small lake – you rushed to capture the light – I lingered to capture the moment – knowing it would not come again this way in the days ahead.

You are Sunsets and Tennessee and simple times and potential. You are the “old days” and the memory keeper and sweetness….you have reminded me of me…..of the importance of being earnest and simple. I have been missing that in my life. Thank you for holding up the mirror…