…those who most fear change

The last thing I want in the world is to spend all my time focused on the negatives in the relationship I had with my mother. There are far more important things in my life these days. However, parent child relationships are fundamental in molding and shaping who we are so it is relevant in many ways to what I have to say. Secondly, it must be said that she was a person with many unresolved issues of her own and that saddens me. Perhaps her life and the way it impacted others could have been dramatically different if she’d been able to see the hope of something outside of what she’d been raised to believe.

My mother was the child of an alcoholic.

It’s the most unhappy people who most fear change – Mignon McLaughlin

Strength

Our strength is often composed
of the weaknesses we’re dammed if we’re going to show.
– Mignon McLaughlin

I’ve wanted to be a published author since I was a small child, I started a journal in junior high school because I wanted to one day be able to go back and write my adult feelings about certain situations and compare them to my youthful expressions. I wanted to show people that even though we struggle in our lives, sometimes over very difficult issues that we can succeed and find fulfillment. I’ve always known that there was a beautiful future waiting for me.

This website as an artistic and cathartic way to process things I have dealt with in the past as well as ongoing or new things. One close friend said that I needed to remember to have fun with this project, and not to worry if it was “perfect”, not to hold it up for approval, just to remember to do this thing for me.

It’s hard for me to act in ways that aren’t motivated to achieve some form of approval. When I was small and asked for things, or did things that seemed harmless, I was often told that I was being selfish. Well children are selfish, they aren’t malicious, they just understand about taking care of the self. I took this word “selfish” to mean that I was a bad person for wanting for myself.

Today I want something so badly that I am without care if I seem selfish in my wanting. I want joy and I will fight for it with everything I am.

Life’s Journey

Paper has always been important to me, I have dozens of notebooks in all sorts of shapes and sizes all over the house. I’ve always enjoyed writing my thoughts, small bits of verse and poetry. When I’d thought to do a book most often it was that I would write a piece of fiction because I have such a vivid imagination. But as you’ve seen I’m accepting the obvious path, since the thoughts and natural poetry that come from within is something I wish to share with others.

My life story isn’t out of the ordinary when you consider what is ordinary by today’s standards. But inside me is the desire to see others think “outside the box” to show them that here is more than a pragmatic existence that no-one should settle for “ordinary” when “something wonderful” is only a belief away.

Sometimes my writing feels like music, flowing as a tune upon paper. My goal is to let my words bring images, provoke thoughts and unravel feelings for my reader (that would be you). I want people to share with me the triumph and tragedy of the moments I convey.

My beliefs and goals are so simple it’s very hard for others to understand that I honestly believe with all my heart and soul that the important things in our lives are carried and shared from within. Of course we all get caught up in material wants, but what is it we really need? Would you trade your child for a life of total wealth? I hope I never meet a person who would be willing to do that. Would you give away years of your life to be beautiful? Beauty comes from the soul, a beautiful soul would never offer up an hour of life as a sacrifice for anything.

Life is about choices and options, priorities, wants, needs, desires, duty, responsibility, etc. But in our role on this earth as we follow the path to the end what is the meter we should measure all those things by? I believe we should not choose for others what we do but rather for ourselves. I don’t mean that being selfish at the direct expense of others is acceptable, it’s not, it’s wrong. But an honest conveyance to another that our role in life is to honor our own path and to allow the other people the choice to either support you, go with you or move aside is fair. It sounds so harsh but when you can’t make anyone else happy you need to look within yourself and do what makes you happy and that in turn will make it easier to give joy to others. If the people in your life who matter really love you honestly then they will honor you and your needs, if they don’t then you may be at a place where it’s time for your paths to part. I don’t mean that you should break free of relationships over trivialities or without remorse. I do believe that each of us deserves the right to pursue and fulfill our own destiny and born potential.

Sometimes we are blessed with opportunities to share our journey with others, sometimes we walk alone, if we’re lucky the people we miss will come back to us again on our path. But we shouldn’t regret or belay others from walking their own paths without us. When we share a bond with another soul we are not really alone, perhaps it’s months or years before we see them again, sometimes we never do, but they are with us.

Life can be very simple if we can learn to stop every so often and check our compass and see where we are on the path. I don’t believe that monetary goals are valuable, nor do I believe that we can judge our progress by the amount of things we own. I do believe that the path begins and ends within and our progress is what you take with you when you die.

I see great and beautiful things on my horizon, but I need time to stop and do this last bit before I go on to the next thing. I feel strongly that it’s time for me to share my journey with others this body of work is part of that process. As soon as whatever I’m missing manifests itself I will shoot forward like a star and then I’ll suddenly be on the horizon looking back to today and forward to what’s next.

There is so much for me to learn, so much I see in others that I would like to speak to. I wish other people could find a way to look within and then look out and around differently with a new light on their view.