Talk Thursday: On My Road

Oh that is where I long to be, traveling, somewhere warm, the car window down basking in the bone warming sun. I won’t be taking a vacation this year, yes I will take off a week, but we have a daughter getting married and then we are going to take Burp on the Jet Boats out of Gold Beach. Too much fun, I think Psam was about his age when we took her.

Life is a road, with a tremendous amount of one way streets and detours, how we navigate those highways and byways is both the weft and weave of the story of what we are and how it was done. It is the measure by which we are judged; judged by others, by God, by ourselves. I want my travels on the road to be of good faith, intent, and deed; not a dirty little track littered by the remains of those I chewed up and spat out. I want there to be the well-woven tale of a woman who lived life, worthy of the telling at the end of my days.

What I want and what is differs from what was and what will be. Regardless it is my tale, it is my journey, it is my life to fuck up and mine to right. I have an amazing set of numbers that I truly don’t believe I live up to: 38 – 11 – 2 the master numbers of an old soul. The old soul part I believe for I often feel I once was a healer, a listener, a nurse. The sad part is I know that I am not tapping into the power potential inside of me and I fail to understand how to do so. No one has been able to describe to me how I must achieve this goal or worse, how to stay focused.

I do not grasp on to anger, grudge holding is not my forte, but the flip side of that short attention span is that things don’t hold my focus. My life lesson is anger, I know this must be something I indulged in lives past, because I know there is a capacity in me to rage, but I have learned to not say things that can not be taken back. To not lose my temper and rail at an in animate object, to not take my frustration and pettiness on others (for the most part) and I have learned to give up the negative energy of anger and displeasure. I’m still working on blocking the hurt… but maybe that’s another life.

For now I am still on this journey, collecting the love and lessons of others. On this journey I am learning I annoy others with my offer of knowledge. On this journey to others I offer a haven of comfort. On this journey I seek humor, love, and knowledge, in return I create a space of peace.

Sith,
Cele

Life is Leap of Faith

Of late my family has been a bit bemused or curious at the description or definition of my faith. My faith and belief in God is firm. But, I assure you, not necessarily in the way a “church” or maybe even my upbringing taught me. Although in all fairness to my mom, she didn't really instill a specific belief in me, she let me discover my beliefs myself.

The Bible, to me is a history – not a verbatim, because it told me so. I believe it was inspired by the love of God, not by his mandate. I do believe the words in red are worth their weight in gold. The Golden Rule wasn't taught by Jesus alone, I will not go to hell/purgatory/the Outer Darkness (which I don't believe in) because I have a tattoo, get shots with needles, a blood transfusion, believe in a woman's right to chose, have friends who are sexually active with their own sex, or eat meat on Fridays (Fast Food Friday's requires beef or chicken prepared in an unhealthy way.)

I can not believe in a God who hates and condemns based on birth, sanctions hate, or rewards people who loudly go to church Sunday after a night (week) of living other than rightly. I do not, absolutely refuse to, believe that God “does things to us.” To me that is a belief that is just wrong on so many levels, I am sure it works well for a multitude of churches who want their parishioners whipped into line. How can people believe they are good when they treat others unfairly, cruelly, in hatred, and believe they are above others? I cannot believe that way.
Yes, this post is all about me. It is not about you, although maybe discussions with you have made me rethink my position (which is a very good thing.) Maybe this post (and I) will anger you. Maybe it will make you think about your own personal norms, mores, and foundations. If so, excellent.

When I was in my 'tweens my little brother died. It was a surprise, because no one saw it coming. I remember the morning my father gathered us in the darkened living room to say my mother was in the hospital, and that David was not born healthy. Pinecone and I both remember him saying David was born “too blue” and with holes in his heart. My mother does not remember this. What I do know is that David's death brought us together as a family. God did not take David to make us a stronger family, God had nothing to do with his passing. But I do believe that how we reacted to his death makes all the difference in the world. There were lessons, lessons to be taken to heart, embraced, and made into my own beliefs. I honor my brother's passing with this tradition, that I should find the silver lining in all things.

To hold the sorrows and why- me's to my bosom (although a mighty bosom it be) is not me, does not make sense. I don't blithely write people off when they are done on this plane, I keep them with me daily, then are never far. But I know that passing is a part of life, it is the inevitable conclusion to birth. I know in my heart that I will see them again, they can see me now, and finally they are without pain and horror. I do not leave them any day without telling them I love them and appreciate them. For I know I may not see them again in this life.
Sith,
Cele

Talk Thursday - Once Upon A Time...

Any one with a good sense of judgment can tell you there is more than one me. Once upon a time I was a little girl who looked up to my older and wiser cousins. Cammy was everything I wanted to be: he was a teenager with a license. Well okay, not at first, there was the time he got all of us kids thrown in to the Scottsdale Jail because he was driving without a license, I think he was old enough to have one. Cam was so cool, until the afternoon that him and his buddy Darryle (who he doesn’t remember) told me that I couldn’t go out with them because they turned into monsters who slathered little girls up with mayo and mustard for midnight snacks. I boldly told them (hands on hips, chin jutted out in defiance) “Nunhhuh you liars” and then cried when they left.

Once upon a time in a southern California grade school I was the gawky limbed, tall, skinny girl everyone, okay really Dennis Vincegura, beat up all the time. I never knew why he hated me, why I was the easy target, except I never fought back. Mouthy yes, physical no. I would go home, swallow my sorrow, and get on with my life until the next time Dennis Vincegura kicked my underpants up my ass. In hindsight I shouldn’t be surprised, his dad beat his mom up regularly. Hey, Dennis, now I wear thongs, thank you.

In high school I was the weird girl hanging with the cool smoker chicks in the quad. Wearing the really short dresses, chain-smoking at fifteen, and cussing like a longshoreman. I was known for being willing to try any thing once. But I doubt few knew my name. My façade said if you don’t like me, your loss; my interior hid a sad loneliness.

As I grew I embraced me. If you don’t like me I do care, but I won’t bend over backwards to please you. I have a mind and I don’t always speak it, but it doesn’t mean I don’t have an opinion. I am loud wallpaper, but at 52 I am trying hard to come out of my shell.

Once upon a time I loved change. Moving to new places, eager for the next adventure, to see where in America or the world it would take me. What I would see, what I would learn, who I could become. I am still eager for the adventures, but my roots are solid and well dug in. I don’t want to live anywhere other than Florence, Oregon, but that doesn’t mean I’m not into learning new places, embracing new people, testing new waters.

Once upon a time I would never have been so bold as to think people would want to meet me. Now I travel to places beyond to meet people I’ve never seen. Sit with them in London poetry cafes and chat about what and who we have in common. Not a geeky, middle aged woman, and a British screenwriter, but two poets communing. Two friends with much to share. Tonight I will have dinner with a dear friend whom I’ve never laid my eyes upon, his partner, and his sister. We will sit down and break bread, share wine, and each other. And I will not be afraid, but I will embrace them. Saturday I will not be the tall, black clad, wallpaper (okay I’ll be wearing black—because that is me, but I won’t be wallpaper) and I will finally get to meet JulieAnn face to face writer to writer, girl friend to girl friend, never strangers again. I will get to meet people who so far have just been a name on a comment on someone else’s blog. Saturday night I will laugh and be filled with joy and new people. Once upon a time I would never have had the guts.

So who are you today and what were you yesterday?
Sith,
Cele

Life In Six Words or Less

Yeah as if I could do less. Tewkes latenly tagged me to sum up my life in six words or less.

Here's how this one works:
1. Write your own six-word memoir.
2. Post it on your blog and include a visual illustration if you’d like.
3. Link to the person that tagged you in your post and to this original post if possible so we can track it as it travels across the blogosphere.
4. Tag five more blogs with links.
5. And don’t forget to leave a comment on the tagged blogs with an invitation to play. (This last step is optional.)

So I read this yesterday morning and considered it off and on all day long. Then I saw I'd actually had been tagged and the pressure was on.

Six words that I'd like to think fit me into a nutshell (because the reality is this butt will never fit into a nutshell)...

Daughter, Wife, Mother, Friend, Kind, Strong

But really isn't it all realitive? So I thought about it some more and came up with one phrase that fits my belief system and me...

It's all about the Journey.

I found the photo on Flickr, by J A X

Tagged? Wow, that is hard so I will tag but playing is optional. And a lot of my friends have been tagged already, so.... Natalie, JulieAnn, Sid, Peggy, Sister Lisa, Enlightened Fairy

100 Things About Me - 2008

1) There is a feeling of Mortality in my air
2) Yes, that middle age, “My life is more than half over, and what have I done with it?” thought keeps haunting me
3) Not to the point where I want to go do something crazy
4) No, I am very thankful for who I am with
5) For what I have in my life
6) And for what I have accomplished
7) I can honestly say I like myself.
8) I’m sure it has something to do with the people around me dying
9) But it’s also a reflection of my age.
10) Strangely enough, I’m still afraid of snakes
11) Yeah, duh! Like that’s going to change.
12) My new candy… Cherry Cordial Kisses from Hershey’s, which made for a loverly chocolate Valentine’s Day
13) So did the chocolate covered strawberries from Ducky, divine decadence, hmmm, hmmm, hm.
14) God, that man is a saint.
15) That mortality thingie could also be due in part to it being a nine year
16) A year of endings, even though I’ve only just begun
17) A year that began with the doldrums, sadness, and ennui
18) But a nine-year also means new starts are ahead.
19) In a year, but still ahead
20) I’ve had an incredible craving for pepperoni sticks
21) Good thing I’m not a vegetarian.
22) My weight is down five to seven pounds,
23) And yet, I feel fatter.
24) I’ve always known I was a Monkey, but now I know I’m a fire Monkey
25) I use to have a monkey, a spider monkey named Mark, it was a girl
26) Ducky is a Water Dragon
27) I have a dragon collect – the cute type of dragons – Celtic Dragons
28) Ducky fits right in
29) Strangely Miseray is a Fire Monkey, Psam is a Fire Dragon, sadly Burp is a snake
30) So 2008 started with learning about the Chinese New year and my sign
31) I know, I’m a little late on the up take sometimes
32) But it fits in with the Astrology I did as a teen
33) The numerology I never quite mastered.
34) Oh and, I’ve come up with a new part for my hair
35) For some reason my headset has begun parting my bangs
36) It looks like a reject style from “Something About Mary”
37) The headset shoves two thirds to the left, and the right one-third straight up and back.
38) So now I’m doing physical comedy, too
39) Which works in with my “leave ‘em laughing philosophy.”
40)You know, life needs a good hug, a good laugh, good music, and a boat load of chocolate
41) Life needs friends, I adore and cherish my friends
42) Life needs a hot tub
43) We’re ordering ours tomorrow, thank you Lord.
44)My poetry has begun flowing again
45) Well not for the last week
46) Because I’m critiquing, but it’s flowing.
47) Life also needs a good book - would someone please talk Jane Austen in to writing more?
48) Last year I took no vacations, bad idea
49) This year I’m planning a few
50) Beginning with Sid’s birthday party in April
51) Which means I’m going to try my first Frodka
52) I am taking more time with my family
53) Eating more Chinese food
54) And celebrating the people in my life.
55) Hey, right now go find a card and send it to someone just because you can and you love them
56) They could be gone tomorrow, next week, or next month
57) Let them know you care TODAY
58) You may not get another chance
59) I can honestly say I have no regrets and no words of love left unsaid. Can you say that?
60) This year I plan on gardening more
61) Finishing Ducky’s lily garden
62) Maybe putting in a fountain
63) In the front yard
64) Adding more paver bricking
65) And creating cozy corners that beg to be sat in.
66) I am irreverent
67) I drives people crazy, but they are far too serious about themselves
68) But outside of the war, Bush, and taxes what is there that is so fucking serious that you have to be morose and flum all the time?
69) I love my job
70) Everyone should love their job, because life is far too long to be miserable.
71) I love giving presents
72) I don’t do it often enough
73) And sadly some presents don’t get shipped, because I’ve not conquered that procrastination thingie
74) Which means Buddy and family still haven’t received their birthday gifts from last year
75) I hope that just means a bigger box shipped this year EARLY!
76) I have found an upside to the writer’s strike
77) I have almost quit watching TV
78) Almost -
79) Except for Ghost Hunters, American Idol, and happy ending movies
80) I even gave up General Hospital for the most part several months ago
81) That doesn’t mean I don’t indulge myself in a GH Sunday marathon on occasion
82) It’s that ennui thingie going on.
83) Yeah that’s right no Big Brother 9 or Survivor Favs vs Fans – so been there, done that
84) Or as Jules would say, “I’m soooo over that.”
85) Oh and Arnie, my nephew, gave me a copy of Amy Winehouse’s Back To Black
86) OHMIGOD I ADORE IT.
87) By the way it’s Natalie’s birthday Sunday
88) Joshlyn’s too or maybe that is next Wednesday, darn I can’t remember
89) And when exactly is Peggy’s birthday?
90) And no it’s not the elderly memory loss going on.
91) It’s MENOPAUSE
92) This year I plan to take more photos
93) Write more poetry
94) And find the time to read more.
95) I am impatiently awaiting the start of baseball season
96) It is a long, sportsless period between the end of college football and MLB season.
97) We always have a baseball dinner on opening night.
98) Yeah hotdogs and Crackerjacks.
99) I got to see the space shuttle and the International Space Station zip across the Southwestern sky last night and tonight
100) Not a bad way to close out 51,
101) hmmm 52 isn’t looking too bad.

Sith,
Cele

Talk Thursday – How I Make The World A Better Place

Butcher, baker, candlestick maker – when I grow up I want to be a Playboy Bunny. Awe, the dreams and wants of a five-year, how did that become so complicated with growth? Why? These and many other burning questions are want of answers by the thinking minds bogged in desperate contemplation. And it’s all in the search to make our own indelible impression on the inhabitants of this spinning blue orb we call home.

There is nothing especially wonderful about me. There is nothing special except my willingness to learn, to grow, to change. To give what I bring to this earth happens one person at a time. While my voice may touch thousands each day, my heart, mind, and soul only touch one at any given time, or a few if I’m particularly shiny at that moment. If I am gifted, it is in the arts of listening, acceptance, and logic.

My father said, shortly before his death, something that let me know I’d made a difference in his life. In speaking about his Hispanic nurse (and the Hispanic portion of this discussion was the point) he said, “See it just proves you have to take each person; one by one on their own merit.”

In my ‘tweens, teens, and early twenties my father and I often argued hatreds, prejudice, politics, and religion. My stance was accepting each on their own merit; his was judging a man by the tint of his skin. Now don’t get me wrong, I love my father dearly, he was an amazing and brilliant man, but he’d always had that flaw; a flaw that disappeared before my eyes. I don’t think I’m responsible for this, it is my mother who raised me to be the way I am, but I think between the two of us we helped my father see below the skin to a person’s heart.

Our personal strength lays in our self-belief and worth. I do not think I am greater than the whole; I am a tool of the whole, a cog along the gears of life. The world will not quit spinning when I pass from this plane to the next. Maybe even a tear won’t fall when I am gone. But my poetry will remain, possibly even a memory of my kindness, or an annoyance at my logical attitude.

My measure won’t be in deeds done, but maybe in grace and words said. What I bring to this world is belief, grace, even some bitchiness (I am a female, c’mon) and my ability to honor people for themselves and cherish their warts. To listen to them and hear them. To touch each of them inside their need, to help chase away some of the shadows, or at least share the areas between black and white with them, and give them a piece of my heart. Sing it Janis.

I’m not changing the world; I’m just mutating humanity a single cell at a time.

Sith,
Cele

Talk Thursday - Drinking In

I've been tagged by Enlightened Fairy, and this phrase from a song on the radio this afternoon just stuck with me, "drink me in like water."

In June, just before school let out for summer break of my six grade year my mother had a baby boy. I distinctly remember my parents being annoyed with my cousins (who were preggers at the same time) for choosing to use the name David for their baby if it was a boy. A silly argument really. Not one that harmed anyone but in the eyes of a 12 year old, pretty senseless. A sentiment underlined by the death of my brother, one day after he was born.

I remember it being still dark, when my father called us all in to the living room, maybe the drapes were closed, I can’t remember. He told the four of us that our mother was in the hospital and David had been born. And I distinctly remember him saying he’d been born too blue and had holes in his heart, so does Dee. Strangely my mother does not remember, her heart has ached and grieved all these long decades past, not that she realizes it, but when June 13th rolls around, my mother inevitably has a migraine. I also remember it was the first, and only time, I have seen my father cry.

This strong woman is incredibly optimistic, through thunder clouds and lightning she will search for the silver lining and has always believe everything has a purpose. When a door shuts, a window opens out look on life. In my mother’s eyes David touching our lives, ever so briefly was to unite us as a family. This might be, it makes sense, and I look at my family past and see the results of his passing to this day.

That summer after David died my family took the first of several summer vacations. My dad had three weeks accrued and in August of that year we loaded in the Econoline and drove cross-country to my father’s family in Ohio and West Virginia. The next summer my aunt and uncle, several cousins came out and we began a series of summer vacations that began and ended at Morro bay with the redwoods and Shasta Lake in between.

During the autumn, winter, and spring we’d travel out into the desert, to Phoenix, to Mexico, where ever that Econoline would haul us. David’s passing certainly brought us together; we hiked, we camped, road motorcycles, adventured together, and we laughed. We learned about the land, the sea, the stars. We learned about each other, and we learned about the world.

The nights in the desert are mesmerizing. The stars out the Milky way spread out like a twinkling blanket, shooting stars dying out into black nothingness, the cold, white moon on an frigid spring night, UFO’s, and jet planes on journeys that we could only imagine. You could lay on your back and drink in the universe, the immensness of it all, and the reality (at age fifteen) that you are a dust mote of time and biology. A grain of sand on the desert floor of a green planet somewhere in the Milky Way. You feel the hand of God. Of time. Of the universe.

These moments, adventures, epiphanies of growth climaxed one autumn afternoon in my sixteenth year. We’d spent the weekend at my aunt’s in Scottsdale, before turning north to see the Grand Canyon. Now where the Grand Canyon is in relation to Mesa Verde, I don’t’ know, I just know it was the same trip, a trip that would change me forever. We wound our way through Oak Creek Canyon, where brilliant red monuments stretch in to an amazing blue sky. We laid on our bellies to peek over the canyon’s rim at the bottom a mile away. We stared across the expanse to the eastern side of the canyon in disbelief at the distant vista that the Colorado had etched and painted over the centuries. Visions of wonder that I will carry into the next plane.

In the moderate heat of that late afternoon we arrived a Mesa Verde. Mom and dad were armed with maps and brochures that gave body to speculation to the Anasazi who carved out the mighty Montezuma’s Castle.

Stepping out of the van, I was overwhelmed with emotions, my senses laid open to an onslaught of feeling, impressions and emotions. I closed my eyes and literally drank in the still peace of the mesa. Peace that filled me with calm surety, I knew who I was, I knew why I was there, I knew that all and nothing else mattered. I was suddenly at peace and fully ready to handle what my future would bring me. The lessons that I would need would unfold in front of me at their time.

I visited the ancient ruins and I drank in me.
Sith,
Cele

Tilting at the Windmills of My Mind

Do you have those moments, minutes, hours, weeks where you wonder if and where you fit into the scheme of things? Lately the hum of my mind, stuck in some cerebral groove like an old 33½ rpm, has been driving me crazy. I know what began this latest spiral of self-doubt and knowing that it is probably a light form of depression is half the battle. But, despite that knowing, I am still tilting at the windmills of my mind.

How do you make yourself see your worth? Know that you’re not just an albatross around the neck of those you want as your friends? I have no clue. Well really I don’t, but the sane part of me screams at the tilting part to take them at face value. I have great friends. Friends, who would not willingly harm me, would not willingly say something hurtful – even in their own pain. I am blessed. My husband, daughters, grandson, parents, and dog all love me. I am blessed.

Recently I’ve come to realize that in some respects many of my friends and family are in the same uncharted waters where I am barely treading to keep my head above. Many are ex-Mormons (friends, not family,) trying to figure out where they belong in the world. How to deal with their personal beliefs, their spiritual beliefs, and the lies and truths of their birth religion? I am blessed because, while I did leave my birth religion, I left because I needed to feel important to my beliefs and them to me. I needed to be true.

Christmas morning when I was twelve, I proudly sat in the choir loft singing with all the love I have inside me at the joy of Christ birth. My belief in Jesus Christ, my Lord Redeemer has always brought me to tears. So to be sitting there with my siblings that Christmas morning, having chosen church over opening presents, I was shocked into reality to find the choir berated from the pulpit for anxiously wanting to be at home opening presents instead of singing for the Lord. Well this wasn’t so for me, weeks before I’d snuck into my mom’s closet to see what I was getting. It was no big secret to me; see I really had chosen church that Christmas morning. I know you think my reasoning is convoluted. Don't despair, deviousness does have its pain.

Our previous minister and his family had been relocated after a decade ministering to our membership. So this special Christmas morning message of not measuring up to the Lord was brought to us by a new fire and brimstone, Bible thumping minister who must have failed to realize which type of Presbyterian Church he had signed on to. I cried all the way home and after a wonderful Christmas celebration had a heart felt discussion with my parents.

As I said, I was raised Presbyterian, but it wasn’t until a year ago that I came to even realize my father doesn’t believe Jesus is the Son of God. You could say the pronouncement, that Saturday morning, at my parent’s breakfast table left my mother and me… well, speechless. A rare occasion to say the least, and even more confusing in the light of what happened that Christmas day some forty years before. My mother and father had sat and listened intently to my problem and offered up the solution that, at the age of twelve, I could begin my discovery of other religions and faiths and chose which fit me best. Both of my parents backed my decision with the condition that I must go to church each Sunday. And no, Saturday Mass didn’t count, I had to go to Sunday Mass too. Ouch.

Wow, I can hardly imagine what my Ex-Mormon and Ex-Catholic friends would think at this proclamation in their lives. The church I’d been raised in was just two city blocks away from our house, and was one of many on a long stretch of La Mirada Blvd. So from the Presbyterian Church I went to the Baptist Church (whoa, not for me) skip the Friends Church, go to Mass with my cousin, to the Pentecostal Church with a friend whose Bible thumping father was the minister – it was good entertainment, but I wasn’t sure where God and I fit into the scheme of things. At Girl Scout camp we had a lovely, non-denominational, folk music based service (my fav.)

Finally I went and tested the waters of the Friends Church. When they spoke they were warm, inviting, and thought the same way I did. That the light of God was inside me, that I mattered in the scheme of God and the world. I’d found my home. That’s not to say I was a faithful Friend from day one, no, I am a child of the 60s and 70s. I have been a slut, a druggie, a loner, and very human, but I know that God still loves me. That Jesus died for me; I know that the eternal light of God shines inside each and everyone of us if we let it. That ever, loving light was mine.

Am I a good Quaker? Not very, I don’t attend meetings nearly often enough, I am not strong enough in my convictions to stand up in a fight of wills. When it comes to knowing the Bible and its verses I am terrible. I can not quote verse and scripture, and it’s not that I won’t go look them up, not that I don’t read the Bible, and not that I don’t believe in what is there – because I do, but because I know enough for me. I live fully on the belief that I should not judge other people, that I am loved for me, and that my religion is Jesus and is between me and God, and that violence against another – either personal or as a community is a crime against the nature of Christ.

The Bible charges us to witness to others. Unlike Jehovah Witnesses, Mormons, or some Baptist I don’t believe this means peddling my religion door to door. I find that vulgar and rude. To me it means being prepared to listen and discuss my beliefs with someone in their time of need. Or even my time of need. To give them succor and lighten their load, to show them the light inside of themselves.

I am distressed when I see my friends, new and old, ravaged by the lies of their religion. So devastating the realizations, that their faith is often tested and found wanting. Religions where the Church and those who run them have literally become more important that the God they are suppose to serve. When the power and money has corrupted those who serve, that they have become a force unto themselves.

In Genesis God create heaven and earth. He created man and woman, maybe not on an even playing field, but both were created along with the beast, birds, and bees. Oh, and those horrid little snakes. In Leviticus he handed down the laws of the Old Testament to Aaron and the Rabbis, laws for the serving Rabbis of the time that have spurred the basis of hatred over the millenniums. And with the beginning of a new age, God leveled the playing field with the birth, death, and resurrection of his son Jesus. He wrote two news laws that null and void all that went before and gave a gift of salvation equal to all, no man is placed above woman, no woman is placed above man – equality in salvation.

I weep that people once faithful to God have had their foundations destroyed by religion, a destruction so deep it rents the fabric of their daily lives, crushes their spirit, and questions all that they are, all that they believe. I will over come my depressions, because I am strong elsewhere. I hope they too will over come and see the strength and peace that comes from the light with in, the light of the Lord.
Sith.

A Charges Leveled Introspective – you’ll find this boring

Friendships are an ever changing. Oh wait, you knew that didn’t you? My mom has always said I collect little lambs to take under my wing; to nourish, offer an occasional shoulder, to support. But I think it is what I get from the relationships that are important to me. The feeling of importance to another person, the give and take of thoughts, frivolities, humor, sorrow, and each other.

Through out my life, “best friends” or “bestest friends” have come and gone. What did I do? What didn’t I do? And how much should either side of a relationship have to deal with? In reality I don’t think it is any of these things.

I recently lost a bestest friend. We’d been buds for seven internet years, lived 2500 miles apart, spoke on the phone on occasion, and supported each other. We never met face to face. There were things about her I didn’t like, but the good out weighed the bad. There were things about me she didn’t like. See it’s a balance, the eternal give and take. And each time it is over I tell myself, “I won’t have another best friend, it hurts too much.” What a lie I tell myself. Despite being shy, I am a social person.

The good thing that comes of losing a best/bestest friend is the introspective period that follows. Considering all that has been said, can not be taken back, that will inevitably change who I was, shaping who I will morph into. Consideration of the charges:

1) That I always have to have the last word. I don’t believe that to be true, on the other hand most of my friends do not have to either, so it is a weird balance of last words.
2) That I can’t take a joke. My second husband said, as we were separating our lives and parting our ways, two things. 1) I have no sense of humor 2) I have no personality. Of all the things he said to me, besides I love you and good-bye, these have had the longest lasting impact on me. The I love you was a lie; good-bye has been long lasting and the truth; items 1 and 2 haunt me. So when my former bestest said I can’t take a joke, it rung like a death knell in the air. Maybe I can’t take a joke, I forever doubt myself or that I am not being understood and often let people know “that was a joke.”
3) That I run away pouting. I know that is not true. In the unspoken situation I left before I said words I could not take back. I do not intentionally speak words that will hurt. I do not enter into most arguments when both parties are mad; one of us needs to be grounded in calm.
4) And apparently I was throwing a temper tantrum. Hmmm, I guess a third party would have to decide that, and I’m not asking her to step into the middle of this, although I was accused of talking behind my bestest back, because I apologized to a third party about what was happening and told them I would be leaving if it continued. To her that talking about her verifies everything
5) I was also told that I critiqued others so harshly that I drove people away, and at least one person left in tears several times because of what I said. Of all the charges leveled at me, this one was the most serious to me. I have always tried to measure my critiques with a level of positive ness. So do I stand in judgment of the works of others that I am cutting and cruel? This will colour the way I look at the work of others and my critique for them for sometime. I have always tried to give two positive comments for every negative or comment of correction. Especially in poetry. Poetry is subjective, the levels of writing poetry are specific to the poet, as is the penchant of specific rhyme schemes. A five meter, every line rhyming scheme drives me crazy, but each poet has their own level of security, I in the past had commented on that, but in recent years only comment when I poet steps out of their personal comfort zone and ventures into their uncharted waters. It takes a lot of guts to do so.
6) That no one would give me input on my work, because I keep needing to be right.
Beyond asinine – I have no comment on this.
7) And her final salvo, beside I am not worth her time and effort was this, that I will write about our falling out. Hmmm she was defiantly right on that one. It took me time to think about it, consider, and weigh the words, intent, and content; to use the truths and throw out the superfluous, then to evolve from it. Writing about it helps me put it all in perspective, work it out. She will never read it, because she doesn’t blog, she doesn’t care, and I realize – because she is in self protect mode and defensive.

I will learn and grow from this. I will have more best friends (because I am a glutton that way,) but she will always hold a place in my thoughts and heart, for she was like a sister to me. Because she (and her influence) is part of who I will become tomorrow. I wish her the best, I wish for her someone who will understand her better than I did. I wish for her peace and good writing.

Sith