Change · Faith · grief · Happiness · Life · loss · love · Marriage · Poetry · Relationships · Starting over · Thoughts · Words

To the man I used to know

Senior couple holding hands

We were strangers.

And in all of the places we could be that night and of all of the times,

what were the odds that we should be in the exact place at the exact time?

Our eyes meeting, our hearts pounding, something inside of us stirring.

You smiled and I melted.

I didn’t know it at the time but my life would never be the same.

A handsome stranger would become the best part of my life.

You were strong and kind, mature beyond your years.

You were brave and fearless and I remember, when getting to know you, how much I envied the way you had lived your life.

Sixteen years later, I can still recall everything about that night, like it was yesterday.

Watching a boy, in a black leather jacket, steal my heart away with his infectious joy.

Looking at you now I see a man, your hair fallen away and parts turned silver.

I love you so much but we have grown so far apart.

The years have seen us through many ups and downs,

some crazy adventures and a lot of mistakes, but we are still here,

getting through this life as best we can.

As individuals and as a couple.

You are tired.

You have a sadness about you.

Your heart is like an anchor in your chest, a heaviness weighing you down.

Filled to overflowing with burdens and responsibilities.

The years have crept up on us, time has a way of doing that, doesn’t it?

One minute you are young, with the best days ahead of you and,

the next you are grown up with this full life, that sometimes just seems like a long list of to-do’s.

Loves grows from something wild and passionate to something steady and reasonable.

You pass each other in the hallway, never really seeing one another.

And as time goes by you once more return to being strangers.

The way things used to be, long forgotten.

God, I don’t want to be that far away from you.

Take my hand and let me help you remember who you used to be,

Who we used to be.

 

 

Image Credits
Creator:Pavel Talashov
Credit:Talashow – Fotolia
Copyright:Pavel Talashov

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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Change · Faith · God · Happiness · Life · Poetry · Self-love · Thoughts · Words

Beauty in the Blankness

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During these bleak winter days, when the trees stand naked stripped of their once leafy branches and the world seems to be covered in snow, where once it was flowing in the bright emerald green of the grass, it can feel as if the world is dying a little.

You might look out your window and only see what isn’t there, but like a caterpillar, the world is in a cocoon, or a state of growth.

You can’t see the changes taking place beneath the soil and deep within the roots but change is happening every day.

And if we look closely, we can see the beauty in the blankness.

Without the leaves, our views change.

We can see further, beyond what is covered up in the warmer months when shade is needed.

The stark white of the snow against the dull grey of the sky seems to shine like a thousand tiny crystals, making the entire earth glow.

There is a wonderful simplicity during this season where things are shed and things are lightened.

It can be a simple reminder for us to unpack a few things ourselves, shed our own ‘leaves’ and lighten our own loads.

We too can find beauty in letting go of the parts of ourselves that no longer serve us.

I believe God created people and seasons with change in mind.

He wants us, just like he wants this earth, to constantly be growing and changing and becoming.

Just as the caterpillar blooms into a magnificent butterfly, full of grace and freedom and courage, so will you.

So will your world. 

Change · grief · Life · loss · Parenting · Relationships · Self confidence · Self-love · Thoughts · Toxic Parenting · Words

It’s Time…

I wake to the sound of music blaring. My alarm clock telling me the day has started. I steal a quick glance at the red blare that is the time and hit the snooze button. I lie back down, my head sinking once again in the soft, grey pillow. It’s still dark outside and I want to go back to sleep more than anything, but I have things to do. I have no other option but to wake up. My eyes feel groggy and my mind feels heavy. I didn’t sleep well last night. My mind kept racing over events of the day and it kept me from finding any peace in the quietness of the night. Now I am at once, thinking over things again, not even 2 minutes after I awake.

Life sometimes feels so heavy and burdensome. I feel like I’m given way more than I can handle and not the proper tools to handle them with. There is this life I want, the one I am trying to build and then there is the life I have, my past, that I can’t seem to shake. I think maybe because I keep revisiting what already happened and I keep trying to fix it, make it different now, in the future. Why can’t I realize that I can’t change things, it’s not within my power. I’m tired of feeling a lack of worth. I’m tired of having this hole inside of me that I keep trying to fill. I’m tired of punishing myself with what I did, what I should’ve done and a thousand regrets.

Often I look at my age and wonder how I got to be this old already and things are still going on like this. I want to make you love me like I needed all these years. I want to help you see how you wronged me and I want you to apologize. I want to be able to have a relationship with you that is healthy and good. I reach out to you, I try to talk to you, I let you back in again and again and again but still you are unchanged. I love you because you raised me and there are some good parts of you I remember but I can’t keep subjecting myself to you. Every time we try, the pieces of me I have built, all the hard work I have done, start crumbling down. These years we have been apart I have become someone else, a person that is stronger, more confident, less angry. I have discovered things about myself I never knew before. I have bloomed and grown into a life I love. I have no room for toxic people, negativity, manipulation, guilt, and lies. You can choose to not see the truth and create your own reality but I want no part of it. I know what happened, I know the truth. For most of my life, I have been dragging you along, hoping to change you, now I see how much of a burden that has been and how impossible a feat. I am tired and my life is not being lived the way it should. You are older. You may not have a lot of years left on this earth and I hate to think of years going by, with us not speaking, and one day getting the call that you have passed. I wish more than anything, we could have a relationship. I will miss you like I have been. I will grieve for the mother I never had but always wanted. This is the last time I will try. This is the last time I will say goodbye. I will always love you but, from afar and quietly.

Blaring music once again fills the room and I quickly shut it off. I can do this. I need to do this. It is time once again to let you go. This time for good. So I rise up, out of bed, and begin to take back my life. Little by little. Piece by piece. 

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Taste of Freedom

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I walked away from my old life and became someone that you wouldn’t even recognize anymore, yet you still continue to pursue me with your old tricks. 

It took me years to build up the courage to find some distance from you but even with the distance, there was no escape. 

You had, overtime, put me in my very own prison where you were the warden. 

You controlled me and intertwined your life with mine so that there was no way to tell where I began and you ended.

It was hard to find my way out but when you are drowning you will fervently search for that small pocket of air and I found it. 

I love you but I cannot have you near me.

I set myself free from the cage you put me in and I will never go back. 

Freedom tastes so good and in it I have found a deep sense of peace. 

I love you but I will have to love you quietly and from afar. 

You will never understand how much you hurt me or how much I tried to stay. 

You only see wrongdoing in me. 

I can live with that because I know the truth. 

I walked away from my old life and walked right into a new life, fuller and richer than I could’ve ever imagined, and I am staying here.

Do not look for me or worry about me. 

I am, for once, fully alive and fully okay.

Change · Happiness · Life · Poetry · Starting over · Thoughts · Words

Fall

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And just like that, you will one day peer out your window and notice the leaves are changing from that enviable emerald green hue to a crisp, golden orange, wildly dancing around in the breeze, looking as if they’ve caught fire. You will watch as, day by day, they shed their leaves and become bare, like tall sticks ascending from the ground, leaving behind their summer beauty.  It is a wonderful reminder that we too are able to shed that which no longer serves us and begin again. 

Change · Christian · Faith · God · Happiness · Life · Religion · Self confidence · Self-love · Thoughts · Words

Everyday.

Give yourself room to grow today.  

Listen for that voice, the slight whisper, that you often ignore. It’s your intuition, your spirit, guiding you. 

Watch for signs that light the way and confirm you are heading in the right direction. Some coincidences are hints that you are on the right path, ready for a breakthrough. Pay attention to them.

Be brave enough to make mistakes by trying, yet be humble enough to admit when you are wrong. 

Count your blessings and name them if you need reminding. Oftentimes we get so busy searching for ‘things’ we forget what we already have. 

Be okay in the not knowing and hold tight to patience. God is working things out for you. It just may not be in the time you expected.

Don’t go looking for happiness in possessions or other people. Authentic happiness can only be found inside of you. It’s always there and it’s always free. Searching for it elsewhere will only lead to discontentment.

Put your phone down for a while and look up and around. Take in the sky, the clouds, the birds, the treetops. Take in life, you will never find peace if you are always connected. 

Take a moment to kneel. Thank God that you woke up today. That you still have chances and opportunities. That you have another day to be because tomorrow could arrive but there is no promise that you will see it.

Live with reckless abandon. 

Pursue life.

It will all go by too fast and you only get this one shot.

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Before I was a mama

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Before I was a mama I imagined that raising kids was easy. 

My young mind pictured motherhood as holding babies, changing diapers, late-night feedings and early afternoon naps. 

I pictured firsts. First words, first tooth, first steps.

Never did I envision mouthy toddlers, independent school-age kids, and a sulky teenager. 

I didn’t foresee the days of exhaustion and thanklessness. 

The heartache, doubt, regret, and irritation that sneaks in on a daily basis. 

Before I was a mama I equated having a baby to instantaneous happiness.

I didn’t think my life would be any less but so much more.

And part of me was right. 

Babies are hard work and in giving so much of yourself away to care for them, you might feel like you lose yourself, the person you were before. 

I know at times, many times, I did.

But before my eyes, as my babies grew through the years I started to see the light in motherhood. 

It comes from little messy smiles, an unexpected hug, bedtime cuddles, Eskimo and butterfly kisses, the sound of their laughter, knowing that to them you are the entire world. 

As they grow it comes in the form of asking your opinion, telling you about their day, asking how your day’s been, an ‘I love you mom” in a text, wanting to sit next to you on the couch, still giving you hugs even though they are almost as tall as you.

Like life, motherhood goes through phases and they are each so precious, yet so fleeting. 

Don’t rush them.

In the blink of an eye, they will be over. 

Nothing about being a mama is like I pictured long ago in my youthful days, long before I could ever understand this kind of grace, this kind of sacrifice, this kind of joy. 

I could never know because I had never understood this kind of love before. 

Until I was a mama.