There were many so I can’t mention them all here. One person I would like to give credit to would be my mother. She taught me the biggest lesson which has stood the test of time. I remember as a little girl I would come running to her about something that made me cry or sad and she would say, “Remember whatever you do and whatever happens, always stand back up. Take your time, but dust off and get back on that horse.” I have been doing that all my life and it has helped me through the years.
Others who influenced me are the writers. One person in particular was Nora Roberts. I loved and love her writing. The romance novelist was one of my all- time favorite person. There were many nights where I lay cuddled in bed with one of her books helping me to escape whatever it is that I wanted to escape and to keep my head somewhere in the clouds. I think in a way she helped me fashion my writing. Thank you both.
Here’s the thing, you may think that you’re the only person on earth who is alone for Christmas but did you know that there are thousands of people who spend Christmas alone? Christmas is a beautiful time of the year but for some who are alone, it can be downright excruciating. It can get depressing and you can dive into the doldrums of despair but there is something YOU can do about it.
Change Your Mindset
Yes, it’s all about that mindset. Instead of cowering in your bedroom and mourning about how sad you are, change it to my glass is half-full instead.
Let’s see. You have a roof over your head don’t you? You have food, warm clothes and you are safe while there are others out there who don’t have half of what you have. I’m sure they’ll gladly change places with you. Be thankful for what you have.
Get something good to eat. Enjoy spending time alone and be thankful you don’t have to deal with the stress. What stress? The stress of spending time with people you don’t like, the noise, the constant chatter and sounds of good cheer. It can get nerve-wrecking. Be thankful for the silence because if used wisely it can be your best friend.
Stay in your jammies all day! Check out a movie you’ve wanted to watch but never got around to it. Spend quality time with your pets or listen to your favorite music.
Turn your attention to your book collection. What about that book you’ve been wanting to read but never got around to it? Well, here’s the time to do just that.
Try deep breathing. It definitely helps me and sometimes I need to take a nap because nothing destresses like breathing for all you’re worth! Do a workout and work on getting yourself fit and buff. While all the others are “pigging out” you are on your way to looking pretty good!
Watch something funny on TV. It will help to boost that somber mood and make you feel much better. I tried it last night and watched Max Amini, a stand-up comedian and he was hilarious. It definitely helped to boost my mood because laughter releases those happy hormones. They are serotonin, dopamine, endorphins, and oxytocin which help to reduce depression and anxiety as well. These feel-good hormones do much to get you out of the rut you’re in. It worked for me.
SMILE! Wear a perpetual smile on your face even if you don’t feel like it. Know that YOU are not the only one in this situation, there are thousands out there spending Christmas alone. Make the best of it and you’ll be just fine.
“Christmas is a baby shower that went totally overboard.” Andy Borowitz
Ain’t that the truth?!!
Have a good one and wherever you are and whatever you’re doing, know this: YOU WILL GET THROUGH IT.
A Guardian Angel is defined as a spirit that is thought to watch over and protect a person or place.”
“For every fear that shakes your peace,
For every night you feel alone,
For every moment you lose a little hope,
There is an angel who whispers
I AM HERE.” Unknown
Do you believe angels exist? I do. I have encountered several in my life but I know that for some of you non-believers it is just a bunch of hoopla but to that I say, you do you and I’ll do me.
My first encounter happened when I got my driver’s license. Needless to say I was over the moon and decided to take the car out on the Interstate. I didn’t really have much experience driving on a four-lane highway but I had my driver’s license and what could go wrong right? Plenty.
It was busy on that day as I pulled out onto the slow lane but having navigated that successfully, I decided to change lanes. Finally, I decided to change lanes again so I signaled, noticed the trucker was quite a distance away and pulled in. Just as quickly I glanced at my side-view mirror and to my horror, there he was right next to me! I jammed on the accelerator and shot in but then I heard a loud bang and then the back of the car was swerving back and forth violently. I held onto the steering wheel as tightly as I could which probably saved my life that day, that and the guardian angels looking out for me. My confidence was shaken but I escaped with no injuries.
A few days later, I walked into a grocery store. I was still feeling shaken from my ordeal and couldn’t trust myself to get back into a car again. Walking through the aisles, I came face to face with a man I had never seen before. He smiled gently and said, “You’ll be just fine. You have nothing to worry about.” What?!! Immediately I felt a sense of peace envelop me and as I turned around to get another glimpse of the mysterious stranger, he was gone but that memory has lived on through the years and I still wonder who he was. An angel sent to reassure me? It worked.
Later, I rescued an abandoned kitten in the middle of winter. There was an instant connection right from the start. I had just broken up with someone and as usual I was having a tough time letting go. Twitty walked in at the right moment. He was the ray of sunshine I needed and together we were an unbeatable team. He helped mend that broken heart and the smile was back on my face. Then I met my ex and Twitty had to take a backseat. I don’t think he understood but he took it in stride. Later when I got pregnant, he would lay his head on my growing stomach and purr to the high heavens. When my life took off and I was caught in my day-to-day existence of being a wife and mother, Twitty took that like a champ as well. He passed away several years later and it was one of the hardest things I had to deal with but looking back, I think it was his time to go because I was “flying” and I had no need for him anymore. Guardian angels never stay for long, only as long as they are needed and only until their job on earth is done.
Many years later after my marriage fell apart, another angel walked in. He was tall with green eyes and when we first met there was a definite connection. He walked in like he belonged there and helped to put my broken heart back together again. I’ve spoken about him here many times before and to make a long story short, he lost his life a few years ago. I am pretty certain that he was my guardian angel sent to make me whole again. I learned to laugh, to smile and to enjoy life again in his presence and perhaps even to trust again. Just when I thought, I had it all together, it was time for him to go. I walked the final journey with him and still remember those last words. “Lovely, I’m so so sorry.” I didn’t understand at the time what he was sorry about but now I know. He was sorry about having to leave. Angels never stay for long.
I believe angels walk amongst us and if you’re lucky as I have been, you get to meet them if only for a little while. They leave a lasting impact even when they’re gone but their absence leaves imprints on your heart. As Christmas draws near, I want to thank all my angels for your part in my life, for your guidance, your protection and for all the life lessons and love you have shown me.
Here’s to all of you. Angels from the past, the current and the ones I haven’t met yet. Merry Christmas and may you sing loud and clear this Christmas season. Thank you.
All I can share with you is that I don’t remember much about it. I know that my parents had been trying for a very long time and were about to give up when I came along. Needless to say, I turned their world upside down in more ways than one!
I was the proverbial tomboy. Mom wanted a “lady” in the making but she got the total opposite! I loved playing around in mud and singing with the ducks! Anything the boys could do, I can do better and that was my motto. I kept true to that until I turned 16 and I blossomed and became the Belle of the Ball so to speak. They (the boys) never looked at me the same way again!
I think I was a blessing but I put my parents through a hard time. Those days are done with but a little rebellion still remains!
I received this message from WordPress this morning and it put a great big smile on my face.
Writing is my first love. I started writing when I was 16 and the article made the front cover of a national magazine. I was over the moon. Since then, I have written and published thousands of articles.
It is my go-to to get my feelings down on paper and it helps to slay the stress monster as well. I just love writing about anything that comes to mind but mostly about injustice in today’s world and about life as a whole.
I want to thank all the people here who read and like my articles. It is appreciated. I am getting to know some of you better through your writings and there are some fantastic writers, poets, romantics and the like here. Thank you all.
I took a walk in nature today to clear my mind and somehow came back home with love on my mind. What is it? Is it just a feeling or something more? Don’t ask me why or how I got on this topic but it crossed my mind and here I am ready to see what it’s all about it.
“Love is a set of emotions and behaviors characterized by intimacy, passion, and commitment. It involves care, closeness, protectiveness, attraction, affection and trust.” http://www.verywellmind.com
I decided to look a little deeper and found some quotes that describe love in all its entirety and here are some of my favorites.
“So, I love you because the entire universe conspired to help me find you.” Paulo Coelho
Paulo has a way with words and in the most romantic way. I’m still waiting to see what the universe has conspired for me.
“Love is friendship that has caught fire. It is quiet understanding, mutual confidence, sharing and forgiving. It is loyalty through good and bad times.” Ann Landers
I like the next one a lot. Why? Because I am a romantic at heart and it speaks to my soul. See what I mean?
“Love is when he gives you a piece of your soul, that you never knew was missing.” Torquato Tasso
“I don’t want a perfect person. I just want someone to act silly with, someone who treats me well and loves being with me more than anything.” Unknown
“You don’t love someone for their looks, or their clothes or for their fancy car, but because they sing a song only you can hear.” Oscar Wilde
Oscar said it well, don’t you think? Simply beautiful but I haven’t found him yet. Still looking!
“The real lover is a man who can thrill you by kissing your forehead or smiling into your eyes or just staring into space.” Marilyn Monroe
Who knew Ms. Monroe had it in her. The blonde bombshell went deeper than her looks and I love that quote.
Next is my girl, Carrie Bradshaw. She knows her love material well.
“I am someone who is looking for real love; ridiculous. inconvenient. consuming. can’t-live-without-each other love.”
“I’d like to think that people have more than one soulmate. If you miss one, along comes another. Like cabs.”
I am not too sure about that one. Perhaps they won’t be called soulmates anymore. Just run of the mill types who walk in and out of your life and that might be a more appropriate description.
My favorite of them all is this one below.
“The heart that’s meant to love you will fight for you when you want to give up, pick you up when you’re feeling down, and will give their smile when it’s hard for you to find yours. They will NEVER get strength from seeing you weak, power from seeing you hurt, or joy from seeing you cry. The heart that’s meant to love you wants to see the best of you, not the hurt you! Never forget that.” Trent Shelton
Feeling all loved up? I know I am. Enjoy your day.
It was a night like any other or at least it started out that way. Chachi did his nighttime routine of eating, drinking, using the toilet and cleaning himself. All was calm in this household and I thought I was going to have a quiet and peaceful night. I thought wrong because the guy that wears the pants in this house had other plans!
First, he did the catwalk. Yes, the catwalk where he has this John Wayne stride and the only missing is his holster with the gun in it. I usually find it entertaining but not tonight. It went on and on. He would walk up to me, his back stretched out as he took one long stride after another and once he reached me, he would look me in the eye, rub his face against mine, do a turnaround and head to the other end of the bed. This went on and on and my patience was wearing thin.
Me: Chachi, stop that!
Chachi chuckles or what sounds like it but he wasn’t done yet.
Just as I was about to put him in his bed, he decides it is time for bed and for cuddle time with mommy. He pushes his back up against mine and stretches out for the night. Within minutes he is snoring and I mean SNORING! Cute but just a tad unsettling. I reach over and place a kiss on his head to reassure him that he is safe and he goes quiet.
Great! Time to get some rest. Just as I am dozing off and not three minutes later, Little Chachi decides he has had enough sleep and it’s time to play! He jumps off, goes to his toy basket, picks out the new stuffed bird I got him, the other one that tweets is gone now. At least, he’ll play quietly I thought. Well, I thought wrong. Chachi loves proving me wrong. He gets down on the floor with the poor frightened bird clutched between his paws and goes to town with it. It must be some sort of passive aggressive thing and if that bird had been alive, it wouldn’t have stood a chance against the onslaught. Within minutes, the stuffing was peeking out and he threw it aside as he jumped back on the bed and landed just inches from my face. I don’t know how he does that but he has got that down to a science, missing my face I mean.
ME: Are you ready for bed?
He grunts and plops down pushing his back paws under my back. Again, within minutes he was off in dreamland or wherever cats go in sleep. Half an hour later and having woken me up from sleep with a slight pat of the paws on the back of my head, he sits there staring at me. I swear he was grinning!
You guessed it. It was a very long night to say the least. I am thinking of getting some kind of “calm” spray to get him to settle down. The thing is, the little guy thinks he is king of the castle and he runs the roost and it might well be but I need my beauty sleep even if he doesn’t. He is beautiful enough as he is and did I mention as cute as a button? Well, he is. Now, if I can only get him to settle down and teach him that he’s not the BOSS, all would be well in my world. It will be a painstaking ritual and success might not be in the cards as far as that is concerned because “cuteness” knows it will be a losing battle!
“One of the hardest lessons in life is learning to let go. Whether it’s guilt, anger, love, loss or betrayal, it doesn’t matter, it is hard and that is a fact. Change is never easy. We fight to hold on and we fight to let go.” Unknown
Letting go has always been hard for me. I tend to take things that have happened with or without my permission and I play around with it until it becomes a different scenario from where it started from. Suddenly that little problem becomes all-consuming and my life comes to a halt and my focus is riveted to that one little spot. It’s as if I am churning a cauldron and saying as the witches in Macbeth did, “Double, double toil and trouble; Fire burn and cauldron bubble!” I have trouble saying, it is done. It has happened. I can’t go back and change anything even if I wished I could. So just breathe a sigh of relief and LET IT GO but I am learning.
Something happened yesterday. It was small compared to all the big things out there. Somehow I let it get inside me. I stirred it up and soon it was a major problem BUT only in my mind. As I stood watching the sun go down in a blaze of glory, I realized that I had let a beautiful day go to waste simply because I had been caught in a web of my own making. Things do happen and it is not your fault or mine but it is how we deal with it that differentiates whether we come out on top or get stuck at the bottom. Take a deep breath, feel the weight fly off your shoulders and your feet get a little lighter as you watch it, whatever it is, dissipate into the distance and into nothingness. It is not worth it. LET IT GO.
We hold onto relationships that are not good for us but still we hold on simply for the sake of holding on when you know deep inside that this is not what you want but letting go is not an option. It would hurt too much or you’ll find yourself alone or you’ve invested too much time and energy in it or you make up some story in your head that you can’t live without him or her and it goes on and on. If truth be told, you know that letting go and moving on is the best option because it is not working and you want better. LET IT GO. You’ll be alright.
I love holding onto people, problems and just about anything. Some days I play things over in my mind and say, if only this and if only that. I am learning that playing around with it in my head is only hurting me and it is not going to change things. You can’t change the past and it is over so let it rest. You have bigger and better things to do. LET IT GO. It doesn’t matter anymore. What’s done is done. Be at peace and move on.
“In the end, only three things matter: how much you loved, how gently you lived, and how gracefully you let go of things not meant for you.” Unknown
AND
“Our eyes are placed in front because it is more important to look ahead than to look back.” Unknown
AND
“Overthinking will destroy your mood. Breathe and let go.” @SelfSaid
The last one was for me simply because I overthink everything! So I’m going to breathe and LET IT GO. Not easy but worth a try.
I think I am. The problem is not being able to judge character, it is my need to overlook the signals because I have this innate sense within me to help and that often gets me into trouble. I see it right from the start and my intuition tells me to stay away but still I go in and sometimes with eyes wide open and more often than not I get hurt. However, I am observant more than most because I am a writer and therefore I observe religiously and nitpick details and even though I am good at judging character from the get go, I choose not to pay attention and that is my BIG problem.
As to your question of whether I am a good judge of character? The answer is, yes and no.
Looking for the needle in a haystack is defined as “something that is almost impossible to find because it is hidden among so many other things,” or it could mean that you are very unlikely indeed to find it.
Someone once said to me that I choose to be alone. If I didn’t want to be alone, I would already be in a relationship. I disagree with this assumption. Choosing a partner needs to be a well-thought out, well-planned affair. Grabbing any guy who comes along is easy but that one elusive person, the one who fits the mold and the one who offers long-term is really hard to find. The needle in the haystack is elusive, impossible to find and at times the end goal is disappointing and yet I keep looking. Am I trying too hard? It has been said that when you go looking for something, you never find it but when you stop looking, there it is right before your eyes.
“If you hunt for a needle in a haystack you don’t find it. If you don’t give a darn whether you ever see the needle or not – it runs into you the first time you lean against the stack.” P. G. Wodehouse
Perhaps there is some truth to this quote but alas Mr. Wodehouse, my problem is that I keep missing the haystack altogether! I want to zero in on that haystack where the needle is hidden but each haystack I find seems to be the wrong one and I walk past without exploring further. Picky?
DEFINITELY! That’s why they call me complicated.
I have this “perfect guy” image etched in my mind and that right there is the problem. He is in my mind and the others don’t measure up. At this rate, I don’t think I’m ever going to find him no matter how many frogs I kiss not that I’ve kissed that many. I walk off before the kiss happens and look towards the distance for the next Prince Charming to come riding in on his white horse but it never fails, they are missing one thing or another and sometimes they ride in with no horse at all!
How do you find that needle in the haystack?
The answer –
“the way you find an actual needle in an actual haystack – is to burn the haystack to the ground. What you’ll be left with is the needle, because metal doesn’t burn.” Jennie Young
Hmm…. if that fails,
“Needle in the haystack’s easy – just bring a magnet.” Keith DeCandido
Fine and good and even funny to an extent but that guy living rent-free in my head needs to materialize in front of me so that we can ride off into the sunset together. Please universe, if you are listening make it happen before the next frog rolls around with his lips puckered for that all elusive kiss!
AND
Santa, if you’re listening, I am ready! If it’s going to take a little while longer that is alright too. Just gives me time to work on myself and to be ready when the frog, no, I mean “the guy” shows up.
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