Travel Blog Coming (Finally)

I know that I have not been posting like I should. I have let life get in the way of what I love to do. Ironically, life is the subject of my blogs. Believe me, the material is there. It's just a matter of making the time to get all these thoughts and questions and...crazy...down on paper.

So maybe a change of subject matter will refuel my desire write. So, after 14 years of traveling, I think it is finally times to put these adventures on paper. So, in the coming weeks, I will be developing a separate travel blog on this site. It will take a little while to get it together but, in the meantime, feel free to revisit some of my previous blogs.

Here's to a new adventure :)

Love Lessons

With every new relationship, I have learned more and more about what I am looking for in a man. The concepts and beliefs held at 18 have slowly developed into something more meaningful and distinct. With each failed relationship, another lesson is learned. And with it, my immature concept with love is sculpted into the true image of what love means to me. I would much rather be a person that loves honestly and with renewed hope with each person than to hold back to protect myself. I feel that if you put forth half-hearted effort, you will get half-hearted results. And though heartbreak is inevitable, it’s the lessons learned from each relationship that prove to be worth the post-breakup pain. And in the end, I always know that I will survive and try once again.

These are some of the lessons I will never forget in my journey:

• Love should not be based on how someone can improve your status. Love should not be a business gain only. Superficial reasons lead to superficial feelings. Love me for believing that I will be a devoted wife and a loving mother. Love me because you know I will never abandon you in your time of need. Love me for who I am right now and what you feel I am capable of.

• Love should not hurt all the time.  It shouldn't leave you in despair or sadness. It should uplift, inspire, and encourage. Never love out of pride and do not allow pride to keep you in bad situations. There is someone better for you that won't leave you with emotional scars and fears for the future.

• Don't love someone because they make you happy. What I mean is don't rely on your love for someone to sustain your daily happiness. You should be able to walk to and away from someone with your joy. Relying on their presence for your light will lead to a darkness that is hard to recover from once they leave. Add your personal happiness and light to someone else's life to find real love.

• Loving someone should not be hard work. It should not be a task you have to make yourself do. Love shouldn't be a struggle. Yes, you face struggles in love but the initial development should not be a battle. That is when it becomes one-sided and unbalanced. One person shouldn't put forth all the effort. Love is a balanced scale. Give and take on both sides. If someone truly cares about you, they will let their feelings be known.

• Don't love someone for the way they make you feel. Love shouldn't be your means for high self-esteem. That's not its purpose. Honesty, love will help you grow and mature. It will envelopes that greatness in you and helps it to blossom. Don't depend on someone to make you feel better about yourself. That is just another form of selfish love.

• Don’t try to love until you are ready. Understandably, you can’t control who you might have feelings for. However, if you are going through a major life change, dealing with drama and issues, or trying to find yourself, keep to yourself. Find yourself and take care of your home first. Get comfortable and secure in yourself before you try to bring someone else into your life.

• Revisiting an old love can be tricky. You are never quite sure if the feelings you had in the past will translate into the present. Sometimes you were only meant to love that person in the past. You’ve learned from the relationship and you move on. Some people are lucky enough to rekindle their old feelings and start fresh. But they find this success because they accept them for they were before and who they have become. Make sure to your love matures beyond your past. Love in reality, not in memory. 

Like I said, these are my lessons. They may not apply to you and your situations. I am always learning, always re-shaping what I want versus what I need. And that has truly been the hardest lesson to accept, learn and put into practice.

My Life Needs A Reboot

There has been a negative change of events lately. I have slowed watched myself drift into an uncaring,lackadaisical existence. Previously,I was focused on many changes in life but something shifted. The focus has become less laser and more lazy. I am not focused at work or home life. I am just meandering through my every day with no real results. Productivity has dropped and motivation has come to a halt. It’s like someone with bad eyesight removing their corrective eyewear and seeing nothing but blurred lines and objects.

Myopic living.

It is the strangest feeling when you recognize that you are not doing the right thing but do nothing to change. I can cheer others on all day long. Hold them accountable for their actions and tasks but lapse ion myself. I am my own laziest fan. Ha!

I can’t live like this. I won’t move forward. I will become stagnant in a life that I don’t want to have but care so little to change. I have faced problems like this before and have had temporary success and then lapse back into my sloth-like behavior. One of my biggest obstacles is my inability to follow through. I can start a project or idea with overflowing passion and,soon after,it fizzles out. It dissipates. Just evaporates. Then I move on to the next great idea. It’s frustrating. Who knows how many wonderful ideas I could have completed with some follow through?

Come on. This is me. At least two of them would have been successes. Just saying…

So how do I change this lifelong behavior? How do I restart now that I have recognized this problem?What changes can be made to hold myself accountable for everyday accomplishments and completed tasks?

Still working that part out.

To be continued…

Racing to Happiness

There are some obstacles in life that I have the hardest time trying to make sense of. You go through some form of pain or difficulty and you get through it, but the end results seem pointless. Or, on the other hand, you go through a state of happiness and content just to have it end just as soon as it began? And I guess I spend too much time trying to string logic through these “random” events and I can never get them to connect. They never form some neatly packaged “Moral of the Story” scenario. Just a bunch of random clusters of simple happiness or complex issues scattered throughout our lives. Now I know looking forward is the best course of action but you can’t help but ponder on these events.

Could I please experience a life lesson that doesn’t involve my heart or my sanity? Can’t I learn from something indirect for once? Must I stay in this continuous loop of re-building and repairing from yet another stumble in life? Come on! I have enough emotional scrapes, bruises, and scars for now. Let’s try a nice stretch of peace and serenity for a change. Simplicity. Quiet. No tears or frustration or starting over.

It’s like starting the same race over and over again. The first time, you fail because you don’t know what you are doing. But you keep trying. You learn more about the track, what your weaknesses are, where you get your second wind, etc… But sometimes, it feels like you are not going to reach that finish line. You will just keep falling and starting over. Even with a stand full of fans (aka family and friends) cheering you on, it can get to you after I while. I’m tired, my legs hurt, and I’m bleeding from falling. Can I please sit this one out?

Sigh.

And this is where faith comes in. Faith is that conditioning, the training, the extra workouts, anything that prepares you for the race. Knowing you are doing all you can to prepare for these failed races in life. Knowing that you will get to the end of the race successfully. Sometimes when you fall enough times, you start to lost faith in your abilities. It happens. Yes, you have overcome a lot of obstacles, a lot of hurdles if you will, but then that track looks so long. Never-ending. Starting over again gets to be too much. And the thing is I know that no matter what I go through, I will make it through, I will be ok. I already know I will recover because I have done it so many times before.

As I am writing this, I think I realize I need to extend my faith beyond myself. I need to have faith in the outcome of situations and experiences. I learn that though I hurt right now, something better is coming. I have to learn to have more faith in the positive future beyond the finish line.

I guess I have some more training to do.

Death to Good Luck Charlene

If you don’t know by now, I like to reference pop culture in my blogs. This one combines my tweak to the titles for the movies Death to Smoochy plus Good Luck Chuck. Seeing Death to Smoochy will not improve your comprehension of this blog so…no research required. However, I am writing this assuming that most of you have seen the movie Good Luck Chuck. Sorry if you haven’t. It is amusing. To summarize the main plot, it is about a guy that women seek out to have sex with because after they do, the next man that is their future husband.

Now, before you make the connection, no, that is not the case with me. Nasty, lol.

I am not magical and cannot help you find your future soul mate.  This has more to do with a similar, and unhealthy, line of thinking that after someone has been with you, they find the person they are supposed to be with. And it doesn’t matter on what level, just some level beyond a platonic friendship. As if you were their stepping stone to someone better. You’d be surprised how many people have this line of thinking. I used to somewhat. The men I had been with found happiness after me, after we broke up.

Feel free to openly laugh at me at this point.

Ok, that’s enough, punk. Lol.

That is simply not the case. No one has a magical…uh…anything that propels someone to the arms of their true love. And there is no reason for you to think this way. It took a very amazing experience with someone very special to wake me up from this self-destructive thinking. It really is, people. Stop TNT-ing yourself.

The reason they found someone else is because they learned from their mistakes and moved on. They grew from whatever went wrong with your relationship, grew as a person and grew up. They didn’t spend endless hours agonizing over what went wrong and longing for the past. Not to dismiss your significance in their life but, clearly, they moved on. And many of us face this problem of lamenting over lost loves. Or, worse, trying to dissect every aspect of that failed relationship to find the cause of death. Not worth the time (I have done that too). 

Growth is the only way you can move on. Seriously. Sometimes it is hard because all you can do is see the pain or anger from the last relationship. Maybe you have given up on ever finding someone and think there is no one out there for you. You can’t live like that. You will not find a happy future if you live today with pain of your past. I have tried and failed time and time again. You are not cursed to be single for the rest of your life. Come on, even you don’t believe that to be true. And if you do, do better.

It is an amazing experience when you wake up and realize that the person in all of this that needs to change is you. Ha ha, it’s not them, it’s YOU!

Ok, that even made me laugh.

But that is a great thing. Take this time to reflect on your life and where you stand. Are you happy? Are you capable of making yourself happy? If not, time for some changes. Take time out of the dating scene (or cut buddy scene) and make some life changes. Time alone doesn’t have to be a lonesome time. Yes, long nights are in your future but that doesn’t mean this time won’t be meaningful and worth it.

And I am not speaking to you from the Land of the Shiny, Happy People. I am still working on that. I am speaking to you from Just Woke Up (With Some Sleep Still in the Corner of My Eye) Land. I just learned this lesson and I am at the start of my journey. Just thought I would share my discovery with you.

So if you still aren’t convinced, well, continue on your Good Luck state of mind and enjoy loneliness (just saying). But if you ready to make that change for happiness, assassinate your Charlie or Charlene. Ok, ok,  if assassinate is too violent of an image  (stop being so sensitive people…), just push him or her out of your way.

Bottom line: Do better, be better. 

An Ode to Milton Bradley (and Hasbro)...Lol

**I may add more to this but I had to put this up. I am in a silly mood. Sorry if this sucks, lol.**

If you main OPERATION
Is to get into my CANDYLAND,
Then believe me,
It's a TRIVIAL PURSUIT
SORRY boo, get a CLUE.
Cause in THE GAME OF LIFE
The man that has a MONOPOLY
Of my heart
Is my idea of PERFECTION.
He'll be the one to
BOGGLE my mind and SCRABBLE my senses.
I'd gladly get caught in his MOUSETRAP
Or even let his TWISTER of love
Completely sink my BATTLESHIP.
In love, you have to take that RISK
to CONNECT 4-ever to the one that
Excites you like those CHUTES AND LADDERS
Days of childhood.
In your search for your UNO
It's always worth the TROUBLE.

My Dream Deterred - Inspired by "A Dream Deferred" by Langston Hughes

**Hughes' poem is at the bottom of this blog**


My Dream Deterred


Langston asked the question that plagues my mind today
What happens to a dream deferred?
In his mind, it dries or festers, sugars over, or explodes
In my heart it collects dust and grows old
My dreams run deep, plant roots in my soul
Connects my heart to mind and cradles my goals
But at present, they reside in a small box in a corner
And like a curious child on her birthday
I shake the box, remembering its contents.
I try to pull open one corner to refresh my mind
But reality slaps my hands away
Sadly, I realize my true potential must stay enclosed
While zombieing through a plateaued 9 -5
Little hope for a successful climb to the top
I miss my dreams like a high school love
I yearn for it, reach for it, but I fall short.
My unfulfilled potential grips my heart and slows its beats
It steals the air from my lungs and makes me weak
I weep
I pine
I need this dream to be mine
Because my life's incomplete without the truth of my greatness
So I continue to sneak peaks, when reality has its back turned
I spend my nights wrapped around my box of hopes
Of happiness and serenity
Tugging at the tight ribbon of potential
Til that one day when I too can write of dreams
And to Langston's poem I can reply:
What happens to a dream fulfilled?
Does it swell like the jubilant heart of a child?
Or does it fill up like joyous tears
Then run?
Does it perfume like new life in spring?
Or effervesce and trickle down
Like your love's saccharine kisses?
Or it rises light as a feather into the heavens
Then explodes?

____________________________________________
A Dream Deferred by Langston Hughes
 
What happens to a dream deferred?


Does it dry up
like a raisin in the sun?

Or fester like a sore--
And then run?
Does it stink like rotten meat?

Or crust and sugar over--
like a syrupy sweet?

Maybe it just sags
like a heavy load.

Or does it explode?