Happy Mother's Day to all you "Mothers" out there!

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How Lucky Am I? For Maria on her 50th Birthday

Maria,

You were a big part of my life for over 20 years.
How lucky am I?

I have memories and stories that begin with, "Remember when Maria...?"
How lucky am I?

You cooked for me. You made me a birthday cake. You've babysat for both my daughters. You lost your ass to me in poker.
How lucky am I?

I know what it was like to laugh with you, and I can still hear your laughter.
How lucky am I?

I know what it was like to cry with you.
How lucky am I?

I share wonderful, life-time friends with you, and we feel you with us every time we are together.
How lucky am I?

I made new, wonderful, life-time friends through you, even after you left.
How lucky am I?

I know the precious space you filled while you were here, and the void that exists now that you are gone, a void that only serves to highlight the love, compassion-without-judgment, the caring...the true friend that you are.
How lucky am I?

I am able to grieve for you, to miss you, to wish that you were still here with us in this time and space. Then I see around me those unable to grieve because they didn't know you.

They didn't know you.
I did.

How lucky am I?
.

Happy 50th Birthday, Maria
May 6, 1964 - October 6, 2013

I am hugging all of us right now. 

40-something Breck Girl is One Year Old!

It’s been a year….

I’ve been a blogger for one year now. Yay, me! (Third time’s the charm, I guess!) I have not been blogging as much as I would have liked, but I have more than 52—that’s at least one for each week of the year!

And what a year it has been! Actually, these past two years have been somewhat defining for me. I have experienced more…EVERYTHING in the past two years than all of my other years combined. Time—and Timing—is a funny thing. The idea of Time has been playing around in my head a lot, for many reasons. I lost time—Earth Time—with 3 very special people when they moved on (and I miss you all dearly <3). I’ve ‘revisited’ Time with three people from my childhood, with three different …storylines? ...themes? ...results? ...whatever.

Note to self: Hmm… all these 3s…looks like I have one more year of “extra special” significance coming up…

Revisiting Time with people is odd. Have you ever caught up with a person you hadn’t seen in a very long time and realize how many near-misses you had where your paths almost crossed? Or wonder what would’ve happened if you never lost touch? How your life might have been different? Timing. I guess there’s a reason for it. And I guess that if it works out, there’s no need to know why, right?

The tide has been turning especially fast for me in the past six months, and I can feel more is coming. There has been something wonderful come out of everything that has not been so wonderful. I have to admit to sometimes struggling with that; I don’t like feeling like I have ‘gained’ something out of what may have not been good for someone else. Even this blog started at a dark time. But then I have to look at a bigger picture, and realize that there is an intricate web of this organized chaos around me and I play a part in it as much as everyone else does… and sometimes you’re the lead—and sometimes you are the first girl that runs away and twists her ankle and falls and …well, you know what always happens to her.

What I do know is that I’m finally really settling in to being ‘me’, and for nobody else but me. And whether or not other people think that I’m being selfish…well, first of all I have a problem with the whole connotation behind that word. I think people mistake it for ‘greedy’ or some other word of that ilk. (Yes, I plan on writing about that later!) Whatever anyone else thinks…is really none of my business. And I’ve found that by being truer to me, I am truer to everyone else, and my being happier with myself reflects on all that’s around me. Selfish is a good thing, when directed properly! So there. J

Anyhow, I now have things on my mental ‘to do’ list that I can actually start to check off: I am a Blogger (for real), I am a paid writer (first step to the dream). My dreams and “what I wanted to do when I grew up (‘growing up’ is relative)” are now a focus for me, and I’m seeing signs that I’m beginning to do one or two things right. I still have a long way to go, and I know it, but I feel very good about it all. Not everything is perfect—like I said, I still have a long way to go. (But then again, in this organized chaos, how do I know it’s not perfect?) But even with knowing that there will still be some struggle, or that things may not be my definition of ideal, I still have more than I thought was possible—scratch that, I have more than I knew was possible. There’s a difference. I believe everything is possible; but I know that I don’t know what everything is.

All that being said, I guess all I have left to say is…

THANK YOU.

Thank you to every single person in my life.

Thank you to the Powers That Be that allowed me to be aware of how lucky I am.

Thank you to the wonderful people I have around me.

Thank you to the guy that cut me off in traffic.

Thank you to my rose-colored glasses. I was recently reminded that it is a much prettier color, anyway.

Thank you to those of you who read my blogs, then scratch their heads and wonder why afterwards.

Thank you to my daughter’s cat, who feels the need to piss on everything.

Thank you to my Facebook acquaintances who acknowledge my presence with a ‘like’ and those that humor me not realizing they are only encouraging me.

Thank you to the word “Fuck”, because I still love it.

Thank you to those that love me, or even like me a little, or not at all.

Thank you, Coffee.

Thank you to the Universe for everything, whether I understand it or not. (And I mean it. Everything.)

Thank you.

WORD PLAY LOVE. (See what I did there?) :)

Too Good To Be True?

Is there really such a thing as being "too good to be true"? We've all experienced the concept one way or another. Either we've imagined fantastical experiences like winning billions of dollars in the lottery, or surpassing Marilyn Monroe's icon status. We discount these flights of fancy as 'too good to be true' because we have no belief in the possibility of these events ever coming to be. More closer to home, in our "real-er" lives, we've had experiences of situations like a surprise job opportunity, a new relationship, or a new situation where it seemed, however momentarily, that the stars have aligned in our favor. For once. With the adage, "If it seems to good to be true, it usually is." ringing in our ears, along with our faith in that sentiment, we may actually pass up and turn our backs to those opportunities of new life situations. It never would have worked out because it was too good to be true.

But what if there was no such possibility of anything being too good to be true? If our thoughts really have any part in what goes around us, then that idea of something being too good to be true essentially becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy. We judge the new event to be 'too good to be true' and it becomes so. What if there were no such thing as anything being 'too good'? Good is a relative term and it depends on perspective. What may be considered good by one person may not be good for another. Not only that, good is only noticeable because of the existence of that which we perceive to be bad. Imagine the different turns our lives may have taken if we accepted new situations or new experiences without that judgment of being 'too good'. And what if by not condemning them as unreal they really did evolve into what we almost glimpsed as a potential reality?

What if, in fact, the only reason we condemned something as being too good to be true is because of fear? That maybe, no matter how open we perceive our minds to be, in our efforts to protect ourselves from being hurt or disappointed (which is what all of the reasons basically boil down to) we have actually closed a part of our minds off to the ability to believe in what is possible?

It's All Good

Hold on
Hold back
Be still
Breathe
There's no need to rush
Be patient
Enjoy the now
The new possibilities you see
The happiness that appears within reach
The world that seems to be opening up to you
Have always been there
(you just never noticed)
And it will always be there
There's no need to look ahead
to worry, to guess
enjoy what's right now
this moment.
Hold on
Hold back your impatience
Be still
Breathe
Enjoy the ride
It's all good

TiaraMeSue

Ok. I kind of have a thing for wearing things on my head:

  Sometimes on my face:

But mostly, on my head:

And ESPECIALLY a tiara:

(Ooooohh! Spaaahkley!!)

A lot of times people look at me like I’m ridiculous. They probably think that at 46 I should’ve grown up by now. To them I say:

PBLGGHT!

and:

And:

Anyway, it started the way it always starts for any kid, in school. The teachers made crowns and hats out of paper to set you apart on your birthday (the paper dunce cap was also a means of setting you apart), and make you feel special. How many of us girls got tiaras in a dress-up set that we wore even when we weren't dressing up? Then it was the Burger King crowns. Thankfully, I grew out of that when I was about 22. It is well-documented that I wear tiaras on my birthday (birthday). I celebrate them all. But to be honest, it did start out somewhat defiantly, in a kind of “I’m worth it” thing. I certainly wasn't feeling it when I decided I was going to make a big deal out of the birthdays (and it was a conscious decision). I do now. I am worth it. It is now no longer just about reflection and kissing the previous year goodbye while fervently hoping for a better future. I DO celebrate me, and I do feel so much better about it.

Thanks to Facebook and the fact that I post a little here and there, the subject of my birthday tiaras has come up. It’s even grown; people now give me tiaras as gifts (I have a nice little collection going). This means I have tiaras to wear for any occasion: birthdays, holidays, International Tiara Day (yes, there is one: International Tiara Day), Sundays, Mondays, Tuesdays, Wednesdays, Thursdays, Fridays, Saturdays, or any day I just want to feel special. People always treat you ‘special’ when you wear a crown.

We never seem to do enough to make ourselves feel special anymore, it seems. (Or, most of us don’t. Maybe it’s just me.) And when we try to do something special, it usually ends up being something big, (because we haven’t ‘treated ourselves’ in a long time) which means we do it very infrequently. I’m not suggesting everyone go out and start wearing tiaras—that would take attention away from me! But do something, no matter how small it seems. Something you can do as often as you need a pick-me-up. Fun nail polish (my second choice), wearing a special piece of jewelry (even if it doesn't match your outfit), anything that you appreciate as special, that you designate just for you. It doesn't even have to be something that anyone else would recognize as special; as long as you know it’s for you, it’s special. Do it for you. Treat yourself. Treat yourself special. Because you are.

(I was kidding, though, about y’all not going out in tiaras! If that’s what you want then by all means, wear them!—I like seeing them, too! So spaahkley!)

*I have to thank Rob for coming up with the title here. One would think that since I was Italian something like this would've eventually come to me; but I'm a piss-poor Italian - I hate pastry!