MELISSA ETHERIDGE GENTLY WE ROW WITH LYRICS

I love my mother.
That's no revelation.

Most of us do love our mothers.

My mother encompasses a gentleness, like few women I know. (GENTILITY.)
You can see it in her eyes, hear it in her voice
and feel it in the touch from her hand.
She gave that to me - the gentleness -
and that gentleness made me strong.
I feel blessed to have that gentleness and that strength - (STRENGTH.)
it's a great combination to possess in life -
especially at this moment on our earth.

She never instilled fear in me - but respect (RESPECT.)
she done that by offering an example
and giving me the freedom (FREEDOM.)
to make choices that she knew was wrong, choices she knew would hurt me.
She done that by allowing me to see tender hurts. (COMPASSION.)
She done that by being truthful about life. (HONESTY.)

She advised, but didn't tell.
She suggested, but didn't make.
She watched my mistakes, and never judged.
instead offering encouragement
- with that gentleness and a continual presence of love and support.

She has allowed me to be who I want to be.
Not who she wanted me to be.
She didn't impose her childhood
dreams onto my life.
She didn't try to make her truths
my truths.
She didn't define happiness for me,
but wishes my definition to be what I want it to be.

She can read my hurt
in a phone conversation
and can comfort me in the same.
She gives me hope
when she smiles -
She makes me feel beautiful and good.

The greatest gift she gave me
is that
of allowing me to be me.
Its a great blessing to be able to go through life and
feel completely comfortable in who you are.
In being able to accept and admit your mistakes
and in being able to love others fully through theirs.

She will fight fiercely for me.
She will love me until she exhales her last breath
and she embodies a mothers' beauty
God intended a mother to possess.

For every one thing she may have done wrong,

shes done a hundred things right. And my brother and I are two of them.

I love you momma.

Changes - David Bowie

Life is aleatoric. An alteration of one phase into another, cluttered with variables, impacted by our individual experiences. And this is good.

No, really, it is.

My children and I have recently made a lot of changes. Home, schools, friends, personal routines and even thoughts and ideas. I’ve been surprised at the daily modifications we’ve successfully made as a family - and individually - to continue to thrive, and not lose “our essence”.

In advising my children to stay centered and focused on the positive, I find I must remind myself to do the same. It’s a constant, conscious effort. I fail on a daily basis, but I do realize the importance of recognizing my failure, remaining unwavering in my goal and keeping blinders on to the distractions around me. One moment at time.

It’s not easy…and as the cliché’ goes… nothing worthwhile is. However, keeping change in perspective and being open to those moments that challenge us is what fosters our growth as an individual, as a community , as a nation and as a world.

“Change is inevitable” and in order to evolve through change – we don’t just have to learn to accept it,

we must learn to welcome it. With arms wide open.

…I said that time may change me
But I can't trace time ~David Bowie

Films I Have Loved

Pretty in Pink

*sigh* DUCKIE. period.

Goodfellas

Yes. You're funny, and in the way you'd shoot me for saying.

Donnie Darko

Dude, I HATE the Easter Bunny now!

The Godfather

What IS a cannoli?

Gone With the Wind

I wanted a Mammy

The Breakfast Club

I loved the nerd til he talked about that damn elephant lamp.

Seven Brides for Seven Brothers

SEVEN! seven?

Seven.

Lust. Gluttony. Pride.

Back to the Future.

Daddy issues? I thought the Professor was hotter than Michael J Fox. Perhaps it was his intellect?

Casino

Do people REALLY ask for an amount money by saying "This much" with your thumb and forefinger?

A Clockwork Orange

Where can I get a mask like that?

Risky Business

Thighs like my boyfriend. 'nuff said.

A Few Good Men

In Jack Do I Trust.

The Wizard of Oz

Life imitates art. Always falling for "straw men".... you know...If he only had a ....(things are a changin;!)

Eat, Pray. Love

The beginning - and continuous - transformation of moi.

The Hangover

I don't wan't to go to Vegas! I don't want to go to Vegas.

Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas

The best reason to NOT do drugs

Leaving Las Vegas

Why NOT to become an alcoholic

Natasha Bedingfield - Soulmate (Live from Abbey Road)

Soul Mate

One of my favorite excerpts from the book “Eat, Pray, Love” by Elizabeth Gilbert is when Richard explains what a soul mate is to Liz as she sits crying and sates,“I seriously believed that David was my soul mate”

The reply:

“He probably was. Your problem is you don’t understand what that word means. People think a soul mate is your perfect fit, that’s what everyone wants. But a true soul mate is a mirror, the person who shows you everything that’s holding you back, the person who brings you to your own attention so you can change your life. A true soul mate is probably the most important person you’ll ever meet, because they tear down your walls and they smack you awake. But to live with a soul mate forever? Nah. Too painful. Soul mates, they come into your life just to reveal another layer of yourself to you and they leave. And thank God for it. Your problem is, you just can’t let this go. It’s over, Groceries. Daivd’s purpose was to shake you awake, drive you out of that marriage that you needed to leave, tear apart your ego a little bit, show you your obstacles and addictions, break your heart open so new light could get in, make you SO desperate and out of control you HAD to transform your life, then introduce you to your spiritual master and beat it. That was his job, and he did great, but now its over .”

The first time I read this passage I had to keep going back. And I have gone back to it, probably twenty times since. I read it out loud, the way I thought Richard would have said the shit to me. It was such a raw, brutal truth, and I thank Elizabeth Gilbert for it every time I read it. I had to keep going back because my eyes were filled with tears – I couldn’t see the type on the pages of the book, and my breathing was heavy and laborious because I couldn’t breathe though my nose from he sobbing. I kept losing my place in the passage and had to start again. But that was OKAY. I wanted to get this. I NEEDED to get this. For as much as I thought he was my soul mate,, I needed to understand that he was not.. I, like Elizabeth, believed a soul mate to be something more, something different, the other half of me, the person who completed me. But Richards defining of a soul mate fit the men in my life. They all served a purpose and I hope I served a purpose for them. His definition rang more true than any other explanation of a soul mate I had read.

I haven’t changed as a person or as a woman. It’s just that now I am beginning to understand and love myself. That’s not an easy thing to do, and it sure as hell isn’t an easy thing to admit - that at one time you didn’t love yourself,

and to acknowledge the things you’ve done

and said because of that?

That at one time

I couldn’t have possibly felt complete

without someone else.

I’m not like that any longer.

It doesn’t mean that I want to be alone,

but it means that I don’t feel the need

to have someone beside me –

just to have someone beside me.

I want someone there.

I think someone deserves to have the depth of love

I am able to give.

Do I want a soul mate?

No.

I want love.

I want vulnerability.

I want dialogue

And companionship.

Shared thought

And Quiet reciprocation.

Affinity.

And Passion – intellectual & physical.

No, I don’t want a Soul Mate.

I want

The partner.

The lover.

The Companion

Who’ll continue growing with me.

Someone who recognizes their imperfections

And can forgive mine.

Who isn’t afraid to let me see

and know them completely.

Someone that trusts my love is strong.

Someone that feels how the strength of my love trusts.

I know my layers.

I’ve seen them peeled back and fully exposed

from pain and happiness,

love and sorrow,

loss and gain.

From one continual bad circumstance into another,

My own terrible choices and

a little bit of dumb luck.

I know who and what I am.

Doesn’t mean I am going to stop growing.

I am not perfect.

Hell, I don’t think I would even want to be.

What fun is there in perfection?

I am not looking for perfection.

Thank you to my soul mates, (as in Richard’s definition) –

Thank you for the reflection.

For showing me what held me back.

For bringing me to attention so I could change,

For tearing down my walls

& smacking me awake.

For breaking my heart so new light could enter.

For making me desperate & out of control.

For revealing another layer of myself to me

& then leaving.

You’ve helped build the Goddess I have become.

Thank you.

Healing that transcends Beyond Time (Ambient mix)

Loss of a LIFE

Today I learned that my cousin lost her father. Last week a childhood friend lost his mother very unexpectedly. Almost seven years ago I lost my own father to kidney cancer. An expected loss is no less painful than an unexpected one. And even though death is inevitable and we all know it will happen to those we love and to us, the grieving must still take place.

This morning when I contacted my cousin to give my condolences, I experienced that same awkwardness we all experience upon hearing about the loss of a life of someone we love. I didn't know what to say - words seem so shallow and unmoving. They just aren't able to convey an empathetic understanding of what it will mean to my cousin, me not having lived her experience with her father, will never understand the full impact of the loss she is today experiencing. I only hoped she could feel my hearts love enveloping her pain and comforting her in the only way I could being more than 200 hundred miles away, and that is with thoughtful prayer and love sent to her with my mind and heart.

As I thought about her father and the man he was (I should have blogged about him so I could have written about the man he IS, now its too late for that) my own father came to mind. I thought about and how she and I, each being a part of them, will always have them with us in some sense. She had said to me that her heart is broken and she is in shock. Both of which I knew and experienced.

I said to her I knew this, and that he was such a good father and grandfather and husband. He had a beautiful, quiet, reserved spirit about him and he was a very good Godly man. I expressed to her that one of the comforts me for came in moments after my fathers death when I would wish that he were still alive to so they could have met him. I would find myself saying to new people in my life "I wish you could have met my father, he was so wonderful". And in saying that to others I began to understand the depth I had been blessed to not just have known him but to have given the awesome opportunity to have been HIS daughter. The sadness of his loss never goes away but time allows the pain time to release into more - maybe appreciation, maybe understanding, but its no longer just pain. I told her that I know my dad is still with me in so many ways because I, Yvonne, partially defined who he was. My rebel spirit, my outspoken persona, my wit and sarcasm, my tenderness - all inherited from my father. I am my fathers daughter. And she is his.

I told her to allow her heart to be broken. Let the love they had heal that.

I told her to miss him, but to tell him she misses him.

I told her to be in chock, but know it will pass with acceptance.

and then I told I loved her. Those were probably all the words she really needed to hear.

You can go home again!

You Can’t Go Home Again….Really?

As rush-hour transitions into Friday evening and most of us Cincinnatians commute to our homes, gratefully submerge ourselves full-fledged into the weekend, my commute “home” will take on new meaning. It will consist of more than 576 miles of concrete and rebar, meandering through the Great Smoky Mountains, into Cherokee, North Carolina and ending in Covington, GA., my childhood home.

Yeah, I like the scenic route.

I am going back to visit high school friends, neighborhood shopkeepers, an elementary school bus driver and the week-old grave of a mother whose children I watched every Friday night for years. All of whom I became reacquainted with, after more than twenty years, on Facebook.

I want to drive the red dirt road to “our” five acres of GA Pine and lakefront property. I want to see the “House That Built Me” (thanks Miranda Lambert), walk the trails where I drove my go-cart and mini-bike, and stand on the dock where I caught catfish with my brother and my brood of boys (I was the only girl in a circle of five friends). Oh, and eat a Sunday meal at Henderson’s, where they’ll serve up aforementioned catfish, hush puppies and coleslaw like no other! And sweet tea…can’t forget the sweet tea.

As I reflect upon the people, places and events that molded me into the person I am continually becoming, I am grateful for my experiences and the lessons I have been able to draw from because of them. I learned perseverance and diligence from my best childhood friend’s family, headed by a single mom – like me - with four kids, working her way through nursing school at night, who still allowed me to go to Braves baseball games, college theatre and sleep in her king sized bed with all the kids, cooking me grits and bacon every Saturday morning. I learned how to love and accept those “different” than me, after witnessing one Clan Rally in the town square. I learned the importance of independence and responsibility by taking care of my brother. I learned how to swim, recognize poisonous snakes and endure hour-long bus rides in the GA heat. I learned the true meaning of Friday Night Lights, that a one-armed man can makes the best pot of Brunswick Stew and that no one can take me away from me. If I don’t allow it.

Sometimes I wonder where I would have been in life had I not left Covington. Who would be my children? Would I even have any? Would I have married my high school sweetheart? Would we have divorced by now? Would I be less progressive? Would I be more narrow-minded? Would I be wishing I had left home in search of something “greater”? Would I have found it?

Thomas Wolf’s George Webber stated “"You can't go back home to your family, back home to your childhood ... back home to a young man's dreams of glory and of fame ... back home to places in the country, back home to the old forms and systems of things which once seemed everlasting but which are changing all the time — back home to the escapes of Time and Memory." I disagree with Mr. Webber. His “can’t” indicates a reason to not even try. I think we CAN go home again. I think we SHOULD, lest we not forget ourselves and stop giving gratitude from where we came.

So, go home again. I have.

Actually, come to think of it, home’s a place I never left.

I cannot hold back

Having this blog
had become my outlet
a place
to freely write about
my experiences
my thoughts
my fears
my feelings....about my experiences

it was very liberating to me
There is something about tapping it out on a keyboard and the musciality of the words that my mind is presenting on the screen, that flows without regard or worry as to what anyone would think of feel about MY thoughts and feelings.

It was enlightening to go back and read how I was feeling at a particular time
about a particular situation and see how my ideas or views had changed because of what I had written when I submerged in the moment I was experiencing those feelings.

then I told people about my blog. i "shared" it on Facebook.

and then my knowledge
that people I knew
were reading my innermost thoughts

made me become apprehensive in my writing


and that is not what I want to happen

I cant be afraid of my thoughts, my ideas
or more importantly my feelings about anything I may write

I cant care to be judged for being who i am and feeling how i feel.

I'm so torn between being honest with myself and writing what I feel
and holding back.

I dont want to hold back.
It's NOT who I am, and WHY am I holding back?

I try to rationalize why I am holding back. Right now I don't know.
Maybe I do but I don't want to share it yet.

Maybe working through some more blogs with progressively "get me there".

I AM feeling Something. I KNOW what it is.

I just cant bring myself to write it
or think it
and it really pisses me off that I am even fighting myself to feel it.

Don't hold back.

I've found myself

I wish I had thought to blog years ago.
or at the very least written a diary.
Consistently. not just spurts of emotion here and there.
How many times have I been so sure of where I am going?
More than I care to admit - makes me seem so wavering and unsure - but I'm not.
Not wavering and not unsure.
It's just that now I realize my worth.
It's just that now I have the confidence to demand no less.
It's just that now I can project outwardly everything I feel all that I am inside.
All that I have always been.
All that IS my entire being, all that my spirit has been from the beginning.
How many lives has it taken me to reach this point?
I dont think I will ever know, but to me - Yvonne- ,right now existing in this body, at this time,
is so beautiful. I wouldnt give back a moment of any pain I have experienced for being in the place I am at this moment. For knowing me. For knowing Yvonne.

I wish I could give this journey to my children. Wrap it in beautiful paper and tie it and say "Here, my pain is yours, my knowledge, my strength, my passion.. I give it to you. . You don't have to go through it."

I wish they would not have to travel the paths I have traveled - because the paths are so hurtful, so hard, so defining of who we are to become. To save my kids from the pain is all I would want to do - but the truth is that they must experience the hurt, the love, the loss, the beauty firsthand. For it to "stick", for you to learn and know it - and most importantly give it to others through your own ability to show love in the face of loss and sadness - you have to do it. There is no other way.

This past 9 months has been the best path I have taken. How can the hardest be the best?
It's the best
Even though it was not the path I was viewing from the distance.
Even though it was not the path I had been told my feet would trod.
Even though it was not the path I envisioned. or dreamt of.
Still, the purpose has been to serve me for the better. The cosmos, the Divine, God...knew.

Even though it is not the path I forseen, or the one I intended to take,
or the direction I had been told I woud go.
It is where I am.
And its so beautiful.

I have become so strong and so much of the person that I am on the inside because of all the "unintended paths".


I'm not afraid to say no.
I'm not afraid to disagree.
I'm not afraid to speak what I feel.
To anyone.
I am worthy all alone.
Just Yvonne.
I cannot even explain the power that gives mmy spirit.

Finding myself feels like nothing else in this world. I love myself.

I'd love to paint a picute of my heart. The progression of it.
A picture that would show the black darkness that has existed there-
from the self loathing
to the the pity-
to the hatred
and jealousy
and pain
that had dwelt inside of me -
but more importantly the progrssion of the change that has taken place.

A change I have worked damn hard to achieve.
through thoughtful meditations
and life experiences
and life losses
reading
observing
watching
but never
not alone
with the help of friends and family
who continously show me love and direction
and give me guidance with their words or actions.

I charge you to find yourself.
Youre so beautiful.
The you within.

Love,
The "ME" within

Prelude to the BDE

11 AM Saturday morning? Perfect. Lunch....then somewhere? Not sure yet. He'll look when he gets home. That was fine with me.
It's wonderful just knowing someone with the cerebral capacity to actually think on their own and make a plan.
So exciting. So surreal.
A place I can be the woman I am - and not an aggressive she-wolf, who has to control things, who must constantly make the suggestion or decision.
Giving up the reigns is super.
I know, it's just date plans, but that's the thing.
It's DATE plans.


I noticed immediately when I got in his car the radio was playing SIRIUS Chill,
the same channel I had tuned in to on our last date a week ago.
Thoughtful. Extremely thoughtful.

Where would I like to eat lunch?
"Where is it I asked?" (meaning the date, but then knowing I didn't want to know where we were going exactly I said "What way?"
"South" he said.
"There's a good Indian place, not too far."
Sounded good to him and we were off.

I took his hand...I so enjoy the intensity I feel every time we touch.

In the parking lot he complained of the mess in his car then he reached behind my seat and presented me with a beautiful potted Kordana Rose and a small box of chocolates (because he knew I was being mindful of what I ate). Again his thoughtfulness overwhelmed me. I had no idea he would have thought to get me anything like that. It made me feel so wonderful. It felt so absolutely beautiful to receive something. Not even that I am materialistic in any way-but the gesture, the thought, the act of giving me something really, honestly overwhelmed me. Even now, writing about it, I am so moved by his thoughtfulness. He actually had to process a thought of what I might like to have, he was indful of the fact that I have been not eating sugar and he had to get out of his car, go into a place of business, look for something, purchase it, think enough to hide it carefully so I wouldn't see it when I got into his car and then think of a clever way to give it to me. Total THOUGHTFULNESS. TOTAL thoughtfulness. My heart so appreciated his thoughtfulness too. Warmth.

The date could have ended here and it would have been in my top three.

Time - Passing of, Existing Within, Losing Track of and Wasting....

There is so much you can do with time!

I really don't like that I have let time pass by and I haven't documented it.
A month isn't a long time but a lot has happened in the past four - five weeks.
A lot, situationally and emotionally.
I'd like to rewind and blog about everything I've missed - but I am one of those people who has to write in the moment - or the emotion has to have been so very strong - positive or negative - that I can still pull from it and place words with it so you and I can really understand the situation.
It's not just for your observation and judgment of my life - its so I can read my growth as a person and learn from watching myself...from here on the outside - after the fact.

So here goes a quick run down of the past five weeks - cryptic as this is going to be - its the best I can do at the moment (something my life seems to have been made up of..."best-i-can-do-moments")

TICKING AWAY THE MOMENTS THAT MAKE UP THE DULL DAY.
Birthday party with GueSTS, MuSic, DRiNK and DaNCe. Seeking capacity to forgive. Gaining confidence on the job front. Giving Forgiveness. KICKING AROUND ON A PIECE OF GROUND IN YOUR HOMETOWN. Realizations. YOU RUN AND RUN. Possesing Gratitude. Seeking my PuRPoSe. Honesty. ALWAYS seeking my PuRPoSe. WAITING FOR SOMEONE OR SOMETHING TO SHOW YOU THE WAY. What IS my PuRPoSe? Laundry. Thankful. Snow. Family. Missed friends. Snow. Do I have a PuRPoSe? Truth. Rear-ended. 6 pounds gone. Reconnections. Loss. 3 pounds gone. Snow. TIRED OF LYING IN THE SUNSHINE STAYING HOME TO WATCH THE RAIN. Disease and surgery. Old friends-new acquaintances? Flirty? Yes. FLIRTY. Welcome Back 1 pound! Of course, you have a PuRPoSe! Fear. Steadfast. Condemnation. THOUGHT I HAD SOMETHING MORE TO SAY. Diligent. SELFLESS. Determined. Weariness. NEVER SEEM TO FIND THE TIME. Curious. Excitement. Texting, calling, emailing COMMUNICATING. STUCK. Change. SNOW and ICE. Dinner? hmmm? DINNER. Anxious. Excitement.
CALLS THE FAITHFUL TO THEIR KNEES
TO HEAR THE SOFTLY SPOKEN MAGIC SPELL.

It was just about a year ago I decided to completely stop hitting the snooze button. Alarms had been going off forever and I just hit snooze. There is way too much going on in this life to continue hitting "Snooze". Who and What I have missed already by doing that? Who knows? but I'm not missing anything else anymore.

Life is so damn beautiful.
People are so beautiful.

Lessons come hard to me - but they stick.
Our lives are made up of time - one moment overlapping another.
A rainbow of emotions.

I have learned that the only moment that matters is the one I am existing in right now.
Not what happened yesterday
or what may happen tomorrow.
Its important that I am here now.

I want to feel time emerge from behind me, pass over my shoulder and watch it forge ahead into another dimension.