Anyhoodle

It is amazing how the best made plans can be changed in a matter of moments. I am still in the same boring town I have been for nearly 7 years and yet, the best job I have ever had is here. To be honest, I think it would be extremely dumb on my part to leave a location simply because I don't like it and give up a job that pays me more than I've ever made. And I have never in my life been called dumb....so here I am. I guess the best thing you can do in a predicament like mine is to make this thing work, start traveling more, have a vacay spot somewhere else I can run to when I've had enough of Podunk Po Ho as I call this pseudo-city.

SO I am making plans to go to Chicago, Atlanta, and possibly Savannah next summer. I am planning a cruise for next November. Not sure how all this will pan out but I am going to make the best of it.

Anyhoodle, I have also made some more changes (though not the henna tattoos and piercings I claimed I was going to get around my birthday). I am still not real clear on that yet but I have changed my hair (for the umpteenth time). It is now red in one area and a dark brown everywhere else. I also have it cut really short with designs cut into the back of my hair. I guess you can say people either really love it or really hate it or really don't understand what I am going through. Either way, this is the me that I waited to reveal until the job loved me too much to notice that I have changed my personae. Or else they just think I'm crazy and know that I am irreplaceable and they will put up with my fashion shenanigans in order to keep me as a good employee. Either way, I'm good.

And my hair is red.

And I look slightly rebellious.

And my midlife crisis has started early...

Anyhoodle...take it or leave it... :)

Six Teeth Gone and Other Interesting Antics

So I had oral surgery a couple weeks ago to correct some dental issues that I should have taken care of a long time ago. Six teeth - my four wisdom teeth, a baby tooth, and an adult tooth - all had to be removed. I am not good at taking care of myself as quite a few caring people in my life never fail to remind me, so when I recuperated at home, all I could think about was getting back to work. I probably need to get a life...and soon... I mean who lays on the couch doped up with pain meds semi-toothless, thinking about getting back to a 9 to 5 (or 6, in my case)? Only in Myowneworld, apparently...

I am planning my 34th birthday parties now (yes, parties)...a few weeks before the festivities start. I usually celebrate the whole month, every weekend. This year I have decided along with my adopted sister and best friend to have a lady's night in my home town. I hope everyone will come so we can celebrate in style. I am planning more than one party because I think birthdays are the very best way to show the world that you are worth celebrating. There is enough sadness in the world (I know from first hand experience, as of late) that I think we are all due for a little happiness every now and then. So, I'm getting my outfit ready because it's ON!

My nieces and nephews are embracing adulthood and I certainly don't feel as old as I probably should. I feel better! The jury is still out on whether I will one day have children of my own. These four have stolen the show, and I'm definitely not getting any younger. Maybe I'll just get another dog. And a boyfriend. Preferably a boyfriend that is not a dog and vice versa.

I have decided to get a henna tattoo and a couple new ear piercings. Perhaps my midlife crisis is coming early; perhaps I just think I would look cool. At least in my mind, I think I would be the coolest 34-year-old ever (which is a sure sign of a midlife crisis)...most people in this state of being think they are cool in their own eyesight. In everyone else's? Wellll...

Hmmm...we shall see, won't we?

Somebody's Getting Old (And It's Not Me)...

My youngest niece will be starting school at Western Michigan University in a few days and is in fact, in Kalamazoo getting ready to embrace a new season of her life. She has been through so much in her 18 years and now it is time to map her own existence. Now she can really live and pursue her dreams.

Time passes so quickly and before you know it the 5-year-old with long ringlets has turned into an 18-year-old with magnificent dreams and potential just waiting to be fulfilled. It is crazy that she would grow up right in front of my eyes. We have not always had the best of relationships but she is like the daughter I never had. She is the one who helps turn my hair gray. She is the one that gives me heart palpitations with every crazy, risky, rebellious antic she comes up with. But she is also the one that made me wipe tears from my eyes as she marched across Houseman Field in Grand Rapids, Michigan one warm June day.

I love my baby girl and see her no longer as a baby or a girl. I see her as the woman she is surely becoming. She makes me realize that I have made a positive impact and now its her turn to do the same.

It's crazy when your babies grow up. She is the first of my mother's grandchildren to attend a four year university. Her sister, my oldest niece, is also pursuing her education to make a better life for herself and her young kings. She is getting her CNA license and will care for others with that huge heart of hers. The pride I feel regarding them both cannot be compared to any other feeling I have ever had about anything as amazing as they are. My prayer is that they believe in themselves as much as I believe in them. I never want them to second guess the power of being who they were born to be.

They are beautifully intelligent young women, and I hope they become everything they are meant to be. One thing I know for sure: their grandmother's prayers keep them covered and my insistence that they never give up - no matter what life may bring - is what will keep them for many years to come. I also know that their great-grandparents that are witnessing what will come of their lives from heaven's grandstands are immensely overjoyed at all they will be able to accomplish if they work and pray hard enough (not necessarily in that order).

The generation they are growing up in is so fearless and sometimes reckless. I worry sometimes about my babies but I know that they will be okay.

I do, however, hate their tongue rings (which explains why they stuck their tongues out while taking the picture). They have become professional Auntie annoyers...but that's okay too. They are mine and I love them more than they can ever know. My life wouldn't be what it is if they were not in it. :)

Long Time Gone and Now Back....

I guess you can say I went on Sabbatical for a while from life, after dealing with the pain of losing love. I had to take some time to really get my bearings and get refreshed. I now have a new lease on life and a new focus, as the man I love would want. It has not been an easy season but I realize that God has been taking care of me as I give Him my pain and the hurt I have felt. God has been a rich rewarder as I have sought His face. I have actually shut down a few things in my life but now I am ready to return to life as I knew it with a tenacious plan for life.

I am not worried about the things that used to rack my brain because I realize that God is taking care of every little need in my life. I am not worried about life because my life is in His hands. I used to be overly concerned about money, my writing, my publishing books, and relationships in my family. But God has truly taken care of everything when I was on Sabbatical from life letting the grief process do what it had to in my heart.

I am the type of person that has for the most part tried to take care of others at the sacrifice of myself, but for the first time in my life, I have taken care of myself and have taken time that I needed to in order to become the woman I have to be in this hour.

I do miss the man that won my heart in his last days on earth. Yet, I feel his presence in my life, just as surely as I feel the presence of God in my life. He is gone in the body but not in the spirit, and I can move on in life, starting and finishing the work God has declared I must do before it is time for me to "go to God" (as my nephew said at 5 years old when asked what he would do if he were invisible). The reality is I'm supposed to miss his hugs, his smile, the way he stared into my eyes, and loved me silently. I am supposed to struggle sometimes with his absence. This is no coincidence and this is no surprise. He was the man I wanted to marry and now he's physically absent from the wedding.

But I process and recognize the season for what it is, striving to teach others the lessons I too am learning - not to take life for granted and not to miss the chance God gives for love.

So...I am back to writing and art and living and loving. I am back...

A Lesson Learned

This has been the most life-changing time for me as I have watched the man I have loved secretly for so long battling for his life. I realize that if there is no other lesson to be learned, you should never, ever keep love a secret. You should always tell the people you care about and love how you feel. I can never get back the intimate moments that "my heart" and I shared over the last few weeks. I would never trade it.

But I do wish I had not been so scared and shy around him or him around me. I wish we had told each other instead of our best friends how we felt about each other. I wonder what would have happened if we had just told each other the truth.

I would have married him in a heartbeat.

I would have loved him like tomorrow wasn't promised.

I realize now, it really wasn't.

I would have loved him like tomorrow really didn't matter.

I realize now that it doesn't. All we have is today.

Today, about two hours ago, "my heart" went to be with Jesus. He left this earth. "My heart" is gone, as I posted on my Facebook status and as I told anyone that asked what was wrong.

I love Brian Nichols so very much and I had the chance to tell him, to look in his eyes and tell him before he could no longer respond to me. But how much better would it have been if I had told him when we could have done something about it? How much better would it have been for both of us if he could have done what he said he wanted to do?

He said he wanted to love me, to take care of me, to take care of all the things that make me sad, moody, depressed. He wanted to be my husband. He may have been the father of my children.

But now, on this snowy March day, I realize that he will never be able to do any of that. And I am so hurt. I feel like a woman that missed the only chance I ever had to be loved for real. I know that isn't true, but right now, in a way it is. I missed the chance to love Brian as his wife. The realistic view is that I can't go back and change time, but I can thank God for the moments when no one else was in the room and it was just me and him.

Thank you God that you graced me enough to be loved by such a great man.

Thank you.

Love Found, Love Lost (Almost)

Being in Port Huron has been anything but productive in the romance department. I think I have grown accustomed to not having anyone in my life so I have no idea when love will ever come my way. I have had crushes, have fallen in and out of love with a man that I still think about from time to time, and have ignored others who, for whatever reason or another, have turned me ALL the way off.

But there was always one guy. There was always one man that I looked for at my godparents' church. He made me blush even when he simply looked my way. I stuttered in front of him and sometimes watched in silence as he happened across my path. My heart would beat fast when he would say something to me; a "hi" or a "how are you?" would send me nearly into heart palpitations.

I never once suspected that he felt anything for me at all.

Until now.

Until the day I realized that he may never cross my path again and all we have is right now, this moment.

Until the news was reported that cancer had once again invaded his body, after getting a somewhat clean bill of health.

I have gone to see him everyday, with just the thought in mind that even if nothing could ever be, I would let him know that he is loved. I visit him everyday, sitting near him, napping in his room at my godmother's home where he is now staying. My godfamily, his late brother and sister-in-law, are the family I have loved for 14 years. And now, I am able to say that at least for seven of those years I have loved him.

His best friend reported to this family that he could see me as the woman he wanted to marry, a woman that he could love because of my passion and love for family, a woman that is educated and driven and focused, a woman unlike the others that have crossed his path. All this time I did not know he loved me like I have loved him all this time.

And now it feels like it is too late for us. What if I was meant to be his wife? What if cancer interrupted something so amazingly beautiful that neither one of us were aware could happen? What if he leaves me tomorrow and I never had a chance to hold his hand while we walked on the RiverWalk in downtown Detroit? What if I never had a chance to kiss his lips or hug him close when he felt most lonely? What if I never get the chance to wear a wedding dress and walk down an aisle toward him?

How will my heart break anew?

I thought I knew what it felt to be hurt or disappointed by past boyfriends or men I thought were made for me to grow old with. But this hurt, this disappointment is unlike anything I have ever, ever experienced.

Love was found during the same time that love could potentially be lost.

Moving, Moving, Moving

I think I move like every two to three years. I don't know if it is because I hate staying in the same environment for too long. It isn't like I am tied down to any house or apartment so I take full advantage of living in a different location. I also wonder if it is because I am single and have the freedom to move whenever I get the whim. I think if I had a family I wouldn't be so quick to move all the time. Sometimes I feel like a twenty-something again, when I wasn't sure where I wanted to be at any given moment.

This is my last weekend in my current house, and while I will miss certain aspects of being in it, I won't miss the bills. Renting a house is like paying someone else's mortgage with no benefit. So I am lowering my payments and planning to travel more - starting as soon as next weekend. My godsister and I are going to Chicago for the weekend. It has been a long time since I have been in the Windy City. So I am looking forward to it. This will be my first leisure trip this year, and I am excited.

New life, new start, and it starts with moving to a new location. Life is good.

I have completed my first year as a foster care worker, and I am realizing everyday that while God has called me to impact families, I have an obligation to myself as well. I have an obligation to have a life. I need to make a life for myself, and I believe that I am well on my way to that. I am learning that I must have balance or I will be burnt out before my second year ends. I certainly don't want that. I know I am not going to be working in this same field for 30 years, but I do want to make a major impact for the time I am here I do want to fulfill my call and the only way I can do that is to be balanced.

So I am preparing to travel to Grand Rapids every weekend that I can to attend my church there. I have taken days off from work in April to attend a spiritual retreat with my church. I am planning a trip to Chicago for the weekend of July
4th/The Taste of Chicago Festival. I am also planning to go to Atlanta to visit my brother (getting on an airplane again, since I've only flown twice before). I also want to travel to Savannah, Georgia at some point this year (maybe for my birthday).

I have always wanted the liberty to travel and move around with no limits. Well this job has afforded me the opportunity to do that, so I need to take advantage of that. Life is too short to be off-balance in any area...especially when you give so much of yourself. So while I am planning to be my best in the lives of others, I am planning to give myself my best as well.