Be Happy Typography

I love this Gordon B. Hinckley quote.source: weheartit.com

Stalemate

What does one do when disappointment among friends looms over a friendship like a tower from a horror novel?

I’m hurt, she’s hurt, neither one of us is really speaking to the other; unless you count text messages that are pleasant enough but feel hollow and distant, like one of those old radio shows from the 40’s.

I’m sure she feels I let her down. I didn’t mean to…But meaning to do something and not doing it are worlds apart when feelings are involved. She probably felt ignored. She should have understood, I said to myself  while my nagging conscience clucked.

I should have called her up and let her bitch at me, but I didn’t. I didn’t pick up the phone because I needed to be selfish and because I was a chicken-shit. Because truth be told I hate confrontation. Fighting with her (something we’ve never done in the 12 years I’ve known her) would only make me feel worse. I couldn't allow myself to feel any worse.

In the swirl of a homecoming that was much too short, I was hanging on to a happiness, that for duty’s sake, would take he, who I hold most dear, away from me for another year. I was trying my best to drown out the sadness and depression that lay beneath my fleeting happiness.

Could she not see the hollow light in my eyes? I wondered on a most special day.

I thought she’d understand. I was wrong. She couldn’t possibly understand what I was feeling-I shouldn’t have expected her to.

We'll figure things out once he's gone. I thought. I was sure she’d call and ask how I was doing, on the day my Airman flew away.

She didn’t. Was this my recompense? I failed her. She failed me. It’s so stupid really, the dumbest stalemate in history.

Now, nearly a month has gone by.

Did we expect too much from each other?  I love her like my own sisters, she stands high on a platinum pedestal, one reserved only for the most deserving of friends, and there she’ll remain.

Yet now there is this thing–casting its shadow on our friendship.

I can’t help but feel my own disappointment in her. Part of me feels like an ass for even feeling this way, but I do. There are some days I feel like I’m hanging off a ledge on that dark tower with only my fingertips to keep me from falling, I dare not glance down, for fear she may not be there.

* * *M - if you read this. You are one of the best friends a person could have. xo* * *Author's note:This has been weighing heavily on me. I've wanted to write about it, but for what-ever reasons I hadn't. Then this writing prompt for Write On Edge's  "RemembeRED"  series was posted. The topic was friendship. That's all the nudge I needed.image: this dude on deviant art ->http://adriandierigl.deviantart.com/Save

Anniversary Wedding Video to Blue October's Calling You

So today is my anniversary... I tend to make these goofy videos of my lypsyncing to a son. Here I am doing just that to Blue October's "Calling You".

Goals Unfulfilled -RemembeRED –

I knew what I wanted…I knew when I was six..I want to write. Really write. I want to be able to call myself a bona fide writer, and not feel like a complete fraud because it’s not “official”. Sure, I’ve been paid to write here and there, but it’s nothing that will make up a career. That’s what I want.

I’ve set goals, I’ve read books, I’ve got a “dream board” I stare at every day with positive affirmations and things that will help me reach those goals…reach that place in my life where that empty place in my heart sits to fill it up.

I think there must be a leak some place because over and over goals I’ve made have dripped away, evaporating into lost time.  My art teacher in elementary school, Mrs. Knowles used to say, “Time wasted can not be regained.” I can’t remember any piece of art I did back then, but she left an impression on my child-self I’m truly grateful for.

I wonder what the child me would think about the grown up person I’ve become. I think she’d be proud, but she’d wonder why I feel so scared.

“How can you be scared of doing something that makes you happy?” She’d ask, her freckled nose wrinkling up at me.

I’d shrug my shoulders at her and give her one of my well-worn excuses. Excuses are hollow empty things, yet there they are filling up all that lost time.

She’d smile her goofy-gapped tooth grin and say, “Silly, don’t you know what to do when you feel scared?”

I’d shake my head at her.

She’d roll her eyes because the answer was so simple.  “You just close your eyes and think-up good things.” Her eyes would go all soft and dreamy then. “Things like princesses, that ride on unicorns and get to eat cake and ice cream for breakfast. That’s what I do when I’m scared. I make up imaginary worlds where cool things happen.”

Duh.

When did I become so lame?

It happened when I thought about how super-awesome-amazing it would be to be that kid who’d make up stories, who turned into a grown-up who wrote stories people would read, where they’d be transported to a super-awesome-really-cool place where they’d forget themselves…and their fears, or the crappy grade they’d got on their Algebra test because of words on a page that were written by me.

 .....This post was inspired by this week's writing prompt from  Write On Edge -RemembeRED – Unfulfilled   

Santa Baby...The Singing Bloggers

As things go...I'm usually the last one to know about something. I tend to spend a lot of time in my own little world and so I initially missed this crazy idea Toni from Just Stop Screaming, got when she thought it would be a good idea for a bunch of Bloggers to all sing Santa Baby. Making a complete fool of myself is something I'm not entirely opposed to, and when the opportunity arose for me to fill in for someone I did.So...Um... here we are… a bunch of singing bloggers.

A Lemony Life

Sometimes life does give you lemons. How you receive them, and what you do with them once their sitting in a basket on your kitchen counter is much more important than the circumstances which landed them in your possession in the first place. I've gotten quite a few of these delightful citrus baskets myself and I have unfortunately bared witness to a few people getting their own baskets.

Here's what I've learned...Some people, prefer the sour taste of lemons, they'll gladly slice one in half and put it straight to their lips; which will inevitably cause their face to pucker. That is how they go through life, with a puckered face and a heart turned towards bitterness. Then there is the person, who takes those lemons, slices them into halves, and squeezes the sour juice out to make herself a tall glass of lemonade. She prefers the sweetness, and undoubtedly she'll share this yummy delicious concoction with a friend, spreading the sweet joy of life to another.

Still there is another type of person, who like the one before, will slice this lemon, but this lady will cut her lemon into quarters. Instead of squeezing out the sour juice, she'll go to her cupboard, pull out the sugar, pour some onto a plate, and dunk a piece of her bright yellow ("Holy kaw! WTF, and *insert string of explicatives here) into that crystallized plate of heaven. Next she'll got to her freezer and dig out a bottle of vodka that's kept there- buried beneath the chicken nuggets, and broccoli, just this sort of occasion. She'll gladly bite into the bitter fruit, accept it's taste, but be pleasantly surprised by the countering sweetness, and wash it down with a shot of her ice cold elixir. Sometimes she'll have a few friends to swing one back with her...Sometimes she'll be on her own. Either way, she faces the golden sour fruit, and discovers that through the bitter, can come the sweet, and sometimes you've got to swing back (or step back to steady yourself) to face what remains of the basket on your counter.

It's been raining lemons for someone very close to me lately. I'm proud to say, that her face will never freeze in a puckered state, and when it's all said and done, she's going to kick back, and share a round of sugary lemons with the people who really love her.

What do I take from this? What have I learned? It's as simple as gratitude.

I feel so blessed. I've got an amazing husband, two great, beautiful, wonderful boys, friends who love me, a mother who's strength and perseverance in times of hardship never ceases to amaze me, in-laws who I love like my parents, three siblings who I'd go to the moon and back for and they for me.

What else is there?

Not much.

When you place things into perspective and the bullshit gets sent down the toilet with all the other crap it's easy to see that life is good even when you've got a tall glass of ice cold lemonade sitting in your hand.

Love & Lemons,

nicóle

StarStorm

I was blow-drying my hair earlier, and this haiku came to me. I've been thinking about my manuscript currently under about two inches of dust (I'm speaking figuratively-it's happily dust free in three different places) and this sort of came to me...Yes, it is related to the story.

Angelic Power beneath a black starlit night Northern sky on fire

Photo: weheartit.com