Remember it gets better

The burning end of a midnight cigarette....
The time when you know you are at the end of your rope....
The feeling you get when you're out of water and the waiter is no where to be found...
The time when your gas light comes on when you are on empty in your bank account...
The last drop in the bottle of your favorite wine....
The last page in the book that has entranced you heart and soul...
The time when you are late for work and you still look like your clothing came out of a thrift store...
The 'see ya later' to a friend moving 10 hours away....
The call that keeps ringing when you desperately have something to tell that person...
The unanswered and avoided question that took you months to ask...
The longing to travel like a millionaire on a minimum wage paycheck....
The conversation you can't have because the friendship is no longer existent...
The long road home when you just want to blink and see your family...
The stocked fridge of items you don't want to eat....

... The yucky feeling that knots in your core when these things happen... That's temporary.
The wine is replenished on your next trip to the store.
Your water gets filled by the waiter next to you.
Your call gets answered the next time you phone.
You get to travel when you least expect it.
You see your friend again when you need it most.
... These things exceed the negative knot you experience when in the model of needs that aren't met. It's just hard to remember that when the knot ties up in your heart and mind.

The real kind

I have been:
... Lied to
... Cheated on
... Disrespected
... A secret
... Belittled
... Embarrassed
... Disregarded
... Undermined
... Convenient
... Made a fool
... Tricked
... and Taken advantage of
all for the name of love.

But in these trials, I realize love in true form has nothing to do with anything I have gone through for the sake of it all. Love, does not do these actions, rather it does most exactly opposite of these things. And in the process of understanding these things, I have come to understand that I have cheated myself from many beauties in life. I have almost inadvertently done these things to myself by believing it was love that took me through those things.
So as I look at a promise etched in silver, i understand it is my choice to take the words "i love you" and understand their true meaning... And the only true origin is in the shadow of His wings. He may not be flesh and bone, nor is Jesus Christ my future other half... Yet, He should always be my All.
I drifted from this truth in my life wanting to believe that the true love He has promised me was what I had. I couldn't have been more distant from the truth, its almost humorous to think looking back.
All I know is that the love I believe in to be true is not the love I had to believe in to be true.... It already exists, it's there. I do not have to make excuses for it, I don't have to prove myself for it, I don't have to hide my feelings from it, I don't have to hope for it.... It's there.

And whenever it is that I will be blessed to share that love with someone who knows that kind of love, I will fully embrace it and know how much of a blessing it is because I have experienced the opposite and know its snarls. One day, I will still laugh at the thought that I believed it was okay to feel that way in "love" because someone one day will show me the opposite of all of that and let me experience love, the real kind.

What I now see in this gift from the not love, love :
"I love you, the Real kind" - God

And by the way, never assume that when you tell someone you love them, it means only love. For love itself encompasses so many actions, love is more of a plurality than a single action. So if you love someone, love them with all of the things that go into love, not just with the word love.

Maybe one day

Source: pete.com via Kadi on Pinterest

Gotta Swing the Bat

This will be one that my father will be proud of....



I distinctly remember being at the home plate of one of our lovely softball fields in good ole Athens Texas for my first t-ball softball league practice.... there was this stand with a ball on top. I remember being completely scared that I would embarrass my family and myself by swinging and missing that ball. I had failed so many times at home with my father at this very thing---- hitting the ball OFF of the tee. I remember the laughter that would ensue after I would give it my all and then open my eyes, only to see that annoying ball still sitting patiently almost dauntingly on it's stand. . .
So there I was, first practice... it was me, the ball, and the bat. So, in order to save myself from embarrassment, I slowly, with much concentration, swung my bat straight at that darn ball.... only to miss it.
Eventually I got it, as we all do. I had good coaches around me that taught me right. I practiced to prove myself.
Then, the next year, the ball was not standing still.... but it was moving AT ME! ! !

And I thought the tee was daunting! HA!
It was about then I knew I was not quite made for the game of softball.

I wasn't the 'pinch hitter' by any means, I had quite a few strike outs and then a few lucky hits... I wasn't a complete failure.

All of this to say, today I was thinking about how I wish someone would just throw me a strike so I could hit the ball out of the park and regain my confidence as well as the others around me. But the deal is, we all have to learn how to hit at curve balls as much as strikes.
Now I am no professional at any of this baseball lingo or even the game itself, but I am a professional at hit and misses in life, and admittedly a few amazing home runs.

We teach young kids how to hit the ball off of the tee not so that there will be professionals up to bat against a ball on a tee, but we teach them that so they know the feeling of the ball on the bat. My dad always use to say "feel the ball on the bat" before I even swung.... It was that feeling that gave me power to swing and get that ball away from me... And as the ball came towards me, he kept saying the same thing ... "feel the ball on the bat", even if I didn't feel it often when it was being thrown to me, I remembered the feeling of the contact with the ball on the bat that ran through my arms.

In life, we grow up knowing how to just get the feeling of success... if you are as blessed as I am, I had parents that set the ball on the tee in my life and let me feel the power in the bat, and then slowly helped me hit moving targets along the way... annnnd they helped me remember that you don't always get a homerun.


As I have gotten older, I have had my hit and misses, and I have had some great hits that set my team up for a win.... but I am learning that not every strikeout has to define me, nor does every homerun. Sometimes when all you want is a perfect pitch, you are given curve balls. But the reasons the pros are the pros, are because they have learned how to swing at either pitch and still be able to hit the ball.

I'm no professional in life yet, but I guess you could say I had to go back to the basics and just learn how to "feel the ball on the bat". I'm re-learning alot about myself and learning some new things about life and how it works, but after all, the pitches keep coming my way... it's my decision to swing at the ball or not.

After all, who has ever hit a homerun without swinging their bat?

Empty Walls, Empty Heart

Well I made it through one week of just turning my heart off, a whole week. No tears for my broken heart, no calling a friend to pick me up, no reaching out to someone to comfort me.... I guess I thought I was on the upward swing, that if I didn't feel it was a good sign.

Then the loneliness sank in. I may not be crying from the pain of a broken heart, but now I am crying from the pain of an empty heart and an empty house. I have this horrible curse of wanting a family, wanting people to take care of, to love on... and when you have the house but nothing else in the puzzle it makes a woman feel, well, it makes me feel a little empty and inadequate.

I think I am done with wishing the love I invested would return something. But the down side of that, I feel like I am jaded on any love from here on out. I want to love but the idea of love is tainted with pain, mistrust, and brokenness. And sadly, this feeling is not just when it comes to romantic love, it is blanketing all kinds of love in my life. Ashamed, I say that I have lost most all of my faith in about everything. It isn't suppose to be this way. I know it isn't.

My mom made a funny comment on a facebook post of mine when i said I just wanted someone to take care of me, she said "When you find that special person for you......you will a lifetime of days he will take care of you....". When I read it, I literally laughed, then started crying. I have lost faith in the fact that someone will ever be able to love me or really that I will be able to love someone like I loved before. I sound like that sad pathetic girl I never wanted to be. But I guess I never factored in that someone could shatter my heart over and over again so badly either. Growing up, I was the typical believer in love. I saw it work out all around me, my parents, grandparents, their friends... they all had those perfect love stories. So why wouldn't it be like that for me? So in life, I went in head first to every opportunity of love hoping it would be that perfect love that everyone around me found. . . but in my short 22 years of life, that is far from the case. I have always been the one to break the rules, to do it my own way, to be a little different from everyone in my family... so why did I not factor in that love would be the same way? Different for me. Harder for me.

So I sit here on my Sunday Clean up Day, and look at the empty walls of my house wondering if I will ever fill the space, ever have pictures to put up.... will it ever be a home to more than just me and Mr. Mason? Unfortunately the house is perfect, it has everything to offer and the perfect coziness to make it great for a home.... when will it stop making me feel lonely and make me feel okay again?