I sometimes wonder why I struggle so much…. some days it seems like every part of my life is a struggle. I struggle to perform perfectly at work, I struggle to “get it right” all the time… no matter whether “IT” is making dinner, cleaning house, serving customers at work, being a supportive friend a good wife… I think I just have all these ideas in my head about what I am supposed to be…about who I am supposed to be and how I am supposed to act. Some days I look around and all I see are the things I need to do… I need to organize our house, put away our books, buy/build more bookshelves, clean our carpets, clean our rooms, catch up on all the laundry, work on my crafts for Christmas, finish with our Christmas Gifts…. My thoughts race and race… I think I need a few weeks to just catch up … no distractions… no excuses… no interruptions… 
Tag Archive: family
I’ve been thinking a lot about Dante’s Divine Comedy…specifically his Inferno and I have decide I have 7 levels of my not-okay-ness…I know this is not grammatically correct 🙂 But it’s the best way I can explain it… Here’s how it goes… In this scenario I knock my contact solution off the sink edge due to my infinite clumsiness…
Level One: I have no reaction… I just pick it up and put it back.
Level Two: I take a deep breath, sigh, then put it back.
Level Three: I take a deep breath, huff, blow, slam it back down.
Level Four: I growl at the contact solution, pick it up, slam it down, huff, mumble and clench my fists…then take a deep breath…
Level Five: I growl, glare at the contact solution, leave it there, huff, sigh, take a moment to calm myself down and take a deep breath.
Level Six: I yell at the contact solution, I glare at it, I kick it across the room, yell at it some more and pick it up and slam it down.
Level Seven: I yell at the contact solution, sink, mirror and any inanimate object around, I pick up the contact solution and throw it against the mirror, I cry, I pick it up and throw it again.
Does anyone else have days like this filled with irrational emotional craziness? I hate this rage…this overly emotional out of control feeling….I certainly don’t want to go through life feeling like this… How do I get a handle on it?
I went back to my home-town not too long ago. There is a church there called Hopewell Baptist Church that is very old and no longer active – but the families of the original congregation still get together once a year and celebrate home-coming. Since I am a bit estranged from my family I chose to go at a time when I knew it would be abandoned. There is a cemetery there where some of my family is buried. I love to walk among the graves and touch the tombstones and commune with the people I miss so much.

The person I miss the most is my grandmother. Ever since she died I have felt like a part of my heart is missing. She was the one person who always saw me. She never made me feel invisible or inconvenient. She always made me feel special and seen and heard. She did not know all of the horrible things I was going through and scarcely a day goes by that I don’t wish I could have told her. I wish I could sit down with her now with a cup of tea and tell her all about it. I love her and I miss her so very much.
I am fascinated by how people choose to remember their loved ones… I saw these while walking on a boardwalk at Falling Creek Falls…
Seeing these made me wonder how I could honor and remember… and I decided to let my photographs speak for themselves… I hope you enjoy them – there is nothing that I could say about them without sounding trite… these photos are my memorial… Friends of Hopewell, I pray you feel my deep love and kinship in these photos… my thoughts are with you…
I turned 35 today… Well… as it is after midnight I guess I turned 35 yesterday, technically. I spent the day alone apart for a one hour supervised visit with my husband. I miss him so much and I am ready for him to be home with me. Usually we have a huge birthday celebration… I started the tradition when we started dating – I would celebrate my husband’s birthday for the entire week — I gave him a gift every day for the week leading up to his birthday and then had a big gift, balloons, cake, etc on his birthday. Now it is what we do for each other every year.. He went into the hospital on Wednesday and today was the first time I’ve been able to see him since. Looks like he won’t get out until Monday at the earliest. I love him so much and I feel so lost with him away. I cannot stand not being able to see him or talk to him whenever I want… He wants to come home so badly and I want him here with me.
I was cleaning some weeds out of my flower bed when the storm blew in… first the darkening sky, then the wind that felt so good against my flushed skin… covered in sweat from the effort and humidity… then the storm crashed over me… it was like the opening of a faucet… no gentle rain, this… this was angry, stinging, fat drops of rain that were punishing as they hit. I refused to be swayed and defiantly knelt in the now-mud, pulling weeds and trying to resist the temptation to shake my fist angrily at the sky in some clichéd move. Soon, soaked to the skin and nearly blinded by the water running over my face I gave in… driven in by the lightning and thunder popping all around me. I almost dared the storm to strike me… feeling angry and spoiling for a fight – not that a fight against nature is one I am likely to win… Still…. the storm darkened sky did not disappoint – nor did the wet leaves in the soft after-storm light… Hope you enjoy these pictures as much as I enjoyed taking them… storm-weary and muttering at the sky.
Some days I just don’t know how to keep from being distracted by all the little things… How do I focus on the big picture? How do I block out all the noise and all the things that try for my attention? How do I de-clutter my thoughts? Some days I feel hopeless… just hopeless. I walk around most days feeling pretty ok but days like today life feels like it is crumbling around me. I think sometimes I allow myself to be sucked into the little details so I don’t have to realize how broken and afraid I feel.




















