Beautifully Different

#Reverb10 is a blogging initiative that provides prompts each day of the 31 days of December with the intent of reflecting on the past year, specifically 2010, and looking forward to what’s to come in the year ahead.

 

The Prompt

“Beautifully different. Think about what makes you different and
what you do that lights people up. Reflect on all the things that make you
different – you’ll find they’re what make you beautiful.”

Beauty can be anything I want it to be, and can represent any definition I attach to it.  Most people will recognize beauty as a pretty face, stylish hair, well blended colors, attractive figure, and even articulative ability--but only as it compliments the rest of the above mentioned.

Beauty is in the individual--being unique and appreciating nonconformities.  I have nearly 100 different opportunities every day to make someone light up.  It's a challenge to stay positive and smile big while meeting new people who are down on themselves, and down on their lives for one reason or another.  Sometimes I have five seconds or less to make that spec of difference for them.  My hope is that I have done just that--made five seconds easier, happier, and better than the five seconds they had before that.

It takes a lot of patience, persistence, and a realization that everyone is beautifully different to achieve a good five second interaction.  After all, it's contagious--smile at someone you don't know and nine times out of ten, that other person will smile back.

Beauty is in a soft touch, genuine smiles, laughter, and grows as the capacity to love grows.  Beauty is in the eye of the beholder; however, cannot always be seen--it's also heard and felt.  We are each beautifully different by our own definitions and by the definitions by which others bestow on us.

The Truth is Black and White

You're wrong when it's right
It's black and it's white
-Katy Perry

It's never easy to read someone, no matter how much you might want to.  So, you walk on egg shells and hope that you don't make a mistake or upset them.  They try to find a reason to leave and you desperately try to make them happy so they will stay.

And only after everything is over and you stroll down memory lane do you realize what was really going on.  The saying goes that time will heal your pain.  In that same time, you can also figure out what really happened and how faded the truth became to you.

We see the truth we want to see, and there's no doubt about that.

Extra Time for the Holidays

Did you ever look back on the time that has already flown by... and thought where did the time go?  Not just the seconds we see tick away when glancing at the clock, or the minutes and hours that inevitably follow, but the years that now turn into decades.  I think about the time that has come and gone, some of which I feel so accomplished and rejuvenated, and other times the never ending to-do list grows and the overwhelming feeling falls over me as I wish to curl up in bed with a book and my velvety soft blanket.

Last night, or rather this morning, daylight savings ended for us as the clock ticked back for an extra hour and it seems like there's extra time to do everything now.  Even though it's just an hour of time it still seems like to much more.  It's an extra 60 minutes...an extra 3600 seconds in that whole hour of time to do the things that I always say I don't have enough time for.  And I know I won't get this extra time for very long since next year we will have to give back this extra hour gift.

And it has come at a really good time because I have just been introduced to a really awesome challenge that may seem completely unattainable but I am trying for it anyway.  This morning I registered for the NaNoWriMo which stands for National Novel Writing Month.  This is a time when a writer challenges him or herself to writing a novel in 30 days to total no less than 50,000 words.  My word count so far is 5,484 which is quite a long way off, but we never know what is possible unless we challenge ourselves.  So this will be my challenge this month. 

I am enjoying my volunteer work with the Furry Friends Network.  I've been helping out at the cat adoption center and since I went through my training, I get to process my first cat application this week!  The only down side to processing applications is when I know I'm taking information that will disqualify the applicant.  But, I just have to remember that it's my job as an application processor to collect all of the necessary facts and I am not the one who tells the applicant if they have been approved or denied.  And then next weekend is the Adoptathon at the adoption center!  It should be tons of fun!

I think it's my destiny to be a busy person...working a full-time job, working a part-time job, volunteering in between, and somehow still finding the time to contribute to my attempt at NaNoWriMo.  And of course I can attribute this to daylight savings time ending.  Without that extra hour, I don't think I would be able to do everything I need to do in a day.

Now it's time to do some really awesome holiday baking.  Today while I do lots of laundry I'm baking a caramel apple cake and two cheesecake rolls--one pumpkin and one plain although I am contemplating a chocolate layer in the plain cheesecake roll. 

Tis the season.

My loss will be their gain

When I was a little girl, the hokey pokey really was what it was all about.  Back when The Simpsons were still classic childish comedy, chanting bubble gum, bubble gum in a dish, and swinging higher on the swing than my sister was considered an accomplishment...and not a worry in the world. 

I wonder, only after knowing, if it's better to know the details or if it's better to go on with ignorance.  As I write the next chapter to my book...it brings back memories of a journey not easily walked through.  I know that logically it's about understanding, and as I use my writing as personal growth exercises, I know that children who will be growing into young adults will find companionship in my book.  That sense of accomplishment will be ever-so-worth-it when that day comes--when I can say: "that's my book".

Goodbye Trust. Hello Poptarts.

I've often found that it's difficult to separate myself from things that directly affect me... no matter how much I honestly and sincerely try; and no matter how much I believe and take the advice that I should go about my business and not get involved, even mentally.  

I've been backed into a corner, and forced into acceptance and toleration.  I've rolled every scenario in my mind, but of course when someone I have to trust tells me that there is light at the end of the tunnel, I feel like my hands are tied.

I'm perplexed and completely dumbfounded in the idea of trust.  Trust is a reward from integrity and personal ethics.  I didn't award trust on merit or my own good judgment, but on the judgment of others who I trust to guide me in my path and through my learning curve. 

I am still lost in this maze without a sighting of light to shine indicating an end is drawing near. 

Goodbye Means See You Later...

I never thought about not growing up... though I foolishly believed in all of those fairytale stories and the happily ever after endings.  No one ever tells you that time will go by so fast you don't even realize it until it's gone, or that you will have to say goodbye to more people than you want to let go of and lose.

I've thought a lot about the idea that absence makes the heart grow fonder, so if goodbye simply meant "see you later" then I was able to find some strength and courage in myself...and had faith in the thought that goodbye wasn't forever.

I had to learn about life and death, heartache and pain at such a young age.

My grandma went into the hospital, and when she fell into a coma we knew it was going to happen.  After I lost her I told my mother, straight from the heart of a seven-year-old: "by the time you get old, they will have invented a pill for you to live forever" because then the most important person in my life would always be there for me.

A few years later, my grandpa died... and in my heart I believe he died of loneliness.  Although I knew he would be alone a lot, and regardless of all the many hours I spent with him because my grandma was gone... he knew, and I knew that something, or rather someone was missing.  It was the first true evidence I had witnessed to someone dying of loneliness.  

But death isn't something we can control...life runs its course, and death inevitably follows.  No matter how afraid, or hurt, or sad we become, our strength and courage must overcome that.  And although we find it difficult to accept that someone's life has been lived, we do find comfort in knowing they won't feel anymore pain.  They won't feel anymore heartache or worry and for a reason we can't ever think of, they were meant to go.  And my comfort is in knowing my grandparents are together again and neither of them have to be alone.

I always said, if only I could've said goodbye...  But the truth is that we never want to say goodbye.  We want one more moment, one more breath, just one more hug...the touch of their hand and the sound of their laughter.

Time is the most precious gift we can give each other...

And it isn't about letting go of the people they were or the memories I made with them...

And just like a dear friend one said: goodbye can still mean, see you later.

A clean turn on cobblestones

I've been wanting to write this post for a few days, but just couldn't seem to find the right words or enough time to write them while knowing that this post could have ended up being  both overly dramatic and absolutely irrelevant at the same time. These past few months have been a series of losses and gains. Inevitably, I’ve lost some friends to the call of greener pastures, and while that was happening...realizing that I have to let some go in order to keep and be able to hold onto the ones I hold so dear to my heart.
Those who know me understand that I am not a social being, reaching the point of being completely antisocial at times. As such, I don’t look for people and I am usually perfectly happy being alone. 

I also learned that giving a damn is actually a really exhausting activity. Growing up, I decided that caring and expecting something from anything or anybody usually lead to disappointment. In a way, it has been the mantra of my life until this point. I strove to take everything lightly and believed that exerting little to no effort in anything bears the greatest rewards. Imagine my surprise when I found out that I completely failed in my attempt to not get attached to things. When the waterworks happened, I knew that I was doomed.
Friendship, it seems, mattered to me more than I thought it did.  It also made me reassess the importance of people in my life. Despite my idealized perception on being on an island, it seems that it isn’t for me or, even if it is, I have reached the point that I cannot possibly believe that anymore.

When everything I'm doing falls into place and keeps going the right way, I get incredibly caught up in the process of success and overwhelming sense of accomplishment.  Time just seems to fly right past me, and no sooner do I turn around to take notice of all that has passed me by that I notice all that I've been missing while my successes have swept me away from some of the things and people whom I cherish.

I feel the intense need to apologize to friends who I let slip away, and while I do, they tell me that there is no need...and reassurance settles that no matter how much time or distance is in between, that it won't change our relationship. 

"If you don't fall in love, you can't get hurt."

"If you don't expect anything, you can't reach disappointment."

"If you don't breathe, you can't live."

It was that last sentence that I heard that gave me a reminder of the person I used to be, social or not.  I chose to live more and worry later.  But instead of trying to figure out what happened and why, and conducting some soul searching and worrying about how I simply missed a turn somewhere... it's cleaner to have a revitalized starting point: with more energy, drive, and motivation for myself and not splitting into so many different directions that the slivers are too thin to show any real sense of noticeable accomplishment.