Plan A, Plan B

Whenever I see the mountains out in the distance, I wish I could capture them, describe them somehow. I wish I could capture the feeling that I get seeing them.

We descended into Utah county today, just near sunset, and saw them back lit against an azure blue sky. The verdant, green, rugged peaks, covered with patches of snow, so beautiful that I fixed my gaze there. Then I gazed at the expanse of the valley, houses packed together in patches, roofs like freshly ploughed fields, and gashes of red sand cut through dessert soil.

Driving, is a time of reflection for me. A quite zone of contemplation amidst the cacophony of life. I think about what is, recall what used to be, and wonder about what life still holds for me.

Sometimes I think about the plan A's that I gave up for plan B. My son Sione was explaining to his cousin Atticus (my cousin Shany's little boy who's about the same age as Sione), that there are so many things he wants to do. That he wanted to play sports but that he needed a "Plan B" in case his first plan didn't work out. It hit me, that "Plan B" ruins "Plan A."

Just think about applying the "Plan B" analogy to other aspects of life, like marriage. "If it doesn't work out I will go with "Plan B." What is "Plan B?" Really?

What "Plan A's" have you given up for "Plan B?"

~SG

My Morning

This morning I woke up early, thinking of the universe, what is and what is not

I couldn't go back to sleep

So I stumbled out to the bathroom and sought refuge on the heater vent, funny that I've never outgrown that habit

My daughter comes in, strong and tall, such a beautiful girl

A flash of my son and a holler of "Angela, I'm heading to the bus" is all I see of my 16 year old

My face looks girlish today, I pout at the mirror then put in my contacts

Hunger overtakes my resolve to get dressed

So stumbling down the stairs I fumble with the makings of omelets, make 2 of them one for me, and one for my little fellow

I sit and eat mine

Roo Roo doesn't eat much in the morning, so I make her an egg and sprinkle cheese all over it

Then I holler at the kids to come down

Shower time, but first a snuggle with my little girl

Snuggles are getting to be rare lately

Her hair is a tangled mess that makes her howl when it's bushed

Hanging up my towel I see them run out of the door

A fleeting image of my little girl and little boy, wish I could capture it somehow

After dressing and fussing with my hair and lunch

I walk outside, it smells like spring, nice and fresh

The birds are chirping, I want to lay down on the grass and take a nap

I'm sleepy

Classical music doesn't help

I nod off then force myself to concentrate

I'm at work

Stardust

Write, I need to write

Last night was filled with intense dreams, I didn't sleep well.

"A star cannot shine with a broken heart"

I like the phrase, it's from the movie Stardust. I saw it for the first time on Saturday and really liked it.



True Love - According to the star Yvaine

"My heart... It feels like my chest can barely contain it. Like it doesn't belong to me any more. It belongs to you. And if you wanted it, I'd wish for nothing in exchange — no gifts, no goods, no demonstrations of devotion. Nothing but knowing you loved me, too. Just your heart, in exchange for mine."

How few there are who have courage enough to own their faults, or resolution enough to mend them. - Benjamin Franklin 

For having lived long, I have experienced many instances of being obliged, by better information or fuller consideration, to change opinions, even on important subjects, which I once thought right but found to be otherwise. - Benjamin Franklin

Sad Moments...

Some days it takes me a really long time to do simple things, like put clothes away. Right now there's a pile of my ex-husbands clothes in the hallway, he left them here the last time he visited from Hawaii. They were downstairs in the laundry room until I brought them to my room and put them on a chair.

Last time he was here he brought a storage box from his apartment to leave in the boys room... that way he wouldn't be paying needless rent. 

I opened the box up to put his other clothes away. There are some shorts, and shirts that he's had for a long time... something about seeing them there makes me cry, bawl really.

My heart is always going to carry some piece of hurt from what has happened... I'm always going to miss the dreams that I've let go...

I miss me. My hopes and dreams are hard to carry forward sometimes...

Focus

I'm listening to a YouTube video on "How to Double Your Brain Power!"

The premise is that we can gather inspiration from the collective mind. That pure knowledge can flow to us when we have a clear purpose in mind, a clear question.

I've felt that before, beautiful clarity of mind as I pour out my thoughts onto the page. I have also noticed that the only things that tend to get done are the things that I focus on. Makes sense. The weight of responsibility is incumbent upon us to focus on good things then.

I have noticed that the things that I put in mind as what I want in my life are what eventually show up.

I put excellent health at the top of my list and work towards that every day. I think I'm getting there.

A lot of times the things that we put in mind to get are things we desperately feel we need. The worry then is that if you focus on some specific need/want without balance to other needs/wants than the other things will get pushed to the side.

So, what is it that you truly need?

Nostalgia

Today's been really nice, sunny and warm outside, with a bit of a breeze. Dad and I went shopping yesterday for a new washer and dryer set for my house, my washer completely went out, the dryer door wont shut (I have to stick the handle of the mop in it to get it to close). SO my tax return is going to a new washer/dryer...

I love the spring though, nothing gets me down when it is nice and sunny outside.

We are watching Irish shows today since it's St. Patrick's day today. I love old fashioned shows, there is a lot to them that is missing from contemporary shows. For instance there is a sense of time and space. There are pauses that signify emotion and there are subtle humorous queues. I like the neighborly and friendly way people are with each other. Life has meaning, summer, winter, fall, and spring each season and time brings celebration. I don't know that I've seen such calm and friendly contemporary shows in fact.

Makes me feel nostalgic for how things used to be.

Reflections

Summer time, growing up that was the BEST time of year. My cousins would come from out of town, Deda and Susu from Saudi Arabia; Shany from Arizona

Local cousins would vie for their time. Shany and I were two peas in a pod, she would often stay with me. Deda and Susu would live with their mom in a rented apartment. I liked to go hang out with them because they had a pool :)

Somehow, summer seemed to be the only time I was alive, truly alive.

I have vivid and permanent images in mind of how everything was. The old red van parked in the same spot from year to year, broken down. The lilac bushes that were sometimes full, sometimes broken apart depending upon if they had been climbed on. The fence on the front porch, the random square bushes that we could fall into when they were full of leaves and over grown.

The thick, thick grass front and back. The textures of the grass and soil as I walked barefoot around the yard.

My broken window, my parents thought it was broken in the big storm that ripped through and tore a tree up by the roots which fell on the house... actually it was me, trying to practice throwing baseballs... I was throwing them at the pillows on my bed but missed.

The trampoline!! The neighbors, how they fascinated me...

Walking barefoot down center street, hanging out at the decrepit shops and just loving it. "The Blue Door" a store that we couldn't find a name on. It was a hippy wonder land in there, Grateful Dead paraphernalia, incense, random mood rings and rings with crystals.

Life was intense! I miss that freedom, that yearning... innocence

I embarked upon marriage with the intense hope of youth. Love grew and waned through the years and so did hope. I had big dreams about how life was going to be, about the kind of mom I was going to be. Never did I think I would end up divorcing the way that I did. I held on, and LOVED so intensely and hurt so deeply. I turned away and turned back. Always, always trying to be a better person.

Then it ended.

My identity vanished

My nights became a reminder of the absence of that constant companionship that had been mine. I REALLY missed my husband. I screamed out in frustration that I COULD NOT turn back, I couldn't take him back no matter what he said to me. No matter what. Because he had betrayed a trust so basic that it couldn't be repaired. Even though I have forgiven him, I can't forget and I know who he is and what he's done.

I was writing to try and regain my voice. Ajey heard me. That relationship was VERY hard. I was so intrigued by his intellectual reasoning, I loved his songs. There was a great deal of irrationality in the relationship as well though. We went back and forth between what was possible and what wasn't. I felt unsettled a lot of the time. I was frustrated.

LOVE oh love if only I could regain the intense beauty of it.

As the sigh of the sea, the scent in the wind, the glorious stars

Longing for wordless connections, no longer empty silence

Simple silence, a pause

a breath

Lilac scented summer, soft grass

Shivering together, lovers, clasped

Stars pass overhead

Time stands still




 







 

I need to write!

I'm not sure exactly what I am going to write, but I need to write.

The past few days have been beautiful outside, calling to me. I've been dealing with a broken washing machine, running up to my parents to do laundry, trying to get some work done, cleaning, running errands and paying my bills.

Today I'm dealing with an intense searching for reconciliation between my perceptions of what I should look like, the cultural stereo types that are in play, and what I really want to understand and think when I look in the mirror.

My face is a reflection of experience. My body the product of as much healthy food that I could buy, and the accumulation of hours sitting at the behest of a job.

At what point in life do we simply look into the mirror and realize the beauty we have gathered from living, rather than hate the signs of our experience?

When I was younger I used to love my Daddies laugh lines, I would play with them those beautiful wrinkles around his eyes, straightening them out and always feeling happy to see them. It's not so easy to see them on myself.

Today

My little kids are sleepy, daylight savings time is taking its toll on all of us.

I'm asking myself what love means.

Love, when I was married it meant sadness, it meant giving up myself to someone, giving kindness for affection. It meant forgiving and forgetting again and again.

I LEARNED a lot, I learned that little things didn't matter, socks on the floor or forgetting some small task.

I'm watching "Beyond Survival with Les Stroud." He travels to different parts of the world to understand and document indigenous cultures and their survival techniques.

The Zulu in Africa have some traditions that remind me of Tongan traditions, including giving blankets at weddings.

When I was married to Sam I felt that I was in the midst of a traditional people with many superstitions and traditions that have survived for many generations. I was fascinated by them, I wished to understand. I studied the language, I studied their written text and asked many questions. Somehow though I was just NOT a part of it all. An outsider looking in.

There were cultural influences that effected my relationship. His methods of raising children, through dominance, was frustrating to me. At times I felt so alone, especially at cultural celebrations. Men don't sit with their wives, they hang out together, cook and stay out of the way... unless they are older and of a certain status.

Each day I searched for a way to make life for my family better.

Loving has also meant sharing confidences, laughing at stupid jokes, talking for hours about nothing in particular and longing to be together.

Love has meant holding hands, cooking together, and knowing that your silence is understood and understanding someones silences.

Love was holding on despite impossibilities. Love was hopeful... and my heart was broken when I let go because it was hurting too much to hold on when hope was no longer enough.

SG

Late Night Frustrations

This is blogging while blind, frustrated by situational scenarios of the day that have me up far later than I want to be.

I was on track for getting to bed on time, then fate intervened. Sam called me up and wanted a picture of his drivers license from when he went by a different last name, which happened to be under a pile of carefully packed stuff in the trailer outside. I hate digging through piles of stuff in order to extract files of stuff for my ex. I wonder why I am still babysitting him? Then I had to figure out how to get a good picture of said license and send it to him. I ended up scanning it, emailing it to myself and then sending it to him.

Enough said.

So, my goal of getting up early and getting to the gym has gotten just that much harder.

I am fighting a battle here with my own insecurities and fears. Reality and wishes. I want a strong healthy body, for my own sake honestly but partially and irationally because I fear that comparison of me to them. My beauty to others beauty. How do I measure up? Shallow, shallow, shallow world right well I'm a player in it, of course I'm attracted to strong healthy guys. My ex husband was a polynisian god when we first got married. Naturally built. BUT he wasn't healthy emotionally, he wasn't independent. I had to baby him. There are guys out there who worship their bodies, spend inordinate time at the gym. Who can really stand being with these guys, seriously? What I really want is someone with a healthy attitude, who values good health and exercises to maintain that health.

So that's my plan anyway, develop a strong healthy body.

Dating... it's nice. I've mostly been dating John, but there are other guys interested in me. I really owe it to myself to date more than one guy. John's a terrific guy though. We shall see.

Well it is LATE so I'm going to go sleep.

~SG

Swimming Trip

Hi there blog.

Yesterday Roxie and I went swimming with John and his girls. We all had a lot of fun! :)

These girls are all adorable!!

So here I am trying to sort out the ins and outs of life

Sometimes I wonder what the greatest good I could do in life. I know what that is, to be a good mom.

I'm working on that goal.

I need to wake up earlier, get going in the morning. Thankfully I think I'm almost to the point where I've got the energy and clarity of mind that I've been working so hard for.

I'm going to be rocking strong and healthy :)

I believe that once I'm healthy and strong all the effort living my life will be easier.

I also need to PLAN better, get more sleep...

So I've got an episode of ONCE to finish (Zombies in this episode, cool beans), then a good guy to talk to... and then my bed calls to me

Speaking of which, a nice hot bath would be good... I shall add that to my list

SG

New Relationships

I like this

Good friends that I have movie nights with. A job I enjoy. Kids who brighten up my day with the amusing things they do.

This time in my life is nice

My fears at this time revolve around what will happen with my next relationship. Will something in my past come back and haunt me? Will I be able to be loved for my genuine self? Do I accept and love my genuine self?

A new relationship means letting go of the frustrations of my past. Opening myself up to new ideas/possibilities. It means reevaluating what I thought was the most important thing to me, in some ways circling around to what I most valued in the past but gave up when holding on meant causing strife between me and my significant other.

Letting go is difficult. Especially since I am a compassionate person and hate when those I love are sad and in pain.

Holding on

I wish I could heal all the suffering and pain

All the loneliness

But I can't, it only frustrates and hurts me when I try

Because holding on means staying in a mode of indecision, especially where the decision to stay or go has already been made and I can't change the reasons for making the decision.

I fear, deception. Falling so deeply in love with someone only to find out that you're not really as important as you hoped you were to them. Something else was. You can't fight against that. Especially addictions and/or pornography.

It's hard to progress towards a beautiful relationship, while holding on to fears... so hopefully I can let go enough to be genuine and happy (and hopefully not get hurt).