Learn to Fly

I've been harboring a lot of negativity as of late and today was reminded by someone special that despite all of the hardship and broken feelings, with a little encouragement we can still learn to fly.


Sometimes we quietly wait, hoping that someone comes along to help us through our struggles but occasionally we only have ourselves rely on. The survival instinct kicks in and we find the courage to be our own savior.


We strap in, buckle down and take flight, hoping that with our own wings and a prayer we have the strength to soar across the skies on a solo mission. 


I foolishly allowed myself to believe that it took someone else's power to thrust me into the atmosphere, but now realize that all that time, I was actually being grounded. How many apologies can I accept before they genuinely sound sincere? Your feelings, if true, should have built me up, not destroyed me in the process. 


I'm not like all of the other girls, I am the exception to any of your rules. You just didn't see that so clearly and tried to change me to fit your mold. It turns out that I was nothing more than an intriguing piece of uncharted territory that you set out to conquer.


You looked so fine in your beautiful little package, wrapped up in charming intentions and empty promises. Yeah, it enticed me into thinking that the contents of the gift were just as pretty on the inside, so I faltered. I gave into something knowing the the odds were already stacked against me. Like those who came before me, I was flattered by your fascination with me. You caught me at the exact moment that I needed an object to crave.


I let you in under false pretenses, an understanding that you were someone whose personality I was drawn to, someone who was fun and inviting. I discovered after diving in that it all was a bit of a mirage. A delicious hallucination. 


It may seem that I'm placing the blame on you, but it's really not your fault. You are who you are and I am who I am. If we were truly meant to be, neither one of us would have required any emotional or physical remodeling. If we both weren't so stubborn, perhaps we would have recognized that from the start or at the very least worked with what we had.


On paper it looked so good. You passionately unavailable, me thrillingly fucked up. Meh, what can you do? Lesson learned and we move along, but you've got to let me go. You can't have more than you deserve. It's not fair to put me in the position of trying to figure you out. I need you to be both beautiful and true. Your words were so damn pretty and I was drawn in like a moth to a flame again and again, but true words often aren't pretty at all and pretty words aren't always true. 


I needed something to help me burn out bright and you were that complication. Now I learn to fly.

Feathered

You know that I saw you today, I heard you say hello in our own celestial form of communication and today, like every day, I was grateful.

You put a smile on my face, a lump in my throat and filled my heart with love with one single feather.

Even in death, you still manage to give me the strength to straighten up and fly right when my own quills are a little worse for wear.

I still miss you all the time.

A Piece of Cake

Sometimes the best times are spent doing close to nothing at all. A little red wine, video games and good conversation.

The thing that I love about "good" conversation is that it isn't always about the splendid, easy things in life. Sometimes the good comes from drinking Merlot out of a coffee cup. Sometimes the good is finishing in last place every time at a PlayStation game. And sometimes the good is all about getting out a little of the bad without discrimination.

That's seriously the good stuff.

All the rest is the icing, the sweet, luscious glaze that most people mistake for the good; but what good is a sugar coating if the cake has no substance, right? As someone who loves to bake, I know first and foremost that it's all about the cake! The best icing in the world can only help but so much, yep it's all about the cake!

Every relationship starts with all the proper ingredients but it's all in how they are mixed that matters most. Recipes are meticulous for a reason, try to fuse them together in the wrong order and you've got a cake that is nothing but flavorless, unfulfilling shit.

Rarely can you perfect a new recipe right off the bat, it takes some practice to do it actual justice. There are times when it isn't even worth the trouble, it tastes bad, it is always going to taste bad, so you dump it in the trash and move on. Other times you recognize that it's just a little off, but with some tweaking it could be super delicious.

What would they be if you didn't even try? Sometimes you just have to try.

As someone who has a long standing relationship with the idiom "cut bait and run," for reasons other than the fact that I hate to fish, I have a full appreciation in knowing that it's almost always easier to bail rather than to put forth an effort and that life experiences described as being a "piece of cake" really shouldn't be defined as "a very easy task." Unless you're being served a piece of cake and your sole responsibility is to eat it, there is nothing effortless when it comes to making a gratifying cake.

Who really cares what it looks like as long as you've infused it with your true heart and soul. It's not all about the pretty and masking the imperfections with a nondescript fondant finish. It's ok if it's ugly as hell, the undertaking will be worth it in the end as long as it tastes good.

Heart Shaped World

Of the tears that we cry for others, do you selfishly wonder how many you get in return?

It's not as if I wish hurt and sorrow on someone else, just having the knowledge that I meant enough to someone to shed a tear over is all I really need to know. It's so egotistical to actually read that in print, but seriously, could you turn the tables just one time and let me see you cry just a little for me?

You're always so stoic and unfaltering, would it kill you to show some true emotion, any emotion? You have a gorgeous mind and a divine soul, use them to their full potential. Skimming the surface of life only gets you so far and leaves a void of emptiness. Trust me on this one, I know.

I'm not foolish enough to think that we live in a flawless, heart shaped world, but what I do know about life is that everything that matters comes straight from the heart. Friendship, love, joy and pain...right there from the ticker! We were put on this earth to find people that we can connect with. They are the ones that we want to shower with refections of ourselves. Even the little things that we do to put a simple smile onto the face of someone we care about brings us joy in return and leaves us happily fulfilled.

In a perfect world, it would cycle like that continuously until the end of our days, nothing but happiness and joy, but that isn't how this so-called life of ours works. Hearts occasionally hurt for good reason. It allows us to appreciate the actual good that surrounds us that much more. It changes who we are for the better because we are inspired to do better and be better in hopes to avoid the crushing blow of heartache.

It is a sucking chest wound of a bitch to do something for someone when the certain level of appreciation you were expecting in return doesn't quite play out the way you had envisioned it. Precordial thump me the next time why don't you? The success rate is just as poor, but maybe, just maybe you will send my heart back into a normal rhythm instead of kicking a hole right through the center.

You see, it is in my nature to comfort and your gratitude is what I need to make me feel complete. Show me in return that I've done something that mattered. I need to you to need me in your life. That is what friendship is all about, not just wanting, but needing.

There are tons of people that I want in my life, but only a handful of those that I really need. They are the ones that inspire me to be a finer person. The ones that catch me when I fall. The ones that listen without judgement and wipe my tears with kindness. They are the ones that I can't live without.

We will no doubt act crazy and stupid and make regrettable mistakes along the way, but you know what, it's cool, this ain't about perfection. It's about the reciprocity of true friendship. You just gotta have a little faith, a trusting soul, an open mind, a receptive heart and sometimes an occasional tear.

I don't play the part of the mercenary often, I just want what is mine. I gave and now I'm wanting something in return. Could you cry just a little for me?

You Only Get What You Give.

Once there was a girl who packed up her whole life to move to the big city. She stumbled and fell right out of the chute; but she brushed herself off, held her head high and carried on. She met new people along the way, some that became structural parts of her life, while others stayed for just a while.

She pledged to keep in close contact with the good friends that she had left behind, they were the forever kind, the ones no matter the distance would always be there or so she thought. She took advantage of that way of thinking and forged ahead with her new, exciting life.

Her exciting, crazy, out of control, superficial kind of life. Oh there was fun to be had, but it came with a price and she neglected the bill until it was long past due.

Days turned to weeks and weeks to years, the fun continued; it was a party almost every day of the week. The girl was having the time of her life, it filled a selfish, shallow void that real relationships could not. No thinking, no feeling, no responsibility, no commitments, no pressure, no emotion.

Just emptiness.

Like all things, the party eventually came to end and it was time to carry on with the life she once knew, but it was a little too little too late. All of those "forever" friends that she pushed to the wayside and lied to through the years, on her quest for the frivolous; the ones that she thought would always be there when she finally came calling, we're gone. She had killed them all off one by one without even knowing it.

When they needed her, she hadn't been there and when her time came, they re-payed her by giving her back exactly what she had given.

Mistakes made, lessons learned and tons of soul searching. The girl vowed to be a better person and she is to this very day. Instead of pushing the tough stuff aside in exchange for a pretty, cosmetic existence, she learned to stay put and fight hard for the things that matter most in this life.

Honesty, truth, respect, reliability, consistency, communication, family, friendship, love.

She gives what she hopes and expects to get in return. While it doesn't always happen that way, she still gives without fault, because there was a time, not too long ago, that she wasn't able to "get" all of the good that she'd been given.

She accepted that life sometimes begins when the fun ends.

All That Shimmers

It is a terribly crushing feeling when something you believed in lets you down. I mean it happens, I am not naive. My own 14-karat gold plating has been rubbed off a time or two, unveiling nothing but cold hard metal underneath. It's the part of life that no one likes to talk about and tries like hell to avoid, but no matter what, it will always happen.

I've been through quite a few different emotions as of late. I was giddy and excited and hopeful and open to something new and beautiful...and although not a real word, I guess you could say I was feeling a little "smittenish"and for once in a long while, it felt like a good place to be.

I found myself smiling more and being silly for no reason; people took notice of my happiness. Oh my happy; it was indeed a good place to be. And then, without warning that a storm was brewing, the lights went out, proving once again that all that shimmers in this world is sure to fade.

When a serious step needed to be taken, a different path was chosen; leaving me standing at the fork alone with my tears and disillusion. It could be a classic case of "poor me," but not for this girl. Remember behind those weepy eyes, I'm tough...right?!

I'm made of cold hard metal beneath my skin, just like you.

Ralph Waldo Emerson once wrote, "Every wall is a door." For every obstacle that we encounter in this life, there is always a way over it. There is nothing that can prevent us from getting through it and moving on, knowing that at the point of impact, we are the ones that hold the key to it's door.

My pursuit has not been dashed, it just begins again.

I will never lose sight of who I am and what I want. I'm true to myself, but recognize those who come into my life for a reason and change it for the better. Even the hardest of metals have their melting point.

Build Me Up Buttercup

I think that disappointment might be the cruelest of the emotions. When you're happy, your body is filled with joy. When you're sad, your body weeps, but when you're disappointed, well that is a tough one to deal with.

By definition, the word itself means "depressed or discouraged by the failure of one's hopes or expectations." Fair enough, but to fully appreciate disappointment for what it is, you have to a clear understanding of the word hope, "the feeling that what is wanted can be had or that events will turn out for the best."

Hope is the angel, disappointment is the devil that puts the kibosh on all of those glorious daydreams and leaves you wondering if you weren't just hallucinating everything that happened up until the point the bubble was burst.

Hope is the free fall, filled with spontaneous butterflies and a heart so filled with glee it could burst at any minute and you wouldn't care. Disappointment is when you realize that you're strapped to a faulty chute, knowing that at any moment you might come crashing down and that every emotion that you felt prior is overcome with disillusion.

Disappointment is like a cancer. It is an unwelcome invasion that intrudes upon and destroys everything in it's path. Disappointment is the Mac Daddy of affliction, unlike other emotions that define a particular feeling, disappointment uses it's poison to combine a whole slew of singular emotions to feed it's disease. Anger, hate, resentment, anxiety, sadness, aggravation. I could go on and on, but you get it.

Back in the day the most effective way for my parents to "punish" me was to let me know just how disappointed they were in relation to some thing I had done. It cut like a knife and left me to analyze what exactly I needed to do so that they never felt that way again. I'm not sure what is worse, to disappoint or be the one left disappointed, either way it is a tumultuous shit show of disgust.

I figuratively went to bed with disappointment last night and awoke to find it still sleeping nest to me. Seriously, just who do you think you are? Please, for once, just make up some lame excuse, throw on your clothes and get the hell out! I don't want or need you in my life! I have been used and abused by just about every emotion out there, but you sir are the worst.