In Praise Of Pestilence

So I started my day off being screamed at by the Ex…how much he hates me and what a fuckin’ bitch I am. I took his kids away from him to Oklahoma where there are NO jobs for him.. He knows  because he called people, regardless of what I say to the contrary…. Sigh…

I honestly do not feel I deserve to be despised so, but it hurts none-the-less. Actually, that’s why it does hurt so much. In my honest (yet admittedly biased) evaluation of the past my only crime against this man is my inability to keep loving him in the face of a constant barrage of criticism, disrespect, unkindness, and the absence of love or affection… I tried… but I couldn’t keep on loving someone who so disliked and disrespected me in return… And that is what  I believe is so unforgivable in his book… I stopped loving him. Not the kids and I moving… I’ve been the fucking bitch that he despised since I said I wanted a divorce.

I tell you this in preface to the point of my story…I went to church last Sunday… I know, you’re shocked. Get up off the floor… I do DO that occasionally… church… I like this one, the preacher is uplifting and besides I actually learned something that I’m going to SHARE with you!

Did you know that in Enterprise Alabama they have a monument giving tribute to a BUG? A Boll Weevil to be exact…The bug that in 1910-1915 endangered their lively hoods by destroying their cotton crops…

So why on Earth erect a monument to your tormenter you ask? Well because that amazing community decided to be flexible, to grow in the face of hardship and persecution… To bend when everyone would have understood if they broke… They started planting peanuts… And became WAY more prosperous than they ever were with cotton..

Monument in praise of the Boll Weevil

So, here’s an example of the old cliché “What doesn’t kill us makes us stronger” in action. If we CHOOSE to let it I must add..Who’d a thunk it?

I find it hard to believe I’ll ever feel like erecting a monument to the Ex, or the Golf Pro either for that matter, but I do know that I am better off now. I’m ready for peanuts, my flexible idea, to arise… You know, the thing that’ll make me WANT to build a monument to them…

I challenge us to diversify like those Alabamans did… I know that some of you have pestilence, and persecutions far worse than mine, but I believe that we are strong enough to bend. I believe that we have in us the strength of heart to outsmart, outlast, and outlove whatever challenges arise.

Richard Bach says in Illusions  “There is no such thing as a problem without a gift in its hands for you. You seek problems because you need their gifts”.

Hmmm…. Maybe… I don’t know about you, but I am ready to quit seeking those kinds of gifts…

I am off for a lunch date with a guy from the personal ads… He is not my type and I’m not at all interested in him, but Rori says they are all messengers and practice. So I’m going to practice… and will eventually write about the online dating stuff… I promise… But I gotta feel it to write it and I’m on a fine line these days with the “feelin” it…

Angels on your bodies

Prairie Girl

Your Horse Knows The Way Home

“Always trust your horse. Your horse knows the way through the forest… The way home… you know, to your happy destiny”

Hmmm… well on one level this resonates with me. When I was 11 or 12 yrs old I got lost while riding through the river bottoms.. After going round in circles for a long time, unable to find the path to get me through the dense thickets and trees out of the river bottom, I dropped my reins and started crying. My horse, as if thinking, “oh can we stop this nonsense and go home now?” immediately turned and found a seemingly invisible path and took us out of there….

There is much more to this story… a story my mother claims not to have heard until recently… I would argue that I told her all of it but, my memory is often giving me fits these days, so I don’t want to point fingers…

The part I’d be willing to admit I might not have told her about was that we, my riding pal and I, were actually someplace we were NOT supposed to be when this happened. 

We’d followed a girl we didn’t know, who was quite a bit older than us, and riding with a grown up man she didn’t seem to know well. We came across them at the riding stable where we always stopped for pop before our day long rides…We’d tried to keep up with them as they left the stables, but the man kept leading the girl ahead as though trying to lose us… We followed them through some woods into the flats of the shallow river that ran the distance from my house to town. Followed them until we could see the highway bridge in town. Town that was five miles from home.  It was at that point we turned back and let them ride on, aware we’d gone WAY past our boundaries. 

We retraced our way without trouble until the part where we had to get out of the dense wooded area running next to the river…that’s when my horse saved the day…

 What I “apparently “ neglected to mention to anyone until now was that later that night my riding pal called. Her parents were watching the news about a girl raped under that particular highway bridge earlier that day…. I don’t remember the details of the newscast but we always felt sure it was the couple we’d ridden with that day…

 My horse knew the way home… It’s the horse in these pictures by the way… She pretty much raised me….

 Here’s what I’m trying to have faith about… How can I trust the “horse” of my life to know the way “home” to a “happily ever after” that I have never seen….

 Horses, good ones, are obedient. They go where you rein them… I took Corky all over those river bottoms in all the wrong directions if home was my destination….The same can be said for the “horse” of my love life…

 So…I’m learning to let go of the reins and hope.. trust.…that I’ll know my happy destination when it kisses me… 

As I ride on through the forest this is what I tell myself…

No matter what got me off track… No matter who looked like my happy destination but turned out to be a path to nowhere or worse yet, heartache…

I get back on my horse and ride – with or without the situation or man.

Whether it’s hanging onto the saddle gripping me for dear life, or trying to get me to stop and let him on, or whether I’m holding him, or it, with one hand behind me (for the moment) as I ride on.

It is NOT about “letting go” of the past, or forgetting, it’s about moving on with ME..

I may take the memory of a man, or situation down my path with me..

I may dream about him when I sleep…

But I will make a concentrated effort to take with me only what was said and done that made me feel good. What helped me to understand myself, and expand…

This is easier said than done… I read the other day that we sometimes have to fake it till we make it… even if it means dancing around the house flapping our arms and clucking like a chicken until we make ourselves giggle when we have fallen into a funk…

And as ALWAYS, it is about gratitude… for every tiny thing that is good… the big things should be a no-brainer right? Actually, sometimes I need to be reminded to be thankful for them too… I’m still learning.

The important thing is that I am RIDING ON!!! And I am apparently continuing to blab about my journey as I do…

There are times I feel foolish laying my heart so wide open here for all to see and judge. I write it anyway because I just cannot believe I am the only one who has felt these things or traveled these paths…

So in case anyone else ever feels foolish for their choices in life, or is tempted to believe the voices telling them it’s silly to continue hoping and dreaming… At least this way they’ll know they are not alone… There is a blabbermouth out here waving her heart, the one covered with Wonder Woman Band-Aids, persistently at the sky, as she rides on.

Angels on your bodies.

Prairie Girl

Life is Interesting Don't Ya Find?

“Life is so interesting don’t ya find it”… The Rose

I have been reminded of late that the Universe is a teacher not unlike a good parent… When little, we were taught how to walk… every step was celebrated like a breakthrough for modern science or something… “oooh the baby took her first step today! It was amazing! I cried!”… then… before you know it… not only is walking NOT something you’re celebrated for… Next thing you know you're EXPECTED to do it while doing not so pleasant things….like vacuuming, or mowing the lawn… or “walking barefooted to school…in the snow… uphill…both ways”…. You get my drift right?

A few months ago I celebrated the broadening of my understanding of belief… I saw amazing things happen as the result of changing my beliefs…And the Universe celebrated with me… “Oh what a good girl… here’s a house to live in perfect for you… here’s help packing..cowboys to restore your faith in …sex, if not love… “solid ground appearing beneath steps into thin air”….

Then…the real work begins….

“So” the Universe seems to say.. “what’s the deal with this negative belief you have over here… or this one over there”… barefoot..in the snow… uphill…both ways… sigh…

See the silly little problem with belief is you not only get the positive things you think/believe… you also get the NOT so positive..

Beliefs like… “men will do or say anything just to have sex”… Well, I’ve had men that got sex and still stuck around… I’ve been married twice and lived with another guy for several years until I threw him out (he didn’t want sex… hmm interesting Dr. Freud). So why manifest this belief? I don’t know.. I’m WORKING ON THAT…sigh.. again..

Manifesting, for example, a guy that works like crazy to win me.. be with me.. calling me everyday.. whatever.. who then completely changes after sex.. still says all the right things… WHEN he calls…

Why is that a problem you ask… well I’ll tell you… I’m a SAP… no matter HOW I try.. .and buddy I’ve tried… I cannot lay my body down on a bed without my heart staying behind there…

I’ve spent the past weeks wishing I was able to have sex the way men do… no strings attached… Just a good time… Heck, I might not have even considered the guy a keeper before sleeping with him!!!! Thinking that would make it a slam dunk to just enjoy the sex… See,  suddenly, at the ripe ole age of 46 I not only REALLY enjoy sex for the first time I MISS it when I don’t have it for a while…

Yes life is interesting… It was just over a year ago I would have sworn on a stack of Bibles that I wouldn’t care if I NEVER had sex again… It had been used and misused in my marriage to the Ex… There was only obligation associated with it then

Sally says I should have a 5 date rule so the guys has to get “attatched” to me… I told her it didn’t work like that. If a guy was just after sex then making him wait was like making him hunt in Alaska instead of his back yard… more work, planning, money, but still just a “hunt”.

I am re-learning dating with Ms Rori Raye… re-wiring everything I ever thought I knew and it feels empowering.. It feels “right” with my new found understanding of belief… But with every step I take my limiting beliefs are surfacing…forcing me to look at them…and….hopefully…. heal them..

I read this the other day…"It's what you learn after you know it all that counts."

Another limiting belief I have is about a man really and truly “getting” me… my heart, motives… you know, that he “gets” me… and… here’s the biggie… loves me wholeheartedly… anyway.

I mentioned that I’m on online dating sites now… I’m using the men I talk to on there for practice…Learning… relearning belief,energy… want to hear something that came out of me last night? I almost fell off my chair after I typed it..

A man asked me if I had found the love of my life on the site yet and this is what came out of my fingers!!!!!

“It feels sad to admit, but I can't say I believe the love of my life is on here...Honestly I'm just trying to feel hopeful he's anywhere... I've been married twice Sam, the last time for 12 yrs... I didn't hold out for the love of my life either time... I settled for close enough and it feels sad to realize and admit that...”

WOW! The question that’s been niggling around in the back of my mind these past few months as I’ve looked back on my life… wondering what I could have done different… what I could have done to avoid some of the missteps I believe I took… whether I honestly WOULD have done them differently or not… some of them caused me great amounts of pain…. Such an answer, coming out of my mouth to a stranger.. Holy Macaroni Bat Girl…

I have quit trying to have sex like a man… I don’t know how I’ll handle it instead… Hopefully it will come to me as needed…

I do feel a greater understanding of how my leaving my heart on the bed after sex played a huge part in why I “settled for close enough” in the past… Why I put up with and made excuses for things that I would have not otherwise tolerated…Something I found on the web recently hits close to home with me…

*******How Love Blinds You
Ever looked back on a past relationship and wondered “Wow, how did I NOT see those red flags?”
Well, cut yourself a little slack because there may actually be a biological force in play as well as your emotions.
 
Scientists at University College London reported in the journal NeuroImage that romantic love actually suppresses the brain waves associated with critical social assessment of other people and negative emotions.
In other words, once you get close to a person (i.e. you’re falling hook, line and sinker) your brain has a reduced need to assess their character and to harbor negative emotions towards them.
Yup…you read that correctly. You can be literally blinded by love.
“The suppression of neural activity in areas involving critical thinking and judgment suggests that love is not only blind, but also stupid,”
says Dr. Karin Anderson, Associate Professor of Psychology and Counselor Education, Concordia University Chicago and author of It Just Hasn’t Happened Yet (Clifton Hills Press, 2010).
**********

So how am I today? Well I’m mostly upward and onward with only slight pangs of …. Something…sadness, worry, but they are trumped by a growing bud of faith…

I keep my “lighthouses” in sight… My Spirit Guides close by to remind me the truth of “blooming where I’m planted”…

I tell myself that “what’s mine comes to me”….I unclench my hands so they are ready to receive…I step back…I breathe… I open my heart to all to love and beauty that surrounds me…Then I tie it all to a tumbleweed and send it out of me so I can be healed once again…

Oh, I haven’t forgotten my promise to tell you about cowboys in cyberspace…. I just took a spill from my “positive” pony and needed to brush my ass off… and maybe rub it a bit… since there doesn’t seem to be any cowboys handy to do it for me… Not that I’d let them!!!! I’m sworn off that kind of thing for the moment…<giggle>

Angels on your body

Prairie Girl…

Greetings From Grouchville

 I try to only write when I’m “up”… even when telling you about how “down” I was. I wait until I’m feeling better to tell you… but this funk has gone on for a week now.... If I’m ever gonna write again I’m going to have to start where I am…Here… in Grouchville…

I have two visuals for you… first…. the dance number Marilyn Monroe does in “Diamond Are A Girls Best Friend”… remember it? Her dancing up and down rows of men? Well… that’s been me… well sort of.. most of it’s done cyber-ly so there hasn’t been too much actual dancing…lol..

See, back in September my mom made me (really, MADE me) put up an online dating profile on the web.. she paid for it (several actually). That’s how I met the first cowboy I told you about, the one with the bulls, as well as the others since.. Yes, I have much to tell you…

But first back to why I’m in Grouchville… Think of me as Marilyn… dancing around, and all sorts of cowboys dancing around me… texting, calling, emailing, even coming to meet the family and show me a good time…. Can you see it?....

AAAAARRRRRHHHHHHH!!!!

My feet hurt.. my dress rubs… and if one more asshole pinches me on the butt I’m going to become a lesbian. I would say become celibate but that pains me since I just started loving s-e-x. Well….real butt pinching would not be bad.. What’s pissing me off is how mutable, inconsistent and IRRITATING men are. It’s making me want to SCREAM!

I want to tell you about this energy stuff… its freaky but I’m too “low” energy to even talk about it right now!!!

I don’t have all the answers to how energy works, and I may never perfect the use of it…. to get my drift here’s your second visual…

Remember the old TV series Bewitched? The main character had an Aunt Clara who was also a witch, but when she tried to do “spells” she’d end up turning a child into a goat instead of conjuring a bowl of cereal for their breakfast… She’d then have to work to undo it….

That’s me… I got some powers I have not yet mastered... And NOW I’m surrounded by GOATS!!! Oh for the love of goose-grease!

I’ve had days this week where I think I may really swear off men… I feel so foolish for being so publicly, hopefully romantic… EEK! It seems I’m really no better than the Other Woman with her blathering on about the Golf Pro for all those months… One more reminder to be careful whom I judge huh?

I’m gonna tell you about the Cowboys In Cyberspace soon… I promise… even if I have to write it from the nunnery (do they take non-Catholics?) In the meantime I’ll leave you with pictures from this prairie…

 Think ole Sam is out there somewhere lookin for me?.... I'm havin my doubts... but the possibility might keep me riding on a while longer.... maybe...

I love and appreciate you….

Angels on your bodies.

Prairie Girl.