Happy Single Awareness Day - Seriously

Some single folks might be sad today. They are feeling like they are missing out on being coupled up, in love and sure of getting loved up tonight. So, I do get it. This can be a day of torture. You have to go to work and watch all those gift deliveries that are coming NOT YOUR WAY. Or you'll have to plant that I'm-so-happy-for-you smile on your face and say things like, "Aww... sweetness," when your friends tell you all about their plans. Valentine's Day feels like it's 72 hours long for some folks.

Not me.

I've had great V-Days and bad ones - both while coupled up. Since the bad ones are more recent in my memory, I'm taking this day as a time to be thankful. Thankful that I have the good since sense (wow) to wait for a decent man. Thankful that I'm not staying in a relationship that doesn't make me a better person. Thankful that, for the first time in a few years, I'm kind of in love with myself.

You know how I know that I'm in the best place for me right now? Because I can truthfully say that I really am happy for the lovers out there. I didn't wake up practicing my fake-ass "Aww's" and "How cute are you guys?" to repeat every time I see a happy sweetheart.

Take it from me: if you are single today, that must be the best thing for you. Either you aren't in a relationship because you don't need to be, you don't deserve to be or - and this is the biggie - you haven't found the person you're supposed to be with. Matter of fact, if you are in a relationship and aren't happy, it might be for the same three reasons. I've been there.

This is just one day on the calendar. If Valentine's Day is really a time to show love, then every calendar day should be this special. When you find (or if you have found) the person right to share your life, then I hope you'll love them so much that Valentine's Day will just be a day like every other.

Now. Let's have some S.A.D. days chuckles:

Pick the right one, folks!

At least you'll save $$$ today! 

Just added this cos it's funny

I thank him for BEING an Ex

Happy Valentine's Day to all of you from me.

It's not just about lovers, but LOVE

Peace
--Free

Clean Mental Closets

I've had a little break from on-line life. My head was too crowded and full and unorganized to be healthy. I felt a little like this

*

and I couldn't breathe right. I had too many things swimming around in my head: worries, tensions, anxieties, fears, unrealistic wishes and impossible dreams. Actually, that's pretty much the way I live seventy percent of my life. Chaotic joy. Lately, it's been too much chaos.

I'm still not all the way fine, but compared to the way it was, my head feels better and all like

It's not perfect, but it's better. I still have to go through the vital things left after I trashed all the worthless crap.

I think I have come to grips with certain probabilities. Probably I am never

• going to have the great jobs I've always landed
• going to be as skinny as I used to be
• going to laugh as loud and fearlessly as I once was able to 
• going to look at anyone with my heart wide open
• going to live a life as weary-free as I did at 25

Probably. But I still have a twinge of hope.

Now that summer seems to be - really, finally, no-joking-around here - I've been getting ready to re-enter the world. My cocoon of disability is loosening its grip. First thing is getting the transportation taken care of - insurance, title, tune-up... Next, a job. I have a friend who likes to call employment a J.O.B. (Journey of the Broke), but she's never been forced out of that journey, bless her.

All in all, things are going okay. I still need to get my butt off the computer and make some call, take care of some business. This here was just a catch-up post. How the heck are you guys? Hope you are smiling.

Peace
-Free

*credit to whomever concerned for those brilliant images used

Measuring Joy

I was up really early on my birthday, just thinking, thinking and thinking - like I guess everyone does on birthdays, anniversaries and some holidays. Nora Ephron had just passed and I had gone and re-read some of her essays and other musings. I was touched by the advice she gave to younger women and kind of amused by (but in disagreement with) some of what she had to say about aging. Thinking of her and other women who lived uniquely, or fully, I got to wondering about what it means to live fully. What I came up with is, it's not about having a busy or fabulous career or family or adventures. It's about personal and individual pleasures and contentments. It's about joy, or at least, that's what I believe.

So then, what is joy, and how do you measure it your joy?

Can't measure it by the money you have. Money is too easy to lose. Money buys things that can deceive you: power but not respect, respect but not love, fear but hatred... It goes on and on. Money is only as good as the person who has it.

You can't measure joy by the number of friends you have. Friends are as flawed as you are. If friends were the complete foundation of an individual's joy, then there'd be no despair or grief or suicide of a person with friends. Friends are pieces of joy, not the finished puzzle.

Joy isn't what you look like, who you love or who loves you. It's not sex or food or good music or theater.

Maybe joy is that thing that is only indescribably sensed - not by sight or touch or sound or taste or smell. Maybe it is a sense itself, except real and whole, like God. It exists and always has. It seems to be without a known beginning, like creation itself, but given a beginning, like the first breath to an infant.

I have joy just as I have faith. They are, I think, very alike.

And... R.I.P. Nora Ephron

Peace
--Free

Thankful

A while back I heard the story of 2 traveling angels. They stayed one night with a poor but nice family who were having a lot of troubles & spent another night with a wealthier and not-so-nice family who also had troubles. The junior angel was puzzled that the senior angel helped the wealthy family and not the poor family. The senior angel explained that things are not always as they seem and the poor family turned out in the end being blessed most of all. I don't really remember the story better than that, but I did get the lesson. Sometimes we should realize that the very things that annoy us are really blessings. My niece Gwennie sent me an email with the following that illustrates that very nicely:

I am thankful for the wife
who says it's hot dogs tonight,
because she is home with me
& not out with someone else

For the husband
who is on the sofa being a couch potato,
because he is home with me
& not out at the bars

For the teenager
who is complaining about doing dishes,
because it means she is at home
& not on the streets

For the taxes
I pay,
because it means I am employed

For the mess
to clean after a party,
because it means I have
been surrounded by friends

For the clothes
that fit a little too snug,
because it means
I have enough to eat

For my shadow
that watches me work,
because it means
I am out in the sunshine

For a lawn
that needs mowing,
windows that need cleaning,
& gutters that need fixing,
because it means
I have a home

For all the complaining
I hear about the government,
because it means
we have freedom of speech

For the parking spot
I find at the far end of the parking lot,
because it means
I am capable of walking
& I have been blessed with transportation

For my huge heating bill,
because it means
I am warm

For the lady
behind me in church
who sings off key,
because it means I can hear

For the weariness & aching muscles
at the end of the day,
because it means
I have been capable of working hard

For the alarm
that goes off in the early morning hours,
because it means I am alive

And
I am thankful
for the crazy people
I work with,
because they make working interesting & fun!

And, finally,
for too much email,
because it means
I have friends who are thinking of me

P.S.: I even like the tags at the bottom of the email. One reads: "Live well, laugh often & love with all of your heart!" The other reads: "Not one shred of evidence supports the notion that life is SERIOUS!" (I may have to take one of these as my blog motto!)