Letting Go

We all hang onto things...sometimes relationships....much longer than we should. That emotional baggage that builds up inside can be truly crippling at times, weigh us down and stop us from doing what's best. I happen to be somewhat of an expert on this, I am an emotional packrat. I know I should do massive spring cleaning in my life, but knowing and doing are two seperate things entirely.

I stayed in an emotionally unhealthy relationship for well over a decade because I simply couldn't bring myself to let go. Fear of the unknown, the being outside my comfort zone, kept me from taking that giant leap of faith. Even now, I still cling onto it in some ways. I finally gathered the guts to leave the relationship, but it's scarring has held my heart prisoner ever since.

I let it's memory of everything bad about a relationship influence my next relationship. I am a very open person, yet still hold my heart very close, keeping it guarded. I'm flexible, but when it comes to matters of the heart, I fear change, I fear rejection and those fears hold me back from loving someone all out. I can't count the times I wanted to do things or say things that would show how much I cared, but the fear held me back from acting on it.

Maybe deep inside I knew that it would never work out, so in some way thought why try? I'd just be setting myself up for even more heartache when the time for good-bye came around. Or maybe it was simply because the spark just wasn't big enough. I know I still think back on things I could have done better. How foolish I was to ever think that a true spark or that pure happy energy you feel simply by sitting next to someone would even be possible decades after the intense 'schoolgirl crushes'. But I've come to realize that it is possible to feel that way no matter what your age, you just have to let go and allow yourself to be swept away by that energy. For a long time now, I swore that I just wasn't anyone's 'forever girl', that I was more of a 'she'll do for now' type. I'm beginning to understand that since that's how I thought of myself, that's how others saw me. So, here's to letting go. May it help me find that spark and fan the little flame so it can become a raging emotional fire that warms my heart and the heart of the one I find :)

Happy Birthday John!!

Every woman has her favorite actor, who usually doubles are her dream guy and is on her "list". Mine is John Cusack. I mean come on, he's perfect! Tall, trim, sweet, handsome, talented, down-to-earth, family-oriented, black belt in kickboxing, need I go on? I've seen almost all his movies, own a lot of them and everyone of them I'll watch, dreaming of being his leading lady.

Well, today is his 43rd birthday, so I just wanted to say a big Happy Birthday John!! Keep those wonderful movies coming and maybe one day, I'll get to meet you in person :)

28 Days

I saw an older Sandra Bullock movie last night, 28 Days. Sandra portrays a writer with an addiction to several 'poisons' but the most prominent was alcohol. She shows up to her sisters wedding drunk and ends up smashing the wedding cake and then after borrowing the limo, crashes it through the front window of a local living room. She's sentenced to 28 days of rehab, it's that or jail time. In that 28 days, she makes a complete turn around in her way of thinking (and living), overcoming some pretty rough days while she dries out. Naturally, it got me thinkng....

I'm not an addict of anything, well, at least not of anything illegal. I do have a problem with motivation though. That lack of motivation coupled with my ever-increasing age has lead to major poundage in the lower mid section. I'm now completely repulsed by my reflection and find myself scrambling to find something that covers up the buldge. I weighed myself tonight and almost fainted by what the scale said.....178 pounds! I haven't been this heavy in years! In a small defense, I will say that recently I have started eating several times a day since I have heard for years that when you rarely eat, you body goes into a starvation mode and tends to hang on to every calorie you consume. When you DO start eating normal amounts of food, you body, still believing it's got to hang onto every calorie DOES. The result? More weight and an increasing urge to eat, lol. Since I refuse to go out and buy bigger clothes to cover up the pooch and look uncomfortably stuffed into the clothes that I have now, something's GOT to change.

I'm giving myself an 28 day challenge......28 days, 28 minutes a day being very active and (hopefully) 28 pounds to shed. That will bring me down to an even 150, which for someone who's 5'10" is a good weight to reach. It also happens that '28' is my favorite number, so we shall see :)
Let the losing begin!!

Do Bears Bare? Do Bees Be?

Anyone who grew up during the 80's may remember this phrase, it was probably the first time you'd remember seeing the famous Bruce Willis and with a great head of hair! He and Cybil Shepard bantered back and forth every Monday night for several years in the popular tv series 'Moonlighting'. I was a huge fan of the show and recently, a favorite of my son's. We've been watching the tv series this week and boy has it brought back memories!

From the pilot episode, I was in love with Bruce Willis. He was footloose and fancy free, funny, caring and stubborn, lol He made me laugh all the time and I've never dropped him from my 'list'. Two main memories come back to me with Moonlighting.....a guy in my theatre class and a guy in band with me. The theatre guy and I were great friends and we both loved Moonlighting. We could bicker and banter back and forth at the same time (for fun) just like David and Maddie. We'd always end simultaniously, both saying "Understand?.....GOOD!" lol

The guy from band was like David in the way that his family's 'class' and mine were way different. He came from 'the wrong side of the tracks' and even though my parents were always very accepting of others no matter what, this guy made them hold certain reservations. For the longest time, I thought he hated me. He picked on my, made fun of me and made my first year or two pure hell at that school. Then it came to pass that he actually really liked me and we ended up being really good friends.

Lots of memories come up simply by watching an old tv show. Not only is it still entertaining, but it will always have an extra specialness for me.....memories :)

Lockdown

I have voluntarily put my heart on lockdown. Solitary confinement for an indefinate period of time. After the break up of my last boyfriend, and the dust of anger had settled, I still clung onto the hope that we had a future together and that he would come to see that. Of course, I did that with my ex-husband and instead of wanting me back, he just went out and married someone else. It was a crushing blow to know that you weren't worth it. Well, it's happened again (he didn't get married, but came to the conclusion that saying goodbye was the answer). It hurts, quite a bit in fact, but what can you do aside from duct tape him to a chair? They say that 3rd times a charm, I say I'm just setting myself up again. I even deleted the personal ads I had online, I need to take a break and heal. Either way, I'm too old for babies, to average to be arm candy and have little to offer anyone, so why wear out what's left of my heart on short-term relationships? I don't need anyone to help me pick out movies or to eat out with me, I can do those things by myself, have been for years. Vacations? Been there done THAT myself too. Would be nice to share that experience sure, but I'm perfectly capable of doing it alone. I buy my own flowers, treat myself to little items to show how thoughtful I am and enjoy taking myself out for a margarita anytime I want. The best part is that I won't ever wake up to me telling myself "It's over, I'll leaving". See? I'll be just fine. Now, Me, Myself and I are going to go start planning our vacation.....

Green With Envy

About a week ago, my son and I kicked off our summer with a movie, one of the several things that we wanted to be able to do this summer. He picked the new 'Shrek The Final Chapter' (or Shrek Forever After). We decided to not see the 3-D version, which worked well for me because those 3-D glasses had to be worn OVER my own glasses, which is awkward.

The movie was great, I laughed out loud through a great deal of it. It was the basic story of 'you don't know what you have until it's gone', done Shrek-style. There was a part of the movie where Shrek had basically gone back in time and things had changed. He had never met his true love, Fiona in this alternate reality. When he did, he knew who she was but she had no idea of who HW was. When he told her that he was suppose to have rescued her, she told him that (in HER reality) she waited and waited but he never came. That she found out the hard way that fairy tales are a waste of time, that she couldn't rely on anyone but herself, so she gave up and rescued herself from the tower. That part of the movie wasn't funny. It touched on some very hard points that really hit home.

For far too long, I've been waiting for my true love and for too long I've been let down. Fiona is right, fairy tales don't exist. If you want to be 'rescued' you have to do it yourself. Period.

Sooner or Later

Alot of people saw the movie 'Avatar' recently. The graphics were amazing although the storyline wasn't really all that new. Jake was, in real life, crippled and confined to a wheel chair. He was given the chance to go to a foriegn planet where he was given an avatar with which he could walk with the natives of the planet as one of them. He did this by basically having his body go to sleep and his mind transfer to the avatar. While he was in his avatar, he could walk again, learned a new way of life and as in most movies, fell in love. When he woke up, he was back in hius real body and again, crippled. I understand his wanting to remain asleep and in his avatar. The dream world offers what reality can't and that can be pretty appealing.

I'm to quick to trust and to quick to love. I would rarely admit this in person, but it's true. I have yet to understand whether it's out of being naive or desperate. Niether one is good and leads to a lot of heartbreak. Maybe it's due to the learned fact that people go away, vanish, move (or at least I do) and for whatever reason, just break the connection. It's been said that 'it's a dog eat dog world' and I have found that to be true. Do unto others before they can do unto you is basically what it means.

I used to give everyone the benefit of the doubt, I truly believed that everyone was honest with me. Why wouldn't they be? What reason did they have to lie? I was a regular Pollyanna when it came to such things. Young and stupid. Well I grew up. Even though I still have a habit of trusting people way more than I should, I do have boundries and only trust them so far. I would say that women and men are the same in the battle to tell the truth, but my experience has taught me that men tend to have a bigger problem with being honest. Maybe it's because I have more male 'friends' than I do female ones. I use the term 'friends' loosely. My definition of a true friend is someone who will always be there for you no matter what, and be up front and honest. Support you, be your shoulder to cry on and your arms to fall into when needed. Maybe that's being to demanding, because I've never had many and lately they're dropping like flies. Of course that's probably my fault as well. It's those boundries that I have. I truly long for someone to just hug me tight and tell me everything'll be ok. Not anylize me, not judge me, not even try to to fix what's wrong, just hold me. People lie about so much, why can't they lie about that? About everything being okay?

That broken connection people give me would usually signal that it was getting close to time for me to up and move. Since I know that's not the case, it bother's me about how many people have become well, less than what I expected from a friend. That's gonna make the next few years here pretty difficult to say the least.

When I was little, I was often accused by my mother of living in a dream world. She was right, I did dream a lot. I wasn't happy with being the ugly duckling, always the new kid in town, never any really good friends to hang out with for years and years. I was a wall flower, the skinny girl with braces that always got picked last for any team. I never had boys flock after me and put up with relentless teasing. Reality sucked, who WOULDN'T want to live in a dream world? Well reality still sucks. I'm not as much of a wall-flower as I used to be, I'm no longer that skinny, my braces have been off for decades and I no longer get teased, but other than that, life's pretty much the same. I still have my dream world though. I'll act out all kinds of scenarios from giving my ex what-for to accepting a Golden Globe (or at least just have the honor of being nominated, lol). Of course, just like in the movie 'Avatar'.....sooner or later, you have to wake up.