Quickest Girl in the Frying Pan's Weblog

gnomic \NOH-mik\, adjective:

Uttering, containing, or characterized by maxims; wise and pithy.

Because it made me giggle.  : )

In email chat with a co-worker (not so much a friend as a learning experience for me) today I asked if he had any New Year’s resolutions.  “Not really”, he said “I mean, I have some goals for the year but not any resolutions”.  And that got me thinking, as I often do this time of year, about the whole concept of the New Year’s resolution.  It’s the butt of many a joke.  I think some people half-heartedly make them without really believing they’ll stick to them… or maybe they do, I don’t know… but I think that this year, instead of resolutions, I’m going to set some goals for myself, hang them on the wall next to my desk and check them off one by one as I complete them in 2008.  I like lists.  They make me feel accomplished somehow.

 Happy holidays y’all, xoxoxo.

I love getting reminders, especially when those reminders jar something in your mind and stir something in your soul and make you remember the importance of something you’ve held stubbornly to or continued doing doggedly determined not to stop but forgot somewhere along the way just why you were doing it in the first place.

This morning a good friend posted a blog that helped me remember why it is that I cannot live an ordinary Life. Why it is that I dress the way I do and talk the way I do and deal with people the way I do.  I do these things to please myself, yes, but that is never enough for me when it comes right down to it on the important stuff.  I’m the type of person that needs a motivation larger than myself to continue with something, especially if it’s difficult.  No, my reward is in challenging people’s misconceptions, in shaking their dearly held convictions and making them question what they’ve been told to believe, to make them think… to reconsider… to open those iron-clad minds just a hair, just enough to plant a seed, just enough to encourage growth and let in a little sunlight… just enough to make them doubt their prejudice.

I’d forgotten that.  Goddess help me I had forgotten.  To remember it now is so refreshing I feel encouraged.

Have you ever noticed that old books, letters, photo albums share a scent?  It’s musty and earthy… it smells like Time, like memories.  Friday night I was looking for something I want to share with a friend of mine but am having difficulty finding.  I fear that it has gone the way of the Do-Do in one of the moves I’ve gone through over the last 3 years but I thought I would look in the last possible place it could be in; my box in the garage.  My box is full of a variety of things; memorabilia mostly, old letters and photos, pictures the kids have drawn for me over the years, but some odds and ends have made their way in there as well so I thought just maybe… unfortunately, it was not there.  However, in digging through the box I came across several pictures of me and my 2nd husband together.  It’s jarring, to come across photos of an old Love… but somehow you just can’t stop yourself from looking… and, not unlike looking at a bad car wreck, you come away feeling slightly shaken and sick to your stomach.  Also in the box of memories I found a letter my Grandmother had written to me 10 years ago while I lived out-of-state with my 1st husband, “I love to receive letters” she wrote “they’re keepsakes, a phone call is nice but after you get through talking, you have nothing left, but a bill.  I keep letters…”.  My Grandmother turned 80 years old this year.  Over the past few years she has slowly lost more and more of her memories and cognizant ability to Alzheimer’s.  I haven’t been able to bring myself to visit her in over a year because I’m terrified that she will look at me and not remember me… I don’t want to have that memory of Mammaw.   I’m thinking about writing her a letter.  I think I miss her more than anyone I’ve ever loved… but I’m happy to have this keepsake to keep her close to me and remind of who she was.

…that occured to me this morning.

I believe my self-esteem was shaken somewhere along the way… perhaps even fractured.  I need to exercise that…

I have wondered, from time to time, what it would be like to live a Life a bit more… mainstream.  It seems I’ve been bucking the “norm” as long as I can remember. All of the “big” things, you know, sexual orientation, religion, politics, the way I dress and the way I talk… even my hair color. I’ve never balked at expressing myself and I’m not one to pretend to be something I’m not… but sometimes, sometimes I think there might be something to laying low, not rocking the boat, not going against the grain. I even said as much to my best friend today, “It just might pay to be one of the sheep.” I said to her. It would be more quiet. I’m not a fan of drama. I just want to be me. I don’t want to have to make exceptions for the things that are important to me. I don’t want to pay lip service to a religion that I can’t throw my whole Heart and Soul into. I don’t want to feign happiness in a relationship that I find unfulfilling. I don’t want to censor my personal style to avoid disapproving looks. Why does happiness have to take so long to find?  And why do you have to go through so much bullshit along the way?  Break a few eggs to make a cake, break a few hearts to find yourself… it’s all the same and it’s all a big mess… but in the end, you have cake, and you can revel in the knowledge that you did it yourself… maybe with a little help along the way.

But maybe there is something in between… I’ve often been told “You gotta pick your battles child.” Gotta find a way to to make your way without taking on the World.

i am

lying here in darkness

i am.

what i am is irrelevant

just that i am.

i am free from the world.

i am free from my body.

a soul, weightless,

free.

but what i am doesn’t matter.

i am dark

and i am free.

for just a little while

i am.

When the ghosts of the past just won’t leave you alone…

We roll along from day to day not thinking about the people from our past, people that we loved and left long ago… I wonder, sometimes, where does my responsibility to those people end? Even more to the point, when you marry and divorce can that connection ever truly be broken?

The line between Love and Hate seems long, wide and often hazy when going through divorce or separation. You look back, try hard to remember, to maybe pinpoint a moment, a day, an incident where the switch was flipped… but it’s damn near impossible to say. You can remember the times when you loved him and you can recall the times that you hated him but the in-between is convoluted and difficult to nail down.  I don’t know for sure why Love changes… why people change… but I do know that the heart is a funny creature.  I do know that things are much more difficult in the long run if you leave things unfinished, words unsaid, and don’t tie up loose ends.  And I think when it is all said a done, a broken heart never completely heals. We can find peace and happiness, yes; but those old wounds are still there no matter how deep we bury them.