Hope Unashamed

It knocks unexpectedly and whispers into raging silence.

Hope offers subtle surprises.

Paralyzed by all that isn’t right in the world; when I don’t know what the next step is.

Hope sets the frozen in motion.

Bubbling up when every day has been the same for months and time is not my friend.

Hope changes the overflow.

There’s a seed on the inside that sprouts joy in the face of impossible odds. There’s an intuitive knowing that something good, right and true is coming even though it isn’t yet revealed.

Hope reverses doubt.

I don’t know what to do with it or how to manage it but instead I let it sit beside me; a companion that gives me strength.

Hope lights a dark night. 

Forbidden Flames

Sometimes we choose someone or something even though all we know and every piece of sound advice goes against it. A decision made in the face of good judgment is the equivalent of a raging forest fire that can’t be contained. It’s not a birthday candle confined to a one-inch wick or a sparkler that fizzles after a minute or two. Once it starts, it’s rarely stopped before it runs its course.

The consequences are known in advance but it’s the fraction of a percent that this time will be different that sets the pursuit ablaze.

When the fuel has run out and icy water has doused the embers, it’s black. The heart is charred like Yellowstone Park in 1988. It takes time and seasons filled with sunshine and raindrops to grow back but it will. Just as fire in nature scatters seed and has a strange way of planting new life at the same time it is delivering death so also the heart will find new strength from the bowels of a complicated situation. All is not lost. It looks that way. It feels that way. The eye sees only filthy soot but underneath, there is a channel of redemption stirring.

The blemish becomes a beauty mark. 

Bring Me Your Love

In celebration of “love month”, Elisa Doucette over at Ophelia’s Webb is hosting a series about love from all kinds of angles. This is her second year doing a love anthology and I.love.it.  

The series is called Pas de Deux, a ballet term which means “a dance for two”. Each day of February features a different writer’s perspective on love. 

I'm over there today so click over to "Bring Me Your Love".  

What Happens When You Put Away The Bottle

I drank one last beer on New Year’s Eve.


The next day was the start of my hiatus from booze for an undetermined period of time. I did this one other time and it lasted until my birthday in mid April. It’s a challenge (I love a good challenge) and it’s healthy (I need to be more healthy) but my determination was about to be tested in a big way.


Jan 2^nd I was in a car accident.

I went to meet a friend for lunch and noticed that the interstate was a parking lot. The traffic wasn’t even crawling; it was at a dead stop. I rerouted to back roads but everyone else had the same idea. The 6-mile trip took 1 hour and 15 minutes. Finally, just one block from my friend’s house, a car ran a stop sign, through the intersection smack in front of me. There was no time to stop and I T-boned them in the passenger side. Clearly at fault, they fled the scene before I could speak with them. I jumped out of my car to get the license plate number as they drove away. I called the police. Somehow, my front license plate came up missing in the commotion. TWO HOURS later, an officer showed up for my statement.  Happy New Year.

It was more of a hassle than anything. I called my insurance, set up a time to take my car in and began the process of dealing with one of life’s annoying misfortunes.

The next morning, I had a bonafide pain in my neck. I picked up a rental car, braved the DMV for new plates (which is a tribulation in itself) and saw a chiropractor for my neck pain. Then, the news came that the repairs to my car were extensive and would take 2 weeks to complete. Lovely.

A few days later, my cell phone committed suicide. It jumped from my pocket, head first into the toilet. I grabbed it out as fast as I could but it was lifeless. I did my best to revive it with rice to dehydrate and a space heater to warm it but it was gone. A comical finale. Even so, a new one would be sent overnight.

But overnight it snowed. A lot.

20 inches closed down every airport in the northeast and I was without a phone or text messages for the next 4 days. I have no landline so during that time, email was my only mode of communication with anyone until…

My email went down.

In 11 years of having the same email address there’s been two or three times that I haven’t been able to access my account. The downtime has never lasted more than an hour or two. This time, my email was completely down for 36 hours. What are the chances?

After 2 weeks, the car still wasn’t fixed. It was going to be another week. Still driving a gas-guzzling Ford Taurus courtesy of Enterprise, I tried not to get worked up. At least I had wheels in the mean time. At least I was ok. Things could be worse. The police report from the accident was released. The PD traced the plate number of the car at fault but the plates were fake. There was no way to find them or hold them accountable for the damages. Awesome.

And it kept snowing.

6 snowstorms hit the northeast in rapid succession like leap frogs. In the month of January it snowed 16 of 31 days and blasted the state with a total of five feet. The last one dumped 16 inches on my sidewalk in 8 hours. The piles of snow on yards and street corners and parking lots are well over my head… and right now; it’s snowing yet again.

In the middle of the last big bad snowstorm, the insurance man called to say my car was finally done. After 3 weeks, I was so happy to finally get my car back.

Hold on, not so fast. 

A once over revealed two gouges on my car that weren’t there when I took it in to be fixed. My car wasn’t done after all. Thoroughly frustrated, I wasted a trip to the dealership and left with an approximate timeframe of another day or two before they would be able to repaint those two spots. Did they think I wouldn’t notice??

Not to be outdone by the external forces of stress, my body took in a raging sinus infection causing my head to wish for decapitation.

Finally, on January 31^st, my car was returned to my possession but not before it failed the emissions test. It’s a 4 year old vehicle for heaven’s sake, how is that possible? As it turns out, not driving it for 4 weeks is the culprit of one more hurdle. Just add it to the list.

So far, 2011 has been a bad time to scale back the drinking because right now, that’s all I want to do.

Nevertheless, the dry endeavor continues because after all, what is perseverance without opposition? 

However, a little less opposition would be nice. 

Just A Reminder

Hey you! Yeah you!

I see you trying to hide. I see you trying to do it all by yourself. Your shoulders are tight with knots from pulling those heavy pieces of your past. You don’t want to be an imposition. You don’t deserve the help. That’s what you tell yourself. You want to prove that you are good enough to hold up your end of the bargain. You don’t want any favors. You don’t want to owe anything to anyone. You could never pay them back. They say the borrower is a slave to the lender. You don’t want to be anyone’s slave. You’ve been taken advantage of. You fear taking advantage of someone else. You stay out of sight. You do what you can but it’s never enough, not in your eyes. You’re lost inside. Spinning in circles, looking for something that will make you satisfied with yourself. You should be farther along. You should have a plan and be able to figure out the next step. It floods you day and night. The more you try to find the answer, the next step or the strength you have lost, the more overwhelmed you become. “I’m not worth it”, you say.  “I’ve spent my life wrongly and anything right in me that others see is a sham”. I know how you feel. You wonder how anyone could love you. You don’t love yourself. It’s written on your face. You run when things become more than you can handle. You hide when the answers are hard too face. You hate that about yourself but you’ve never dealt with hard things head-on. You find the quickest way to dodge a bullet. You side step the truth as if avoiding it will make it go away. You haven’t done the right thing. You know it.  You’ve hurt the ones you love. You don’t know how to fix it so you don’t acknowledge it. You pretend it isn’t there. Still, on the inside you roll in disappointment and wade in regret. You cuddle up to inadequacy and bed down with self-hatred. Shame is the blanket you that keeps you down.

But…

Don’t you know that you are enough? It’s all an illusion; those things in your head. You can fight back. You must throw off shame. Believe that your mistakes are meant for learning and growing but you are not a mistake. All the stuff that others think, it doesn’t matter. You won’t be lost without your pride. Your walls, I know they provide a place to hide but it’s a false sense of security. You are the strongest when you trust and are open. Stop looking around at others for validation and stop trying to stuff yourself into the box in which they live. Who says that you should have already reached that line in the sand? “They” are not you and you are not “they”. That is ok. Believe it. Believe that you are loved exactly as you are; with all your flaws and all your failings. Believe that what you have to offer is unique and no one is more qualified than you. Believe that some days others need you and other days, you need them. It’s not a slave-master thing. It’s a give-and-take-friendship thing. Let go of the past. Let go of disappointment and regret. Their comfort is like a boa constrictor. They are squeezing the life out of you but you have the strength to cut them loose. Stop punishing yourself for all the ways you think you don’t measure up. Open your eyes and see the value of who you are. You deserve to live. You are worthy of love. 

The Blizzard

I’m not talking about the comforting ice cream treat known for its gravity defying deliciousness.

Unfortunately, this is not that kind of blizzard.

  Connecticut

When there's two feet of snowflakes, whipping wind and nose-numbing temps that's when I wish I was on the equator with 'The Blizzard' in a cup. 

The Year of Miracles

mir·a·cle [mir-uh-kuhl]

–noun

1. an effect or extraordinary event in the physical world that surpasses all known human or natural powers and is ascribed to a supernatural cause.

2. such an effect or event manifesting or considered as a work of God.

3. a wonder; marvel.

I don’t know about you but I need a miracle; more than one, actually.

There are things in my world that keep blinding me with a flashing sign that says, “impossible”.

There are things that keep telling me, “Give up. It doesn’t matter. Things will never change.”

There are things that haven’t changed in all my adult years.

There are things that I’ve come to accept and things I have stopped fighting for. 

There are things that I have lost hope for and there are things that have grated my faith into a pile of dust.

So, this year I need miracles.

I need to find hope and faith again.

I need a work of God that is beyond my human powers and in 2011 that’s what I’m asking for and that’s what I’ll be looking for because in the words of Reepicheep, "All's not as lost as it seems".