Days Gone Past

Anniversary. The word that means to remember all the days gone past. To celebrate the triumphs, large and small. To stand in witness to the sad times, the bad times, and realize that, somehow, you made it through them all.
You’ve survived. You’ve learned and grown from all of life’s lessons, so far. And – you’re still here.

And what am I doing?

I’m lying, awake, at 1:30 A.M., realizing that my blogging anniversary happened 2 days ago… And I missed it.

5 years, WordPress tells me.  5 years since I started down this path of self-expression.  And WordPress speaks softly in my ear…”Are you done screaming into the darkness of the internet yet?”

And the answer is no. I’m not finished.
I’m still here. And I still have more to say.

For 5 years, I’ve shared both joy & pain with you all. I’ve watched people walk both into, and out of, my life. I’ve bared myself, time and again, trusting that what I had to say might touch someone out there. That my words might have meaning.  That I would be heard, and understood, even if only by one.

It hasn’t always been easy. It’s a delicate process… Opening up, sharing. Never knowing till after the fact whether I was going to be accepted or ridiculed for what I had to say.

But, the WordPress community has always been supportive.

I’ve made some dear friends, some who are still in my life today, and some who followed different paths, fading back into the mists of the web.

It’s been a strange and wonderful ride.  And I wouldn’t have missed it for the world.  Thank you, WordPress, for giving me this forum to “scream into the darkness”. And thank you, all of you readers, for sharing the journey with me.

It’s not over yet.  There’s more ’round the next bend.

And another anniversary waiting up ahead.

Versatility or Indecision?

Recently, life has been a little strange, crazy and just down-right nuts.

And I’ve been lax in catching up on my blogging, and on checking in with my bloggy friends/family.  But wonderfully, my friends have kept up with me!

When I started blogging, this was a release for me, a way to talk about things that were:  a) too long to write about on Facebook, b) too controversial/upsetting for certain family members, but which I needed to write/vent/explore, and c) random flotsam and jetsam that wandered through my grey-matter late at night.

I started with 1 blog, and ended up with 6.  One of which is a story blog I share with my friend and sister, Sparrow.  All of them are listed on the right-hand side of my home page, if anyone cares to check them out.  (The Water blog is locked, as it’s a classroom, but not currently in service)  And as much as I have these other “rooms”, I post mostly here, sharing what I think about, feel, and write about with my fiction.  This is the infamous “catch-all drawer”, and I’ve met some really cool, funny, smart people since I started using WordPress.

I don’t know if what I write here is truly representative of a spirit of versatility, or if I’m simply the poster-child of a Gemini -indecisive and running in a million different directions at once, with the gamut of posts I put up here, but one of my friends, DragonFae, over at Among the Crystals, Dragons and Fae, gifted me with…

The Versatile Blogger Award!

Thanks, Fae!

And now, for the rules… (RULES??  There are RULES?? GAH!)

• Post a link to the Versatile Blogger who gave you the award.
• Share seven things about yourself that are not widely known.
• Nominate at least five other bloggers. 

Ok, so I already posted the link to Fae’s blog, and she’s a compassionate friend, and a sweet and wonderful lady who writes with honesty and humor.  She’s a fabulous member of my Blogfamily, and I’m proud to belong to hers.  Check her out!

Seven things about myself?  Pshh, I’ve shared an awful lot about my life and past here already, so give me a minute to come up with a couple that I haven’t already written about…..hmmm…

1.  I used to want to be a ballerina.  Stop laughing.  When I was a little girl, my mom put me in dance classes, and I actually took tap-dancing and ballet.  Hey, I was only about 4 or 5 at the time, and the tutus were a-frickin-dorable.  I kept one of them for years, until it was finally shredded by one or the other of my pets.  Cat?  Dog?  Mice?  Hamster?  I can’t remember, one of them, anyway.  I do still have one of the practice records (yes, pre-cassette tapes & cds, that’s how old I am) for my tap class, and I’m hanging onto it, along with all the other records I have, to give to one of my kids someday.

2.  I know it might sound un-American… but I hate Thanksgiving.  It’s always been a trigger-event for me, because bad things always seem to happen then.  I won’t go into it here and now, but just drawing closer to that date makes me want to “turtle up”.  I wish, just for one year, that I could tell my family that I’m staying home that day, no big meal, no driving long distances, no visitors.  Just me, my kids, a warm fuzzy blanket, and a marathon of movies.  Sounds like a great way to wipe the turkey-doo off the calendar.  Besides, as a kid, the whole day was about setting the table, eating till I was sick, clearing the table, washing the dishes, and not being able to watch anything on TV, because all the guys were passed out in front of some football game.  All while dressed like a girl, in a dress, which my mother knows, I absolutely hated.

3.  I have a tendency to ramble… and end up off track.  It’s that whole “A to Q to pizza to blue” thing I have in my head…  Some of my posts end up waaaaaaay off topic from where I start them.  It works with my fiction, sometimes. *shrug*

4.  I also have this terrible tendency to “blurt” things late at night via text and Facebook.  Terrible “open mouth-insert foot” effect.  It’s a little like drunk-texting or drunk-dialing, except I’m not chemically impaired, just sleep-deprived.  Something about the sun going down, opens my head and lets my brains fall out. Ack.

5.  I used to be a girl scout.  Again?  Stop laughing!  I made it all the way to Junior Cadet before we moved to North Dakota, and they didn’t have it available in my town.  I even got to go to girl scout camp a couple of years in a row, and I loved it.  Even though one year I ended up with an ear infection so bad I was hallucinating, and had to be brought home early. 

6.  I also used to want to be a veterinarian.  But not just an ordinary, everyday vet… I wanted to only doctor horses.  I even did research on it, and discovered that the official term was “Equine Practitioner”.  And I used that term whenever I was asked what I wanted to be when I grew up… I laugh now, because it sounds like I wanted to practice being a horse.  That’s just the way the words look to me now.  Terribly stuffed with big words, I was. 

7.  I love morbid, scary movies, but for some reason?  They don’t scare me.  I used to be terrified of them when I was a kid, and would have awful nightmares if I happened to see even 5 minutes of a “spook flick”.  Slept with the lights on, I did, with my head under the covers and my feet on the pillows – hiding from the monsters, ya know.  Today?  I can watch the Exorcist without flinching (except for the pea soup projectile vomiting, that’s just gag-worth), I can sit through Sweeney Todd and laugh and sing along with the songs, and I can spend the night being entertained by Stephen King, Dean Koontz, and others, without worrying about being kept awake later, watching the shadows in my room.  I even took YoungerDaughter to watch Paranormal Activity 3 last Friday, and loved it!  She ended up skipping the last 10 minutes or so, keeping her eyes averted after saying “I don’t think I want to watch this anymore.” 

And now, after that long ramble…

The nominees!  These folks are some of my greatest blogging friends, and they are all worthy of the award, so check them out, if you haven’t already!

First, is my lovely friend and sister, Sparrow!  Her blog, Sparrow’s Ramblings is full of stories about her life, work, her boys, as well as her random musings about her love of North Dakota and everything midwestern.  She’s a beautiful soul that I actually get to “hang with” in real life, and that is a wonderful thing.

Next up, my BigBloggingBro, Mark, aka the Idiot (in his own words).  He’s one of the funniest, most compassionate, and down-right craziest storytellers/out-and-out exaggeraters I’ve ever met!  If you want to laugh, every day, you have to get over there to The Idiot Speaketh.

Third, another lovely lady who I’m proud to call a member of my blogging family, Mckenzie, over at The Unabridged Girl.  She’s funny, sassy, full of awesome-ninjaness, and also happens to be the girl that got me started with Flash Fiction Thursday.  She’s an amazing writer, with an honest-to-goodness flair for descriptives and dialogue.  If you like the Great American Novel, you’ll adore this quirky and beautiful gal as much as I do!

Next up?  My beautiful friend, Regan, over at Soul Connect – 365 Gratitude.  She’s like a cross between a younger sister and a mirror image, in that we both have seemed to be experiencing some of the same things around the same points of our lives.  Parallel universes, anyone?  She writes from the heart, sometimes sweet and poignant, sometimes raw and brutally honest, but always from a place of searching for the healing in it.  She also has a great talent for fiction, and I’ve truly enjoyed reading her stories! 

And finally, but definitely not last, is my friend, Fox, over at Journey of a Wild Spirit.  She’s a mixture of compassion, laughter, and talent that knows no bounds.  She makes some of the most stunning jewelry I’ve ever seen, and posts them on her blog, as well as writing about life as she sees it.  Brilliant facets, all, she’s a gem, herself!  You have got to see how she works with silver and stones, it’s…. well, it makes me speechless, which is a feat!

To all my friends, thanks for hanging in there with me on this random, rambling journey.  It’s been almost 2 years now that I’ve been at this, and it’s been a wonderful trip.  Quite the scenic drive, if you can stand the “quick pitstops” along the way to gaze wonderously at the “Largest ball of twine in North America”-type tangents I go off in.

~Fini~….. for now.

And the Award Goes to…

Holy crap.  Me?

The Stylish Blogger Award!

So, while surfing through my blog-reading today, I spied something cool.  My friend and sister, Sparrow, had received the Stylish Blogger Award!  Being the cool chick she is, this was not unexpected.  But the next thing I read was –

She tagged me with it!

Stylish?  Me? 

Sarcastic, yes, totally.  Strange, outspoken, slightly twisted, and tormented?  Uh, yeah.  Those too.  But Stylish?  Didn’t see that coming!

So, in keeping with the rules of the awardedness (is that a word, or am I setting yet another trend? Oh, somebody please puncture this bubble before I start singing the Allelujah Chorus!), I am supposed to play the game like this:

1.Supposed to link back to who nominated you.
2.List seven things we might not know about you.
3.Share the “love” and pay it forward by naming six other blogs you enjoy.

Ok, so here goes:

1.   Sparrow, my fine feathered friend, is an amazing woman and blogger.  She writes beautiful words about our home state, the facts of life, being a single mom of two growing teenage boys, and her love of self-sufficiency.  She’s strong, organized (deny it, you know you are!), funny as hell, and a kind, caring, compassionate woman with a flair for humor.  She is a great friend in real life, as well as on the internetz, so y’all should check her out!

2.  Ugh.  7 things you might not know about me.  Since I talk about myself almost non-stop on here… what’s left?  Ok, ok, I’ll give a whack at it.

* I am sort of a twin.  The day I was born, my mom shared a room with another couple, who also named their daughter, born the same day, with the same first and middle name as me.  We used to play together a lot when we were small.  She is TOTALLY opposite from me.  I am 5’8″ (well almost), she’s 4’sumthin, I’m a washout at sports, she was in everything, I was a total geek, she was totally popular.  But it’s still fun to say occasionally “Hey!  I actually have a twin!”  Being a Gemini just kind of makes that all the more crazy and funny to me.

*  All 3 of my children were born on Wednesdays.  And, according to “that” poem, “Wednesday’s child will have its way” is SO true.  I sometimes think my son worked at being almost a week late, so he could hit Wednesday, just like his sisters.

*  I talk in my sleep….. and so do my children.    Genetics, anyone?  For me, it’s mostly just mumbling, or so I’ve been told, but with the kids, they’ve been known to actually hold conversations between themselves – while completely unconscious.

*  Speaking of sleeping, I used to sleep with my feet on the pillow, and my head under the covers when I was little.  I was deathly afraid something would grab my head while I was sleeping, and drag me under the bed.  I obviously didn’t care about my feet.  Cause, you know, monsters don’t like feet. They want braaaaiiiiins…

*  I wanted to be a horse vet when I was younger.  Just horses, nothing else.  I was horse crazy, like a lot of pre-teen girls, but I was lucky enough to actually have access to them. 

* My eyes are blue, but depending on my mood, they will change to green – or gray.  It’s weird, freaky, and kinda cool.  They were green today.  They’re like a mood-ring I wear on my face.

*  I sometimes wish I could go back to school, and get a psychology degree.  But, I feel like I’m too old for that now, and besides, they’d want me to do math somewhere in there. ::shudder::  I’ll stick with what I know, and keep writing. 

Ok, so that’s it for the 7 things.  Now on to, and in no particular order….  6 people I think deserve kudos for their skillz! 

1.  Mckenzie (with a LITTLE k) at  The Unabridgedgirl:  This young woman is such a talented writer, and a made-of-awesome friend!  She’s the one that got me interested in NaNoWriMo in the first place, and in Flash Fiction Thursday.  Now, I’m hooked on both.  Her talent for pulling you into a story with her characters is something I strive to emulate.  Her talent for being a funny, compassionate, totally optimistic friend?  That’s not something you can copy, only pray you get to give some of it back.

2.  My gal, Regan, over at 365 Gratitude – Soul Connect:  Working at finding things in life to be grateful for, as well as a finely-tuned sense of sarcasm, Regan is truly like a “sistah from anothah mothah” to me.  There are so many ironic coincidences in our lives… we had to be related in another life.  A beautiful woman, with a beautiful heart, take a glance, and you’ll be glad you did!

3.  Viv, at Zen and the Art of Tightrope Walking:  A lovely, thoughtful woman from across the pond, I got totally hooked by her stories, and stayed because of her depth and beautifully ordered mind.  She’s amazing, brilliant, and funny!  She makes me think in new ways, on a regular basis, which is totally intriguing to a geek-girl like me!

4.  Taryn, at A Peine For Your Thoughts:  I must admit, I started following Taryn because of her sassy mouth.  Oh, and her fluffy, adorable dog, Truman.  And her crafting, and her tongue-in-cheek humor, and ….. well, she’s just adorable!  And now that she and her husband, Drew have added 2 shiny new Peines, named Amelia and Henry, there’s double your funny, double your adorable!

5.  Fox, at Journey of a Wild Spirit:  A pagan friend, and great source of comfort, Fox is a lovely writer, who also makes spectacular silver jewelry!  Ooh… siiiiillllllvvveerrrr….. sooooo preeeetttyyyyy……  Also?  A phenomenal photographer with some seriously mad skillz.  I like taking pictures, but these?  WAY out of my league.  Stunning.

6.  Dawn, at Not Your Average Diva:  A relative newcomer to the blogging world, I tell you, this woman is not only a good friend and co-worker in real life, but she is THE DIVA EXTRAORDINAIRE.  There is nothing average about this woman!  She speaks her mind with a lot of self-deprecating humor and, when her alter-ego, Tia, comes out to play?  She pulls mine, Tawanda, right along with her.  Makes a day at the office jam things right up a notch!  Scares the other co-workers sometimes, too! *giggles*

To all of you, thank you for playing!  We have some lovely parting gifts waiting in the green roo– what?  No gifts?  No green room?  crap. 

Alright.

Well, Thanks anyway, everyone!  And thanks to my beautiful friend, Sparrow.

You like me!  You really like me!

(Yeah, I had to do it.  You know I did…)

A Moment of Time- the ‘Versary

A little over a year ago, I posted a philosophical question on Facebook, and a possible answer that I’d found.  It was a late-night meandering of my brain, and I was thinking out loud – or at least, virtually.

A little over a year ago, I received a private message via FB that changed the way I live my life.  A family member took offense at my musings on my own FB page, and wrote me a scathing e-mail, basically ruining any future chance we had or have for any kind of familial relationship.

So, a little over a year ago, I started a “web journal” for my thoughts.  It started out just for me, over on another blogging site.  I wasn’t happy with the mechanics of their web tools, though.  So, when I discovered that one of my favorite authors, Kim Harrison, uses WordPress, I flipped my blog over here.

And exactly one year ago today, I posted my first post.  Basically the same thing that I’d posted to Facebook that cold November night, but expanded slightly, just because I could.

Here, I found that I could say whatever I liked, and not have to deal with hatemail.  It was the wonder of not just anonymity, but of feeling like the people that were out here, in this vast place known as the “blogosphere” with me, were doing the same thing.  Live and let live is, for the most part, the motto here.  You do you, I’ll do me, and we’ll all get along just fine.  If  you liked it, post a reply, send a smiley – and if you didn’t?  Well, click away, and there were a million more blogs to read that had nothing whatsoever to do with me. 

Shouting into the darkness, I found that there were people out there that not only shouted back, but that actually stuck around to read more.  I found people that, while they had their own things going on, were willing to help me get through what I had to say.  And I was able to help them, as well, sometimes. 

In this last year, I’ve laughed more, cried more, made so many new wonderful friends, and reconnected with old friends I thought possibly lost to time.  I’ve been able to drag my memories up out of the darkness, and wipe the dust from them, seeing them clearer than I have in a long time, helping me to deal with some of the darker ones, and laugh or cry again at the good ones.

I can never really express the depth of what I’ve gained from this experience.  It has been an amazing year, and I’m still stunned by it.  I went from being giddy that 1 person had checked into my page in a week, to constant amazement at the numbers of people that stop by, on a regular basis, and have simply fit themselves into my day. 

There are people now, that I’ve never met face to face, but I hate the thought of not checking in with them – every day.  I read about their lives, they read about mine.  We laugh and cry together.  We get angry and promise to back one another up in a fight.  We have mutual admiration societies, and flash mobs when one of our group goes to a new place, posts a guest post on someone’s blog, or needs people to click somewhere to help them out.  We all rush in droves to click happily away, supporting each other, standing by one another.

Chosen family. 

Those 2 words have popped up a lot in the last year, and will continue to be a part of my life now.  There are no ties of blood, no obligation to do these things, or help one another.  Nothing that binds us, but our own desire to be there for them.

And, going back to my original post on faith vs. logic?  There’s no logic I can point to, no concrete evidence I can dig up, that tells me why this has worked, and done so well for me.  But I have Faith that it is what was meant.  I needed this, one year ago.  I had no idea how it would turn out when I clicked that button telling me to “Get your own blog!”, but I needed it.  And I have Faith that I did the right thing that day, 1 year ago.

I wouldn’t have missed it for anything.  Thank you WordPress, for an amazing year.

Brightest blessings~ Brea

P.S.  I had to add, just as I was finishing this post, and publishing it, a friend RebelRegan popped in and dropped a gorgeous new header in my lap for the blog!  The serendipity and synchronicity of this is wonderful!  Thanks, my friend!