What It Brought

I've done a lot of complaining about 2011 lately, but in true me style, I took a moment to stop and smell the roses and even though it was a brief moment, I want to write about the good things that 2011 brought me.

I stepped up my golf game. I'm still working on it, but it's better.
I lost those 20 pounds that were making me feel like a beached whale.
I got a promotion at work.
I survived my car accident. It wasn't bad but still, it could have been.
I bought a new car. Which I LOVE.
I went to California again, which oddly enough was on my 2011 to do list.
I left the country for the first time.
I spent a day in London alone.
I spend days in Jordan and learning so many new things.
I made new friends.
I became closer to God, then moved away again and then moved closer again.
I fell in love. I don't have much else to say about that, other than I am trying to recover from not being able to be with the one that I love.
I learned what it feels like to be looked at by a man like nothing else exists.
I remembered what it's like to feel beautiful.
I started my Masters Degree.
I made an A in my first class.
I stood by my best friend as she married an amazing man. Truly maybe one of the only few good ones left.
I saw my friend who had given up on love and happiness, find someone and get married.
I saw a few good friends survive cancer. :)

Yes, there were bad times in 2011, may my dear sweet Grandmother, my hero, rest in peace, but at the end of the day, my trials and tribulations are what makes me stronger.

I still feel a little run down and a little off my game. My heart still aches and wishes for a different time and place. But I am healthy, I am successful, I am loved (even if it's not by a man), I have my family and friends, a home, a career, food on my table, clothes on my back, running water, electricity and the bare essentials of life that so many take for granted.


2011 brought new beginnings, sad endings and hopeful tomorrows.

I hope 2012 will do the same. I know it can't be all butterflies and rainbows but as long as the good and the bad balance each other out, that is all I can ask for. Anything more will be just more blessings to count.

Happy New Year!

Please

Can this holiday season go away. I certainly hope 2012 has something more in store than 2011 did. I was so hopeful. Now I just feel hopeless.

Errrr and Stuff

So my friend Hutch wrote this on his FB today. Hutch very rarely says anything motivating when it comes to the MC, but deep down we all know that he is proud of his uniform. This is some motivating shit right here. Or it was to me anyway. I thought I would share.

I've seen these posts about what color your cammies are and what you want to be called. FUCK ALL THAT. I am Marine and I know some Soldiers, Sailors, and Airmen that are real damn good at what they do and they have my respect for that. People will say Marines are being cocky and conceited by posting that, while I dont think it's necessary to post I do see the point. The Marine Corps is and has been the only Branch of service that has had to fight to continue its existence in this country. If you look at the history of the Marine Corps there have been multiple attempts to disband or absorb the Marine Corps by leaders of the other branches. But, at the end of the day, the citizens that we fight to protect and the leaders elected by those citizens, have made sure that the Marine Corps stayed intact. So, at the end of the day, don't call me a Soldier, Sailor, or Airmen, not because it's insulting, but because I'm not one. I'm a United States Marine, born on yellow foot prints and trained on a depot. And calling me anything other than, is disrespectful to the history and legacy of the branch I've chosen to serve. Also don't call me Devil Dog if you're not one.

Semper.

Bah Humbug

I'm just saying. BAH FREAKING HUMBUG. I have NO, I repeat NO Christmas spirit. Booo...hiss...

I love Christmas too. LOVE IT. I want egg nog and a train around the tree and waking up on Christmas morning excited to see the look on the face of the person I love as they open my surprise gift. Something like that.

Oh wait...let me wake up.

Hi reality.

Where is my tent?

If Congress shuts down the US Government, just before Christmas, I will finally join Occupy DC in their protests and hunger strikes. Mainly because I'll need a place to live and won't be able to afford food.

Thought Provoking Thursday

Above all, be true to yourself, and if you cannot put your heart in it, take yourself out of it.--Hardy D. Jackson

Trying to forget someone you love is like trying to remember someone you never knew. Ever wonder why I don't talk to you anymore? It's not that I don't want to, it's just that everything I want to say I can't tell you anymore. Silence speaks volumes. You should listen.

Have you ever realized that when people say you’ve changed it’s because you’ve stopped living life their way? NO, it's because I've finally found myself.

Most people don't know who they are. That's why they lie. They're afraid someone else will figure it out before they do

Here's the things. I damn sure am not always as confident as I seem. I have learned to put on a brave face and smile my way through even the worst of pain. I live a social life that sends me home at night feeling even more alone than I thought I was when the day started. There are many days and even more nights when the only thing I want more than breath is to be held. I will admit it, I want to be someone`s last call of the night, and their first thought in the morning. I want those 5 hour conversations that end in "no,you hang up first." I want the heart racing, palm sweaty, "what`s going to happen next" moments. I want the hugs that you never let go of and the stolen kisses that are always the sweetest. But most importantly, I just want to know someone considers me THEIRS. That girl you see that everyone "knows", that's not the real me. That's the girl trying to find something that just doesn't seem to be there. I have this great life, but no one to share it with. There is an empty other half of the bed. A seat at the table where no one is sitting. Even worse, my heart wants it to be someone that it can't be, so where do you go from there?

I used to wear my heart on my sleeve, but too many people mistook that for me being naive. I have been completely broken before, it's something that you have to force yourself to come back from. It will rip your soul out and eat it for breakfast. But I will never apologize for saying what I feel. That's like saying sorry for being real. <---oooo it rhymes.

Tell Me About It Tuesday

My pen is the barrel of a gun. Remind me which side you should be on.

Just a list of great quotes. Starting with one of my favorites and just randomly going on from there.

‎"No man, for any considerable period can wear one face to himself and another to the multitude without finally getting bewildered as to which may be the true." Nathaniel Hawthrone

I will gladly stand at the bottom of the mountain with someone that never gives up than at the top with someone who will never appreciate the view.

A person who truly loves you, will never let you go and will never give up, no matter how hard the situation is.

‎"When so many are lonely as seem to be lonely it would be inexcusably selfish to be lonely alone." Tennesse Williams

‎"Every normal man must be tempted at times to spit upon his hands, hoist the black flag, and begin slitting throats." H.L. Mencken

‎"Who knows what true happiness is? Not the conventional word, but the naked terror. To the lonely themselves, it wears a mask. The most miserable outcast hugs some memory. Or some illusion." Joseph Conrad

Tragedies happen. What are you gonna do, give up? Quit? No, I realize now that when your heart breaks, you've got to fight like hell to make sure you're still alive. Because you are. And that pain you feel? That's life. The confusion and fear? That's there to remind you, that somewhere out there is something better, and that something is worth fighting for.

‎"There is no privacy that cannot be penetrated. No secret can be kept in the civilized world. Society is a masked ball where everyone hides his real character, then reveals it by hiding." Ralph Waldo Emerson

Out of the night that covers me,
Black as the Pit from pole to pole,
I thank whatever gods may be
For my unconquerable soul.
In the fell clutch of circumstance
... I have not winced nor cried aloud.
Under the bludgeoning of chance
My head is bloody, but unbowed.
Beyond this place of wrath and tears
Looms but the Horror of the shade,
And yet the menace of the years
Finds, and shall find me, unafraid.
It matters not how strait the gate,
How charged with punishments the scroll
I am the master of my fate:
I am the captain of my soul.
- Invictus, William Ernest Henley

‎"The heart has reasons that reason cannot know." Blaise Pascal

‎"You cannot run away from a weakness; you must sometimes fight it out or perish. And if that be so, why not now, and where you stand?" Robert Louis Stevenson

"Do not look back and grieve over the past, for it is gone. And do not trouble about the future for it is yet to come. Live in the present and make it so beautiful, that it will be worth remembering." Scott Taylor Idus

Every once in a while people step up, they rise above themselves. Sometimes they surprise you, and sometimes they fall short. Life is funny sometimes, it can push pretty hard, but if you look close enough you find hope in the bars of a song and in the eyes of someone you love. And if you're the luckiest person on this entire planet, the person you love decides to love you back.

In Terms of Love

I realize that the picture and the following words contradict each other a bit but today, the picture is how I feel.

Kahlil Gibran on Love

When love beckons to you, follow him,
Though his ways are hard and steep.
And when his wings enfold you yield to him,
Though the sword hidden among his pinions may wound you.
And when he speaks to you believe in him,
Though his voice may shatter your dreams
as the north wind lays waste the garden.

For even as love crowns you so shall he crucify you. Even as he is for your growth so is he for your pruning.
Even as he ascends to your height and caresses your tenderest branches that quiver in the sun,
So shall he descend to your roots and shake them in their clinging to the earth.

All these things shall love do unto you that you may know the secrets of your heart, and in that knowledge become a fragment of Life's heart.

But if in your fear you would seek only love's peace and love's pleasure,
Then it is better for you that you cover your nakedness and pass out of love's threshing-floor,
Into the seasonless world where you shall laugh, but not all of your laughter, and weep, but not all of your tears.
Love gives naught but itself and takes naught but from itself.
Love possesses not nor would it be possessed;
For love is sufficient unto love.

Think not that you can direct the course of love, for love, if it finds you worthy, directs your course.

Love has no other desire but to fulfill itself.
But if you love and must needs have desires, let these be your desires:
To melt and be like a running brook that sings its melody to the night.
To know the pain of too much tenderness.
To be wounded by your own understanding of love;
And to bleed willingly and joyfully.
To wake at dawn with a winged heart and give thanks for another day of loving;
To rest at the noon hour and meditate love's ecstasy;
To return home at eventide with gratitude;
And then to sleep with a prayer for the beloved in your heart and a song of praise upon your lips.