What you really really want

It's funny how our lives go.

It's funny that the way that society works you have to make so many life decisions when you are young.

They expect you to decide what you want to do with your whole life when you are 18, in the neck of the woods I'm from you are expected to be married and have babies by the time you are in your mid-20s. It seems INSANE to me! I'm 30 and I'm still not sure what I want 100%

I have finally decided what I wanted to me 'when I grow up' but that is about it. Oh, I have ideas about things that I want to accomplish and who I would like to become, but it's all still up in the air. I'm married, but I don't think I know what I want in my marriage either.

There was a time when I was a 25 year old coming out of a 8 year long toxic relationship that I met this boy who thought the world of me. He was nice to me and he thought that I was beautiful and he made me feel like I was worth something. He made me these promises and gave me these hopes for something better.

Somehow over the last 5 years things have changed. He may still be doing his best, but his best is no longer good enough. I'm not content and I refuse to be content settling. I refuse to decide that this is the best that I can do. Maybe he will come along with me and maybe he won't. I'm willing to take it either way.

That's not being crass or cold or heartless about my marriage. It's about being true to me. I spent the years of my life when I should have been discovering who I was and getting drunk with my friends and getting to know new people stuck in a relationship where I was getting nothing and going nowhere. I may be late coming to the game, but that doesn't mean that I should have to play on the reserve team. I want to go in and play.

It's not just about him. It's about me too. It's about me being happy with who I see in the mirror. It's about getting everything that I have always wanted out of my life and not allowing myself to give in to the thoughts that I will always be overweight (something that BTW happened only as a direct result of the poor relationship I was in), I will not accept that I will always be small town, or always have to struggle, or always have to be what someone else expects. I can and I will do what makes me excited and happy.

I have my own dreams. Maybe they aren't yours or his, but they are mine and I can't just give up on them.

Don't allow your present circumstance to cloud your future projections. Look past all the shit that you may be in and see what is up ahead if you just decide to put you ahead of what everyone expects of you.

So,

tell me what you want....what you really, really want.....

The Deranged Easter Bunny Jammies

 

I will make no excuses.

 

I love A Christmas Story.

 

It is pretty much my favorite Christmas movie and when TBS does it's 24 hours of ACS, I watch.

 

All 24 hours!

 

So it shouldn't be surprising that I would eventually find a way to relate life to the story. Oh, there are tons of parallels one could draw, but my favorite is the bunny PJs.

 

We start to treat our life like those pepto pink furry jam-jams. You open the box and think, "sweet Lord, I am NOT putting these on." In the thoughts of Ralphie you won't put it on because you know that it will make your life hell.

 

But then someone says, "But Aunt Clara went through all that trouble to make it and she always sends you the nicest things!" So you put it on to make them happy.

 

You hate it. You loathe it in fact. But you put on that suit with all its undesired traits. Can you see how life is like this?

 

Sometimes we all have a costume that we wear. We put it on only because someone has said that we should to be courteous, or kind, or to appease someone for some reason. I get it. You don't want to step on any toes so like a good little boy or girl you put on the pink bunny and you trudge down the steps to face life in something that makes you wish that your soul would jump from your body.

 

We walk around in this outfit miserable. Then finally, FINALLY at long last we hear this voice. A voice that will be our saving grace. We hear Ralphie's dad, we hear our heavenly Father.

 

Through all the people saying that this is the most precious thing that they have ever seen and commenting on how cute we look, Dad says.

 

"You look like a deranged Easter bunny." Those who made us put on the costume say emphatically "No, [s]he doesn't!"

 

Dad says, "Are you happy wearing that?"

 

We shake heads as hard and fast as we can, no. NO! I'm not happy wearing this!

 

"Do you want to take it off?" he says.

 

We nod.

 

"Take it off!" He says loudly.

 

Isn't that wonderful? Ralphie was able to just go upstairs and take off the bunny jammies. Can our lives really be like this?

 

I think it's yes and no.

 

See, we all walk around in the pink bunny pajamas. We all wear something that we hate. Something that makes our lives hell. Something that makes us want to crawl into a hole and hide from it and from ourselves. Sometimes it's a coat of regret or worry or sorrow, sometimes it's a mask that covers pain, shame, fear, tears. But we all have something. We wear it because "aunt Clara" went through all the trouble to make it.

 

What does that mean? It means that we wear it so that we don't hurt anyone's feelings. We don't tell our friends or family or spouse how miserable we are because it will hurt them. It will put them out. The truth will hurt. They will get mad with us. We will have to start over. It will lead to divorce. It will make us vulnerable. It will show what we presume as weakness.

 

We wear the bunny.

 

But then, oh then, we have our Father who will step in and says, "You look like a pink nightmare." I imagine that my life and my pajamas do make me look like a nightmare. If you could see all of the things that you carry and wear, don't you think that it would look a bit nightmarish? I know mine would.

 

Our father calls attention to the fact that what we are wearing around is ugly.

 

Then He asks the most wonderful question of all. "Do you want to take it off?"

 

Let that sink in....

 

"Do you want to take it off?"

 

Do you want to take off the pain and shame and bitterness and sorrow and regret and fear and feelings of inadequacy? Do you want to stop living in this mask? In this costume? Do you want to lay off all the things that make us look like a nightmare?

 

God gives us the opportunity to take off all those old things. Now, I imagine that Ralphie tore off that whole onesie in like 2 seconds. But for us, it may not happen that quickly. We may start with the mask. Then a sock or a shirt. I imagine that he has to ask continually, "Are you happy wearing that? Do you want to take it off?"

 

In Lamentations 3:22-23 in the King James Version of the Christian Bible it says:

²² It is of the Lord's mercies that we are not consumed, because his compassions [mercies] fail not.

²³ They are new every morning: great is thy faithfulness.

 

This is one instance that I really like the KJV. "It is because of the Lord's mercies that we are not consumed..." so because the Lord is merciful we don't have to wear that pink bunny forever.

 

"They are new every morning..." Every. Morning. So every morning He will ask you. "Are you happy wearing that? Do you want to take it off?" Everyday we have a new chance to start over. A new chance to make a change and to take off the pink bunny, even if it is just one piece at a time.

 

Ralphie's father and our Father know what is really important. Not that we make aunt Clara or anyone else for that matter happy by wearing a disguise, but that we are happy.

 

I can say that I know that I'm wearing the jammies. Those bunny faces look up at me everyday and torture me. Maybe tomorrow I can pull off one of their eyes or something. Maybe the next day I will throw that fluffy tail down on the ground and stomp it like it was full of bees.

 

Everyday I want to remind myself that my Father is asking, "Are you happy wearing that? Do you want to take it off?" Everyday I want to try to peel off a piece of the dreaded pink bunny.

 

So what about you? Are you happy wearing that? (Whatever 'that' may be for you) Do you want to take it off? We are coming quickly to the start a new year. Let this be your year. Let this be the year that you take off the bunny pajamas that you have been wearing for years because Aunt Clara may show up. We cannot truly LIVE our lives wearing those jammies. We cannot be who WE are, we cannot be happy, we cannot be fulfilled, we cannot be all that we were made to be if we live our lives wearing a costume filled with all the things that make us ugly and afraid.

 

If you need to lose weight, well try your hardest to do that. If you need to be true to you, do it. If you need to end a relationship even though it will be scary, you need to take off the bunny suit. You will never be happy with it on.

 

And remember. If it all doesn't come off today, tomorrow our Father will offer new mercies, and He will ask again if we are happy in our costume, and He will offer again to let us take it off.

My hope for Snow....

A Long December...Counting Crows

The Return...for Snow

Well sweet darlings has it been a while?

Yes.

Yes it has.

And yet, here I am again, back to blog once more. Back to start a new adventure in this beautiful/mad/crazy thing that I call my life. It's both good and bad, but it is what it is and so we can only roll with each day as it comes, eh?

It's Christmas my bloggites and it's a unique kind of Christmas. It's the first Christmas without either of my grandmothers. It's not a great feeling. I'm not much in the spirit. It's not like December was always a wonderful month anyway. Let's face it. It's usually cold, windy, gray, and otherwise miserable. We eat things that taste good but make us feel like garbage, we spend too much on things we or no one else needs, we pine away over all the things that we would get people if we only had the money. In fact the only respite that we have is usually snow.

I love snow.

Some people don't. But I love the beautiful white after seeing what is usually gray for so long. It gives me hope for something better. For something new and fresh. It's like a blank canvas and you can paint it with anything new that you want. (Ok, so maybe that was a bit dramatic.)

December 04 I lost a great friend in a car crash. December hasn't been the same since. Now spending a Christmas without my Granny and my Mamaw has made it even more of a bummer.

Christmas is an ending and it is a time to usher in a new beginning. It's so cliché really to talk about new beginnings happening in January, but it's true. It's a chance to reinvent who you want to be. With the blank canvas of the new snow you have a reason to believe that the new year will be the same. A blank canvas. A new chance to do something different, to be something different. December can be a time to celebrate that you made it. You made it another year, you survived!

I've tried hard to not be a DebbieDowner this season. I work as a nanny and so I took time to get the kids I watch something special, things that they said they really wanted and that was a bright spot in my holiday season. But it's not the same. I've grown tired of just making it to another Christmas. I've grown tired of the gray the low funds the hum-drum that has become day to day.

I want snow!

I want to look out on the landscape like it was the landscape of my life and see only the white, blank canvas. I want to see it fresh and clean and spotless and empty. I want to dot it with redbirds and footprints to uncharted places. I want to make snow angels and leave snowman tracks that lead to a new friend. I want the wonder, the sparkle.

I want snow to fall over me.

I want a blank canvas.

It's Christmas Day and I feel largely uninspired about the season and about life in general. That is a piss poor way to be, especially at Christmas.

I just want a few flakes.....

followed by a blizzard!