She chose her

Love is life, life is love.  Each day is met with a smile and a love for all God has given.  A quick thank you prayer is said and her feet move to the beat of the day.  As each moment passes throughout each day life is taking her that much closer to her choice of a new beginning.

Those who don't know her well say she's strong, she smiles and inside grins with delight knowing this is nothing, she's handled tougher challenges.  This is easy, this is fun but this is hard and this is real.   It was never a matter of if only a matter of when.  She never knew how difficult real would become; without the challenges she knows inside she would feel completely unfulfilled.  Challenges are easy; it's living inward that is hard.  

The real challenge was never in her plan, in choosing her she lost him. He fills each moment that passes.  He lives in each breath she takes.  Every new memory without him is remembered to share it once again, her thought only ever on when this journey is up, they can begin anew.  Every morning she awakens and amazed he is gone.  Her eyes no longer sparkle and, like his, her smile doesn't reach her eyes.  Life continues to happen all around her, there is no stopping because her heart aches.  She perseveres knowing she would expect nothing less from herself.  This is her challenge, her life and her fight from within.

Tomorrow is a gift, not a given.  She can only hope to live in the moment with a smile as this journey continues

with heat, rain causes a flourish

I've noticed this summer, so far, is exactly what I have been craving!  Long heat filled, sunny days with hardly any rain and just enough of a breeze to gently move my daughter's hair.  Although my grass is brown and I add water in the pool each night, I have been living in a hazy bliss of happiness.  Until about a week ago I remembered the flowers and the vegetables!  The center garden was beginning to droop and the edges on the bee bombs were curling and turning black.  Thankfully I seemed to have remembered in enough time to prevent anything from dying off due to lack of rain.  I have been watering diligently in the evenings as I listen to the crickets and frogs not too far off, waiting for me to finish so they too can cool off.  And, as luck would have it, the flowers look wonderful and both the tomatoes and pumpkins are thriving!
I've realized, just like the flowers need both the rain and heat, I need some rain to counter my own heat.  For far too long I have created my life to suit my needs, I haven't wilted when life became too hot.  Instead I laced up my shoes and ran.  And though thought provoking, this realization has come at an opportune time in my life.  I have stood up for what I want and what I believe I can achieve in life only to realize I was the only one who was sure in the relationship of heat and rain.  Some may say I was unfair, some may say more time should be given.
Historically, I spent six years! SIX (oh my was my head not in the game back then) long years ignoring my needs and wants to appease someone else, all the while waiting  for the life I thought we wanted to begin.  Once I realized this was a fantasy that was never coming true I had to find the courage to move on.
Then came the most difficult part in my adult life thus far, I was free to figure me out.  This proved to be four long and trying, tear-filled (both stressful and happy) accomplished years.  Happily I can say I am well on my way to knowing what I want out of life.  The path I have chosen seems to be mostly on with His path; sometimes I stray but I do seem to always find my way back.  Today, I'm back on the path; but not without leaving a piece of me with someone who doesn't have the strength just yet to follow what's already inside.

perfect lyrics - perfect girl

I have not found a better song that fits to explain just exactly how i feel.

Thank you to Sarah McLachlan

Am I faithful, am I strong, am I good enough to belong

In your reverie a perfect girl

Your vision of romance is cruel and all along I played the fool

All your expectations bury me

I own my insecurities I try to own my destiny

That I can make or break it if I choose

But you take my words and twist them 'round

Til I'm the one who brings you down

Make me feel like I'm the one to blame for all of this...

You need everybody with you on your side

Know that I am here for you but I hope in time

You'll find yourself alright alone

You'll find yourself with open arms

You'll find yourself you'll find yourself in time

The riot in my heart decides to keep me open and alive

I have to take myself away from you

'Cause I can't compete I can't deny there's nothing that I didn't try

How did I go wrong in loving you

Don't worry you will find the answer if you let it go

Give yourself some time to falter

But don't forgo know that you're loved no matter what

And everything will come around in time

happily sad or completely unattainable

It doesn't always show, only those who really know what is underneath the smile can see the truth behind it. Good days are great days and sad days are good days. No matter what the day brings, my feet land on the floor, usually the right than the left (because i sleep on the left side of the bed) and I enjoy each morning as though it is the first in my days ahead. I have been reading the Anne of Green Gables stories, and in Anne of Windy Poplars she meets little Elizabeth, who is living in 'today' and knows 'tomorrow' is just around the corner and is looking forward to when each day is in 'tomorrow'. I feel that way lately, more so than i usually do. I feel as though 'today' is just a resting point for me to gather my bearings, find out where He is trying to guide my life. But often in 'today' I find myself daydreaming of 'tomorrow'. Every single thing happens for a reason, I live by that mantra, but sometimes not knowing just what will happen with the choices I make, those choices that involve my daughter, make me fret, make me nervous, make me stress.

How can I plan when I don't know what I am planning for? I have a great friend who says she doesn't plan based on a time frame of life, but on the here and now. She isn't worried about the 'tomorrows' in life, just the 'today'. I don't even think I could be like that! As I have been told, and have already known my entire life, I need to feel in control. Whether this is the first child syndrome or being female, I am unsure; I think it's more about a blend of all that makes me me...but for whatever the reason, my life comes down to the here and now for this very moment. These moments… I cherish them, happily sad, for the guilty fear that it could all fade away when I wake tomorrow then place my feet on the floor. The "what-if's" of my life is what I am so very scared of. I think for the first time, i think I am admitting I am scared of the unknown. I make great choices when they are simple choices, I choose to work hard each day, I choose to plan for my daughter, try to make her smile each day, make her try something new, but for myself? Oh NO! Stick with what I know, stick with the known and veer away from the unknown. The darkness that surrounds an unknown for me takes my breath away. When the choices come to me, my own personal happiness, I wonder if I am so fearful of the unknown that I am setting myself up for failure each time I do attempt something new. Hurtful actions never completely leave me, they fade into the background of my everyday life, but I carry them as Jesus carried his cross...proudly, head held high, knowing this brings something more than one can ever imagine. I don't say I am Jesus, I just think I can understand his complete acceptance as to who he is and what choices he made through his short life on earth. He was not perfect and neither am I. But at the end of the day, I am just me, an almost single mom trying to do the right thing..first by my daughter, then by me.

But some days, it just feels so much harder than I had ever anticipated. Why is it that I go for things that are challenging and just out of my reach? Why do I go for things that have no end in sight? Is it the challenge? Is it that I still have some of the control? Or is it just that, I am happily sad living my life making choices that are just out of my reach, completely unattainable? Whatever the reason may be, I will wake up each day and smile knowing today I just might be in 'tomorrow'.

a year

A year ago I was stressing, I was worried, I panicked at least once a week
A year ago I cried tears that I didn't think would stop.
A year ago I leaned hard on everyone close to me.
A year ago I thought I may actually have to share a piece of me with someone who didn't want it.
A year ago I realized just how strong I really am.
This past year I found me.
This past year, I cried tears of joy more than I cried tears of sadness.
This past year I allowed myself to share me with someone else.
This past year my heart accepted love.
This past year I gave my love to someone else.
This past year I realized my 6 year old doesn't always need me.
This past year I took a deep breath and realized it is okay.
This year I will accomplish more than even I will think I can.
This year I will love unconditionally.
This year is a year of new beginnings.
This year I smile.

it happens when you know its going to happen

Relationships...in so many cases seem to define people. I have met so many new people on my path of freedom and in so many cases have been introduced as any of the following: 'the mother of', 'the daughter of', 'the son of', 'the child of', 'my boss is' etc.
Why is it that we find ourselves needing to define ourselves by others????
I want to end this right here, right now. For so long I have too been one of those people, but here, tonight i am me. My name is not important to those who don't actually know me, but I am me, college educated, single female, mother of an amazing 5 1/2 year old girl who attends parochial school and has such a loser father that i have the audacity to make him prove other wise. But at the end of the day, I am me, 5' 6" runner of 5K, friend of many, often mouthy, but so very loyal oh and such the typcial irish female!

To start a bit of a thought that has been running through my head recently, enough that i was blogging at work today in an email to myself at home, i want to share my continued thoughts on relationships that has been building over the past weeks.

An ending to any relationship has its mourning period. I was told recently that within a relationship once it ends, there is always two very distinct perspectives on the relationship. There is one person who has already mourned the 'loss' of the other person and has finally made the last break complete. The other person is left holding out their hands and finding them empty and maybe more than a little lost and broken hearted. Then there comes two sides to every story on just how to describe the relationship and when the mental break began.

I am 29 years old with less than a month to go before i say good-bye to my 20s and hello to the 30s. i have never officially been an age in the 30 range, but mentally I've been here for quite some time. Its just about time my body is catching up with my mind. I have yet one more failed relationship to add to my list and this time, like every other time, i am the person who has already mourned the loss and have left the other person with his hands face up empty handed wondering why. This time around though, there seems to be something missing.......

it's mostly that fear that i am single, the fear that i may not find the one who makes my heart flip and the fear that i may never fall madly in love. maybe, just maybe second best isn't so bad after all. but then i wake up from my selfish reality and know that second best is just the first losers point of view. When have I ever accepted being the first loser? ummm.. yes readers, NEVER!

So will carry on, I will put myself out there for Mr. AMAZING WONDERFUL and FANTASTIC and hope he realizes just what an amazing person he is getting in return to all my sacrifical offerings. by this i mean shorter showers, no longer leaving the curling iron plugged in all day, or the toaster(whooops!!! that one i did today for the 4th time!)
I am going to wow this world with my mommy expertise and my ability to almost wink, along with the oh so tempting newly famous turtle tattoo. (check back for pics!!!) I am a lover of life, keeper of mother earth and greener than green. Regardless of the men that may cross my path, I love me and I love my life.

final decision

It's always hard when thoughts are rolling around and I can't seem to make sense even when its all i can do to try and focus on them. All of a sudden, one seemingly insignficant event occurs and those thoughts come tumbling together making a startingly clear reality. Now i find myself looking back wondering exactly how long I have been thinking these misconstrued thoughts.

It's the looking back though that makes me second guess myself. And personally, I have found when i begin to second guess my decisions while driving, they are ALWAYS and I do mean ALWAYS wrong. (I second guessed an exit on my way to Long Island and ended up in Jersey!) So this time, when there it was, pretty much staring at me in front of my face, i took a chance a made the jump BEFORE I could second guess myself. And, although right now, the decision to be single, really single as in, not having any plans with the boyfriend at any time in the near future. As in, trying my damnest to explain to him what i am having a difficult time explaining to myself. As in, once again trying to figure out me and what I was put here on Earth by Him for. I sit here and ponder and type.

I am not sad, i am not unhappy, but once again I feel I am not the me I thought I was. AGAIN. Once again, I feel myself growing out of the comfort level I have been in for months and trying out a new shell. I am stunned by this decision and even more shocked that I feel nothing more than stunned. How exactly is this supposed to fit in with my life and what I have been living for months? Why is it I am so scared to get to the next level and let myself open up to another person? I may ask myself that, but deep down I know that answer before I even typed it out. I won't ever let myself get hurt ever again. I have kept myself at such a distance from the boyfriend that my emotions were never involved. Over the past several weeks, I have begun to realize those thoughts have been trying to point something out to me. I tried to ignore them only to have those thoughts come to an actual point and show me what I was trying to hide from.
Why is it that I need to pretend to be someone I'm not? Or is it not that i am pretending, but just that I don't know who I am at all?

the 'us' defination

I sit here typing listening to pandora..after a night of potential plans fall apart and we end up together, i listen to Kenny Chesney, anything but mine. And how fitting is that? I am anything but yours, but i still feel so connected. for the rest of my life, i am anything but yours..anything but not yours.
it is not a sadness that washes over me, but a resigned realization that for good, for bad, for ugly, for nice, you and i are ever twined through the child, we, together, brought into this world. come hell or high water, come heat, come snow, our child is exactly that..ours. For the rest of my life, i have you in my life and you have me in yours. Somedays, some weeks, some months it will be awful. then some days, some weeks, some months it will be good. But what greatness we had has passed.
You have shown me the bad is not worth the good.It wasn't what we were, it was what we were not. That is the hardest part for me to grasp. it wasn't that i was happy, it was that i was happy enough. I don't settle, ever. No matter how hard i try it never seems good enough for me.
My parents raised me right, they taught me to push my hardest and do my best. Growing up i thought this was just meant for schooling, but schooling turned into college and going to college I learned it is very different in comparision to everything i have ever learned. Then all of a sudden adulthood is here and damn where has the time flown?
Then i begin to realize, no matter how hard i am trying i know it isn't good enough for me, so i know it wouldn't be good enough for my parents who raised me with intentions of greatness. Then all of a sudden, it is utter dispair...and such sadness...and once again, such disappointment. All of a sudden, its joy and happiness only to be followed once again by dispair and disappointment, but this time that is all my own doing and i find myself trapped and unable to breathe. Everything gets too close for comfort and all i want to do is shout and stretch but i can't do either one. I can only breathe those short, shallow breaths that mean the end is near, but i keep pushing the end until i can't take another breathe.
Then, i stop. And when i finally stop, i cry. Because the end is here and although i knew it was going to happen, i still was not prepared. And i cry.
And tonight, i cry. and it hurts, so much. but i cry because it feels better than holding it inside. but then i breathe again and find it doesn't hurt as much as i thought it would. it feels as though i can go, i can push that extra bit and find me, buried underneath all the happy, the sad, the hard, the up, the down, the unhappy, the little bit of happy..there i am. But a glimmer, but i'm there. Fighting strong for what i believe and for what has been instilled in me, the greatness that I know I can be.

the past

It has been a while since i have blogged. I want to say sorry for that. So much has happen in the past 2 months and i will be catching up. But, in case you were wondering, life is okay. I am happy and emma is still doing awesome. I have a boyfriend who treats me well and he is hot!