Musing :: Mind : Tea Cup Stories.

On an early Saturday morning in February, long past the time the market vendors have made the majority of their sales. When the only people still asleep are the begrudging, ached, working class who cannot bare to move and acknowledge another morning. Who whisper prayers of gratitude to their pillows for their presence. Just past breakfast and a little before 8:30, a small child is screaming obscenities in the valleys of my neighbourhood.

Sitting there, I almost envy his vivacity...

Granted, I've never entertained the opportunity to scream about a kinsfolk's mother's coitus engaging orifice so...practice makes perfect I guess, for him it certainly seems to ring true. For him, his words are probably more easy to say than please or thank you and one hundred percent easier to mean.

This all culminated at the bottom of the hill because they were running down it and one started yelling with much accusation and sadistic pleasure in his tone. He started on about how the one that ate the sausages from the fridge, whoever they were that sad soul, was 'gonna get it' upon returning home. Now that is, from whatever errand turned adventurous, boyhood escapade they had likely just been on.

It's a bit of a valley so UP floats the avalanche of obscenities he, this messenger of pain, was now being wreck with in return.

The sound of their hard flip flops hitting concrete strip still in my ear. It's a sound country folk know well, possibly anywhere. Those slippers are made of a heard, think plastic. They are white and blue and have outlived generations, carrying with them stories of long journeys, both volunteered and mandatory that they will always keep secret because nobody knows that they know where and when those feet have been.

I hear it all the time but especially at dusk, when tired but excited with hearts full of play, children scamper home before the street lights come on. Trying to get ahead of it because then their people will stick head out windows or over banisters, then they will scream for the return of these children to the safety of home. They will insist on it in a way that will bring shame to anyone's street credit. They will demand it before the dangers of darkness cover them like sheets  and smother their unique faces in silence and silhouettes of night.

I hear all of this while I sip tea in the veranda, sitting betwixt mother and grandmother. The memory of the black ram goat; big and tall as a well fed, well bred German shepherd,  leading them down the hill instead of vice versa is still making me smirk. I run one finger slowly, over the rim of my cup. My tea is still too hot to drink so I am tasting the subtle sweetness of this moment instead.

You wouldn't know all this of the story though from looking at the picture I took of my tea cup.

You gotta love country living dontcha?

Musing :: Mind : Sometimes Good People Lose

 (The tattoo I would get if I were the tattoo getting type ; the type who would not bore of a tattoo very very quickly)

Most people don't know this but...and this is something hard for people who really know my talkative boisterous self to believe even..but...

Sometimes, extrovert or no, I just want to be left alone. All alone. Even if it's in an empty house at night while it rains and i take a shower in the dark, in bed one morning when i don't get up but stay in my sheets all day as i relish the grey heaviness of the clouds or just at home in the complete silence sitting on the sofa.

Not moving, remaining still for hours. Staring at nothing. Not thinking.

Sometimes I just need to go away and have you not talk to me, no matter how much I love you. You wouldn't know because this is a rare feeling, twice in a year for the most I think...

Sometimes I need to just go away and look into myself because sometimes the depression and the sadness and the doubt in life win. Sometimes I just need to be and rejuvenate and remember why I love me, not why you love me, why I love me.

This can last a day, three days, a week. You wouldn't know because I am fine, because i will be fine and I will come back to you as bright and as loud and happy as before because this fight is never ending for me and it is not new, I've been fighting this fight for a long time and God help me I've no intention to lose now but...

even a seasoned sea soldier, needs to let his eyes adjust to the darkness before they can see the beam from the lighthouse, reflecting on the water... so that they can safely find their way back to solid ground again.

Peace. Love. Solider On.

Musing :: Mind : They call me Miss.

I am passionate about teaching.

Well, to be fair I am passionate about education, except I'm a bit privy to another side of it as a teacher :) As of right now in the field of special education via TVI.

While I do think that too much pressure is put on students leaving secondary education and society could be more honest about the likely struggle they will face even with a degree in hand I feel like education in itself SHOULD be a freeing experience if done well. As one of my mentors under study puts it:

"Education should be considered a part of life itself rather than a preparation for life in the future" ~ Dewey

What I mean is, it should be a journey of sorts where you're constantly discovering what you love, you should have the right to change your mind about things and try new things and dabble here and there.

I started collage wanting to be a psychologist and now I'm at uni becoming qualified to be an English and Literature teacher because being exposed to certain subjects helped narrow me down to what I had forgotten, the love I had thought I could not live and eat loving; literature.

This is one of the ways i think the education system fails us. Well, i do not know how it is where you are from but here i feel like we are not teaching our children to love openly that which they love and as a result, fostering in them the desire to passionately pursue this love with an innovative mind.

I feel like there is a point, epecially if your passion is one in the creative sector, where people give up on what everyone told them was the best option, the safe option, in favour of the pursuit of happiness. I've seen painters and musicians leave stable jobs in a struggling economy because the money making option was eating away at their soul from the edges, making its way in to the centre.

In a time in history such as this, why aren't we teaching our children openly that passion can give birth to planning and that the passionate pursuit of this plan can lead to success? That everyone does not have to be a doctor or a lawyer but can be a graphic designer, fashion consultant or very successful etsyshop owner?

I never wanted to be a teacher while i was in school. Never ever. I saw the struggle they faced and i did not want it. Then i graduated community collage. (all available to me at the time). Luckily, i was stubborn enough to study the things i wanted to do anyway, with some back up stable subjects in there too.

Then i got a teaching job, a bit of a 'hold on' really.  This is what we refer to as something you are holding onto till you get what you want. I found an emptiness within my position where children could not read, they had been some how looked over and allowed to progress through the system because it simply did not have time or resources (I'm a small island girl) So while teaching my visually impaired student, which was the focus of my job, i made room for them in my class.

They learned to read and it is on the list of happiest things to ever happen to me. One day, it accrued to me that this was it. This was the thing i loved and wanted to do. I wanted to teach reading...I wanted to teach. I was going to teach.

Today I am a teacher. I explored many things in my school life. I joined programs that focused on Principals of Business class, which allowed me to make business plans but I planned magazine launches so I could write. I joined environmental groups that focused on Geography and Social studies  class but I used this as a jump of point to write slogans for new products we created. I kicked English class backside (ask them about me).

Then I went to collage and I learned and learned and learned in fields after field then made them connect to my love for writing and reading. I used Sociology to learn why my characters would act they way they did and Psychology to learn why they would think the way they would and philosophy to learn what they might believe and art to find out what they would see when they looked at things and the list goes on.

Today i am a teacher.

I write. I teach children to read. I teach them it is okay to be different, I was different, I am different and I can succeed and I can be weak and stand up anyway. I teach them that they can be passionate. That when you are passionate about something you can find it in the threads of education, in unlikely corners.

I have taught English and literature and reading to slow learners, visually impaired children and children who are top of their class, Sunday school children and this semester I am (somehow) going to teach art and dance from kindergarten to grade 2.  I did do some drama and majored in a little art though so it'll be okay. thank God for learning.  All of this while i finish my last four semesters of university, now learning the things I want like linguistics, how to be a better teacher and how to properly write book reviews.

I am a teacher and you can bet your bottom dollar I am passionate about it.

Peace. Love. Learn.

Musing :: Mind : Any Port For A Storm

That title is a saying we have here, usually it refers to desperation, how humans, like ships when in dismay are desperate and will head for any available port when they find themselves in the midst of a storm

Very recently one of my friends celebrated her birthday (well honestly 3/4 of them did all these May babies!!) Anyway, i wasn't able to celebrate her awesomeness on THE day since this particular friend was a foodie....

Let Them Have Cake! (its crazy how pleased she is about that cake!)

Afterwards we spent our time sitting/laying around on a near by dock watching the caribbean sun set in the midst of the capital city of my island. I was quiet, still enough to notice how conversations have evolved over the years, how much I've grown not only to appreciate the people in my life but understand them better and how they have been able to better understand me.

 Friendship is amazing like that isn't it? Often it starts of as 'any port for a storm' your hands are flinging about crazily in a situation you feel is going to drown you and then...you reach out...and you trust someone. Then if you're really lucky, the years that follow either show you you trusted the right ones or the wrong ones. Friendship and even self actualization is not a port for any storm but when you find a port in those situations, you're hoping to make that port stop a home somehow...It's that port you hope will leave the light on for you, the one with the tall, strong lighthouse you're so used to in the daytime you forget it's there...almost...but not quite.

It's so important to be unselfish in that equation. Its so easy to say that we love someone yet relate everything they do to how it makes me feel, what i want them to do, how I want them to react. How easy it is to forget that the truest love seeks instead to give rather than receive, causes our thinking to sway instead towards notions such as: how are they feeling now, how are their dreams and desires influenced by my actions, how do they benefit from my presence...

As i sat there, watching the sun go down, i remembered another conversation with another of my gal pals and consequently my mother, how we are such a sum of our experiences, good and bad, i felt so blessed, like a champion looking down over a new land called 'future' that has not been explored yet...excited because the previous travels have brought so many laughs, so many unfix-able pains and unending days...Yet here i was, sitting there, watching the dusk creep in over the water, watching another day come to and end, whispering its tempting promise as they often do. 'Tomorrow...' the day says to me 'Tomorrow anything can happen'

I guess these are the musings birthdays inspire in me lol

Off to get started on that summer school assignment...

Musing Mind :: Dealing With The Pain Of An Indecisive Heart

As I have grown i have come to really resent the statement 'listen to your heart' Do you know how confusing that is? I don't know about you but, especially when you are young, the heart is full of psycho babble!

i have found the heart to be an incredibly indecisive and curious thing, always amused and drawn to multiple forks in the road only to come to them and when you ask it, 'Alright babe, which way do you wanna go? which road do you want?' Like a spoiled child hearts almost always say 'All of them! i want all of them!' or at the VERY least more than one.

And what is curious is that nobody tells you this! All the movies and the songs make it sound easy as if 'Hey girl, simple solution ; just follow your heart duh!'

I can brag about having lived a quarter of a century now and let me tell ya for as long as i have known myself my heart has always been this amazingly spoiled and selfish little tender thing. Always with the i want i want i want....whispering those words in my ear, warming up my blood, making my feet itch to start moving in the direction called forward and when i lean in  close and say 'Yes little one, what is it, what is it that you want? Tell me clearly and i will get it for you.'

It answers 'So many many things...'

and i'm just like sigh....................WTF am i supposed to do with that???! Speak up you little twat! (admit it, talking to your heart nicely takes patients and practice )

It's a good thing i have a brain too...and though it might not be the best brain in all of the universe, it still works for me. Still wants what's best for me. Which is saying a lot because not everybody's brain works like that anymore. My brain still serves to remind me that my heart is forever young and as a result will always need guidance. My heart is only there to suggest to me, to help me feel and know that i have wants.

It's up to me then, to choose one and peruse it. And i will never know which way is truly the right way because this life, is a constant trial and error but I've still gotta keep moving because for me, indecision is painful...

Oh! I ran across this quote:

Quote from: An Abundance of Kathrines by John Green

 So so far i have learned 3 Ways To Deal With The Pain of an Indecisive Heart 

 1. I must keep feeding my heart tastes of the things it wants. One choice at a time.

2. I must try to remember that we are young, if not in body often always in soul and with any luck, we can double back to the ones, the choices, that don't have a short term time stamp on it. So i really have that big scary word called responsibility to choose wisely not erratically and the heart is an erratic thing but it is also passionate and passion is rarely calculated.

3. I should never urge my heart to stop wanting because a heart that is not wanting is not eating, starving, dying. Have you ever felt that numb feeling where your heart does not want anything? When you ask 'What do you want babe?' and the answer is a sulky 'nothing, i do not want, I'm scared to want...i don't like the feelings i get when i want and do not receive, i get angry, lonely, unsure and insecure, let us not want, let us sit still in a state of not want this is safe...' i know i have felt that. So to have a heart that continues to want is a blessing, i promise you.

 Here's hoping i remember them when the going gets tough


How do you deal with an indecisive heart?

Peace. Love. Strategies.

Musing :: Mind : Let What You Do Speak For You.

Well my intention was to have another style post after my good Friday one but I'll be honest it was a teaching day for me and i did not have any spear moment to think of anything else but being 'Miss' to a group of Sunday School kids at my church...on Monday (yes i know) Easter Monday is my church's annual women's conference and this year my branch was hosting.

Being the teacher that i am, which means basically you get this little twitch when you're around children and they could be learning but are instead left to idle and feel unimportant, here i find myself, volunteering to teach that day's Sunday School class, filled with children coming to our Sunday school from all over the island...

The beautiful welcome sign was not made by me but by a fellow church mate and teacher. I did have to bring all my own material though as well...how do i put it nicely? We are 'low on resources'  at the church *cough cough*

So what little i had i brought, trouble with bringing your own is they almost certainly get lost, it's just what happens when you work with kids, a forth demention opens up and sucks markers into itself never to be seen again :(

I felt so lucky to find this cheap packet of Easter egg shells (such niceties in this country? My lucky day!!) Though i think it was so because it was brought in by an international shop so yay them!

The students had a grand time, designing what i called 'Billboards of their heart' that displayed good qualities of a child of God they want people to see when they look at them. Later on in the day they presented them to the whole church congregation with shaky voices and nervous hands but they did it and i am so proud of very one of them!! Even better i know that they felt proud of themselves when they got a raving applause!

There was a gal who kept helping two smaller ones that could not read to memorize their sentence  with little to no urging from me. How kind was she to take on her own to do so?!

Then, the creme de la creme, a little girl, just about at my hip in height, pulled at my hem with pleading eyes at the end of our presentation and time together. When i got down close to hear her? She whispered 'Miss thank you for helping me.' and my heart grew ten times its size  of share sweetness!

Where i am from we have this saying that coincidentally i made the sub topic of my lesson that day:

That little girl...such tiny frame...such big character!

 She gives me hope....

Moments like that make me feel i could be a teacher for the rest of my life.

Peace. Love. Discover Strength in Unexpected Places

Musing Mind :: Let Me Love You Until You Learn To Love Yourself ♫

While watching an episode of Glee, a show i LOVE there is a particular performance that really really irked me (spoiler alert!) It was supposed to be very romantic but i couldn't help sitting there, staring at my screen with a look of bewilderment thinking 'Um...wtf? This aint cute.' and blinking rapidly at the writers that thought this was the best way to convey a message to the youth of the world.

The scenario goes as follows: There is a character that has been preyed on by  another girl who, coming under the guise of her friend, convinces her that she is fat and pushes her into bulimic practices. Now this story is one i already have a sensitive nerve about because one of my best friends during the course of my life has struggled with bulimia, i was THERE i saw what she went through, not completely of course but i saw her struggle and her fight to get over it, so when i saw this issue my eyebrows perked. Now i do not have a problem with the writers tackling this issue because the fact of the matter is, it is a very real one and i admire pushing the envelop like that.

Now said character with all the body issues and self esteem problems has found herself in love with the guy she is dating, who loves her too (they're a cute couple i dig them) She finds herself however too scared to tell him, he senses it and decided to tell her first so as to take the pressure off.

Now Here Is Where Things Get Stupid.

Now who thinks it is a smart idea to tell the young women of the world, battling body issues, eating disorders and self esteem problems that it is okay for a significant other to, love them enough so that they don't have to worry about not loving themselves?

If you have ever gone through the turmoil of self hate, you know that there is nothing anyone could say that can fix you. Only you can fix you. And it angers me that this message is being sent through music and i suppose through the show but I'm trying not to judge them yet because i understand as a writer myself this could be all part of plot building so the jury is still out on that part...Still! Really? I will love you so don't worry you don't have to worry about loving you? In my opinion, this idea of love coming outside of self is what gets us into these situations in the first place...

How is it going to help an insecure person to believe and lean on the understanding that security not can but WILL come outside of self? Isn't that creating a culture of dependency? If self love, SELF love, comes from outside of SELF isn't it obviously easy for it to me taken AWAY from self? Causing a person to go out looking and counting and digging in the dirt in hopes of finding someone ELSE to give them the SELF satisfaction they need to go on and were encouraged to not bother to nurture and water and grow?

It is important to remember that nobody but you is responsible for your out look on you. Giving that control to someone else does not only not give you firm footing in security but rather only has you living on borrowed time...until the next disappointment and believe me, humanity disappoints, we are flawed and can not help it and when your understanding is dependent on the acceptance of another human being you have offered up yourself to a kind of vulnerability that is more dangerous than anything of your own making....

It's like putting a bandage on a poisonous snake bite.

Let me also say that i wrote about this issue from the perspective of a television show viewer and writer but it would be an injustice not to link you to this post by one of my favorite bloggers that talks about it from a music listener's point of view and goes into more detail about the disturbing presence of this message in everyday music media, much more than even i initially realized! Its a fantastic read.

Peace. Love. Send The Right Message.

Musing :: Mind : Valentine's Day Sucks!

So you know one thing that really gets my goat about vday? Everyone going on and on about how bad, sad and depressing it is. I don't get it, whats the big deal? Go out and buy yourself some chocolate! Chocolate always tastes good, no matter who you got it from ;) So what if that person is you? Also, you must know that you are not the only single person on the planet right now, there has got to be someone who wants to get out of the house on this day too, grab em and set yourself up. Personally i like going to the largest supermarket here and staring at the multitude of chocolate that always comes out around this time, oh yes! My favorite thing <3 Chocolate that you never see has come out to play!

Also, you could always go to dinner, dinner is yummy especially if it's a fancy one. You don't need anyone to take you, take yourself! There is nothing that makes one feel more complete than realizing that another half does not complete you, you are already complete, another half only enhances something that is already great. How are you going to enhance something that is already great if it does not acknowledge it's own greatness?
 
 I know it's no easy task, i am not deluded, in fact for the very first time on Valentine's day this year i was so sad. This has never happened to me, not while single not while coupled. You know what i realized? One of the pillars of my sadness was that i had again allowed negativity to seep into my system. Everywhere i turned, twitter, Facebook, people were belly aching about how they 'hate valentine's day' and how 'i just call it Thursday' and how 'i am just waiting for the cheap chocolate after this is over' (this last one i am jealous of you first worlders!) Okay, we get it. You're bitter. Nobody loves you today on the day everyone is celebrating love. Wait...no, that doesn't sound right does it?

Somebody loves you. Someone. Isn't that what you're suppose to be celebrating? All of a sudden what is important is that nobody wants to kiss you today even though it really didn't bother you much yesterday? Come on, lets put the jealousy and envy aside. We are celebrating LOVE here people. Love life, love friendships that have lasted, love that you've got a mom for mothers day, love that chocolate is everywhere. Don't be such a Debbie Downer acting like the only kind of love that is worth recognizing and celebrating is the type that makes you feel someone thinks you are important.

I know this is a bit harsh of a perspective to take on this subject and hey, I'm not even asking you to agree with me I'm just saying...damn guys...just dayum!

Peace. Love. Appreciate.

Musing Mind :: Tests & (maybe) Failing...

Sorry for the lack of blog post this week. I've just been at a loss as to what to write about and feeling guilty that my mind isn't completely focused on subjects as Monday uni has restarted for me and with that came the usual stress and anxiety. You'd think I'd get over it by now, every single time i put myself through this fear of failure scenario. Last semester i was tossing and turning, waking myself up  as i pleaded in my sleep out loud 'how do i do this...how do i do this...' over a class i couldn't figure out, yes, i am that much of a nerd, it is dangerous to be too driven. I was sure i was going to fail and my world would come to a screeching halt as i would have to come to terms with the fact that i'm not as awesome as i think i am and i kid you not, that is no easy task for anyone to come to terms with. Well, after weeks and months of self imposed bad joojoo i passed said class as barely as it might have been and walked away from the experience with a very valuable lesson.

Much like life itself, it's just a test.

It doesn't make or break or define you. What will happen if you fail at something? Okay, come back from that cliff you see yourself throwing your self off of mentally...after that. You will rise. You'll take a step and then another step. I think this is the part that will make or break you. The part where you decide if those new steps will be in a forward direction.

This is just the first bit, what really gets me down and staying down is that every time i feel this drain of creative juices. I know it's not ever lasting though. A means to an ends. So, in an unlikely event i thought I'd give you a glance at some completely unrelated pieces of me.

I wear suits to work and since i have been obsessed with Doctor Who for the last month and a half, one of my favorite suits now has even more appeal because of it's pin stripes reminding me of The Doctor.

 Also trying to be a better teacher so my new supervisor and i had a chat while he checked my books to make sure i was planning well. Teachers get stickers too! Who doesn't like stickers?

Also, discovered i could use my ipad as a teaching aid my student loves and is enthusiastic about learning from.

Chocolate is a lovely pick me up, yes?

 

It's been cold round here lately. What i like to call 'sock weather'

So that's what its been bout this week, I've been battling as i attempt to balance being a good growing full time teacher and being a university student. It's very difficult as i unfortunately face situations where i sometimes encounter professionals who seem more about their pride than whether their students, my students, pass, fail or feel comfortable in their skin and life as a student. This hurts me very much but i have full intention to continue my resolution to live with authority because this one isn't only for me, it's for my students too. Also, those moments when i meet other professionals who pick up the slack where others have failed my hope is renewed.

Trying not to be too impressed that I've stuck to my resolutions though. After all, it's still January ;) But hey! Thought of the Day: This Life Is Just A Test & School's Back In Session.

"Time asks no questions it goes on without you,
Leaving you behind if you can't stand the pace." ~ Des'ree

 

Peace. Love. Worth

Musing Mind :: Is It Meant To Be...?

Sometimes i read things and they move me not just to change or to talk or to think but to write. This happens sometimes with reading blogs but i tend to not do it because i don't want to have anyone feeling like I'm copycatting their intellectual property in anyway. Yet the other day i started musing the question: 'Does everything happen for a reason?' Inspired by this post

Yes, i would say everything happens for a reason. Most people are of the opinion that life is unfair right? So, i think what is important to note is that while it has been said that 'everything happens for a reason' who ever said it was a good or fair reason?

It is not a matter of whether the person who gets the job in a company that soon goes bankrupt over when you when you both were interviewed but you were passed over 'deserved' to be unemployed soon after, it is just that the company went out of business SO s/he had no work. There was an angry sick person who took a gun into a school where children were and started to fire AS a result they died...To every action, there is a reaction.

You know what I think? I think as human beings we could sit and pull reasons out the wazoo all day and all night but reasons, much like excuses, are not all nor always good or agreeable. We have to make sure we are looking for a reason, not 'a reason i'll like' when we're looking for answers because somehow, i suspect the world doesn't work like that...

It's so easy to not see the big picture in life when a huge bolder gets dropped in front of us....

Tunnel vision.

If we looked to the side maybe we could see that sometimes things are just the end of ONE road, the soil of many paths are still untrodden, the grass there is still green, there is not one destination, but many. As a wise local idiom says 'What is for you? is for you'  meaning If it's yours, you'll get it, regardless of bolder, moat or loss.

Well, except for stagnancy i believe, that's the one, sure fire way to end it all. That is, putting up a manual road block to ALL possible roads simultaneously, sitting still and refusing to move?! Game Over. Didn't you know that you can voluntarily be your own end all be all?\ Sucks don't it?

How do you feel about the topic Lovely Serendipity discussed? Do you believe everything happens for a reason?

Peace. Love. Live in Motion

Musing :: Style + Mind : 'Tears Don't Mean You're Loosing" ♫ ♪

I thought i'd share with you what i bought me for Christmas :) It was not expensive and i got a percentage off yet because it was the display item, which is fine with me as it has no scratches or dents just the possibility of unknown fingerprints, which are easily whipped away. Every year i try to make it a habit of buying myself something for Christmas. I rarely succeed honestly. I'm bad at spending money as everything here is so expensive.

It even took me a while to convince myself and even be convinced to snatch this little beauty up, even though it was not too much i always feel guilty buying things, especially as i'm a student, even though i may need it.

My jewelry collection has serverly dwindled for the very reason of not wanting to spend. I always tell myself, later...when times are better, later...when i reach this goal, or that one or the next, there are more important things right now...Except that often leads to a point where one feels like you're working for someone elses money because very little immediate joy is derived from it.

This year i succeeded in remembering the importance of not winding my belt so tight that i bust. I already shared my New Year Resolute for 2013 but this year i don't want to just focus on 'heavy' stuff or goals. This reckless is a reminder of that. It's a reminder to stay true to me. That it's also important to have light thoughts. It's okay to dream, to believe and to wish because that's how goals begin. They start as a tiny flutter in our stomachs, they start as a longing, with us wanting something. Then with time, they swell and develop until they are an unbearable hope. Hey and if we're lucky, if we're stubborn even, they manifest from a hope into a plan.

Well, i've been known to be stubborn with my dreams so...

Dream. Believe. Wish.

Musing Mind :: New Year Resolutes

Well to be honest i was bent on not creating New Year Resolutions this year. Simply because I'm still going through a bit of a shock, how could the year already be over? How could we be past the latest end of the world and already on to the year 2013? Yikes! Whether i make them or break them though the fact of the matter is, it's coming, time is still moving ever forward, with or without me. So it's time to hurtle out of the shock and start thinking.

What now?

That's what New Years Resolutions are about for me, I suppose there goes another show of how i over think things! For me it's time once again to actively assess where I'm at and where i want to be. To consider the past twelve months of my life and decide whether they've been worth my while. 

It's time to pick.

This is the crossroads between 2012 and 2013 and it's time to adjust my sails and follow it towards a set goal. This time I'm doing this in relation to my outward life, the next time i will do this will be at my birthday when i reconsider inward direction.

I don't remember if i even had New Year Resolutions last year, even if i did i'm quite sure they were many small scale ones like 'get good grades' and 'cuss less' This year i am picking one influenced by the lessons i've learned this year, (but more on that in another post) My New Year Resolution this year is to

1. Live With Authority.

Now this does not mean to be condescending or self centred ( It was hard enough to ditch those attributes in my early teens! You know, that part of life where you feel you know everything, where you feel everything with every fibre of  your being if we're being honest)

In 2013, i want to learn when not to hold my tongue. This year has taught me the opposite well. Now I want to own the road i walk on in life, i want to strike the balance between polite and firm, between fair and forceful. I've had so many experiences that have continued to teach me the place of everything under the sun. I think it's time to translate the road signs leading to my destinations and the criteria for the rest stops on the way. I no longer want to feel like I'm constantly walking into a room where everybody breaks the social rules but me. Instead, i want to walk in and use words that those who break rules can understand, words of power, of inner strength that speak of correctness, respect for others but ultimately respect for self.

In this new year i don't want to just show others that i respect and love them. I want to show them that i respect and love me, ultimately, not selfishly but self deservingly.Yes, i made up that last word but it's okay, i have poetic license.

This has been difficult for me with my limitations and honestly? With my Christian beliefs, struggling to walk a fair path in an unfair world. However, this year i am seeking to concur this patio... without compromising myself. Now that's going to be the hard part, it's easy enough to let someone have it, boldly and rashly, i seek to learn to speak with authority while within reason.

It's going to be so very tough, i know...but who does not have limitations? Not one of us. We've all got mountains to climb, this is the one i am daring to battle in 2013

This next one should actually be more simple, since I've already started attempting it.

2. Do one thing every day that scares you.

I heard this somewhere this year and it really resonated with me. For others this might be used to tackle sky diving or a fear of heights. For me, as a person living with a visual impairments i am using it to get past the little things many take for granted, like going to an unfamiliar place on my own or searching for something that depends highly on sight to find it. Okay, those two are bad examples, i can't honestly think of good ones right now but i hope you get my point anyway?

3. Continue to work on improving my photography, a hobby i really really love, we'll see where this goes, I'm hoping it heads towards my first DSLR but time ( and finances!) will tell.

4. Increase my blog  readership, continue to polish it's look and over all be the best blogger i can be. I'm still new at this but i'm going to learn and grow.

By the way i want to take this time to truely thank all of you who read my blog. I love writing these but what's a writer without readers? Thank you for taking the time to stop, look and comment. I'm so grateful that you share a moment of your life with me. I hope that you will continue with me on my journey in 2013. Happy New Year! Lets be happy okay? :)

Who knows if I'll succeed at these resolutions? But life is little more than a big bunch of tries anyway...

These are my New Year Resolutions. What are yours?

Musing :: Mind : The Gift

I had a good un elaborate Christmas. In fact if I told you just how un elaborate it was, it might be too much and shock you into next year! (See what I did tried there?) I honestly found it to be a lesson in it self. How funny that  I just mentioned how traditions are important to me but this year was a Christmas much unlike my usual. Not my usual friends, not my usual routine, not my usual schedule. This year the usual was unavailable due to the unpredictability of life events. Sometimes the things you think are stationary surprise us..

 Nature itself, keeps surprising you, with her we've learned to expect the unexpected but that only works from memory...that only works after we've been scared, we expect to be burned again in much the same way, expecting the same pain...really not expecting the unexpected at all. Oh the silly humans that we are! This year nature dropped a common cold on me that threw me completely out of wack and all the baking and decorating and events I'd planned to attend were impossible to master. What's interesting is that i still had a great time! In my heart I felt this resounding sense of ...contentment? Happiness! Well...after getting over the cold that is. Nothing was routine about this Christmas, nothing but the feelings I felt. What a lesson!

Gifting was minimal this year, our economy is dead and everybody is broke, especially in my newly uni educating self. However I still found a chance to give something to my mum. Something she wanted very much for a long long time, I got to see her eyes light up and her smile widen as she opened it. I was happy.

Someone gifted me some of my favorite chocolates! Here they are very expensive (over $50!) so they are definitely a huge luxury! I couldn't be more pleased! Such a simplistic present you may say... I will eat it and then it will be gone. Yet I'm so grateful! These are my favorite chocolates! This person went out of their way to get me this gift that cannot last to make me happy. The happiness will last though, the appreciation I feel because of their action will be remembered for so long!

When i attended the Christmas tree lighting, I met a very bright, very friendly 2nd grader. She was so sweet. Her mother was one of the people helping to organize the event. Unfortunately, as her mother organized and got caught up in the hustle and bustle that came with the toy give away, the toy she had set aside for her daughter was pretty much stolen, leaving my new little friend to cry the night away... I felt horrible for her and braved the Christmas eve rush ( which gratefully was not as bad as I expected!) and scooped up a little trinket I hope she likes :) A complete strange, left a tiny footprint on my heart with her big smile, inquisitive eyes and brave sentences.

The ability to give to others really is a gift in itself. What can match the ability to give to others through a simple material gesture? So much of our fears, our pains and our aches are not material, hiding deep inside a place no one can touch. This Christmas I was most grateful for the ability to give happiness and share smiles. It did not go as planned. Is it possible that it went better? It sure did show me that this feeling brought about by this season has little to nothing to do with the influence of the outside world and a whole lot to do with what drives us as individuals. Is it love of material goods...or that special feeling of goodness? I've learned so much this year.

                                                               Peace. Love. Gratitude.

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