This one's for you...

This one's for you T.C.
And you Chicklet.
It's for you too, Guardian.
And The Drummer.  And both Little Mr.'s.  And Little Miss, and you too Mr. Monkey.

It's for all the "misfits" we collect here on our "island of broken toys".  If you’re part of us, you understand that statement better than I could ever put words too.

She said it.  It was mean and vicious and stupid.  She cut you deep.  Right to the core of the most sensitive, hidden place in your soul.
Somehow she saw the place and saw the wound and went for it.  Over and over and over.
She was a bully.
People are so stupid and mean.  People are bullies.  As a collective society we are careless and thoughtless and judgmental.

Each one of you has lived this.  You've been bullied by the outside pushing at you and telling you how much less than perfect you are.  Each of you has bullied yourself, believing all the nonsense that you're less somehow because you aren't average.
At one time or another, sometimes it comes in waves; you've been fed the lies and swallowed them down whole.

Then you've fought back and survived, making peace with who you are, learning to love that person.  You've learned to find the real people in your life who love the real you.

The lists of lies are long.


Perfect skin doesn't make you lovable.  Being a size 2 doesn't make you beautiful.  Straight A's don't make you successful as a human being.  Being the perfect son or daughter doesn't make a parent say or do the things you're longing for them to do.  Tall, thin and blonde doesn't equal the only opportunity for a life-long love.  Living the life you think everyone else is expecting you to live won’t take make the things you really want to do or need to be go away.  You can’t ever measure up to anyone else’s version of good enough without destroying the good that’s in you.  God created you as you, He didn’t make a mistake, stop fighting Him and yourself, let yourself be who you were created to be.  It is okay to live your life according to your own unique time frame.  Get your jobs, your loves, your accomplishments when it’s time.  Stop trying to force your life into someone else’s mold.  Respect doesn’t come from the right jobs or friends.  Friends don’t come from being in the right social circles.  Taking a risk isn’t bad.  Living your life, being alive isn’t wrong.  It’s okay to be happy, find joy and have fun.  It’s okay to relax and not be serious and striving every minute.

I have been struggling all day trying to find the right words to tell you this story.

You are

strong
beautiful
smarter than you know
loyal
kind
pretty
loved
funny
sexy
good, much more so than you believe
thoughtful
successful



You aren't any of the lies the world is telling you.  You aren't any of the lies the bullies throw around.  You aren't the lies you tell yourself.

Remember the moments when you had peace?  Remember the moments when you were OK with who you are?  Do you remember how long and hard you fought to find that place, where you made peace with yourself, liked yourself, maybe even loved yourself when you thought the rest of the world would never accept you, understand you or love you?

You are a survivor.  You've made your way to that place before and you'll make your way back again.  You will ride these waves all your life, but it will get easier.  Each time you'll see the lies quicker.  Each time you'll be stronger than the time before.

For now, let me be the one to say the words.

That horrible mean person that bullied you was wrong.  Those words coming out of that mouth were shallow, selfish and spiteful.

But you know that.

Can I tell you some other things?

A size does not make you beautiful.  Having a body like a Barbie or a Victoria Secret model won't bring you the love of your life.  Flawless skin won't make you likable.  Perfect grades won't give you the answer to what you should be when you grow up.  Trying to be someone you aren't never works.  Living the life you believe others or even God expects of you will not make you happy.  Lying to yourself will mess you up in the long run.  Having the "right" friends or being the "good" social circles doesn't take away that loneliness.  Protecting yourself so that no one ever gets in and hurts you doesn't work, they still find their ways and cut you deep.  Worse, protecting your heart never lets you love.

You already knew these things too.

For your whole life you've been fighting the world and yourself.  You've been surviving and succeeding.  You have found your way to peace and long stretches of being better than okay with who you are.  You've been learning to accept yourself and find the people in your life who accept you too.  You are braver, bolder and wiser each day.

There are a few more things to say, and you already know all of these too, but sometimes you need to hear them said.  They aren't said nearly often enough to you.  These are the words you long for those certain people in your life to say and for whatever reasons it doesn't happen.

You are beautiful.  You are smart.  You will succeed, even beyond where you have success right now.  You will find love.  You are loved.  I am proud of you.  I really am.  I like who you are even when you don’t.  For the older ones, not my Little’s, you are plenty sexy when you want to be.  You are not alone, even when you are most lonely.  I do hear you and I do see you.  I am impressed with you, from the large things you do, down to the smallest things, you shine.


Don’t let an angry, bitter, spoiled brat with vicious taunting words steal anything from you.  It’s their loss not to have you in their life.
Those people who won’t give you the time of day aren’t worth one single second of your life.  It’s their loss.
“Friends” who don’t make the effort, don’t know what they’re missing.
When they judge you without knowing a single thing about you, you’ll be able to judge clearly how much of yourself to invest.

One blog with some kind words and clichés won’t make it stop happening in your life.  A few minutes of me saying nice things won’t change the world from dumping on you sometimes.  It  isn’t going to make people stop being stupid or nasty.

It might be a little reassurance that I mean the things I say to you.  It might be a place to come back to on a dark day or a lonely night.  It might be a little peace.

NaBloPoMo is focused on Return this month and I'm working hard to meet the daily challenge.  Mostly I'm taking the challenge this month to get back on the blogging train and get back in the daily writing habit.  It's good for me and make the NaNoWriMo easier in November.

Today's prompt is about home decor.  If you could return the decorations in a room of your home what would that be?

A truly silly question for me because I don't have any rooms in my home "decorated." 

I'm on my second house and am finally getting the walls painted something other than Realtor white.  Even that is slow going.  I'm lazy and hire The Drummer, Chicklet's little brother, to do the work for me.  He does excellent work, but I'm not in much of a rush to get it done, so usually a room gets painted when he's looking for some cash.

My house has never been "decorated".  Once in my life, while apartment dwelling and before kids, I tried to do the home decor thing.  I went to those home shows and bought the stuff.  I hung it up and so I guess in a way it was decorated, but it kind of felt like playing house instead of me. 

My rooms now are all just filled up with the things that flavor our lives.  Each one of us has our "stuff" that reflects our passions and who we are. That stuff is dispersed through the house in a sort of random cluttered up lived in way. 

I hope our home is welcoming and warm, even with it's stuff.  I hope that people come to see us and not our mess.  I like to believe it's a normal mess.  Toddler toys and a little dog fur.  Sports equipment and book stacks.  Drawings and princess dolls.  Computers and journals and coffee cups.  Pens.  Our home is covered in pens. 

Between writers and artists, we are covered in pens and pencils and markers and crayons and anything that could possibly write or draw or mark paper.  We are also a paper family.  We love our paper.  For drawing and printing and writing.  There are piles of papers and drawings scattered everywhere.  There are stacks of journals and notebooks and legal pads, all with ideas sketched in them.  There are prayer journals and personal journals and Bible journals. 

Then there are the books.  Shelves of books.  Stacks of books.  Books in chests and drawers and cabinets.  Books under chairs and on top of the fridge. 

I guess in a way, we do have decor.  It's just not a home magazine kind of decor.  It's more of a snap shot of who are family is than a style we'd like to show off. 

I'd love to say I envy other people's homes that are decorated just so, or that I look at those magazines and think oh, I want my house to look like that, but sadly, no.  I don't even really notice. Once in a while I might notice your furniture, but more often than not, I can't tell you a thing about your house, not even what color it was inside the room.  I just don't have eyes for that sort of thing.  I could tell you if it was cozy or not, warm or cold, dark or light.  I could tell you if there was a smell or how I felt being in that room, but I couldn't tell you if your end tables matched or all your furniture was the same style.  I couldn't tell you what was on the walls or windows. 

I'm strange that way. 

I guess in the end, I wouldn't return anything about my home, because my home is where my family is who they are, and I like them just as they are.

Opposite Life

I sometimes feel like I'm living life in that place we played in as kids, you know, opposite day.  Do you remember it?  It's the day where you would say to your best friends I hate you and everyone would laugh because we would all know that it really meant I love you.

It's how I feel about the summer and school season.

I know lots and lots of people look at summer as this great rest and relaxation time of the year, and in a way, I do too.  I'm not that crazy, but in a different way, the summer is the most crazy and hectic time of the whole year.  There is always some great fun and amazing thing to be running off to.  There are a million activities and get togethers both planned and spur of the moment.  There are tons of great places to go and things to do and I'm not complaining.  Not at all.  I'm just saying, you have all that stuff, plus all the planned stuff like vacations and summer camps and suddenly every minute is over filled and if I can be super honest, the money flies out like crazy.  Then you get near the end of the summer and start to do the back to school shopping and it's double money out the door. 

The build up of activities and spending in the days before school starts makes me hear the Jaws theme music in my head, add in the summer's almost over kid crazies and I'm pretty sure the shark is circling and just about ready to bite me in two.

For me, school brings peace.  And this is where the opposite life comes in. 

I know for most of you the school year is not the advent of peace, it's the start of schedules and running around and homework and all that stuff.  And yeah, I have all that too, but I like it, because it's set schedules and it's consistent routines and it's predictable.  In that predictability is freedom for me.

See, I can look ahead and see where I'm going to catch the minutes to pray or read or write.  I can plan for the days when all the little people are away and I can plot stories and outline themes and create those critical character sketches.  Those are the days to plan the month menus and precook as much as I can.  Those are the days for me to fit in appointments I want to do alone or meet up with those long lost friends I haven't seen all summer for a lunch. 

The school season is a sweet season of release for me.  Maybe I'm just shallow or a true slacker parent, but honestly, I don't worry about the kids when they're at school.  Not one bit.  True confession~~they barely enter my mind in the hours they are away from me.  I am sickly optimistic and simply trust that the adults in charge will generally be good and do their best and then if something bad or disastrous or horrible happens, well, we'll confront it and handle it then. 

So maybe the school season for me is just a selfish season.  It's a time when I get real focused on doing the "me" things.  I take care of as much of my personal health stuff as I can.  I build those relationships.  I get in deep with my Jesus.  I read.  I study.  I write. The writing is work for me, but a good work.  I try to get a handle on "projects" although in recent times I've been spoiled by Chicklet's brother, The Drummer.  He's a rock star in his own right and he's been a treasure around here.  My yard is handled and my rooms are getting painted.  They look fantastic, I might add.  He's mighty good at what he does.

This is really your first introduction to The Drummer.  He's a good kid, really good.  He's the owner of the right kind of humor, just sly and dry enough.  Music and art are his passions and there lies the talents too.  The Drummer will tell you he doesn't like kids, but I have a little guess that deep down he kind of really does, or at least has grown a small sweet spot for mine and that makes me like him all that much more. 

So there you go, my take on the reverse seasons and an introduction to Chicklet's brother.