Be Patient

For those who have been reading and asking others about my blog, I want you to stay tuned. Questions will be answered very soon, and in enough detail to squash any doubt or further questions. At this present moment in time, the blog isn't ready for that, as there are a few people who need to be told in person first. In time, I will share it with everyone the best way I know how - through pouring my heart into my words here on my blog.

So, as I said, stay tuned. You will all be up to date soon. It's not an easy story to tell, so be patient.

Weight of My World

I am mentally exhausted and yet I can not sleep.

It's amazing how quickly life can change. I once heard it said that life is what happens when something else is planned. Boy, is that ever true.

I've seen changes in many directions since the spring of 2009, but never in my life has it had such an impact on my mental state or emotions. I find myself drained - lacking all motivation or drive, wondering what's going to happen, knowing that my entire life hangs in the balance, resting comfortably in the hands of someone other than me.

I have nobody to blame but myself. I put myself in this situation. But I can't hang in the balance too much longer. I MUST do something about this, and I will.

I've always been a strong person, even when I didn't know it. It took a precious friend to point that out to me recently, and I can't thank her enough for that. I always find that I have that fire in my belly when I need it most ,and I know when the time comes it will return full force. I've done and seen enough in this life to know how to survive with nothing but the clothes on my back, and though I really wouldn't want to ever be there again, I know I would pull through it just fine as I always have before.

I often wonder if I was ever really meant to be happy. While I often screw things up for myself and I have a long history of poor choices, I've also been known to be in the wrong place at the wrong time. I've had it all, only to have it pulled out from under me like a Persian rug. I've given up so very, very much, only to get very little in return. I've been promised the world and denied everything but food and shelter in the same breath.

I've been too trusting, too patient, too loving and too generous. Well, I just don't seem to learn. Time and time again I find myself wondering what I've done wrong and what I've done so bad in my life to end up feeling like this, feeling like my whole world is crumbling around me, crushing me under the weight of the world. It's not the first time I've found myself wondering what's going to happen to me.

I have an enormous weight on my shoulders right now and I can NOT lift it on my own - YET. I can feel that strength bubbling up, but right now it hasn't even gotten past my calf muscles. I know, without a doubt, that by the time the fire bubbles to my finger tips, I will have all the strength I need to hurl that weight off my shoulders and straight to the moon.

It's not here yet, but it's not long in coming. When it gets here - look out world - THE REDHEAD WILL BE BACK IN ACTION.

Tired

Tired of hunger
Tired of pain
Tired of feeling
Like I'm going insane.

Tired of this
Tired of that
Tired of falling
Face down and flat.

Tired of screaming
Alone in the night
Tired of emotions
Of being ruled by my fright.

Tired of not knowing
What's to happen to me
Tired of feeling
I can't ever just "be".

Tired of being
Lost and alone
Tired of feeling
There's no one at home.

Tired of plans
Being made all around
Things that involve me
Yet I hear not a sound.

Tired of being
Slowly broken down
Tired of not feeling
Like I'm wanted around.

I'll not put pressure
On someone like this.
If love can't be given,
It's me he'll miss.

I'm tired of tears
Stinging my eyes,
Tired of feeling
I've been fed lies.

Tired of knowing
What is to come
Wishing some way
It could be undone.

Tired of living
Tired of dying
Wanting to know
Am I staying, or flying?

Can't take it much more
Going out of my mind!
What I wouldn't give
To not leave them behind.

It's not been so fair
To me since day one.
How much can I take -
Before I'm just DONE.

Tired of hunger
Tired of pain
Tired of feeling
Like I'm going insane.

The Direction of Hope

Came across this poem and thought I would share it...



Sitting in an all too public place
Smoking a cigarette and thinking.

If words were railroad ties
I would have plenty to say.
If wishes were trains
They would be but a minute away.
If hope were a direction
I would be on my way.

I'm just watching the people
Travel here and there;
Wondering where they're bound.
The train whistle blows
But I can't hear a sound;
Except your voice
Echoing all around.


Plans may change,
But people rarely do.
I put all
My faith in you.
You've let me down...
Now what do I do?

Sitting in an all too public place
Smoking my last cigarette and thinking.

If words were railroad ties
I'd have plenty to say.
If wishes were trains
They'd be just a minute away.
If hope were a direction
I'd be on my way.

If hope were a direction
I'd be on my way.
If I still had hope,
I'd be ok.

~Amber Montgomery

Submission Block

When doing a Google search on "What is a writer" I came across a very interesting article about writers, what we perceive as a writer, and the fact that writers often have something called submission block rather than writers block. While reading the article, I couldn't help but identify myself with the article.

What is a writer?

Is a writer someone learned and wise, lots of education under their belts? Is a writer organized and neat, knowing exactly where the stories they write are going to take them and have each project tucked neatly into its own folder, awaiting completion? Does a writer write every day? Have writers lived through war and famine, horror and turbulence? Are real writers confident and driven? None of those seem to apply to me, so how could I be a real writer? But my doubts ran deeper than that. My doubts were not only in my lack of the typical "writer" traits as I saw them, but in my actual writing itself.

Writing has always been easy for me, but that doesn't mean it's good. When something is simple and easy, it's often too good to be true. If it's that easy for me to do, then it couldn't be that special or good. It couldn't be unique if it flows from my fingers like water. Do I even have my own particular writing style? It seems that people enjoy reading my blog according to the comments I get from people I know and by the number of readers I find on the status counter every day, but yet only people I know leave comments on the blogs or stories, so maybe others aren't enjoying them as much as I would hope.

I've wanted to be a writer as long as I could remember. I used to write stories in class and then read them to friends out on the playground. I would be one of the first to raise my hand when it came to reading an essay or short story assignment to the class. Friends always loved it, acquaintances would smile, and lesser contacts would jeer and poke fun at my writing - but my friends always liked it. Or did they? Did my friends back then tell me white lies just to make me happy and to not hurt my feelings? I may never know the answer to that question.

I had a hand-written book that I worked on for almost 2 years before it was finished. While it was stolen from me (along with everything else) in the summer of 2009, I remember sitting down to write in it one day at work. A young 15 year old girl I had befriended sat and asked what I was writing. She asked if she could read some of it, and within the next couple of days, a half hour at a time, she read everything I had written to that point in time. Afterward, she confessed that she hated reading but couldn't seem to put my book down. She said it was like reading a diary - she knew details about me that nobody else knew when she was done reading it. She had been a troubled teen, constantly fighting with her parents, into drugs and alcohol... and she decided to change her ways because of what she read, so she claimed. Not long after that I left the job and I never saw her again, but I dearly hope that she did as she said she would.

But while my stories are given praise here and there, my writing style complimented on occasion by people I know, is it unique enough, special enough, exciting enough to ever be published?

You never know unless you try, right?

Probably my biggest encouragement has come from my NEW family, the people I've learned to depend on and trust and love in this far away place. It's not for ME that I made a huge step forward yesterday, but for them... for the praise and encouragement they have shown me. Yesterday, by 3 O'clock in the afternoon, I had submitted stories to two different writing competitions.

While Submission Block is a real thing, it's something I didn't realize I possibly faced until I found that random article on a Google search yesterday. It's just one more fear I need to conquer. The best part is, I didn't know I had it until it was time to get over it. I've already made the first steps, with MANY more to come.

For a year now my writing has focused on the 365 project any time I thought about my writing. Well, the project is done and it's time to focus myself on my writing in a different way. I WILL be a published author in some form within a year.

Wish me luck... I may need a lot of it!



Submission #1 - The Shack in the Woods
Submission #2 - Haunting Blue Eyes

Sounds and Silence

With as many years as I spent in Los Angeles, one would think I would be used to various sounds; the cars passing in the streets, the gulls crying overhead, the noise of neighbors moving about. I lived alone long enough to learn that the television was a companion of sorts. I would turn it on and not even bother to look at it - I would have it on for the noise, for the company. It would block out the cars and gulls and neighbors - but what would block out the noise of the television?

Silence wasn't readily available anywhere I looked, unless I went to the back of the garden out on the mountainside by the Getty Museum, and I wasn't willing to pay the museum admission prices just for a moment of silence. Instead I would take some melatonin, pop in my ear plugs and go to sleep. Even then my dreams were disturbed and my ears would ring deafeningly until I was lost in those disturbed dreams.

When I lay in silence, trying to fall asleep, my ears still ring so loudly that I can barely concentrate on anything else - except the pain in a smashed finger or the pound-pounding of my brain within my skull. Often when I get to the point of feeling so overwhelmed by noises, I try to stay up late at night reading in silence, so that I might sleep later during the noise of the day. With the words flashing before my eyes, there seems to be some sort of a distraction - I can't hear the ringing in my ears unless I listen for it. The pounding in my brain seems to lessen a bit.

I've mentioned the pounding of my head twice now - but it can't really be called a headache. It's more of an awareness of all things around me and feeling overwhelmed by the world in that very moment. It's an odd sort of feeling, where the only thing I crave is a hand to hold and a quiet room away from everything else.

It all seems to start gradually. I start to mute the commercials on television first. The times and moments that noise seems to bother me begin to get somewhat unpredictable. Sometimes in the middle of a show I'm watching alone and seem to be completely interested in will suddenly get shut off. I not only loose interest, but the noise starts to bother me. I might turn on some classical music to drown out the noise of the world around me and then become frustrated at hearing the music. I might begin to sleep more, or take more showers during the day to let the water drown the noise around me.

It usually doesn't last long, and there seem to be so few things that help with the pressure building up behind my eyes.

It's not the company of people that I eventually find disturbing, but the ambient noise of everything around me. It's the impersonal cars on the close by roads. It's the mindless birds crying out incessantly. It's the neighbors lack of consideration for others. It's the television constantly blaring, never ceasing, growing louder in the commercials. It's the lack of personal contact, of pleasant conversations, because of everything else arising as a constant distraction. Ambient noise is my worst enemy on days like that.

So, my friends, be patient with me.  

365

Dear Readers, Friends, Family and 82 Foreign Nations around the world,


Sometimes life can throw a few curve balls our way. Today, in fact, the internet was down when I was gearing up to write this particular blog; today of all days.

Tomorrow will be exactly a year to the day when I first started my blog project. That makes this day 365 when all the math is done. It's been an interesting journey to say the least. This past year has seen me through both some of the worst and best moments of my life. It's been a journey of discovering not only how my own family would react to the truth being told for all to see, but also in learning so much about the person I am and who I've become because of the crazy adventures I've lived through. I've explored several corners of the world and I'm always looking for the next adventure. Though the stories are far from over, I have reached my goal I set out to achieve. As of the moment when I post this for all to read, I will have a total of 365 entries on the web within 365 days from the first entry.

The 365 project hasn't been an easy one. I've had my share of challenges and struggles, but somehow I've pulled through to the end with stories enough left over to keep me going another year! There were several times I nearly gave up on the project, thinking there was no way I would ever be able to finish it. Half way through this project I was faced with challenges worse than any I thought I would be able to face on my own and yet I pulled through. I had plenty of encouragement from friends and loved ones along the way. Without them, I doubt this project would have survived. There were two distinct times when the blog project itself was the only thing I had to look forward to. There were times when I felt as though I didn't' have a friend in the world, and the blog was my way of reaching out to the world with open arms, asking complete strangers to love me. I was a desperate, lonely girl with little to no direction some days. Other days the blog didn't seem to matter - I had more important things to worry about. There were times when I would rather talk to a friend or go Line Dancing with employees rather than write. There were times when I felt so overwhelmingly loved that writing took a back seat to all else. Then there were the days in between, when the only thing more important than telling a story was stopping for a bite to eat when my stomach growled so loudly I couldn't hear myself think. Somehow through it all I pushed on and finally reached closer to my goal.

The farthest behind I ever got was more than 65 days behind. I did the math and discovered the massive number I needed to make up for in less than two months time one day just out of curiosity. I knew that if I didn't write at least 4 stories a day I'd never catch up to my goal. I haven't written stories on the weekends in so long now, and seeing that massive number surprisingly didn't' change things. I still didn't write on the weekend, but would put pressure on myself during the week days to write more than my goal. If I missed a day or two because of being ill, I would begin to loose my hope once more. A massive kidney infection coupled with tonsillitis a couple of weeks ago made the project seem further away than ever. Yet, once I started feeling a bit better, I attacked it all over again. I kept up with it through a car wreck, the announcement of skin cancer, a death in the family, the discovery of another and many, many other challenges. Even telling the stories themselves became challenges.

Some stories make me laugh when I write them while others can bring me to tears, but isn't that what its all about? These are the stories so powerful they will be with me forever. I've heard people laughing out loud as they read about the pranks my brother and I used to pull on one another as children. I've heard people gasp with horror at the kidnapping I survived. I've watched as other stories have made people both smile and cry at the same time. But no matter the emotions I've watched or heard someone go through just from reading my simple stories, I've felt those same emotions by ten-fold as I've written each story. I've remembered what an earthquake felt like. I remembered having my heart broken, and I remembered the guilt of breaking someone else's heart. I've remembered old friends and the warmth they made me feel from the depths of my soul. While talking to someone has always been a way for most people to vent frustrations and solve their own emotional crisis, I've found that writing has not only cleansed my system of the stories I've finished, but often I'm finally ready to let go of the horrible or emotionally damaging events of my past. As good as my memory often is, some things never seem to leave my memory no matter how hard try - until I write them out. It seems that when I'm able to share the story with the world, I'm finally ready to let go of it. So in a sense, if I want to forget something, I have to share it in what I hope is an unforgettable way.

I've tried to be a good person, but I've learned through my own writing and adventures that I haven't always been. I've been short tempered and irrational. I've been lonely and desperate. I've been guilty and innocent. I've been happy, but not very often in my younger years. I've larded that I have tried very hard to remain positive at all times when the rest of my immediate family seemed very negative about almost everything. I've been a rebel and I've been a follower. I've been childlike and innocent while at the same time being overly adult and fully guilty of crimes I care not to confess to. I've been easy going and I've been a stick in the mud. I've been a walking contradiction in terms. I've been extremely emotional and emotionally devoid. Still, above everything else, these stories, these contradictions, have formed me into the person I am today. But who is that? That's just one unique person… unexpected and surprising, childlike and fearless, afraid and timid. I'm still a walking contradiction, but after so many long, difficult years, my dreams are finally coming true. I finally feel loved. It wasn't the blog that brought the gift of love to me, but one remarkable man who loves me no matter what I've done, or what I haven't done, and has been kind enough to share his wonderful, loving family with me.

The 365 project may be finished, but my stories are far from over. Thankfully I am ready to let go of the distant past and focus more on the recent days. Life has changed very much over the past few months and I can only see things getting progressively better from here on out. I still want to share my writing for those who have become accustomed to reading it and enjoy it for what it is. I want to write daily again, but if that isn't possible then writing once in a while would be better than nothing. There are so many stories left to share. There's so much more to say and do. This time, I can go at m own pace.

With all things in life there is a delicate balance. Above all else, I've learned far more about that in the past year. While my job should never be my life, my writing should never take over other aspects of my life. I've learned that I need to be open and honest with the people I love, rather than leaving it for them to read about my frustrations with them in a blog or Facebook post. While keeping a clean house is important for many reasons, keeping a clean conscience is more so. While pets are important to us, personal relationships always take a priority. And when all else fails - always follow my heart. It's taken me on the greatest adventure of my life, and finally I've achieved my happy ending - the stuff fairytales are made of.

It may have taken me 365 days to learn all of this, while other lessons come in a single day or one clear moment of thought, but the mind and heart work in mysterious ways. Listen and you will hear the answers. They come from within. Love conquers the darkness, happiness comes to those who are patient and kind, sickness will give way to health, and the opposite of a lemon is actually an orange.

As of this very moment in time, my blog has 10,049 readers from around the world. I never imagined that many people would be interested in reading what I have to say. So, thank you all. I owe you a debt of gratitude.


It's not the end of my writing, but this does mark the end of the 365 project.
Happy Adventures, Everyone. Thanks for reading.


Sincerely,
Lady Blackwood