The Wheel that Guides Me

I have to admit that I had my heart broken many times. Although, I've also done a lot of heartbreaking. I do strongly believe in karma these days, and if that's the case, it's no wonder relationships haven't seemed to really work out for me. 

I've met some interesting people, I have fallen in love, and I have walked away. I've stood nose to nose with those I fear and told them I wasn't afraid. I've cowered down before those I did not fear only because I feared myself.   I stood up for myself, and I haven't.   I have fought for myself and I haven't.  I have fought to get what I wanted, and refused to fight in order to keep it. 

NO MORE!! If the men and women of our Armed Forces can go and fight for our right to live as we do, the least I can do is fight to keep what I have. 

I recently met a really great guy.  I don't know if there's a future.  It's too early to tell. But if there is a possibility, he is worth fighting for. I don't know if he's found my blog yet or not, but if he has, maybe he's reading this now.   Maybe he knows I'm talking about him.  Maybe he will send me a text message to ask if its him I'm talking about. In the back of his mind he will already know.  And he will know by reading this that I think he's worth fighting for. 

I used to put all of my hopes and dreams into every relationship I was in.  Early on we would discuss the future and our dreams together.  After so many times of being so broken, I stopped thinking about my future as being a possibility for more than just me. I went from putting all of my hopes and dreams into a "happily ever after" to putting all of my focus into learning how to be alone. For the last several relationships, I saw no future.  I saw no possibilities. I even discussed that with some of my friends.   So, when those relationships ended, no one was surprised. They may have been surprised at HOW they ended, but not THAT they ended. In essence, I went from one extreme to the other.

Now, I don't know what the future holds. I'm not planning on putting all of my dreams into somebody else, but I'm also not planning on fighting the good fight for the rest of my life completely alone.  I don't know what will happen. But I'm willing to go along for the ride. I'm willing to see where it takes me. 

I've always been a planner. I've always planned several steps ahead.   Apparently life doesn't work that way. That was a really hard lesson to learn. But it's worth learning, if it means there is still hope for each of us out there. There is still hope that each princess will find her prince. There is still hope that each maiden will find her knight. But there is also the never ending question of what to do if we end up all alone in the end. 

I've been face-to-face with a few surprises lately, one of them was a rather big surprise that I took in my stride.  But that one big surprise taught me multiple valuable lessons all at once.  These are lessons I thought I had already learned, but apparently I needed a refresher course. And what a refreshing reminder it's been. I have loved every second of it.  

So I won't plan to find the future, and I won't plan on having one alone. I'm going to go along for the ride and enjoy the ride as I do. That's what life is truly about, and so far the surprises I've had only increased the value of my life. Lets just see where it goes. 

After all, I'm not the one steering the vehicle. Those aren't my hands on the wheels. ;)

Karma

Standing in line at the airport to buy a pack of skittles and the handsome man  in line in front of me says...

"Are you just getting those skittles?"

"Uh huh."

"I got it."

He snatched them out of my hand before I could protest and paid for them. The he handed them back to me and walked away.

I have NEVER had something like that happen to me! He didn't ask for my phone number, he didn't ask for my name. He just paid for my purchase and waked away.  

Perhaps I'm finally accumulating some good karma. 

After my gallant rescue by my knight in shining armor yesterday, it's starting to seem that way. 

Fwd: Artwork

Earlier today I sent this email to someone I know. I believe it to be possibly the best explanation I've ever been able to give as to why I no longer focus on my drawing as much as I once did.

Begin forwarded message:

Date: May 19, 2013, 10:29:54 PDT
Subject: Artwork

The picture attached to this email is not a photograph. This is actually a scanned image of my own original artwork. I specialize in photo realism with colored pencils. If you look closely at the lower right-hand corner of the piece, you will see my signature.  This is a portrait of my hero, Audrey Hepburn, in the movie My Fair Lady. It took approximately a week to finish this piece, and it was only 8 x 10.

Below that is a black-and-white image of Audrey Hepburn from the movie Charade. It's nothing more than black and white pencil on gray paper.  Again, my signature can be found on the piece, but in this one it is dead center on the bottom.  My signature obviously changed between the two.

The last one down is probably the best representation of my signature for an era. The horses name was Mysterian. She was very sweet mare at the horse farm where I worked when I was 19 years old. In fact, even though the date is quite a bit later than that, I originally began drawing this piece back when I worked at the horse farm.

The last one down I call stargazer. I saw a photo once in the magazine that I very much liked, and I thought it would make a statement.  So, I found a black piece of paper and drew this within 20 minutes or less.   A couple of years later, I painted this onto a black necktie and donated it to charity. It was a project for the place I was working at for that time. It brought in the most amount of money for charity of any item my company sold that year.

Many people tell me that I am wasting a gift by not continuing with my drawing. I don't see it that way. Yes, I did enjoy it. Yes, I made money doing it. I imagine i probably would still enjoy it now, but I was not happy with being tied up on the commercial end of things. Selling it for charity is one thing. Selling my works of my art for the mere commercial aspect of selling art never appealed to me - And I honestly feel that my true talent is in my writing.  As much as people think I excel at artwork, I didn't have the passion for it that I have for writing.

Any or 2009, I was in the middle of moving when my U-Haul was stolen with everything I ever owned inside it. Every single one of these pieces except the black-and-white Audrey Hepburn were inside.  I had already sold that piece. I will never see them again, and I think that dealt a far more crushing blow to my artistic psyche than I realized.  

These days, if I can't store it in my heart or online, it has little value to me.   I can't seem to keep things in my hands. It's happened several times - things have all been taken away from me. I can't take anything with me anymore. You can't take it with you when you die.   

Having lost so much of my hard work, my love of my own art, it really hurt. I eventually got over it, but having lost absolutely everything so many times now, i just learned not to put that much value in physical things. My artwork is nothing more than a physical thing.

The Mid-air Almost

We were nearly in a mid-air collision last night....

It felt like getting to the top of a roller coaster and starting to go down. My back side lifted off the seat and my stomach went straight up to my throat. But I wasn't scared. If the first officer had not been a fast thinker and an experienced pilot, I probably would not be alive right now. I don't really have a flair for dramatics, and I tend to tell things as they are. But, sitting in the position that I'm in right now, I realize that I am lucky to be alive.

Think about this: if the pilot of the other plane had decided to dive the same moment we had, we still would have ended up in midair collision. The fact is, air traffic control had us on the wrong course, and nobody knew what was going on. The two planes could not communicate with one another because they were on different radio frequencies. Neither one knew what the other was doing, air traffic control was not communicating properly, and the whole thing was just a huge mess.

We had to dive to avoid the other plane - we were doing about 300knotts, or 380mph, and the other plane was going nearly the same speed at us - so there would have been nothing left!! We dove to avoid the other plane, but then had to shoot straight back up to avoid crashing into the mountain! It was an extremely narrow miss.

I was in the very front of the airplane at the time and I couldn't help but notice just about everyone on the plane grabbed a hold of their hand rails for dear life. It was a wild ride, and one I would prefer not to repeat now that I know what it was all about.


I fly with some of the best pilots in the business - and I thanked my lucky stars for that last night.

Hero

I've come to a conclusion...

I've surprised many people, including myself, with how quickly I bounced back from the latest heartbreak.  It's only been a day, and yet I'm completely over it without a twinge of remorse or longing for him.  It's just gone - diminished through time due to his slow but consistent attempt at distancing himself from me.  I think I saw it coming a mile away and I'm just not all that surprised.  I had a feeling I knew the outcome before I ever wrote the letter, though I also know that I certainly expected more than one sentence as a reply.

I've searched my entire life for a real, live hero I could emulate and know, only to be constantly disappointed by those I've chosen as my mentors for various reasons.  Still, my search remained.  I thought that Audrey Hepburn was my hero, but since I never knew her personally, how could she be?  All I know about her is what anyone could find out about her by reading what someone else wrote.  That's not a hero, that's an idol.  Though I still aspire to be more like her, with her numerous charitable contributions and never ending generosity, I've discovered recently that she's not my hero, nor has she ever been.

I didn't have a hero in either parent.  My mother was and always has been extremely negative towards me.  When I was eight, she told me it was such a shame I looked like one particular aunt, because she never thought that particular aunt of mine was very pretty.  In essence, as an eight year old kid learning to read between the lines, she was calling me ugly.  She would also often point out to me when my father lied about stupid, little things - which not only proved her to be even more negative, but proved him to be unworthy of hero status as well.  Hey, I was a smart kid.

So what traits should a hero have, I've often wondered?  It would have to be someone who had been faced with adversity; someone who had to struggle in some way in order to make it or survive.  It would have to be someone who never let anything keep them down or defeat them.  Sure, this person would have to have seen some really hard times, maybe even coming close to giving up a time or two, but who never did... and I blinked.  Hard.




When I was trapped in a small room for 23.5 hours, nobody knew where I was.  I couldn't depend on anyone else to save me.  I had to save myself.  I had to be smart and quick - I couldn't wait for a hero to show up!

When I was killed in an emergency surgery and brought back, those doctors saved my life - but it was ultimately my will to survive that kept me going.

When my uhaul was stolen in 2009, nobody (except Patric and the magical box of socks) helped me to get through that.  I wanted to give up - but I didn't.  Oliver wouldn't have a home without me.  I knew nobody would step in and take care of him if anything ever happened to me.

When I was physically attacked by an ex and thrown onto a bed, helpless and defenseless, there was nobody there to help me.  I fought back on my own against someone more than twice my size, and I got away!
 



I've depended on ME.  I've overcome so much, and yet I'm positive and kind to others.  I've been beaten, bruised, forgotten, neglected, shunned and ignored - but NEVER broken.  I realized that I may actually have created and become my OWN hero.

I have rather high expectations from life.  I have a very high moral standard these days, and so few people live up to that exacting standard.  I don't EVER get drunk.  I don't do drugs.  I'm never late for anything.  I'm responsible for my own actions.  I speak my mind and don't do things I know I should, or feel in my heart is wrong.   I'm kind to strangers, infinitely patient and do what I can to help others anonymously all the time.  It's not "What would Audrey Hepburn do" in my mind, but "What do I think I should do in this situation if I take a moment to think about it" in the end.  I try to always do the right thing and be a good person - and before anyone from my crazy past starts chiming in, attempting to insult or correct me here, I didn't say I've always been that way... just that I always try to do the right thing NOW.  I know I wasn't always a great person.  But I've made up for that by now, and I'm far from done with that... but that's what makes me the right person for me to think of as my own hero.

I've survived so much and I've lost so much and so many, and yet I never lost my sense of self.  In fact, it only got better.  I gained a better understanding of myself.  I'm getting better every single day.  I not only survive, but I get better from it.  I'm proud of myself and what I've been able to accomplish.  I know I'm a good person now, and I know I will continue to get better - because that's what good people do.
 

I don't need a hero.... I am my own hero.





(but please, if my cats are ever trapped in a burning building and I'm not around to pull them out, please grab them for me...)

Say What You Need to Say - part 2

Last night I sent this as an email...


It's never easy to "Say What You Need to Say" but it also needs to be said.


Twenty Four hours is a long time to know and not have the courtesy or forethought to let me know that I actually wouldn't have a family to spend the evening with.


I'm not a clingy type of person. I love to have my space and my time, and those hours are usually filled up with bathing, watching Star Trek, going for a nice drive with the top down, online window shopping without purchasing and an assortment of other activities I enjoy. I love my "me" time, and since discovering that over the past several years, I feel that I would loose a piece of me if I didn't have that. I would go a little crazy without it. I usually get my "me" time during the week, at night after work, or in the mornings if I'm not on a schedule. I love to sleep in - but you know that already.


However - since I started coming to your house on Fridays, it's become important to me in a few ways... As you know - better than anyone - I don't really have a family. I've come to think of your family as my adopted family. My entire week, I look forward to Friday night so that I can have a real family to be around, interact with, talk to and share with. I've not known what that was like since I was a young child. My family dynamic changed early on. It was never the same. But being with your family for one simple meal a week reminds me that I'm not as alone as I often feel. It reminds me that someone out there in the world cares about me and WANTS to share with me and have me be a part of their family, even if mine doesn't. You've got a fairly close family, at least with Tony and company, so you may not have any idea what it feels like to know you have a family who doesn't want you, need you or care about you. When I was welcomed into your home and treated as an equal, I felt like the Grinch on Christmas day. My heart grew two sizes. It had to in order to fit everyone in it! I've been so closed down for so long... rejected and lost. But suddenly I had a family again. A real family.


That's what Friday night means to me.


Again, I will say, 24 hours is a long time to know you won't have time for me and not bother to tell me. I could have picked up a shift for time and a half. I could have flown to Vegas to hang out with my new friend Alicia last night and come back tomorrow morning. I could have done MANY things... but my priority was Friday night. Perhaps I'm wrong to make it so important to me. Perhaps I shouldn't have. But I actually designed three days around my availability on a Friday night, only to find out as I was right at that second packing my overnight bag that I wouldn't even be needing it. I had even remembered my magic trick finally to show the kids.


As I said earlier, I love my "me" time, so if you were to need alone time I would get it. I would understand completely. If you wanted to take the kids to Disney Land for a Friday night, I would understand. If you wanted to go out with the guys from work and drink until you couldn't stand up anymore, I'd get it. I'm an incredibly patient and understanding person - but I have a hard time understanding when I feel like I've been forgotten. You say that yesterday you didn't want to text the info to me that you had plans for tonight. I was flying yesterday anyway! Your call would have gone to voicemail, ans you have NEVER left me a voicemail. - so instead you sent it as a simple "by the way, cancel tonight. How about tomorrow" text message to me as I was packing. I known you for almost a year now, so I would think you of all people would know by now that I'm not exactly a "by the way" kind of girl. You either remember me or you don't. It will be a year in a couple of weeks actually. I'm very surprised and incredibly hurt that you just didn't remember me, and that you thought you could make it sting a little less by saying "I didn't want to text it to you," since I don't think we've ever had any problems texting anything to one another at any time. EVER. It came across as a bit hokey to me. In fact, I'm throwing in the flag on that one. I've never known you to be fake with me, but that was an incredibly fake and shallow response. That only made me hurt more, which caused me to get angry. I've never been angry at you about anything before. I don't like it. So, I took a while to calm down before I responded, as I believe I once warned you was my normal procedure. I don't believe in speaking out of anger, because you cant take back the things you say when upset. You said you wanted to maybe go out for drinks or go to dinner or go to Majors - and my first reaction was "he wants to make up for it because he feels bad, but he wouldn't feel bad if he had remembered to tell me in the first place." So again, my brain is telling me that you didn't remember me, and my heart is in full agreement. You forgot about me. I'm not asking you to mail cards to me the way I send them to you. That's not everyone's cup of tea. In fact, I'd never done that before I met you. The whole thing is a first for me. But I just don't want to be forgotten.


So I started to brood on things because I was hurt and angry. I started to think... I don't know how much money you make, but I'm pretty sure it's more than I do. I made basically nothing working for Mike, and I'm making even less now - but I'm working even harder. Yet it seems that I'm the only one who spends gas money to come see you. You've been to my house three times, and yet you've never stepped foot inside. Your children have been in my room, played with my cats, looked at my extensive 1940's collection of museum quality items. They know more about me than you do in some aspects now. They've seen my shadow box and asked questions about it... and you've never even come in to stand by the front door. Why?? This isn't a question out of anger - this is simply a question I've wanted to ask for a very long time. Why? Why have you never come in to my home? Why have you never wanted to meet my roommate(s) or pets? Why? I know your brother, your sister-in-law, your Dad and his wife, your nephew, your children, their mother - and even her parents! And yet you seem to not have a single interest in meeting the only other person who's prominently in my life on a nearly daily basis, and whom I've come to think of as a bit of my own personal family? Why? Why don't you seem to want to know anything about me outside of what you get of me away from my own home and world? Do you not want to find out what my world is like? Do you not care?


I'm not an accessory. That title should be reserved for poodles in handbags, jewelry and top hats... not me. I'm a living, breathing person who loves you - but who isn't afraid to walk away if that's what we both need me to do. If you're not able to remember me, if I'm not important enough in your life to let me know when something else has been scheduled, if you have no intention of treating what we have with all the seriousness and respect it deserves, then maybe that's what we need to do. I would rather not, but I also know that a band-aid hurts less when pulled off all at once, rather than bit by bit, tearing out little pieces along the way until it's finally gone. I'm not afraid of being alone. Neither are you. I'm afraid of glass elevators. I'm afraid of slow-moving heights like a really high Ferris wheel. And I'm afraid of being forgotten by those that matter most to me. Those are my three biggest fears in the entire world. And you forgot me.


I love you. I love those children. I love your whole family and the family time and camping and shooting and everything that goes with it. I think you love me, too.


I honestly think it would be a mistake if things were to end now. But I'm about to have less and less time with you. I wanted a chance to talk to you about that this weekend, but I don't think we will be able to now. I most likely won't have weekends off anymore... I'm not sure when I will see you again. But I will always miss you.


Love,
Amanda.





This was the only response I received - followed by my response(s) in return....

Say What You Need to Say

To my parents...

We have so rarely seen eye to eye on so many things that it comes as no surprise to me that we are on opposite footing yet again.  We are all three trying to look inside a bubble that we are already standing inside and looking out of.  It's impossible.  None of us have ever managed to put ourselves into the shoes of the other.  We so commonly forget that we are all humans with sensitive emotions.  Even though I so often pretend I don't have them in my attempt to present a brave face to the two of you, I must admit that I am the daughter of two emotional beings, and as such, am highly emotional as well.  Most of the time I'm quite proud of that, but every once in a while I have this horrible emotion nag at me... guilt.  

I feel a tremendous amount of guilt for not telling the two of you that I was in Utah, and that's exactly why I was being very careful to not let anyone know where I was.  In my attempt to not hurt your feelings by not telling you that I was in the state, I did the opposite and only hurt your feelings worse when you found out I had been concealing it from you.  There's that dirty word - guilt. I'm guilty of hiding it from you, and I'm guilty of hurting your feelings.  I'm sorry.

I have a few very good reasons for not having told you, but there is no excuse for having hurt you like I did.  My fear was that I would hurt you by telling you I would be in the state and wouldn't be seeing you, but instead I hurt you further by just not saying anything.  I feel genuinely bad for that, and I guarantee I'm about to feel even worse - but I need to say this to you both.  It's necessary for me to have you understand.  I will be as kind as I can.

I'm here in the state training to be a Flight Attendant.  It's a grueling process and I'm only on day 6 so far.  It's a solid 28 days of training and I will only have a TOTAL of two days off for the duration.  Those days are ear-marked for study time and grocery shopping as well as bonding with the other future flight attendants.  I don't have a car here (I will be working for an airline so they flew me here)  so getting to Ogden would be pretty much impossible.  Even if I did have a car, our rules explicitly say that we are to remain within the city.  

The study process is a difficult one.  I scored a 100 on my test yesterday and another 100 on my other test today, but if I score below an 80 I am sent home immediately.  It's a lot of stress and it's not easy stuff to learn.  I'm given new piles of material every day, and while I find most of it interesting (especially the life-saving features) I know that I need to have all of my focus together so I don't miss anything.  I'd like to keep up that 100 score record, but it's going to take some work to do.  I won't have much time for anything else.  

Now for the hard part.

I love you both.  As you've both said to me in the past, that doesn't mean I have to like you.  I really don't want to have to be the one to say this, but it needs to be said.  I truly don't believe either of you like me very much either.  Granted, you really don't know who I am anymore as many years as we've been apart, other that the two months I was there after Pete and I split up in early 2009, but I believe the two of you believe you DO know who I am.  You haven't really spent much time with me, nor I with you.  Perhaps I don't really know who the two of you are either.  What I see of you is a picture I can't seem to shake.  What I remember most about the two of you are my teen years, and that is extremely painful.  What I think of when I think of you two is the one change of clothes I had to wear to school every single day, and the one night gown I would wear every night so I could change my clothes and wash them when I got home.  What I think about is having to guard my one pair of jeans from the threat of having them shredded with scissors if they were ever found.  I think about that one mattress on the floor and the sheets - and the four bare walls around me otherwise.  I think about always feeling that I was never good enough.  I think about the time I put on about 15 pairs of underwear because I knew I was about to be spanked with the belt and I didn't want it to hurt so much anymore.  I was 11 at the time.  I think about the scar on my arm from being burned with spaghetti and not being allowed to wash it off until I had the floors clean.  I remember the string being tied on the bedroom door handle so I couldn't even go to the bathroom when you wanted to ground me.  I think about all those chicken pot pies Sherman and I ate when you guys would go out to dinner - to this day I can't eat one.  I think about having that job as VP of Marketing for the TV production company in Burbank making 80k and Mom telling me that I should quit my job to go be a flight attendant.  That's why I didn't want you to know what I was doing here.  I didn't want to hear "I told you so" in any form, no matter how it was worded.

The two of you have always been extremely negative toward me.  We have had our share of good times, I know. All families do.  Like camping in Yellowstone and having the buffalo snuggle up to my tent, watching Mom crawl up to two gigantic elk in the grass until she was 5 feet away from them, Dad teaching me to shoot the AR-15 and giving me my passion for guns and old cars, and to be completely and perfectly honest, right now I'm struggling to add more to this list.  When I set out to write this paragraph, I sincerely had hoped it would be longer than the one above, but it's fallen short. 

I'm in a really good place in my life.  I'm going to be a "reserve" flight attendant, and since Mike set up the business to be able to manage online, I can run the books from anywhere in the world.  In return for his kindness to me, I will be sending him and his wife to Hawaii at some point in this coming year.  I will only be working part time for him, but I will get to travel the States doing what it takes to keep people safe in their travels, the way I've seen others do who have inspired me to pursue this career.

I know I've hurt you by telling you all of this, but I needed to say it.  I've hidden it for so many years because I didn't want to hurt your feelings, but in doing so I have only hurt myself and you in ways I didn't expect.  I needed to clear the air.  You seem to always expect the worst from me, and in return I've come to expect the worst from you.  Perhaps we should all learn to not expect anything at all, and maybe, just maybe, we might be pleasantly surprised.   

I often think that it's a shame I'm not your neighbor or friend instead of your daughter.  You are both good people!  Perhaps we would have been friends.  Maybe we would have even liked one another.  Maybe we would actually know one another better than we do.  Maybe, maybe, maybe.  But we must play the hand we are dealt.  I am your daughter, and as such I'm being as honest with you as I can be.  I fully expect you to have hurt feelings, as I know I would in your shoes.  But please, if I may ask one simple thing of you, please don't respond negatively (or perhaps at all) until after March 27th so that I may focus on the task at hand rather than the emotional disruption I've felt today.  I passed up on going to dinner with the girls tonight and studying in order to write this email to you in private.  Please, read it once more, carefully.  Please understand that I love you both.  But also understand that I can not and will not put up with negativity from anyone right now.  I have previously blocked you from contacting me on Facebook. I hope it doesn't come to that again.

Love,

Amanda.