Why it's more than just a game to me

Hey everyone! How's it going wherever you are in the world? I hope it's all good and if it's not, just hang in there cause it will get better. It's just a temporary setback. For myself, I'm doing fantabulously well. I am very very VERY happy because my beloved St. Louis Cardinals are National League Champs for this year!! What an incredible run they are on right now to go from being dead in the water at 10 1/2 games back at the beginning of September to playing in yet another Fall Classic this season. It is an amazing, and unbelivable run. I am one of the most loyal, die hard and devoted Cards fan there is but even I am amazed and shocked at how the last few weeks have turned out. I admit I had no faith this team would make the playoffs. I was sure they were done. I was positive that all of us in Cardinal nation would have to wait until next year for another chance. And I could not be more happy to be wrong.I hate being wrong but in this case, I am damn proud to be wrong!!! I am so happy for this team and for all of the fans of this incredible team and organization. What an amazing ride to be on! And I feel so blessed to be able to see yet another pennant be one this year. That makes 3 in 8 years. That's not something that happens very often with too many fans. It's special and I don't forget that as I go through this enjoyment of rooting on this team I love so well. And I tell you all this so I can tell you the following story of just why I love the baseball in general, the Cardinals in particular and why I always cry when they do so well.

My father loved baseball. He was a very modest, soft spoken, even keeled man who worked hard and supported his family. And he didn't have too much time of leisure. But when he did have that time, he enjoyed baseball. And his favorite team was the St. Louis Cardinals. And so I was a fan by birthright. I didn't choose to be a Red Bird fan. I was born into it. Some of my earliest childhood memories are of listening to Jack Buck every night as he did the play by play of the Cards. I would fall asleep listening to his one of a kind, incredibly brilliant baseball voice. (and when I was younger I NEVER stayed awake for the whole game). My brother and I would each grab a pillow and curl up on the bed and listen to the broadcast after we did our homework and after I'd fall asleep in my brother's room, my mom would yell for me a few hours later and I'd go up to bed. I remember that the teams back then in the early 90s weren't very good even though they had the Wizard but it didn't matter to me. I just remember always being excited to listen to the Cards story that night as told to me by Jack Buck. My father couldn't listen to many of the games because he worked the night shifts and wasn't around a radio very often but he would always somehow know what happened in each game and how well the team played. (I found out later that he had snuck a radio in with him and would listen to the games while he was working). We never got to go to a baseball game at Busch Stadium, my father and I. You see, he died when I was eight. It was sudden and unexpected. It was surreal to go through that. I was only eight and had lost my father. And in those next few months and years, I struggled greatly as did my other siblings and my mother. We couldn't hardly bear the pain and agony at times. But in those hard times, I know I found comfort listening to the Cardinals on the radio. I know my brother did too. And I know it may sound crazy but it was as if we would get lost in the game for a few hours and get so caught up in that world of baseball that everything else would just fall away and be forgotten. Even though I loved my father and missed him greatly, whenever I would hear a Cardinal game it would relax me. It would calm me. It would soothe me. And it would even make me smile at times. I remember finally going to a game at Busch. It was so amazing. I can still feel the excitement of actually seeing a game live and living the action in person. That is something I will not soon, if ever, forget. And through my love of baseball, my love of other sports began. I started to find such passion and love in all things sport whether it be football, basketball, hockey. It didn't matter then, just as it doesn't matter now, what sport it was. If it was a sport, I'd play it or I'd watch it. I was a huge tomboy growing up. I'd always much rather be outside with my brothers and the boys than inside with my sisters and my mother. I have grown out of that a little bit, but my love for sports is still strong and runs deep. And at the very core of that love is my love of baseball. It's my first love. I have loved it and been interested in it since before I can really even remember. I don't ever remember not loving baseball and not loving the Cardinals. I have always lived and breathed Cardinal baseball from March to September (with hopes of it stretching into October) and then talking about it in the offseason. I still to this day find the same comfort and relaxation in following this sport (even though during the playoffs I develop all kinds of ulcers). And the reason why the sport matters to me so much and why I have so much passion and devotion for the Red Birds is because it brought me close to my brothers and my father. I never really got to know my father. I was barely eight when he died and he worked a LOT and I went to school and time just never seemed to be something we had a vast supply of. But I know he loved baseball and he loved the St. Lous Cardinals and he loved his family. So for me, any time the Cardinals play, it's not just a game. It's more. It's feeling that connection to my father. I still feel him so very close to me and I can still hear him cheering any time the Cards make a great play. And I wish so much that he could have been around to see them win the pennants and I especially wish he could have seen them win it all in '06 because if he had time on his side, he would have only been 62 that year. Some men would have been blessed with that many years. But God didn't see fit for my dad to live to see the seasons of glory the Cardinals have had this century. That's okay. I don't question it. God has a plan for everything.And I know my dad can still see the games and I have no doubt what he's witnessed this year has made him the life of the party up there in Heaven. He's probably pissing off all the Cubs fans up there. (oh well dad, let them have it). And as for me, I am gonna root for the Cardinals in the series this year just as I have rooted for them the past 26 years of my existence-with intense passion and total devotion. Go Cards!!!! Bring home another WS title! And daddy, don't stop cheering them on. I don't think you can get a hoarse throat in heaven. (but I'll be sure to get one down here for both of us)

Until next time
Keep the faith and don't ever give up
Mel

I just wanna live

Hey everybody. Yep, its been awhile. I am having way more difficulty keeping up with this blog than I thought I would. But that's life. I have been super busy doing lots of different things going lots of different places and just enjoying every moment. Which is the subject of today's blog. It's about life and learning to appreciate each and every moment, both good and bad because it's all we get. And as I have grown and matured, I have come to understand the following.I don't want to die.I don't. But even more than that,I don't want to not live life and experience it to the fullest.And I mean experience all of it.
Immense pain. Intense joy.
Immeasurable sadness.
Indescribable beauty.
Passion. Pride. Hope.
Disgust. Anguish. Anger.
I want to feel it all
And I will take the bad with the good
And the pain with the joy
And the sorrow with the happiness.
And all take my failures along with my successes.
Because the beautiful,yet frustrating thing
about life is this;
We can never truly appreciate the joy without
also experiencing sorrow
There is no way of truly being happy without going through sadness
Without first experiencing disappointment we never truly feel satisfaction.
Without first failing, we never know true success
If we never go through the darkness
We can't appreciate the glow of the light
If we don't lose, we wont truly appreciate and enjoy when we win.
That is the honest and brutal truth
We can settle for playing it safe and just getting by
And let our fear overwhelm us and overtake us
Let that fear consume us and keep us from going for what we want and strive for
Or we can let go of the fear, have faith and just go for it. Maybe its dangerous and maybe I'll die in the process of going after it
And I don't want to die
But even more than that, I don't want to not live. I don't want to live in fear and play it safe. I dont want to live the next fifty years settling for less and living in predictable safety. I don't wanna waste another minute being scared of going after what I dream and reaching for all my potential. That is gonna lead to regret and living with regret and the constant question of what might have been and if only is a fate far worse than death. I'd rather die today living life to the fullest and experiencing it all than living to be a hundred without ever taking a chance. Life is a high risk high reward. Sometimes you win. Sometimes you lose: but if you never play the game, you will ALWAYS lose. And that's unacceptable and inexcusable to me. Life is too precious of a commodity to waste on any investment  that is less than fulfilling. I don't even mean fulfilling as in successful and winning either. I think failure is just as important as success. What better way to get motivated to win than by losing. It's not about whether I'll fail or fall down, that will happen. It matters how many times I am willing to get back up and face the challenge. Adversity will strike. Character is born and created in the face of that adversity. How will I handle myself? That's when I will reveal my true self. And in those moments I strive to do my best. And to learn and attain as much knowledge as I can. Life is about growth and adaptation. It's about how much you are willing to focus, to listen, to understand, and to use everything you've learned to change yourself and better yourself so that you can help others as much and as often as you can. I want to do that. I want to help people and give to others as much as I can. I want to go as many places as I can, meet as many people as I can and live as much as I can. I want to feel enthusiasm and passion in all that I do and say and I want to always feel. Whether it's pain or joy, happiness or sadness, anger or contentment , I want to feel something always. And I always want to seize the day and live in each moment. Cause life is simply a series of many moments linked together like a chain and once you go through that moment, it passes on down the line-unable to be replicated or repeated. So in my life I'm gonna strive to always seize the day,live not just for today but for this moment, and never play it safe or settle for less than what I deserve. No I don't want to die. I want to live....until I die.

And until next time,
living life as it comes and breathing it all in
Mel

Ten Years Later

Where were you? That's the question that people ask whenever some sort of national tragedy happens. It was the question everyone is asked about the day President John Kennedy was shot. It was the question that was asked when Challenger exploded a little over two minutes into it's journey to space. It was the question asked the day of the Oklahoma City bombing. It seems every generation has one of those days where such a profound and intense tragedy happens which causes people to remember always where they were and what they were doing when it happened. For myself and many, many others this day for me was September 11th, 2001. It is a day that, as in the words of FDR after Pearl Harbor, will live in infamy. Those images of that bright, clear fall morning suddenly filled with unthinkable destruction, unimaginable pain, and inconceivable pictures of planes being flown into the World Trade Center, our Pentagon missing a large chunk after being hit with a jetliner and the flames being so large and engulfing-raging out of control. I still remember seeing the sheer panic and fear on everybody's faces as nobody could quite comprehend what was going on but yet was so terrified of what the next target would be and who else was going to be under attack. I was a senior in high school and was in first period Spanish when we started to talk about a plane crashing into the World Trade Center and thinking nothing too terrible. Just that it was odd.  And then word quickly spread that another plane had hit the second tower. And within minutes, we all just knew that this was no ordinary-albeit strange-accident. We just had this sickening feeling that it was more. And as I made a phone call home to my sister who was watching all the carnage and chaos live on television and she was telling me exactly what was going on, I knew that our country, our own people were under attack. By whom? I did not know. But I knew that our entire country was a target and since we live within thirty miles of a Naval Warfare base that makes all sorts of missiles and weapons for the Navy, my first thought was Oh my Goodness, what if that's their next target? Not knowing anything about the who or the why, it made the events of that day even more terrifying. To see somebody hate us so much that they used our own planes filled with our own people to destroy our own buildings was an idea that coul have never been dreamed up for any Hollywood movie. That there is that type of evil in the world just made my stomach hurt. And as I went to US History that morning, the television was on CNN and we spent the entire hour watching. It was utter and complete silence in that classroom. Twenty 17 and 18 year olds sitting in a classroom watching as their fellow countrymen and women were scrambling around, running, screaming with looks of extreme terror and pain. And we watched as people, rather than being burned alive, decided to jump off the building from 80+ stories up. There was no chance they'd survive that fall and yet they believed that was the better option. How horrible is that? To make the choice to jump to your certain death rather than stay inside an intense inferno? I can't even imagine that circumstance. It still makes me cry and it makes me bleed to my soul to know the unimaginable agony the last few minutes of these people's lives had to have been like. It's hard to remember that. It is. It's also hard to remember seeing that building collapse. Watching that tower crumble like a cracker was devastating beyond words. I remember being in the class and watching that and being able to hear nothing but gasps and sighs of shock, disgust, disbelief and anger. I remember feeling so angry, so sad, so afraid and so distraught all at once. It was an intense mix of emotions and the more I saw the footage of the absolute devastation in the streets of NYC and at the Pentagon, the more those emotions were churning inside of me. I also remember going to lunch that day and not having any appetite at all. I skipped lunch and went to the library to get on the internet to try and find out more details. To try and see what was happening because it felt as if I was physically in Indiana in a school house, but mentally, emotionally and spiritually I was right there along side of so many other Americans living this nightmare. It was a day that I can remember all my movements, all my thoughts, all my feelings which is significant because if you asked me what I did last week or how I felt yesterday, I probably couldn't tell you. I don't remember. But ask me where I was, what I was doing, how I was feeling, ask me to account for every second of that day in September ten years ago and I can. I can recall every waking second. I can recall every last detail vividly. I can't forget. I won't forget. I don't want to forget because as hard as the truth is of that day,the fact is I remember to honor those who were lost. I don't want to forget because to forget means we forget the first responders-the ones who were running into the burning and raging inferno to help while everyone else was running out of it or away from it. I don't want to forget the heroes on Flight 93 who sacrificed everything to try and take back the control the terrorists had first taken from them. They died doing it their way. I am not saying they wanted to die but they made a choice in that moment they chose to take over the plane and knew that if it didn't work, they'd be dead and yet they did it anyway, refusing to just sit back and let the terrorists win by doing what they wanted. It was not going to end the way the terrorists wanted. And those passengers made the choice. I often find myself asking if I was faced with that same difficult,seemingly impossible situation, would I do the same thing? Would I sacrifice my life and try and do the right thing? I don't know the answer but I do know that I am inspired by those heroes on a daily basis. What they did and the heroism they displayed is such an amazingly beautiful thing. They are true heroes in every sense of the word and the courage, bravery and strength they showed to the rest of the world brings hope, inspiration and encouragement to those of us left behind. And that is why I want to remember. I want to remember all the faces and the names of the lives that were taken that day. Not because they weren't lost too soon or because their lives were taken in the most heinous, brutal way imaginable but because their lives mattered. They lived and loved and laughed and inspired and led and fought and bled and they died simply because they went to work that day or because they were flying home to see their families or going to work somewhere else. They were humans and they were doing what they did best: living. That's why the best way I can think of to honor them and their memories is by living, by laughing, by loving, by promoting peace and trying to encourage, inspire and promote peace. That's the way they lived.That's the way you and I will live. Because they may be gone from this earth physically, but yet their spirits and souls remain and surround us. They help us keep living and keep going, even when it's tough. And though I will never know what the surviving famiy and friends feel, I will forever stand by them and with them on this day and all days. I will shed tears for them and their struggles. I will laugh with them when they feel joy. I will walk them in the darkest places so that they don't feel so alone and so surrounded by grief and pain. I share in their sorrow and I offer them solace by praying for them, by sending them positive energy and thoughts and by doing my part in sharing and by simply living. I know it may not seem like much but it can be the simplest, smallest gesture that can make the most difference to someone who is in tremendous pain. And that's the best way to honor those who died on that day. By living. By giving. By being better. By going out and spreading hope, love and peace and not hate or anger. So that's what I do. I don't want to forget, even if I could. Because then I would forget all those people who died so young, so innocently, so senselessly and so brutally. I believe that I owe them that. And going back to the day it happened, I remember feeling so helpless towards any of the victims' families or any of the survivors who lived through the ordeal. I felt like I wanted to help but didn't know how. And so I went down to the Red Cross and donated blood. I didn't know how that would help or if it would help but I just had to do something. It was the only thing I could do. And as I remember the days and weeks following the total chaos of that Tuesday  morning, I remember the way everyone in this country united. How we all became stronger and how this nation did NOT fold and did NOT implode but raised up together as one entity and stood up against the hatred and the violence of those involved and refused to let them win. They wanted to take away our passion and our livelihood. They wanted to divide and destroy us, instead we came together and helped each other out. I remember how awesome it was to see the unity and the togetherness we had in the months following the attacks. Now, ten years later, I can say that I don't see that same type of unity and togetherness. I don't see us throwing aside all labels, all judgments, all notions, all political parties and just uniting as one large entity who look to each other as fellow Americans rather than as a liberal or conservative or Christian or atheist or gay or straight. That day and the days following it were an appalling and terrible tragedy but it brought out the very best in us. The most evil and destructive forces that we have ever seen tried to ruin us and we did the exact opposite. We thrived. We overcame. We united. But somewhere along the way in the past ten years, we have lost that unity. We don't have that same passionate spirit because we look too much at our differences and begrudge each other for them rather than embrace those differences and realize that that is what makes this country great. The diversity of this nation is something to be celebrated and revered, not condemned and mocked which is what seems to be the trend these days. Do we really want to honor our fallen heroes in this way? Do we really want to ignore the lessons they taught us that day by paying the ultimate price with their lives? The heroes of that day were as diverse as they come and yet when the time and situation called on them to come together as one and to forget about the differences between them, they stood up as Americans-and as human beings-to fight against the terrorism and the hate. That's what we need to remember today as we think back on September 11, 2001. Let's not just remember the anger and the sadness and the chaos and the destruction, but let's also remember the unity that was created. Let's remember that in one of the biggest atrocities to ever face a nation, we didn't let hatred and evil win out. We united together to stand firm in our belief in each other and in our love for one another. Let's not let the evil and hate win out a decade later. Let's get back to that type of unity and togetherness. That's what we need to remember. That's what we need to do to honor the 3,000 men, women and children lost that day. And today, ten years later, that's my hope and my prayer. Let us not only remember the victims and their families, but also let's remember how united and how together we were. United we stand was the slogan that was started in the aftermath of this tragedy. Let's get back to that. As I look back on what I remember and what I felt in the days, weeks, and months afterwards the biggest memory I have is of everybody standing around waving the American flag singing God Bless America or My Country Tis of Thee or The Star Spangled Banner and standing arm in arm with the person next to them. It was the beautiful part of all the ugly, it was the light in all of the darkness and it was the joy in all of the sorrow. I want us to all stand united once more and break out into a chorus of America the Beautiful. Are you with me? Can we get back to that place? I don't know this but I firmly believe with all my soul that that is what each and every person who died on that day would want as well. September 11,2001 is a day that is etched in all of our minds forever and that has stained our hearts permanently. Let's not let it make us bitter, let it make us better.

God Bless America. God Bless each and every one of you!
Blessings
Mel

Life Change

Hey everybody. I know it's been a long time since I have blogged. What can I say? Life has gotten in the way. And not just life. But life's struggles and life's challenges have gotten in the way. In the past couple of months, I have had to come to grips with a few very cold and harsh truths about myself. I have had to face the monster I have had dwelling inside of me face to face and have had to admit things that are not easy to admit. I have had to get smacked with a fucking hard dose of reality and at first, that knocked me flat off my feet and straight on my ass. And I stayed down for a long time. I did what I always do when adversity strikes me. I went into the corner and cowered and wallowed in my own self-pity and misery. I bitched and moaned and pointed fingers elsewhere as I clung to my bitterness and anger. I failed to take responsibility or accountability for the destruction that surrounded me. I laid blame at other people's feet and played the victim. I did what I always have done. I pretended. I tried to act sincere and as if I was understanding something. I pretended to grow and evolve. I made people believe that I was serious about changing my life. But really, I was just fucking deceiving them all. I was playing a game. I was using them and playing them all like a fucking japanese fiddle. Inside, I didn't feel ready to let go. I didn't feel ready to move on. I didn't feel ready to make a change. I talked the talk but I sure as hell wasn't walking the walk. What a fucking miserable coward I was being. And I would go to therapy each week and sit there and have a moment's clarity and for a split second I would be serious about change. And then I would leave the office and I would go right back to my old familiar ways. It's all I knew. It's all I had ever done. I didn't know how to change or be different. And the truth is, I didn't want to find out. I wanted to stay in the same place I had been in my whole life. Even though I was surrounded by misery and despair and unhappiness and all I could do was destroy every thing in my life that meant something to me or ever mattered to me, I still couldn't change. I still couldn't admit the truth. I stayed in this sick and disgusting cycle because I wanted to have an excuse and a justification for the shit I had done. I wanted to have an escape of my terrible choices. I wanted to be able to be able to do bad things, hurt people, inflict damage and then after the fact use the terrible things that I have gone through as my excuse for doing them. You see, I have been going to therapy for a great many months now and yes I have made tremendous progress in opening up my soul and kicking open doors that have been shut for so many years. I have revealed so much pain and sadness that has been buried inside of my subconscious mind. And I have began to realize why I have made the same choices over and over through the years and can't seem to escape that pattern of behavior. And I have figured out a lot about why I have such issues with insecurity and rage and jealousy. But I would walk away from those sessions and only use what I learned about myself as a justification to intensify my bad behavior. When I would dig deep in therapy and finally admit that I hated my mom and my dad and the subsequent guilt I felt for that hatred, it made sense to me suddenly why I was so full of rage. It made sense why I had such pent up aggression. I had never revealed that truth to anyone, not even my own conscious mind. But after I would leave those intense and productive sessions, did I go out and commit myself to be better? Nope, I would go and get drunk or high or wasted. I used what I had learned, those intense revelations about my life, as a way to rationalize my drinking. I needed to get drunk you see because my childhood was so bad. And I needed to get drunk because my mother didn't want me. I needed to get drunk because my dad died and abandoned me and made my life way tougher than it needed to be. I needed to get drunk for all those reasons. But that isn't the truth. The real, honest, and brutal truth is this: I needed to get drunk and high because I needed to escape from all those revelations. I needed to feel self-pity and sorry for myself because I couldn't deal with my problems. I chose to run away from them and become numb to stop feeling them. Unfortunately, the hang over wouldn't last forever and I'd wake up right back where the fuck I started. I couldn't shake the reality of my past and the things that happened and I wasn't one hundred percent wholly committed to moving past them either. I was stuck in the corner wallowing around in my own self-pity and self-loathing. I was clinging to all that hatred and anger and guilt and resentment I had inside. And I wasn't ready to get real. I wasn't ready to let it go. I wasn't ready to accept it. I was only going through the motions. And then that hard smack in the face I alluded to earlier happened. It literally smacked sense into me. It made me face my past and the decisions I had made so poorly due to my inability to accept it and move on. I became very self-aware of the fact that I kept behaving the way I was and destroying all the goodness in my life because I was too damn chicken shit and too damn stubborn to face what had happened and try to deal with it. Instead I used it as an excuse. I used it as a way to play the victim. And when I was faced with this harsh bit of truth, I finally began to get serious about change. I finally started to look in the mirror and face the monster I was carrying around inside of me head on. I was beginning to find my inner strenght and my courage. I started to stare into the darkness of my soul and find determination to go in to that darkness and pull out whatever was hiding in it. I just started to evolve and grow. And it's amazing the conclusion I have come to. I now completely understand that the key to my success and happines is forgiveness. I had to go back in time and remember all the terrible things that happened and had been done to me in order for me to gain acceptance. I had to accept that nothing could be done to change any of it and that I had to let it go. If I wanted to break this vicious cycle I was in,forgiveness was the key. And so I have forgiven. I have forgiven all those people whoever hurt me or brought me pain and misery and sadness. I have forgiven myself for all the sins I have committed. I have forgiven-but not forgotten. That is something I learned along this journey I have been on. Forgiveness doesn't equate forgetting. I will never forget the bad stuff that I have done to others or the hurt that has been inflicted upon me by others but I will not let the memory destroy me. I will not let the memory break me. I will let the memory serve as a lesson and as a way to mold me and shape me into being and doing better. I will let the memory become something positive and not allow it to be a negative that traps me in an emotional and spiritual prison. I will take it for what it is: the past. But I will no longer allow my past to dictate my present. I am better than I was and every day I wake up, I strive to be better than I was yesterday and at the end of the day, I strive to have done more good than bad. And I take it day by day. I don't think of tomorrow because it will bring it's own set of problems and challenges. I simply live for today and understand that I will make mistakes but I am not a fuck up and am not inferior simply because I don't always make the best choice or do the right thing. I want to get better at being consistent at doing those things but I will not hold my mistakes against me.  I am also resolved to not be my own worst enemy any longer. I have spent most of my life sabotaging myself and my chances at happiness and goodness because deep down inside, I didn't deem myself worthy or capable of attaining that stuff. I felt inferior to others and as if my life was somehow less important and meaningful as others. I felt as though others ignored me and rejected me because of my many flaws and imperfections. I now know that isn't true. I allowed them to make me feel that way based on my own insecurities and self-hatred. I believed others when they said I was nothing and I was not deserving of anything of substance. And I allowed them to break my confidence. And I tried to run away from all that by drinking myself  numb.  I tried unsuccessfully because no matter where you go or how drunk or high you get, at the end of the day, you're still you. And you still have the same past and have made the same mistakes. It cannot change. There is no such thing in life as a do over or a dress rehearsal. We don't get another shot to do things right or make things right. We live in the moment and we do what we do. And sometimes what we do is not the right thing and we hurt people and inflict tremendous pain. And as much as I sometimes feel like I wish it didn't happen, the absolute truth is that if I had not acted that way or made that wrong choice, I wouldn't be where I am today as I write this. Which is better and stronger and more self-aware and more committed and more positive. Everything in life happens for a reason and sometimes as much as we may want to go back and change things around, it's for the best that we can't. Lessons don't come cheap. The price of mistakes can be very high but they are necessary and needed to learn and grow. That is the tragic truth about life. I have finally discovered that truth. And I am so thankful and grateful that I have. Without this revelation, I would still be stuck in the endless circle of self-pity, self-destruction and self-loathing. I would still be playing the victim and would still be only half-heartedly approaching my therapy sessions. Bad things have happend in my life but I no longer look at them as curses but rather as blessings. My past does not define me, it only shapes me. And my past doesn't hold me captive any more. It has set me free. I truly hope that everyone out there can find this truth about life in their own personal life because there is nothing better than this feeling I carry with me now. I am better for all the mistakes I have made and the bad choices I have chosen and the sins I have committed. And I wouldn't change a thing about any of it because everything I have gone through has made me the person I am today. And I happen to love and accept that person.

A Hard and Tough Lesson Learned

Hello everyone. Today I want to talk to you about something very important. A life lesson that I have been forced to learn this weekend. It is a hard truth to deal with, as most truths are in this life. But it's something that I needed to learn and that everyone of us needs to realize. What truth am I talking about? I am talking about imperfection. I am talking about messing up and making a mistake and choosing the wrong choice in one moment that as soon as you do it, you regret it instantaneously. You immediately wish you had a huge eraser to erase the past five minutes or you had a remote that let you rewind the last minutes of your life so you could do it over. But the thing about life is there are no do overs are there? Life is not a dress rehearsal is it? You live each day one moment at a time and in each of those moments, there are choices you have to make. Some are so small and seemingly insignificant and yet when they are put all together, they can be pretty relevant to our present. And sometimes you get so excited or anxious or so involved or self-absorbed in what those moments have to offer that you make a choice randomly that you think is no big deal to you. You think it's just a small, insignificant moment that doesn't affect your future. And yet, you couldn't have been more wrong in that assessment. That one choice, that one moment, that one random circumstance makes a HUGE impact on your future. And after the fact, you realize that. You get your head out of your ass long enough to understand that it isn't all about you and what you want and what you think you deserve. At all. Instead of being so damn selfish and self-absorbed, you should have taken one fucking second to think about the other person/people involved. But you didn't and so you hurt them. You didn't mean to. It wasn't your intention. In fact, it was the last thing you ever dreamed of doing. But there is that old saying that the road to hell is paved with the best of intentions. And it's true. You never mean to hurt anyone or cause them pain. Especially those that matter the most to you and who you love and admire. But they are still casualties to your selfishness and your rude and bitchy behavior. You still hurt them, no matter what your original intent. And that doesn't matter to them. To them, you hurt and disappointed them. You upset them. That is what matters to them. It isn't about what was intended but rather, what was perceived by the other person. And to know that you fucked them over and caused them any amount of pain or upset them in the slightest way hurts you to the core of your being. You never want them to hurt and you just want them to always be happy and joyful and never have to undergo a second of unnecessary pain or discomfort. And to know that they did sucks and it breaks your heart. But the worst knowledge is like I said, knowing that you are the guilty culprit who is holding the knife. You hurt them. And that eats away at you and is the most severe punishment you could ever have to endure in this life. You may be physically free and out of prison, but emotionally and spiritually, the chains are wrapped around your soul tightly. You can't even breathe. You can't hardly bare the thought of what you have done. And you would give anything, say anything, sell anything to take it all back. You would die to make it all better. That, my friends is what you call regret. That, my friends, is what they call remorse. And you feel that so deeply, it stings you to your soul. And you understand how much you hurt another person and you realize how much you upset them. But it's too damn late. You can't go back and you can't take any of it back, no matter how much you wish and hope and pray you could. Life is not a dress rehearsal remember? So what can you do? The short answer is nothing. There is shit you can do about it. It was a mistake. An unintentional and regrettable choice that you must learn to deal with and take the consequences of like an adult. You can't say anything to make it better. That is the lesson I am talking about. You make a mistake or a bad choice or do something stupid in the moment that you regret but you can't do anything about it. Now I bet you are all sitting there saying well can't you apologize? Yes, you can. But tell me what the fuck that is going to do. Is that going to change it? Is that going to make the other person hurt less or experience in that moment what they felt? Nope. It doesn't change a thing. Apologies are meaningless. They are filled with good intentions. To try to make amends and to try to get the other person to feel a little better but aren't apologies also about us trying to make ourselves feel better? Trying to clear our conscience from feeling so bad? We somehow convince ourselves that if we just say we are sorry and mean it, that it will be okay. We delude ourselves into believing that because no amounts of words, which are what apologies are, will ever negate the behavior. It will never measure up to the hurt and the pain you caused. EVER!!! The scars are there forever and they are self-inflicted. Yes, there are deep wounds and you are responsible for that. There is nothing that can be done to erase it. But we try. We say I am so sorry and I never meant to hurt you or whatever else we say in an apology. Don't get me wrong. We can be absolutely sincere and mean every word we say in an apology. We can reallly be that sorry. But we can't make it mean more than what it is. Words. Empty and meaningless. We need to show people we are sorry, not tell them. We need to let them see our remorse. And then after we do that, we have to sit back and do nothing more. We cannot force people to forgive us or accept our apology. We have done all we can. In our minds, we want to "fix" the mess we made but the bottom line is this: IT CANNOT BE FIXED. There is nothing on earth we can do to fix it. We can apologize and we can feel remorseful and take responsibility for our bad choice and awful behavior. But that is all we can do. And then we have to understand that people, if they choose to forgive us, will never trust us or look at us the same. Because forgiveness does not equate forgetting. Everyone out there has been hurt before and we have had people hurt us both intentionally and unintentionally and it doesn't matter if was intentional or not, it still fucking hurts. And to be honest, the worst type of pain is the type that is inflicted by those who you trust and love the most. The ones who you really want to spend time with and whose company you treasure. And when those people hurt you, it sucks more because you become guarded. You find yourself holding back and keeping yourself at a distance due to them betraying you that way. So it cuts deeply and it takes awhile for that sting to go away enough to even think of forgiving you, if they ever get to that place. It isn't up to you if they do or not and you have to understand that even if they forgive you eventually, your relationship will never be the same. Because that hurt will always be there in the back of their mind. They will always have the knowledge inside of them that you are capable of hurting them and so they hold back like I said. Your relationship will never be what it once was because just because they forgive you it doesn't equate forgetting. It's engrained in us as adults to never truly be amnesiac. We may forgive but we will always remember and keep that memory in the back of our minds. We hold a grudge, even if it is not in the forefront of our minds. Sometimes it's why I wish we were still child like in nature. Have you even seen children playing on the playground and they get into a squabble over something? They will get mad at each other and walk away and pout for about five minutes. And then they go right back to playing, and they don't even remember fighting at all. They have forgotten and forgiven. Why can't we as adults have that same ability? I guess that is part of growing up but sometimes I feel that growing up and being an adult is way overrated. We hold on to things and we just don't have the capability of truly letting things go. It's always there in the back of our minds. And that is why people can forgive in time but there is no way they can forget. My point in all of this is that when we fuck up, which we will do because we are not perfect, we will hurt others. It's a nasty and vicious truth about life. And we can be the nicest, mos generous, caring people the world has ever seen but that does make us immune to hurting others or upsetting them. It's those choices we make in the moment that we instantaneously wish had not been made that can make a huge impact on our future. Our future can be forever altered by those choices. And we can be as sorry as we want but it won't change what happened. All we can do is apologize and throw ourselves at the person who we wronged's  mercy and hope that with time, they can find a way to forgive us. But that is not required of them. And it is not something we can force them to do. It takes them opening their heart up enough to say I love this person and cherish their company so much that I can look past this behavior and I can let it go because I love them more than that. I love them even though they made a mistake. I love them unconditionally. And I may have been hurt and disappointed and upset by their choice but I am looking past it. I don't agree with it and I certainly don't condone it, but I am not going to let that mistake ruin our relationship. Sometimes they can do that. Other times, they can't. And the choice is theirs. It's not up to you as to whether they forgive you or not. It's up to you to apologize and then that is it. That is all you can do. You have to let it go and have faith that the love and the bond you have with the other person will survive and sustain through this rough patch. If it is meant to be, it will work out and you just have to sit back and let it happen however it happens. You can't force anyone to feel how you want them to feel. And they can't make you feel anyway they want you to feel. So the lesson I have learned this weekend is that you can be as sorry as you want, but sometimes sorry doesn't cut it. You can be as sincere as you want but the other person may not forgive you. And as much as that hurts and breaks your heart into a million pieces, it's something that will help you in the future because the next time if you are in a situation and you start to become self-absorbed and start to feel entitled or selfish and start to get rude, maybe you will remember what happened the last time you were in this similar situation and you chose a different path. One that will save you and the other person lots of unnecessary and unwanted pain and heartache. Life is tough at times but we still have to plow through and get to the other side that is not so rough. And all we can do is take it one day and one moment at a time and hope for the best. And once we make a choice, we have to live with it and whatever comes about from that particular choice. Life is not a dress rehearsal remember? And we get no do overs or re tries. This is all we get. So let's make the most of it and try to minimize the hurt and pain we dish out. The worst kind of pain is the self-inflicted variety. Believe me, I know. I am still left bleeding profusely from a decision I made in a single moment of selfishness and greed. And I will continue to bleed for the rest of my life. I have been able to bandage the wound but it will never be totally repaired as the damage is irreprable. And I will always have to carry this choice and the pain it caused to someone I hold in such high regards and hold so dear to my heart and who I never want to see an ounce of pain come their way in my soul and my conscience forever. That is the hardest part of that decision. I may have had a temporary reward but the permanent pain and agony I will have is a living hell. I am in a prison and it's of my own creation. So take a lesson from me and heed this warning, don't be so quick to react selfishly and without thinking of the other person in the moment. You may very well live to regret it.

Until next time
Be well
Melissa

Understanding Is Key to Understanding

Hey everybody!!! I hope this finds you all in good health and good spirits. It's spring finally. So that is good. I am so tired of winter and cold weather. Bring on the sunshine and yes, bring on the rain also because without the rain, the crops in the field won't grow, nor will the flowers that will bloom later on and create such incredible beauty. Also, without the rain, we can't appreciate the true beauty of the sun's rays. To go through the dark storm clouds and then see a rainbow afterwards allows us to keep the faith and hope alive. I am so glad for that.

Now for the topic of today's blog. I was reading the newest installment of Damon L. Jacobs #40 Lessons at shouldless.blogspot.com (and if you guys haven't gotten a chance to read these yet, please do.) and his #21 lesson is this: Don't Condemn What You Don't Understand. I absolutely agree with this. It's very easy for us to sit back and judge people and their choices and the way they do things from a distance. It's easy for us to point the finger at them and lay all the blame at their feet. But as the Chinese proverb states, "you cannot judge a man until you have walked a mile in his shoes." This is what we need to realize. It's very common for all of us to stand back and condemn that which we don't understand. It's far harder and much more difficult to actually get close to a situation and talk to the person and ask questions and get to a place of empathy. Even if we can't experience exactly what they are experiencing, we can do our best to understand it. We don't have to agree with it or like it but we do need to understand it and respect it for what it is. Their life and their choice. I don't want anyone to judge me too harshly or unfairly and I won't do that to anyone else either. We have a responsibility as humans to spread peace, love and understanding. Life is hard enough the way it is without us labelling and judging and condemning that which we don't understand. I mean, where is the fairness to judge someone without knowing them? Isn't that like reading the back cover of a book and knowing from those few words what the whole book is about and how good or bad it is? That is simply a first impression and first impressions aren't always everything. Sometimes you have to take a second, deeper and more detailed look. Heck, you might even have to read a few chapters before condemning or praising it. When I buy a book, I have to sit down and read a few pages (okay, I admit I am one of those people who pretty much reads the whole book while inside the store much to the chagrin of the employees) before I decide if I am interested in it or not. Maybe I am not interested enough to buy it but I gave it a fair shot. That is how I believe we should judge people also. Give them a shot. Get to know them. You may not like them necessarily after all that time but at least you gave them the benefit of the doubt. And I am sure that you would want them to do the same thing in return. I think the reason we don't approach people and get to know them and instead stand back and condemn them is because we are afraid. Speaking only for myself, I know that it was far safer and easier for me to stay away and keep my distance from people and just base everything on how they looked. Shameful I know but honest. I didn't understand them or what they stood for or believed in. I simply did not take the effort to either. I just knew by how they looked what kind of person they were. And it was all based on my fear. That is what held me back from approaching them and getting to know them and perhaps, liking them. How many friends did I let slip through my fingers all because of me judging them harshly and unfairly? How many of those people believed the same things I did and felt the same way I did about things but instead of going up and taking the time to get to know them, I just turned my back and condemned them? Why did I let my fear of what I didn't understand control me that way? Because it's human nature unfortunately. It's human nature for us to be afraid of what which we don't know. And so, instead of putting our fear aside and  letting it hold us back to find out more about people and maybe just maybe find some pretty special people, we just keep being afraid and stand back and point our fingers and condemn. It's easy to condemn what we dont' understand. But the best of us doesn't lie in what is easiest. The best of us lies in the challenges and the tough parts of life. The best of us is about confronting our fear and facing it and moving past it to better ourselves. We have a choice every day to stand on the sidelines and keep judging others or to do the harder thing and do our best to understand and empathize. I don't know what the rest of you guys think but for me, I chose to understand. Part of that is because I am no longer that person who lets their fear of the unknown and what I don't understand consume me and part of that is because I want to do things that aren't easy. I want to make the tough choices in order to be better and set a better example. And part of that is because I always want to learn and grow and understand more. I will never know or understand everything in this life but I hope that each day that passes, I attain more knowledge and understanding. It's what I hope for you all as well. So remember, you cannot judge a man until you have walked a mile in his shoes. Start making that walk today. You never know what path it may lead you on.

Until next time
Keep the Faith

Mel

Overcoming My Own Limitations

So here I am once again guys? Did you miss me and my longwinded, wordy ramblings? Of course you did. How could you not? Considering I am the most fascinating blogger in the history of mankind. Yeah, I got a little carried away there. Sorry. I am just feeling on top of the world in this moment because you see, I have done something that I never thought I would do. I always kept putting off saying I'd do it later and then when later came and went, I would be like what's the point anyway. It's not like I can do it. And so I wouldn't. Then I would feel bad because of how much I wanted to but didn't have the guts or the motivation to truly put forth the effort it required. What am I talking about? I'm talking about writing a play. I never thought I would see me finish one. I used to tell myself that I would love to write one and I would love to see characters I wrote up on stage one day but deep down I never believed in myself. I never truly thought I could do it. I said the words but words are empty if you think about it. What do words really mean? It's the action that matters and my action was to do NOTHING. I used to dream and hope and wish but I never just did. But about eleven weeks ago, I sat down and started writing. Well, I take that back. More specifically, that's when the fire in my belly totally engulfed me and overtook me. I had to write down this story that these characters were telling and showing to me. I was simply the messenger. And I sat and wrote. And now, a little over eleven weeks later, here I sit with the knowledge that I have written a full length play. I have done it. Me. I overcame my own doubt and fear to do something I thought I never could do. Never and can't. Two horrible words. Words that hold you back and keep you from all these wonderful and amazing things. I kept saying to myself I would love write a play but I can't. I'll never be able to finish this is what I always would say if I did happen to start off on a play. But I climbed over all the negative obstacles and the darkness to stand on top of the moutain in the bright sunlight basking in the joy of doing something I didn't think I could do. My confidence and strength has reached an all time high as I am walking in the clouds. I now know and believe that I can. I can do anything. If I am determined enough to see a goal through the end, I can. I will. I no longer set limits on myself by saying I can't or never. I wrote a play and no matter how awful or good it may turn out being, the point is I did it. I didn't stop and I just kept climbing to the top no matter what. And that sense of accomplishment is worth more than all the money in the world. I'm grateful for the challenge writing this play brought me and how it made me change myself and the way I did things in my life. I no longer look at limitations and think it can't be done. I look at them and think what can I do to make it happen. I don't just walk away. I didn't stop whenever I first started writing because it sucked. I don't know if it sucked or not. I just kept writing until it felt completed. Then I went back and polished it up. And now, I know it isn't perfect but it's my baby. And it's such a thrill to have done something so awesome. I can't wait to write another one.

Until next time
Keep the faith
Mel

The C-Word

Hey everybody. I know it's been awhile since I last updated this blog. It's getting to be very hard to update this with all of the other happenings in my life but I am re-committing myself to the effort. I have been doing lots of re-analyzing and re-prioritizing my life this past week and I will tell you why. I went to the doctor on Monday for my yearly exam (YAY, so much fun I can't even describe it.) which I had been delaying and putting off for three months. I knew I had to go because it is very important and vital as a woman to get that check-up, especially when you have the family history I do. (My  mom had uterine cancer that spread to her kidney and caused her to have said kidney removed which is bad enough by itself and then consider that she also has diabetes and well, yeah, that is another topic completely that I will save for another day.) So I am very aware of how much these check-ups matter to me personally. And I also do regular self-exams the way we are supposed to but I admit, I am not doing them every month. I slack at that. I get busy and I don't have time and insert said excuse here. Because no matter why I didn't do a self-exam every month, the fact remains whatever the reason, it is an excuse and there is no excuse for not doing it. And I bring all this up to tell you guys this. When we get to the portion of the exam where the doctor checks my breasts, he felt something odd. He had me feel it too and it was a feeling of absolute dread and it made me so sick to my stomach because whatever it was in there, it was not supposed to be there. My doctor tried his best to reassure me that it was not anything to be overly concerned with but he added that that was easy for him to say considering he didn't have to go home and deal with having this in his body. I give him major props for saying that to me because that is the truth. It is easy to tell someone else not to worry when it's not your body. So he made me feel better about it but I still left the office with this huge knot in my stomach and found myself unable to breathe all the way. I was so nervous and slightly afraid. I admit that if this had happened before October, I would have done nothing but obsessed over the spot in my right breast. I would have made myself sick over it. So, considering how I would used to have reacted, I am really proud of the way I handled the news this time. I didn't really allow myself to think too much about it because I know myself too fucking well. I knew I would jump to the worst case scenario and believe the worst. I would lose all faith in the face of adversity and I would give up. I knew if I let the fear and doubt overtake me, I would shatter. So I refused to give in to that negativity and instead chose to remain positive, upbeat and optimistic.Those three words right there are words that before last year, I would never have even thought of being. But I was strong and I didn't allow myself to give into the darkness. Then I went to get my mammogram only to be told I needed an ultrasound, which worried me until they explained the reason. They didn't want to expose me to the radiation that mammograms give off since I am so young if they didn't need to and since ultrasounds are way more accurate in diagnosing these types of things, they wanted to do that instead. I was like okay, sure. Way less painful since I have had an ultrasound before and have not ever had the distinct (dis)pleasure of having a mammogram, but I have heard some stories about how (not)wonderul they are. So I was okay and still being strong and optimistic. Then the ultrasound guy started making me extremely scared with his questions. I was like uh oh, what the hell does he see on this picture? So I glanced up and I saw for myself what was inside of me, but I couldn't decipher what the hell it meant. I was just able to see this huge black spot on the screen (and now of course I am going back to panicking and the knot in my stomach grows by about six feet or so). I was really letting the fear and the doubt start to overtake me and win the battle. I got up and got dressed and started to really feel down. But then I shook myself out of it once again and refused to let the darkness creep in. I didn't worry about it too much because I refused to think about it enough to worry. But the knot in my stomach was still there no matter what I did. And I did cry. I admit it. I had that moment of surrendering to that darkness and the fear and I cried for fear of what might be. I was just thinking how far I had come in the past few months and how much I had grown and how ironic it would be if just as I was beginning to be happy and find my place in the world, I get dealt this major blow. And I didn't want to let my mind go there but with my family history of cancer, (my grandmother, my mother and my brother all have been diagnosed with cancer) I couldn't help but go there. But then the optimistic part of me was like okay, even IF it is cancer, all of your relatives have beaten it. None of them have succumbed to it. So you can beat it too, IF it comes to that. It was just amazing to me how optimistic and hopeful and faithful I was throughout the waiting period. I really am a new person who has been transformed because the old me would have done nothing but laid on the couch and bawled and acted as if I had been handed a death sentence simply because there was something not supposed to be there showing up on an ultrasound. I am just astounded at my progress guys. I really don't know what else to say about it. I have grown leaps and bounds from who I used to be and going through this proves it. But I also amazed myself by how little I thought about it. I have said one of my biggest downfalls and weaknesses is that I dwell on things way too much. I become obsessive and incessant about something and it's all I can think about. I over think it. But I didn't with this. I believe that is because I now am self-aware to know my tendencies as a person and can put a focus on that so I can overcome the obstacle. I know how I think and how I operate and because of that, I can get past it if I am determined to which I was and which I am. I know now that nothing life throws at me will break me, if I choose it to be so. I have the choice to give in and give up or I have the choice to keep the faith and stay positive. And it really is all about attitude because even as the wait was pretty nerve racking and kept in the back of my mind, I was able to still smile and laugh and have a good time. I was not sulking or snapping at people or walking around being mad at the world, which would have been what I had done two years ago. I really don't want to brag and I know that I am, but I am just really proud of myself for my reaction to this situation of uncertainty. But even though I didn't think about it too much, in those rare moments when I did, I re-evaluated my life and how I tend to take so much for granted. I tell myself not to but then I wake up and find myself not being grateful for my health. I am healthy. I have been blessed with a really great life and very few health problems and that is kind of shocking considering I have a family history of cancer, diabetes, hypertension and obesity. And yet, I have been so blessed with so far not having any of these issues affect me (well obesity did until I did something about it). And I know that good health is something you should be on your knees thanking God you have every day. But I wasn't on my knees thanking Him daily for that blessing. I was taking it for granted. I was walking through life not taking the time to realize, truly realize, the blessing it is to be able to walk and talk and move freely, to be without pain or be without disease. I was just taking it all for granted. But then this scare came along and it smacked the fuck out of me and forced me to get back to reality. The reality of how lucky and fortunate I have been to live twenty seven years on this earth with the most major health crisis I ever had to face was a fractured kneecap and torn meniscus (which although really painful, was not that bad). I have been more than fortunate to have such good health considering I have neglected my body and my health for years. In the past few years, I have become aware and conscious of my body and have began to make good choices regarding it but that it has held out so long in spite of my poor maintenance of it screams at me that I have been so blessed. And for the whole four days I had to spend contemplating in the back of my mind if I was going to get told the c-word or not the next time I saw my doctor, I realized that I have taken my health for granted. I have been so busy doing other things, that I blew my own personal health care off. And I won't do that again. I won't allow my other interests to keep me from doing monthly checks on my breasts. I won't allow all my other projects to interfere with spending time with those people in this world that matter to me the most. I have been blessed with an amazing group of friends and an amazing family, all of whom I love and adore more than anything else. I won't forget that ever again either. I will make more of an effort to keep in touch and talk to all of them more often than I have. Life is too precious to not spend it with those you cherish, especially so you can work. Family, friends, health are what mattters. Everything else is secondary even me making my dreams a reality because if I neglect my health, how can I possibly chase down all of my dreams? And if I neglect those closest to me, when I finally get to that place where my dreams have been realized, I will have no one to share it with and what would be the fucking point? I don't want to have all of my dreams I have to come true at the expense of my health or of my relationships. And so I am re-committing myself to maintaining my health and my relationships so that I don't screw those up beyond repair. I don't want to be left all alone standing on top of the world with nothing around me but my success. As happy as I will be to achieve my dreams, happiness is not real unless it's shared. And I want to share it with my friends and family that God has blessed me with. And I want to share it with them while in good health that God has blessed me with, even though I deserve far less than what He has given me. I am forever grateful for the things I have. And never will I take them for granted again. I remember when I got the phone call telling me everything was fine and that the pictures showed no malignancies or abnormalities. It was the first time I could breathe, truly breathe, for days. The knot finally went away in my stomach and I felt so relieved. I felt so humbled as well. Because the thought of having cancer made me appreciate me not having cancer so much. I don't want to be like the song and not know what I have until it's gone. I don't want to realize how healthy I was until after I come down with a disease. I want to realize that now and I do. Thanks to God for smacking me across the face with this fact by putting a benign cyst in my right breast, I can now say I appreciate more than ever all the great things I have in my life. And I appreciate how precious and fleeting life truly is as well. I know we only get so much time on this earth and I am committed and focused to making each second I get lucky enough to have worth it.

Until next time
Keep the faith and stay positive
Mel

The power of choices

First things first. I guess it must be officiallly spring time since the time has come for us to "spring forward". We are now on Daylight Savings Time which means more daylight. YAY!!! For someone who loves to be outdoors and loves nice spring weather, I am thoroughly excited. I am through with winter weather. I like snow as much as the next person but I can only take it in small increments and after Christmas, I find it hard to tolerate cold weather. But I can complain all I want right because the weather will do what it wants. The rain or snow falls where it wants to. I just have to deal with it. And considering all turmoil and devastation going on in other parts of the world, a little bit of snow is pretty insignificant. And besides, even if I moved to a warmer weather state like Florida, I would have to deal with other issues I would find hard to take. I guess you will find negative things and minor annoyances wherever you end up. You just have to find a way to shut up and deal. So I will shut up and deal.

Let me move on to something else I really want to talk about. I want to talk about choices and how our choices affect everything about our lives. Our happiness or our misery, our success or our failure, and our good times or our bad times are all directly correlated to the choices we make. I have come to believe that our choices are the biggest factor in what our lives turn out to be. For example, if I wake up in the morning and I look at myself in the mirror telling myself today is going to be a good day, then it will be. Conversely, if I look in the mirror and tell myself today is going to suck because I am tired and sick and I have all this shit to do and blah blah blah, then it's going to suck. It's all a matter of perspective and our outlook that matters. I can choose what type of day I am going to have by my attitude. My choosing how to deal with things is my responsibility and mine alone. No one else can determine if my day is going to be a good one or not. Even if something bad happens or adversity strikes you, if you have the outlook that today is going to be a good day, then even those bad moments won't keep you down for long. It may knock you down for a moment but you rise above it and say oh well. I totally believe that life is exactly what you make it out to be. If you want it to be a miserable and rough ride, then it will be. If you want it to be a happy and content ride, then it will be. The choice is yours and yours alone. It is time we all realized that and took ownership of our lives. If we are walking along aimlessly and without direction or a sense of meaning and are just hoping on someone to come along and help us out or we are waiting for fate to intervene and save us from our misery, we will be waiting a while. I do believe in fate but I believe it only takes us so far. We have to make a conscious choice to go the rest of the way. We have to rescue ourselves from the darkness and step out into the light. Nobody else is going to come along and push you into the light and save you. That is totally up to you. You can spend the rest of your life living in misery and wallowing in self-pity, playing the poor and helpless victim. You can keep making excuses as to why your life isn't the way you want it but the inevitable truth is that the only reason your life is not the best it can be and why it is not full of happiness and joy is because you chose the path of misery and mediocrity. You settled for less than you deserve and less than you want by letting your fear overtake you. You chose that and it's all your fault. If you don't like your life and the way it is going, do something to change it or shut up about it. I know this from first hand experience. Life is what you make it and it will not change. You have to change. You have to change your perspective, your outlook and your attitude or nothing will ever change. You have to make it happen for yourself because no one else will and it is up to you to find happiness and success. You are the master of your own happiness. And your choices are the key to that. Every day you wake up and make choices. Whether you even consciously are aware of it or not, your life is full of choices and it is your choice whether you want to be happy or not. So as I sign off for today I am going to pose this question to you and to myself also: is today going to be a good day or is today going to be a bad day? That is something that YOU and only YOU can decide.

Until next time
Keep it real
Mel

Step Up To The Call

I am sure you know by now about the earthquake in Japan. It's devastating and it's such a tragedy. Ever since I heard the news about the devastating earthquake in Japan, I have felt such a huge and immense amount of heartbreak and sadness. When I think of the darkness and the struggle that millions of humans are going through right now, I can’t help but start to reflect on my own life. Earlier today, I was outside looking up at the clear blue skies and I realized just how lucky I was in that moment. There are so many people right now whose skies are not blue or clear and are experiencing volatile and turbulent weather. They are struggling to survive. And here I sit in good health, in good spirits and in good weather. It all seems to unfair to me. When bad things like this happen, it shakes me to my core because sometimes my heart just hurts so much for others who are less well off than I am. I find myself praying for these people and asking God to please protect them and help them and send them some type of comfort and hope. And that is because in their time of need and their darkest hour, to have no hope is the worst type of misery.  There are children who are now lost, scared and all alone in this world. There are families separated and devastated by grief and pain. There are millions without homes, without water, without the basic needs to stay alive. They have lost all hope and all courage to cope. They have nothing. And here I sit with clothes on my back, food in my belly, in overall good health and money in my bank account. And yet I find myself complaining about the things I don’t have or the weather and how it is not what I want it to be. What is my problem? What else do I need in this life? I have far more than many others do in the present moment and they would simply love to have a small portion of the good fortune and the good blessings I have been granted. Why do I and we as people take all that we have for granted? Why are we constantly dissatisfied with what we don’t have instead of being grateful for all we do have? It is such a shame that human nature is for us to take everything we have for granted and instead want more and complain about what we don’t have. You and I have it so lucky if we are healthy, well fed, clothed and have a house to go home to at night. And if we have good relationships and friendships with others we can share our thoughts and feelings with, what more could we ever ask for? It is like we are never satisfied with what we have. We want more, more, more and don’t take time to appreciate what we already have. I am not saying we can’t strive for more and to achieve our goals we have set but let’s not lose focus of how blessed we are. I am sitting pretty myself. I have it pretty good compared to many of my fellow citizens and I feel so disappointed in myself and so ashamed that it takes a national tragedy like what happened in Japan for me to pause for a minute and reflect and say my life is good. My life is blessed and I have far more than others, far more than I deserve to be honest. I am a very blessed person. I should sit back and realize that and stop complaining and bitching about what I don’t have because what I do have is far more than many do. Yes others may have more than me but who cares? I have what I need and I am not in despair. And hopefully I can remember all this for longer than a minute until the next awful and horrendous tragedy happens. I sincerely pray for all those affected by this tragedy and wish nothing but peace, comfort and hope for all of the victims and their families. When I think about the children who are suffering all alone and scared, it breaks my heart. I can hardly take the devastation of knowing how much they are suffering. And for all the people who are struggling, whether it is in Japan or some other part of the world, I simply pause and bow my head and say a prayer. Dear God, please help the children who are lost, suffering and alone. Help them find some light in this world. Please help them know that they are not alone and that there is hope. Please help the families who are separated, struggling to find each other, or grieving the loss and who have the incredible sense of mourning.  Let them know that they are not forgotten and that there is still hope. Guide them into the light. Please help me to never forget how blessed I am and how undeserving of all that I truly am. Thank you for bestowing me with such incredible health and safety and never let me take it for granted again. And above all else God, please help us all help each other. Let us help our fellow man in times of joy and sorrow and in times of darkness and in times of light. Let us give hope to the hopeless and help to the helpless and never forget that we are all in this together but please don’t let it take tragedies to bring us together. We should be doing everything we can to help no matter whether it’s a tragic situation or not. And let’s not forget that people suffer every day all over the world. And many times, it never reaches the national media with the cameras and the newscasters reporting the atrocity against man. Let us never forget every single person who suffers for a moment on this earth. God help us all. Amen.  We were put on this earth for that purpose. Life is tough but when we all come together, it makes it a little easier to deal. And even if all you give is prayer or good thoughts, remember that anything helps in times of despair. To sit back and do nothing is the only way we fail our fellow brethren. After all, no matter where we live or what nationality we are, at the heart of the matter we all belong to the same race: the human race. So don’t sit there in your easy chair and say yeah it’s a tragedy and a shame but it’s over there and I am over here and there is nothing I can do. No matter what your excuse may be to do nothing, an excuse is all it is. And stop making excuses and start making a change. If we all band together, we can heal the world. In the words of Michael Jackson, we are the world, we are the children, we are the ones to make a brighter day so let's start giving. Let's follow his vision and let's start giving. Let’s come to our fellow brothers’ and sisters’ aide. We can do it. It is our duty as humans. It is our purpose as people. It is our responsibility as citizens. Join with me and join the cause. Please text REDCROSS to 90999 to donate to the Red Cross effort to aide Japan. Every little bit helps.

Until next time

Never forget how blessed how we are as people and how fast it can all be gone.

In honor of everyone who is struggling in this moment with any issue they may have

I am praying for you and I promise you are not alone

Mel

Long Time, No Blog

Hey everybody

It seems as if it has been forever since the last time I posted one of these. I started doing this blog to keep up with the regular goings on in my life but I have found it harder and harder to keep this updated as the months have gone on. I hope that this finds you all well and in good health and good spirits. I know that a few of us are struggling out there, whether it be physically, emotionally, financially or spiritually. It is tough I know. But it will get better. Trust me on that. And when you see the sun shining through the clouds again, you will bask in the rays like never before. But just keep your head up marching forward and know that you are not alone. I am right there beside you, cheering you on and standing beside you. You can do it. Please believe in yourself as much as I believe in you. And please also know that you are never alone.

So I have to make this quick as a I am short on time yet again, but I just wanted to say a couple things. First of all, I hope you all have gotten a chance to get out and buy my book, Lamentations of an Idealistic Individual. If you have bought your copy, thanks so much. And if you haven't, what in the world is wrong with you? Get up now and go get it. Just kidding. If you don't buy  a copy, I won't hold it against you. But I do truly appreciate all the support. Thanks and keep it up. It never gets old.

The other thing I have to say is please go out and volunteer. Whether you give your time, your money, or both, there is nothing like community service work to make your day. I love volunteering and donating whatever I can. To give something back to those who need it is one of the greatest joys a person can get. As for me, I am going to give blood and then am going to go see about volunteering at Habitat for Humanity. It's a cause I have always wanted to get involved in but that notorious excuse of I don't have any time kept holding me back. Well not anymore. I am going to become proactive today. And I am going to help people out by building their dreams, from the ground up. Won't you come help me? And if it is not Habitat for Humanity or donating blood, find a charitable organization that works for you. There are literally millions to chose from. But please, give yourself the best present you could ever receive and volunteer.

Until next time and I promise it won't be so long next time,
Mel

PS. I finally bit the bullet and started up a twitter account. Follow me at melknepp@twitter.com to get an inside handle of my life as I live it.

Step Up to the Challenge

Hello there everyone!!! I am back...........finally. It has been way, way too long since I have posted but you know the crazy ride we are on called life just kept me busy. I have been mentioning the fact that I am a published poet now, and that still kind of seems surreal to me most of the time, but there is way more to do after you publish a book than just have it put on websites or on book shelves. There is this thing called marketing that just takes so much work and effort but it is so much fun at the same time. I have been taking my business cards and my book marks and my copies of my book all over my hometown in an effort to get people on board with the idea of buying my book. The fact that one of their own, an ordinary small town girl like me, could get something so amazing accomplished makes them compliment me and praise me so much, I don't think that will ever be something I can handle. And that is because at the root of it all, I am humble. Now, once you say you are humble, you inevitable are not because to think of yourself as humble is not very...........humble. But, suffice it to say, I am humbled by the incredible gift of writing that I have been given. It is the most wonderful and amazing gift any person could ever receive in my opinion. And it truly makes me smile and makes my life worth it to have my talent and my ability put out there for all to see. I don't think that sounded nearly as humble as I wanted to but it truly was meant to be humble. I guess you can't get away with sounding humble because, as I said above, once you say you are humble, you can't be.

But anyway, moving on to something else that has kept me busy the last few weeks is a play I am working on. Let me tell you all a little bit about it. I have wanted to write a play for a long time now. In fact, I started writing one nine years ago. But I could never get past the first scene. Why? Because I thought I couldn't write one. I thought I was fooling myself thinking I could ever write anything like that. I lacked confidence and belief in myself and my ability. I was simply selling myself short. I felt insecure in every word I wrote and I never had any motivation to keep going. I did what I always did in my life. I quit. I gave up. I stopped working at something because it got a little bit hard. I was the type of person who came up to a wall and instead of figuring out how to get over it, or around it, or through it.........I simply turned around and walked away and cried tears of pity the whole way back to where I came from and had excuses all along the way. That wall was too high or too thick or too sturdy. I was never going to climb over it or get through it. How exactly did I know that? I never even tried. I simply refused to even step up to the challenge that created because I had no strength, or at least I thought I didn't. I failed because I never even tried. And it made me miserable. I would always bitch about how much I wanted something and for a little bit, I was so committed and dedicated to that goal. Then something would come along, an obstacle of some sort, and I would just quit. I am embarrassed to say that today but back in my youth, I was nothing but a coward and a quitter. It was what I did best. And writing a play was one of many things I said I was going to do but then never followed through because it was hard and it was challenging and that was way past my element. You know, the safe and easy element I kept myself in due to fear, doubt, weakness, and insecurity. I felt if I wrote a play, no one would want to hear what I had to say anyway. No one would listen to me tell my story and besides that, it would suck because it would not be as good as other plays. They were phenomenal and excellent and I could never write something like that. I could never write something so beautiful and profound. I would always tell myself back then I can't do that. I can't write this. I can't........I can't.............I can't. And now, I can't even say the word can't. I hate that word. I despise it because it sets limits in our own minds and in our own abilities. We start to believe in our own fear that we can't do things. We can't rise above that fear or that wall that we have come across. Except we can. I can. I can do it. I can write a play. I can climb over that wall. I can do what I dream to do. I can do anything. I just have to be willing to try. Eleanor Roosevelt, who is one of the biggest influences in my life, once said that "we must do things we think we cannot do" and she was totally right. In order for us to find true success, we have to go out and push the boundaries of our ability and our determination. Yes it is scary as hell because you may lose. You may fall. And you may fall big time. But sometimes you gotta lose til you win as the song lyric goes. Because it will be alright again. When you do do something that you felt going into was above you and more than you could do it is an experience like no other. It is standing and basking in the bright sunlight after spending so much time in the darkness of the storm. It is standing on top of that mountain looking down at the valley. It is finally winning the game after losing so many times. But suffering through the darkness, the storms, the heart break and the losing is what makes the sunlight that much more amazing. You simply cannot see the true beauty and the realness of the sun until after you have gone through all that darkness and you can't appreciate winning until after you have lost. And when you do the things you fear the most and believe you can't do, you feel as if you can walk amongst the clouds and can soar in the stars because you did it. You overcame every odd, including your own doubt, to make it happen. Because some people want it to happen, some people wish it would happen and others make it happen. That is how you overcome the limits in your own mind. And believe me, I know this is the truth. I spent years being so afraid and telling myself I couldn't do things. I was so scared of losing, I never even played. But things have changed now. Dramatically and drastically. I do one thing every day that scares me and that I don't think I can do. Sometimes it's rather small like seeing a spider on the floor and instead of running away and screaming like a crazy person, I stand there and as calmly as I can watch it crawl. Or sometimes I will smile at a stranger I meet walking down the hallway, or I will take up a conversation with some one I have never met while waiting in line at the store. And sometimes, I do something that is a HUGE challenge to me like writing a book and then publishing it so the world may see it. Or losing 75 pounds. Or writing a play. Things I told myself I can't do became things I can do and I did do. And the joy I feel in my soul because of doing those things is second to none. The belief I have in myself now is at an all time high and keeps continuing to grow. My self-confidence is through the roof. And the inner strength I possess, which I might add has been there all along, makes nothing too challenging for me. I may try it and I may not win but I played the game. And again, sometimes you gotta lose until you win. That is just the way life goes. But the only way to fail is by giving up and giving in to your fear of the challenge. To get to that wall and turn around is giving up. I used to be that person. Now, I am the person who will find a way around that wall, or through that wall, or over that wall, or under that wall because I won't let a little word like can't stop me. I won't let myself be controlled by my fear or doubt. And I won't let myself talk me out of taking on a challenge. The more challenging prospect it is, the more likely I will jump at the chance to do it. I believe I can, and I will. That is why I was able to write a play. I didn't let anything, including myself, stop me. And now looking back on it, what an amazing accomplishment it truly is. I spent nine years trying to write a play and never could because of fear. Once I let the fear go and tried it anyway, within four months, I had a full length play written. I just had to stop holding myself back from finishing it. I had to stop keeping myself from fulfilling all the things I was meant to. And that is why I have been awol these past few weeks. Writing a play and marketing a book and sleeping and reading and staying active has taken up all of my time but here I am again to say don't ever give up or stop believing in yourself. Believe in you cause you're worth it. And don't let the bad days we all inevitably face outnumber the good ones or let the sadness overtake the joy. And never let the fear of losing keep you from playing the game because everything is worth it when you do win. I am on this amazing journey called life with you and I am rooting you own, believing in you with everything I have inside of me because I know, I believe in my heart, that we are all going to rise above the challenge that life throws at us. YES WE CAN by doing those things which we think we can't.

Until next time (and hopefully it's not such a long break)
Take care and rise to the challenge
Mel

An American Tragedy

I am sure by now all of you guys are aware of what took place out in Tucson on Saturday. I am also sure you have seen all the news programming, no matter which station you watch, full of people giving their opinions on why it happened and who is to blame for it (other than the alledged gunman himself). There is a new debate going on about gun control, hate speech masked as political campaigning, and whether the gunman was a liberal or conservative (as if that really matters). And I have watched all of this and read the online stories and have come to this conclusion. This world is filled with hate. It is filled with anger. And it is filled with rage. And it is what breeds all this violence. I used to ask myself where does all the evil come from and I would have people tell me that some people are just born bad. But I don't believe that people are by nature good or evil. I don't think any of us are born to be one or the other. I think we all possess the ability to do wonderful and amazingly good things and we also possess the ability to do horrible, destructive and violent things. I know we have all felt anger and rage and even hate at times and yet some of us, or to be correct, most of us never actually carry out violent acts of aggression and unspeakable evil on others. Why is that? I don't understand why we don't all react to the same rhetoric of the politicians the same. We all hear it and we all see it but not all of us go out and do what this gunman did. And the fact of the matter is, what happened in Arizona on Saturday is just one of many far too often occurrences of gun violence in this country. And that brings up this point. Why does America seem to be the only country in the world where so many gun related crimes occur? Why does it seem that we have so much more shootings and so much more violence that involves guns? Is it because we have more hatred and rage inside of us than other nations? Is it because we don't have strict enough gun laws to keep this from happening? Is it because our political system is becoming about hating anyone who happens to have the opposite point of view? Where did all this hatred come from and how can we get it to end? I really don't know for sure. Yes, I have my suspicions and my theories but I don't know for sure. All any of us can really do is speculate. I am not sure we can label this alledged killer as either a fundamental right wing nut or a fundamentalist left wing nut as he was a registered independent who didn't even vote in the latest election. I think he was just a delusional and mentally unbalanced kid who slipped through the cracks of society like so many do. I believe many can take some blame in this tragedy indirectly. The politicians for their incitement and their rhetoric in their ads that they mask as campaign strategy. The talk show hosts, both on radio and television who spew hate speech and violent rhetoric to anybody who dares to disagree with their opinions and therefore, they are wrong and evil or Nazis or anti-American. They don't have any sense of compromise at all. They are right and you either agree or get labeled all these nasty things. The thing these guys and gals have to understand is they are in the public eye and everything they say can create motivation for people. And as I pointed out above, many of us simply agree or disagree with what they say and it may make us angry but not to the point of going to get a gun and loading it up and then shooting a place up to make a point or some sort of bizarre statement. But there are some that will do that. And it is imperative that the people in these positions, such as politicians and tv and radio hosts and even news commentators, understand that words do matter and that they can be the most dangerous weapon a person possesses. To some people, they will take every word they say as true and literal and will go out and feel as if they were told to do it. I am not sure that that theory applies in this situation as I think this shooter just wanted to do something that got him recognized because he has been invisible his whole life and he wanted to be seen and heard. He was not a liberal or conservative. He was just an unstable person who needed help and never got that help. And there is where more blame lies. The education system let this kid down. They realized he had some mental issues and they realized he needed some help but they only suggested it to the parents if he wanted to return to school. They didn't say your son needs some help and we fear that he is a danger to himself and others. They simply suggested it and not very emphatically. They let him fall through the cracks as a student as well. I have read that he seemed to believe he was very intelligent and was above others in his literacy but after seeing some of his supposed videos on Youtube, I believe he was actually on the lower side of literacy and was not very educated at all. It is my personal opinion that he has some type of learning disorder as well. To watch his videos on Youtube, they seem to be nonsensical ramblings but they do have a message in them. It is just not a very complex one. He needed help and I feel sad that he never got the help but at the end of the day, he has to be willing to accept the help. But the fact that no one offered him any is the part that bothers me. I truly wish when people say after the fact that he was acting strange or he seemed a little off that they would step up and say that at the time. It always seem to be brought up after the disturbing act of violence how unstable the assailant seemed. So there is a lesson to be learned as well. I just feel that we as a country have to choose right now at this moment to stand up together and forget all the labels of democrat, republican, liberal, conservative, and not worry about who is right or wrong and just be united in this cause to stop all this senseless and disgusting violence that citizens carry out against their own. We can do it but we have to stop all the rhetoric and the rest of the bullshit to do it. Let us all do it for those victims lost, not just in Arizona on Saturday, but for all victims of these types of brutal and unnecessary crimes throughout history. And if we can do that, then we can stop all the madness once and for all. That is my American dream that I hope everyone shares (and at least respects)

Keeping all the victims and the shooter himself in my thoughts and prayers
Until next time
Let's spread love, not hate
Mel

The Fulfillment of a Dream

Today, or rather, yesterday as I currently sit writing this at nearly two a.m. but January 10,2011 will go down in history as one of the most amazing days of my life. It will be a day that I look back upon so fondly and recollect on what it felt like to see one of my dreams, to witness one of my goals I had set long ago, become a reality. I will never forget this day because that is the day I became a writer. Well, a PUBLISHED writer anyway. My book of poetry that is 101 pages full of my life and my journey was put out to the masses for them to see it, to read it, and maybe just maybe be inspired by it in some way. I sit here right now with a huge smile on my face and an even larger feeling of contentment in my heart because of what this book signifies to me. I never really thought about being a writer growing up. I never thought that anything I wrote would one day be put on display for others to read. I just knew I had to get my feelings out and let my voice be heard, even if it was silent to everyone but me. I remember late at night I would wake up and grab a pen and paper and just start writing because the idea came and it came fast and furiously and it made me wake up and put it down immediately. I remember that writing was my respite, my refuge, my sanctuary and my salvation. I was so closed off to the rest of the world and lost and scared that the only escape I had was through the pen. I don't know where I would be without the ability to write. Growing up, it was the ONLY thing that kept me grounded and kept me sane. I bring this up because as I sit here thinking about what just happened to me, it almost seems unreal in a way because I never really wrote the things I did to get it published. In fact, in the past, sharing my writings would have scared the shit out of me. I would never have the balls to reveal myself to people in this way I have done with this book. I would not have had the strength to put this book out if this had been three years ago. But once again, I have to re iterate that I have transformed and matured and become such a different person and due to that, I am now a published author. I don't even care if I sell more than 5 copies (although I better because I have 5 siblings and a mother). I don't care if it becomes a best seller. I don't care if people recognize my name in places other than my hometown. I just care that I published some of my work. It has my name on it and someone can buy that book, read it and possibly walk away from reading the words I wrote due to my own experiences and become different. Maybe they will gain a new found sense of strength and self-awareness that makes them walk away and go after their goals and chase their dreams the same way I have in the past few months. I honestly don't give a shit if I gain a single dollar from this publication. I simply want to inspire people and to make them feel something. And with this book, it is way more possible than not. Maybe I will never get another book published and I may never get much fame, if any. And I don't care about that stuff at all. All of that stuff is just labels and I don't waste my time chasing that irrelevant stuff. I just want to change the world. And maybe that is a foolish pipe dream of an idealistic dreamer, but change has to start with yourself and then through that change, you can reach others by telling your story and sharing your feelings. Some of those poems I wrote that are in this book are deep and dark and were written during very dark and bleak times of my life. I was in severe pain and hurt deeply and anyone who reads the words will be able to see that pain and hurt in each line on the page. And the anger will seep out of the book at times. It was hard to write the words but it was necessary for my health, for my sanity and for my survival. I wrote everything down and no matter how scary it was, I was honest because my biggest and best friend growing up was the pen and the paper I used to write all this heavy stuff down. And if I am being totally honest, I am terrified in a way to put my words out there for others to read because to reveal yourself truly and honestly and to be completely open about all of the thoughts I had growing up is absolutely TERRIFYING. But to put this book out there and make it available to others is huge for me as it helps me gain even more strength and even more belief in myself. I know that I can do anything and I can reach any goal I set for myself. This book is more than just a stepping stone for me and my passion. This book is a realization of myself that everything I went through and all that pain is worth every ounce I went through if it means I can get someone else to reveal themselves and not be afraid any longer. If I can make anyone go out and make the conscious choice to become better and get inspired to step out into the light and away from the darkness they have been in their whole life, that knowledge will be far more valuable than all the royalty fees I could ever accrue. I am so proud to have done something like this and I hope you all go out and buy yourself a copy of this book but not for any other reason than you may get inspired by it and there is no better gift in the world than to be inspired. And that is the most profound feeling I can ever have to know that I inspired some one. My legacy is my writing and with everything I write, I am writing my history and creating a lasting legacy that will last for many years after I take my final breath.

Until next time,
Mel

P.S. If any of you are interested in buying my book Lamentations of an Idealistic Individual please go to this website

www.xlibris.com/LamentationsofanIdealisticIndividual.html or you can go to my website www.xlibris.com/Knepp.html

Many thanks to any and all of you who helped me along this process. Words are my forte and my passion and yet I can't think of any to truly describe what your love and support has meant to me on this journey. I love you all.