quick little side note here. went back through the old entries. got rid of some, kept a few. read em if ya want. i remembered this was  supposed to be more than just me airing my literal rambles so i will try and keep closer to the original idea and maybe dazzle you with a poem or two, or maybe a snippet of a story from time to time. 

treat each other well.

namaste

 hi, all. haven't done this in quite a while so bear with me. i need to go back and read through my past posts but i will do that later. i just need to go with this one today. and on that note...

i used to be good at saying what i needed to say. a little too good at it, to be honest. and a good percentage of the time i really should have just kept my mouth shut. but i'm only human... i can't or don't say a lot these days because i'm afraid of pissing people off or causing hurt to someone. part of me knows deep down that it doesn't matter to an extent. that i shouldn't compromise on who i am or what i believe just to "keep peace". but i've always been someone who was afraid of people not liking me. hate to admit that but it's true. when i was younger it was VERY true. oh, i had opinions and had a habit of voicing them. problem was, i usually did it at a not so opportune moment and wound up embarrassed, belittled, put in my place, or told i was stupid. compound that with a parent who told me constantly that my feelings, opinions, and beliefs were either wrong or sinful and it's no wonder i'm now 51 and constantly arguing with myself, trying to validate my opinions and beliefs, feeling happy and encouraged when someone agrees with me or immediately feeling like i am wrong and have only shown my stupidity by speaking (and am now afraid i have either hurt the other person or made them angry).  it's tiresome to always be so worried about being diplomatic or trying to couch my words in such a way as to avoid anything negative in the conversation. i can be brutally honest with my husband. i can be the same with my sister. but pretty much EVERYONE ELSE ON THE PLANET? no. how does one gain the confidence to truly be themselves and would y'all PLEASE point me in the right direction? why do i feel the need to constantly try and emulate the "ideal" person? what i mean by that is, for example, the character of Melanie in Gone with the Wind, she always had a kind word for everyone. she seemed to see something good in every soul she met, every situation she faced. are there really people like that out there? i think so. i want to believe there are. is it wrong of me to want to be that? to truly live with grace, kindness, respect, for everyone and everything around me? or am i wishful thinking? am i still trying to be "good"? as in the taught notion that i am inherently "bad" and need to spend my every waking moment in shame and begging for forgiveness and grace? so many questions, so many fears, so many twists and blocks. i want to be able to say right here, right now, WHO i am. the problem is, i have no idea...   help.

today's rambling...

well, woke up this morning feeling alright. no real pain anywhere, stiff places stiff as usual, bladder full, little dog squeaking her need to "gopee", snores coming from the rest of the house.... finally got the BIG boy roused and moving, got the other 2 awake and went on to get my shower. now all clean and fully awake and sitting on the bed in my robe, dale off to take his own shower, and ... ... ... i hear a buzz. took me a minute to figure out the noise and i realized it  was Dale's phone. his cell phone. the one that he has pretty much PERMANENTLY in his damn hands unless he sets it down on the center console of a truck ( and he doesn't like to drive so most of the time the phone is in his hands then too), the phone that he CLAIMS never rings or doesn't do anything at all when i call or text or message him when he's out and doing whatever!!!!! okay, he will answer it when he's on his way to work out in west Texas but ONLY because the fucking thing is synced to his damn truck!!!!!!!!! otherwise, forget it!!!!!! he ain't answering nothing!!!! mostly because that stupid phone is on vibrate or silent. so. when i heard this noise and realized it was his phone, my very first reaction was one of mild anger because it proved my point the he didn't hear me calling him the day before because he COULDN'T hear the damn thing. he's more hard of hearing than i am and i have tinnitus in BOTH ears!!!!!  IF by some chance his phone is on the counter or whathaveyou here at the house and it goes off, WE have to yell at him to answer his phone because he truly cannot hear it!!!!! so!! why not just leave the phones ringtone on all the time??????? i mean, you go through the bother of choosing one you like on the preprogrammed ones or you make a point of finding some on zedge that you can download and use for whatever and sometimes you even set certain ones to certain contacts in your phone. so then WHY turn the volume off????????? ok. i can understand doing it for when you are in a very public place and maybe you don't want to call attention to yourself. but hey. you can usually FEEL the fucking thing vibrate because it's most likely on your person during this time ... or maybe you're at a function where you need phones on silent, like a recital or a graduation or wedding/funeral or maybe just in a church service.... and here's where my brain took off and totally left ground zero and did it's routine dance of overthink, go off on 42 elevendy different tangents... i was still considering where one might need to have a cell phone on silent, like during a church service, which led into yeah but not at my old church - folks had a habit of going through our parking lot even while mass was being said on a saturday evening or sunday morning and breaking into vehicles to steal cell phones.... which led to my thinking that the neighborhood wasn't bad, it was just desperate people doing such things, which went into thinking about one of my favorite and somehow my most disliked priests we had at st. joe, fr. matthew, and hearing his question to me once about did i know "what" lived in the neighborhood around the church which garnered a look from me that shut him up and i have since thought of sooooooooo many comebacks to his little innocent question, such as "yeah, the very poor and displaced people YOU are supposed to be ministering to" or something similar which then sent my brain into i don't know how many tangents at once thinking about our obligations as human beings to other people, fr. matthew, the catholic church, the people who live near the church, mansfield as a whole, to me then feeling guilty about thinking a bit judgy about fr. matthew and mansfield and church and .... yeah. and eventually i had to bring myself back to the moment and get dressed so i could make a run and get the dogs' flick & tea medicine with a surly 18 year old who was a bit pissed that she couldn't drive this morning and so forth and so on...  i wish i knew how to corral the thoughts into some sort of cohesion more often. maybe this can become one way. although, you'd think this would be a bit of a broken record considering i have seventy-twelve journals around here and can't seem to make myself write in them on a regular basis. oh i am a bundle of "wtf". but hey. assholes like me are needed too....

💓