30 Day Writing Challenge 2 - 4/6/16: Villain

Have you ever been the villain of a story-- not just being accused of being the bad guy but actually starring in the role? Have you ever been truly, deliberately cruel to someone ... and how did you feel afterwards?

It is not a great feeling, let me assure you.

I own up to the fact that I'm not exactly the most friendly, outgoing person you'll meet. Even in my early years, I tended to be a bit standoffish and aloof. As life moved on and knocked me around a bit, I became even more guarded and selective about who I let behind the velvet ropes. I wanted only to be accepted and loved for the strange wee lass that I was. 

And then came someone who may have been willing to try just that... to accept me, as I was. Honestly, it scared the ever-loving crap out of me. I'd become so accustomed to being misunderstood and assuming that everyone had an angle or agenda that my red flags went up everywhere. I freaked out badly. 

To be fair, he wanted a serious relationship and I was in no place to commit to such a level. He was not a bad person, but he was not right for me and the time was not right. He would have none of that, none of my polite brush-offs, none of my requests to leave me alone. They all got laughed off. I felt great pity, but that was all. And pity is no basis for a relationship. The pity soon dissolved into thinly disguised contempt as his barrage continued.

Finally, I'd had enough.... He asked for what felt like the four hundredth time, and I flat snapped. I went all Julia Sugarbaker on him before I had ever seen an episode of "Designing Women." Things along the line of I wouldn't go out with him if we were the last people on earth and responsible for the start of the new line of the human race. We'd go extinct.

Well.... There I was, Snidely Whiplash's evil sister. Villainess extraordinaire. Cruella DeVille had nothing on me. To this day, he hasn't spoken to me. Not that I exactly shed a tear over it. 

But it should please him to know that karma is real and she's a bitch. I found myself in a similar situation years later, only the other person was more cruel than I ever was to this other young man. No, my beloved didn't have the heart to be cruel sooner rather than later, and so I spent four-plus years languishing in the misery of "does he or doesn't he?" before learning that it would never be.

We're all heroes at times, and we're all villains as well. As long as we are more heroic than villainous, then our world still has hope.

30 Day Writing Challenge 2 - 4/5/16: Heart

My heart is a wild, strange thing. It has known tremendous heights and the very depths of hell. It has been stronger than I ever imagined it could be, and as fragile as thinnest glass.

I often consider my physical heart, the one that beats and has kept me alive. I worry a little more these days, having just lost my mom to the effects of heart disease one month ago today. She had parents who died instantly from massive coronary incidents, while hers was more insidious..... first, hypertension, then a small heart attack, followed by atrial fibrillation, and then the myocardial infarction that led to organ shutdown and her passing. My doctor -- already drawing blood every quarter for lab work due to another issue -- is now adding another test to look for additional cardiovascular markers and diseases. One more monster for the anxiety barn....

But my metaphysical heart .... my emotional center and the thing that most defines me .... oh, my heart, how you have suffered and ached all because you could not stop loving. No matter how large I once was physically, my heart was at least 3 times that size, even behind turreted walls and towers of steel. I could lock you away like Rapunzel and yet you grew wings and soared all the more.....

Then you were shot down, plummeting to earth and crash-landing in a pile of thorns. Yet you managed to get up, in some Sacred Heart-like fashion, bruised and battered and still beating. Still loving. Healing as you went, you remained guarded and to this day you are guarded still. I promised I wouldn't give you away so easily, and never again to someone so unworthy of such pure emotion. 

I lavish my affection on my godchildren (who stole my heart from their first day), my dog (delight of my heart), and to music which has been the blood pumping through that mystical heart of mine. Its beats are a life rhythm for me.

Brave and breaking. Victorious and vulnerable. Strong and soft. All my heart.

30 Day Writing Challenge 2 - 4/4/16: Bones

First time I heard the music
I thought it was my own
I could feel it in my heartbeat
I could feel it in my bones

-- "Blame It On The Love of Rock & Roll," Bon Jovi

I used to laugh at my parents or grandparents when they said they could feel weather changes in their bones. When I was diagnosed with early-onset osteoarthritis at age 20, I stopped laughing. And now that I am of a certain age, I not only feel weather changes, I feel cold (primarily) that seeps into bones. I definitely do not laugh anymore!

I'd never had a broken bone until last year, when a toe had to be deliberately broken as part of a foot surgery to remove a bunion and realign some toes. I now not only have a surgically reconstructed foot but metal and Kevlar contained therein. 

But I feel much more than weather in my bones these days. I feel joy and delight, I feel deep pain and especially lately tremendous grief. I have felt sadness so overwhelming that to move brought physical discomfort. I have felt such happiness that my bones radiated warmth throughout my being. I have felt anxiety to such a degree that I felt my skin would break apart and my skeleton run away. 

In my bones -- in the very physical depths of me and beginning to meld with the nonphysical essence of who I am. Bones, not just literal ones, but the endoskeleton of my soul. For every physical entity within me, there is a metaphysical mirror in that core essence, and in that emotional center, I feel things deeply, in my bones. I was afraid I might crumble at times but I am stronger -- physically and otherwise -- than I am even willing to say. I have my limits, and only rarely have I plumbed those depths and touched those boundaries. They seem to stretch and contract as time flies on and rolls across the bones of my life.....

2016 30 Day Writing Challenge 2 - 4/3/16: Teeth

Okay, I admit it - I don't give much thought to teeth in general. I suppose in some ways I've always taken mine for granted. To me, they've always been a strong set of choppers, even with the multiple fillings as a child, redone as a teen and adult and now having to be redone again on occasion (or done as crowns) as I am in middle age.

But I think about what I have done to my teeth over the years besides the standard care ...... the times when I haven't been so kind to them. Breaking them down with sugars over the years. Erosion from all the times I've had to (um) relieve myself, mostly from migraines or during those horrible weeks of gallbladder issues. My gosh, how much acid must have gone across those strong teeth. The grinding that I never thought I did but which my dentist would ask about each visit -- maybe he was trying to get me to think more about my stress levels and my mental and emotional health than about my dental health.  All the plastic tag strings I have bitten through and still do; I have awesome incisors, thank God!

I think about teeth I wish I'd had -- not physical teeth, but emotional teeth. I was such a sensitive child and could cry at the drop of a hat. Still can, if I am in the right frame of mind, but I wish I'd developed a thicker skin and emotional teeth a little earlier in life. I think of the times when I didn't have the teeth to back up what I felt, and so I didn't say anything at all, just taking whatever was dished out....... I hate that it took me so many years to find those teeth and that backbone in life. I hate that I felt such an overwhelming need to be loved, liked, accepted, etc. to such a level that I couldn't bear to be "mean" to people. A toothless turtle. I could snap all day long at people and they'd so "oh how cute..... Look at how cute she is!"

I finally have teeth. And people don't always like when I smile now.

30 Day Writing Challenge 2 - 4/2/16: Ash

I always race to church for Ash Wednesday. Mostly due to the commute between work and church, but I was eager to get Lent going this year. I think back -- how many Ash Wednesdays have I celebrated now? Since 1991 that I recall. That was the year I gave up swearing, only to blow it in the elevator on the way back to the dorm room. My 26th year now..... Last year's was done while trying to work around the pain of a newly reconstructed foot (well, toes) and manage to sing a solo loudly enough while being seated.

I know what it is to be burned, to be crushed to death by my own fiery nature. And I also know the thrill of emerging once more, a phoenix from the ashes of my own destruction, again and again. And each year since '91, signed with ashes: "remember you are dust and to dust you shall return."

I plan to indulge myself in ashes this year another way. I intend to write out some portions of my life story that need to be purged from my memory as much as possible....... I will write it out, and set it on fire. As the smoke rises and the wind carries away those things of which I want to divest myself, all that will remain is ash. What I do with those ashes? I don't know. If I could add them to compost somehow and make the world better.....

And four weeks ago today, my mother's eternal essence took flight and her earthly remains were taken to become ashes. We chose cremation for several reasons, but immediately agreed that we would bury those ashes rather than have them here at home. Having a place of repose was important, and now there is no worry about Mom's remains in the event of a fire or other disaster ("quick, grab mom!")......

Ash: powdery residue of what was once whole. Whether you rise phoenix-like is up to you.

30 Day Writing Challenge 2 - 4/1/16: Hero

What constitutes a hero? Is it always the person who is the best at what they do? Is it the person who does things better, faster, stronger? It is the person who goes out each day to risk life, limb, security for the stranger or even for the ungrateful?

Or is it just an ordinary person who does what they would do every day, without thought of gratitude from others or extraordinary recompense? Is it the person who simply does what is expected but perhaps with a little extra effort or extra kindness?

These are all great definitions of a hero, and they are apropos in various situations. But please let me share with you my picture of a hero.

This person is flawed, and doesn't mind telling you so. They don't mind sharing how those flaws work in their favor, how they still battle those shortcomings and yet just keep going. They use the lessons learned throughout their life to further themselves and their growth -- especially their mental, emotional and spiritual maturation. They don't always get it right -- one step forward, two steps back in the cha-cha that is life. He or she may have obstacles that aren't easily seen by the rest of the world, and they only share them with those whom they trust most intimately. Sometimes he or she is their own worst enemy, and always their own best friend.

Sometimes they're unassuming and want to hide from the world; other times, they want the spotlight for one brief shining moment to say, "Hey world, I don't say much, but here's what I want you to know......" And at the heart of everything, he or she is just a regular person, living the best way they possibly can with the cards that are spread out in their hands.

I've often said that in my own life, I have many people I admire for various reasons. I often refer to my dad's sister Peggy as one of my she-roes for the way she has handled various events in her life. I definitely think of my dad as a hero for all that he has accomplished. I consider my mom a she-ro for handling all that was placed in her lap at far too young an age.

But they raised me in such a way that if I really want to see a hero, all I have to do is check my own reflection in the mirror. And I do not say that as a means of bragging..... I'm not that accomplished or important, believe me. But I am flawed and imperfect and I keep trying. I have obstacles in my path -- some I have gladly and willingly shared, and some which I have not yet been brave enough to tell more than a few trusted souls. I will go down swinging and get back up again, wipe the blood from my busted lip and look at life and say, "That all you got?" because that's who I am: a fighter, a warrior-queen. Some of my forebears might have been boring, meek and mild souls who were content to be such.

Meek and mild? Please. Never. I was not sprung forth on this earth to be milquetoast. I may not ever be a trailblazer on the world stage, but that doesn't mean I can't leave a comet trail.

And here is how I will do so -- and have done so for much of my life:

And I bet if you think long and hard on it, you'll look in the mirror and find your hero.

30 Day Writing Challenge 2 - April

Here we go again!!!

Tonight, Post 1!