For Friends
I've downloaded several of my photos to this site and listed them for sale as greeting cards, prints and canvas, and in different sizes where applicable.
Enjoy the slideshow!
And check out my "Flickr Site":http://www.flickr.com/photos/seasideshooter/ for any other photos that you might be interested and I'll add them for sale.
"Life is daily progress and I'm making mine." DD
The dog is jerking and whimpering in his sleep and I can only imagine what his dreams consist of - a life lived before he became mine a year ago.
I'm one of those people who should never get sick because when that happens my sensitivity level goes through the roof. Note to self: DO NOT KISS BOYS WITH COLDS!!! I toss and tumble in my own sleep and awaken drenched in sweat, with a headache that clutches at the back of my neck, all of which is a good sign for me to pull the covers up until it passes. But, no, I wait until the worst is gone and then head to Montana, to follow the story. And then come home to shoot people who are tasting wine, only to discover that my face is white as a sheet and I'm feeling vulnerable to loneliness. No wonder those nice people didn't mind if I took their photo, they probably thought I'd keel over dead before getting home to the computer!
It has been a while now since I've eaten and my stomach says it is hungry. But there is no milk to scramble in the eggs and I don't want to go to the store!!!! I want to stay in my PJ's and hide from the world. And so my stomach grumbles and my mind thinks way too much.
It is time to remember that I'm one of "those" people, which doesn't make me bad, but means that I dance to a different drummer. I try to dull my senses by playing mindless free games on Facebook but the brain doesn't shut up. Why would any intelligent woman believe a man who tells her that she is no good? Why would she even date such a slug? And why would she give credit to anything he says? Happy people don't demean others. People who feel good about themselves and the world, don't make up stories about others in order to save face for themselves. Healthy people admit their mistakes and move forward without taking others down. All of that is well and good unless it happens to me and then I forget the truth.
Is it normal for women to seek the approval of men in order to solidify their self-worth? Or is this just a product of growing up with a daddy who tells you that you are worthless? Approval is nice, validation of a job well-done is great and certainly motivates one to do even better, but none of that is necessary for happiness. I think people withhold compliments because they are jealous or mean. I see it as another form of abuse and control - how far will she go to seek my approval sort of thing. As they watch you dance like cranes in the middle of a farmer's field during mating season. How high can I jump, how much can I flap my wings before you will notice that I've just done an outstanding job? Some people will never acknowledge a job well done and the truth is that it says more about them then it does about you. The trick is to know for yourself, how well you've done. How did I go from writing in first person to third?
The other thing that rolls over in the ongoing drama of my mind is to wonder what it must feel like to live with knowing that you've told a lie about someone and caused real damage in their life. It must be awful, particularly when you see the person from time to time, or even daily. I am trying to drum up some empathy and understanding but the truth is that I just don't know what it feels like to ruin a person's reputation by slandering them. I've done it, but it was so long ago that I just can't remember what it was like. Maybe I thought that the means justified the end, or however that goes, which of course they don't. Today I can't imagine making up a story about someone, even if they've been doing it to me. I just can't imagine what it must feel like to purposefully set out to ruin another person with their peers - to slander them over and over again.
Here is the definition of slander: slan·der (slndr)
n.
1. Law Oral communication of false statements injurious to a person's reputation.
2. A false and malicious statement or report about someone.
The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition copyright ©2000 by Houghton Mifflin Company. Updated in 2009. Published by Houghton Mifflin Company. All rights reserved.
n slander [ˈslaːndə]
(the act of making) an untrue spoken, not written, statement about a person with the intention of damaging that person's reputation That story about her is nothing but a wicked slander!
It is hard to believe that I've put up with this for so long and haven't taken legal action against it. As the damage that has been done to my life becomes clearer and clearer, I consider taking care of myself in other ways. Had this behavior stopped by now, I would be moving on with my life but it continues. Sure, these aren't well people but they are causing my reputation and standing in the community a lot of harm.
One of the reasons this has come up right now, besides this woman who has apologized a gazillion times and still warns all men to stay away from me by telling them stories that aren't true, is something that happened just the other day.
I was visiting with a friend inside of a local coffee shop when someone that I hadn't seen in awhile came in. I noticed him looking my way and so smiled and waved but was greeted with this horrible look. I was confused - dumbfounded. His wife and I had been friends until this group of ladies warned her to stay away from me by telling untrue stories but it never occurred to me that her intelligent husband would believe the opposite of what he'd seen from me. I know, stupid, naive me. When it happened, this whole thing hurt beyond belief but I knew in my heart that I'd done nothing wrong and so continued on with my life in the exact way as before meeting her. There was no reason to do anything differently. Yes, it has been weird, uncomfortable, confusing and heartbreaking, but what can you do when it isn't true? I thought of this again this morning because they walked by my house earlier and she just looked so uncomfortable. I guess that we've both been uncomfortable but mine hasn't been because of a lie - just a not knowing why. And then, finally, someone told me what was said and it was so far beyond anything that I've ever done that it set me free. People are free to say whatever they want but when it hurts a reputation and standing in the community, it is slander and there are remedies for this.
I'm tired of this whole mess and want to move forward and live my life in peace. Most days it is all okay and I just hold my head up and smile. But then I get sick and the little worm starts wiggling in my brain and I need to get it out.
I just went outside and put the dog's stuffed animals and cedar bed under the gazebo where they can't get wet from the rain and he didn't even bother to get up and come to the door. Must've heard the raindrops falling!
I don't understand hatred and evil very much. As a friend pointed out, it is almost as if I possess a child-like naiveté that believes in goodness and fairness, despite my experiences. I see good and hope and when the opposite happens, I am slow to catch up with the reality.
Perhaps I will get wiser and more cynical as time goes on and I gain more self-confidence - grow up - and maybe it will never happen. I want to take better care of myself and to quit getting into situations that nearly get me killed, but don't want to be cynical. My hard, bitter edge was about not trusting myself and if I didn't let you in, then no hurt could come about. But the edge is softening and I now know, without a doubt, that my heart can love.
I have no problem with feeling love for friends, or for acquaintances as I watch their struggles and their growth, and really enjoy the feeling of looking at someone with that kind of affection. I love the feeling of loving my son without condition, whether he knows how to accept it or not. And, I've felt that heart love but know that it isn't for me. Not that I don't want it or can't have it but because I want something else much more and the two don't mix. A sadness but an awareness and admission of who I truly am. There will probably be more about this later but this writing is about loving despite...
My main difficulties still center around what other people think about me. It is easy to be logical about this problem and know that what they think about me is what they think about themselves - that it is their problem and not mine - that it is none of my business what they think - and all of those things that I know to be true. But it is quite a different thing, and a real journey, to get to a point where they help my healing and moving on process. My son can snap at me and it turns my day upside down, someone can walk out on me and slam the door, or shut it hard, and my head tries to go to the place where I'm a piece of shit. These things bother me and it isn't about me, it is about them.
And so I search myself to discover why these reactions occur and eventually realize that I'm putting my self-worth into the hands of people who really aren't all that nice (my son excluded). I want them to love me when they don't love themselves. My immediate reaction is to shut down to them, turn cold and distant and to judge them for being judgmental assholes. But what I keep coming to during these soul searching times, is that nothing matters except how I treat them.
For me, walking a spiritual path is about giving love, even when it doesn't seem warranted. Love is about accepting people for who they are and about cheering them on from the sidelines as they go through their struggle to overcome their demons. I don't have to be in the middle of their life to love them, I just need to accept them how they are. I need to have my eyes open wide enough to see when they come to the other side of a hard time and their life changes, instead of keeping their old selves alive in my mind and holding things against them. There are some that I have disliked intensely, and with good reason, but have watched them change and grow and I've been able to forgive them. This doesn't mean giving my heart over to them but it is more about being willing to continue watching their path and, perhaps, slowly being a part of their life.
And, everyone makes mistakes - there are no perfect people. To not forgive mistakes is to not allow people to be human.
So, for me, it all comes down to love, even when there is hatred. And there are a few that I don't care for and maybe never will again. That depends on them. My heart is open to the possibilities of others, like myself, who have come to a point of knowing the harm that they've caused and made a decision to be responsible and apologetic, and to begin walking a new path of kindness and love. The thing for me is to accept them for who they are because I can't change them. I am writing about people who have caused harm, not people who just rub me the wrong way but have never harmed me. People don't harm me by having a strange personality or by believing in different things than I do - they are entitled to be who they are.
I am doing my best to remove myself from the lives of judgmental people. I can't have that type of energy close to me. If someone thinks that they could've done my life better and that they wouldn't have reacted to my experiences in the same way, good for them. I have seen a lot more of real life than many have and much of it hasn't been pretty. My start in the world was not good, from day one. If anyone thinks that it is okay to judge me and to share their assessment with others, tainting their opinion before they even know me, then I don't need them in my life. I don't need people around me who sit around and gossip and judge. I can accept that that is who they are, and still treat them in a kind manner, without condoning and being apart of behavior that devalues others.
That is where I am - doing my best to not gossip. I don't talk about the people who are judging me, except to one very close friend and confidant, because it is not my job to dictate how someone else views that person. It is my job to show love, kindness and tolerance. I'm not perfect, not even close, but have discovered that the better I feel about myself, the easier it is to be the person the universe meant for me to be. None of this means that I have to be a door mat and allow people to harm me, in fact, it means that it is my responsibility to stand up for myself and take whatever steps are necessary to protect myself.
And, for the heart love, I am glad to know that it can find its way into my heart and am equally as relieved to know that, because of the passions that burn inside, it isn't for me. There is sadness but the relief is that now my focus can be where it needs to be.
I had the strangest epiphany last night that at last everything will be okay. Not that I won't ever have struggles or disappointments again but that my depressive and poor me days are over with. And, that now I can take care of myself and no longer do I need to allow people to walk all over me. I also don't have to stand by while they attempt to ruin my life because their poor ego was hurt.
I am not responsible for the actions that other people take, the decisions that they make and the way that they live their lives. Some folks are good at playing the poor me, I'm such a victim game - they know the exact way to set up the delivery of their tales of woe and who to take them to. And people buy that crap and repeat the stories as if they were fact! I'd say that could be described as some mighty sick folk!
A man becomes his own worst enemy but he can not take responsibility for that because he is an intelligent and educated person and so he must blame someone else. There is a whole group of women who are jealous over this person and so they are the perfect ones to draw into his confidence. He only needs to start the story and the next thing you know, he is sitting back and watching the damage unfold but seemingly has nothing to do with it. In the meantime, in the dark quiet of some room he has made for himself, he follows through on his threats but nobody knows. A year passes by and he has moved on with his life, something that he did in very short order, but his anger still bubbles close to the surface. The object of his agony has worked hard to put her life back together and has come out of the ordeal a different and more healthy person. She smiles and jokes now. She has found a person inside of her that she likes and that many others do also. This does not set well with him and he must work harder to destroy her. How dare she go on with her life, like he has done with his. How dare her! How dare she be happy and earn the friendship and respect of all of these people that he sought to sever her from? Life is so unfair, still, to this individual.
Of course, he still has his little spies who let him know that she isn't suffering nearly enough. And, of course, they don't know the whole story - only his side - and we all know just how honest people can be during break-ups! Every once in awhile these messengers tell her that they want to know her side and she thinks that maybe she will tell them. And then she realizes that none of it was their business in the first place and if he wants to spin his tales, that is his business, but she doesn't have to do anything but live her own life.
His actions against her do make her life a little harder and she does get bitter from time to time, wondering when it will stop. And then she realizes that it won't stop until she stops it. Until she quits being a part of it. Until she quits letting someone else's actions ruin her day and the way that she treats the people that she loves. Her friends don't know what she is going through because she is selective about who she talks to, not wanting to spread gossip the way that he has. They can know that something is hard but they don't need the details and she doesn't need to shut them out because of the hurt inside of her. During this quest for renewal, she has discovered that there are many more wonderful people than there are nasty people who are unhappy in their lives and who have to try to destroy others.
At the end of a hard day, she puts her head down and realizes that she hadn't had to frown and be miserable over this newest hitch. She realized that the smile that she'd kept hidden away during her whole life was now a permanent part of her and that no one and no situation could take it away. She realized that now she would be okay. Still there were things that she needed to do, like taking herself out of dangerous situations where people are feeding the gossip tube, and so she would do so. Just recently, one of these people were asked to give her a message, which, instead of doing so, she filled them with the "facts" of her previous relationship - as she saw them or as she made them up. She wasn't there and could not have any firsthand knowledge, only the tales of a poor, hapless victim who is still crying about a childhood that was over much longer ago than she has been alive.
The woman, the horrorship of this man's life, has moved on and grown from the adversity. In the back of her mind she knows that there is still one threat out there, that he has not yet followed through with - the ultimate retribution - but she can only live today as if it were the best ever. She no longer has to live in fear and shame. She has taken back her power and it is another good day in the neighborhood.
I'm coming to terms with the reality of my lack of popularity. All of my life I'd yearned to be one of those people that everyone likes and have agonized over the delusion that somehow it was possible to tweak my personality to make it so, rather than to accept it as my path in life.
Lately, while keeping a positive, upbeat attitude, I've watched the way people react to me and have noticed that one day they love me and the next they can't stand me. In my heart I will know that there was nothing that I did to the individual but would still spend too much time letting the whys eat me up. There isn't a lot of middle ground when it comes to me and others - either love or hate with very little room for accepting me as a human being who is truly doing the best that they can. During the midst of my observation, the truth suddenly fell upon me like a warm blanket - I am one of those people that rub others the wrong way and it has nothing to do with anything that I've done to them. The second truth was that there wasn't anything I can do about the way that others react to me.
And so I've begun the journey of accepting and embracing myself for who I am, rather than to fight it. Unpopularity is a hard pill to swallow and even harder to welcome but it is more difficult to constantly be on guard and trying to change my essence. My new mantra is "I yam what I yam so get over it." Instinct tells me that if I learn to be comfortable with myself, then people will not get as much charge out of tearing me apart. They might still hate me but it won't be as much fun to gossip about if I don't care what they think. Of course, part of me will always have hurt feelings but the truth is that I care more about my integrity then my popularity and that would encompass being true to me, what I believe and how I treat the rest of the world. I'll never do any of it perfectly but have always been traveling along this road.
Any who, in the midst of trying to come to terms with reality, I remembered that many people have called me an old soul. Every time someone would say this, and it has been going on for years, I would know that they were telling the truth and take it as a compliment. I mean, really, doesn't it sound romantic to be an old soul? The point is that I never looked up the term, but then maybe Google wasn't so handy. So I googled and found myself.
After reading many sites that describe the characteristics of an old soul, something similar to this list comes up time and again:
"The key signs of an old soul
· Giving and caring often putting others first
· Had a difficult romantic life often with much pain and disappointment
· More than likely had a soulmate relationship
· Things just seem to happen to you and around you, often becoming very dramatic through the seemingly extreme reactions of others
· Events repeat themselves
· Have trouble connecting with your family
· Somehow know you're different
· Have some psychic intuition and 'just knowing' things
· Find that you have deeper emotions and passions than most people
· People have extreme reactions to you - some just adore you and some seem to really dislike you yet you behave the same to everyone
· Have an inner creative passion
· Suffer lots of jealousy
· Often perceived wrongly
· Feel you don't have much free will, like your life is being controlled by some outside force
· Often feel 'stuck' like events just keep on happening to you time after time
All of us can relate to some of these characteristics and events at some time in our lives however the 'old souls' amongst us will shout "Yes that's me !"
and immediately understand and relate.
In contrast, we have all met the 'young souls' the ones who profess to be giving and caring and often seem to seek us out, but who never really give, just take, and who then commit the most insensitive and often cruel acts but seem to have no understanding of what they've done or any sign of remorse whatsoever. In fact they can often go to such extremes to get very aggressive when we point out their actions and the effect that they've had on us.."
Old Souls tend to have their own, undefinable spiritual path that others don't get. One article mentioned that an Old Soul might find their spirituality in a grove of trees - whoa! That is exactly where I went, to a large strand of aspen trees, in my big moment of need. Freaky! I have strong feelings about fairness to everyone and about honesty in dealing with others. Yet, I've had a difficult time with telling myself the truth about my feelings, getting too caught up in shoulds and shouldn'ts instead of what is. Embracing these things about myself is being honest with me. People have told me that it seems like I can see right through their exterior and into their souls and that it is unnerving. What they don't stick around to see is my lack of judgement for their experiences. Yet I judge dishonesty (facts dishonesty) harshly.
Oh, what am I saying anyway?! Just after I began this new journey, a good friend asked about why some people love me while others despise me. Ironic how we were both trying to understand and come to terms with the same thing. Most people would not be able to give an honest answer for why they hate me, or honestly tell that I've actually done something harmful to them. They might make up stories about why they hate me but that is all that they are, tales to justify something they probably don't understand.
So, today my journey is about moving forward and being comfortable with myself. I'm not sure where I'm going but will just put one foot in front of the other and continue walking. Apparently my inner success has nothing to do with what others think of me but what I think of myself. And I know for a fact that I don't get up in the morning and decide to hurt someone, make them not like me or to do anything wrong. I am simply struggling to become the best person that it is possible for me to be. I'm just human...
