Always on Sunday...

How true does something have to be to make your heart ache? Too True.

Impossible

I have been dreadfully lax about the novels I have been reading. Lately I felt the need to finally sit down and read Impossible by NancyWerlin. What a novel this was. The most amazing and captivating piece I have read in a while. The concept of the story came from years of ‘thinking’ about writing a novel only to be hit with it one day in its entirety. I, personally, love to write that way. I can think about a novel, story, or paper for days or even years before it is ready to be put down onto paper and into physical words. This novel was well worth the wait. What of it, andeighteen year old who happens to be the latest daughter in a string of cursed women.

How well this novel is written astounded me. I do not often feel that the pieces I read are extraordinary by any means. This piece was well done. I have never read a book entirely modeled around a person’s perception of a song and what the lyrics mean. Let’s just say it can all be explained, in the sneaky way of the Elfin fae, it was completely brought to light. How eye-opening a read!

Pregnant at eighteen after being raped by a possessed prom date, our main character slowly discovers the curse which will come fully to light by the end of her pregnancy. Caught between a rock and a hard place she is helped by her family, her true love, and her friends. She is able to rationalize the situation and solve the imbedded riddles which are written into “ Scarborough Fair” the song. There are over ten different version of the story which have crept to light over the centuries. It is amazing to read about them and the interpretations.

The novel encompasses the young girl’s journey not to be the next in line of string of women to give birth to a daughter and then go crazy. The lyrics of the songs are quite amazing when broken down. They are in riddles. There are, it is said, ways to break the curse, but the young girl must complete three seemingly impossible tasks. But what the Elfin knight does not realize is what true love really is, and that true love does, in the end, conquer all.

Yes, this turned into somewhat of a love story, but how beautifully written to have the lyrics of the song so clearly interwoven into the fabric of each of the character’s lives. I encourage all of you to go out and read this book before I spoil the ending for you. It was simply amazing to read this book. Make sure you have a little time to read it, however, because once you get started, putting it down is near to impossible.

I was thrilled by this haunting tale. The novel has also been nominated for a National Book Award. She is a finalist in the competition with this piece of work.

Once again, go read this book. It is not actually that long, so you really will enjoy bringing this story of love conquering all into your life. I know I will never forget it, and neither will you.

2010

Welcome to the New Year. Does it not amaze you as it amazes me how quickly time has flow through our lives? Time seems to inconsequential from day to day. We wake, we eat, we work, we search to find ourselves, and we sleep. There is little to no variance in our lives. We wish for past loved ones, and for the lost feelings which filled us with joy and pulled us away from the mundane things we were before so accustomed to.

But what is it about the simple changing of a day. Yes, we survived the race for another day, another year, another decade. We have won, in some ways, the right to continue running pell-mell into tomorrow, next year, and the next decade. What have we won in this race? We’ve won the right to continue trying to ‘find’ ourselves, though at my age this seems to me to be am impossible task.

I was not kidding about going to Ireland . Flights are pretty cheap, actually, and the riding vacation is well within what I can afford to spend, especially if I watch what I spend for the coming months. I will need to be in better shape, and I will need to be out riding some before I go. But I plan on doing it. This adventure, the riding part, will be a week. But if I am going to Ireland , you better believe that I will be doing other things while there as well. I’ll find a way to entertain myself, and hopefully stay for over two weeks. I hope I have a traveling companion, but I am not terribly concerned if I do not.

It is time to take time to myself. I have long dreamed of this journey, and it is time to put everything into motion. I’m through dealing with the day to day mundane that I’ve been trapped in since college. I am constantly amazed with myself that I have been so exhausted by the daily grind in just two and a half years since graduation? Was it even that long? It seems like a complete lifetime. I need a good journey to get myself on my way. What do I want from life? I do not know. I could happily live my life doing a lot of different things, but alas, they most likely would not be paying for a place for me to live.

I always dreamed that one day things would be good and I would be settled in for a lifetime with someone I loved. And yes, I had a someone in mind, because he – even now makes my heart hammer and my stomach tighten with just a though or a glimpse of a memory. As much as I try to forget, to move on, and to distance myself, the dreams are there none the less, and the memories are not so easily erased, replaced, or ignored. It just happens to be something I feel I will always have to deal with, but the wilds of a country I’ve never seen would be one of the most amazing things I could mark this new decade’s beginning with. I would long dream of doing it, and I’m afraid if I do not do it now, I never will. I’m determined, but life has a way of taking things back once I’ve decided on them. Hopefully this dream comes true.

So what of this new decade? We have lived through terrorist attacks, y2k, and many other natural and human disasters for the last decade. What says that this decade will be so different from the last? Can we not simply expect a re-play of the same things, and perhaps worsening things as technology continues to grow? And, perhaps, do we not also have a lingering doubt in the backs of our minds, how long this world will last and sustain us? I am quite sure we would find a way to adapt and escape the worst of the disasters soon to come, but, what guarantee is there? We live now in a world where we take too much and give back too little. We live with a constant threat of the world ending, of violence, and of pain. We seek to report on the sadness, and neglect to see the polar opposite.

What does that say of us as a people? We have much more complex goals than those before us. We have much more interesting and crazy hopes and dreams. We have larger potential for education and invention. We all want to save the world – in some way all our own.

So welcome to another day, which in all reality, is no different from yesterday, or the day before. Except, perhaps that it is not snowing here today. J The snow has been lovely lately though. I mean getting into work covered from foot to hip in mud because you tried to help your friend get her car out when she got it stuck in the mud in the morning. Yeah, it was delightful. I’m still enjoying the snow. No more rescuing friends with car problems on the 1^st of the year. Lol. Two stuck cars, two years in a row, at least neither of them were my cars. J

Happy new years!

           I cannot jump to the conclusion and say that New Years has gotten me thinking. I think it is just this time in my life which has gotten me thinking. Ever since I was a small child I have wanted to go to Ireland and Scotland . When asked where I would go in a second on a whim it would always be to one or both of those places. I’m in a position in my life where I can afford to do so, and I have decided to go. It has long been a dream nagging at me in the background of my life. It is time to go. Time to be able to do something on my own and take a little while to realize who I am. I was told, by a medium, a while back that my life would involve journeys to find myself. I’ve felt compelled to take this journey for so long that I believe it is time to do it.

            I have more than enough money to get myself there and back and do the Connamara trail on horseback. I’ve always wanted to ride the sturdy rugged ponies of Ireland along the coast, and I have decided that I will be investing in this journey. I do not want to lose out on doing this for myself. I need it, and I want to do it. I’m going to find out more information and see if a specific friend of mine will come along for the ride. I will do it, even if I have to do it by myself, but I would like another soul searching companion for the ride.

            I need to do something – to stop working and take some time to myself. I need to figure out my life and get my head in order. I’ve needed a fresh start for years, and I think this is the way to do it.

            My parents will be listing our house for sale at the beginning of March. I cannot fathom how this has come, so quickly, to pass. Living here I’ve been content, happy even. But of late my mind has wandered too deeply into the story I wrote and too deeply into my concepts of fate and of destiny. Of Soulmates, who may or may not be found, and lost, throughout one’s lifetime.

            Fate is an amazing concept. For the longest time I believed that fate guided people thorough the choices in their lives. It was what I felt I had to tell myself to make my life easier to understand. My heart aches every single day. I cannot stand it, and I cannot escape it. I do not mean to say that I am miserable, but I am merely existing where I should be doing much, much more.

            It is time to figure out what I want from my life, from my prospects. I once thought that at this point in my life I would be like so many of my friends from highschoo, engaged, living with my boyfriend, and happy. But alas, fate has different things in mind for me. I wonder if my dreams of running off to Ireland and staying will ever happen. At least I will get to see the land of my ancestors, and not that far back, and be able to take a look at the world they lived in. My Grandparents were the generation on my father’s side which came to the US . They were from Ireland directly, and thusly I’m a little over half irish, as my mother had a bit in her lineage somewhere as well.

            I am Irish, Scottish, English, and Welsh. I am searching for myself in a world where everything and everyone is a combination of something. We are not just one thing. I need to take a look at the places which have been calling to me since childhood. How does a parent deal with a three year old who tells her that she has to go see Ireland and Scotland one day. A three year old? A three year old who has no concept of other countries tells her parents that she wants to go there, nay, that she has to go there. Yes, I would say that is something a little more drastic than fate itself. What awaits me in these places I have no idea, but the idea of disappearing off into Ireland and Scotland sounds like a more and more amazing idea the more I think about it.

            I am at a point in my life where I have the ability to do these things. I have the time, money, and family support. I am not leaving someone I love behind, for right now, there is nothing close to love in my heart holding me back. I thought once, that my love would be enough for the dreams I had in mind, but it seems that as time has passed, the love has faded only slightly, but my dreams have faded completely. There is no way to be in love when it hurts all the time. People say no pain no gain, and they say love hurts, but the truth of the matter is, the thing that makes love worth it is the lack of pain, the happiness, and the body warming joy that you feel when you’re in love. Love is not hurting all the time, nor is it feeling as though you spurn every memory of your past because you are so hurt by the feelings you still have that you really could just dissolve into the darkness there.

            Unrequited love has been written about for centuries, but what is love where you both love, and are unable to make it work? Good question. If you have an answer, please let me know and I’ll write it into my book on soulmates, because, currently, I think it is pretty lame to feel the way I do.

            It is time for something new, some new person and new adventure. It is time…also to close. So I’ll end this and send this and post it later.

~M

My World.

       So these days the snow is already melting and I'm almost missing the whole thought of the world being so beautiful and white. Things were so beautiful and calm for a few days. I even got an extra day off of work because I was completely snowed it. The dogs loved it, well, three of them loved it, Spike looked at me like I was crazy. This was Taz's first real winter, as he was a very little puppy when it was snowing last year. He was running around like a maniac and coming in covered in snow. He was quite happy about this though, and went outside so many times in one day!
       Beyond that, I made it through Christmas sales, and really kicked the butt on the sales floor. I've had a few offers from other pen companies, but I'm beginning to think that it is time to leave the East coast and go somewhere else. Chicago is an open offer, and I'm thinking that currently there isn't much for me here. I have few friends, and even then they're not my best friends -- Charlie is as close as I get to having a best friend here. I know that even if I left, we'd stay in touch.
       The question has become what I want to do with my life.

Off for dinner and presents with Charlie. I'll update more later.

Wet and Dreary

As I sit on my bed looking out the window I can only see the constant stream of rain coming down. The bark on the trees is darkened and the green moss stands out -- in stark contrast -- to the darkness of the shadows beyond it.
I almost wish it were snow. We have already been turned white once this winter, and so soon I long for the snow to fall again. There is no particular reason for this want, but to feel the world slow to a stand still as people try and take in to account that the snow on the roads is slowing everything down. Right now, my life feels as though it is hurtling through time at a million miles a minute. There is so much going on and the headaches are so bad lately that I am beginning to be entirely too stressed out by the season I used to so love and adore. Granted, Fall, is my favorite seasons, the way the trees turn colors and then leaves blow gradually to the ground. But fall always falls short lately, of the beautiful season it is farther up north. How I miss the season at Gettysburg, where the trees took ages to turn their colors and their leaves stayed happily and colorful in the trees for weeks on end. So what does it mean to have this fall apart the way it has. Gettysburg felt like the season was frozen in time for weeks on end. It was flawlessly beautiful and I miss wandering through the slowly falling leaves and sitting outside at night listening to them blow along the path ways.
Lately, it has been just rain. Or ice, which thanks to my new tires is much easier to drive in. But, it seems that fall faded away to the brown decay of dead leaves way too fast this year. I do not envy people without seasons, on the coast of CA for instance, but at the same time, I long to be father North where things take time to happen in this season, and where they are most certainly more prepared for the snow and ice which so soon follow fall.
I used to love the winter. But that too has faded into the past. Now it is a cold and dreary seasons, a single season perhaps. Where everything falls to the wayside because you are alone. It is the cold season, where someone else in your bed is the best thing at night, and holding hands outside is the easiest way for your hands to stay warm. It is a time when you see friends and family, perhaps his, not just your own. It is a time for twos. A time which leads into the new year, and lets face it, being alone on new years just sucks. I have a running tally of 23 years single on New Years, and I have a feeling it is going to soon be 24. It is odd to me, that this season has taken such a turn from what it used to be. It was once a time for family, and now it is a time for the future. You see family, yes, but you spend your time trying to figure out the gift for the person you care about most. Well. I won't have to do that this year. And every year past I've never had that simple problem. *shrugs*
What makes this season worse is that now it blends all the way through the season and into the dreaded holiday of every single person, National single's awareness day. Valentines day for all of those people who are so happily in love that they do not consider what others feel on that day. Oh, that is another record. I've never dated anyone through Valentines day -- ever.  Just once I would love to have something to do on that day with someone I so care about. I guess it does not help when one is a romantic. It does not make life easier when you realize that the things you dream or wish would happen do not. You do not get romantic surprises these days. It is almost as though most girls are so easy that guys no longer have to try. And, if you're someone who is in love, please don't force yourself into pretending that stars will fall from the sky and he'll realize that he loves you back. It just doesn't work that way. Trust me. I waited over five years for dreams to happen, for one romantic gesture, for one little thing, and it doesn't happen.
Call me a cynic if you wish. I know I am young to be so cynical. But I've spent what seems like a million lifetimes learning that fairy tales are not all they've cracked up to be. Princes do not arrive on white horses to take you away. They do not appear out of nowhere as a romantic gesture. They do not say "I love you" and they do not just show up to say hello. Alas, England yielded no Mr. Darcy, and the US has done a piss poor job of yielding any white knight, in whatever form.
Too bad we learn how much we can hurt when we are so young. A broken heart at eighteen is certainly better than losing your love earlier -- but perhaps if you're learning begins at an earlier age you realize that one day things really must changed, and perhaps you learn to heal better. Regardless, I was not on that discovery boat. I did not learn that life was much simpler lived alone, especially when your heart screamed for the one soul it could not, and can not have.
So welcome to winter, Ice Queen. For my heart is more frozen now than it ever was. I wonder, some days, if I'll ever have a chance to stop being so cynical. Perhaps yes, but most likely -- I fear -- that chance has passed.  So lead me, weather, through the days to come and wash away the pain with your snowflakes. They'll dance to the ground faster than my tears can freeze, and I hope, you'll take everything away from me. Thrust me into spring before I know, and remind me to take a deep breath and remember, soon will come the summer, and the anniversary of us meeting, but one day not long after, will be the day the world fell apart.
Dwell not, I tell myself, in the past which has pulled you so far apart, but push forwards to the future, to the next life, next love, next loss. For that is what you know. Breathe deeply and try to remember that the world is not fair, and in it's eyes, you are still not yet grown. You're but a child. As hard as it may be to admit, 23 is not old, not yet.

Just breathe in the rain. And watch the world blossom with the blessing of water. Forget what it is which ails you, and just breathe in the rain.

MUSIC

        So music and writing are taking over my life. I almost wrote that music and writing is because they are currently working as a semi-collective unit of the two things. It has been quite amazing that I've been trying so hard to figure things out. I mean, how do you forget what seems like a lifetime? Have you ever realized that you just cannot escape your memories?
       So I've been spending my time throwing my music in through my ears. I've been discovering all sorts of new music that I think I might be in love with. I really adore "Love and Theft" and I've also found that I really adore some of the music from my past. "Skillet" one of the new groups I've found. I'll reiterate the main fact, "Wait, how on earth is all the normal music about something depressing?" It just is. They write about things that people can identify with..."Does it scare you to realize that as a whole, people now identify with a more depressing form of a once happy medium?"
      There are some days where I really wonder what we've come to as a class of people who listen to music about sex, and murder, and unhappiness. Things are all about the constant depression that people feel inside. I think it is almost safe to say that we have been very socially situated to realize that we cannot identify with being happy as much as we can with being depressed. Why on earth is that the case?
      Right now, what I want the most, is a happy distraction, like one of my friend's exs... Though that would be an easy accomplishment, to me, it isn't really what I want. There is a really hot guy who seems to stop in and flirt lately, perhaps it is time to test out Keyonta's new theory. Either he's trying to ask me out, or hire me. LOL. Perhaps I should pursue the whole asking me out part :-). That would be pretty neat.
    What does it mean to have built a lifetime of memories only to try and forget? I assure you that I built more than what I had. I built a future. and I lost it.