The Friendship Diary

And the world keeps spinning…

So hi! It’s been a while I guess. Not sure where to even start if I were going to write a catch-up post… so yeah, suffice to say that things. have. changed.

All of the things.

So I’ll make an attempt to give the less than 3 day version of that catchup. I’m back in Lakeland, back in my home on Belmar, my contract job is now my full-time dream job and I am a permanent employee with benefits and such for the first time since 2015. The divorce is officially a thing… albeit a very slothlike thing… and with any luck we may be divorced sometime before we both die.

Cue the eyeroll and side eye…

No, I’m not kidding… that’s how these things work when lawyers are running them. It’s a process, that we don’t control, and nobody appears to be in a hurry so we’re moving at the speed of turtles, running in molasses, and that’s apparently okay. So we keep doing our separated thing and trying to be supportive of each other’s individual happiness. We’re not acrimonious. But we put others in charge and we don’t have an agreement so we’re stuck.

It is what it is.

I came back home to Lakeland in September and I think I came home a little bit changed. Punta Gorda was good for me I think. I got in touch with myself a lot more, had some adventures, learned a lot about what I don’t want from people, situations, and relationships, and then I came home when it was time. Now I am happier, more centered, and less lost than I’ve been in years.

I know… what fun is that?

I’ve found peace. I’ve found different sides of me that I didn’t know I had. I’m still evolving and changing. I like me… even if I surprise myself every day in some small way. I’ve gone through some very hard things this last year, things that have made me step back from my life and re-evaluate who I allow to be in my life in a personal role. I’ve learned that I’m far more accepting of others and their choices than I ever was before. And I’ve realized that I really do miss being able to talk to my Mom because I understand her and her choices today far more than I did when she was making them and I was so very harsh and condemning.

I’m sorry Mom… I love you and miss you every day… and I still wish I could have another conversation with you. Perhaps one day… perhaps…

So yeah… that’s life in a thumbnail sketch these days… full, happy, secure, and honestly blessed. I am focused on the future and no longer trying to go back to the past. I have the tightest circle and they’ve helped me through some awful shit the past months. I know who loves me. I know who values me. And I know who has my six. They’ve had it through things I didn’t ever imagine would happen. They happened. Things went to hell. Or my version of hell. And my circle brought me back.

Thanks for saving me. There aren’t enough words to thank you so I’ll just say this. I love you. Forever.

I’m focused on giving back these days. Making this place I love a better place. I know that as bad as things were for me there’s a lot of people who would love to have my life. There are many people who look at me with envy. To those who much is given much is expected. And that’s my focus. To fulfill those expectations. Pay it forward. Remember the kindness and love that was shown to me and do the same for others.

Life is good y’all… really good.

So I guess after all this… the wrap up thought is this. Live your life today and don’t be afraid to fail. Take that chance. Make that move. Don’t hold onto something that isn’t bringing joy just because it’s better than nothing. Reach for joy. You might not get it…

But then again you might.

Surviving Red Letter Days…

So I’m sure we all see those memes about how we don’t know what anyone else is going thru so just be nice. Yeah… er… right…

Yeah…

Anyway, yes, we’ve seen them, and we try. God knows we try. But sometimes we forget and sometimes we don’t even try that hard. It’s easy to get caught up in our own drama and stuff and forget about others. No matter what they’re carrying. And then there’s the whole “not even asking” thing. That’s a whole different story. And after time goes on we forget about the people we know who are still dealing with things that are still just as huge as they were when they first happened for that person. But we’ve all moved on. And we just don’t get why they can’t just move on too.

Spoiler Alert: They’d like to… trust me… but sometimes that’s not very easy. Sometimes what happened is so big that there’s no way to just pull up your socks and move on.

Sometimes.

So today is the 13th anniversary of the landfall of Hurricane Katrina. I remember Katrina so well. Donating countless cases of water and supplies as we breathed a sigh of guilty relief that our Labor Day Weekend trip to Hilton Head was not impacted. Countless hours watching the story unfold and thanking god that we weren’t anywhere near that madness. The people on the news waving from the rooftops. The water everywhere and not going down. The horror stories from the Dome. The grimaces as the disaster continued to unfold in New Orleans while the rest of us just got on with life. The houses with the marks for the number of dead that were found there.

I could go on and on but you all get the point. Katrina is a part of our collective zeitgeist. We all remember it… distantly… like we remember learning about the San Francisco Fire. Something awful that happened to someone else. Not our thing. Moving on.

We’re lucky.

I know someone now who isn’t like us about this day. Someone for whom today is very hard. Someone who hurts like hell in the days leading up and following. Someone who will never forget that day… no matter how hard he tries. Someone who survived something so horrific that it’s still burned into his sense of smell, into his brain, into his ears… into all of him. Someone who is going to go to the last bar he was in thirteen years ago, before he was forced out and sent home to nearly die. He’ll go to Deja Vu tomorrow and he’ll have one beer. He’ll mark a very good day and a very bad day… all at once. For he is someone who was one of those people we saw on TV. On the rooftops.

Someone who almost died.

Stephen Macanespie is a former Premier League Soccer Player from Scotland. Stephen Macanespie was nearly a man I would have never known about, just another one of the bodies numbered on a house in the Lakeview area of New Orleans, in a house that sat right beside the 17th Street Levee. Stephen Macanespie is my friend. But most importantly Stephen Macanespie is very lucky because he survived. His athleticism likely helped save his life when the water came in and he had to swim for it. The roof he was pulled from three days later was not his. He was quite a ways away, sitting in the sun, surrounded by water that had already tried to kill him and now tempted him as he nearly died a second time from dehydration. That’s a sense of rich irony… that the water he nearly drowned in and that stranded him was also deadly to him as a life giving necessity.

Water, water everywhere and not a drop to drink.

Yes, Stephen Macanespie survived. Stephen Macanespie has gone on to more success in coaching and charity work and business. Stephen Macanespie’s charmed life has continued. But Stephen Macanespie doesn’t ever forget the day that the river that is the lifeblood of his adopted home tried to kill him. Every year on this anniversary Stephen remembers. The screams, the yells, the neighbor he watched die that he couldn’t save. The smells, the swoosh, the end of life as he knew it.

Stephen Macanespie never forgets.

He’s forgiven the river for nearly killing his town. He wouldn’t live anywhere else. His affair with la belle NOLA is enduring and all consuming. But he never forgets. I’m sharing his story so you all can know that even the most normal looking people you meet might be carrying a burden that you cannot imagine. Stephen carries his. You carry yours. I have mine.

Just be nice.

And now, I’ll share what Stephen wrote post Katrina… to start dealing with the horror of what he lived through and what so many died from. The failures and fingerpointing in the aftermath of Katrina were rife. Here’s the human story. The story of how you survive something that was not survivable for many. This is his story of how you live.

Woosh came the water,

Screams and cries getting drowned,

Its power unheard of,

Some of us foolishly stood our ground.

 

We swam from our beds,

in the middle of the night,

Dazed and confused,

No one could imagine the sight.

 

We climbed on our roofs,

Or took to our boats,

We gripped to our chimneys,

Or grabbed something that floats.

 

The bitch stayed strong,

She fought through the night,

Katrina was here,

Right through the daylight.

 

We looked from our roofs,

What she left behind,

Water, carnage, disbelief,

It was all we could find.

 

The bedlam was so loud, but,

We heard screams for assistance,

Was it one block away?

Or was it in the distance?

 

As the Juggernaut blew through,

And the sun came out,

Thoughts turned to loved ones,

That were worried no doubt.

 

We sat for a while,

Contemplating our choices,

Should we have left?

Should have listened to the voices.

 

We spend 3 days on our roofs,

Shouting across the skyline,

Keeping spirits up high,

Promising we`ll be fine.

 

The copters come,

And the copters go,

Each time they leave,

Our spirits get low.

 

We are dehydrated around so much water,

Katrina is close to winning the fight,

Its getting real close, we probably dont have another night.

 

Just before dusk,

They appeared by surprise,

That big red bird,

God heard our cries.

 

From the pilots thumbs up,

to the captains smile maybe,

I dont know what meant more?

But i cried like a baby.

 

It was the start of a journey,

Not the end as folks think,

It can either make you swim,

Oh yes or make you sink.

 

We picked up 8 more people,

In the coast guard’s glorious bird,

Each one as excited,

ABOUT NEW ORLEANS, YA HURD.

Flipping the script on happy

So you know how sometimes you think you know exactly what your happy should look like? You think that your bliss has to be x and y and z or it’s not really bliss? You are sure that your “perfect” is something that looks like this or that or it’s not your perfect?

Yeah? You know?

Nope… you don’t. Continue reading →

The One about Thanksgiving…

So yeah, it’s Thanksgiving… and even though it might be the oddest Thanksgiving in years I’ve already been celebrating the thankfulness this week and I intend to continue doing exactly that every day. Thankful shouldn’t be something we only try on once a year you see… no matter how hard things are, no matter how wrong things have gone, no matter what’s happening… there is always always always something to be thankful for.

Always. Continue reading →

Lessons learned… again…

Confession… I hate needing people. Worse than pretty much anything in the world. Feeling needy to me is a total admission of weakness. I am instantly turned into a 5 year old child when I have to reach out for help… and I’m always terrified that I’ll be turned away or refused. So I try everything I can to never need anyone. Never be vulnerable. Never open up.

Never.

Continue reading →

And this one is the best…

So it’s been a long week, there’s been some mishaps, but this morning I woke up and it’s Thursday.

The best Thursday ever.

Today, after all, is payday, I see the weekend peeking around the corner, and it’s a Holiday weekend, and and and…

So hi there best Thursday! I for one might be the happiest girl in the world to see you in the history of ever.

The. Happiest.

Yay!!!!!

Temporarily closed for repairs…

So yeah… lots of stuff going on kids… ALL. OF. THE. STUFF. Head is spinning from all of the changes that are happening really damned fast and if you follow me on Facebook then you already know the scoop. However, until I get some security updates done on this bloggity blog thing I won’t be talking about ALL. OF. THE. STUFF. on here for a while.

Remember the social and cyber stalking I dealt with a long time ago? Yeah… that’s a problem… again…

Ugh.

Continue reading →

Making choices…

So yesterday I said something that was so true and yet so surprising to write… I think my quote was “… I am happier in my own skin than I have been in years…” and while that might sound a bit surprising coming from me the truth in that statement is beyond truthiness. Continue reading →

From the bottom of my heart…

So yeah… the birthday has come and gone… and quite a birthday it was. Honestly this one, while not as glitzy and over the top as Vegas in ’15, was likely one of the best in a very long time. From the people who joined me to the places I visited to all of the amazing food and drink I enjoyed… I’m not sure I could have drawn a picture of a more perfect time if I had tried. And the best part? I didn’t have to try. That was the best part of this birthday in fact… I didn’t have to try because I wasn’t in charge. I was in fact told that I was not going to be told anything about any of the plans for me or given choices on any of them. Someone else did all the planning. All I had to deal with was being totally out of control.

Spoiler alert… I liked it. A lot.

And I know that over half of you just fell over in a faint at that. Yes, Ms Control Freak was not in charge. At all. In any way. And I’m the world’s official worst at controlling stuff. That’s what I do. That might be what I do best. But not this time. This time I handed it over… willingly… and had the best time I’ve had in a long time. And this year, although it might surprise you guys, the joy wasn’t in the gifts and the attention… nope. The joy was in the people who were there. The people who took time out of their lives on either Friday or Saturday nights to meet up and just spend time together.

What a wonderful thing.

There were several points over those two nights when I was just watching things unfold, various groups talking and laughing, and it dawned on me that there were many connections present that didn’t even exist a year ago. There’s people in my life today who’ve become a part of my fabric so effortlessly that I now feel like they must have been there forever, but they haven’t. And then I realized that the mix of people that were present were exactly typical of any event I plan myself… because my circle is so diverse that when I start inviting I just select people, regardless of whether they know each other or not, regardless of whether they have anything in common, because I love pitching people together and watching the interaction. So the planners had done exactly what I would have done. They planned absolutely perfectly for me. And that’s when I knew I’ve gotten incredibly lucky yet again with the people I’ve chosen to be in my life.

Yet again.

Make no mistake, I’ve built a village here that’s a lot like me… a village that I love… and I’m constantly adding to it… with no commonality other than liking each other and enjoying each other’s company. I love my village… I love being their idiot… and I’m reasonably sure this is the happiest I’ve been in my skin in a very long time. And even though I’m building another village these days, one that sits a bit further south, rest assured that I’m not leaving this one. This is the one I love, this is home. Lakeland is my home. Yesterday. Today. Tomorrow.

Yes, you can go home again.

And this is where I thank you all for welcoming me back home. For being a part of my life. For celebrating with me… with us… together… and not just this weekend and this birthday but everything… the big moments and the small. Thanks. Such a small word but it says everything. Thanks.

Thanks for being in my life. Just thanks.

#blessed