A flower bud getting ready to blossom. As soon as I get an address I will mail the CD and publish the winner’s name,nickname,whatever, if the winner so opts! 
I like to call these buds “little worlds” - an accident in time? I think not. What a wonderful creation. 
I won’t be posting again until Monday, but in the meantime, the first person who guesses what this picture is - will get a brand new relaxation CD FREE!
This is a true story, but the names have been changed to protect the client who shared it with me. I did write it in first person, but it is “her” story, exactly as she told it to me. I must say, parts are sad and horrible - but I think you might smile at the outcome.
———————————————————————
Times had been difficult. For years the bridge between me and my husband was growing. I had small children and wanted to make the union work, but I think I knew within my heart that the day of confrontation was nearing.
I found out via a good friend that he’d been cheating on me. I knew he’d been drinking too much, and wasn’t always working when he was supposed to have been, but I didn’t think he would cheat on me.
My hormones were always raging. I would have dropped whatever I was doing if he’d have said, “Come on honey…..” He was older than me by 10 years so I thought perhaps he’d passed the insatiable sexual drive most men sport for so many years.
The worst of it was he’d been driving to a job “supposedly”, and he picked up a hitchhiker on the road. He stopped at a bar and they drank until they fell into some motel’s bed. To make it worse she was on parole. She’d been in prison for murder - and was still under a pending decision about whether she would remain free or not.
The affair had been going on under my nose for a few months. You just never know what is to come in life. I had just lost about thirty pounds and felt great, and she was about 50 pounds heavier than me. Go figure.
“I want a divorce.” I said, and asked him to leave. He agreed. Albert and I went round and round and because of the children. We decided to go to marriage counseling to try to heal our wounds. He promised he would stop seeing the other woman.
We found a highly recommended shrink who was also a sex therapist. After the initial meeting we agreed we would drive an hour to his office,three times a week, trying to mend our broken marriage and my broken heart.
I knew we had grown apart, but I thought we were friends. A friend would never do this.
Therapy was expensive. The therapist counseled us together and also individually. I thought things were going fairly well, though in my head I couldn’t get the thought out of my mind that I had been cheated of having a faithful husband. I hoped we could make it. At least for the children’s sakes.
I was still bursting with unresolved sexual desires, and was still not having sex with Albert. I couldn’t understand why. I thought perhaps we had to have more counseling for him to reconcile to closeness again, though I was willing to try. Honestly, I was really in need of affection and some good sex. It had been several months now.
Perhaps we would have been able to work it out except for one tiny detail. I heard through the small town grapevine that Albert hadn’t stop seeing the convicted murdering pig! I confronted him as calmly as I could and told him I’d found out. I yelled to him “You can’t have your wife and your girlfriend too. You can’t keep lying. I’m done.” He knew he’d screwed up again and left without much fanfare. He knew he had blown it and was afraid if he fought me I would take the children away permanently.
I felt as if things would never be good again, and though I thought I was handling it well in front of the children, I realized many years later little children hear and see everything. They are wise beyond their years, and whatever you do remains in their little heads and hearts for a lifetime.
I told Albert that just because we split up didn’t mean I was through needing counseling. I really was high strung, upset and in need of someone to try to help me. After all, now I was single again, but this time with three children and no real career. I needed something pretty potent to pull me out of this mental state! I wasn’t kidding. I felt like I was going to have a breakdown and knew I had three children that really needed me during this time.
Guilt guided him to offer to pay for continuing counseling sessions. I thanked him and agreed it would help. It really did help!
I continued to see the therapist, Bill. I stayed longer at the sessions than scheduled, and learned a bit about what therapists are NOT supposed to do!
Bill and I somehow passed protocol and began a torrid affair. What a delicious secret revenge. He was a sex therapist too so I got what I so desired at least three times a week, and I mean I GOT IT GOOD! Albert paid not only the sessions, but for a babysitter, and gas to and from his office as well.
I pocketed all the money as Bill wouldn’t take a dime. He would take me out to a wonderful dinner and then we’d go to a fine hotel and have drinks and laugh and play. I found out that this sex therapist knew his business. I also got free counseling on top of it. How therapeutic was that! The best part was Albert never knew and it went on for months - just like his affair.
Sweet!
TO THE HEROIC MOMS WHO HAVE SUFFERED A LOSS
I can think of nothing more difficult on this day, than a mother loosing a child. Because so many of us moms have never had that loss, I would like to dedicate this to the most special moms of all. The mother’s who have had to live with the loss of their child need the prayers and thoughtfulness of all us moms who had not had to accept and endure the precious loss. They must go forward in spirit and accept what has happened.
My heart and love goes to all you moms out there who have lost a child - for whatever reason, and at whatever stage in life, the daunting reality cannot be changed.
In hope of giving HOPE to you, from my strongest knowledge accumulated over a lifetime, from deep within me, I KNOW a child’s eternal spirit is with God, our creator. By whatever name you know him, the magnificence of His power surely takes these Spirits under His wing, from whence they came. A place with no pain and no sadness. A place of rest and safety.
Whether the loss is from the earliest of times, or at a time when the child should be seeking to help an older mom, it doesn’t matter. There is that instinctive love that blossoms within us as we first become with child. That love grows in leaps and bounds and so for whatever the cause that took your child, keep your chins up. Keep feeding your Spirit to strengthen and empower you.
KNOW, without a single doubt, that someone else here on the planet shares your mending heart, and KNOW many of us that may never even cross your path in this lifetime, are sending positive healing energy and prayers your way today and every day!
A post to honor my mama can be seen at
http://stress-management-magic.blogspot.com
Don’t you think it would be wonderful if you grabbed someone, (be sure it’s not just someone you are just walking next to on the street and did something OUTSIDE this weekend!
If possible, move away from the computer and move your body. Enjoy our still beautiful earth. I grabbed my bike and went for a bike ride by myself today. It was lovely. Quiet and relaxing, yet energizing.
One thing though, as a woman I always make sure I am prepared for “an emergency”. I do live in the real world. I always carry a pepper spray with me when I am alone, and a cell phone for a 911, if possible. I am not paranoid, just prepared:).
Have a wonderful weekend whatever you do. I have a very interesting true story coming up soon. “The therapist and the Couple.” When I post it, I think you’ll find it, at least, unusual.
Fess up to it! I am still in the midst of “pressing things” but someone brought to my attention that
I made an error in the spelling of a word. YES I did. For my entire life I have spelled GREAT, as it
should be!
Somehow I have, over the last few months switched the spelling to GRATE. Wrong:). As my darling sister pointed out to me, “you grate carrots”. Right on!
I know it’s not life altering. I know I am not guilty of killing THAT MANY brain cells. It may just be
one of life’s mysteries forever. Anyway, what this silly little post is about is to correct my error. I want to let you know, I know, GREAT is the spelling I intended in several posts. Since I don’t have the time, currently, to go back and read and correct the posts, I just wanted to say, “WHOOPS!” and tell you to have a GREAT day!
I won’t be writing for a couple of days (actually probably until Thursday). This week is VERY busy for me. Writing this blog for me is fun, a pleasure, a wonderful avenue to release thoughts, a great way to make friends and MORE!
I hope that the entries in the future will entrance and entice you to keep reading. I have so many stories to share!
The true stories will be about people I have counseled and met over the years. Some of the stories are pretty hot little tidbits, morsels for you to swallow. Of course I have gotten permission to write them, and the names will be changed to protect the innocent (well maybe not so innocent!).
Others will be written in hopes of helping someone here in inner space. Someone who can’t decide what to do, or what not to do, in life situations that many of us face.
I want YOU to make the best of these moments you are living. Time is fleeting and none of
us can read the future. So laugh, love, hug someone, take a walk, take a breath! This is your life.
Back soon.
It POURED rain last night and so this morning as the sun came peeking through the trees I zipped outside to snap a couple of photos.
The first tree is a “bottle brush” tree. It is one the hummingbirds just love - bright red, and the blooms do look like bottle brushes!
This one is a huge tree and has blossoms that look like orchids to me. I haven’t been able to find out the name of the tree, but if anyone knows, please let me know.
…..and Bob is homeless. He is one of America’s two million homeless, and he needs help like so many do!
I first saw Bob about eight years ago. I was leaving a local market and I saw this tall bearded guy talking to himself on the road. He was loud and carried on a very definitelyangry conversation with himself. I just winced and drove by, trying not to stare.
It’s difficult to know whether someone out there is is “legitimate”, so to speak. I mean, once I stopped because I saw a woman with two children and a baby and she had a sign that said “we need money for food”.
At the time we were on a very tight budget, so I went home and made sandwiches, got a bag full of groceries and bottles of water. When I presented them to the mom she looked at me, rather with disgust, and said: “I need money. My mom is in the mall buying the children shoes.”
I hadn’t shopped at the mall for a long time. She didn’t want the groceries. I put the groceries back in the car (except a bag of graham crackers the little girl had spotted. She was happy.
I was confused. Who needs help? Are they just lazy? Are they using the money for drugs, or alcohol, or cigarettes? I don’t have money or food to share with everyone.
I began to limit my sharing to those who had up signs saying “Will work for food” - particularly for those souls whom no one would ever hire to do anything. Would you hire a stranger to do yard work? Or put him in an office with no work clothes, no shower, no place to live? I don’t think so. I couldn’t.
I did the go home and get something more than once. One time for an old guy NO ONE would ever hire. He obviously needed help, for whatever reason. It didn’t matter. I handed him a lunch and ice water and he was thrilled.
The people who have the sign “need money for a beer” might think it cute, but I pass them by. Occasionally there will be someone with a puppy or dog (I understand that could be
good for someone with no home. Something to love and protect. ) So when I haven’t had the money, I have given water and dog food.
My husband says, “Why can’t they work like I do? It’s the young ones that get me. The ones that are healthy. Let them fend for themselves.”
Confused again. We cannot know the circumstances that led them to this place. WHATEVER they are, it is a place I have not had to be, and I am grateful. I just hope if ever I am in need, or someone I love, that someone will help just a bit; have a bit of compassion without judgment.
Bob was calm when I took this photo. He was sitting with a young woman called “Roadie”,
but she did not want her photo taken. I gave Bob a bit of money to share with her - and
bottles of water. He was appreciative.
The homeless in New Orleans alone has gone from 6,000 to 12,000 since Katrina. With
all of us having so much, such an abundance of everything here in America, it just makes sense to share a bit, however you may choose to do so.
I don’t know how the homeless got there. I only know that some of them never intended to be there. I am no one’s judge. I will help when I can, tell them about the mission, the place to get a meal and sleep, and pray for them. My job is to love unconditionally,
and hope and pray that things get better for those in need ALL OVER THE WORLD!
Check back tomorrow and I’ll tell you
