Jul 19 2017

Why did you stop writing?

“Why did you stop writing?”

Brooke sat slouched over with her elbows on her knees and face in the palm of her hands. She said nothing, but shrugged her shoulders.

“I can’t help you if you are not willing to talk. What happened?”

“Stuff, lots of stuff, my world seemed to just fold one storyline after another until I had no story left.”

“Your writing just stopped?”

“No, my world. I was someone. I used to write. I used to have an opinion, and people used to read my writing. It was like I was on a roll at a blackjack table and then it just stopped. I used to feel like something big was going to happen, something really great, but then I realized it wasn’t. That is when my life started falling to shit.”

“So, your writing stopped and your life fell to shit.  Is that what you are saying?”

“No, my life fell to shit and my writing stopped.”

“Ok, then why do you think this happened?”

“I don’t know.”

“Yes, you do.”

“Ok, maybe but I don’t want to say it. If I say it you will think I am nuts.” She inhales a big breath and slowly exhales like she was practicing yoga or Lamaze.  “The suicide…” She inhales another big breath and exhales. “  When she took her life, it was like she stole mine too or at least my happiness.”

“Who? Who is she? Who took who’s life?”

“I don’t want to talk about it.” Tears rolled down her eyes.

“Brooke, we have been meeting once a week for over a year, and I don’t know what you are talking about. I can’t help you if you don’t talk to me.”

“I know. I know, but this is real and it hurts. It still hurts just like it did the day it happened. I don’t want to talk about it. I just want to live a happy life and I have done pretty ok. I mean people think I am happy. I do feel happy at times, but deep down she is always there. The sad part is I can only remember her dead body, the bad times, the sad times and very few good times. I just want it all to go away.”

“This is why you should write. You need to write about this. This story is real and people like you can get comfort knowing about what you are going through.”

“Yeah, that is what I thought too. Then literary agent after agent rejected me. I got to the point where I was numb. All The literary agents want from me is to write humor, but it takes every ounce of strength to find the energy to be happy. I am too tired trying to be happy that I can’t. You know what I am?”

The therapist shook his head.

“I am sad. I am fucking sad. I cry myself to sleep almost every night and that has been for ten years, 3,650 day and I don’t want to be sad anymore. The worst part is that being sad in today’s society is just not ok. It is no longer accepted. No one wants to see the tears, hear the cries or talk about the bad in life. I just can’t be fake. I am me and right now that is a sad person. I just want to

Feb 5 2017

Why you should give love this Valentine’s Day

 Valentine’s Day is this week. When I was a child I loved the holiday. I enjoyed writing the names of all the kids in the class on the cheap store bought cards. I would lay quietly on the floor going through the box of cards one-by-one selecting a card to apply to each of my classmates. I would carefully fold back and forth on the perforated line to slowly tear along those dots sheet-by-sheet and card-by-card. Then with a steady hand I would write the name of each classmate on a card. For the final touch, I would tape a sucker to each envelop. To an adult this would look as a waste of money and time, but to younger me it was an act of love with a hope of reciprocating some much-needed kindness or love back.

That box of cheap store bought Valentine’s Day cards and that bag of suckers was purchased by my younger self with an allowance to which was given by my grandfather. It might have gone unnoticed by many in the classroom, but there were always some classmates that rode the bus with me to school and knew my house was the dilapidated one on a hill with the broken front porch steps and paint peeling on the exterior walls. Those classmates knew, I gave all I had as an elementary student living on a farm in the countryside. Those classmates were my friends and they did just as I wanted. They gave me the gift of friendship, love and kindness in a very small farm town school.

Through the years, college life, marriage and parenting I have not given up on Valentine’s Day. Nope, this holiday is still very important to me. I would like to rephrase that, I would say Valentine’s Day is less important than Christmas and more than Thanksgiving to me. Why? Well, as a lonely child I was given an awful gift of the ability to see sadness in other’s eyes. It hurts me to look in a stranger’s, relatives’ or friend’s eyes to not see or find that special glimmer of love. That is when the inner child of me comes to light.  My inner child does something special for a friend, family member, coworker, stranger or even myself (at times) during this holiday of love to bring love and possible spark to that person.

Why? Well, let me tell you a very tender story of a woman I knew quite well. She was depressed. She was abusive and neglectful to herself and her own children. This woman had loved a man deeply for 17 years. After her divorce, she gave up on herself. She quit her goals. She lost her faith. She stopped loving herself and loving others. Many knew this woman, but she felt alone and had lost her glimmer. On a cold Friday night, after Valentine’s Day this woman took her life by suicide.  She wrote a long thoughtful note. But the key word that broke my heart was that she felt life got “boring.”

               It is true that this woman had broken up with her lover a few months before she took her own life. Maybe she lost her glimmer in her eyes, yet I am not blaming him. I am just saying that if maybe, just maybe if more people were less selfish and gave as I did as a child maybe this woman would still be here today. I am not asking for huge gifts, but this holiday try to find a few dollars to buy a bag of candy, a dozen of cookies, or snack to share with those you do and don’t know so well. If you want to go big, give the gift of time. Invite someone to a cup of coffee or just sit and talk with them. This Valentine’s Day give the gift of love. You never know, it might reward you with a gift of friendship, love or kindness too.

Whatever you do this holiday, do not ignore those whom have lost that glimmer or spark in their eyes. It might even be the one whom you married, love, loved, work with, exercise with or see just passing by. Let’s celebrate this holiday of love with one simple act of love.

P.S.

Happy Valentine’s Day!

I love you!

Nov 14 2016

Giving Purpose to Life

I have found myself at a crossroads in life, again. I can tell you that is feels good for once to have choices. I have been writing, parenting, working and spousing for years. If feels good to know I have a purpose in life.

For the last year and a half, I have been recovering from four long and painful surgeries. I found myself weak. The worst part of it all was I felt worthless in a world that was still moving as I laid idle in bed. Many have asked and wondered why I was just laying around. Well, I also suffer IBS, a really bad case. My stomach bleeds when I eat the wrong foods, dehydrate, or take medications. Due to my IBS, I took very few pain pills; instead, I had to lay in bed with my foot elevated on ice. As days turned into weeks, weeks turned into months, and months turned into a year I began to feel as though my life had no purpose. The world around me continued to move even though I was not a part of it.

Then when my baby went off to college this fall I hit bottom, not rock bottom, but almost. I just could not find my purpose in life. My son told me, “this is your time to get healthy and get known for the writing you have been doing your whole life.”

I started my healing journey at a small gym with a trainer. I started with baby steps. Since September, I have gotten a lot of strength back. It all began with a set of 5 pound weights. As my foot and body got stronger, my voice did too. This fall, I received my first notification from Barnes and Noble to accept my children’s books, Best Friend For Christmas, Promise and Snow-po and Tour The Mount Molly. It was the golden key to my future.

Currently, I am working on new stories for my Promise and Snow-po series. I have started my social media campaign. Most important, I have found my new purposes in life. This has given me new and wonderful opportunities to choose from.

Lately, the media has focused so much attention on the great divide in our nation. I sit and watch the media with sadness. Thousands and thousands are protesting, angry, sad and confused. Now, as a person that has just found new purposes life.  I have decided to give back to our nation. The only way we can bridge the gap is with knowledge. Knowledge is more powerful than anything in our world. I have volunteered to help inner city children with homework help. It will give me another new purpose, and hopefully the knowledge to create a new purpose for another person in our nation.

If you are reading this, I would like to encourage you too to give purpose to life by adding value to some else’s.

 

Thanks

Jennifer

Oct 30 2016

Comfortably Numb

Today I woke up with the lyrics of Comfortably Numb by Pink Floyd in my head. It has been a long time since I have sat down and written from my heart and soul, but today I must.

I stared in the mirror this morning long and hard. I realized one thing, if I am to move beyond this point I must face the sadness inside. The truth is like 90 percent people of this world I have suffered loss, abuse and neglect. Just like the song Comfortably Numb, I had this feeling as a child and now again as an adult.

As I sit listening the song, tears pour down my face. In my head, I see the vision of Pink Floyd’s video and suffrage of the child and father at war. While I am not the child in the video, but I too have felt very similar to the little boy sitting numb. Over the years, have learned to overcome those burdens and grow into the woman I am today by staying the moment and looking towards the future.

The question remains. Why is this song plaguing me today? Could it be the looming media and threats of a new war? Is the election really bothering me? Well, maybe, but the real issue is rejection. I have been and always been facing the issue of rejection. I was rejected by my own mother. I was a failed abortion attempt. I lived. I was her biggest failure. While I forgive her and love her, and her ashes sit in a silver heart container in my home, I still deal with the fact that every day of my life I was rejected.

Now, as my writing begins to take stage I have that same feeling of fear of rejection. Maybe, this is why I have become comfortably numb. While I am not feeling pain or happiness. The distance ships in the horizon is my future success. The moving lips could belong to myself or my mother’s. Even though I have this feeling again, I will do as I have done before. I will weep my tears, listen to music and fight. This is life. We live in world of very selfish and sick people, but I will stand up and keep going. I will not let the pain, fear, sadness or anything else keep me from catching that ship in the horizon.

JCV

https://www.bing.com/search?q=comfortably+numb&form=EDGNTC&qs=PF&cvid=12c1c37bc50e465d916a1c21fe0891b6&pq=comfortably+numb