Perfection

Good days are sometimes harder to find than others. But today was easily captured with many perfect moments. Not only was my boss, a.k.a. Mr. Allovertheplace, not there for all of the morning and most of my afternoon, but then I came home to two of my three girls and sunshine.

Last spring I discovered two beautiful doves, I named Bob and Harriet. Hours after our first contact, I rushed out and bought 7 bird feeders, plenty of bird seed and a bird bath. Months later they built their nest and created their family.

It has been months that I have seen them, I had decided that they were able to read my sadness and decided that since doves mate for life, my backyard was not the one they wanted to dwell in.

But today, after I got off of work, I take my two little girls into the back yard. We play in the sandbox and throw a few balls. Later, as I am trimming a few overgrownn bushes, there are my doves, Bob and Harriet, feet away from my littlest babies. I, alert them of the birds pressence and for twenty minutes all play within five feet of each other.

Pure perfection!

The River

So, today as I was driving to work, enjoying the beautiful weather, I flipped the radio to a country station. I first got into country music back in college, one of my good friends had a slight obsession with it and her love for it rubbed off on me. One of her favorites was Garth Brooks, he has so many songs filled with meaning and we spent hours driving around Napa Valley, windows down, music blaring, singing our little hearts out. Those were the days... So this morning, what song should be playing but Garth Brooks, The River. Down the windows went, and as I sang at the top of my lungs, I heard this song for what felt like the first time.

You know a dream is like a river
Ever changing as it flows
And a dreamer's just a vessel
That must follow where it goes
Trying to learn from what's behind you
And never knowing what's in store
Makes each day a constant battle
Just to stay between the shores..

And, I will sail my vessel
Til the river runs dry
Like a bird upon the wind
These waters are my sky
I'll never reach my destination
If I never try
So I will sail my vessel
Til the river runs dry.

Too many times we stand aside
And let the waters slip away
Til what we put off til tomorrow
Has now become today.
So don't sit upon the shoreline
And say you're satisfied
Choose to chance the rapids
And dare to dance the tide..

There's bound to be rough waters
And I know I'll take some falls
But with the good Lord as my captain
I can make it through them all..

Yes, I will sail my vessel
Til the river runs dry
Like a bird upon the wind
These waters are my sky
I'll never reach my destination
If I never try
So I will sail my vessel
Til the river runs dry.

I Dont Understand

Why is it, that when you need a friend, no one answers the texts, the phone, does not ring. When you need some alone time, the phone never stops ringing, there is no shortage of people that need you! But when you need help, you can text or call nonstop, just to hear a voice, feel a touch, have a friend, and no one answers! Where do they all go?

"Home Life" by my boy John

I think I'm gonna stay home
Have myself a home life
Sitting in the slow-mo
And listening to the day daylight
I am not a a nomad
I am not a rocket man
I was born a house cat
By the light of my mother's hand

I think I'm gonna stay home

I want to live in the center of a circle
I want to live on the side of a a square
i used to be in my M-Z now
You'll never fine me cause my name isn't there

Home life
Been holding out for a home life
My whole life

I want to see the end game
I want to learn his last name
Finish on a Friday
And sit in traffic on the highway
See, I refuse to believe
That my life's gonna be
Just some string of incomplete
Never to lead me to anything remotely close to home life.
Been holding out for a home life
My whole life

I can tell this much
I will marry once
And if it doesn't work out
Give him half of my stuff
It's fine with me
We said eternity
And I will go to my grave
With the life that I gave
Not just some melody line
On a radio wave
It dissipates
And soon evaporates
But home life doesn't change

I want to live in the center of a circle
I want to live on the side of a square
I'd love to walk to where we can both talk but
I 've got to leave you cause my ride is here

Home life
You keep the home life
You take the home life
I'll come back for the home life
I promise

The One That Got Away

So this past weekend I went on a mini trip. A trip my girl and I took to get away from it all. Get away from sadness, what was supposed to happen and didn't, escape the idealist idea of what our thirty five years should've brought us and didn't. Yeah, yeah, I know, life is what we make it, well apparently we didn't make it what it was supposed to be, so we escaped. We left on Friday, cuz Saturday was the D-Day! The day that was gonna break my sweet friends heart. Now keep in mind, if you know my life at all right now, I am the last one to bring encouragement, I am currently lost in my own tidal wave, how the hell am I gonna help her onto my sinking life raft. But I put on my big girl panties and tried my best to be there for my friend who tries her best to be there for me. As we pull out of Roseville on Friday, the rain is pouring down, traffic is insane, we actually debate on staying in Sac, but as I said earlier, big girl panties. We get to our hotel 2.5 hours later and someone must have been loving us, because we made it for complimentary cocktail hour! After our traffic, week and emotions we both didn't have much left in us but a long bath and a bottle of wine.

That night about four am, we wake up to a couple, and I use that word loosely, fighting. The angriest word ever spoken. Hurt, anger, hatred and mostly betrayal spewing out of their mouths, at a level that was scary to us all. We heard the abuse and it scared us, made us think of our relationships, past and present. Relationships that might have gone on too far, after the trust is gone, after the love has left. Hearing a situation like this, not only makes you call the front desk, but makes you look at your own life. These two people in the room right next to mine, obviously stayed together way too long. Why? Were they afraid of being alone? Did one of them not have a job and couldn't support themselves, maybe they had kids together, who knows. All I could think of as I was praying for security to come upstairs and I could no longer hear the punches that this couple were so venomously putting upon each other, was does she ever think about the one that got away. What makes woman stay with men they shouldn't? Why?

Putting all this behind us, we wake up the next morning and decide it is going to be a good day. Doesn't matter that we have gotten absolutely no sleep, doesn't matter that it is pouring outside and we can not leave our hotel. We are in a hotel full of people that have stories to be heard and we decide to hear them. We plant ourselves down in the bar and make a day of chit chat and emotion. There is something to be said about woman and the bond that we have with each other. Even in the saddest of times, we can throw back a couple mimosas, talk about what shouldve been and still put on a pretty smile and bond.

This brings me to the title of my long winded blog. The one that got away. We all know who that is, maybe some are lucky to be married to the one, my hat tips to you. But others are not so certain. How is it that the girl next door meets a boy in high school and he rocks her world, when he kisses her, she swoons, he understands her sentences before she is finished saying them. I am so jealous, that it makes me want to puke. I know a couple like this, high school sweethearts, blah blah, only people they have ever kissed is each other, etc... They are so "in love" that it makes me sick, I have actually stopped hanging out with them because I find their love for each other so annoying. How bad of a person does that make me? A horrible person, I know! I guess, I am just so jaded by heartache that I just don't believe that a true love like this exists. I do however, believe that a woman can piss a man off so much that he, A. doesn't call her when she reaches out to him, or B. beats her to the point of unconscious in a hotel room in the middle of the night. Do all adults have " a one that got away"? Does everybody wonder, is that why divorce is so common, or is divorce just a symptom of uncertainty?

That love we felt in our teens, in our twenties, before we had kids or mortgages, health care plans or college tuition to think about, was so pure. When all you could think about was that feeling in your stomach when you kissed. The excitement when you were on the way to their house, butterflies when the phone rang, just hoping it was them. Was that the one that got away. Is that the feeling that got away or is this feeling reality?

All I want in my life is to be gotten, I want to spew nonsense from my mouth and have you shake your head, love me and say that is my Robin, totally crazy, a little neurotic, but I get it. She has a big heart and she loves me. She loves me and I am lucky, even if she is completely off her rocker and cant spell to save her life, she is mine and she wants to rock my world and I give her butterflies when I kiss her!

Cut it Off

So last night, I was all in the emotional zone. But then I had to bail out on a moments notice, couldn't finish my thought.

What I was trying to say was life is not normal. There is no normal. Rich, poor, black, brown, yellow, white or whatever color, none of us are normal because we are different, beautiful, in our own way. I have been lucky enough in my life to meet so many people, men and woman, who have been through experiences similar to mine and people who, of course that have very different lives, but yet can still give me incite.

What is normal, there is none, there is just what you learn from your life and how you incorporate what you learn from other peoples lives into your own. I truly feel blessed that I have friends that have experienced some of the same hardships that I have experienced and I have been able to have deep conversations with people who have have lives that are completely opposite than mine. I am able to compare and contrast. I can look at my life from a nature versus nurture manner and really contemplate it.

I guess what I have come up with is, as I said last night, nothing is normal. What is everyday to me, what normal is to me, is not the same to you. What I understand, or what I can handle, is not the same for you!

Last night, when I had insomnia and was awake at 2 am, I watched the movie "For Collared Girls". I had previously heard what a great movie this was and how I needed to watch it alone so that I could get a good cry out. But I must say, I was highly disappointed. And I actually feel guilt for this. I really thought this movie should have been named something like, "for women only" . As women, we go through many of the same struggles these days. We may not all live in Harlem, but there is still much abuse, sexual and physical that happens to all women, no matter where we live.

My skin is white, I was mostly raised in Napa/Sonoma valley, I went to private schools, but I have experienced pain that can be mirrored by women, not only in this movie that is for "colored women" but by women of any color and from any country. Why can this movie not be for all of us, Tyler Perry, why can you not broaden your genre of women you reach to? So many women can reach out and bond, why must we be limited to our ethnicity? Why cant we be tied together, instead of separated by our heritage?

Rainy Days and Tuesdays

I find the rain so cleansing, the smell of it, the feel of it on my skin. I find nothing depressing or sad about it, I wouldnt want to drive long distance on a windy road in it, mind you, but I love it. It waters the earth, fills the lakes and I love to open the windows and listen to it. Light a fire, give me a book and we are talking about a good time. Tonight I sit here doing just that, windows open, tv/music off, just listening to the rythm of nature, contemplating life, something that is a regular occurance for me lately.

I was watching tv the other night, and honestly, right now I dont even remember the show, maybe it will come to me. But these woman were talking about family and what is normal, and the outcome was nothing is normal.

Questions, questions, oh, and by the way questions.

How do you know what is a good relationship for oneself.
I am talking myself.
How do I know what is a good relationship for me to be in? Should someone always treat me the way that I want to be treated?
Do I even know how I should be treated? I know how I want to be treated, I know what I like, is that the same thing?
I ask advice, but do you know me as well as you say you do? I mean, really, can you possibly know me better than I know myself?
I couldn't have possibly progressed to completion in my life and know myself fully, so how could you? If I haven't stopped growing emotionally, how could you know fully who I am? You are not in my soul, you do not dwell in my soul.
I am still growing, developing, figuring out who I am. Please, give me time and space.