A gentle reminder to myself

There are times when I need to re-focus my thoughts on that which is empowering.  Someone shared this on a forum I visit.  Thank you Debbie for posting, The Serenity Prayer, at just the right time; which for me lately...is just about anytime.

"God grant me the serenity
to accept the things I cannot change;
courage to change the things I can;
and wisdom to know the difference..."

Walk a mile in my shoes and then we will talk

The pain of betrayal and deceit are not just surface wounds.  Where all it takes is  a bandaid and a couple of days and it will heal. Where there also may be a slight scar, which fades away over time. This kind of pain reaches to your very core, with a volcano of emotions.  There are times that it just bubbles and seeps just below the surface. Constantly, consistently, ever aware that it is there. Then there are other days, where it just fully erupts and intense pain spews out of your core, out of every pore, in every direction and you can not control it. For it feels like as if it is suffocating, any semblance of rationality. These are days when life has no rhyme or reason and you just pray for the light.

So do not judge those whose shoes you have not walked in. For unless those other shoes fit like a glove, keep your opinions to yourself. You can not judge someone elses pain, unless you have lived through their eyes; of the betrayal and pain yourself. You can not tell some one how to act or react, as you are not living their life each and every day. You are in no position to judge anyone else involved in this mess, for this is not your life that was disrupted... it was mine. I will only do the best I can to survive each day, by gently putting one foot in front of the other...emotionally unhealthy stuff and all.

If it walks like a duck, looks like a duck and quacks like a duck...it must be one fugly duck

When your mate leaves you for another woman, you assume he is upgrading...to a more beautiful woman.  Now I am not just saying this as a scorned woman, but anyone who can see....has to be thinking the same thing, I thought.  What the hell was he thinking. No...it is not the women to the left...it is the piece of garbage on the right.  Yes I am feeling a bit not so nice today...that's why I have enlarged her facebook picture...extra large...so you can get a good look, of what is not, the definition of outward beauty and by her vindictive emails to me...she is just as ugly on the inside.

                                                   Patricia Cooper

This mid life crisis of mine has re-wired my brain...with much menopausal insanity mixed in

Now from my first tattoos, I knew the next ones would be some what painful, but I thought no more than the tolerable pain of the first two.  Nope not even close.  I had not a wee bit of inkling, of what I was in for.  Nor that the intensity of the stabbing pain, would be like someone was trying to saw my lower back in half.  Did not have a clue, until that tattoo needle met my lower back and I was like a deer caught in the headlights of pain. The closer to the sides of the back, the more intense the pain...not to diminish that every where else was just as bad.  If this had been my first tattoo, I never would have gone back for a second one.

Now as I am laying on the table facing another tattoo artist, tattooing three other woman, one after another,  none of whom, are not even flinching.  The first one is texting on her cell phone, while getting her upper back tattooed. The one after, had one tattooed near her collar bone and told me it felt numbed.  Am I the only one who's head is spinning, like Linda Blair's in the movie, The Exorcist.

Now I don't know if it is just my tattoo artist, or if they all have selective hearing when you are cursing...ouch stop.  Its as though they have ear plugs in.  I was cursing, like I was possessed by a sailors mouth, even cursed the ex, who I have had no anger at, up until that moment. I was so ready to leave with just the outline and no shading done.  What possessed me to continue, all the while with feeling like, the knife stabbing pain in my back...I don't know.  Between my potty mouth, the only thing that alternated out of my mouth, was me asking...how close to being  done are we,  in that sailor's potty mouth of mine.  Almost done with the outline is what I heard, when I thought it had taken so long, we should have been done with the whole thing.  Thank goodness I decided to only to cover 3/4 of my lower back and not the whole thing.  Then we get to the shading.  Do you know that a girl in pain does not want to hear, we have 20 more cherry blossoms left, to shade.  Nope not the thing she wants to hear.  The original picture of the tattoo I wanted could not be done, as for some reason it could not be traced.  So we  found another tattoo of cherry blossoms that I liked.  This one had 2 birds in it. So glad I was not enamoured with the birds...less time tattooing meant less intolerable pain.  Thank you Caitlin and Brian for allowing me to squeeze your hands, with the power I did not know I had...through the whole time.

So at this point I am thinking there is no way I am going to get the Japanese symbols on the back of my calf today...as this pain paralyzed my brain.  After it was done and I saw how beautiful it was...(I lost what little mind I had left, once again) ya know I had to question one of the guys who had a calf tattoo and he said it was not as painful as the lower back...so back I went on the table...every irrational part of me.

No pictures yet, but hopefully very soon.

Organic, raw and amazing

Me and kombucha, who would  have ever thought, that I would let alone, even try it...but that it would become, one of my absolutely favorite things to drink.  The first one that I tasted was the strawberry serenity, now that was good,  but the cosmic cranberry...now that is divine.

So as tattoo day approaches on Monday...

I have had much time to think.  So in addition to the cherry blossoms on my lower back...I will be getting the Japanese symbols for faith and serenity on the inside of my lower calf.  Most likely the right calf.  I will be getting the Kanji symbol for both faith and serenity.  For serenity I will most likely get either font 2 or font 6...depending on which one blends more proportionally to the faith symbol.

Japanese symbol for faith 
Japanese symbol for serenity

I know that inner beauty is what defines you...

but I am also now embracing the new found girly girl in me and they both fit like a new glove.