"I'm sorry"...

Have you ever really looked at the words, "I'm sorry"? Did you see the glitter that surrounded each and every part of them? I'm not sure if I've seen it, but am certain that there must be glitter or a sparkle or something that makes them shine until they become absolutely "magical". It turns out that these words can be used in any case of fault no matter the degree and we are just supposed to drop everything and forget whatever it was that we were upset about...

I've heard- "I'm sorry", read, -"I'm sorry", and I'm certain that I have said, -"I'm sorry", more than my fair share. However, it wasn't until today that I really began to ponder what the strength of these magical words really are.

Heartbreak-We've all been there when those words that we didn't want to hear came out of the mouth that we didn't want to say them..."I'm sorry", but I just want to move on and get to "know" myself better. There hardly seems to be anything magical about these words at this particular moment and the only thing that they seem to deliver is a sting that we are certain may never go away.

The last piece of pie- Every now and then "I'm sorry", can be used simply as a substitution to "I'm quicker"; like the time when you were 6 and your 8 year old sister made it to the last piece of pie because you didn't make it to the kitchen soon enough. Once again, "I'm sorry" hardly seems sincere as you watch her polish off the last blueberry as it falls from the filling...

However, sometimes, every now and then we actually see a hint of something when we hear those two words together...

"I'm sorry", but your brother didn't make it...The only thing we truly remember when we replay the words to ourselves is "I'm sorry", and at that very moment; we see them there in our minds shining as tears fill our crying eyes...We sometimes even say them back to ourselves as we hold our heads in our hands, I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry....

"I'm sorry", but there's no heartbeat..I've been there when the words have come from the mouth of a nurse with freezing hands as she told me that the little person with the big kicks in my belly -was no longer going to kick me..."I'm sorry", I can still remember her face and her mouth as she looked like she would rather say anything than those two words...magical, probably not; but I will never forget how they sounded at that very moment or anything else that was in that room including a set of the coldest hands I'd ever felt patting my hand..

Today, I read an "I'm sorry" from the greatest friend that I have ever known in all of my days on this beautiful earth. Once again, "I'm sorry", was an after thought that came right after a betrayal of trust. It shouldn't have provided any sparkles or glitter but should have been passed on once again as a mere chance to overlook wrongdoings. However, I saw them and they won't go away from my mind. They just sit there with their sparkling quotations that surround them. "I'm sorry"....

So, I thought again and it came to me, this magical set of words and what they really mean. You see they are set in the quotations " " of magical glitter to cover all of the things that we don't or can't say at the time that we decide to say them. "I'm sorry"......that I'm not your true love and we have to end this so that you can find the one that is....quotation, quotation, magical, magical..."I'm sorry"...that I ate the last piece of pie and now that I see your disappointed face; I have learned my lesson and will share next time..."I'm sorry" that my cold hands patting yours provide you with little comfort, but there must be a reason that God has decided this is not the time for you to have that bundle of joy...quotation, quotation..And finally, I saw them again sitting there in my email "I'm sorry"....that I sometimes do things that you can't understand but I truly hope you know that "I'm sorry" " " " "

And so it is after all....two magical words embraced by the arms of four shimmering quotations...to hold us up right after they are said; and to say the things that never were...So if this blog finds you encountering an "I'm sorry" tonight please look again before walking away...so you can see the things they didn't get to say...for they are there if you look again...surrounded by quotations...the words of a friend...

Learning how to fly*

I'm writing you tonight because my eyes and mind will not allow me to sleep. It's sometimes a risky thing taking a shower and letting the warm water run off your head to the tired eyes that are later awakened by the smell of fresh soap. It's invigorating and can from time to time lead you to the most peaceful sleep that you've ever had. However, sometimes it can awaken the very thoughts that you wish would leave your troubled mind. I'm afraid the latter was the result that I had tonight.

Life can shock us to the very core. We can be happy one moment and sad the very next second that we blink. It can leave us speechless, breathless and absolutely so in awe that our hearts feel that they will burst. It's a revolving circle full of moments. Moments that we take for granted, moments that we think we won't survive, and moments that we know are the best five minutes that we will ever experience in our lives. I've been in each of these moments and tonight leads me back to incredible once again.

Sometimes we hold the company of those we are used to, despite the way they insist on treating us; it's a life that we get used to that somehow manages to feel comftorable and normal. We go through the same routine day after day doing the things that we do with little expectation of anything changing. Then something happens in the same second that changes our lives completely in a single moment.

We walk by a mirror and see the person that deserves to have more. We take another moment and even walk closer and look her right in the eyes. Finally for the first time in more years than she can count; she sees herself. A woman that's changed for the better of those around her. A soul that is full of love and freely shares with the beautiful world what she has to share. We can hardly make eye contact with her because we are ashamed of the way we have failed her. We stand there in regret of the mistakes that we have allowed her to make.

Still as much as we hope the answers will come, they never do. We do the only thing that we know will help our weary mind reach an answer. We put our less than perfect Nike's on our feet. The same shoes that have led us through heartache, and loss and happiness and now regret. We head out on the trail before us despite the hard wind in her face. She doesn't seem to mind. She floats through the winding paths like she weighs less than than the air that blows her fallen hair and she keeps running only the long way this time.

We see her sigh as her forehead softens and her eyes smile at the wind. We know that she is moving far beyond where she has ever been. We think that she will change her mind and turn around but she keeps running faster than her feet have ever allowed her to go before. We can't keep up anymore...We see her chasing what she knows should have been hers already and she runs...We wait for her to look back but she keeps running toward the opportunity that is before her...We wonder if she will leave us behind and we can no longer see the back of her blonde hair...We know that she is finally free...she has left what is comftorable for you and me...

We will never be sure where her pattering feet will stop..We are scared and our hearts are in a tightly sewn knot..She has run so far that the now has become the past..We know she's found what she thinks will last..A girl that refused to live in the day to day..who wanted more and found a way...And there we see her stretching towards the sky...without a care of how or why...On this magical day; she learned how to fly...

A new cup...

It sometimes is so overwhelming to hear someone say how they enjoy the thoughts that I leave to be read here. It is a joy that is truly hard to express in the correct words. I suppose it's hard to explain for words sometimes don't manage to express the way our hearts and souls react to such an awesome happening. So, I must once again try by saying that I am absolutely fulfilled every time one of you is inspired or is touched and chooses to find these words here.

I see your little boxes every time I log on to purge the thoughts that continuously crowd my overworked mind. The boxes of the now 13 of you that have chosen to have me come right to your mailbox. I can't tell you how completely thrilled that makes me. I shall try by saying, it's almost like we are sitting on the front porch with the yummiest, fanciest coffee that they absolutely make...So here we are again, do you care for cream?

I peeped at the boxes and recognized them all for we'd met here for coffee many times before. We'd sat and talked about good times and bad, happy and sad. I even had few when I wanted to lean on all of you. Sometimes I held on tight, sometimes had to let go; but no matter the happenings I always let you know. So I had to look again at box 13 and wonder if it was someone that I'd once seen. I scrolled down the page and saw it again, the name of a follower who was my very good friend. So I smiled a big smile and made a fresh brew and pulled out another cup; just for you..

So pull up a chair and have a seat, for I have some thoughts that I want you to meet. And if you could help me share just a few, of the many things that you've helped me through..Like knowing for sure that a true friend is there, even when we can't see them anywhere. And that life goes on even if we are alone and if we believe; we can make it on our on...With the thoughts of a friend that said that we could- if only we did the things that we should..And if we believe in things unseen; We just might see an old friend in box 13...

Finding Amazing...

Amazing...have you ever really thought of the occasions that we use this "amazing" word. Funny that I should use the very word I'm considering to describe it, I know. However, it just seemed the only thing appropriate enough. I suppose We should all consider ourselves fortunate to have an opportunity that calls for such an expression. It is far beyond the common occurances that call for a good, great or even excellent. It is that moment or person or place that is just beyond the normal expectation of what we imagine could possibly be...

I believe that many times I have believed that I have been in a situation that has called for an "amazing", or even held the company of someone that seemed worthy enough to constitute an "amazing". Only the truth is after further consideration;I usually discover that they or the magnificent situation turn out to be less than "amazing". It is only later in life that I truly discovered the true meaning to such a powerful word.

Many things go through my mind when I think of this journey that I have traveled to end up where I am now in this wonderful place called life. I recall situations that were far less than amazing. I remember many that were absolutely painful and left me raw for days or months at a time. I even have some that will unfortunately disrupt a good nites sleep for many years to come. And this is where I time and time again manage to find my "amazing".

I know a place that has memories of pain and hurt and fear. It's a place in my mind that these memories live from time to time. I've been in situations that have made them reappear after years of masking them with a clip that finally refused to keep holding. I have mended the clip and taped it shut time and time again to no avail with just the strength of my soul and my mind; only later to find that it still managed to explode. I finally decided that I had to find a power much stronger than the mind and soul of the delicate blonde that housed them both. And so I did...

It seemed the only place left that I hadn't tried. I entered the doors armed with only the music of Sinatra; that would have been refused at the door, had they done a shakedown; and the worn gloves that had fought this battle before many times. I felt my crowded mind try to fight me as I turned on the first song that Sinatra would chant about the best being yet to come...and there it was before me...I pulled myself up for the first rep and I felt the clip tighten a bit as my mind started to clear...I went in for another and as my head went over the bar; I knew the end was near...and there I saw him smiling in this place a breath of fresh air that didn't have a face...With a mind and a soul as calm as the sea...I had to wonder how it finally happened for me...and there she was with sweat falling on her brow...the girl that had finally made it to the now...and I knew in that moment without any doubt that this was what the word "amazing" had been all about...And this was the moment she knew for sure with a mind so healed and a soul so pure; that the only word, no other would do was simply "Amazing" and she knew it was true...

A peaceful Soldier's sleep...

I sit here writing you tonight as my lean, silky, too snobby to be held cat lays in the inbox watching me. He barely fits in there and his head is resting on the hard metal wire of the box which to the normal human would be quite uncomftorable; but to him seems to be the perfect spot. I'm almost envious at the peace he has as he sleeps.

I believe the only time I might have come close to that kind of peace when I slept was when Uncle Sam was training me to be a soldier. I can remember being so out of it that when I heard the loud sound of a voice yelling for me to wake up at 4 am; I would really think that I was somewhere else. When I think of it now, it's amazing that of all the times in my life, this would be the one that I had the greatest memory of sleep.

I have many memories of being a soldier and serving for my country. Memories that make me laugh, some that make me smile, and some that were just plain miserable. Since it's Veterans day, it seemed appropriate that I share a few of these things about myself that many of you, my true followers, don't know. I decided after becoming a lost and confused "college student" that just hated to go to school, that maybe it just wasn't supposed to be in the cards for me. So it happened, just like that. I withdrew from everything that I was taking in school, stopped at the recruiters office and fed myself to the wolves. A few months later, I put on my first pair of boots, started sporting a set of fatigues and walked around with U.S. Army on my chest for 8 great years.

It's quite funny now that I end that last sentence with "great" years, but I believe if you add up the good and the bad and the miserable and the sad....the end result was great. I learned a lot about myself being a soldier for Uncle Sam. I came to realize that I was capable of living without anything but a poncho and a spot of the ground to sleep on with a few already made meals that featured the Army's greatest cuisine in a ready to go package. I also realized that you "can" go a week without a shower as long as the company that you held was under the same circumstances; because nobody really smelled bad when everyone did.

There are things that we as soldiers also learn that aren't so fixable with a bit of soap and water. We learn that when you go away to a foreign land to fight and keep peace that everybody you left with doesn't always get to come home. That's one of those tough lessons...the ones that stay with you, like when you got your most peaceful sleep. It's one of those things that stays with you so long that it remains to be a reason that you lose sleep.

The amazing thing about being a soldier though, is that although seeing a fellow comrad lose a life is something that will forever interrupt our peaceful "cat in a too little endbox" sleep. It never is able to take away the way our hearts explode when we see those red stripes rise to the top of a high flag pole as the star spangled banner plays. It's never taken away our stories that we can share with our children about a time when we were part of something much bigger than ourselves...But it will forever make us want to stop and shake the hand of the soldier that for no reason but for the love of his country will get on a plane..and fly to a place..where shots sound at night..and nothing is right. And the best part of the day is when your name is said...and there's a letter thrown on your bed..from the ones that you love that worry so much...because you are too far to feel their touch..or that you might not return some day...because you've become a someone's reason that sleep won't stay...

So as you are tucked in your beds tonight, remembers there's a soldier where things aren't so right. Trying to sleep with shots all around. Wishing he was a cat not making a sound...but laying in an end box that's much too small with nothing on his mind...no nothing at all...

You just might catch a butterfly...

I sit here tonight with my fingers typing away once again the things that fill my crowded mind. I am sometimes lost in the girl that I have become and can hardly believe the way the world sees such a clumsy, goofy being. I have done two photo shoots in the past week that should have exhausted me, but felt more like a happening that couldn't have really been. Pretty close to a dream that I thought I'd never come close to meeting. I've smiled at every sweet comment that each dear person has left me in the little facebook album that I made to display my impossible.

Sometimes, life is so hectic and unforgiving that the most of us give up on our "impossible" long before the wiser years of 37 ever approach us. We just walk away and although we say "forget" it's never forget, but usually just put away, the dreams that we once thought we could conquer. I find this is once again where I differ from the average being. I'm not sure why my dreams find me time after time, landing right in the palm of my hand. I believe it must be the way I chase them. Pretty similiar to a child chasing a butterfly, when you think you have him, he slips right out of your fingers; but then one day you are so quick that when you peep inside your clenched fist you can see him there caught after a million tries.

Dreams are that way, if you just keep chasing; you just never know how many butterflies you can catch. I once again, must credit fitness as the reason that a photographer wants to photograph me instead of the tiny model beside me that was born with a waist that two of my hands can cover after she's finished half a pizza. I have made myself unique and different from her long, slender, too tall to wear heels beauty of perfection.

I have found a way to build the physique that she is too spoiled and perfect to ever attempt. While she sits and meditates to her "spa" like music and relaxes with the cucumbers that should be filling her gut instead of sitting on her eyes; I am eating chicken at a red light hoping I have a piece of floss to get rid of the evidence before training my next client. I am eating broccoli that is cold and attributes nothing to taste for my ready to eat belly.

I run in the gym and head to the bathroom and rinse my mouth before rushing to the clanging gym floor to create another being like myself. She simply removes her cucumbers, tosses them away and heads to get a pedicure for her pampered feet. I finish up with my client and my feet dance to another 45 minutes of cardio that I can hardly survive on the same eliptical that I dance with every day. My feet ache, but I keep moving, knowing that the benefits are far greater than the pain.

Later, I shower and take a break before heading back to the gym that holds the fate of my impossibles. She is at home eating something that's not even meat but just a big white block of something that has protein and is organic with fancy pineapples on the side and a mixed drink of mush that helps her complexion stay at its best.

I, am here while she sips her mush..with a pair of the most torn gloves that you have ever seen with wrists wrapped tight to support the weight that my shoulders should not be able to press. I grab a pair of 45 pound dumbbells and do the swing and throw dance that I have mastered to get them from my thighs to the top of my shoulders with the help of no one. Smoothly I push them up for three sets perfectly and without a flaw as the shoulders that I built smile back at me with an undefeated smile. I grab another bar and put my shoulders through another hurdle that they manage to defend as well. I see her there this beauty that I've created that gets to model not because of the blue eyes that sit below a forehead with a few marks that show her years, but because of the shoulders that stand so tall that they now sweep her blonde hair.

The gym has made me the person that I never thought I could become. The art of weight lifting has made me different, unique and has allowed me to have the opportunities that are finally before me. It soothes my heart and soul, and creates the amazing encasing that now covers them both. I am unique because I choose to be, because I do what others will not. This "impossible" is available for all of us to reach but few of us ever will because we refuse to attempt the impossible. So put away those dreams that you will never forget or chase them like a child amazed by a beautiful butterfly. And who knows....you just might catch one one day