Becoming….

On January 23, 2019 By rosereadsIn Life & other interesting questions, WritingLeave a comment

Recently, I read “Becoming…” by Michelle Obama and it has helped me to not only see the former First Lady in a new light, but look at my own story with less judgement and more honesty.

How did I become a woman who not only embraces her curves but also her gray and silver hair? How did my fourth decade on this earth become the one where I feel more at home with myself, my past and my pain? How did I become a person who takes selfies at the gym?

One blog isn’t going to answer that question. Ten blogs won’t, but that isn’t the point. Becoming or being my true self isn’t about reaching a mystic destination. It is about excepting where I am, where I’ve been and working on being the best version of myself. My New Year’s blogs were about goals. Goals are about getting closer to the version of myself that I wanted so many years ago.

There is a TED talk about being the person that you needed as a kid. I am not sure the person I was then would have had the strength to listen to who I am now and who I am becoming. So much of my life has been defined by lost. Something I learned to do from those around me. The lost of loved ones, a home, innocents and so on. It is a long list. I don’t know if she would have been able to conceive of actually living life closer to her Aunt Judith’s life than the one her mother and grandmother lived.

I love the life I have right now. I love going to the gym after work with my little brother. I love living in a house where we eat dinner together several times a week and walk the dogs around the high school track. I love waking up and being able to see the mountains. I love how the moonlight touches the corner of bed at night and how even though depression and anxiety are still deeply entrenched in my psyche, I am better today than I was last year.

Last night, I challenged myself to write a hundred words on the current project after having spent the last three days sick. I did it and a bit more. Today, I went to the gym without my little brother and pushed myself to complete our normal routine. Tomorrow, I am not sure what I am going to do, but I will do something.

I have become… no, I am becoming the person I needed to be when I was younger. The one that pushes through the mental muck and finishes what she started. I do it little by little, with a plan, but also with a mirror. One that reflects the whole me not the me that I want to be or the me that I fear I am, but one hundred percent me. The good, the bad and the depressed. All of me including the scars is beautiful. And it is that me that isn’t going to stop working towards her dreams and goals.

I may get sidetracked by cold or by a hectic day at work. I may given into my personal demons from time to time. Still, I am not going to stop working or becoming.

Thank you for reading. Please feel free to share your thoughts below.

Love,

New Year, New Plan.

On January 3, 2019 By rosereadsIn Life & other interesting questions, WritingLeave a comment

Actions are votes for the type of person that you want to be. I heard this on a newscast on New Year’s Day. The brief interview was about how to make your resolutions a reality.

Small actions leading to better habits was the gist of the conversation.

If you want to lose weight don’t think about the weight but what a person who loses weight does and then do that. Think about what a person who has achieved that goal has done and basically what would they do.

What do you want to do? What does a person who does that thing do? And then do it?

Simple… yes…

Hard at the same time.

What if you don’t know what the person you want to be does? You have an idea, but so much of it is still a mystery. You see the outer shell of that world not knowing of what is underneath. Social media is great for giving us peeks into other people’s lives. Those peeks however are cultivated ones designed to let us see more often than not the best parts of their lives.

The lense of social media can be deceiving. Everyone else seems like they seem like they have so much confidence. You might be afraid to even try. Mistakes are going to happen and very few actually completely stop you unless you allow them to do.

You might ask questions or advice from experts and be disappoint when the advice is vague or seems just out of reach.

What if you are already doing it, just not at the level you want to? What if it still all seems overwhelming?

My advice pick somewhere and start. The TV expert d’jour stressed making small changes first before trying bigger things. And he isn’t wrong. You still need a place to begin.

When I was a young, I would often clean by piling everything on the bed and putting things away from there. The mound of stuff was always overwhelming. The idea in my young mind was that I couldn’t go to bed until such time as everything was off the bed. Often because I was not a neat child it would be over my head. I would scan the mound for the easiest thing to put away. Dishes to the kitchen, laundry into the hamper, toys and books arranged as I went. It got better. The mess would return, but I had a strategy to get take care of it. My teenage-self just learned to either make a nest out of the junk or push the mess on to the floor on the opposite side of the bed from the door so my folks won’t see.

I want to be a better writer. I want to write more constantly, publish multiple times a year and have writing expenses match with writing income. Currently, those two figures do not agree. And, yes, there are expenses that however is another post.

Writers have to hustle. They have to generate multiple streams of income. One thing I learned early on from selling my book on Amazon, was that you don’t get paid right away. I knew this from other author friends, but the reality selling a few dozen books and not seeing the money for three months was eye-opening. A couple of times, I was surprised when there would be extra money in my account.

So small habits will I be incorporating into my life to learn that hustle?

Learn the business side of writing – the small thing I can do with this is keep track of how many books I’ve sold and where I’ve sold them. In the beginning, I was great at this until it came to the point where I was selling physical copies on my own. I lost track there.
Write on a schedule. Set a schedule and stick to it. This takes a lot more planning than you would think. Wednesday, it meant writing right after coffee since I made plans to spend the day with my sweetheart. Today, it meant craving space out either before or right after work. Maybe both depending on the goals.
Examining what my goals are and defining success. How will I know if I am a success if I don’t define it for myself.

Where are you going to start on your goals? What little habits are you going to incorporate to make things happen in your world? Please share your thoughts below in the comments.

Gone too long….

On July 7, 2018 By rosereadsIn Life & other interesting questions, PolticsLeave a comment

A lot has happened since last July when I wrote about walking Luke and being confronted by a woman in her car. A woman angry because I dared not to pick up the Luke’s stool in the bushes where he had so cleverly deposited it. I still remember how entitled and angry the woman was that I had run out of bags to clean it up. Now, I think how luck it was that I was the one walking him not my best friend.

Would the police have been called because he isn’t white? Sounds insane right, but that is the reality of the world we are living in at the moment. Police are called in for matters that could be solved with civility or just ignored. So many people are calling the police when no laws have been broken and no one is endangered.

We suspect our neighbors because they have become other. There is a real danger in labeling people in our communities as other. It allows some of us to come entrenched in the idea that change is not a constant, but a danger.

The last year of my own life has cemented my belief that change is the only constant and that we must embrace change for ourselves and our communities. If we don’t embrace it, we allow others to make those decisions for us. We allow them to steer our communities away from the ideals which we belief shape us towards the ones that have led to the darkest moments in our history.

It has been too long since I sat down, was honest and just wrote. The last year has been filled with so much fear and change that I don’t know how to express myself. Fear of being judged or ostracized for my opinions has led me to be silent. Silence is the real killer.

The Writer & Heartbreak

On July 7, 2017July 8, 2017 By rosereadsIn Life & other interesting questions, Writing1 Comment

My heart broke recently. If my life was a book, the reader would have seen it coming before me. They might have been screaming at me to see what was a happening. Cursing at me for seeing it myself. Most of my friends did. They saw the doom on the horizon and braced themselves. But, I am stubborn and kept sailing toward it; right off the edge.

Once I love someone I don’t know how to stop loving them.

So I cry. I write. I cry. I plot and I write. I’ve done a lot of writing in the past week. Last night is the first night since it happened that I got any sleep.

In years past, I would have pour everything into expressing that heartbreak as if that is all I am a broken, tangled heart. There would have been lots and lots of bad poetry. Some drunken texts and heartfelt emails. Tears in the grocery store and at red lights. Days and weeks where I would gave shut down. My work would have been suffering.

Whether it is an increase in maturity, a lack of fucks to give or the way it ended, I am not a hot mess. I am still a mess. You don’t love someone for over a decade to be over it in a week. We first got together when I was twenty-eight. A year out from a devesting heartbreak and I fell completely and utterly in his thrall.

original3 — A young Lu when I first fell in love with him. It was my birthday and he made sure that even though he was out of town there were presents waiting for me. I was 29 years old.

Maybe he is fine, right now. I don’t know. He had been pulling back over the last couple of months. He would say he has just been busy and this is true. As a writer and director, he has a ton of work obligations on top of other things.

From his perspective, I am the one to blame. I see it as both of us, but ya mostly him. I didn’t speak up when things bothered me. He keep putting off phone calls and visits. I looked for and saw reasons to explain his behavior. A recent health crisis only added to the list of reasons. But the postponing of things I needed to stay health in the relationship was a constant. Samantha on Sex in the City might just have turned to me and said “Honey, he just isn’t that into you.”

And she would have been right.

It is also true that I set the pattern where that behavior was acceptable. I was always waiting for him. I wanted to do it. I believe that by doing so I was being supportive. I own my own behavior. I own it so I can forward.

Asking some of my friends, why I got so much venom tossed my way at the end? Why did his last message not only kill our relationship but scorch the earth. It didn’t make sense. I wasn’t asking for much. I wasn’t trying to put anything on him. I just wanted to see him. Yes, I am just as naive and innocent as they statement sounds. That really was the intent of my last communication. I just wanted to see him.

I have waited for the time to be right and finally I got tired of always waiting. I have been supportive over the years to his career. If a job meant that our time together had to be rearranged, I was ok with it. I helped in any way I could. He did support me just not to the same extent. Truthfully, that bothered me.

The physical distance didn’t do communication any favors.

I accepted a smaller place in his world just to stay in it. A place I now realize means that many of the people who call him friend, don’t know about us. So why when I asked so little did I get so much venom.

The answer is simple. It makes this whole thing easier for him. If I am the villain or at least trying to make him one then it is easier to move on. He doesn’t need that negativity. He really doesn’t. If I am crazy and obsessed then he doesn’t owe me anything. It is in his best interest to get the hell away from me. People will congratulate him on getting away from me. If I was cheating on him, something he insinuated more than once over the last couple of months then even more reason to do the hell away.

I am not any of those things. I didn’t cheat on him. If I was approached by someone, I told them I told them I had a boyfriend. I didn’t make a big deal of it. Still I would get text implying that I was?

I did distanced myself as soon as realized what was happening. When I realize that this was the end. I didn’t wait. Weeks ago, I had decided that if we broke again I would do what I needed to make sure this break was for good. I only begged a little and tried my best not to demand answers. Mostly I was in shock.

Would I like those answers? Yes and no.

Yes, because my heart wants to understand. No, because the mind knows that even with the answers the likelihood that I am going to be comforted by them is slim.

Heartbreak gives me insight into my own character as well as how to write characters. Fear has ruled me for most of my life. I could have moved to New York, I was willing to move, I just needed a word from him. I was afraid. Afraid that he didn’t really love me. Afraid I won’t be able to find a job. Afraid I couldn’t deal with being up close to his other partner. Fear of rejection was a big part of the decisions I made. Some of which he didn’t ask me to make. I did it because I thought it would help. I was wrong. Hear that I was wrong.

While he has been in New York for the last couple of years, I dreamed of seeing New York with him. I wanted to go to shows and see the Met. It is one of my favorite museums on the planet. I daydreamed about the changes that live in one of the greatest cities in the world. I didn’t voice those desires to him. I didn’t say that I wanted more than to visit. When he mentioned me being there as an aside. I jumped on it. I didn’t discuss it. I was too afraid. I kept waiting for him to say more.

My own motivations are messy. How could I think that my ex or my characters motivations would be simple?

Sometimes they need to be messy. If they are too straight forward then they are boring. They need have layers just a like an onion and they don’t alway smell pretty. (Thanks Shrek) They have to have that human quality of relatablity.

Recently, I finished reading the Prisoner in his Palace by Will Bardenwerper. It is the story of “Saddam Hussein, his American guards and what history leaves unsaid.” History leaves a lot unsaid.

Saddam Hussein was sadist, a tyrant and a whole lot of evil things. He had two of his son in-laws gunned down after convincing them to return to Iraq. He was also an affable old man who expressed concern for the soldiers guarding him. He even gave one of them his watch before being excuted. He is a villain, but he was also a husband, grandfather and friend. Although, the latter provide to be quite dangerous to many Iraqis.

The book showed the complexity of Saddam’s character and how even knowing the evil that he did, it was hard not to like the guy. Reading it was eye-openoing in a lot of ways. Saddam was a villian, but his motivations were complex. He did awlful things because he thought they were the good things. He wanted the best for his people. His methods were evil. His intents according to him were only good.

*****

Thank you, my love, my characters have just gotten a whole lot more interesting. The character that I patterned after you will still continue to make appearances in my work. I know you were pissed when Anthony was created. You thought people would judge you because of him. You didn’t see that Anthony was one of the heroes. I promise not to take my heartache out on him.

And thank you for all the things that you did to help me on my journey as a writer. This blog is here because you encouraged me. You gave me advice when I needed it. You are an amazing man, writer and friend. I miss you, but I get it.

Be well.

If you’d like more information on Lucinda’s work subscribe to this blog, follow her on Twitter or like her page on Facebook. Her novella, Blood Child is available on Amazon. You can also find her on Instagram where she posts pictures of foster critters and other adorably evil things.

The Not Quite So Lost Writer

On July 3, 2017July 3, 2017 By rosereadsIn Life & other interesting questions2 Comments

Issues, I have them.

But, they aren’t as bad as I thought. I made a mountain out of a foot hill.

I felt so lost because I didn’t know where I wanted to be. My heart, my love was in New York and I wanted to be with him. I also wanted to be in the mountains. My last message to him didn’t go well. Now, I still don’t know where I want to be as I look around but I know where I am going and things aren’t so bad. Don’t get me wrong my heart is broken. Tears are pretty constant right now. I wake up wanting to have another conversation and re-write my last messages to him. I wanted him to see my intents were good and change the narrative he has about me.

These are things I have no control over. The control I do have is where my focus is.

My narrative. What I tell myself about myself. The way I see things. I don’t see him as a villian or myself a victim. I won’t paint him that way or myself for that matter.

My life, my narrative. Not a victim or a villian.

I live with depression and anixety. They are constant companions. Sometimises they invite friends. A panic attack came to visit last night and ended ump staying for hours. It pressed on chest while I was trying to sleep. Flashed images on my mind that forced my eyes open. So I wrote for hours and got most of the way through today’s word count goal.

The moment where I felt so lost I couldn’t take it anymore happened twice. Once for the things I could talk about and once for the things I couldn’t talk about which ironically I can talk about now. Both moments were poured into writing.

Yes, I don’t love the fuck out of my job, anymore. But, I know this and I know the reasons why. I needed to admit how lost I was to be able to come up with a plan. It is a ever evolving thing.

Quitting just because I am not in love with it or because I am stressed out isn’t an option. It goes against everything I was taught growing up. And I have prided myself for my increased ability to take care of my own messes.

A year from now, I plan on quitting my job. Why a year? Why not now? Well, I need to put some things in order before I quit and go on the the next chapter. I have some serious life editing to do. Not everything I want to do is going to get done.

Change is painful and taking a year to make this change isn’t going to make it any less painful. What it will do with a little luck and a whole bunch of work is give me a few more things to deal with that pain.

F Cancer

On June 29, 2017June 29, 2017 By rosereadsIn Life & other interesting questionsLeave a comment

I had a glass of wine before noon, today.

When it was done, I had another one.

Twenty odd years ago, a woman saved my life. She got me help when I was lost and hurting. Today, she lost her husband.

First glass raised for the love they shared.

The life they built together together.

The critters and friends they mad e

Second glass raised for the light they shared.

The light that remains. The light that shines in all of of us because the two of you loved each other.

Light that will never die out.

Making a New Map

On June 24, 2017June 24, 2017 By rosereadsIn A writer's life, Life & other interesting questions, Writing1 Comment

How does one get unstuck in life?

How does one deal with being so lost that they have finally gotten tired of throwing their hands up in the air? Of starting all over once more. Of staring at the end and knowing how much work it is going to take to make it a beginning. If one is a writer, you write. You talk about it with people and then you write some more.

My to-do list will always exceed my can do list.

This is me doing just that.

This is me working it out.

Today, I crossed off 11 of the 14th things on my to-do list off.

I did good, today.

All and all, it was pretty spectacular for someone who has been sleeping through much the last month of her life one of two sofas. My living room is a mixture of items I have been given over the last five years. There are only a couple of items in the room that I purchased. A lamp shade I purchased with an ex-boyfriend from Ikea that looked vaguely like one of the chocolate oranges you see around the winter holidays. It is absolutely hideous. And fits perfectly. It works in the space. It adds something to it The rugs and one of the bookcases as well as the TV make up the rest of the items that I purchased. Well, beyond the books which even some of those were passed on by the dearly departed.

There are a lot of things in my home that came from death. The death of a friend or love one has filled my living room with furniture. My favorite lawyer bookcases and the desk where my TV sets all came from a friend’s parents. They gave me these things after her death because I needed to furnish my new home and they were moving. It was too much for them to stay where she had died. So much of the last two years of her life were spent with them watching her.

I wear a set of rings they gave me everyday. These belonged to my friend. It is my way of remembering her. Of honoring her. I feel naked without them. If I forget these things then I will dash back into the house.

Death and the past are constant companions. Maybe that is why I have such a hard time mapping out my future direction. So much of the home I cherish has come from the past. When you walk in my house, it is clearly that I have an affliction for darker things. I stopped repacking the entirety of the Halloween decorations years ago.. My living room, the first room, that you see has seven skulls in it. One witch, two bats and a couple of dragons. The only room without a skull or something Halloween in it is my bathroom.

Then there are the books. Lots and lots of them. A great deal of them are histories from around the world. Scattered among these are the skulls and various nick-nacks.

My house sometimes scares my landlord. I have been a good tenant for the last five years which combined with being a writer as well as teacher has ensured the good will of the landlord. Thus he has learned to humor me. I may be odd, but I pay my rent on time and don’t cause trouble.

Drapped in death and the slightly macabre my home gives most visitors a sense of peace. What is more peaceful than death? The long sleep. The goal for me in decorating has been to create a place that is inviting. So far, it seems to be just that. I have worried in the past that my collections and love of skulls would turn people off, but as far as I know I haven’t scared anyone away. And if I have then I have no problem with it since they didn’t tell me they were uncomfortable. I can’t fix what I don’t know is a problem.

The map I am trying to layout currently is going to take me away from this place sooner or later. This is the second place that has been totally mine in adulthood. I have lived here longer than anywhere else since I graduated college. Before that I lived with my birth father after my mother and I lost our home. I would spend the next three years living like a guest in his house. My picture rarely made the wall of family photos and when it did, it was only for a short time. If you walked into my father’s home, you would never know that I was his child. There is no evidence of me there at all.

The house I live in now is home. I love the idea of the life that I have built for myself. I am proud of how far I have some in the last couple of years. And then there is the shame I feel for not having gotten farther. Why don’t I own a home? Why do I live so close to the edge? Truth be total, my family won’t allow me to fall too far. They have always been there to save me from rock bottom.

Another truth be told, I have been coasting for the last couple of years. I am smart. This isn’t a bragging. It took me a long time to realize that I am in fact intelligent. My mother and sister are genius so being an intelligent woman runs in my family. I am not a Mensan like them. I haven’t bothered with the test or like my mother has suggested on more than one occasion when I as in therapy had a psychologist sign off on the paperwork. She believes in me. She has always seen the intelligence that has been bouncing around in my head. Years of being talked down to by my birth father, grandparents and the rest of my siblings taught me that if I wasn’t as smart as my sister and mother I wasn’t smart at all. So I never pushed myself academically. It was either sink or swim. I am good at floating.

My mindset was that I only had so much intelligence. There was no way I could be as smart as other people. Talent was something I lacked and could not develop. Psychologist Carol Dweck calls this a fixed mindset. I didn’t really see that I was coasting a great deal of the time just below success. I honestly thought that if I was meant to be successful it would just happen. I never quite got there but I am never far off from it,

Don’t get me wrong, I do work hard. Sometimes I work too much. But that is mostly to make up from having coasted. Or when things really need to get done. Or when I get the energy. Lack of energy has been the theme of the last couple of years. Truth be told, I believe that I burnt out before I ever became a teacher. Ironically, teaching is where I finally began to believe in my own intelligence.

I have been working since I was 12 years old. Given the nature of the employment, I worked long days and made little money (75 to 100 a week), which at twelve was big money since I didn’t have any money. I saved pretty much every penny I yearned for either school clothes or my college fund. I made it through college and went where life and opportunity lead me. I didn’t explore much. Kept waiting for a sign or something. The course catalog was the sign I missed.

Kept waiting dreaming of that door to open. Kept dreaming of it. Didn’t know how to manifest it. People kept telling me I could do this or that. I didn’t believe them. Seriously, I thought because of my learning disablity (dysgraphia) that I would never be a writer. Mmm, who was an Amazon Best Selling Author? And who is going to continue to write no matter what? Me.

I follow some very talented people online. Some of whom I am friends with and the thing about their talent. The secret to that talent is that they work at it. They keep working on it, made mistakes and kept working on it. They do the work. (Thank you, Lisa from Halfmoon Creative Works for reminding of this. )

I wrote Blood Child in a heart beat. I did the best I could. I got help from professionals and friends to make and after months of hard work, there were mistakes. There are always mistakes. No matter how hard you work there will always be typos and things you can do better. You have to learn to do them better fix them the next time around.

The next book is coming slowly, but it is coming. It is going to take more energy and way more work. It is time for me to take the skill I have and begin to refine it. I just need to shake things up and make a new map for myself. One where I am growing. Get out of the comfort zone and back to my happy. My happy often comes from learning new things, traveling and having conversations. Things that my depression and anxiety nearly robbed me of. Things I can’t always do from where my life is right now. From where I have directed my life.

Happy isn’t easy. Happy doesn’t always mean that you feel well happy. There isn’t a glow to it always. My happy maybe more of a flow. When I am flowing, I am growing I moving with my life and better able to see opportunity when it presents itself. I think though for me it is a little bit like the lamp in my living, not always pretty by itself but given a chance a thing of beauty. The trick of manifesting that thing of beauty is seeing the potential, not listening to doubt and doing what is necessary to make it shine. The lamp shade, didn’t natural fit the lamp. The lamp itself had to be taken apart and reassembled. It is still a little wobbly when bumped.

My new map is going to be made day by day. Word by word.

Lucinda Rose

Category: Life & other interesting questions