The Optional Tiara is Still Being Tested…

Fear sneaks into my life and even I forget that the only thing any of us are guaranteed is “now". In an effort to push a perfectly wonderful situation into the future; I managed to induce a full-scale meltdown that opened the door for all manner of ugly emotions to slip in! Control, anxiety and panic took advantage of the fear and marched back into my life in a matter of moments and I watched myself  being reduced to an unreasonable, blubbering and raging ball of doubt.

I sabotaged the peace and happiness of the moment by attempting to control and manipulate how it should look and feel like in the future. It was an ugly desperate attempt to hang on to the magic of now so I would still have it tomorrow. I cheated myself out of the joy that was available to me in that moment by allowing fear of the future to sneak into my life.

A wonderful and wise friend has given me a marvelous new gift. It gives me the power to contain the uncertainties of my future. It is an outrageous fear zapping magic wand and matching tiara! I can confirm that the magic wand works perfectly. The optional tiara is still being tested. There will be follow up reports!

If you've got butterflies entering your life....

My woefully overgrown back yard has been inundated with black and yellow butterflies.  Never less than 10 and sometimes almost 30, but will admit they are hard to count.  They are spectacular!  I cannot imagine what is drawing them here, and then my dear sweet friend began pointing out the obvious and more research turned this up.

 If you've got butterflies entering your life, perhaps you should look at your current situation and determine what stage you are at or what stage a particular issue is either in or moving through. That will help you decide what your next, most effective steps should be.

The fact that the butterflies in question are black and yellow is also significant. Yellow represents wisdom and black creativity. Look to your current situation from those points of view and you should be able to determine what needs your creative, wise attention.

Dave Matthew's Tampa Concert July 2013

It was the most perfect Tampa night!  There was good hard afternoon rain and the night air was cool made for a fantastic Dave Matthews Concert! 

A few beers, fantastic live music and the best company will be a night I will always remember.

And, OMG... Grey Street, did I mention Grey street was the encore!

I was magic!
http://www.cheryljonesevans.com/Grandarch.html

A whole new set of memories that I know we will giggle about forever....

always, always my sweet babes!

Bucket List Time......This time I get to spend an outrageous day, and night with 2 of the most spectacular people in my life. My 2 most awesome grown men sons. I am not sure what I ever did in this life to deserve them. I could shout a million times a day, how proud I am of them and it would still not be enough! I hope one day they will realize how truly magnificent they really are!

Life moved on, and we all got so busy with our lives, jobs, wives, grandchildren.  I want this chance to recapture the playing, the laughter and love we shared when we were all younger.

A Dave Matthews concert in Tampa, and looking forward to too much beer, silly booty shaking and the chance to make a whole new set of memories that I know we will giggle about forever! 

Head phones ON...Volume UP...World OFF!!!

3 days and counting DMB Tampa 2013

Can you hear me?

A night of Dave Matthews, too many beers, dancing and my boys (both of my phenomenal grown sons) might be exactly what I need to blow up this funk I am in.  I am ready to go!

Liar...Liar...Liar

Oh be still my heart, tell me this is true! This fear thing has been overwhelming recently; do not know where it came from, or how it could have possibly slipped into my life, undetected until it got such a horrendous grip on me.

Exploring new mediums, the loss of my sweet little girl kitty, pushing through and having to face some physical boundaries, and addressing, not so successfully some personal boundaries may have opened the door and let all of this fear into my life. I do not like it….I do not like it at all.

Liar….Liar….Liar

Open, Open, Damn it, Open

Why am I hanging on to the old proper, do good, closed self, a self that I recognize but do not like. I thought I had walked away from her to pursue a more open and accepting full life. 

Why can’t I let go and truly open up? 

I look back at some of my work and I see things I did not see when I was creating them. But now the message is clear and screaming at me….. let go, quit hiding, stop planning for the future, expose yourself, all of yourself, open up, open up!   

All of the sudden I see my work is betraying me and screaming to the world “liar” you are not strong, confident, open and honest, you are just afraid.

The "Fixer"

A new monster has tip toed into my life! The “fixer” arrived this week! Apparently hidden way down inside of me, he beckons me to go back into time and fix the things I screwed up. He insists that fixing my past is going to make my present better.

I am working on a project for the Artists Way 2013 Summer exhibition “Deconstruction” and struggling! What seemed to be a easy topic to portray is turning out to be a more difficult subject than I had originally anticipated!

The assignment- Take apart a piece of work (preferably one of my own) then reconstruct it into a new image. Simple, right? Wrong! Why is this giving me such a hard time?  

This work requires I step backwards look at and study previous and perhaps “not so great” creative decisions.

An internal argument has erupted between the “fixer” fanatically working to take apart an old piece to correct my mistakes, and me that just needs to take that old work and make something new in spite of the mistakes.  

Much harder than I had originally thought, and I furiously beat back the “fixer”.

Courage

"There is a secret medicine given only to those who hurt so hard they can't hope.
The hopers would feel slighted if they knew." — Rumi

The secret medicine is courage. Courage to let go.  Courage to grab on to.  Courage to see every situation for what it is, not what I want it to be, or as others might see it. Courage to accept that the ones that love me the most will never ever really understand how truly frightening this can be at times and how I chose to handle it.  The courage to follow my heart is what I need more than anything.

Why not me??

Yesterday’s noon news included one of their “health” reports, which I typically ignore, but this one was about the glorious results that were being recorded with the cardiac stem cell clinical trials. The very same trial that 2 years ago I actively campaigned to be a part of. I was on the short list for both Johns Hopkins and Shands but after extensive and invasive testing, I was inevitably deemed “not a viable candidate” for either of the trials. I was so sure I was going to be accepted, and was emotionally devastated, by both rejections. 

I have moved on, put the rejections behind me, but perhaps not as well as I thought. As the news video continued to broadcast this particular stem cell recipients glowing recovery, I found myself overwhelmed with those past feelings of elimination, anger welled up and I find myself wallowing in negativity.

I am angry, I want them to tell me, right now, why not me. Why didn’t you choose me!