This last couple months I have been trying to place this odd feeling and I believe that I finally have done so.

I am waking up.

I drove past this man holding a sign about a year ago that said “35 year old unemployed chef…please help” I grimmiced and thought, “I need to really prepare and be ready for life so that I am not that person in ten years.” I was telling my hubby of this experience and thought and he said,

“ten years? try 3.”

I was actually in this slightly horrific shock that I was 32. When did this happen? And from then on I really started focusing on this realization.

Growing up ~ with out going into details or reasons (as this is not really needed) I was never really accepted for who I was. I was disliked for my choice of music, hairstyles, friends, cars, sports, fashion and so much more…And then in my terribly abusive marriage I  was not loved for who I was or accepted for that.

The fact that I was not loved…this, I believe no, pushed me to this sad place where I actually separated part of my soul from myself. It didn’t totally run away but it hid. Followed me around like peter pans shadow, just waiting for me to return.

I realized that I still viewed myself as a skateboarder/snowboarder and a punkrocker. I still thought that I was that 20 year old Lindy and had not even noticed hat so much time had passed. I had no clue who I was.

Well, this chef started an awakening in me. I am unsure who I am as of now. I know that I love coffee shops. I love card games. I love music. I cannot skateboard anymore ~ I love to run.

I am trying to figure this out currently. I can feel myself inside me again. Its nice. Time to grow and discover.

Lindy

I want to be like this girl.

“When you have more than you can accomplish in a time frame, SOMETHINGS gotta suffer.”

So when Jer said this I thought, “Why do I ALWAYS make that me?” simply…the more i mistreat myself the less time and ability I have to achieve and the less i achieve the more I then have to suffer and so on in this vicious cycle of “selfless” stupidity.

With this being said there is always a second warning… be responsible…
Whenever Cooper says “No fair! They have a trampoline” I remind him that all things are a “trade.” If they have a tampoline then they might not have…and he fills in the blank with something we have because we dont have a yard with a trampoline (pool…fancy bikes etc…)
So tying this in:
Dont go spend money you dont have and waste all the time you do have. TRADE wisely.
This last while i took a bunch of old but still in great shape Cooper clothing and sold it to a used store to buy him what he needed…and then with the new money i bought myself some shirts i needed. Today Jer and I rounded up some old movies that we never watch and are selling them to hastings and using the profits to buy cooper a movie for xmas. Last week I decided to ask for help with the house and we made a plan to do it Saturday and with the extra time i went hand gun shooting for a few hours. And the help cleaning saturday was phenomenal! Fast and easy! Even Cooper helped, and thier help was so wonderful and time trading that Jer and I got to beat Halo 4 this week! I am not perfect at this! I am really just starting! but this week i plan to trade some time to take a nap! I plan to enjoy Thanksgiving and eat more than needed! I plan to write some in my book….and get another wedding finished and returned, design two wedding books, go running twice, take my son on a date! (and more…) Dont just do things with out trading time/and resources or that just makes you SELFISH!
Think about the things that could help you revive your mind and heart and ignite your soul and then find a way to “trade” things in your life and your plans to do/buy/enjoy those things and ignite!
Here are some photos of things that i love to do and might inspire you with some things that will take you from “selflessly stupid” to selfless and cared for.

I said :

“the grass is always greenest where we water it, right? where the eff did i put the dang watering can again????????”

I had never thought of that before and felt its profound message was really able to help our lives. When we think that what we have is less value then what we can see then we need to BE in our own lives more. But when we are at that place of bitterness or depression or envy or anger or any other negativity its so difficult to figure out where and how to “water” it.

A bunch of friends “liked” the post. but one wrote:

“Who waters grass with a can? Maybe you should try a sprinkler, that might make your grass greener…”

Initially i thought “yeah, he would say something clever and smartassed like that.”

But later on i kept thinking and thinking about it.

This life analogy has been altering how I look at things and now especially through this personal trial that i am facing i feel its need so immensely.

I had a personal “hit” this last week that has not only tried to drag me down into despair but altered the actual chemical make up of my body causing big curves in my ability to be ME. I am pushing through it and it should be all back to normal in no time but until then its been really hard to be ME and be IN my own life. I assume we all have these things that push us back and forth and twist our minds around causing that temporary blessing blindness and emotional instability and for all different reasons.

I need a sprinkler system. But what does that mean?

Thinking about my place in my own life he was right…i did not live in this tiny little round circle of grass that I could water all by myself with a can. I had a huge big yard I had a football stadium I had a bunch or rolling hills that needed tended to.

Cooper

Jeremiah

running my business

keeping my home a HOME

self beauty and expression

health

bills

and on and on and on and on and on

See, I cant stand in more than one spot to water them all.

So i started to break down the analogy more. What was a sprinkler system? pipes… underground where no one can see running water to all different parts of the lawn/field/hill.  What are these pipes to me?

Prayer…scriptures, church, friends, family

What is the water? Love.

I thought about how water is not going to cut it. We could stand in one spot and continually pour and pour our love into that area but with out the real source of our joy and love its dark. We need sunshine to allow our work to prosper and flourish. GOD is our sun. He has not ever nor will he ever fail us. His love is there every day ~ every second ~ every millisecond.

We need our friends to help us water the spots that we cannot yet reach…or that we have not yet built our sprinklers to reach to. Sometimes we need to say

HELP and ask our friends for the needed water.

And here is the latest feeling that i had… God can water us when we cannot find the friends we need to help…when the situation is so close and personal that you CANT reach out for help or share yet then ask god to help. He will shower us with the needed water/love. And he is so much stronger than us. He CAN water EVERYWHERE.

all this thinking made me again think back to my PERFECT wedding day: as it rained from march 3 to march 6 continually and dropped 25″ in those three days. It dropped 45″ in this time in the mountains around us. The rivers around us raised up and down between 4-6′ above normal, the highway was inundated for 3 days… it was a wet wedding

And so as this analogy continues i believe that there was AS MUCH LOVE as there was rain. I feel that i loved Jerry more than the rain fall as I felt loved by him and his family. I know God blessed our love and was watching us dance around in such intense love. I believe that we are still in love this same way. I am so thankful for my love. My husband and my best friend Jeremiah Roach. I am so glad that he is here to keep me from drying out.

and a special bit of thanks going out to those who have watered parts of my life with out even knowing i was struggling ~ THANKS.

So how do you REALLY KNOW ANYTHING?

Is too much salt bad for you?   here is “proof” that  it is and “proof” that it isn’t!

Good salt Bad salt

Tricky.

This is the way of everything.

See when we are children we are SURE that santa clause is real…and at this point we can find SIGNS, “proof” that he is. But when we are told he isn’t we can easily look back and see that he was never real…

Which is it? BOTH! He was real! it was just a different shape and focused solely on YOU and not the whole world.

Me this last week~

There has been a few days of doubt inside me lately and looking at them I think:

If I decide that I am unlikable then I just need to call up my brothers…they will “prove” that I am unlikable.

If I decide that I am the bomb then I just need to call Nikki or Jacq or my hubby and they can “prove” that I am the bomb.

If I decide that I am a horrible christian I just need to call up someone that finds divorce totally dispicable NO MATTER what the situation and they will confirm i suck, I am sure that there are plenty of people that i have done wrong…or hurt or offended that could agree to this thought.

If I decide that I am a great christian I just need to call up any of the 307 children battling cancer that I just organized, fund-raised and photographed in the last three weeks and they will surely say i am grand.

If I decide that I am a bad friend I only need to call up an old high-school girlfriend that life choices and opinions caused me to discontinue our 18 years of friendship and I am sure she can “prove” that I suck at friendship.

If I decide that I am a great friend I just need to call up a current friend and ask, they will show how I am great at friendship.

This could go ON and ON… ……   ……..

Jeremiah said to me this week “you need water to survive…and water can kill you.”

the See water is the greatest and can also deadliest natural resource that you cannot live with out. That is all of us ~ there is a “deadly” side in there and a “perfect” side to us all. SOMETIMES water is the only thing that can save your life and SOMETIMES water can kill you but usually it just helps you quench your thirst, grow your crops, clean and live well.

But the truth is

We are almost ALWAYS in the middle of these thoughts. I am a FANTASTIC friend SOMETIMES and i am a HORRIBLE friend SOMETIMES but usually i am just a good friend. I am unlikable SOMETIMES and its impossible not to like me  SOMETIMES ~ but usually i am liked. I am the BEST christian i can be SOMETIMES and i am the worst christian that i know SOMETIMES but usually i am a good christian. SOMETIMES i am the bomb and sometimes i am totally lame…but usually i am so fun.

Get it? I had to learn that I am in the middle. I was searching for “proof” that I was so wonderful. But knowing that i could find “proof” that i was the worst as well made me feel lost ~ but the truth is that defines me. I AM REAL. I AM BOTH and I am learning to be so okay with this. I am glad that SOMETIMES I rock, and I am glad that i usually am good.

Its okay that I am not perfect. Maybe someday! But today I am okay with how usually I am a good friend, a good christian, pretty likable, and pretty cool.

She is annoying.

She is bossy.

He is stand-offish tonight.

He is not connecting with me.

I am none of these things…

But then suddenly i started seeing it ~ MAYBE!

I was watching a movie with Jerry and feeling like he was so far away that particular night. i felt like he was so reclusive and sort of not with me but beside me. When i started to feel upset at this i stopped, i asked myself, “could it be you lindy? and not him?” so i asked him

“Baby am i stand-offish tonight? reclusive? and sort of far away?”

“YES.” he said.

I am?????? That first look into this HONEST mirror was painful. and HORRIFYING.

it was a shocking answer and definitely not what i wanted. So i started catching my thoughts about others more often and trying to turn the mirror more inward and do the OPPOSITE of what i saw in others that annoyed me or put me off funny…

When i felt like some church members were being cliquish and not too friendly i bravely walked up and asked them how they were doing and if they needed anything in their personal life… until the feeling was gone.

When i felt like Jerry was far away i climbed on him and snuggled in as tightly as i could until the feeling went away.

When i felt that someone that i brought over for dinner was bossy i looked at her with open eyes and thanked her for helping with Cooper until i actually was thankful and couldn’t see bossy at all.

When i felt like cooper was being sassy and snarky i tried to turn my tone down to CALM and LOVING until his tone calmed down.

You see ~ i was resonating something and i think that sometimes the feelings that i had were purely ME and not those of who i saw them in, and other times it was an escalated response to what i was doing. Now i am sure that sometimes it really is a wrong of another…but as for now i am learning to turn the mirror inward and really change what i can and accept what i cannot!

thanks to my friend that so ANNOYINGLY (lol) pointed out that anything i dislike in others might be a good sign that i need to work on me.

mirror mirror…i dont want to see snarky, annoying, bossy, lonely…i want to see

beautiful

happy

peaceful

loving

joyous

and fun!

thanks anna

I had breakfast with an old girlfriend of mine today. We made friends in 1992, twenty years of friendship between us, and it was not until now…

she has had a long road through poor relationships, as i.

she has had a long life of human disappointment, as i.

She has had her share of heartbreak, and sorrow. and although we have been happy in our lives we have not truly BEEN happy…but talking to her today i realized JUST wheat i mean when i ask this. i mean:

are you safe to be yourself?

are you taken care of?

are you loved?

are you secure in being YOU?

are you in need?

do you have

joy

And today the was glowing. she had found the man that is there for her as my man is, and she was truly happy. i saw her love and life just beaming through her words. i cried with her in joy for her blessings. I was so pleased to know that my good friend had real JOY. It takes a lot of hurt to find it sometimes…and sometimes it takes a lot of loss.

but in sharing this moment with her today it amplified how truly happy i really am now. I AM HAPPY.

this feeling of overwhelming gratitude is filling me up today…thanks for this day, for the real joy that is out there in each other to be shared. thanks to my love for sharing it with me, and thanks to her man for sharing it with her.

……………….are you happy?

I had this experience a few weeks ago that had me in tears of joy. i learned that my body is rejecting nutrients and not due to some medical phenomenon but rather to a deeply rooted belief that i should not receive before i give all that i can/have. I immediately started working on this thought process ~ breaking down each synapsis as i found them and giving myself permission to receive. I found a lot of areas of my life that i would tell myself that i didn’t deserve this, or shouldn’t “Do” this fun activity when i “could” be doing this productive thing. I saw myself turn down the thoughts that i am loved even when its not shown. i realized that i would walk away from moments that i felt great because i felt selfish in it, worried or something that i would become conceited. I really started to see all the ways that i told myself that i was not as good as others…that i didn’t include “ME” in the love i was giving. In sunday school our teacher said that he has this circle that he puts all his closest and protects them with this fierce guard…i saw all those i put in but i also TULY didn’t feel that i should be in that circle of mine! i thought ~ literally ~ that i was not as good as those in my own circle and therefore i was not in there. to thiese thoughts i say:

what the hell?

Its here that i have started to expound these thoughts.

see…who are we to put ourselves OUT of our own protection?

Its a fine line, however, to allow yourself to GIVE and RECEIVE to yourself… because you can EASILY cross that line from a healthy confident and precise feeling to a conceited jerk. Its easy to cross from being balanced and generously giving to yourself and then become a selfish brat.

here is where i think that our our mind needs its OWN…

its very own

reciprocity.

between our minds and our bodies.

I think that we need to every now and again (as i have started to do) look in the mirror and smile at our reflection and say “lindy, you are a sexy sunny beach!” but not crossing that line and thinking i am prettier than most or whatever… i think that we need to every now and again say “lindy, you did great this week! go get sushi!” and GO GET SUSHI! I think that we need to allow ourselves new running shoes even when our home COULD use new towels. I think every now and again we need to make a list of our needs and our wants…not the families, or our kids… OUR LIST and then DO some of them. But again there is that line that you need to focus on and make sure that you dont go into a debt fulfilling a want…but maybe drive a bit less that week and use the extra cash to treat yourself to some great bath salts!

When we do this…as i am learning…our mind allows our body to heal ~ and our body allows our mind to heal.

My mind sighs a bit of relief allowing my body to also breathe more. it validates US as HUMANS and CHILDREN of GOD. IT allows us to FEEL who we really are! We are great! we are all so different and giving and happy and blessed! focus on the good in you once in a while and

RECEIVE.

Let your mind give, then take…let your body give then take.

As i was talking to my husband about these thoughts i started crying because i was frustrated with the feelings that i kept hitting. I was feeling guilty for taking the time that i did for ME. i was feeling guilty for thinking that maybe he married a good woman. i was feeling badly that i tried to value myself as highly as i did he and my son…and he said (as profoundly as he always does)

“I can hear in your voice this panic that you have…wondering “what am i doing wrong, how can i do it better, what am i doing wrong?”

I replied “yes!!! YES!!! what am i doing wrong?”

His answer softly sobering,

“Nothing, love, sometimes you need to set this all aside and just BE.”

Perfectly put. Sometimes i need to stop thinking, and allow myself sushi! sometimes i need to not analyze my heart and JUST FEEL. allow my mind to BE. that in turn allows my body to just BE. Its a state of emotional and physical balance. our bodies are equipped with the tools necessary to be healthy…and often we hijack their systems and tell them they are wrong….when maybe we are okay! maybe we ARE a sexy sunny beach! maybe we all deserve a little sushi!

try this week to really receive! to allow yourself to ‘BE’ a couple times! it feels great! its hard at first because it does feel selfish but what i am finding is that i am happier, healthier…and i am certain that i am a better mother and wife having first filled up my heart a bit on my own. it also lets Jerry feel a bit relaxed not having to carry my heart for me daily! We need to allow this

balanced
reciprocity
and
receive.

“I dont think i am ugly…but i feel pretty average and just not as pretty as everyone else.”

Well…to hell with this thought! Each woman that told me this was SOOOOOOOO gorgeous! and each had one or many things i envied in thier body and looks… so here is my blog today…

Stacie,

You glow! all the times that we are together you look different but always YOU. You seem to have this happiness that beams out of your eyes. I love your smile! i LOVE your wild hair! it can look so sexy and yet so sleek and then again later look WILD and untamed! I love your cheek bones! I love you!

Jacquie,

You are so drop dead gorgeous! That day that we went out and shot photos of you prego in the hills a neighbor stopped me and said “she is what EVERY woman wants to feel like when they get pregnant.” and i KNOW you…i KNOW your saying “I am not like that anymore.” YOU ARE! you are sooooo beautiful! I love how you feel like you came out of a 30’s movie! the ultimate reflection of what FEMININE AND SEXY are to me.  Let me take your photos…NO kids, just you~ and i will prove it

Nikki

I love your hair! SO RED! i love your gaged ears! i love your smile and your ability to be you NO MATTER WHAT. I love your style! i Love your back art! i love you hats! you can look so good in a hat! You are so pretty! and to top this off you make others feel instantly at ease and welcomed in a room.

Katie,

CURVES!!!!!!! what i wouldnt give to not be “sporty” build for a week and be you! your edges are to die for! And long auburn hair! then that NOSE! you got the good nose in the family! big puppy eyes, such a heart to go with them! your beautiful!

Molly,

LIPS! freaking angelina, watch out! and then those legs! ten feet long! and your eyelashes are LONG too! you are soooo pretty! I love the Red…no wait, brown…wait BLOND hair you sport! (monthly changing) I love you!

Looking at these women, and i have a so many others i want to post and brag on the looks of…but jeesh ladies! your so dang hot! and sooooo beautiful! why cant we as beautiful women FEEL beautiful!???

WE ARE!~

We met for coffee a LONG time ago when you were planning out your wedding and looking for the perfect wedding photographer. You guys loved my goofy scooter i came on, you guys were happy…beaming even. i remember thinking “she is so REAL, and happy.” i remember thinking you were so alive. I wondered what that felt like. i was just entering my divorce era. I knew that divorce was coming and i was trying really hard to stay positive and hopeful. You smiled a lot. You said you found the best photographer in boise and was thrilled to hire me. i was flattered. i loved you instantly! your man, Danny, seemed like your biggest fan and your favorite human on earth. i envied your love in a good way ~ not a hurtful to my own ~ way. you assured me Danny was photogenic but that you were not at all…i laughed at this (knowing there was NO way a beautiful woman as happy and loved as you could be anything but EASY and NATURAL to photograph.) You hired me and i was so excited to capture such love and happiness!

We chatted a few times via email and text, then got together for engagements…you two were perfect and just as blissful as i remembered. At this point i was starting the REAL divorce and feeling like i was just hanging on to this belief that i could still be a good mom, and that was enough to keep going. during the engagements you asked how i was…your kind sincere heart for my well-being did not allow me to hide my pain and not be open to you. i think i might have cried a bit…but you just smiled hugged me and opened up to me as well. you and Danny told me that you had been in a relationship very much like mine before you met Danny. You said that you hated living and was afraid to say anything, do anything or be you ~ because of the relationship as i had been. you told me how excited you were for me. You said that you knew that i was on the right path from your own experience and that i would soon wake up and know it as well. Danny said that he had to convince you that he was not ever going to hurt you as you had been but that as soon as you KNEW it you lit up like christmas and have been so alive and happy and that he knew my turn was coming. i was embarrassed to turning this happy engagement session into this personal time but you laughed at it, hugged me and told me that this was the coolest day you guys had had for a while and that each experience we have is there to help others around us and that you were so happy for the things i was going through. you said that you loved me and that i would have a love like yours with Danny soon too! and to be hopeful.

I felt myself lifting up ~ i felt hope…for the first time, that i might have a real future in front of me still.

And guess what Alyssa, you were right. Thank you. I met the man of my dreams and Saturday taking your photographs for you i saw the love that i have with Jerry all day taking your memories! I know what you are feeling and i thank you so much for lighting that little hopeful fire in me that night! Jer did convince me that he will not hurt me as i was once and i am as happy and alive and in love and BLISSFUL even as i see you!

Anyway, thank you… i love you Lyss. (you too Danny.)

Congratulations you two! may you live as happy and in love as you have been for 5 years! thanks for being there, lighting my hope-fire and really trusting me with your past stories and love!

happy marriage!   lindy