To be a friend

Oh to be a friend.....
"Best friend, my well-spring in the wilderness." [G. Eliot]
A friend, by definition, is: a person attached to another by feelings of affection or personal regard; a person who gives assistance; a patron; supporter; a person who is on good terms with another; a person who is not hostile.
My heart longs to be a friend.
Is that my calling in life? I wonder. The next opportunity that presents itself in which I am able to say what I would like to be when I grow up, I think I gladly will answer..."A friend".
Why does my heart ache to be a friend?
To save a life, hold a heart, heal a wound? Be a friend.
A friend can scoop you up out of the dung heap of life, scrape off the turds that are clinging onto you with all their might, hose you off, and sit you down at an elegant table of "grandeur".
A friend can hand you back your nobility after some villain has stripped you of it, leaving you standing unclothed and shivering imagining that you would never fully recover from that near blow.

There truly is not one thing as wondrous as basking in the calm space of an old friendship.

It wraps you in it's warm embrace. Snuggling in the familiarity of the moment, your heart opens up within the safety of unconditional love. Moments such as these are remarkable! They can't be forced nor recreated, but when they pop up within the monotony of a typical day or week, they shimmer like a sparkling ruby in a bowl of sand.
And so we must scoop up those treasures, hold them, caress them, enjoy them for however long they last. A minute? An hour? It matters not! It's quite simply the connection of two hearts that is the purpose not the time length of connection.
During these wee specks on the time line of your life: a closet can be transformed into a magnificent dining room; a maid can be brought up a notch on the hierarchy of society; a cookie with milk evolves into a feast.
How?
The eyes between your ears close and the lids on your heart's baby blues flicker open.
The second that happens, when the eyes of your heart open, you see through the eyes of God. No longer do outfits and make-up matter. Gone are the surroundings of the room in which you sit. So long job titles. Spirit to spirit friendship transcends this temporal world and it's inside of that type of exchange where a real friend has the power to change a life....forever.
That is why when I grow-up, I want to be a friend.
Oh how I wish all of my friendships could last forever! I truly do long and ache at times to stay in fellowship with each and every individual that my heart has fallen in love with. I despise feeling disconnected for too long from my familia and bosom buddies. In all honesty it just makes me feel....sort of....yucky....
However, the sheer impossibility of keeping in constant contact with all whom my heart has adopted is a dilemma that has no solution. Time cannot be reproduced and distance cannot be shortened.
So my plan? I shall hold to the delightful, pulchritudinous fact that eternity is an extremely long time, rumor has it that heaven is quite immense and I fully intend on having some wonderfully lengthy conversations with each and every person that I hold dearly in my heart once I get there.
Till that day is upon me I shall continue on with my heart's true ambition.
I will be a friend.

The Fear of Not Pleasing People

Yes, o.k., I admit it! I had this problem....well maybe....truthfully.... still might currently have an eensie, tiny version of this problem. It might not be entirely in the past tense. Although, at the time of writing this, it no longer has the strangulation hold on me that it used to.
This problem...Nay, this sickness really! This sickness had been my constant companion for an upwards of 20 years I suspect. A leech that had attached itself to me, sucking the life out of me and feeding off my very soul. An unwanted and mostly invisible associate.
When did it first latch onto me? Well, I cannot say....
It's not that I don't wish to say or that it would be too embarrassing of a memory to share. The fact is I literally cannot remember. For the life of me. It has just, always, been.
The need to people please. Not wanting anyone to be angry with me. Wanting everyone...everyone... to like me!
For them to be pleased with my choices.
Pleased with my style, personality, weight, beliefs, etc.
In the past, one of my worst fears would have been to have someone angry at me and not be able to do anything, anything whatsoever, to change their mind. What a wake-up in the middle of the night, white knuckled, drenched in sweat nightmare! I would've desperately NEEDED them to like me! To avoid that rejection, I would've been willing to change myself to attain that favor that I so desperately wanted, craved and feared losing.
So did you catch that? Did you hear me?!
To change myself!!!
I am not meaning to just change my behavior in a certain way. Nor do I mean changing the way I reacted to something.
No. My meaning is that I allowed myself to buy into the lie (because that is what it was) that it was actually possible to change who I was, deep down in my soul.
The person that God Himself created me to be.

The person that He meant.....when He meant "Me".
Tami.

To attempt to change oneself, in many ways, can be immensely beneficial! Wouldn't you agree? To improve on what was originally good, is....well....good! To strive to exercise more, eat healthier, expand your knowledge in a certain area? These are all 'improvements'; A bettering of the original, if you will. But just because there may be a need for a few minor improvements doesn't mean that the "original" wasn't good! Do you follow?
To think that any of us would need to become a different person, just to fit into someone else's definition of "Me" is a end road; A trail that will always lead to a broken heart.
I suppose that statement seems a bit overly dramatic. "A broken heart." Tami, really? Isn't that over doing it? Oh, but don't you see? If a person truly believes that their "original" wasn't good enough, then their heart has already BEEN broken! Somewhere....someone convinced them that they, at the very core of their soul, wasn't good enough. That they originally were defective in some way.
And at that very moment.....The moment when that wound was inflicted....That is when their heart broke.
And that particular sort of wound can only be healed by one source.
Your designer. Your inventor. Or should I say "The Maker"
When will we get it?!! There are no defective originals out there! If you love a particular type of food, but everyone in your family and possibly everyone on your entire block despises it? Chow down!
What about that crazy, funky pair of reading glasses that people have jabbed at you about? Sport them proudly in public!
Make people stare by occasionally acting a bit too silly at work!
I speak the truth, the world needs more of "You"!
So give it to them. Force it down their throats if need be.
If we were all cookie cutter clones, the imbalance of the world would have been it's own destruction ages and ages ago. There is a desperate need for the "You's" and the "Me's" out there! We cannot give in! Do you hear me?! We must not be assimilated.
Be true to yourself.
Embrace those nuances that make you unique.
Rage against the machine.
Fight against that mocker of originality!
The fear of not pleasing people.
( And if, by chance, you get a few frowns from passers by, then smile....they probably needed a good, healthy dose of originality. )

I can always run home

I adore my mom.

I really, really do.

I think that I have always adored her. I adored her in the way that little gals adore a mom, while taking her for granted. I wonder why we as children do that? Why?.....When my mom is doing all that she knows to do, to be the best mom she can be, do I pull her close then push her away? Then, when I need her, I'll pull her close in order to be supported by the love of a mother that nothing else can compare to and then, push against that love when I feel strong enough to be independent once again. It's like a match of tug-o-war that has gone on for 3 decades now...and she has never let go of her end of the rope. As a mom she has taken the steps forward when I needed her to and stepped back when I was through with her for the time being. How selfish we can be in our immaturity...and even well beyond the immature age. I no longer want to take her for granted.
When I think of my mom, when I think of the way her love has quite literally saved my life in many various ways, I am thankful!
Thankful to the point of my heart filling up till it hurts with thanks.
I am thankful, because I know, without my mom having to say anything.....that I can always run home.
I am thankful that even now, at the age of 32, I can run to my mommy. Me, having been married 2 months shy of 13 years now and birthing not 2 but 3 beautiful children; I can still for a brief moment lay down all of my hurt, stress, responsibilities and any semblance of adlthood and lay my head on my mom's lap....without her passing judgment and me not feeling a hint of disappointment from her....

I can fall apart.

I can crumble into a pile of tears and snot....shed my biggirl skin and let the littlegirl emerge for just a brief moment in time. The littlegirl who isn't quite sure she can do this thing called "grow-up". The littlegirl who's heart has been shredded once again. (Shredded mostly by the lies that she maybe "believed" instead of "sent packing"!) But the reason doesn't matter. A mother's love has a way of looking past the reason and just comforting the broken heart.
So I lay my head on my mom's lap...and my mom will rub my hair...my mom will drop everything....my mom will place the unconditional love of a mom up under me and wrap it around me....and you know what? It does help. And it does heal.
I know this because I recently "ran home". My heart was quite thoroughly broken. My strength was all gone. I couldn't keep the tears from coming and I wondered if I could do this thing called "being a woman" much longer. I was hurt. I was confused. I was horribly angry.
But my mama didn't care.
The reason for that is because I believe that the love of my mother is quite similar to the love of God. No my mom isn't like God and I know that she is not perfect, nor would I want her to be. But, the point I am trying to make is that God sees our hearts. He sees everything that is in there: The good, the bad, the unlikable and downright unlovable, and like a mother....
He loves us....
through the snot, tears, skinned-knees, anger and pain. God loves us.
Period.
Just like my mom.

I like myself! A lot!

To some, that might be a statement that sounds prideful or conceited. To others it may seem unimportant and irrelevant. But, to someone who has gone through most of their life trying to be someone that 'others' like and approve of?....well.... it is more of a statement that is hinted with a strong tone of genuine surprise!
This revelation came to full fruition this summer when I was blessed to go traipsing through Alaska with dad, mom, sister and brother-in-law, who by all counts are some of the very best company one could ask for. With a variety of adventures on the calendar and a spirit of childlike excitement, I left my family, husband, daughter and 2 sons, behind and went to go find myself....although I didn't know I had been lost till a couple weeks later.
By now, I have been a girl for 32 years, a wife for almost 13 of those and a mother for 12. Most of those years were spent trying to fit into someone else's idea of who I was supposed to be. I don't wish to be misunderstood though. I have most definitely had a wonderful life with more fun, silly, just plain great, memories than can fit into my head! But the older I've gotten, wiser really, I realize that most of those times I was trying to not be myself.
Whether church, friends, society, body type, etc can be blamed, it's hard to say. The finger can most likely be pointed at an odd mixed cocktail of them all put together, but the bottom line and the end result is that 'I'...the real me...was not good enough. Was not thin enough, 'sin-free' enough, funny enough, smart enough, intriguing enough, sexy enough. Whew, truly exhausting is what it was.
So, when I left behind all the hats that I have worn for sooo very long, and once the hat hair had worn off, I found myself in Alaska. In Alaska without anyone's lunch to pack, without meals to prepare, without hugs to give, without bottoms to wipe, without anyone else's expectations for me and without all the things that have completely and utterly defined me for over 13 years now. And you know what I found?

Me.
And I found that I like me.

I like my quirky sense of humor. I like that I am 'crafty'; that I can look at almost anything and think of a craft to make with it. I like that God gave me a voice to sing with. I like that I am a good friend. I like that I am considerate of others' feelings. (Well, at least more often than not.) I like that I love to read. I like that I love the color green. I really would have no problem going on and on, which may strike some people as my being rude. But I've decided, that after having been down on myself for so long and the fact that it feels so good to like myself more, that I think everyone should like me. ;)
And!.... with all kidding aside, if your heart wants to, you should make a list of what you like about yourself because I am confident that you will find that you are just as likable as me! =D