Beverage: Coffee (burns tongue and lining of throat)

Air Quality: Cold (freezes arse but it doesn't fall off)

Mood: On top of the world!! (falls off)

Mindset: Complete (something for goodness sake!)

Activity: Creating (hopefully things that make sense)

Vision: Muddled (with stars, butterflies, rainbows, fairies and glitter – it burns!)

Time is a precious commodity. It can serve us well for several moments in our lifetimes or rob us of those precious instances with the blink of an eye. I feel like this has happened to me. Like I took my eyes of my children momentarily and in that split second they grew up...driving cars and what not, attending Japanese classes, cooking their own food and making me some too all while enjoying their social lives. Meanwhile, mom has no social life...nooo. Mom has a writer's life where mostly it feels like seclusion and reclusiveness. I forget that I actually need to live my life in order to have the experiences to interpret into stories for all those lovely people to read. Hell, even if I didn't write – I'd still need to live my life!

/Sigh/

The last few days I've been sitting down to write and have come up with some pretty good stories and poetry. But I gotta tell ya – I feel a little dated. Like...oh what's the word...obsolete? I've been reading some works of the a few young authors (I really don't know what the difference is between being a writer vs. an author – they both do the same thing and are just as passionate as the other when it comes to their craft.*shrugs*) and have been blown away by their methods of storytelling. Some amazing stories and writing out here in wattpad land. I stumbled across my daughter's wattpad account and from there decided to look at some of the younger writers and what they have to offer. I admit, I'm not as active here as I want to be but that can all be fixed with finding the time to be so.

Anyway, it made me think back to that time I first picked up a pen and began telling my own stories. How my imagination clung to the stories I had been reading and the movies I had been watching and how I really wanted to rewrite them all – to make them better. I remember wanting to rewrite several movies including Goonies to where the kids got away with all the loot and the Fratelli's ended up trapped in a cave unable to escape all the boobie traps that had been set. That movie – as awesome as I thought it was, just didn't sit right with me LOL. Now I know the movie to be theatrical genius. I wouldn't change a scene or word of it, it's perfect as it stands.

But this all harkens to what I believe and how I feel about my life.

There are things I would change and want to change. Scenes I would delete or rewrite. Dialogue I would improve on and so forth and so on. But here's my dilemma – my philosophical mind and spiritual heart tell me that all of that is a no no.

I believe God to be the author of my life...literally. He is the reason I am in existence. If it had not been for his thought of me, I wouldn't be here. But he brought me here and has written a story for me that has been...quite harrowing. There have been tales of romance in my life, loves lost, loss, lust, murder (the fact that I killed a part of myself that will never come back) and greed. Violence, sex and video tape (not all in that order – actually separate). Scenes of hair raising thrills and chills, absolute horror and on the opposite of that serenity.

My life has seen fantasy turn into dreams, reality turn into the surreal and magical moments I wouldn't trade for anything. So after describing all of that...what would I change?? My reactions to things, choosing not to walk down certain paths, limiting my involvement with some people and letting go of the things and people that hurt me.

I've always wanted to play the heroine in the stories of my life. Heroine being described as a woman admired or idealized for her courage, outstanding achievements, or noble qualities. But I am far from admired or courageous. I have yet to reach outstanding achievements within society and I don't believe I own an noble qualities. Seriously.

As I write – a thought came to pass and I must correct myself of the things I have just spoken.

Okay – my daughter admires me, one would have to have some semblance of courage to live the life I have lived and want to keep living. I have achieved some things in my lifetime that have brought a smile to my face – maybe not on the level of societal acknowledgement but still and all girls are princesses born of one King therefore I possess noble qualities somewhere within (is sitting gap legged while typing chewing gum like a cow chews grass in the pasture).

There – I have edited my life ....terrible LOL.

I'm a woman who wants to edit and rewrite her life as she lives it and is stuck on being a perfectionist doing imperfect things...yes I am quite the contradiction. But there is something so...beautiful in letting it ride. Something so magical in just waiting and letting the things you go through show you why they had to happen. No lie, the other day I was talking with my therapist about the positive experiences that have happened to me in my life. She wanted me to think deeply on one in particular and make it a focal point, a key word and an escape (all part of the open eye hypnosis). There was an incident that happened in high school – a trip I wanted desperately to go on and didn't have the money to go. But somehow (I know it was God), the money appeared so that I could attend. This trip was to Estes Park, Colorado...not very far from Boulder. And it was a small trip for this group I was a part of called Student Venture (a faith based ministry amongst high school students). It wasn't just local to my high school – other high schools within the Midwest and elsewhere in the country were a part of this. It was an awesome time. So...I got to go on this extraordinary trip and see another part of the world that I had not seen before, just more of God's green earth. But that experience led to another that I am experiencing right now.

Now if you would have asked me then, nothing special happened on that trip that would have happened on any other trip but I didn't have the well experienced and mature mind that I have now. I would have told you then that the place was beautiful and that I made new friends. Ask me now and I'll tell you that the beauty that surrounded me is exactly what I needed to see, that the people were who I needed to meet and that the whole experience has never left me. I grew closer to my maker that trip.

So back to the therapy session – she asked me to think of something I would characterize as "Paradise" and I named Estes Park, Colorado. The mountains, the air, the land, the friendliness of Colorado people and the fact that God brought me to that place to experience it all felt like paradise to me.

We did some exercises, mostly breathing ones and vision techniques – placing myself in paradise as a means of getting away from the harmful things that plague my thoughts and life. And it worked. We tackled each problem by associating paradise with that trip and thinking back on everything that happened on that trip helps me to deal with the current state of affairs. It's a calming and quieting thing. It's a relocation out of the negative into the positive and leaving those things behind. It is mindfulness – and knowing that I am no longer stuck back there in the past but headed forward towards more beautiful places. That experience was meant to happen in order for me to draw on it and use it today.

Something so small as a high school trip was used as a part of God's plan to bring me into wellness as an adult. I love it when things like that happen and even moreso when I am aware of them. Now back before then I was talking about rewriting my life – from that experience I wouldn't want to if faced with the opportunity to do so. Because I know now – on a deeper level that everything I went through has a purpose, a reason and is there to strengthen me in some way. Even the bad things – I was shown that with the experiences I have had with sexual abuse, mental illness and depression that I could be of help to many that feel lost or like they are the only ones suffering.

These things build my testimony so for me to want to change that – would take away from what the Lord has done for me and will do through me. Now, I am very much human and still have the feeling of wanting to go back in the past and shake my younger self awake but I know that can't happen. This is my reality and my reality is just as magical as anything that I could have penned.

God is the author of my life and he has written a beautiful yet painful story that I know will have me come out on top. I have faith in my God's handiwork, meaning the process of building a strong character within me and a great story to be told. I have to ask myself in my times of trouble – if he did it for Jesus, why wouldn't he do it for me? Am I not his child as well and was not the promise of his Word to be fulfilled in us all?

I have never known God to create something ugly or uninspiring or even something problematic for his children, through his children and with his children. Never. Hearts can become ugly but he doesn't make them that way, we do. Personalities can become ugly, characteristics can as well – but again that's not his doing.

I know that in God's hands we are well.

I know that if he wanted to, God can rewrite my life (Use what was meant for my harm for his good purpose.)

I know that at any time – during my triumphs and failures, I can call on him and he'll hear me. Because he has before time and time again.

I know that he fashioned the heavens and the earth with the same hands that fashioned me for the life that created for me to live and that right there speaks volumes. A God with the same mind to create the universe and all that dwell within it – also used that same mind to create me, someone so small and miniscule on that scale that I can do nothing but be at peace and joy.

Do you understand that?

You were made with the same hands that created the world around you. You might have some of the same stuff in you that resides in the universe. Hey, that at least explains why we see stars when punched in the eye...lol Just kidding but what I am saying is – there is purpose to everything and everyone.

I dare you to look back on a moment in your life that you think prepared you for where you are right now. Even compassion has its beginnings in the tender moments of child hood. The moment we reach out to another human being with our hearts and cease to grab them with our eyes, we grow beyond our physical selves and embrace what God had already instilled in us. And that my friends, is love.

I thank you for sitting still to join me on my crazy ramblings about my life. This is just a bit of the story of my life. Thank you again for reading and I'll see you soon.