All it means to be human

The words I write bring me comfort and I can only hope they do the same for others. My life's greatest desire is to write a book that exposes the rawness of my soul and thereby my humanity. I believe if I tear down all the pretense any person reading my words will relate on some level. Humanity is not male nor female , black or white, gay or straight, no in fact humanity is our very soul . Humanity is that raw love and hurt that at times in life make us cry out for joy or sorrow. I am human and thereby able to love. In my truest humanity I can give of myself when my flesh is weak and unwilling. Watch a Mother when she is protecting her children and you will see her soul fully exposed. I remember when my son told me he was gay and I knew the attacks he may face within my own family. I became more because he needed me to be all that a mother is. I told everyone reject him, lose me too. Humanity protects and cares about everyone, it is what makes us more than just flesh and blood. I have made a decision to walk in the strength of my soul and the spirit God has given me. I will no longer allow myself to be an emotional wimp tossed about by every emotion under the sun but instead I will rise above these emotions and become more ! I write these words because I have a passion for life and I want to give what I am able so when I am no longer present these words will comfort those I leave behind! Man is an active moving breathing creature but he is more , he is a conscience and thoughts. I want my thoughts and words to be out in the universe so they may bring comfort and peace to hurting souls. I need to release my thoughts and words out into the world so I can bring peace and healing to my own soul.
Life needs to be more about living and breathing and not so much doing. When I take myself out of the rat race I find the ability to touch my own soul through releasing the things hidden in the recesses of my mind, were it not for those quiet moments, where I steal away, all these things would be lost even to me. So today I am taking time to find the things that make me want to be more than flesh and blood and emotions. Today I search to find all it means to be made in the likeness of God, human in form but godlike in my humanity !

My Mother

Growing up I had a difficult time in my home! I was quiet and easy going among a tribe of Indians. My 4 brothers were strong and able, smart and handsome, my sister was 8 years older and more of a mother figure, she was a great athlete too and never at a loss to share her opinion. My Mother and Father were young when they married and filled their home to well over its capacity. My Father was my buddy we were kindred in spirit and he always saw that I was cut from a different cloth than my Mom and sister. Mom and I never saw anything eye to eye, so it made for a very complicated relationship at best. Growing up I did not value many things about Mom, I was very critical and angry for the most part and she was the focus of most all my anger.

Well in time all things change ! I have a respect for her I never thought possible. My Mom has overcome so many of life's trials, ones that most people can't imagine. My Mother has overcome losing my father , her parents and many siblings along with countless friends. She has overcome a bypass surgery of 5 vessels in her heart only 16 years later at the age of 76 to have a major stroke and almost fully recover from that. This woman who the neurologist told me would never live independent again well she dares to defy all the odds against her and she has pushed her body past the limits anyone thought possible! She amazes me, if I am 1/2 the woman she is I will accomplish many things in my life and I didn't mention her raising 6 children and all the accidents and ER visits and hospital stays that included. She has also accompanied her grandchildren thru many scary situations , medical and other wise, even driving great grandchildren to hospitals in other states for care. I came to my Mom to deliver the news that I have a gay child and this farmers daughter and truck drivers wife with 4 heterosexual sons said well I love him and I will be here for him as long as I have a breath in my body. She gained my respect there , deep down I was afraid she would reject him and thereby me but no she didn't. Part of me thought she would wonder if I failed as a Mother but she still to this day she I am one of the greatest Mothers she knows! Well I will have to say I am only what I am because I was raised by a woman who made her family her life. My Mother is strong and confident and she makes me feel like I have a lot to live up to and I feel proud of her and I just wanted to put into words how very much I respect her and love her! God is a good God because He has opened my eyes to see something more beautiful in her , her faith in me has made me want to be more ! Her love and unyielding faith in me have dominated my life and made me better. I thank God for all He gave me in Betty Kate Ray Beauchamp and I would not change a thing, she is the best Mother ever!

Living while growing older !

Facing my senior years is a scary thought. I have always been young at heart but deeply in love with the elders in my family. I remember feeling like I would never grow old but funny when going to retrieve the mail the other day , I got my AARP card and it was then and there that I recalled that older people got those. Well much to my surprise I am now old enough to carry my own and get serious discounts at hotels which is quite important because now that I am older I can afford to travel. Funny tho when I look at my husband I see the same guy I fell in love with at 17 years of age, hold up that really isn't true because I like this cute guy in front of me more than that awkward boy. Brad has only grown more and more handsome with time and I am blessed that I can still call him mine! So aging has served him well !
I am not sure if I understand this whole aging thing and how it is suppose to work. I want to run and explore the world just as it did when I left my parents home for the first time. The only true clue to aging is this body that wants to hold onto every ounce I eat and attach it to my hips, ass and stomach. Now mind you when I was young I ate 3 to 4 times as much food and that is no joke and I managed to keep my weight at a healthy place. Now I eat a third of what I ate just 10 years ago and my weight still climbs! This is the aging process and this part stinks! My body is doing things that no normal body should and I am doing my part to stop it but this old tent just ain't what it use to be but somehow I have never been more at home here! I love what aging has done to my personality, I am by far the best version of myself right here and right now. I love who I am today I have become my own best friend , I speak in a much kinder tone even when I fail to do something right, I love this about being older. So today I will take one step at a time and press into my senior years with great curiosity , I will face the decline in my body with much respect but I will do everything in my power to resist it's faults. I will try not to let all my conversations be about how I feel. I will read and challenge my mind with everything possible. If life tries to stop me it will but only when I have done all that is possible by taking great care of myself. I want to live till I die and I want to die while living ! I want to give to everything I can so when I take my last breath I will feel no remorse ! I want an opportunity to live a life that others can say they respected.
Today I face some personal challenges that I can not speak of but let me assure you if I use my time right this too will only serve to make my life more meaning full !

Life ain't always what you think it aught to be!

I am often surprised by life. It changes on a constant basis. I am a person who loves order and work best with my life somewhat scheduled out but the rotation of the world and everyday circumstances could care less about my need for order. I hope to mellow with age and that means for me letting go of all kinds of things stored in my head . My mind seems to be on the road to self distruction right now. I fear sometimes I am losing the ability to remember. I reason pretty well . Contemplation is one of the many things I find enjoyable but lately I feel like a man, not fully present ! People will be talking to me and I have not heard a word they have said, why you ask because I am thinking of the flowers I want to plant or something of that nature. My thoughts are so free they run thru my mind any time they please, with no regaurd for the person standing there talking to me. This life i am living is a bit different than the one I thought I would be living, at least right here right now. My life is truly becoming more and more detached from everyone and in some ways giving more than ever. I know every thing I speak of could be costrued as a oxy-moron and I suppose that is what i am trying to say. I am free yet not, I am lost but somehow found. These words sould bring comfort but I fear they will just open your eyes to how very confused I am at this time in my life. I have always deep in the recesses of my mind been a free soul and today that freedom is pushing itself into my reality. I am thinking of and becoming satisfied with the simplicity that has become my life. I had always hoped to be someone great like "Mother Theresa" or " Ida Beauchamp", but I wake each day to find I am just a woman who has raised a family and loved one man all her life. The simplicity is striking when you think of all the dreams I have dreamed of most of my life. I have truly wanted to preach and teach the word of God but found I am not made of the stuff to be a pastor, I have wanted to work in the medical field and did so for a brief period of my life as an EMT(volunteer). I have also always wanted to minister to those with normal every day mental stresses and have done so across my kitchen table but yet to have made that the work of my life. By most standards I have failed in so many ways it is impossible to count, but I feel successful in life. I feel I really did get what was important for the most part. I may not have any fancy titles or jobs but if loving my family was on the list people deam as a huge success, well then I am.
Love is my claim to fame, I have made my greatest mission in life to love and there in lies my success and happiness because I have loved and been loved . I am so far from the finish line and I do not know what my furture holds but I think I just got my wind and for me that means a whole different life than the one I have led so far. Everything changes and everything stays the same !

Celebrating Alcohol

I want to write about a topic that will cause a lot of people to be uncomfortable. Alcohol is a threat to our families, our lives and our health. It is the most insidious of all drugs, why, because I can walk into any store and buy it and people think nothing of it. Alcohol is a drug and it has the same effects on your body as other drugs , it alters your reality! I am watching one by one people I love lose everything they have to their lust for it and everyone acts as tho it is not really an issue. I am saddened by the abuse of it and the way it becomes a part of the chemistry of a person's blood. They wake every day and no longer do the people they love become their first thought but when they will drink or how or where does. They wake without the ability to function apart from it. I am desperate for a way to open eyes to see how alcohol has a life of its own and at some point it owns you. Read most of the posts from our children and they celebrate something everyday with it. I am convinced the world will be taken over one person( by alcohol) at a time as people are busy consuming and never present enough to know what is happening. Gone are the days when people consumed to celebrate real things such as a marriage or birth or graduation, no today "I got a pedicure" seems to be enough to insight people to a three day binge I write to set myself free from the responsibility of fixing the broken, see in fact I am powerless, I only have words. I have always had a problem with alcohol myself, if I drink one I seem to drink 3 or 4 whatever is necessary to lose myself . If I drink I am shaking off my inhibitions and about to cut loose. I am pretty able to cut loose without alcohol but with it I am fearless so I understand the drawing power it has, I want to be childlike and carefree, who doesn't? Responsibility keeps me in check. I have no one other than me to pay my bills or to do my job, I must answer to the woman in the mirror. I am watching people lose everything because they cannot control the life they live due in fact to giving over to this lust of the flesh ! I know way to many homes where one person keeps the checks and balances so the other can throw caution to the wind and give over to this demon lust. I write today for one reason and one alone, if you see yourself in my words I am not writing about YOU! If you identify with them then this may be a moment where you want to come clean with YOURSELF! I am not writing about one person but many! I am writing about my life experiences and want to say here "DO NOT LET YOUR LIFE BE OVER TAKEN BY ANYTHING!" Do not lie to the most important person you will ever know "YOU!" Come clean with yourself that is all I can hope for! My writings are in fact the way I purge my own soul so I can clearly see the road before me and learn from my past, these are only meant to release me from my own bondage's, my hope is along the way others may be set free too !

Stillness vs activity

Living must be more than existing! Sorrow and trials are a part of the human existence just as happiness and joy are. When we come to the place where we only function we must step back and reevaluate ! As a physical being I am just as the animals , it is my spirit that gives me a step up in the order of life. I must honor that order and become all it means to be human. I must take authority over what I can. Their are times when the physical body I have been given, limits me, holds me down but my spirit it has the ability to soar over this constraint. I will be more than my body allows me. I will find ways to overcome my handicap. I will become a vessel that lets flow through it the life essence and to me the life essence is love! I can some days only live on my sofa but it is those days I am determined to reach out more. I really think God in His infinite wisdom knows people like me would never stop being physical and explore the spiritual, if we were not made to by some inconvenience such as a physical barrier like seizures or say MS. God knows some of us are prone to just doing and never take the time to "BE." Being is part of the human and we must embrace it and nurture it just as we exercise our flesh! So today after many days of good health a person I love dearly reminder me to write. Share my uniqueness with other special people who may not be feeling as well as I am today !
These words and thoughts I dedicate to my Sister MaryBeth ! I love you and hope your body heals as a result of love extended from my heart to yours ! I love you !

Reading !

Learning is what I am on a mission to do for all the days of my life! I am a simple woman from simple people and please let me qualify that when I say simple I am not referring to anything but our way of life. I make it my mission to keep my things as laid back as possible but if there is one area I need to challenge myself in more it would be education. Formal education is one way to learn but not the only way. I choose everyday to pick up a book and read. I read for education and occasionally for entertainment. I love reading , I remember when the children were small " Reading Rainbow" was a program they watched at my leading because it was a window to the world of reading. My window to the world of reading was in the house next door to where I grew up. Her name was Annabelle and she encouraged me to read for the entertainment value and that was the door that gave me vision to see how very big the world really was. I will be eternally grateful to her for giving me that encouragement! Reading is imperative to life. Those who do not open their minds to learning seem to stay in a time warp. Learning creates an environment that "should" never let anyone become arrogant , I believe the more you learn the more humble it should make you. I could read every book known to man and still it would only be a drop in the bucket to all there is to know! Reading , learning, researching these are things that I do without much thought and I know my personality drives me this way, so with that knowledge I understand all people are not alike so I would be arrogant and wrong to think everyone should feel as I do but today let me challenge you to pick up a book and read for entertainment and learn something about people or life you did not know before, now go on grab that book you bought a long time ago , blow the dust off and read , go to a new place or experience a new opinion , just do it !