1, 2, 3, 4, 5....

Today, I am thankful for Life, it has not been easy but the good has definitely outweighed the bad.

I am thankful for God's Provision, every single day is an amazing blessing. 

I am thankful for my Siblings, I am such a patient person because of them.

I am thankful for My Father, he is my hero but he reminds me everyday that every hero is first, just a Man.

I am thankful for My Mother, she did not have all the time in the world to teach me everything, but she left a great example.

I am thankful for my Grandmother who constantly prays for me day and night.

I am thankful for my Friends, a family I am more than lucky to have.

I am thankful for Good food, hope to get those nice curves someday.

I am thankful for the gift of Laughter, it is my fountain of youth.

I am thankful for Sunshine, and if you live in Seattle, I am thankful for you.

I am thankful for my Blackberry, having my friends so close by is a big blessing. 

I am thankful the ability to Love, it is nothing to be taken for granted.

I am thankful for school, and all the great people I have met.

to be continued...

Tête à tête....(1)

Have you ever poured your heart out to someone and told them every little detail about what was on your mind? They were sympathetic, they listened to every word, and gave you the best advice ever. Maybe the person even told you one or two real-life stories about people who had a problem like you did and how it all worked out. They left you feeling better than you had in a long time but only when they are gone do you realize they never once said anything about themselves.....

That's me: The Non-discloser.
But I am not alone.

You meet people everyday who are really open and friendly and outgoing; only until you meet the carefully crafted wall they have built just beneath the surface to keep you out. Not just you, however, it keeps everyone out. And it's shocking. Most times they reached out to you first, they sparked up the conversation and made you comfortable, so comfortable that you found yourself telling them everything, more than you ever told anyone. But when you want to be there for them you don't even know how. You can never spot a crack in their perfectly happy demeanor and they just never seem to need you...or anyone else...

A friend of mine recently described me in these words and I was a little surprised. He was right, of course, but I did not think for a second that anyone could ever see me in that way. After all, I could even pass for a blabbermouth on a good day.... :)

So it's no longer a secret: I love my privacy. But it's not because I don't like people. I love people, I love having people around and talking to them and I love being that friend that people can talk to without fear of being judged or turned away. But when it comes to me, its harder to get me to open up. Beneath that carefree exterior there is a solid wall that gently keeps people out of personal stuff.  But I'm not really that sneaky person that protects their privacy with a Medusa skull on the front porch...

First of all, I have a blog that anyone in the entire world can read whenever they like. And most of the things I put up here are deeply personal, maybe a little more personal than anyone would normally tell strangers. Contradiction, right? Not the way I see it. I keep to myself not because I'm hiding anything, it's really just the way I am. I observe, I listen, I respond when spoken to and when needed. And when I have a problem, I find it much easier to solve it without having to go to the people who come to me. And on the rare occasions that I need to talk, I find that I am able to be completely honest about my feelings.

But that's enough about me for now. What's your unique 'social skill'?

Girl, Stressed

Me, Today -Spyda

Chapters: Two

Once I knew a lonely man; A sad lonely man; A lonely man living in a world that did not know him. A sad man who hid his pain and wore a smile. In the morningtime he looked out of the window with weary eyes hating the dawn of another day, but in the nighttime he sat in the tavern and made all the people laugh and all the maidens blush. And when they were drunken and merry as could be, he hid in the corner away from their eyes. And he remembered Her.

She was love and purity and goodness, his heart. This he knew from the first moment, and then he did not know. At first sight he plunged into love and drank like a man starved. He pursued Her with ardor, Her love was like an elixir running in his veins. At night he dreamed of Her, at noon he craved a sweet word or a gentle smile. She possessed him, She evaded him and flitted out of reach until he opened up his heart and lay it at Her feet, and then She loved him.

Suddenly afraid, he awakened as from a dream. He was afraid to be thought less than a man. And so while She waited by the lake for their evening song he took to the street and sought a loose maiden with no name to lay with. Night after night She waited, and night after night he took more maidens to his bed until their faces were one. Fearing for Her love, She sought him in the streets until She found him in the arms of the tavern wench. She vowed that he would be Her first and last love, the only one She would ever love or lose. She was never seen in the village again.

Now he is a shell of the man he used to be, living in a world that does not know him, remembering Her....

Chapters: One

Why Do I Love You? 

Do you know how much I love you?

I love you today, just enough, for Ever.

Why do I love you?

When I lay awake at night watching you sleep, I ask myself. When I look into your eyes in those rare moments that you are looking into my eyes, I wonder. When you love me with every bit of your body and soul, even then I wonder. And when you hurt me - when you break my heart and pierce my soul - I wonder what keeps me loving you and returning to you. I pray and I wonder.

I do not love you for your Beauty. You are fair, but not the fairest of them, or the most perfect. But you are perfect to me. And if I was blind and could not look upon your face, still I would love you.

I do not love you because of the gifta you bring. Even the world on a platter could not earn my love. But I cherish every moment you spend and every smile you give like drops of pure gold.

I do not love you for your great charm. If you spoke great lengths of verse and made magic happen with your words, I could not love you any more than I already do today, just enough, for Ever.

Now I know that loving you is because of nothing that you do or nothing that you give or nothing that you say or nothing that you are. I love you because you chose me and because I choose you. And until the day Fate wills us apart for good, still will I love you, no matter what you are or what you say or what you give or what you do.

I ask the stars that you love me too.

If only the gods would be so kind........

Down with Love

I never write about these things when I am feeling them. That is my chief protective tactic. But nothing is more appropriate for tonight and I will worry about how damaging this is for my 'image' or whatever some other time.

When I decided that I would be 'Down with Love' all through February, I got a lot of mixed reactions. Some people assumed I was seeking attention and lining up prospects for Valentine's Day, others thought I had found a new lover or boyfriend and was expressing it in my own little twisted way. Some of my friends thought it was cute, and others just got a little bit more concerned about my sanity. Most people thought it wouldn't last...

So a little disclaimer: February 2011 for me is just a time to embrace the idea of love in all its cheesiness, nothing more. I am not in love with anyone... not anymore.

When I woke up this morning, everything was perfect. I was with that one person that made me happy just by being around, and that was simply enough for me. Add that to a very nice service at church and the promise of Valentine's Day in the air, it was a pretty perfect day. Fast-forward a few hours into the day, and it was any girl's nightmare: Breaking Up the night before Valentine's Day.

I guess this is the part where I try to save face and explain that I was the one who broke it off with him and that he wasn't my boyfriend yet anyway, just someone I was talking to, but nobody really cares about that at this point...but those are the facts, I promise. More importantly, I wanted to immortalize the way I feel right now about Love, especially with the wave of romance that will soon be upon us.

I still believe in love. Madly and completely. And I will still be celebrating Valentine's Day tomorrow because I can't help myself (and because I have to show off my wonderful presents too). And it is not because I am a sucker for punishment or because I have lost touch with reality. It is because of what love really means to me. The way I understand love, it is an internal process. We are helplessly attracted to people for many reasons, but the ones that we truly love are those that we choose to love even after we peel back the layers and see every imperfection that was hidden before. That is what love is to me. And when you love people like that, it is easier to forgive and easier to trust because with every new thing you learn about them you can make a choice: to love or let it go.

Tonight, I let it go. I have loved a lot, trusted a lot, and forgiven a lot. I have given my time, my affection, my loyalty and for every minute that it lasted I was truly happy. 100%, all the time. But tonight I made a new choice, I have decided to fall out of love. He will never love me unconditionally like I have loved him. And I deserve so much more.

So, it is me and Cupid on a journey yet again....

♡♥ Happy Valentine's Day!!! ♥♡

I'm thankful for....

I have often wondered if I am thankful enough, not just to God for the amazing life I have but also to the people who are in my life who help to make it so wonderful. My professor read a few word from a self-help book called 'HELP' that tells of the powerful effects of a 'Gratitude Lifestyle' on people's lives and encouraged us to keep a gratitude journal to remember all the people that we are thankful for. I thought of how easily we all tend to get depressed when a problem pops up, and how great it would be to have a little reminder of when things were great, when a huge problem got solved and  people were kind and loyal and generous and truthful to us. I also thought of all the times that we get too busy to be thankful to people because we're worrying about the next problem.

Gratitude helps us simply by taking our focus away from the things we do not have or the things that are not so great and placing them on what is important: the people and the good things that we have right now. It is a simple principle of life that those who have a positive attitude and are quick to acknowledge the gifts of others make other people happy and in turn create more gifts for themselves. As the Yoruba proverb that says, "He who gives thanks for today's favor will surely receive another tomorrow...."


So what's your Grati-o-meter looking like? Have you been down in the dumps because the world is so terrible? Or have you stopped to breathe and say a quick Thank You to someone who made life just a little easier for you? Think about it, maybe even start a Gratitude Journal about ONE good thing that someone does for you every day. I promise you, you will realize that the world is not all bad and that there are some pretty awesome people out there. For me, that's more than enough to be grateful for.

PS I am Thankful that you took the time to read this..... Peace.