Write with TLC

2024 has found me, us, the world. I keep searching for meaning in the moments, large and small, that made up 2023, globally as well as personally. There are disappointments, challenges, losses, and triumphs dotted throughout the year. Somehow today it is the little kindnesses that stand out to me in a sea of painful moments. And, I wonder if sometimes we forget that a little kindness, a little love, a little compassion goes a long way toward making life bearable for those in challenging circumstances. My problems this year pale in comparison to worldwide atrocities. They were still challenges I had to face and handle. Those challenges taught me some lessons about the people in my life as well as about myself. Frankly, I don't want to talk about my personal 2023 right now. Relationships change, grow, end, and begin. People lift us up and people let us down. Good things happen, and bad things happen. The world around us can be incredibly kind and just as cruel. And through it all, we...

Forgiveness is not some supernatural event that fixes everything. It can't be. Asking it to be is too much to expect as well as absolving us the work it takes to right a wrong or at least acknowledge a wrong that can't be righted. Forgiveness is all about accountability and absolves no one from the need for accountability. Forgiveness is essential to life. It allows hurts to mend, amends to be made, and offers a way to move forward. Sometimes that forgiveness allows people to move forward together, but sometimes it helps them move forward apart. When they move forward together, that's growing closer. When they move forward apart, that's finding closure. Both are important at different times in life. Forgiveness isn't something we do for the other person. It's a gift we give ourselves. It's a letting go of what's beyond our control. It's an acceptance of what happened and whose accountable. Forgiveness allows us to stop clinging to the mud miring us i...

I was reminded of this poem from my book, Reflections in Silhouette: Poems while working on the blog post, Masks of Me . I decided to share it. The Mask One day I put on a mask To make you love me Not because you asked But because I feared The look in your eyes Disappointment, I believe it was So I  Settled the mask into place Tweaked it Made it beautiful Perfected it to make you happy Created exactly what Made you smile Turned the look in your eye to approval Made you love me As time passed I deceived myself I accepted the mask as The real me I forgot who I was under The mask When the mask cracked As they will  I quickly – before anyone could see Plastered the cracks Filled in the holes Blended the paint Hid the damaged and weakened foundation Corrected its imperfections Settled the mask back into place When the mask slipped As they will I quickly – before anyone could see Pushed it around to make it fit Smoothed the borders Adjusted it so you wouldn’t notice Ignored the eve...

For much of my life, every time I let me out to play, work, or live, something went wrong. Someone would hurt me, or I would hurt someone.  I’d lose a friend. I would disappoint someone. I’d see that look of judgment. Mostly though I ended up feeling like I didn't belong, that I didn't fit in, that something was wrong with me. I would then retreat behind my mask and secure it in place. I was reminded of how prevalent my mask has been in my life recently while reading  Love Warrior  by Glennon Doyle. She describes her representative in much the same way I've often described putting on my mask for the world. Her descriptions of her reactions to expectations and conformity lined up far more with my experience than I want to acknowledge. I squirmed in my seat every time she referred to her representative. In fact, I kept wanting to change the word representative to mask because it lined up so well with my experience with my mask. I was drawn back to Glennon's descri...

January 16, 1947-March 22, 2021 Gary “Dean” Cooper, age 74, resident of Tollesboro, Kentucky, died surrounded by family on March 22, 2021 in Maysville, Kentucky.  He was born on January 16, 1947 in Lewis County to the late Arthur and Georgia Cooper. Dean was a devoted and loving husband, father, and grandfather who took great pride and joy in his children and grandchildren. He spent his life connected to the land as a farmer and a logger. He was also a gifted mechanic. Never one for idle hands, he started restoring Case tractors in his retirement and always had several restorations in the works. He is survived by his wife, Glenda, two daughters, T. L. (Loay), and Tonya (Charlie), three grandchildren, Kenisha (Tristan), Kaylee (Austin), and Tyler, and one great-grandson, Brayden. He is also survived by six sisters, and a brother. He is preceded in death by two brothers. If you’d like to plant a tree in Dean’s honor, please visit The Gifted Tree . Daddy, thank you for making me the w...

Earlier this week, Sam Falco blogged about exchanging letters when he was younger in his post, Letters , and it struck a cord with me. I've been thinking about it ever since because I remember having a whole network of friends and family that I exchanged letters with for years just like Sam did. Over time, those letters dwindled to almost zero. I occasionally have the urge to start writing letters again. I'll buy some nice stationery. I'll write a few letters. I'll put the stationery in a drawer and forget about it. Eventually, I'll feel the desire to write another letter. More often than not, I'll buy more stationery, but sometimes, like today, I'll open the drawer and use a sheet of the stationery I'd forgotten all about. Today, as I wrote a short letter to Sam, I thought about how much I enjoy the feel of the pen across the paper, the words taking form into sentences to express an emotion, share a thought, or remember a shared experience. I thou...

Sometimes it's easy to only see our own point of view. It's the default mode. It takes an effort to look at someone and say with sincerity "I want to hear your side of the story." Usually, we're only willing to hear someone else's side of the story when we're backed into a corner. Interesting how that works. It helps us hang on to our own narrative and shields us from confronting our biases. Yet, when we take a deep breath and open ourselves to hearing another person's side of the story, we invite compassion and understanding into our relationships, into our lives, into our selves. So why is it so incredibly hard to do? We claim we're interested in each other. We claim we're interested in the truth. We claim we're interested in connecting. Yet, so often when the story doesn't fit the narrative in our hearts and minds, our defenses go up and we shut out the other story. I tell myself time and again I'm going to be open to...

I recently went to a high school class reunion. I'll admit I felt hesitant about going. I'm not one of these people that remembers high school with all that much fondness. As I listened to my classmates exchange stories and memories, I felt a mix of emotions. We shared a formative part of our lives, and honestly I often felt like I didn't really fit in all that well. I felt surprised as I listened to other people express similar moments of those kinds of feelings. Among the laughs and the acknowledgements of how we've grown and the moments of looking forward, compassion came from unexpected places and attempts to connect came from others. Regrets were even expressed. Recognition of who we were then and even characteristics that haven't changed shone through. Hugs were abundant and promises to get together more frequently permeated the event. I was particularly struck by a discussion that arose once again about a particular classmate who has expressed to othe...

Sometimes it feels like there's nothing left to say. It feels like everything that could be said has been said. There are times when we have repeated ourselves so many times, we start to think the message will never be heard. Does it really matter what we communicate if the words go willfully unheard time and again? I'm not sure, but I know we can't stop speaking up. I can't stop speaking up even when I'm exhausted and it feels like no one cares about facts. Sometimes what seems so obvious to me is completely lost on other people. I want to believe that at heart people are good, but I'm not as sure as I used to be. As I talk to people, even people to whom I'm close, I often feel like we're experiencing the world from completely different places and that stops us from finding a way to meld the worlds we experience in a way that benefits us all. It's one thing to agree on a set of facts but to have differing opinions about what those facts mean....

Last week I talked about lifelong friendships and I alluded to friendships that don't last. This week I want to focus on those friendships that don't last. A friendship that doesn't last isn't necessarily a bad thing. Sometimes we meet people that we really connect with in the moment and for a time to come, but then circumstances make maintaining that friendship difficult. Perhaps over time we drift apart or our interests change or life takes us in different directions. It doesn't mean we stop feeling fondness for these people, but it might mean that the friendship goes dormant or even ends. Regardless the friendship changes in ways that break the connection. Without the ease with which we connected before, we don't find the way to stay in touch. Of course there are also those times when a friendship ends over a disagreement or a betrayal or some other hurtful event. Those friendships are harder to heal and some never do, as painful as that might be. Ot...

BFAAF. Best friends always and forever. I remember writing BFAAF many times to this friend or that friend when I was in high school and maybe into college. It seemed like such a sweet sentiment because it showed how close my friendships were. Even then I wondered about the idea of always and forever because that's a long time, it's like twice eternity, right? Yet, some friendships last. They aren't the ones who need affirmations like BFA&F even if sometimes we do share the sentiment aloud or in writing. Lifelong friendships often become chosen family. These friends and I can vehemently disagree one minute and toast one another's successes the next. Sometimes we can go for months or even years without talking and then within minutes of reconnecting feel like we've never been apart. But, they are also the friends who are most likely to make the effort to stay connected even if only in a small way. It's the thread that frays, but doesn't unravel, that can...

When I was in college my friends and I often consoled each other when a relationship would end by saying "He (or she if it was a female friend) didn't deserve your love anyway."  As I thought back on this defense mechanism, I started thinking about how often in life we apply this idea that someone doesn't deserve love because of a or b or c . Is this true? Or is love the thing that just might change a or b or c ? I ask myself these questions often and have since I started trying to live from a place of love. If you want to put more love into the world, you can't base your worldview on hatred or on searching for people who "deserve" love. When love is used as a reward and the removal of love is used as a punishment, we create a world lacking consistency and heavy on insecurity. I know I don't always "deserve" love and some of the love that has been most impactful in my life has come when I didn't "deserve" it. It ha...

We look for love to fill our lives to bring us to connection. We look for romance to prove love is something grand and larger than life. But so often what we call love is lust. We lust after another person. We lust after what life can offer. We lust after the intimacy that comes from connection. We romanticize the lust that catches each other's attention. We mistake lust for love and love for lust. And sometimes... Sometimes the lust we feel grows into a connection that leads to love. The physical becomes the emotional. But sometimes lust fades away and we look for what's left behind. It can be friendship or love or even disconnection. I look at love through such different eyes than I did when I was younger. I often mistook lust for love and missed the love that presented itself in quiet moments. I wanted to see some grand gesture that would sweep me off my feet yet I never trusted grand gestures. I wanted to believe that every offer of lust was an offer of love. Love and...

I had a different post planned for today, but  this morning I read an email from  My Intent  promoting a  14 Day Self-Love Journey  that intrigued me enough to see what they were doing. The day one journal prompt was "What is love to you? What is your intention with this self-love journey?" The more I thought about it, the more I felt compelled to blog about the first question... "What is love to you?" "What is love to me?" "What is love?" For much of my life, I subconsciously equated love with possession and jealousy. Love was a weapon. Love was scary. Love was vulnerability. I also thought love was only love if it was reciprocated. Love was an emotion. Love was dreamy and romantic and giving and kind...  Love was something I had to earn.  Love was the reward I'd get for achieving perfection. Love was always... out there, just beyond my reach.  A few years ago I decided to live from a foundation of love. I wanted a more solid fo...

Sometimes it feels like I'm surrounded by deception. We live in a world where deception is excused as spin or perception or opinion or image. While there is some truth to the idea perception influences our perspective of reality, the greater truth is there are some things that are factual, realistic, not up for interpretation. There are other things are simply not true no matter how much they fit the narrative we want to believe. I've lived parts of my life built on a foundation of deception. Deceptions I didn't choose. Deceptions I reluctantly accepted into my life. Deceptions I wore as a cloak from the vulnerability I feared.  Foundations built on deception crumble. Cloaks made of deception are full of holes. It's far better to face the truth, face reality, and then take action. Sometimes we embrace the deception because it feels better than the truth. It feels safer than the truth. It's easier than the truth. It's easier to believe what we want to bel...