Being Me

I’m slowly coming to the realization that I’m not destined to be a size 8.  It just isn’t going to happen in this lifetime, and maybe not even in the next one.  There are so many other things that I would rather do than obsess about my weight or whether I’m eating only organic food.  So let me introduce myself by telling you who I am besides being overweight.

I’m a person who loves people.  I love animals and being outside.  I love to take photographs of small up-close things like flowers and caterpillars as it reminds me to stop and recognize the beauty in everything around us.  I have 4 kids who drive me to distraction but I’m so proud of them and so happy they have chosen me to be their mother.

I get angry and frustrated sometimes, with myself and with others around me.  I hate politics but I love my country.  I cry and laugh and giggle and sigh.  I love the night but purr like a happy kitten when in the sun.  I love being near and in the water and I dream of someday owning a cabin in the mountains that is not too rugged nor too far away from other people. 

I’m an extravert who still needs her quiet time.  I love to read everything from gushy romance to mysteries to horror to sci-fi.  I’m slowly working on my Bachelor’s degree in Communications because I believe that a lot of issues could be resolved with proper communication.   I have hopes and dreams that someday I will meet my true partner – someone that I can not only love but also respect.

I’m so much more than my outward shell and yet when people see me, who do they really see?  Do they see an overweight, inching towards middle-age woman or do they see a person with hopes and dreams and aspirations?  Do they see someone who encompasses what it means to be a friend or do they see someone who they believe doesn’t care about herself?  

I love me and I’m even coming to understand that I love me just as I am.

A Salute To The Brave

Every war brings atrocities committed by both sides, but in the midst of atrocities are the untold stories of heroes who risked all to save others from unimaginable horrors.  These men and women believe in the American way of life, with all its glitz and glamor, with all of its honor and courage and freedoms.  As I view pictures of the Freedom Rock I am struck by a sense of awe that these people, and so many more, have fought so that you and I might have the freedom to live as we choose, freedom to bash our government, to protest, to vote how we wish and even the freedom to decide not to vote at all.  They fought hatred and prejudice.  They fought genocide, starvation, slavery and the slow death of defeat of the human spirit.  These men and women have earned my respect simply by standing up to join the fight.  They earned my gratitude by leaving their homes and families to go where I dare not tread, so that I could stay home with my family.  They earned my love by standing up to tyrants and dictators and hate-mongers, working to free people who many times reviled the very people who were there to help them. 

It doesn’t matter whether you believe in the American government.  What matters is whether you believe that every man, woman and child should have the right to make their own decisions for good or bad.  That no one anywhere should force another to follow a set religion or culture.  That no one anywhere should be made to slave for another while their own families are left to die.  Those who fight for freedom have shown courage that I can only be in awe of and I bow down to them as the heroes of life that they are.

An excerpt from “No Peaceful Warriors!” by Ambrose Hollingworth Redmoon

                “Peaceful warrior” is far more than a contradiction in terms.  The function of a warrior is to eliminate an exterior enemy presence… Cowardice is a serious vice.  Courage is not the absence of fear, but rather the judgment that something else is more important than one’s fear.  The timid presume it is lack of fear that allows  the brave to act when the timid do not.  But to take action when one is not afraid is easy.  To refrain when afraid is also easy.  To take action regardless of fear is brave.”