People Are Puzzle Pieces
Inspired by Ron Hudson
Did you ever meet someone, man or woman, and you just felt like you “clicked”? I have. I tell my husband all the time that he is my puzzle piece, and that’s where I got this idea.
Puzzles are intricate things that are big and beautiful. Puzzles take time and effort to get to know in order to be complete. Puzzles are made of little pieces that come together under one or more commonalities. One puzzle piece can have a flower’s petal on one side, a bit of a barn on the other and the hood of a horse on the other. One tiny piece yet so varied, so on side it connects with another piece of flower, the other side, the horses hoof, etc.
Yet, there will be times when you stumble upon a piece that doesn’t belong. It just doesn’t fit. It’s got the wheel of a cart on it. A horse-drawn cart, but that connects about fifty pieces away from where you are at. Not all pieces will fit with yours. That’s ok, not all were meant to fit with yours. The thing is, in order to figure out what was on that piece, you had to look.
All people are worth looking at, taking notice of, trying to get to know. If you don’t get along, no big deal, be courteous, move on until you find someone you do. Because just like puzzles, we can not be complete all on our own. Whether it’s family or friends, we need others, other pieces, to be whole.
Life Is An Adventure
Inspired by Ron Hudson
Life is an adventure. I think too often people get too caught up in looking at the bigger picture, planning for the future, saving for a rainy day, that they forget to enjoy the road.
One of the most influential pieces of advice I was ever given was this:
“Life is not a journey to the grave with the intention of arriving safely in a pretty and well preserved body, but rather to skid in broadside, thoroughly used up, totally worn out and loudly proclaiming, “Wow, what a ride!”"
Not only that, but people tend to feel victims of their own lives. While, yes, there are times when you are a victim in certain circumstances, you can not let you get that down, because then that is the path you, yourself are choosing. Take myself for an example. by the age of fifteen, I was in thirteen foster homes, nine orphanages, was adopted, and both parents passed away, putting me BACK into the system. I was abused in a bout every way you can imagine, and eventually ran away and was living on my own, working and paying rent at the age of sixteen.
Yeah, that was a really horrible way to grow up, and I was bitter for a while. But. I made the choice that the only way it was going to get better was if I made it better. Taking into consideration that all I wanted was what I never really had – a family. Now, at the age of twenty-five, I have everything I have ever wanted. a family – a husband with whom i am madly and deeply in love with, two beautiful children who amaze me every day, and two dogs to make it the complete American Dream.
Now, taking all that into consideration, imagine how amazing my life will be if I continue to choose my own paths and not let what happens to me dictate the next path I take, the next chapter in my life, the next blog I post.
My life is not only an adventure, it is my own.
What is your life?!
Remember Me
Death comes for me one day
So I beg of you
Remember me
The woman who’ll be a girl at any age
One who could not not give
Optimistic to a fault
Someone who, though not always successful
Tried always to do the right thing
A beautiful creature inside and out
Who adored being the cause of someone’s smile
The woman who loved the world
Evermore
Overwhelming, prostrating
I feel you in my head
Obsessive, engulfing
You confiscate my heart
Flooding, drowning
You fill me up in kind
Intriguing, counfounding
I long to know your mind
Scrupulous, endearing
I need discern your core
Audacious, alluring
I crave you evermore
Sweet Solitude
Come to me sweet soitude
Take away all the attitude
Create for me an empty vessel
For me to slumber, for me to nestle
A place for me all on my own
I’ll sit there with no light shone
Contemplating upon my madness
Without feeling all the sadness
Looking back on times gone by
Thankful for the Lord on high
Charting out the coming course
Searching within to find the source
Oblivion
Take me to oblivion
Where there’s not even light
Bring me home into your arms
Hold me with all your might
Gather all the broken pieces
Unbreak me, make me right
This is what you do to me
When you hold me tight
True Love
I’ll spare us all the pain of lies
That love-sick idiots tend to spout
Whilst so afflicted
I give you rather unbridled truth
You’re not perfect we both know
Nor do I bode claim to such a title
But for all our little tendencies
The quirks we have adopted
I love you not in spite of them
Instead because of them
It’s made you who you’ve come to be
Neverland
Drag your haggard soul to me
For I shall lift you up
Bring forth your wayward thoughts to me
And I will snatch them up
I’ll take you away
I’ll kidnap you to Neverland
Where life is fun, love abundant
And all I need is you
I Await You
Before the clouds gave birth to a storm
Before darkness penetrates the light
Before the doors close forever
I will look into your eyes once more.
This silence is giving me a headache
Its waves are no longer soothing.
The unbearably sweet smell of eternity
Has made me ill again.
All my senses have bled together
My eyes, they feel your heat.
Heaven help me, I can’t tell
The dreamers from the dream.
Is isolation an emotion?
I’m feeling it now.
Millions of tiny, flaming needles
Tumbling down a velvet carpeted hall.
Memories on fingertips
Flesh that doesn’t bleed.
Hearts the beat on black or white
Never in between.
And hands that build cannot destroy
The walls that they have made.
Armor made of paper hearts
Protection from your rage.
Mourning filters through the cracks
And in a
Timeless
Placeless
Place
I await you.
How I became a Marine Corps Wife
Okay . . .
So, the first thing I get when people find out that my husband is in the Marine Corps, is one of the following:
“OMG! Aren’t you scared?”
“Isn’t hard to be away all that time?
“Oh, that’s too bad.”
“How long until he gets out?”
Screw you ALL! Serisouly. Does anyone want to take a moment to actually ask me how I feel about it? I’m damn happy and wouldn’t have it any other way. AND, just to prove that to you, for all of you that DON’T know me, here is the story of how, exactly, Cliff became a Devil Dog . . .
I’ve known Cliff for 8 years, we’ve been married for just over 5. Ever since i have known him, he has talked about how much he wished he would have joined the Corps. He participated in Marine Corps JROTC all throughout high school, and has his pictures from then, in uniform, around the house. He talked about what he would do, were he to join, their history, the types of weaponry they use.
So, one day, after reaching my limit of watching and observing how miserable he was in life because he worked a 12 hour night shift job that SUCKED, and the money wasn’t worth it, I asked him, “Why don’t you join the Corps?”
He looked at me as if I were crazy. I’m not sure if he was surprised that I might support it, or that I thought it was a feasible option. Either way he thought I’d truly lost it.
He then proceeded to make excuses. He insisted he was too old, had too many dependants, was not in shape . . . basically he was afraid of failure. Never once in his arguments did he say he didn’t want to do it.
SO . . . me being me, I told him a few days later, “Cliff, here’s the recruiter’s telephone number. If you don’t call them, I will!” I don’t think he believed me because he still hadn’t done it after 2 days. So, after 2 days, I grabbed the number and the phone, and told him i was going to make the call. I walked into the bedroom to get away from the noise of the TV and children.
To make a long story short, I emerged from the bedroom 2 hours later. I walked up to Cliff and looked at him sheepishly, saying, “Ok, so don’t be mad at me, but we have an appointment with the recruiter at 9:30 tomorrow morning. If you don’t want to go, fine, but I’m going to go and at least get some information.”
He protested for all of 10 seconds, and then grudgingly agreed to attend.
So, we show up at the recruit office the next day, and to this day, our recruiter still tells people he wasn’t sure who he was recruiting. not to mention he admits that I scared the crap out of him. LOL.
Before we started anything, i looked at our recruiter, who I knew was married with 2 kids, like ourselves, and said to him, “Look, I know that recruiters have a tendency to lie and sugarcoat things to “make bones” and get the guys to join. But if you lie to an 18 year old idiot right out of high school who has no one to worry about but himself, it’s not that big of a deal. But if you lie to us, to Cliff, you’re going to be affecting not only him and his life and his future, but my future and that of my children as well. So, if you do or say anything that fucks with that, I WILL hunt you down and inflict serious pain upon you. Ok?!”
He looked at me, slack-jawed, then looked at Cliff and asked, “Is she ALWAYS like this?”
Cliff’s reply was, “Hell, she’s being nice!”
I then proceeded to ask many, many, MANY questions, so that I would know what to expect every step of the way. At the end of it, I looked at Cliff and said, “Well?” He looked at me and said, “I don’t know, what do you think?” I smiled from ear to ear and said, “Let’s do it. and if we do this, let’s do it all the way – no reserves or any shit like that. Let’s do this right!”
So, he signed the papers, we got our life in order, did what we had to do. I helped Cliff train physically to get into shape, I even made him memorize all his orders and traits and even his oath (Yeah, I memorized them too in the process). He’d come home from a 5k run, and in the middle of his 30th sit up, I would shout out, ” What’s your fifth general order?” and make him recite it verbatim.
Graduation was one of the proudest, happiest days of my life. Most people I know think I’m crazy for what I’m about to say, but here it is:
I LOVE PARRIS ISLAND.
If I had it my way, Cliff would be a rifle instructor (which is what he wants eventually) on Parris Island, and we would live either on base, or in Beaufort.
OOH FUCKING RAH!
You should see my car. I have . . . 8, yeah, i think 8, Marine Corps Decals on it – magnets, window vinyls, stickers. I’m so proud to be a Marine Corps wife. I have so many USMC shirts it’s laughable. And my friends DO laugh at me, because when I’m cleaning, I like to listen to my CD of marine Corps Cadences.
My fave:
Everywhere we go, people want to know
Who we are, where we come from
We come from an island
A motivated island
They call it an island
Parri Island
So, that’s how I became a Devil Dog Diva.
And I wouldn’t have it any other way.
