Fourteen

1998: I searched for guys from Paris, France on the internet.... and fell in love with a guy wearing a camo jacket and a red beret. There was something in his serious face.... something hiding in his eyes that I had to get to know. We talked every day until I left for the military in 2000, and we lost touch when my life changed paths.

2002:  I bought a laptop and struggled to remember that French boy's screen name! Alas, I took a stab at it and sent a message, and he remembered me. We picked up talking where we left off.... as if no time at all had passed.

October 2005:  Nicolas came over for 2 weeks. We celebrated Halloween together, my birthday, and he was my date to my Airman Leadership School graduation. When he left, he took my heart with him. I sat on the floor where his suitcase had been and traced the lines in the carpet with my finger while I sobbed. I was homesick for him.

December 2005: Nicolas came back :) We spent Christmas together. 

January to May 2006: I deployed to Diego Garcia. We kept in touch via internet and snail mail. He'd made plans to come back to the US when I got home from deployment. 2 more weeks together. While deployed, I put in for orders to Germany (and got them!) I figured if we were going to make a go of our relationship, it would be easier if we were closer, geographically.

May 2006:  He proposed to me in the front yard of my Aunt Vicki's house. He knew this was my favorite place in the world and he tried hard to make it special. Things were rough, emotionally, and I just couldn't say yes with confidence yet. So I said "not yet."

August 2006: Stevie and I moved to Germany. At the end of a very long day of travel, I opened the door to see Nicolas standing on the other side. He had promised to be there for me - and he has been ever since! 

September 2006: An engagement ring on my finger. 

?? 2006: Not sure exactly when, but Nicolas quit his job in Paris and moved in with me in Germany. 

December 29, 2006: We were married at the city hall in Speicher, Germany. His mom and sisters made the trek to be with us (they insisted!) The weather was foggy and gray and seemingly miserable - but my whole life came together that day. 

It's been 14 years. Being married to my soulmate is as effortless as breathing. It's not always easy. We do drive each other nuts, occasionally! BUT... I have always had pride in our ability to communicate. We make an amazing team. My life, having grown up in Sonora, TX.... has turned into this magical world of experiences and discoveries - getting to travel to so many places and see/do so many things. It wasn't just Uncle Sam who made that possible - but my husband as well. I thank God for placing him in my life, to teach me and open my eyes to all the things I have learned since loving him. 

Happy Anniversary, Nicolas Durgeat. You make me, and that is enough. <3

Missing & Lost

I sit down to write. I find some good music on youtube and I let my body feel the words that need to come out and I look at Facebook for a moment before I switch over to Word, and I. Am. Disgusted.

Social Media is the antichrist. Twitter and Instagram and Facebook and any other site of the like.

For starters… simply… Facebook allows us to stay connected to people we were never meant to stay connected to, for life. People are meant to be in our lives either for a reason, a season, or a lifetime. Not ALL people are meant for life. However, social media enables that! It’s not a good thing, no matter how many cute photos and shares brighten our day. We’re frozen in a virtual time warp – never able to move forward because we carry the past with us.

Additionally, let’s look at what is happening right now, today. We’re able to screen capture and copy links and paste links and manipulate photos and stories and MAKE UP things that aren’t true and we share and share and share again and then the entire world is swayed by lies and deceived by all that is constantly thrown in their face on Facebook, and Twitter, and Instagram. Hashtags and videos and petitions and anger and sadness and hurt. Strong emotions! Emotions so strong that they’re driving people into a deep depression, and sometimes worse.

The GOOD part of social media is over. We’ve surpassed catching up with old friends, saying hello, seeing what they look like and how they are now. We’ve surpassed using social media to locate missing family members, abducted children, etc. Social media is now swirling with hate and division and it’s like a cancer feeding our souls.

Take a deep breath and look around…. The race war…. The religion war… the political war… the war on our freedoms in the very heart of the land of the free! Being forced to wear face masks in the name of a bullshit virus that media on the internet is force feeding us EVERY DAY! Fear is alive and hyperventilating in the core of everyone…. And social media is the fuel that is keeping it all burning.

It’s for this reason that I’m going to step back… I’m hurting, grieving for a part of me that is missing and lost and I’m certainly not finding it on the pages of Facebook. I’m not deleting my account, because I use messenger to communicate with friends. I’m simply going to log out for a while because I don’t want to know what this president or former presidents have fucked up. I don’t want to know the latest COVID count. I don’t want to hear about the statues being torn down or the buildings being renamed or for the love of God, that Aunt Jemima is being forgotten because she was black. I don’t want to see more quotes posted by keyboard warriors (and I certainly don’t want to continue being one, myself.) I don’t want to read “thoughts and prayers” anymore because THOSE ARE JUST WORDS on a screen. I want to believe in my heart that there are people out there who think about me, and might actually pray to the real God – not the electronically lit one.

Perhaps… in the midst of my wandering… maybe God will hear my cry and bless us all with a break in the chaos. Lord knows, we need it.

Feel free to shoot me a message on messenger if you’d like to say hi. I’m still here, just over there.

Harsh Truths

So the other day I went for a drive and in my scattered thoughts I'd given thanks to God, aloud, for blessing me with another beginning... my job with American Airlines/Envoy. I apologized for letting Him down in my other beginnings, and acknowledged His love for me by continuing to provide me with new opportunities despite the person I usually end up being. The negative Nancy, who gossips and talks badly about the coworkers who seemingly do less and expect more than others. It really is what drives me into stress and ultimately hating a job so much that somehow I end up leaving. (It's taking a LOT to admit this, openly.)

I asked Him though, in my talk with Him.... to guide me in the right direction! 'Lo and behold, my Father told me "try gossiping about the positive things." That slap stung! But it also filled my heart with such joy because it seemed like such an easy solution to an ongoing problem in my life. Sing praise about my coworkers... find the good. Spread it all around - like CORONA! :D

I laughed openly, out loud. So consumed am I in my own efforts and hard work that all I can do is see the negative and what others DON'T do.... and find ways and people to complain about them to.

And today - an article published about the Pope that solidified the belief that change is needed in my life. The Pope said, today, "The sin of sadness is the seed of the devil, that inability to make a decision about one's own life, but OK with looking at other peoples' lives in order to complain about that, not to criticize but to lament about oneself. It makes me think about so many of us, so many Christians who live in this state of sloth, unable to do anything but complain about everything."

Change is needed in MANY lives - but the only one that I can be solely responsible for is my own. Starting here, within.... and moving outward and onward in a more positive light.

He's not telling me I can't gossip. He knows too well that my mouth is huge :P He simply told me to gossip about the positive. Why hadn't I thought of that???

So awesome that when He speaks, you have no choice but to listen. <3 p="">

Memories

I posted photos of you on Facebook yesterday, Daddy... pictures I forgot I had of me and you and all the things we used to do. But even those pictures don't tell our story. And those pictures surely don't describe the unfathomable grief and the mountains I've climbed just to live life without you.

I wish I knew how to explain to people that you were the air I breathed. My shining star. My biggest idol (and also my biggest fan.) My first love. My best friend. Ride or die. Other half. My daddy. And as an only child, all of these relationships were intensified x10. You hung the moon and were my sun.

I remember you every day like you're still here. I'm forever locked inside age 16, when I lost you. I'm still waiting for you to take me hunting/fishing/camping. I wanna find fossils with you. I wanna lie in the back of the truck and watch falling stars. I wanna mow the back yard while you sit and watch me. But most of all, I just wanna talk to you. Ride beside you in the truck on a sunset drive, counting deer on the side of the highway.

24 years since I've seen you. God, that number is a slap in the face! I've grieved long enough that I don't remember the bad anniversaries anymore... I don't count the Novembers when you were diagnosed. or the Januarys when they said chemo was a waste. Or the Mays when you slipped away. Instead I silently remember the November 23rds when you're another year older (in Heaven.) And I celebrate the Thanksgivings and Christmases with you in my heart - because we loved those holidays the most.

I do my best to tell the kids about the type of man you were and the things we'd do together - but it makes me sad because they'll never REALLY know how much you would've loved them and they, you.

The one blessing I can count is that I married a man that resembles you... He has your kind heart, your strong, forgiving hands, and eyes that hold the world for his little girls.

I love you SO much, Daddy... I hope that over the vast emptiness of time and space, you can feel that.

He Found Me

I have denied my Father. That is my confession. I was blind, but now I see. . .

I have confessed that I throw wild pity parties and scream and cry while driving alone in my car because people have nothing but excuses for why they don’t want to hang out or do things with me. I feel abandoned. I feel alone and lonely.

Tonight, I took a drive to connect with Him. I often go with the intent, and end up sidetracked with thoughts and can’t focus… but tonight I gave Him all the glory. Tonight I thanked him for getting me home safely from Dallas. Tonight I thanked Him for the opportunity with this new career…. Like winning the lottery with the flight benefits and travel opportunities and the doors that it will open for me and my family. Connecting us to life, and actually living it!

It was in this conversation with my Father that a window was opened wide. He shared a gorgeous sunset with me as He helped me see that all those times I felt abandoned by friends, I never looked at Him and realized that He was with me. All the times I walked the dogs while muttering under my breath that no one ever goes with me and I’d love to have conversations with someone…. I could have easily talked to Him, instead. All the drives with no one in the passenger seat, He was there.

I apologized profusely for the heartbreak He endured, watching His child suffer for the time it took her to realize all of this. I apologized for abandoning Him and denying Him… for my selfishness… My soul took a deep breath tonight and I felt for once that He had filled my lungs, completely. A wave washed over me, it felt like. I told Him I was human, only human…

I forgot how good it felt to latch onto that connection with Him and focus and have a good conversation and actually hear Him when He speaks. I do hope that I can focus myself and spend more time with Him. My Father. My God.