[thegirlwhocrieswolf]

[lovequotesrus]

More poetry & prose by Lang Leav here

[marybethabroad]

Wow. Well said.

[uplifted-vibrations]

…That thing that you do, after your day job, in your free time, too early in the morning, too late at night. That thing you read about, write about, think about, in fact fantasize about. That thing you do when you’re all alone and there’s no one to impress, nothing to prove, no money to be made, simply a passion to pursue. That’s it. That’s your thing. That’s your heart, your guide. That’s the thing you must, must do.

www.upliftedvibrations.com (via creatingaquietmind)

[marybethabroad]

...and now, almost a year later, I'm still not sure how to feel anything other than fear and pain. Only the fear is different. I'm not afraid of losing you anymore, because you're already gone, I'm afraid of what's next...

[creatingaquietmind-deactivated2]

"My wife and I just don’t have the same feelings for each other we used to have. I guess I just don’t love her anymore and she doesn’t love me. What can I do?" "The feeling isn’t there anymore?" I asked. "That’s right," he reaffirmed. "And we have three children we’re really concerned about. What do you suggest?" "love her," I replied. "I told you, the feeling just isn’t there anymore." "Love her." "You don’t understand. The feeling of love just isn’t there." "Then love her. If the feeling isn’t there, that’s a good reason to love her." "But how do you love when you don’t love?"  "My friend , love is a verb. Love - the feeling - is a fruit of love, the verb. So love her. Serve her. Sacrifice. Listen to her. Empathize. Appreciate. Affirm her. Are you willing to do that?

Stephen R. Covey, The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People (via creatingaquietmind)

Love is a verb.

[tastefullyoffensive]

[via]

[countrygirllie-]

[lovequotesrus]

EVERYTHING LOVE

[marybethabroad]

Everything I ever wanted.

[marybethabroad]

The thing about forever is that there's no such thing. The truth is that none of us get out alive.

[marybethabroad]

Life's Little Victories

Starting a new life can seem daunting, especially when you start over with nothing. Actually, it's intimidating as hell no matter how many "start anew" quotes you pin on Pinterest. Starting with a clean slate is a good idea on paper, but no one ever talks about how painful it really is. (Not to me anyway.) Then when you experience it, it can seem more painful because you're adding shock to the equation. My clean slate was wrapped in a beautiful, Australian bow so that made it more exciting. Just like anything else, there are good days and there are bad days. Good days are basically days where you feel like you're back on your feet, confident and enjoying your life. Bad days or moments when you feel sad, hopeless, lonely or angry. It's usually never a whole day, moments is a closer description, and it's typically triggered by a memory. Songs are famous for this, but also restaurants, phrases, movies, whatever. When you've done nearly everything together, there can be a lot of triggers. The part I'm still trying to figure out is how you go from sharing your entire life with someone to now keeping it to small talk, or not talking at all in some people's cases? This step has been the hardest by far when your soul mate becomes an acquaintance. Now this isn't my first rodeo as far as breakups go, and I know time heals all things, but ending a marriage feels so different that any relationship that has ever ended for me and it drives me bananas. People talk about how hard it is, but they don't specify as to why. I understand it a little more each day, and I feel like people (who are comfortable) should talk about it. I also agree that people have to basically grieve it like a loss, because you are essentially losing important people in your life. A whole family to be exact. I definitely find the "one day at a time" method to be helpful. It seems really silly to me to rationalize your life like that, but it's effective. You do things on your own again that you may have never done, or haven't done in a long time and you surprise yourself. The little surprises make you happy, thus giving you more good days. Memories won't get lost, but the pain they cause begin to wain and that in itself is one of life's best little victories. My latest victory? Buying a car completely by myself. I have purchased a car before, but I had my entourage with me. This time, it was just me.

[marybethabroad]

This. Is. Amazing.

[marybethabroad]

Redefined.

Going through any major life event, whether that be the loss of a loved one, moving to a new place, changing jobs, or even changing your hair, you tend to pay attention more to where you are, where you've been and where you're going. A journey by definition is a passage or progress from one stage to another. (Well, it's one of the definitions anyway.)

In going through all of the above and more, and studying myself under a microscope, I'm also becoming more observant of the people, places and things around me that I may not have noticed so closely before.

As a person approaching 30, I think it's pretty typical for someone my age to start putting a little more thought into where to invest my time because it seems to get a little more precious as each second passes. I don't recall the days officially getting shorter, but even as an individual lacking full-time employment, spare moments seem to be few and far between. I never really spent much time thinking about time until there was a time limit on my marriage. As soon as we agreed that it was over, a clock was ticking on my happy moments with my family and in my home. It was like a time bomb waiting to shatter it into a million pieces. Then, a clock was ticking until I left for Australia. Now a clock is ticking for me to find a job/car/house/new life and in all the noise of the ticking clocks I lost myself. I became an entity that existed merely to pay bills on time. And yes, I did use some of that time to revel in the beauty of Australian beaches.

In all of this, I became much more observant than I used to be. I pay a lot of attention to my friends and their growing families. (Which, admittedly, can be very difficult and even painful sometimes regardless of how happy I am for them.) My family, and especially my younger brother. I'm sure other oldest siblings can relate that you rarely look to learn from your younger sibling(s). It's your job to torture them until they're as big as you are, and then you teach them everything that you know. I think it's safe to say that I've been a pretty good "what-not-to-do" guide for Andrew. I've never been hugely irresponsible - thank God - but nothing about my life has been "by the book." Lately though, unbeknownst to him, he's taught me more than I ever thought he would. He's unconditionally happy. Seriously. He's always been the happiest person in our family and honestly has all of the best qualities from every single one of us. He's very smart like my Dad, has never met a stranger like my Mom, is kind to everyone like my grandmothers, and loves to laugh like all of us. (Even if our jokes are a tad off-color, but that's just the Thomas way.) : ) He's not as quick to love like I am was, but when he loves, he loves with his whole heart. He and Amy remind me so much of my Mom and Dad/Grammy and Grandpop. A love that you know is forever. 

I'm trying really hard to make my journey from where I was to wherever I'm going a positive one, and I don't think that there's any shame in looking to those who are doing it right for some silent pointers. I just never imagined that the little boy I used to pick on would grow into the man that I look up to in more ways than one. 

[middlenameconfused]

In order to get over your ex, you have to move on And at least temporarily unfriending and unfollowing him/her will help you do so. Being friends with someone who once broke your heart is fine and dandy, but it’s almost always a good idea to take a breather between this and that. I strongly encourage you to resist the temptation to devour your ex’s every musing, darling. Shutting off that cyber feedbag will feel like hell those first few days, but I’m certain you’ll soon realize how much better you can breathe when you’re not constantly breathing in the fumes of your ex’s life without you.

Cheryl Strayed, tiny beautiful things (via creatingaquietmind)

Solid advice.

[marybethabroad]

Traveling through time.

I feel as if I've been time traveling a lot lately, both physically and metaphorically. You know all about the physical time travel to the other side of the world, but I'm opening up more and more each day about the emotional and metaphorical time travel. 

Writing a memoir not only requires you to put yourself out there, completely out there, but it also requires you to study your past. So now that the secret is out, I'm writing a memoir about my divorce, now I can talk openly about what it's like to examine yourself. This may seem like a normal, everyday thing to examine yourself, and it may sound like the scariest thing in the world. I've always been a "live out loud" type of person, and have never had a need to keep many secrets. My family is very open, my friends are more open than that, so writing a memoir seemed like something in my comfort zone.

My first draft was essentially "my story," but I added fiction to make it more interesting. Like most people, I felt my life was interesting enough to be a book. I did this, let some friends read it and the response was unanimous: "This is OK, but your story is better. Write your story." Even though it took me nine months to write this fictionalized version of my life, I dumped it all and listened to my target audience. I started over at the beginning and am currently writing my life. As a writer who's favorite part about writing is characterization, I'm having to study myself pretty hard to A. make sure I get the facts right and B. as much as I would love to write myself as a flawless heroine, I want to make sure I keep the emotions real at the appropriate times. For example, when looking back mid-divorce it's harder to remember the butterfly stage of falling in love. Luckily, I have tons of journals to reference. 

Rereading journal entries throughout the life of a relationship is a melting pot of emotions. It's fascinating, frustrating, and a little depressing all at the same time. (Depressing because you already know how it ends.) It's yet to be (self) determined whether this is a healthy practice or not, but it's the only way that I can properly research for the book. I have learned that it helps me appreciate the relationship that we had, reading pages of my journal that capture our lives from the time that we first said "I love you," helps me remember that we were in fact in love. I find myself reading some entries and wanting to scream at the pages the same way you want to scream at the horror story victim who runs up the stairs or doesn't see the killer behind them. You want to save yourself the inevitable pain that you're about to face, but you can't. 

I frequently go back to a page in a little black and white composition notebook, where on April 4, 2009 I wrote: "It's funny how one decision can affect the rest of your life." The journal entry was written sloppily by an almost 25-year-old me who's head-over-heels in love, officially moving in with her boyfriend, advancing her career at a new agency in advertising, and can't even fathom just how true that simple sentence is. Little did I know then that five years later I would be mid divorce, leaving EP and moving to Australia. 

It seems like a cliche clip from any romantic comedy, but alas it is my life, and the reason I no longer believe in 5-year plans. Honestly, one-year plans are hard to believe after my Australia stint was ten months shorter than originally planned. Either way, the lesson is that life WILL throw you curve balls BUT things might end better than you ever could have imagined.

We'll see.

[marybethabroad]

Scars aren’t always apparent to the naked eye, but they’re there. They show strength of the battles you’ve survived, or are desperately trying to survive. They rip every weak fragment from you, and from that broken puddle on the ground you rebuild yourself piece by piece, making you whole again, someone brand new. You grow stronger because no one is going to do it for you. You’re completely alone and with every painful step, you do move forward. Even stopping to breathe is progress because you’re still standing. Broken hearts demand rebirth, even if you didn’t want to change, because it’s nearly impossible to completely shatter something and rebuild it exactly the same way.

[marybethabroad]

Journey to Love

Today my travels took me a short 150 miles to the capital of South Carolina, Columbia. Many of the great loves in my life started here. My parents met at USC, as did many of my honorary Aunts and Uncles, who taught me how to love growing up. I owe this city a lot, because if it wasn't for Columbia my parents wouldn't have met and I wouldn't have been born here. This is also the home of two of my very best friends and their new adoring husbands. (And I would be remiss not to mention my love of the Gamecocks which started before I was even a thought in my parents' heads and my Dad was on the field - GO COCKS! Sorry, had to do it.) Going through a break up, or worse a divorce, can easily make you bitter. I'll be the first to admit that. And if you find yourself not bitter, you can easily become afraid of love. That may sound silly to some, but when you reach a point when you want to spend the rest of your life with someone and the forever you envisioned doesn't last as long as you planned, it can be scary to "put yourself back out there" after scraping every shattered piece of your heart and piecing it back together. I use quotations there because it's often the advice you get. The alleged cure to a broken heart. I have a lot of love despite my situation. I love my family, I love my friends, I love the beach, I love fishing, I love oysters - you get the picture. And I think this stems from the love that all started in this very city. I'm surrounded by true love, and as silly as it sounds and even feels to write, but it keeps me hopeful to be surrounded by so much love. My parents' love is unrivaled and unconditional. My cousin and best friend have both married their soul mates this year, and you can feel the love that they share with their husbands when you're with them. I know what being in love feels like, because I've been lucky enough to have been in love twice now. What I haven't experienced first-hand is mutual, unconditional true love, but I can recognize it when I see it. It makes me happy to see the people I love finding love, because it means that I'm not bitter. (Thank God!) And no, you don't have to be in Columbia to find love. My brother has found quite the catch in Greenville and their love is much like my parents, mutually unconditional. Love is everywhere, all over the world, and not everyone is like me and has to learn everything the hard way. But who knows, some how, some day maybe someone out there might love that about me?

[marybethabroad]

Cruel Journeys

While I'm not traveling at the moment, I'm still on a crazy, and sometimes cruel, journey. Writing is like therapy to me, so bare with me as some posts may slightly resemble a public diary - but my hope is that if my thoughts can bring someone in a similar situation some relief, then it's worth it to publish my heart on the Internet. I live in SC, and here when a marriage ends you have to be separated for a year before they'll give you a legal divorce. Before marriage, I agreed with this because vowing to love and cherish each other until death do you part is not a promise to be taken lightly. Now that I know that sometimes it just can't work out no matter how hard you try, it seems cruel to drag the pain of a breakup out for a year when it's amicable. When you break up with someone, the thing you're supposed to do next is move on. Well, during my separation I've found it impossible to begin to move on because it doesn't feel finished. Selling our house, moving out, leaving the country, nothing makes it feel completely over. Not at all. Maybe it's writing his last name every time I sign something makes it impossible. And to make things harder its not just him that I have to move on from, it's also his amazing daughter whom I love more than life itself. I really feel like I'm living my life completely out of order. Having a full family, then traveling abroad like a college grad (which was amazing and something I truly needed) - but starting over now with the impending divorce coming up takes a little joy out of everything I do. All because some legislatures years ago sat in a room and decided that if my marriage didn't work I needed to ponder on that decision for a year. Now I can't help but wonder if this year of said pondering has ever helped anyone? It's certainly not helping me, just weighing on my heart. They say time heals all things, and I believe that. I only have three months left until the healing can begin.

[marybethabroad]

File under: things I learned Down Under

[marybethabroad]

If something is worth doing, it's worth doing badly. Enjoy the fun of failure.

Gretchen Rubin