What to Say...Finding My Emotional Center

Unhappy doesn't quite cut it. Depressed fits but is too...well...deflating. Life is a beach and I'm here for a dynamite tan, but the clouds covered the sun some time ago.

Now I struggle to get out of bed every morning and everything just seems so set in stone it won't budge. For a summer day this is one of the worst ones I've had lately. Hot, muggy, and stifling in all ways but especially spiritually.

I feel cramped, trapped, and frustrated. I know I must move on but can't seem to manage even the simplest tasks to achieve that goal. Don't worry, for me suicide isn't a viable option, never has been never will be.

Instead, I languish wishing I had the courage I needed to 'just do it' as so many have urged of me. You ask me for my honesty and you're getting it. Life isn't a bowl of cherries; or if it is I got the pits without the fruit.

I'm bright, funny, and very sweet according to those that know me. Inwardly, it's an entirely other set of words, cold, broken, and unfair to name just three. Which set do I believe?

Grief overwhelms me; not just losing Happy Cat or Chris lies at the bottom of it, but a long string of losses of those closest to me. Great granddad, followed years later by grandpa and then his wife my gran, shortly after her my beloved mother-in-law (yes we actually got along very well and I adored her); now lately my beloved younger brother Christopher and my favorite cat Happy.

Left to me are the shreds of the life I tried to be successful at...and failed utterly. No ready cash, no working car, and no job to speak of. I sound a bum and feel that way too. Have felt it since I was very small.

Distance between me and my mother and surviving siblings doesn't help, yet I'm unwilling to bend in the ways each wishes that I would. I can't for doing so would scald my spirit past recovery. I WISH they understood me and accepted me as I am, but they don't.

Ditto for a spouse turned rancid and dangerous because I no longer feel for him as I once did. No passion left after fighting to overcome poverty for almost 30 years; no desire remaining because his words killed it; no wish to resume that life because I long ago outgrew the cage containing it.

Here instead is my therapy and release. Here also is the hope that lives outside of Christ. I grasp this straw and strangle the rope it makes as I strive mightily to exit the pit that my emotions dug long

Life's Twists and Turns

I've been through a lot in the past year or so. I lost a beloved younger brother to melanoma in March 2010 and my favorite feline this past May (2011). I've been threatened with my job and laid off much earlier than expected, both this year.

Now I'm exploring my options online in the hopes of garnering support for my pre-existing stores. I share Sunshine's ambition of being totally self-supporting by the end of the year, as most jobs in my area aren't what I need to earn a living that sustains my body while it nourishes my mind. Some would say I'm too fussy but I recently passed the half century mark, so I feel I'm entitled to pick the right job and go for that over settling for what's out there.

I've settled for what I could get for most of my life, therefore I won't any longer. If that makes me crazy, so be it.

If I didn't have my friend Sunny I'd be a very lost individual, as she's encouraged me to branch into landscape photography and using what I've done thus far to create stunning greeting cards at Greeting Card Universe (GCU). My link is http://www.greetingcarduniverse.com/katiesclevercardstore; hers is http://www.greetingcardunivers.com/sunshinescreativeendeavors.

We collaborate on many of the cards using her images and my verse or her version of my image with my verse. If you have anything in mind that you'd like to see and don't, contact me at PKTaylor365@gmail.com and specify what you want and with your contact information and a rough deadline for the project.

We also have stores at Red Bubble, deviant Art, and Web Shots, so pop in there if you haven't found what you want at GCU.

Petra