Reflections: “tightrope highwire”

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Deep Thoughts, Love, reflections, relations

Is it possible to fall in love again?

The kind of emotions that take your breath away when you realize they still exist.

When do you realize there is a possibility?

Is it when that first kiss makes the world around you stop, and four minutes later you both realize it’s just the first date?

Is it when you realize you not only opened the restaurant for dinner, but closed the bar, the whole time wrapped up in each other like newlyweds?

Or perhaps when you watch him show off his various works of art and points of professional achievement, puffing up like a proud peacock, and rightfully so. You are anything but bored, and are fascinated by the working of this other persons brain.

Maybe when you look across the room at him and realize that the ache deep down inside that has been hurting for so long is starting to subside. Not because of someone else but because you look down and see that the wounds of the past are faded to scars.

There are many things we look for in love. Not just a long term relationship, but a forever future. A couple needs to be compatible on multiple levels and really be someone you can grow and grow old with. Someone to share all the incidentals of life with. Your lover. Your confidant. Your honeybunchsugarplum. Your best friend. The person who will be honest with you no matter what, even if you are having fat day and your hair looks like crap.

We give people chances to be that person in our lives and ourselves in theirs. Sometimes you realize a week in that it’s just better to cut bait quick before it gets anymore tangled, or you give it a few months and work out some bumps. Either way each party knows their deal breakers and it’s best to knock those suckers out quick in my humble opinion before you waste a year of your life on what will just end up being a shoe box of memories.

When my last marriage died I lost my husband, one of my best friends, my comic relief, my sunshine, my hero, my love.  It was excruciating. I missed having that connection and I wanted it back so badly. I had a lot of healing to go through both mentally, emotionally and physically, and a lot of growing up I had to do. I stupidly tried everything I could think of while the wreckage of what was the fairy tale was burning all around me. Nothing could or even would be able to fix it. There comes a point in life when you just have to survey the wreckage, take notes and move on. Staring at the flames of the plane crash isn’t going to do anything but dry out your skin and make your eyes itchy.

It’s been a long road. I’m at a point in my life where I have so much love to give. So much laughter and smiles to share. A passion for life and learning. I have identified things I need, things I want, and of course “panty droppers”. I’ve stepped out on that tightrope highwire of love a few times and been scared to death. It’s a long fall and it’s so easy to get hurt. If you want to have a relationship work you can’t just give it 90%, it’s going to take 110%+ and from both people. Just when you think you have identified a “low-risk” candidate something comes along and makes you realize it’s not the wisest investment even though it’s categorized as a “low risk”.  One goes running back to the safety of the platform, having your muscles shake in terror as you look down realize you could have fallen and there was no safety net to catch you.

Then leave it to me to have a “high risk” investment come by, and I being the hopeless romantic say “what the hell” and step on that highwire. My muscles shaking in terror and I hoping that the clowns in the ground crew put up a safety net just in case my partner on the other side of the tightrope isn’t able to meet me in the middle. I’m holding my breath… I don’t want to fall alone again.

Here’s the catch…. you don’t have to have a “safety net” or someone on the other side of the wire to catch you, you can catch yourself.

“I think her boobs were bigger…”

You always hope the day that you run into your ex isn’t one of your “less than fortunate” days. You know… the ones where you run into the grocery store to grab a pack of Midol and chocolate, while wearing your oversized yoga pants and university sweatshirt. Darting into the store quickly thinking that no one will recognize  you for the hot mess you are, then *BAM* there is you Ex. Oh… not a pretty moment. You know he’s seen you worse, but you don’t want him to see you worse later on… you want him to see you better. A woman can be quite moved on in her life, and lightyears away from the past and you still don’t wanna have “that” moment.

Or in my case….

Facebook is a wonderful thing. It keeps us connected to people who we want to be connected with, it helps to keep events organized, it is great for networking, and for weeding out the stalkers from the fans. I recieved a friends request from the “woman-who-would-have-been-my-sister-in-law” the other day and my brain shook a bit. Timing was just interesting and “to everything there is a season…” In the past I enjoyed my time with “the woman who would have been my sister in law” we talked so much there was actually more than once the Ex would sleeply comment “She’s marrying me not you, now it’s time to go to bed”.  You would have thought that we hadn’t talked in a few months, not in almost eight years. I had thought of her and her family recently due to a geographic location and like I said previviously… timing.

I had to ask what made her look me up on facebook… then the story spills out. There was a small group of her family gathered together at the computer and disucssing ex’s. So I get “googled/facebooked” and upon seeing my picture come up on the screen, “the woman who would have been my mother in law” makes the comment:  “I think her boobs were bigger”. So instead of the horror moment of running into that Ex in public while looking like death warmed over, my biker shoot images (that are being published – more on that later!) were the “greeter image”. Yeay me.  Untill I kept hearing in my head “I think her boobs were bigger”.

Amongst my many faults and shortcomings, I’m remembered for my big boobs, and pointed out that they may not be as big as they once were. Great. For the rest of the day I kept taking off my top and checking them out in the mirror. It was a rather perky day till that thought comsummed my evening. Shallow? Perhaps. But hey… part of my trademark is the busty redhead.

The internet has allowed us to avoid some very social awakard moments. It’s also allowed us to put some distance where it needs to be put at the right times (if used properly). It also allowed me to have one of the few girlie moments that few will ever admit to wanting but it’s out there… The wanting to be very presentable the next time an Ex sees you as opposed to looking like roadkill on an off day.

“I think her boobs were bigger….”

Come to think of it they probably were… that was two kids ago.  Any local plastic surgeons want to have a local promotional model promote your boob jobs? I would seriously consider it, today.

Funny Girl

It was a hot, steamy Tennessee afternoon at the end of the school year. The biting smell of overheated metal and hot tire swings deadened the air. the concrete was hot enough to burn through the bottom of your shoes. Clouds of dust rose up whenever a group of kids would rush by panting in the heat and running. It was an amphitheatre of sound of kids screaming and mocking each other, occasionally you’d hear the teachers whistle but there were too tired to care if we all disaggregated into heaps of corpses, of which we were halfway there.

I had recently received a book of jokes from my Grandmother which I promptly memorized, convinced that if I could tell a good joke I could make the other kids laugh, and perhaps have a chance at more friends. Instead all I got was eye rolls, laughed at and dirt kicked in my general direction. I longed to be funny, I already had the funny looking part down so how hard could the other half be?

It was a quick lesson to learn that amongst my peer group I wasn’t funny. On occasion I’d crack a joke quietly to a small group of friends and they would laugh. It was a few year later I was informed of my unintentional knack for being sarcastic. My friends didn’t quite grasp it, but my parents laughed (after I cleaned my room of course), my family laughed, and I was even able to coax a laugh out of a teacher sometimes. With the deep down desire to be popular and get along with my school mates I tried to hide the fact that adults thought I was funny from them. It only made being “odd” even more difficult.

Many years later at the age of 12 I was giving a homily at a church where my traveling choir was singing. I took every chance there was to speak in public and throughly enjoyed it. Somewhere in the middle of that mini-sermon I cracked a joke completely unplanned, and was greatly rewarded with laughs. It was the start down the meandering road of defining my brand of “funny“. 

For the next few years I spoke in public at every chance I got, I honed my skills of being in front of crowds, memorizing lines, improv, acting on stage, and getting over any kind of stage fright. I sang, I played instruments, I talked, I joked, I championed anything that needed a public voice.  My peers still didn’t get me but adults thought I was funny, I asked many of my elders who opinion I respected and they said I had a gift. Talk about an odd gifting.

I had many opportunities over time to work in broadcast radio and television where being semi funny and being able to improv was a cherished skill. Also the fact that an audience any size didn’t intimidate me I was good in front of that mic talking about whatever the issue at hand was. Politics was brought up to me, but quite frankly I knew it wasn’t what I wanted, and where I was headed.  I spent some time in the magic arena, learned a lot and nope…. I won’t tell you where the rabbit really is. My favorite was the comedy, there is just something about that feeling you get deep inside when you make people laugh and smile.

During all of these years I honed my writing skills (as I”m sure you can tell by my typos… it’s 5am bite me) and took every journalism class I could and wrote constantly. I wanted to become published, not just a self published number, but actually be picked up by a big name publisher. After a few attempts and drama associated therewith I became very discouraged and finally got on the blogging movement. I have now been blogging since late 2004, and it’s been quite the journey.

 For many months I’ve had an a generous offer made to me to “come out of comedy retirement” so to speak. I had already made the transition years previously to go back into professional modeling from “retirement” and have enjoyed success there. So after thinking it over, talking about it with my husband, and praying about it, we decided to go for it. It was actually my modeling that opened a door for me that I hadn’t thought of opening for a while yet. When the time is right the time is right.

I still can’t tell a joke to save my life, I start cracking up in the middle of it and it goes down hill from there. I’m more of a situational, improv, tell it like it is, comic. I’m sarcastic and am not afraid to show it. Set me up for a joke and before we get to it I can almost guarantee my ADD has kicked in and “Ooooo Shiney!” and I’m off talking about Al Bundy when I’ve missed the set up completely. When you come to see me on stage you get me. Sometimes with a baby on my hip, a left over cheerio from earlier in the day lodged in my hair, and a ruckus laugh. You don’t get a fake person, you get the real me. There’s no telling what I’ll discuss, there’s no telling what exactly I do, all I can do is hope you laugh and enjoy it as much as I enjoy entertaining.

I received an email from an old friend from school the other day with “What happened to you?” basically wanting to know what happened to the geek who was mocked, laughed at, and was quite unfashionable. Now I was popular, but popular only in the way that everyone knew who I was, not because I was being invited out to the parties. It made me feel good in the sense that we all have the opportunity in life to shed our old skin and become who we want to be.

Do it honestly, with truth, and with honor. Don’t rush “God’s time” he knows what we need and when we need it, and just when we are grown up enough to handle it.

**photo by Luc Welch

Cherry Cherry

The tears have been kept at bay all day long, with a growing lump in my throat I keep on pushing down. I can no longer pretend that it’s okay, that I’m okay with giving her up. I’m not okay with it, and the worst thing about it is that I’m crying over a car. Yes… a car.

I have never had such a deep relationship with a car as I did my Cherry red VW Jetta.

We had a passionate love/hate relationship. I cannot begin to count how many times I had her in the shop, how many times I had to trust a mechanic to fix her while I was stuck in a smelly rental. How much time I spent going over paperwork and fighting with various people to take responsibilty for the pain they had inflicted on my car (not to mention my mental state!) How many times I wiped down her light tan leather interior with care. How often I marveled at the perfect shade of Cherry red her paint sparkled. My perfect escape was to go on a long drive with the sunroof open, singing Lita Ford reveling in how we moved together as one perfect being, she was petite, curvy, moody and red. Perfect for me.

In more recent years we have had to really take a honest look at our lifestyle and what is neccessary, what can be trimmed and eleminated. Last December Bill agreed we could keep my beloved Cherry, as I had invested a good deal into her and it didn’t make sense to “trim” her from the family. This December it was not the same conclusion.

Four kids cost money. Alot of money. I love all of my children (biological and by marriage) dearly and now that they are all a part of my life I cannot imagine life without a single one of them. Alas I can still miss the days of being able to spoil myself on occassion.

My health has cost us a good deal. Even with insurance nowadays co-pays aren’t cheap, neither are prescriptions.

I am a stay at home mom. That comes with a cost. Childcare costs more financially and I won’t even get started on the emontional and mental costs.

“When a door closes, the Lord opens a window.” Seems odd to be quoting such in a farewell post to my beloved Cherry. I know that being a “material girl” isn’t on the right path. But is is so wrong to want to hang on to something that you have worked hard for? To keep your investment of time and money?

Awhile back she had to go into the shop and it became increasingly apparent that we would not be able to afford to fix her anytime soon. This has been a very distressing time for us and we have been very blessed by some amazing friends who have helped us out between a rock and a hard spot. So when we started reviewing the budget it was apparent that she needed to be let go.

I resent the fact I had to give up something I worked so hard for. The one material thing I felt that I had to show for lots of hard work. I gave her up for my family, and that’s a decision I don’t regret. But just because I don’t regret the decision, dosen’t mean it dosen’t hurt. She was just a car, but she represented a great deal to me personally and I’ll miss my Cherry Red.

 “She got the way to move me, Cherry
She got the way to groove me
She got the way to move me
She got the way to groove me Cherry….” – Neil Diamond

Lament of a Stretch Mark

Tags

Age, Bikini, Growing Older, Life, modeling

I normally wait untill February to start the self flagelation as to my age and how I look for my age. Untill I realized I would be in a bikini this week.

What stay at home mom in her right mind (who is also dealing with a myrid of health issues which is of no help) tries on a bikini in October/November? Well this one. Found out I’d need to don swimming attire soon and figured I’d get the major initial pain over with. (with modeling you need to be prepared for whatever the shoot may call for and more often than not it’s bikini or bra and panties, go figure I’m happier with the lingerie than the swimwear!)

I have NEVER been a fan of wearing bikinis. I have bad luck with them staying where I want them in the water, carrying a baby while wearing one is NOT a good idea, oh and it’s horrifying to see youself in one if you haven’t had a tan in well over a year (medications).  Truth be told I’m not a bikini girl, I’ll wear em’ but I’m much happier in a one piece with a well cut neckline and nice lines from the waist and hips.  Perhaps one day I’ll completly convert, but for the time being I’m 50/50.

There are a few things I’m proud of, the lack of stretch marks after two pregnancies, medical issues and yo-yo dieting over the years have left me with next to no stretch marks, much less that most women my age. (and yes I know this from photographing and photoediting)

I yelped. There where I couldn’t hide them, looked like a small area that could be covered up with body makeup for a shoot.  I have always taken excellent care of my skin, I drink water, eat healthy, use proper skin hydration, etc…. and yet I wasn’t able to hide any longer.  I’m not a pansy but I sat down and shed a few tears. I thought I’d be exempt for a couple more years. Wrong. (Bill swears that he’s having issues seeing them, seeing that he’s more of a perfectionist than me – you have seen his photography and mad edit skills right? – makes me feel a little better.)

In the meantime I’m taking comfort in the fact that I have less than other all-natural models in my league/age group, and maybe one of these days I’ll get a magic wand! Oh and a cute little bathing suit wrap.