...AND THE FUTURE COMES INTO FOCUS FOR BUT AN INSTANT

Closing out a week where I was able to keep hope alive!!

In my Spanish 101 class, I was able to bring in a 79 on my most recent quiz!  Tweaked my study habits and I was able to grasp a little more than I had with previous lessons.  Now I don't think that I will be able to have a conversation or anything in Spanish... yet!  But I am back on my way to being able to do just that!!  I am glad that I was able to suck it up, but more on why that is later, man!!

Printed out and mailed away Lexxie's flight information for the end of July.  I am already excited about that, even if all we do is look at one another (which, I can assure you, we won't be limited to!!).  One of the things that I think happens with mail that I send her is that it gets intercepted, because I usually send her a little spending money along with a card or a note.  Since I have never received a confirmation from her that she has received anything... anywho, after finally reaching her on the phone, I feel less inclined to give her custodian the benefit of the doubt and not consider my belief that someone is hijacking communications between us.  At any rate, I hope to have her for a week-and-a-half, with my taking a full week of her visit off.  It also means that I will have cable for a couple of months this summer... we will see if that will be long enough to make me desire television viewing again, but I sincerely doubt it.

“I don’t have to be perfect. All I have to do is show up and enjoy the messy, imperfect and beautiful journey of my life.” ~ Kerry Washington

I am not a cat who frequently pays attention to the comments of celebrities.  So much of what they say seems to be calibrated in such a way to make them seem like something that they are not.  But this is a statement that should replace the oft-repeated quote attributed (and she may have NEVER said such mess) to Marilyn Monroe, about "being at worst and best".  It is difficult for me to parse the quote because it covers so much about accepting that not only is their no such thing as a "perfect" person, but in accepting that they themselves are also with flaws, that flaws does not necessarily serve to impair the quality of ones own life.  And neither, I might add, should any of the "imperfections of my person" have any bearing on the person that I have grown into, or the one that I have yet to be.

The article that motivated this entry is not the same one that I borrowed Kerry Washington's quote from.  As I read it and I thought about "certain people I know", I could not help but unconsciously nod in agreement with the author, and with certain statements like, "My checkered past has made me who I am' it has made me more interesting, more intrinsically appealing", which is something that I have always felt about myself, as I ran heedless in my "early burglary years".

Who wants someone without a flaw in their character?  Even as I still remain outside the paradigm for the general woman, I look at those who still are in search of a Prince astride his stallion, impeccable in his riding coat and jodhpurs, boots caked with mud from the match on the polo grounds.  With a jaunty grin and rakish gleam in his eye, dismounting his steed with an effervescence that belies his grace and care, he sweeps her into his arms and bestows upon her --

Aw, whatever... I think that a reader would get the point.  Prince Valiant, with sufficient funds to where that they only had to volunteer or work part-time to simply "amuse themselves". Que sera, I won't begrudge anyone their desire, especially when I KNOW that their desire isn't me.  That is part of why I have always been as forthright as I have been with others, because those who have those "perfect" lives, like the "peaked-in-high-school Rob Lowe", often are deliberate in their hiding of their wounds and scars.  That's cool.  I would rather your wear yours without shame, and allow me to admire them as they are, untarnished with shame or regret.  As for my wounds and what they do for me?  Well, and I am going to borrow this phrase, I believe that they have, along with my past, "...given me unfathomable depths; ...has made me more interesting, more intrinsically appealing."

Think of it; a cat who claims to have seen the world and has only the barest of evidence of his travels... save for a few photos, who would even believe I went to South Bend?  And if I did not have daughters from Carolina, who would think I was from there??  Heck, no one wonders if I am not from Omaha... and were it not for introducing myself, they would have never guessed that I was not a native!  And I say that to make the point that it really is the still waters that run deepest, and there is no need for me to be boastful about anything.  I already know who I am; I am secure within myself.

While there are mysteries within mysteries for me to reveal about myself, who would want to hear the tales of a bland, unimaginative existence of being safely moored in harbor, rather than tested by rough seas of having lived a life worth a story?  The person who wants that is not the person for me.

As chippy and choppy as things have been for me, are right now, and as I am sure they will be in days to come, I am doing well.  I consider myself as still flourishing, still maintaining the necessary balance in my life that is keeps all the plates I have spinning, going strong.  Right now, though things are really challenging, but I still have the ability, and the opportunity to "be extraordinary", and that is just what I plan on doing.