This page is from a book I'd rather not share the title of since it sounds kind of hokey (Ten Things Dead People Would Like To Tell You by Mike Dooley). I grew up believing that people pass on to Heaven and do not linger behind to chat with the living.

 

Of course, technically, Heaven isn't scientifically proven yet and ghosts may exist (the only people who know for sure aren't here to tell us)...it's just (personally) I don't believe in them.

 

Anyway, I still like some of what the author has to say despite the title. I like that here he places "to love" before "to be loved." I'm not always vocal with love, but I feel it a lot and the more I'm not sure if it's wanted on the other end, the less likely I am to say anything goofy out loud. Once it's out there and the look of horror is sitting there (in complete misery) on his or her face, you can hardly say "just kidding!"

 

That's why the Deepak Chopra quote below caught my eye. I don't know his work that well, but what I have seen of his writing strikes me as peaceful and coming from a good place.

 

And part of why I like what he says here is because I try to follow it whenever possible. I'll admit it's sometimes harder to wish 'mean' people well, but I do try and it's always easy (and often the better way if I'm not sure of the other's feelings) to send out warmth and good thoughts to people I do love. :)

 

 

Jodee Blanco (a self help writer) says that the hardest part of being an outcast isn’t the love and warmth you don’t receive, it’s the love and warmth you’re not able to give. 

This is something I totally, 100% more than get...and it, for me, gets right to the heart of heartache. I don't mind that the elusive "you" doesn't love me back (of course I get that), it's that I don't know what to do with feelings of love I worry more and more each day will never completely go away.

It's also knowing that love is not only not returned, it's most determinedly unwanted...even if no strings are attached. It doesn't feel that good: to not be wanted nor even needed...to be adrift in a sea of purposelessness that is only calmed when you are absolutely sure you are bothering no one...which is best done, I think, when you make peace with yourself and that maybe you're just one of those people who will always be single.

I know my issues stem from more than just not being attractive. Experts say that the way parents talk to their children sets up their "inner voice" for many years down the road. My parents never said anything cruel to either my sister or me. They might not have been the most lovey dovey of parents, but they always did right by us as best they could, always.

I don't know why I think bad things about myself or only seem to silence that negativity or anxiety when I have my mind in a good book or music or am around the few people I feel at home with...

I refuse to blame the "mean" kids from back when I was in middle school. I'm not even sure they were all that wrong. Maybe, in fact, they saw my solitary future before I did, even if they weren't 100 percent accurate. "You'll never have a boyfriend, you're so ugly." was a chief refrain, though only amongst other girls.

I wanted to laugh and tell them the joke was on them, but what kid in her right mind would "come out" (a term not used that much back then anyway) to her classmates in the early 80s? Besides, I only suspected, I didn't even know what I was feeling had a name until I was in high school.

I think of children who are bullied today and I hope and pray, with all my heart, that teachers are aware and intervene and, most importantly after intervention, are kind and tactful about how they handle it.

When I was growing up the adults at school almost always looked the other way and this upset me far more than the actual bullying did. A boy I used to know (whom I wondered and worried about) was picked on a lot more than me (even physically) and the teachers on cafeteria duty never did a thing about it. His situation was far worse than mine.

Below are two websites I find helpful. The first makes a connection between having red hair and being bullied and the second site is about getting past one's looks:


http://nobullying.com/ginger-hair/


http://www.wikihow.com/Accept-Being-Unattractive

I always enjoy reading anything by Kayla Bashe. To Stand In The Light is wonderfully quirky so far and I'm only sorry I can't stay home today and read it in one sitting. Though distinctly her own person with her writing, Kayla Bashe does remind me a bit of another author I love...Charles De Lint. I love how Ms. Bashe elegantly (and magically) captures the spirit of youth and beautiful souls.

So I was cleaning my bookshelves tonight and as often happens (this is not a good thing if you're seriously trying to get things done) a title caught my eye and I pulled it off my shelf to read.

At the same time, I also remembered that this week (February 4th) is the anniversary of Karen Carpenter's death, which might be a weird thing to recall if hers wasn't the first celebrity passing that truly touched and saddened me.

After she died, so many magazines (both tabloids and ones like People) ran the most scandalously thin pictures of her they could find. It is true that the nature of Karen Carpenter's death raised a much-needed amount of awareness about anorexia, an awareness which also ended up ultimately saving lives and changing the way people, including medical experts, saw eating disorders.

I don't think, though, that good intentions were behind the tabloid photos released in the weeks following her death. I think they were meant to be shocking in a bad way and that unlike, say, Elvis Presley or John Lennon, the singer is first remembered for her disease and then for her beautiful voice.

The pictures I like to see of her are ones such as what follows below, where Karen is spending time with her godchildren. More than anything else in the world, she wanted to be a mother and have a family of her own.

According to close friends, Karen hoped she would someday have one. I like to think of an alternate universe where she fully recovered from her eating disorder, went on to find true love and happiness and today, like her friends and musical counterparts Dionne Warwick and Olivia Newton-John, still records albums with that voice of hers.

from Little Girl Blue: The Life of Karen Carpenter by Randy L. Schmidt

Sunday papers...

So I'm reading something in The Sunday Times about the beauty of songs that "don't resolve heartbreak's contradictions, but revel in" them. Katie Glass calls Gloria Gaynor's "I Will Survive" the greatest break-up song ever and adds that it's the kind of thing that "triumphs in despair."

There's an entire book about the song has helped people deal with hard times:

http://www.amazon.com/We-Will-Survive-Encouragement-Inspiration-ebook/dp/B00DCX0X40/ref=sr_1_1s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1422815514&sr=1-1&keywords=i+will+survive+gloria+gaynor

And even though I think coincidences are just that and nothing more, before I opened the paper I had been reading a short story where the main character (following a devastating break-up) asks herself: "If I could not learn to live with myself and my many faults, what chance would someone else have with me?"

Though she is in a completely different situation, when she says, "We walk forward in life for a reason" it's exactly what I need to hear and one of the reasons I love reading so very much.

Some of the things that plague us will disappear some day (soon, hopefully) and some of those things won't. I can get over not being in a relationship or even knowing I may never find one; I can't, however, get past the fact my parents and I just don't get along very well unless I agree with them on everything...that troubles me a lot.

Still, I love sentences like this from Karen Campbell's "The Butterfly Collector":

“Everything changes now,” a voice within told me. “What you thought was real will fade and what you thought faded will become real.” It was not a moment for the faint-hearted. I know that I have been worn down but that ends now, as the lock turns and the door opens. Today begins the new me...



Also...

in Sunday's Washington Post Outlook section a review for Touch: The Science of Hand, Heart and Mind by David J. Linden:

Viking. 261 pp. $28.95

Of all the gifts that a parent can give a child, one of the most important is a simple, loving touch. Babies who are deprived of human touch, such as those who spend their early years in understaffed orphanages, display profound abnormalities. Their growth is stunted, and they’re slow to gain cognitive and motor skills. They display repetitive, self-soothing behaviors, such as rocking endlessly back and forth. They are more likely to develop obesity, diabetes and heart disease, or suffer from mental illnesses ranging from depression to psychosis. But the smallest of interventions — as little as 20 minutes of gentle physical contact a day — can help touch-deprived infants avoid the worst outcomes.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/book-review-touch-the-science-of-hand-heart-and-mind-by-david-j-linden/2015/01/29/f0161be4-8f8d-11e4-ba53-a477d66580ed_story.html