“Experience: that most brutal of teachers. But you learn, my God do you learn.”

~C.S. Lewis

2010

So thankful for a new year
and the passage of time that it brings

Not to wish my life away
but to heal and reflect and grow

Reflections of happy times
and happier times yet to be

Still hesitant to love
in an effort to understand myself more first

Anticipating independence
although now I realize that one can be independent but not alone

A product of "black and white thinking"
I still struggle with these concepts

I no longer feel angry or afraid but excited
about the possibilities laid out before me

A home of my own, wherever that may be
but never far from my babes

I have spent much time overwhelmed while raising them
but they have turned out so wonderfully despite that

They are the one love that I truly understand
they are part of me, the one being I struggle so to know

I let them be who they are, loving and free to experience and be
I wonder why can't I hold the same truths for myself

Wisdom

When God takes something from your grasp, He's not punishing you, but merely opening your hands to receive something better.

There comes a point in your life when you realize:

Who matters,
Who never did,
Who doesn't anymore,
Who always will.

Don't worry about people from your past,
there's a reason why they didn't make it into your future.

Too High A Price

Some prices are just too high, no matter how much you may want the prize. The one thing you can't trade for your heart's desire is your heart.

-Lois McMaster Bujold

Embracing Change on Thanksgiving

On this Thanksgiving day
I would like to remind myself

To embrace all of the people
and all of the circumstances past and present

That have helped to shape my life
into what it is today

Albeit unfinished - a work in progress
I am the epitome of good intention and love

My life has been full of ups and downs
but key to remember is it has been very full

While it is very different now
and will be very different years from now

I am and forever will be
thankful for all of the wonderful blessings

That God has bestowed upon me

Creative Writing

Growing restless, the skeletons in her closet paired hockey jerseys with bowling shoes and paraded through her flower beds.

The waves, white with fury, raced to the seawall each leap frogging the next as if the winner would be crowned price of the tide.

Quite Simply, Someone

Someone who ignores me
when they know I am wrought with guilt and sorrow

Someone who would rather prove a point
than to show compassion to one they supposedly loved

Someone who tells me that I can't be alone
then frantically searches for someone to move in with

Someone who robotically does things for others
for the sake of appearing saintly

Someone who repossess my computer
because I am struggling to pay the bill

Someone who can't muster up a kind word to say
when I am crying on the other end of the phone

Someone who holds a grudge
refusing to see that people are human

Someone who never knew me at all

Someone who told me what I wanted to hear

Someone controlling and manipulative

Someone who will probably never have regrets
because they don't care enough to

Someone who needs their life to look a certain way
and quite simply liked the way it looked with me in it

Someone who I was destined to walk away from

A wolf in sheep's clothing
slowly becoming just a bad memory

22 years

I was married 22 years ago today
I don't even know what marriage is

What it means to be married
what if feels like to be married

Interesting really
but more sad than anything else

I was so young when I got married
I remember thinking how cool it would be

Kind of like having a friend sleep over every night
sounds immature, but that is really what I thought

That's because I was immature
just a little girl actually

I do feel proud in some respects though
because each and every thing that I have leaned about life

I have had to teach myself

I didn't have a lot of life experience
and in a lot of respects I still don't

I'm still the scared girl who was too frightened
to tell her parents that she had changed her mind

That she didn't want to marry this man after all
because they had already spent so much money on the wedding

Little did I know they would have been more than happy
to call it all off and keep me at home for another few years

I am so thankful for my two boys,
extensions of my heart and soul

I wouldn't trade them for the world

I can only hope that they are braver than I
and make better choices than I did

Fear has dictated so much of my life
I don't even really know where to go from here

I have pushed people away that loved me
I have lost opportunities all because I was scared

Scared to walk away from what I have known for 22 years
even though it wasn't happiness

There have been many people down there
holding nets, promising to catch me when I fall

I just couldn't trust them
I was paralyzed by my fear

Honestly, I don't know who I am anymore
don't know where I belong

I feel like I've been renting all these years
too afraid to buy

I'm reaching the end now
the end of my excuses, deadlines, and reasons to stay

I've been emotionally gone for so long now
I don't know if I have anything left to invest

I'm sad, 22 years is so long
but I have been here for my boys

Watching them grow from boys into young men
I'm so very proud of them

I'm proud of my accomplishments too
I have my degree, my license, another degree in the works

I'm just tired now,
the thought of building a new life exhausts me

I will go though

I will go

Something Good

Dinner with a new friend
in a Soho cafe

Rain drops beating on the window
as I realize yet again, I am human

Talk about work
talk about life

Perfect families a facade
we're all just doing the best we can

I thought something good might happen today
and it did

Middle Age - Not For Sissies

I have never done, said
so many things that I regret

Raging anger swells inside me
that is very difficult to harness

Always good at controlling myself
now I fight the grinding halt of the brakes

Little patience for people, circumstance
when I myself am prone to the same behaviors

Every day a different mood
the one constant is fatigue

My feelings, thoughts escape my mouth
before I have had time to edit them

Leaving me back peddling
for damage control

Feeling afraid, insecure, confused
is so unbecoming

I'm sure it's not always as bad as this
but I feel middle age creeping up on me

I hope it doesn't get any worse
maybe the Salsa dance lessons will help

Quote

"The past is a guidepost, not a hitching post."

~L. Thomas Holdcroft

Love Does Die

I recently looked at a photograph of an old lover
something that, until recently, was very difficult.

Simply looking at a picture would dredge up painful emotion,
a response, I was certain, would never, ever go away.

I thought I would never be free from what felt like a paralyzing hold.

As I sat and looked at the photo, I was relieved to find
that I don't even know that person anymore.

I saw a person that I used to know, used to respect, used to love.
Now, not the slightest feeling of love - present or future.

I felt empowered, thankful and sad all at the same time.

Empowered because I have finally let go and moved on.

Thankful because God heard and answered my prayers.

Sad because I realized at that moment - love does die.

Creative Writing Assignment Two - Intro Redux

For my entire adult life people have been telling me that I take myself too seriously. My response always started with a giggle and then I would insist, “I do not!” I’m actually one of the silliest people I know. However, as I sat down to write my introduction, I realize that I get very serious when I am charged with the task of telling my own story or introducing myself. So, to all of my friends who have told me over the years that I take myself too seriously, you were right, I do. But now, on a serious note, just not too serious, I will introduce myself to you. My name is Kimberly Roderick and I was born and raised in Tampa, Florida. I just celebrated my 42nd birthday in May. Looking back over my life I have realized that not only do I take myself too seriously, apparently I’m not a big fan of change and there is some odd recurrence of the number four in my past. I have lived at only four residences during my entire life, I have had a total of four serious relationships, and I have worked at four long term jobs. Wow, that’s weird. I have two wonderful teenage boys named Joseph and Scott who keep my life very interesting and also keep me from making a fool of myself by insisting that I do not dance or sing, period. I went back school at 29 to obtain my Associates in Science degree and I have worked as a Physical Therapist Assistant for the past ten years. I am currently seeking my Bachelors degree in Health Services Administration. I enjoy long walks on the beach, reading, writing, word games, music, fishing, computers and anything that provides my mind with a challenge. Until I started this class, I was in a bit of a mid-life funk and was having a hard time setting new goals for myself. Obviously getting my Bachelors Degree is one of my goals, but I have also decided that I would like to get published on a small scale and then possibly go on to write a novel. I’m not getting older, I’m getting better.

Creative Writing Assignment One - Journal 1

She grasped the stopwatch so hard that her knuckles were white and tingling as she stood in front of “The Venue.” This used to be her favorite place to relax, party, and just hang out with the people she once considered her friends. “Tonight won’t be relaxing or festive, but hopefully it will be therapeutic,” she thought to herself as she pressed the start button on her stopwatch with one hand and slowly opened the door to “The Venue” with the other. Standing tentatively inside the entrance her eyes began to adjust to the light as she struggled to maintain her composure. Finally looking up, her steel blue eyes scanned the room discreetly but frantically in search of every exit sign.  Intent on ordering a drink, she set out on the seemingly mile long trek across the room. Her posture, a picture of perfection, as her Stilettos carried her across the room with the purposeful stride of a confident woman, the result of her many years walking down catwalks and runways.  Heads turned in rapid succession, indulging in her exquisiteness as she passed. The season’s top fashion adorned her 6’2 frame, cascading strawberry blonde locks bounced perfectly in time over her slender shoulders with every stride. It was this attention that used to fuel her, adoration that she craved, now it served only as a source of terror and dread.  She could hear her rapid heartbeat pounding as loud as a kettle drum in her ears and she felt as though her eyes were pulsing with each beat. Her perfectly manicured hands fumbled awkwardly through her purse, in search of her wallet.  She wasn't accustomed to paying for her own drinks but she didn't have the stomach to sit and make eye contact with anyone, not here, not anywhere, since July 15, 1994 at 3:53 pm. She longed for the familiar warmth and sea of smiles at “Tappers,” her favorite watering hole back home, in Oklahoma, but that was thousands of miles from here. Her only comfort tonight was the stop watch ticking away the seconds in her pocket.  Her counselor said thirty minutes in a crowded, public place.  She could do this, she could do anything, for thirty minutes.

Time

brings things into focus

truly does heal all

allows you to forget

helps you to remember

urges you to explore the options

nudges you into new opportunities

is fertilizer for growth

smooths out the rough edges

polishes the stone

turns pain into prosperity

weathers woes

forces change

is perpetual motion

is illusive

is uncertain

is fixed, measured, and definitive

is later, yesterday, and today

is ticking, up, and now

is time

Another Wonderful Quote

Loyalty to a petrified opinion never yet broke a chain or freed a human soul.

~Mark Twain

A Wonderful Quote

What we do for ourselves dies with us. What we do for others and the world remains and is immortal.

~Albert Pine

Grasshoppers, Crickets, and Katydids, Oh My!!!

Such a wonderful trip!! The IP truly was a Palace fit for two Queens!!!







What a better way to start the trip than to see Melissa and her larger than life presence. It was an awesome show me and my two favorite girls!!



I am counting the days until we go back to New Orleans!!! What an incredible place, so rich with history and amazing food. I think the next time I go back to Bourbon Street I'll need to have a few Bourbon's first (maybe that's why they call it that). Can you say OVER STIMULATING!!! Amazing music though!!! From Aretha Franklin style bar singers to men playing 5 gallon bait buckets on the sidewalk, it's rocking!! I can see why you find it so intriguing Jac!!









The food was FABULOUS!!! We had Seafood Gumbo, Crawfish Etouffee, and Fried Oysters mmmmmmmmmmmmmmm!





In New Orleans they put some SERIOUS seafood in their Gumbo!!



No trip to the Big Easy would be complete without Beignets and Cafe' Au Lait at Cafe Du Monde.

Someone to Find Me

Have you ever lost someone
in a big department store or theme park

You venture out and look around occasionally
but you always keep coming back to the last place you saw them
in hopes that the person will return and find you waiting there

Paralyzed by the thought of moving too far away from that place
fearful of never being found as you wait

I lost someone, over a year ago
and I have been returning to the same figurative place
over and over, just in case they wanted to come back and find me

I've been afraid to move too far away from this place
afraid to live, afraid to love or to let myself experience love

Terrified to do anything, say anything, be anything
that may make me different somehow
so they may not be able to, or even want to find me again

I have realized now, that in this process of waiting
and returning to this place time and time again
I have come to depend on myself for solace

I have faced my emotions and fears head on
I am stronger, whole and capable of wandering away from this place

As I walk away, and turn to look back one last time
I realize that the person who most needed to find me

Was
Me

Already Gone

Just remember this, my girl, when you look up in the sky
You can see the stars and still not see the light

~Eagles