You know the phrase, 'it never rains but it pours'? Or 'everything is coming to a head'?

That is my last quarter in 2014.
The moths which were swarming my stomach causing the nausea I mentioned in a past blog are now sitting calmly in the bunker waiting. I try my very best to be proactive at all times during the chaos, taking on what I can and not beating myself up if there isn't anything else to do on the topics which need addressing.

If you have financial issues and your accounting office isn't open until the new year, you do your best to get things prepared for then. If you have a job interview next week, you can't lose sleep over imagining every question and scenario. If you have to go to court in the middle of next month, what can you possibly do to prepare for the outcome?

You simply have to wait sometimes. That totally SUCKS.

For me, I am coming up against big changes in so many areas of my life. I feel them coming but like waiting for company to arrive at dinner, I can't drive their car faster for them to get here.

Whether it's job-related or financial, relationships or health, the not knowing is the worst. I tend to be a person who can problem solve with all honesty on the table. Most of us deal with things better that way. Hiding our bills in a drawer and pretending they don't exist just causes us to hide, not answer our phone and be paranoid when the door bell rings. At least if we are given the bad news, we can start to reach out for assistance in dealing with it, whether that is emotionally or financially, at least you can DO something.

For many of us, we tend to cause our own roadblocks. We have the ability to make a Doctor's appointment to find out what is wrong, but we don't. We have the ability to set up an appointment with a financial advisor, but we don't. We have friends who won't judge us and yet, we don't go to them.

My hope for everyone in 2015 is not to have all your problems solved, but I wish you courage to ask the hard questions and to make some really tough choices. The consequences for our actions (and sometimes the actions of others) are scary but like animals, our bodies are meant to deal with the big blows. We are not physically or emotionally equipped to deal with a slow drip of poison and it is imperative that we find out the TRUTH, which does indeed, set us free of the ultimate killer which is WORRY.

If you can't muster up anything else, I hope it is courage. You have ALL given that gift to me.
LOVE my friends SOOOOOO much!
Karen

"Cracked hooves, no shoes and so severely spooked. Can I loosen the rope that's strangling you? When I count to three, make a run for those trees. This lesson in progression's cut off at the knees." ~Green from 'Idiot Savant'

After watching the Brandon Lee movie, 'The Crow', I was sucked into the James O'Barr interview in the extra features portion of the DVD.
He may seem all over the place and quite scattered but I left feeling like in my scattered existence, if I just do something every day towards my goal, I will eventually get it done.

It took him nine years to get that Crow book together. While most of us are not interested in waiting that long, I like that his real life was sewn into the fabric of it.

It is a good lesson to make writing part of our life instead of a profession.

Hopefully we can come to a place where we love doing it so much and we have such an intimate relationship with the characters we are writing about that we don't care who is reading.

Back to the spirit of PLAY!

Karen Stever
karenstever.com

"She found a vacant lot, a Juggernaut...abandoned cot, a cozy spot..." ~Juggernaut from 'Idiot Savant'

I took this picture a while ago outside our window. It's easy to be creeped out, but isn't she a beaut? (Admittedly, I don't know the difference between a male & female moth).

Caling it an IT seems disrespectful to its magesty. 

Butterflies in our stomachs feel good. A swarm of moths don't (normally). For me today, their war-like rampage will be my catalyst to a new life. I am finding great comfort in their intensity. Fly and be FREE without an apology, my swarm...

We are all part of the swarm which will waken the Earth. Fly with us...

Today, I woke up and nothing had changed. There are a few beasts in my world that simply won't let up. I go to bed and they still exist, I sleep and they are in my dreams and I wake up and there they are.

For some of us, the beast is really just a mosquito buzzing in our ear. It is frequent and annoying. While the threat of it taking some of our blood is always looming, we know we can solve it if necessary.
When the same mosquito hides and waits for your weak spot night after night and you were never able to track it down, it can ruin sleep. I think we all have these mosquitos in our world. They add a bad buzz to our daily routine and it's repetitive and incessant. It's like a skipping needle on the record. If we can get to it, we can stop it, but we are always hoping for music so we persevere. 

Then, there are the monsters under our beds and in closets we cannot control because we simply can't catch our breath long enough to. This is the roller coaster I am currently up against. It is the kind where it is going so fast that I can't even gain a focus of what is up or down due to the speed of the rotations. Sure, they are the same and identifiable. They are apparent and predictable. The problem is that it is too much of a whirlwind and is so much bigger than me, that I can't gain the sight or breath to know where I am.

Imagine getting on a ride because you expected fun...and the operator not only made it go too fast, but he locked you in the bucket and then broke the only control that could stop it. Your first instinct is to just throw up...not much thought past it.

It is in moments like this where I can begin to spot the landscape spinning past me. When I write, I can get it all out. I can turn the blur of the scenery into washes of paint on a canvas. If I can't control it, I better pass the time until it slows enough to sabotage the machine into failure or wait for help.

We all have somewhere to go to while bad things are happening. I used to subscribe to the "you are in control of your destiny" theory, but I don't anymore. I now believe that bad things DO happen to good people and we are all just simply doing the very best that we can. This could be people, money, health or circumstance. Anne Frank had to make the best of a bad situation. We don't always have the control that the motivational speakers suggest we do.

We just have to do our best...whatever that is.

I think the problem is we want the fun, we want the ride and we want the music...and there are some horrible risks when you are looking for success, love or magic.

Some mud is actually quicksand...know the risks of getting dirty.

Karen

"In the royal private garden, combatants are jousting...throwing clay balls of perfume and the skunks are all running."
~GREEN from 'Idiot Savant'