Marjorie Writes…

Everyday Musings of an Extraordinary Woman

Archive for the month “November, 2013”

18 Nov 2013

Message Received, Universe!

It all started a week or so ago. First one old friend, then another, both men I completely respect and trust, told me they’d loved me for years. These are guys who are both super-intelligent and very thoughtful, and both have been good friends to me in my life, the kind of people you never forget, even if you lose touch with them.

So it made me feel pretty good, I mean, who wouldn’t? Now, for the past couple of years, I’ve been struggling professionally. Prior to that I closed the business that had been mine for ten years, that had been my father’s before me. The economy was too much to overcome. So after taking a couple of months off to relax for the first time since I’d had kids and started running my own business, I started looking for work. I took on freelance jobs, doing well at what I did. But between the economy and the flakiness of freelance work, it’s been a struggle. After two years of freelancing, direct sales, odd jobs, etc, I’m ready for a full-time, benefits and regular time off job. But with the economy still being what it is, and being in an area that is employment-challenged unless you work in the service industry (which would be fine if it were not for the issue of nights and weekends and childcare), it’s hard. So I’ve been struggling.

Two years of struggling, coming off of two years of a tumultuous, heart-breaking, abusive marriage, can seriously affect your self-esteem/confidence/self-worth. Mine had taken a beating, and while I still have always believed in myself and had faith that I would land on my feet and things would work out, it’s still been tough, emotionally.

Then comes this morning. I met a new friend for breakfast after getting the kids off to school. We are working together on a project and wanted to meet to talk about it. Of course, most of the hours we spent together were chatting and getting to know each other, as we didn’t really know each other before today. One of the first things she said to me was, “You were married to John XYZ, right?” Immediately, as is my custom now, I say yes, I was married to him for 2 1/2 months before I kicked him out. Well, it turns out she knew him when he was a nice guy, when I met him. Then she said, “He loved you so much.” I almost started crying. You see, all I ever hear now is how could you have married him, what kind of idiot are you that you married a guy like that. But when I met him, he wasn’t like that. He was nice and fun and funny. He was smart and made me feel good about myself. I started seeing him, thinking he was just going to be a fun summer romance. But he quickly became my best friend, and I was his. He treated me better than any guy had ever treated me (overall, for the most part, not all of the time, he also hurt me sometimes, not physically, but hurt me nonetheless).

So when my new friend talked to him years ago, after he’d been in a bad car accident, he apparently had sung my praises, saying I had saved his life. And she said he loved me completely. I needed that. I needed so badly to hear that from someone, but I didn’t know I needed to hear that. You see, things deteriorated between us and he became very emotionally abusive. He had a lot of demons and was an alcoholic – drunk 24/7, literally. Somewhere in there I went from being his best friend and the love of his life to someone he didn’t fully trust anymore because of his own issues. And he took it out on me. And in the blindness of my love for him, I continued to believe I could save him and still married him, although I knew by that time that I shouldn’t.

Since then, I’ve questioned whether he ever loved me. Whether the early caring and love and friendship and passion had just been a ploy to win my confidence and my love. And I was told that by so very many people, including law enforcement, that he had used me, had been trying to get at the inheritance he thought was so big, which really wasn’t. I knew his finances, he trusted me with them. His net worth far outweighed mine at that point, before the bad choices he made contributed to all of his problems.

As a result, I’ve been reluctant to trust my heart anymore, to enter into any relationships for fear of being used, or abused, or played a fool, or hurt. The one man I was interested in since him didn’t share my affection, which was fine. I had decided I would stay single until my kids were grown, it was easier that way. But that one simple sentence, spoken with such belief, “He loved you so much,” seemed to open my heart along with my tear ducts.

So it hit me as I was driving home from breakfast that this was another in a string of messages from the universe. And now I’ve heard it loud and clear. Watch out life, here I come!

Live, love, laugh…it makes it all worthwhile!

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18 Nov 2013

Wow. Just Wow.

Before another long, late-night conversation with an old friend last night, I knew what the topic was going to be for my next blog post. I had been giving it a lot of thought for a day or two. I hate to use the word perceptions again, since I already have one post from last summer about perceptions, but there’s really no other word  I could substitute with the same meaning. Now I actually have two separate posts to write about perceptions, which I hate, but again, there is no other word that works.

So I’m going to start with the second post. This is because right now, it’s all I can think about. I have to try to work it out in my head to get around it, because it’s like the elephant in the room. I need it gone so I can think clearly again.

Ok, so imagine you’re in your mid-forties. Your first true love was when you were seventeen. And the love was so strong it has always stayed with you, though of course it has dulled with time. You know, like it’s supposed to – it’s always going to be part of your heart and part of your story, part of what makes you who you are.

So one night you’re talking with an old friend, who was the best friend of your first love. And he’s one of your best friends in your life, and potentially more. And as you’re rehashing this ancient, failed romance, as you do from time to time (mostly because you always learn new kernels of information which put things in perspective and make you think differently, which is a very interesting and wondrous thing.

Now, when you were dating this first love of your life, you were a high school senior. He was twenty and in the army. You met him and his friends through the friend you’re talking to, whom you met when you were out with friends from school (and he’s your age). So you’re talking to your old friend, who starts to point out things that you had accepted as normal way back when, but which don’t seem normal when they’re pointed out (at first, because of the fact that they are pointed out, which makes them stand out). And there are more of them. And then your friend mentions PTSD. And you ask the innocent question about why they would have PTSD since they were stationed stateside and unless there was awful hazing taking place, it wouldn’t make sense. Now, you know all about PTSD and what causes it and what it causes, because you happen to have it from two separate traumatic incidents in your own life – you’ve been battling it for half of your life now.

So then other things are pointed out that should have been red flags for you back then (in fact, your old friend asks didn’t it seem weird to you, didn’t we seem different after we came back) but being seventeen and naive and trusting and in love you had accepted what had been told to you at the time, and never questioned your beliefs.

Being modern, you Google the dates and OMG. Your world flips upside down because suddenly what never really made sense now may have other reasons. Ok, your world doesn’t really flip upside down, but half of your brain does just because this is THAT BIG. So after you stop Googling you send a message with a couple of links to said friend. And when he responds the next afternoon, he tells you he loves you, but you have to delete those messages. The NSA wouldn’t like the mentions made and the connections drawn. There was a reason these guys you trusted completely didn’t tell you the truth way back when. So you ask more questions and are told to ask the guy you were once in love with. Which you can’t. You just don’t have the nerve.

Now after spending half the day pondering this, you know you have to put it to rest and let it go. You have a lot to do in the next few weeks and you can’t be dwelling on how such a crucial part of your history may have just been re-written in several ways. Well, ok, not really your history, but the reasons behind WHY that part of your history ended the way it did.

Sorry I can’t be more clear on any of this, but when my friend mentioned the NSA, I didn’t want to take any more chances. Who knows, maybe some day I will be able to sit down and find out the back story in more detail. Until then I will try my best not to spend any more time pondering this…after all, now I have all of you wondering what the heck I’m talking about, so there is no need for me to dwell on this further.

After all, as I used to tell my grandmother regularly, if I have someone else worrying about something (or wondering, in this case), there’s no need for me to worry (or wonder).

Live, love, laugh….it makes it all worthwhile!

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16 Nov 2013

Going to Sleep Now

I don’t think insomnia will be a problem tonight. If it is, I’ll be very surprised and will probably go off the deep end. Yea, don’t think that’s going to happen.

Tonight’s blog post will probably be rambling, it’s somewhat of an exercise to see what happens when I try to write coherently when I can barely see straight. I was just messaging with a friend and tried to write vascilate no vascillate no vacillate. And then I got really excited when I got it straight, even with the help of dictionary.com. Interesting.

Anyhow, I finally reached the conclusion that I haven’t gone to sleep because I’ve been running all day, all week. Even though we got in late tonight, this is my little bit of MY time today. And tonight, I need MY time. Even though I really need sleep. The good news is that I should sleep really well tonight. And tomorrow is Saturday, no sports, no activities planned, so I can actually sleep late. (We’ll see how well my kids comply, but they are usually pretty good about not waking me up too early. Not that I usually sleep too late.

Ok, I think I reached giddy and passed it. Hope this doesn’t interfere with that great sleep I’m anticipating. I am really looking forward to falling asleep. You know that amazing feeling when you’re just falling asleep, your body is melting into the bed, your mind and body are drifting off and you’re just so relaxed.

Remind me tomorrow to write about what my original topic was going to be – perceptions of self….

On that note, I think I’m going to try to get some sleep before I completely miss my window. Sorry for the ramble and any incoherence that this may contain.

Live, love, laugh…it makes it all worthwhile!

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15 Nov 2013

Insomnia….Again…

It’s 2:10am here. I should be sleeping. I tried to fall asleep. You can tell that worked well, didn’t it? After being blessed with the ability to fall right to sleep when I was tired for most of my adult life, I suffer from bouts of insomnia.

For some reason, this week, this is my third night of not sleeping well. The first night I couldn’t fall asleep, and ended up chatting with an old, dear friend via Facebook and then phone, literally all night. When I woke my kids for school, I was still on the phone. I ended up sleeping for a few hours when they were in school. The chatting didn’t keep me up – I was on my phone messaging with him before we finally ended up talking on the phone around 5 in the morning. If I had been sleepy, I would have fallen asleep and not responded to his messages.

The next night, I wasn’t messaging with anyone, or talking on the phone. I tried to fall asleep and couldn’t. I got up and wrote two blog posts, Pursue Me (https://marjoriewrites.com/2013/11/13/pursue-me/) about the guy I’d been talking to the night before, and Memories (https://marjoriewrites.com/2013/11/13/memories/), self-explanatory. And then I tried to go to sleep. Didn’t work. I spent most of the night trying to sleep and couldn’t fall asleep until after 6 am, getting up at 7:15. Last night, I actually slept. Tonight, I’m obviously up again.

The worst is, it’s not like I am worried about anything in particular. My mind isn’t racing while I’m not sleeping. It’s drifting off, but I guess my body is failing to comply with my desire to go to sleep.

This is so frustrating because it really impacts my productivity the next day. And I have a lot to do tomorrow in preparation for my vendor event, as well as a freelance project I’m working on, job searches, job applications, phone calls I need to make, etc. You know, the usual.

Thankfully, I don’t experience insomnia all the time. I usually still just fall asleep once I lie down if I’m tired. That’s part of why I usually stay up late – I know that I will fall right asleep when my body is ready to go to sleep.  I’m hoping that will happen shortly after I finish and publish this!

Do you suffer from insomnia? What helps you finally fall asleep? Some nights I think I should get up and clean, but I’m always afraid that will just wake me up even more. What do you think? Would that make me tired enough to go to sleep? What do you do? I’d love to hear from you!

Live, Love, Laugh…it makes it all worthwhile!

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15 Nov 2013

Girls’ Night Out/Party in Your PJs

Tomorrow evening, a good friend of mine is hosting a Girls’ Night Out shopping/vendor event at the business she runs.  I am going to be there with the two direct sales lines I sell – 31 Gifts and Origami Owl. As some of you know, I’ve been doing freelance work while looking for a full-time job, and I’ve taken to selling these two amazing product lines to add to my income. I love both lines – bags and jewelry – what woman doesn’t love these things?!

I’m also going to have the gorgeous mugs I sold at a couple of vendor events this past summer, from Healing Touch Pottery. Can we say gorgeous? Now, when I did my events this summer, I went to log into my PayPal Here on my phone, so I could accept credit cards instantly, and it wouldn’t work. I tried to get it corrected and never heard back, and eventually forgot. So tonight I tried again, still the same. Until I discovered I could sign into my account with my phone number, got that option validated, and BOOM, I’m back in the credit card automatic accepting business! Wahoo!

What this really means is that I can now accept credit cards for the mugs I’m selling. The other two lines I take down the credit card info and enter it directly into my sites for purchase. So I’m very happy, because the mugs will make great Christmas gifts too!

I’m hoping that tomorrow night brings good sales and/or people signing up to have in-home or catalog parties for the two lines. I really need to boost my income for the holidays. Either way, it should be fun.

I hate writing about this stuff here, finances and all. But that’s part of life, and finding out I got the PayPal issue working before tomorrow night was enough to prompt me to write! Wahoo!

So, if you’re interested in checking out the products I sell, and either placing an order or hosting a party, online on FB – party in your pjs – interactive and fun without leaving your home, or via a catalog party, and earning free products for yourself or to get some of your holiday shopping done quickly and easily, let me know.

My website for Thirty-One is http://www.mythirtyone.com/318306. My website for Origami Owl is http://www.marjoriegoodman.origamiowl.com. Feel free to shop or contact me for either line – 31 has a full line of purses and wallets, and every kind of bag and product you could possibly use to organize your home, office, car, etc. And we offer gorgeous personalization on almost all of the bags we sell. Origami Owl is an amazing line, started by a 14-year-old girl a few years ago. They’re fun, living lockets, that you fill with charms to tell your story. I LOVE THEM! That’s why I started selling them! For the Healing Touch Pottery mugs, they’re hand thrown by a potter in New Hampshire, charged with Reiki (healing energy) and they each have a healing stone (the stones vary and each mug comes with a card telling about the properties of that natural stone). I started selling them because I loved them, too! So if you’re interested in any of the above, or want more information, feel free to contact me at marjgoodman@gmail.com. I’d love to add you as a new customer, or have you join my team for 31 or Origami Owl!

So wish me luck tomorrow night – and you all have a good night/good day. I know I’m going to have one!

Live,  laugh, love….it makes it all worthwhile!

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13 Nov 2013
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Memories

Recently, two old friends posted pictures of me on Facebook from my senior year of high school. And they were two friends who were friends with each other, and I actually met one through the other. Both have been very important in the story of me.me 17This was the first picture. I don’t know what we were doing or where we were. I do know that the picture, while not inspiring memories of one specific event, evoked a plethora of memories last night and today, along with the realization that my daughter looks so much more like me than I realized. And that I wished I had appreciated the head of hair I was blessed with when I was younger!

The other picture, posted today, brought back even more memories, partially inspired by the surroundings:

meat17Now I don’t know what kind of statues the military has, but I won’t name the location of the barracks that was taken in, nor whose room it was. I’m pretty sure that after 25 or so years, the statute of limitations has run out on the fact that I was drinking at 17 there.  I don’t think I drank all of the beers on that desk, though. But I won’t swear to it either. Nor can I say I can remember exactly which night that was, as it wasn’t the only evening spent there.

It’s amazing the memories that can be brought up by seeing a picture of yourself from so many years ago. Specifically, a casual, non-posed one where you are relaxed and enjoying life.

I do know that year was a very important one for me, not only because it was my senior year of high school. It was an incredible year, which I was fortunate enough to recognize shortly thereafter. I was young, confident, happy. In so many ways I was so very innocent, even though if you’d asked me then, I would never have agreed with you. But knowing what I know now about life and the world in general, I was so very, blissfully innocent, and happy.

Funny, it just hit me that I know I had my share of teen angst that year, as we have all had. Yet when I look back, I don’t remember it unless I think really hard, and then it’s just so softened. At the time I’m sure it was more serious to me.

Old friends, good friends, pictures and memories. Keep them all close to your heart and you’ll always find a reason to smile.

Live, Love, Laugh…it makes it all worthwhile!

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13 Nov 2013
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Pursue Me

I have a long history of a lot of love in my life – from loving parents to lifelong friends, I’ve always felt blessed.

However, my love life hasn’t been as lucky as the love in my life. I’ve been married twice, the first time for 11 years, giving me the greatest loves of my life, my 2 kids. The second time, I kicked him out after 2 1/2 months and filed for divorce (and a restraining order). Can we say Jekyll and Hyde?

Hindsight often gives you great clarity. To date, I have had two really deep, true loves in my life. One was my first love, and one I was married to briefly. That’s not to say I haven’t loved other men, just not in the same way. I can count several other men I dated whom I really loved, but they weren’t meant to be.

I have also had some amazing male friends in my life, throughout my life, at different times, a couple of whom I may have dated briefly and/or talked about possibly dating but timing never worked. I mean really nice, great guys, the kind we all hope to end up with, the kind who would do anything for you at anytime, who would not hesitate to be there for you. In fact, the kind who would track you down throughout your life to make sure to always stay in touch and be in your life, from other countries across the world.

So last week, I was chatting with one of these great, amazing guys from my past. And he tells me he’s always thought of me as the one who got away, whom he always thought he’d end up with. That admission blew me away and made me feel so special.

Then this week, one of my closest male friends, whom I’ve known for a very long time and is someone I trust more than almost anyone in the world, said something to me that left me completely speechless. For hours. And that doesn’t happen. Anyone who knows me knows I always have a comeback or something to say. In fact, after 24 hours, I’m still at a loss for words to respond to that specific declaration.

Now, that special guy friend also inspired a blog post back in September of last year, entitled Perceptions: A Love Story (https://marjoriewrites.com/2012/09/07/perceptions-a-love-story/). Basically, 25 years later he told me he had challenged his best buddy, and my boyfriend, to a duel for the honor of taking me to my prom. Very, very sweet, although I wouldn’t have thought so 25 years ago.

So these two true confessions, from absolutely great, nice, special guys, made me think. At this point in my life, I know that I like really smart men – I’ve come into my own confidence with my own intelligence. And I’ve realized (several years ago) that almost nothing is sexier than a really smart man. Anyhow, both of these guys are really smart. Like two of the smartest men I know. And they’re both really into me. Wow! What a compliment.

But I digress, what all of this made me think about was the choices I’ve made in my life concerning men. Like I said, I’ve dated some really special, nice, stand-up guys, and I hold all of them close in my heart, even if I don’t talk to them anymore at this point, or often. We all know that timing is everything, and with some of them, if the timing had been different, our outcomes would have been different. But aside from those where it didn’t progress because of timing and circumstances, evidently if I have men like these two who think I’m so wonderful, how did I end up marrying those other two?

The first one is easy to understand, after so much self-analysis while working out, years ago. The second one I finally figured out too. Both had to do with either self-confidence or vulnerability.

So last night, when this truly special man essentially declared his love to me, and I asked him why he’d never told me before (even this summer, when I was hinting along those lines) he said it was due to my vulnerability at different times of my life. Yes, he was that respectful and thoughtful.

What’s my hesitation now? Well, as he well knows, I’ve had a tumultuous few years, and my life still isn’t completely stable. That doesn’t mean that I am mentally or emotionally unstable,  but rather that I’ve had a lot of instability in my life. I’m afraid of pursuing something and ending up hurting him at a later point. He’s too important a friend to me.

Where does that leave us? Well, at the end of the conversation last night, or this morning, he said that since he knew how I felt, and that I was not opposed to seeing what happened, he plans to pursue me. And that when he’s pursuing, he doesn’t give up. Now this might be a bit challenging since we’re living in different states and raising our own children, but this is the guy who twice sent me flowers while I was in high school, even when we weren’t dating at the time. I have a feeling he can hold his own here.

And how do I feel about this? I like the idea of being pursued. It’s romantic, almost old-fashioned. So I say bring it! Show me what you got! 😉

Live, love laugh….it makes it all worthwhile!

Posted in friends, love, memories, romance
05 Nov 2013
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I Voted Today – Did You?

I voted today.  Sigh. I voted because although I believe it is a privilege and a right that we are lucky to have, I also believe it is our civic duty to vote. So I did my civic duty and cast my ballot.

I remember clearly the first time I ever voted. I was living in the Commonwealth of Virginia, a senior in high school, and I was only 17. Virginia allowed those who would be of legal age during the general election to vote in the primary election, even if they weren’t yet 18.

Back then, I was very politically active. So politically active that I would drag my teenage butt out of bed way too early on Saturday mornings to attend the Democratic breakfasts every week. I would have breakfast, socialize and talk with other democrats, and have way too much coffee. Then I would often go home and want to take a nap. But I went every week, and I loved it.

Back then, I volunteered on political campaigns, too. And I LOVED it.

But I digress. My point was, back then I believed in our political system, believed that the people we were electing (or working to elect) made a difference, stood up for our best interests, etc. I believed that we could make a difference, that our votes counted, that our voices counted.

I believed in the America so many people around the world admired and respected. (And yes, I believed that they felt that way.)

That fall, of 1988, having mailed in my absentee ballot the month before, I sat eagerly glued to my tv, watching the returns of the elections. Those of you who are still political junkies (as I was back then) know it’s like watching the super bowl on television, it is that riveting.

One year, after voting in the primaries at the end of the day, and finding out I had been 1 of less than 100 people voting in my precinct, I went back to the newspaper office (in college – The Houston Cougar) and writing an editorial thanking those who had not voted for making my vote count, and telling them they had no right to complain now.

This year, after casting my ballot, I experienced none of that excitement or pride that I had always loved. I felt disgusted. And frustrated. And depressed. Yes, depressed, because that ballot symbolizes freedom to so much of the world, it symbolizes a political system that works. And I no longer believe that system does work.

I have little faith in either the incumbents or the candidates. Whereas once I believed those who served, served us, I now believe they serve their own interests and those of the lobbyists and big industries who supported their campaigns. Even when I was deeply involved in politics, after college when I was worked for a political consulting company and then working on campaigns as staff, I still believed that at least when people started out in politics or those in lower offices still had our best interests at heart. And I guess part of me still believes that to an extent, or at least desperately wants to believe, that is true. But for the most part, watching what is going on in our great nation makes me sad because I no longer see this country as the country I once kept my faith in and trusted.

The America I see on the news, the political system in Washington that has become more of a joke than a system that works, is barely visible to me anymore. And yet I see more small people making big differences, I see chains of small actions making big impacts on people, and that gives me faith. Maybe one day the people will get involved and the powers that be will be composed of the people who care and want to make a difference, and then this country and this world will be a better place.

I still have a lot of years ahead of me – I can’t give up faith yet.

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