Chap Stick Addict

It’s like crack-cocaine for the lips that darn tube of Chap Stick. I don’t want it. In fact I hate it. I hate needing it. But every time I stop using it, my lips get all cracked and dry and cry out for the tingle of Dimethicone 2% and Octinoxate7.5%. They crave the soft stick of moisture to spread itself upon their deep caverns of longing. To submerge themselves in SPF 20 protectant and a light, silky layer of candy coated wax. Nothing screams, soothing, like a dab of Propolis to my aching kissers.

What is this miracle balm I speak of you ask, why it’s a wax-like substance made from flammable, plant secretions, yes, I said secretions, that are used in varnishes, printing inks and plastics, that’s collected by honeybees from tree buds then used as a cement, yes, I said cement, to seal cracks in a hive, or in this case, my chapped smile-bearers. Cement? Well, there ya go. No wonder I can’t get enough of it. Who doesn't enjoy spreading a urine based, rock like substance directly to their lips? I know I do. My love-transferrers long for it, to be transformed from a pale, dull shade of peach to a shiny hue of rose. They get excited when my hands reach for the smooth barrel of refreshing toxic waste and position themselves in a pout, ready for just one more hit off their precious cylinder. The funny thing is, there’s a clear warning on the back that says you should stop use if irritation occurs. Well, I’m irritated. Irritated at my secret-whisperer’s dependency on a chemical blob of lies.

Listen up Crack-Stick, I do not need you. I do not want you. But oh how I desire your touch. I cannot stop using you. I carry you everywhere I go, tucking you silently in my pocket, my purse, my drawer, my nightstand, hidden behind my keyboard, and yes, even in the cushions of my couch. I am trapped by your relief giving power. Weak to the way you make me forget about my pain. I try to quit you, but you keep coming back to me disguised as a colorant or gloss. You even mix yourself with flavors of cherry, mint and vanilla to trick my lips into believing they've moved on. But they haven’t. They will always need you. They will always pucker at your lure. I wipe you off, but the agony always advances, louder, dryer, more chapped than the application before. Oh, cursed tube, I do not want you. I hate you. Come to me once more.

CHRISTmas What??

What is it about Jesus' birthday that gets us so wound up? We spend the weeks prior to His big day all frantic about whether or not everyone we know and have known for the past two decades gets a reminder card about His party. But I'm pretty sure everyone already knows because stores start reminding us in September and everywhere we look there are clowns dressed up in their red and white outfits and snowmen saluting the babe from the front lawn. Yeah, I'm pretty sure even those who don't get a reminder card that says you're thinking of them will be able to celebrate His birthday just fine without it. So why do we worry so much about the preparations and gifts and food. I doubt a kid born in a barn is concerned with the placement of your tall green birthday shrine or the arrangement of the lights and ornaments you hang on it. I bet He'd be happy you remembered His birthday at all. You did remember Jesus' birthday right?

The Big 2-8

Okay, so 28 isn't 30, but it certainly isn't 20 and definitely isn't 16. I turn 28 in a couple of weeks and all I can think is, "Thank God". I love getting older. Every addition of a year brings a new confidence; a new discovery about myself or a fresh attitude that I think is quite lovely. I know some of you well beyond my age are probably thinkin', "Gosh, you're going on about your age and you're not even 30 yet? Come on, wait til' you've lived a little before you go on about how great your life is or isn't. How dare you talk about how old 28 seems when you're still a baby." You might not talk exactly like that, but the general thoughts are the same. I know because I've heard it before. Only I'm honestly not complaining about my age by saying I'm NOT complaining about my age.

I sincerely enjoy every year better than the one before. What I gain in a number is always complimented with a tasty bit of awakening in my spirit. I would love to find the person who said high school was supposed to be the best years of our lives and just laugh at them. Well, that wouldn't be nice, I'd probably feel sorry for them first, then laugh behind their back like a good girl. You couldn't get me to go back to those awkward teenage years even if I could bring my body back with me. I was confused, angry, hormonally dysfunctional, and plain ol' unhappy. No way would I go back to those chemically unbalanced years just to erase some embarrassments. Those moments of humiliation made me who I am today and I really like me. The cloudiness of confusion had been cleared with purpose and now when I get angry, I get angry. I don't try to hold it in and become resentful or bitter. I put it out there, whether there's an immediate solution or not. At least there's an immediate release of tension I can let go of so I have a free hand to hold on to something else, like hope and calmness and yes, even tears. Sometimes embracing those little, sometimes very large, eye droppings, (because lets face it, that's what crying is, releasing all those toxic, crummy feelings and emotions through the most sanitary hole possible) is the most freeing sensation in moments of despair.

As far as hormonally dysfunctional, well, I would have to say that I haven't found balance in that area yet, but God is doin' His thing and I'm okay with that...now anyway. At first I struggled with not having everything I wanted when I wanted it. I desperately wanted to have children by now, but I was following my time frame, not God's. He knows the desires of my heart, hello, He gave em' to me, but He also knows a gazillion other things I don't so I've stopped trying to make my life happen and just let it happen. No historical time lines to follow, no socially acceptable time frames to oblige by because this is my life, despite how far I have or have not come. I am not trying to make history or secure some 'Citizens with Reasonable Accomplishment Plans' medal because that would mean crap (literally, I'd be trying to get a C.R.A.P. award). I just want to live my life, one great year at a time, and be in love with the choices I make and the people I make them with along the way. I don't want to live a life of idolatry, making God out to suit me and my beliefs. I just want to live out His best life for me. If I believe I have to have so many children within so many years and by a certain age and so many books published by certain companies by a certain date then I am only as happy as my accomplishments. Not that we can't set goals, we just can't live our life according to them alone, as if they are Holy, and anything less would be unacceptable. If we live like that, then happiness becomes a concept.

It is not enough for me to know the concept of happiness, to know how to have peace and become fulfilled. I want, I must, experience it for myself. I must be happy, be at peace, and be fulfilled. I will let God lead me to the promises of His word and surround me with His peace and joy and love. I will not reject the life God gave me or waste it away with complacency or misery or regret or bitterness. I will genuinely live. I will not have a concept or a theory. I will simply have.

Bowl O' Butter Anyone?

So I'm eating at a buffet with my family and on the dessert cart I scooped up what I thought was vanilla mouse and piled it on my plate. Next to it was a bowl of whipped cream, so I shoveled on some of that too. When I got back to my seat I sat down, delighted about the french vanilla goodness I was about to partake, and proceeded to spoon it into my mouth when ...ugh... yuck... BUTTER!! I had eaten a mouthful of butter! Butter? That is so nasty. Who puts a vat of butter on a buffet? Are we so fat as Americans that we now have to saturate our butter-filled cookies and butter-filled cakes and butter-filled pies with even more butter? Or are we now consuming it, with no apology, by the heaping spoonful. And the whipped cream I found next to the bowl of butter? Are we spreading it on top and eating it like a pudding parfait??? Who are these people? Who's eating butter by the bowl? Who said that was okay? Sanity people, you should consume some sanity.

My dreams are my biggest jewel!
~LauraLo

To Truly See

To sit
To stare at your splendor
To marvel at burnt-orange, cherry-red,
canary-yellow and deep sage-green limbs
waving at me from their rooted posts
To see them standing guard
protecting
shading
To look upon their expanse into the sky
where they meet up with pale-blue
laced with billowy cotton fields
To truly see
To set my gaze on the spread of the horizon
is to see the hand of God

Raging Whore Moans

I lay here like a whore every morning I come to this job. I moan about it in the shower. I moan about it while I skip breakfast. I moan about it during the entire commute. Yet I’m the one who gives a piece of myself away each day while they leave the money on the nightstand. I spread my legs for them willingly so I can fatten up my bank account only to purge it later on a nice mani and pedi to go with my new shoes and fancy car to match my luxury home. I’m whoring my life away for a dream. The American Dream. But what idiot American came up with this nightmare? It wasn’t me. This isn’t my dream; to wake up each day and go to some corporate desk job for ten hours so I can be too exhausted and stressed by the time I leave to enjoy my dream world.

This dream is raping my soul…only it’s not, because I’m giving it away. I spread my legs one last time while you eat me out of everything I have left: my hope, my freedom. May it leave a sour taste in your mouth knowing I have nothing left. There will be no more feasting off my failure. When in reality I failed to fail. I keep succeeding at the same thing, over and over and over, like a headboard beating against the wall, and over again. I succeed at dangling my life from a cage unable to reach reality. I succeed at stripping off my dreams one by one until I stand, naked, swaying to the rhythm of a time clock, unable to see my destiny. That is, if I have one left. Desperate to clothe myself with purpose and only able to grasp rage. Raging at the whore I moan about becoming. Raging at failed dreams. Raging at fulfilled dreams with no complacency. But mostly raging at me. I beg you Lord, unlock this whore house I’ve built and clothe me in robes of righteousness. Purify my life. Freedom God, I’m raging for freedom.

Walk me down the isle of life and give me away to my dreams~LauraLo