My hands are rough, my nails are short and the skin is often dry. My hands were not always like that. Many years ago my hands were soft and supple and didn’t hurt from scrubbing floors.

My husband Brian’s hands too are often sore and tired but I recall when we first met how I loved to hold his hands. They were long and lean and they wrapped nicely around my little fingers. When he touched my hands I felt an electric shock go through my body. Now we can’t hold hands for too long as both of us feel the pain of hands that are overworked. So we hold pinky’s together as we walk. Age is a mystifying and horrible thing. It’s nice to have the memories of just how your body worked thirty years ago.

My mother has no memories; Alzheimer’s has pretty much taken away any kind of fond memory of hand holding for my mom. Because she is in a wheelchair it is very difficult to hug my mom and so I sit with her and hold her hand. It’s a hand that fits nicely into mine, and it’s often cool to the touch. My mom’s hands are very well kept by a woman who helps to look after her. Her nails are always painted in a lovely pink nail polish and they are filed and neat looking. I think back to when I was a child and can’t really recall if my mother ever held my hand. Probably not, I probably would have thought it was babyish to hold my mother’s hand.

Unlike my daughter who still at seventeen grabs my hand when we are out together and holds on to it. She’s not shy; it’s natural. Holding her hand in the mall makes me proud that she isn’t embarrassed or thinks it’s babyish to show some connection, or affection toward her mom.

Years ago when I was shopping with my older sister who is eleven years older than I am she grabbed my hand and I pulled away quickly not wanting anyone to see. I was so embarrassed. I may have been twelve or thirteen at the time. I was so sure people would think we were lesbians. Where I got such a notion I have no idea. But when I think back on it I laugh.

When I was a youngster I would go to a camp in the Laurentions and there we celebrated mass in a small chapel on the lake. It was here that I learned about a thing called fellowship. We would join hands and say the Our Father, and I felt happy that I was a part of the community in that chapel in the woods where God and nature really did seem to co exist. And later when I fell away from the church it was only a matter of time before I was back again.

My husband’s recovery from alcoholism brought me back to the fellowship of man. At AA meetings again I found myself holding hands and reciting the Our Father. Again I felt happy that I was with people who cared and understood. I felt part of a community!

I often hold the hands of children at the school where I work. I don’t hold their hand unless they initiate the hand holding. When a child does grab my hand unexpectedly it stuns me to realize how tiny those little hands are. I also think about where those tiny little hands have been during a long day at school. Even though we try to make sure the children wash their hands we can be pretty sure that accuracy is not going to be high on their priority list. So I wash my hands as often as possible to keep those nasty germs at bay.

Holding those little hands at school takes me back to when my children were small and tiny. When my son, Ryan, our first born came into the world I recall spending many an hour counting his fingers and toes, just looking at them, the perfect little toes and fingers, the perfectly shaped fingernails. How small and delicate they were.

When my daughter was born five years later I did the same thing, counted the fingers and toes holding them tightly in my hand, never wanting to let go.

Holding my children close to me feeling their breath on my lips, holding their hands from infancy into toddlerhood, making sure they were safe on streets, in shops or in parks. Holding their hands as children, walking them to school till we arrive at the gate where it wasn’t cool to hold their hand anymore. I held on to their hands to feel again one last time their breath on my lips. Is it over so soon, their baby hood, their toddlerhood … now they are in their adulthood. And yet I still hold their hands and feel their breath on my lips. They are my children, my greatest love, and my cherished gifts from God, from earth and moon and sky. Their hands will always be stretched out to me, invisible to the human eye, but always that link will be there, they are my children and their breath is on my lips and their hands are always holding mine.

Photo Credits

Microsoft Office Clip Art Collection

Guest Author Bio

Martha Farley
My name is Martha Farley and I am a Daycare Technician at the Lester B Pearson school board.

I have been writing for many years and have had several of my articles published in the Montreal Gazette, the West Island Gazette and the Quebec Home and School Newspaper.

I also have a story published in an anthology entitled ” The City We Share ” edited by Mark Abley of the Gazette. It is a book celebrating the 100th Anniversary of Pointe Claire.

Follow Martha: Facebook

Take My Hand is a post from: LIFE AS A HUMAN

I felt a twinge of recognition from both sides of the fence when I read this post from blogger Clarisse Thorn:

“When we met for coffee and he did the Let’s-Just-Be-Friends thing, he said it was because of how I communicated. He said: ‘You know, I really like talking to you, and I liked having sex with you, but I feel like you have really high standards for relationship communication and I’m not sure I can meet those standards. Can we keep hanging out, but just be friends?’

“On the bright side, he did his best to convince me that he really does want to be friends, so that made me feel good. As usual, though, the rejection still stung. I did my best not to take it personally, but that’s always difficult. I tried to keep in mind that people are different, but sometimes that’s difficult too. For me, the take-home message seemed to be: ‘Hey Clarisse, quit trying to actually talk openly about your relationships! You’re unnerving even the guys who you have everything in common with.’ I mean … Jesus Christ, if I can’t seduce artsy feminist guys, then who the hell can I seduce?”

When I was younger, I definitely was like the guy in this narrative. I didn’t know how to communicate my ideas about relationships, intimacy, feelings, or anything of the like with the person I was with. I tended to get locked up in fears of rejection, as well as confusion over just what it was that I needed and wanted at any given time.

In more recent years, I have found myself more on Clarisse’s side of the coin, doing my best to put myself out there, to aim for as much honesty, clarity, and openness as possible. Sometimes, people love this. Other times, I maybe come off as too passionate, too articulate, or simply too well put together to keep up with (gotta laugh hard at that last one).

One thing I wonder about Clarisse’s comments above is how well she’s responding to her reading of her date’s verbal and non-verbal communication.

This can be really subtle, and sometimes you guess wrong. If you read the rest of Clarisse’s post, you’ll see that she had a sense something was “off.” So, she was reading the situation well.

But what I wonder is whether she continued full force with her openness, directness, etc., as she was reading the guy’s discomfort, or if she shifted what she was doing, even if just a little bit?

I have been in fair number of situations in recent years with women who were at the end of, or just out of, long term relationships. And my general experience has been that inevitably I have needed to step back and/or let go completely.

In fact, in one case, I wasn’t even interested in a romantic relationship with the woman in question, but somehow, friendship was a bit too much at that point for her. Since I haven’t seen her in a few years, I don’t know if that’s just how she is, or if something was specifically off between us.

And yet, this kind of dance can happen in any relationship – especially at the beginning when you’re just getting to know each other.

Furthermore, I think what Clarisse experienced in terms of the “high standards” comment is something that anyone with more developed communication skills can run into. Because people sometimes feel intimidated. Unworthy. Unable to keep up.

The joke of it all is that those of us who have spent a lot of time and effort trying to be better communicators sometimes feel a similar sense of unworthiness, or unlovableness – precisely because we see how those skills can scare people, or turn them away somehow. And there’s also the elevated expectations that can come – the “You know how to talk about this stuff, why can’t you do it today!” kind of stuff – that sometimes occurs once someone gets to know you more.

Anyway, it’s really easy to become like a cat chasing its tail about all of this. Sometimes, things just don’t work out, and you’ll never know why.

So, you can put some effort into trying to read and respond better to the person you are with. But at the end of the day, you have to be able to let go of the results, and not beat yourself up if things don’t go the way you’d hope they would.

Photo Credit

This Time I’ll Just Walk Away by Robert Sarkozi @ Flickr

Rejected Because of Your Communcation Skills is a post from: LIFE AS A HUMAN

—–

With each breath I’m missing you, breathing in a rasping dry breath.
It seems to burn down to the hollow of my soul.
Memories they flood, now mixing up. I thought I missed one,
but I miss many.
I find that many are a part of me now. There is no ONE,
there is only the many.
Each having a part to play, each having a part in me,
each deserving of my attention.
So then, what shall I do with this feeling. Its not for,
to long after the one.
It is for, to enjoy the many that have become
a part in my life.
How can I miss one and perhaps leave out another
that has a part to play?
I must move on, pay my respects, but in the end,
you know your only a part.
There yet remains a whole to be built from my life,
a whole song, a whole book,
not just a verse, or a chapter.
So then, I will breath this painful breathe that it may give me
a lesson from missing you.

Photo Credit:

“Missing You”  Flickr Creative Commons.  Some rights reserved by michael hilton

First Posted At Opinions Of Eye

Guest Author Bio

Drew Sager
I think and think and 99 times I’m wrong. But on the 100th time, I’m right. – Einstein

I blog, play music, body surf, hang out with bikers, and occasionally go to church.

Blog / Website: Opinions Of Eye

A Lesson From Missing You is a post from: LIFE AS A HUMAN

The whirlwind romance has settled down and the knight in shining armour has dismounted and it turns out he isn’t quite as tall as she thought nor as dashing. In fact, life has slowed down to the business of day to day living. What happened? How does she keep on loving a toad that was perceived as a soul mate?

Life time relationships aren’t made of the stuff of fairy tales but of choices. Love is a choice that comes from two individuals that are happy within themselves but wish to create something more.

Love really is a choice to go the whole way “til death do us part.” Some of the building blocks are unconditional love, realistic expectations, clear boundaries and a willingness to bear burdens in the tough times. But, it all starts with being best friends.

This is a friendship built on something bigger than both of us anchored in a common belief that God works in and through the self to pour love out one for the other. It is a love without conditions. It is not built on a barter system – I’ll love you if, nor is it used like an emotional stick to get one’s own way. I love because I have been given love to give, and I choose to give it freely.

A soul mate, husband, toad or whatever you wish to term that special someone is a person we enjoy doing things we have in common with, but the relationship also gives breathing room and encouragement to pursue individual passions, mine happens to be writing, his is cars and car shows.

Realistic expectations are part of this unconditional way of being. It means I accept you just the way you are and realize I have no control over you. If you chose to change or I chose to change it is because the individual initiates it for the improvement of self and in turn the improvement filters out into the surrounding world. Like my friend always says with her open palm patting her chest, “my stuff”, and then with an outstretched arm open palm towards me, “your stuff.

From this gift of boundaries I have learned that I cannot change anyone else but I can take care of my own stuff, my areas that need some work; and as I change for the better so does my relationship. Clear boundaries tell me what I am and what I am not responsible for. I am not responsible to fix my partner, nor fix everything in their life. Fixing is a disservice, a way of stopping our own pain or buying into the illusion of control. If I give unasked for help I may be robbing them of a valuable life lesson that they need, or I may in fact be part of the problem covering up something that, if I loved enough, means stepping back to allow a life lesson; because the only way up sometimes is down. This aspect of love is different than being a burden bearer.

A burden bearer is an action of choice that comes out of love. It is carrying a partner, a best friend off the battlefield of life when they cannot get off on their own because of a fatal wound. It is sitting beside them in the hospital tent as an encourager while they do their own healing in order to become whole and healthy again. It is sitting helplessly by when all you have to give is your presence, but your presence is enough.

So when the knight steps off his horse to become who he really is without his armour or your princess comes down from her tower and her hair is not as long and shining as you once believed, it is then that loves journey begins and the choice becomes that of two people as individuals who wish to become more than themselves yet retain who they really are standing on the rock of a higher power.
Now that’s love.

Dedicated to the many people in my life who have taught me about love.

Photo Credit:

Microsoft Images

How Do I Love Thee? is a post from: LIFE AS A HUMAN

Love. Many of us love to be in love, and yet how often do we actually love each other well?

What’s interesting to me is how humans struggle to exude love on the macro-level – loving all of creation as a manifestation of the divine – and also struggle to be accurate with our labeling when it comes to the specific people, places, and things in our lives.

Consider anything you might be addicted to. Like cigarettes. I have heard many people say they love cigarettes, but actually, when it comes down to it, they don’t love cigarettes at all. In fact, some smokers downright hate cigarettes, but that warm embrace when the chips are down feeling that comes with smoking feels like a kind of love. Even though it really isn’t. And the same thing is often true of our intimate relationships.

I can recall multiple times in the past when I claimed to love someone in a romantic sense when it really was lust. Or I was making the claim to keep the other person around until I figured out if I truly did feel love or not. Driven by fears of being alone, I would say those three words “I love you,” and in the process override the uncertainty that comes with any new, or newer relationship. It’s been done to me as well by a few women in my past. In fact, I can distinctly remember one former girlfriend’s comment that she thought she loved me, which was followed less than a week later by a call for us to break up.

Love is beautiful and amazing and lifegiving, but it’s not always easy to express, and it’s almost guaranteed to bring up our most intimate fears and anxieties in the process. Because to love someone completely means to be fully vulnerable to the entire universe.

One of our biggest problems in actually finding love, and embodying love – whether with a beloved partner or for the whole of the universe – is that we’re usually coming at it all from the outside in. Thinking that someone, some thing, some experience will bring it to us, failing to recognize that we are it. That we all contain love within, if only we’d stop and listen to ourselves more closely.

Whatever love actually is, in the end, it has to be experienced from the inside out. It’s only through tapping into what is really your inherent nature, that you can discover that which is the stuff of intimate relationships with others.

May you have much love during the holidays this year. And may you all spend some time reflecting upon the ways in which you’ve mistaken something else for love in your relationships.

Image from Texample.net

Where is the Love? is a post from: LIFE AS A HUMAN

Tang … a sting. Tangelo … a fruit produced by crossing a tangerine with a grapefruit. Tangent … touching a curved surface at one point, but not intersecting with it. Tangerine … a reddish yellow orange. Tangible … that which can be felt or touched. Tangle … to catch in a snare, to trap, make a snarl of, to become tangled. Tango … a South American dance with long gliding steps.

Leading up to the tango you feel the sting like that of the fruit of passion. It’s bitter sweet in your mouth, like a tangelo. Then you’re off on a tangent, touching, yet not intersecting. You’re wearing reddish yellow, looking rather like a tangerine. You’re tangible in that you can be touched. Then, before you know it, you’re in a tangle, a trap. You’re dancing the tango! Moving across the floor in 2/4 time, gliding. Cheek to cheek, you can’t believe it because you’re here with the “one that got away”!

Photo Credits

Microsoft Office Clip Art Collection

Guest Author Bio

Martha Farley
I am a daycare Technician at the Lester B Pearson School Board and when I am not working I write.

I have had several articles published in the Montreal Gazette as well as the West Island Gazette.

I also received the honor of being one of the writers published in a book that Mark Abley edited featuring many writers from the Pointe Claire area celebration the 100th anniversary of our city.

I have also had several poems published in anthologies.

Follow Martha: Facebook

Postscript From A Dance Floor is a post from: LIFE AS A HUMAN

“Daddy, did you get Jimminy a Christmas present yet?”, asked my 10 year old daughter, my angel and the light of my life. Now as Jimminy is a lizard (a bearded dragon to be exact) he was not exactly on the top of my Christmas list.

“No, honey,” I replied, “I haven’t.”

“Oh good, because he could really use some worms.”

This had to be the most unusual Christmas present request I’ve ever had. Now Ariana has this way of looking at me with her big blue liquid eyes that melts my heart and generally gets her most of her requests granted, though I endeavor not to spoil her.

“You have to be careful, though, Daddy. They hatch into beetles and crawl all over the place if you leave them for too long.”

Well, that settled it. A gift certificate to Jungle Pets it was going to be.

I only tell you all this to explain why I was out on Christmas eve looking for worm gift certificates. I arrived at Jungle Pet’s in Dartmouth, Nova Scotia where one can pick up such exotic creatures as parrots, macaws, monkeys, myriads of fish and a huge assortment of various sized and shaped lizards, frogs, fish and other animalia.

The young lady who served me explained that there were a great variety of worms available from the garden variety meal worm to huge aqua blue, spotted, striped and horned suckers who looked like they’d put up a respectable fight. I decided to take one of those and also plunked down fifty dollars for a certificate. The aqua horned suckers were $1.89 apiece but they threw in one for free so that Jimminy would have a treat that very Christmas eve.

Arriving home, I completed the Christmas card and gift certificate in its owner’s full name “Jimminy B. Cricket” (apologies to Disney; he was named not for his resemblance to a cricket but rather to his culinary predilection for the aforementioned insect).

I showed Jimminy his card and gift certificate, then placed him next to his bright aqua blue Christmas treat. Jimminy had had a big breakfast but eyed the worm (about a quarter of his length in fact) with interest. He contemplated the wiggly treat for some time, then with a lightening-like dart of the tongue he munched down the larval bug, with evident relish.

Unfortunately his eyes were bigger than his belly and the last quarter of his Christmas present remained languidly waving its tail while Jimminy tried in vain to finish it off. Finally he gave up and the worm found its way back to the light, albeit somewhat the worse for the wear.

Jimminy went back to a corner of his terrarium and started munching on some greens. I think he may have turned vegan. The problem now is what do we do with a fifty dollar gift certificate for worms for a vegetarian lizard.

“We could always put it towards another lizard,” opined Ariana, “or maybe a horse!”

Photo Credits

All Images By George Burden – All Rights Reserved

A Jimminy Christmas is a post from: LIFE AS A HUMAN

1 – Your mind is brilliant with ideas and thoughts, you must use this to create and bring life or it will destroy you. You have no other options, your gift will not let you rest.

2 – Women come and go. You will carry them with you after your apart. Be wary then of whom you attach yourself to.

3 – Don’t let other people’s problems become yours.

4 – Making love is different than having sex. Feeling your soul meld with another is unlike anything on earth. Give your soul with caution, it can’t be taken back.

5 – Save money. If you don’t you will always be at someone’s mercy. Whatever you got to do, hold some back.

6 – Don’t burn bridges, you may have to cross them again.

7 – Enemies can be your best friends, pay attention.

8 – You must have enemies. If your living in such a way as to never offend anyone, your screwing up somewhere. There will always be haters when your bold about your life and beliefs.

9 – Follow spirituality to the fullest. Find your god and spend time to develop your spirit. Herein lies the greatest strength, the greatest peace, and the most enduring love. Strength to overcome any obstacle, peace to pass through any circumstance, and love when no one stands with you.

10 – Enjoy solitude. Do not desire to have many friends and busy yourself with relationships. Learn about yourself in the solitude. Great character is forged there. Great wisdom is found there.

11 – Surround yourself with positive people, positive things, in positive places. Your soul will feel it when you don’t, so run from the negative things that pull you down.

These lessons will create a beautiful song of your life, if you arrange your affairs accordingly.

With much love,

Pops

First published at Opinionsofeye.com

Also published at Broowaha 

Related Post – 11 Things I Wish My Daughter To Know

Guest Author Bio

Drew Sager
I think and think and 99 times I’m wrong. But on the 100th time, I’m right. – Einstein

I blog, play guitar, body surf, ride a Harley, and occasionally go to church. Oh, and I live in Hawaii!

I’m an apologist and an apostate. I’ve been knocked down, way down, and fought my way back up, way up. I’ve been an advocate of peace and a destroyer of the same, in a word, I am dichotomy.

Blog / Website: Opinions Of Eye

11 Things I Wish My Son To Know is a post from: LIFE AS A HUMAN

There are many lies singles believe about singleness. Our culture, with is movies and television, say:

#1 Marriage is the Key to Happiness. So untrue! We know there are a lot of unhappy married folks. Many divorced or widowed people do with their singleness what they should have done before they married for the first time: live alone, find their own rhythms, date a variety of people, go into therapy, develop new friends and interests, learn how to live with and care for themselves.

#2 I’m ____ years old and still single — Something Must Be Wrong With Me! Singlehood is no longer a state to be overcome as soon as possible. It has its own rewards. Marriage is not the gateway to adulthood anymore. For most people it’s the dessert – desirable, but no longer the main course.

#3 Single means Incomplete. Completeness does not come from another person. I don’t have a boyfriend. And No, I don’t need a boyfriend. I am enough. And I am complete just the way I am. I choose to be single, just like I choose to not listen to people who make marriage seem like the only possible pinnacle a life can have.

#4 Single means Alone. Some would argue that it is better to be quirky alone than unhappy together. Being single isn’t the cause of loneliness, and marriage is not necessarily the cure. Everyone is lonely sometimes, even married people. But regardless of your being quirky or not, we all crave companionship and the closeness of a friend. As singles we must reach out to others and make friends. There are several ways to do this by: joining a Meet-up group, enroll in a class, try new things, begin to build a new life, etc.

After all, singleness is experienced by everyone.

Photo Credit

Strolling © by joiseyshowaa on Flickr

Lies Singles Believe is a post from: LIFE AS A HUMAN

Guest Author, Drew Sager, meditates upon the ultimate violation of trust that overcomes the human spirit – betrayal.

“Love does not last forever, then?”
“He asked me the same thing this morning,” she said. “No, it does not – not love that has been betrayed. One realizes that one has loved a mirage, someone who never really existed. Not that love dies immediately or soon, even then. But it does die and cannot be revived.” ~ Mary Balogh, Simply Perfect

“Everyone suffers at least one bad betrayal in their lifetime. It’s what unites us. The trick is not to let it destroy your trust in others when that happens. Don’t let them take that from you.”
― Sherrilyn Kenyon, Invincible

 I am surprised at myself. I am a spiritually enlightened man well acquainted with my own faults and well exercised at forgiving a mountain of offenses against me and yet I have found myself at an insurmountable barrier. I have bitterness at a betrayal – no not just one – but many betrayals, of my lover against me. I mouth the words like I know I should, “I forgive you.”  I pray the prayers, “Lord help her,” and yet, I find a seething bleeding wound festering beneath my loving mask. Why is it that this has taken root in me? Worse, why is it that I cannot, under any amount of coercion, cleanse myself of this horrid stew I have brewed? I have not yet tasted the foulness of it, but I can smell it, tainting the air of conversation and poisoning the purity of the love I felt. I am sure it will kill all of my affection but I must make sure I don’t let it destroy my compassion for others, or morph into its evil sibling, revenge. God help me, I am just like the one I despise! Now I am left with this battle, and how to win it, I have no sure plan. I need an intervention of grace – power to do what I could never do.

 Photo Credit:

“Death at Twilight.”  Flickr Creative Commons.  Some rights reserved  by LeBouthillier-B

Previously published at:

Broowaha.com 
opinionsofeye.com 

Guest Author Bio

Drew Sager
I think and think and 99 times I’m wrong. But on the 100th time, I’m right. – Einstein

I blog, play music, body surf, ride a harley, and occasionally go to church.

Blog / Website: opinionsofeye.com

Poisoned Love is a post from: LIFE AS A HUMAN