Survive...or THRIVE!

I hate pity. Let me rephrase that...I HATE pity!
More than THAT...I hate people who WANT pity.
If you think that makes me a hard person or a mean person, then you don't know me.
I have very little tolerance for anyone who makes excuses for where they are in life. Or where they aren't.
I don't even like the term "survivor"--though I suppose if you survived the Holocaust or Cancer, that might be the only ones I'll let you have.
You have choices in life and I'm here to tell you that you can survive just about anything.
You can. One thing about life...it goes on.
But the choice is to do more than just survive. That's really the easy part (again, Holocaust and fatal disease aside.) What have you done since you survived?  Are you moving forward? Are you waiting for your ship to come in? Are you taking control of your future...of your life?!
Or...are you just waiting for another person to come along to complain to and to make excuses?
THAT is what I hate.
I don't feel sorry for you. And, I can't tell you how many others feel the same.

Stop your bitching and do something about it.
Please.
Your father left you when you were five? Gee, that's too bad. What have you done since?
You lost your job? I just saw a HELP WANTED sign at Target. And Home Depot. And...
Your boyfriend/husband/girlfriend/wife broke up with you? Bummer. That sucks. Wanna go to Italy?

Get it?!
Life goes on my friends
...and you can choose to EXIST...survive...
Or THRIVE!
This is the ONLY life on Earth that you have. THIS IS IT folks!
GROW! LEARN! CHANGE! ENJOY! EXPERIENCE! SAVOR!!

I was fat MOST of my life.
Made fun of throughout my childhood.
I got pregnant at 18.
I had to drop out of college to work full time and support my family.
I was in a 'less than' happy marriage for 23 years.
In a span of three months I lost my home, my job, my church, my marriage, my car, my neighbors, many friends...
I had to move five times in six years.
I lost my home to foreclosure in 2011.
I lived alone for eight years.
My boyfriend broke up with me.
....

Here's the deal...
Life went on. And in EVERY one of those situations I had the CHOICE to bitch, moan, cry, LOOK FOR PITY, use it as an excuse to do nothing, feel sorry for myself...
or THRIVE.
I chose to take EVERY ONE of those circumstances and LEARN from them...and GROW from them!
I LEARNED to control my weight. I think I became a KINDER person because of the ridicule I received as a child. I went back to college and graduated a week after my THIRTY SEVENTH birthday! I raised two AMAZING, hardworking, successful and independent children. I became single and learned to LOVE living alone--at age 42. I bought a new home and don't ever need to move again.  I found a new job--one that seems to be custom-made for me. I have incredible new friends--true, deep, non-judgemental and OH so loving friends.
And, as far as that boyfriend breaking up with me...
I am so grateful for that! He wasn't (even close to!) the one for me.
And now, I am with the (indisputable!) love of my life.
Talk about THRIVING!

Please stop complaining. I promise you, I'm not the only one who doesn't want to hear about it anymore.
Stop making excuses. Again, I have solutions if you're ready to hear them.

Please...put the past behind and look forward to the future with curiosity and excitement!
You can do it. I promise!
Put pity aside...along with regret and disappointment. Stop replaying your past and 'wishing' you'd had a better life.
Start moving in the direction of success and happiness and enjoyment and fulfillment!
Stop just surviving...and start THRIVING!
And start right now.

As if I imagined him into being...

I left my husband eight years ago this month. If you had told me at that time that I would live alone for the next eight years, I wouldn't have believed you. Being so full of love and life and laughter and a desperate desire to LIVE, I thought surely there would be a LINE of men waiting to be with me.
Well, there were a few. But very few. In the last eight years I dated MAYBE eight men. None of them seriously. Most of them...one date. Yep, deep into about year four, I became the master of the 20 minute date. It wasn't that the guys were not kind or nice or charming or whatever...
it's just that they were not him.
The one.
My soulmate.
I began to make a list of qualities that I was looking for in my soul mate. I was explicit and decisively descriptive. And, a little over two years ago, I started to talk to him. Yes, out loud, telling him how excited I was for him to come into my life, how much fun we were going to have and how I was so ready for his arrival.
I wrote out my list of 'must haves', 'must not haves' and 'would be nice ifs"...
I had always had the feeling that HE was not quite ready. And I promised myself that I would live and enjoy EVERY second of life while I waited for it to be the right time for him as well.
I knew that I would know it without a doubt...
And, I did.
He has arrived. 
When I tell you that he has every single quality that I had written down--down to the silliest of the 'would be nice if' list, I promise you, I'm not exaggerating.
 I had written that I would like him to be the same age as me--but a couple of months older would be nice. He is 2 months and 6 days older than me.
I had written that it would be nice if he grew up in the same area. Well, we went to high school together. Is that close enough?
I had written that I would LOVE to be with someone who enjoyed food but was greatly concerned with watching his weight...and was in good shape. And, yep, he gets on the scale more often than I do yet LOVES biscuits and gravy, deep fried chicken sandwiches and even the occasional donut!
I wrote that he must be kind and loving and friendly and happy. That he must not take life so seriously. That he must love baseball and GET it and SPEAK it and WATCH it! Not only is he the happiest man I've ever known, he takes things in stride, he finds solutions to problems and OH does he love baseball. (He even worked for the Angels for a while!)
When I talked to him at night...back before I met him...I told him that I knew we'd be best friends and that I would talk with him like I've never talked to a man before. I cannot tell you how EASY it is to be with him...he talks, he LISTENS, he remembers, he offers advice, he gives me a different perspective...
I had written that I would love for him to have a deep, emotional side...a tender, caring, feeling heart. I have to tell you, this has been so refreshing for me. He cries in movies, when I read something to him, when he hears a romantic song...
Of all the things I wrote down all these years regarding my dream man, the one I would STAR and UNDERLINE and BOLD was "he has to want to kiss me a lot..." (mind you, it's not just 'he has to kiss me a lot...but WANT to kiss me a lot.)
I can truly and honestly tell you that I have kissed this man more than I have kissed ALL the other men in my life combined...times TEN! He holds me close and touches me and dances with me in the kitchen and sings with me and laughs with me...
and WANTS to kiss me a lot...and does!

I have been absent from the blogging world for a month or so.
I've been distracted, amazed and dazzled by a man.
Oh wait, not just A man...
the man.

He has arrived.  And OH was he worth the wait.
He is my best friend, my soulmate, my encourager, my entertainer, my partner, my team mate, my helper, my joy...the undoubtable love of my life.

He is exactly the man I had hoped for, dreamed of and, seemingly, imagined into being.

Never never never give up...

Amen!

Happy New Year!