Love...

Love comes in many forms. There's the love of a family - often strained and tested, because families are more times than not made up of people who may never have chosen one another otherwise. There's the love of friends - transient and fickle at times because people come and go, but for those who are blessed with a life-long friend it's steady and true and chosen. But this isn't about those kinds of love. This is about the other kind of love, the kind that most people yearn for and seek out whether they possess any true understanding of it or not. This is about the love that buckles your knees, that sweeps you off your feet, the romantic love that many people give up on finding.

Fairy tales are just that...fairy tales. They leave out the day-to-day, real-life things like bills, kids, families, jobs, etc. These are the things that can cause the glow of romantic love to fade. People can smother love, choke the life out of it with insecurities and fear.
People can mistake jealousy for love, anger for passion, and completely misconstrue the reality of a relationship all because the heart gets involved. Face it, love can make people act crazy. It can turn a world upside-down or set it right. It can make you run or steel you against anything. I suppose like anything else in life, it's all about your perspective, your collected experiences, and your willingness to try.


My favorite fairy tale always was (and still is) "Beauty and the Beast".


"Yes, yes," said the Beast, "my heart is good, but still I am a monster."
"Among mankind," says Beauty, "there are many that deserve that name more than you, and I prefer you, just as you are, to those, who, under a human form, hide a treacherous, corrupt, and ungrateful heart." ~ Jeanne-Marie Le Prince de Beaumont Beauty and the Beast.


I think I always got that about love, that in its truest form it goes beyond what's on the outside, that it can transcend the physical limits of the people involved. Maybe my life would have been easier if I had perfected the frail woman role of Snow White so I could be rescued, or simply dreamed of the fancy dresses and home of Cinderella and looked for a wealthy prince. But that's me, chase after the loftiest idea of what love is with the tenacity of a mother wolverine.

Most of my attempts at having this kind of reciprocated love were failures. Hell, all of them until my current husband. Lots of people have this notion that by loving someone with everything you have, you can fix them or change them somehow or that they'll want to change for you. I wasn't any different in the beginning, I didn't try to change anyone, I just foolishly thought they'd think enough of me to change certain things. Well I can tell you this, you can't fix someone who doesn't want fixing or doesn't think anything is wrong. You also can't fix stupid...or cheaters, liars, nut-jobs, and the clueless.


What I always wanted - yearned for - was a passionate love. My parents are a generation, it seems, that thinks love just fades into the everyday and that passion naturally goes away with time, that it's not meant to last. I honestly can't recall them holding hands much less kissing. I wanted excitement, a deep connection, a man who wanted me, couldn't keep his hands or his eyes off of me, who kissed me like he wanted to be inside me, who would take me when he wanted me, who made no secret of how much he wanted me...I could go on and on and on. 


What I learned from my first marriage is that wanting something badly and working to have what you want don't amount to shit when you want something from someone that they just can't give. I'm reminded of something he said numerous times, "Wish in one hand, shit in the other and see which one fills up fastest." I finally figured that one out as far as he was concerned.

But I woke up, smelled the shit and moved on......


Another funny thing I've learned about love is that you don't get to plan it. Love has it's own plan, it's own schedule. You can't plan when you're going to fall in love any more than you can plan who it will be with. If you're thinking that you can, you may want to dig out those little papers called "restraining orders" that you tossed aside and brush up on some details.


When I met my new husband, falling in love was the farthest thing from my mind. I had just faced the realization that the first husband had been cheating on me, I didn't have a clue what to do, where to go or how to start over. Love was the least of my concerns. But God and fate have a way of intervening when it's needed most.


Honestly, I had suppressed my own desires and happiness for so long in the first marriage, overlooking the signs that it just wasn't right or good for me, that my subconscious was taking over. I'd been trying for years to kick-start some sort of passion. Finally, I was done begging for attention, affection and passion. I was losing weight and sleep. I would go out driving during the day, listening to music, always songs about passionate love and finding your way out of the bad places you end up in sometimes. 


But when I saw Tracy, my heart was up and running, faster than I could process what was happening. For the first time, my mind - weary with everything that was going on, couldn't override my heart. After so many years of being numb, finding that passionate love I had craved was frightening, all of my walls were down, finally, and I was determined not to let them go back up again. Of course that also meant feeling anger, rage, sorrow, the whole range of emotions, good and bad. But that's another lesson I learned, you can't have passion without all the other emotions. If you lock yourself away from pain, you also lock yourself away from joy.


This seems like it's rambling to me, I hope its not, but that's kind of what passionate love is like. It's like a wild rambling rose growing through every crack and gap, becoming a part of every inch it touches, holding tight with its thorns.


Other things I've learned about love...


You have to love yourself in order to find real love with someone else. If you can accept yourself, the good and the bad, and love yourself, then you'll be in a good place for loving someone else. It means you won't give up who you are or your dreams just to hold onto someone.

You have to know the things you want, the deal breakers, what you can deal with and what you can't. Stick to those things and don't settle. It's hard when you're lonely, I've settled out of fear of loneliness, so I understand completely but I've also had to recover myself at the other end of that scenario. If you walk into a relationship being 100% true to who you are - no dressing to impress, no tolerating things that you wouldn't normally tolerate, no going along with things to fit with someone - and it doesn't work out, then you haven't lost anything and there's no blame to place. If you're being you, and they're being true to who they are then it's all fair and there's no blame to place. If you've honestly done this a failed relationship doesn't make either of you wrong, it just makes you not right for each other. I know lots of people who go into relationships, ignoring things they don't like, thinking they can change the other person somehow, who - when it crumbles - can't see how they had any role in what went wrong.

Love doesn't solve life's problems and it doesn't just stick around needing no effort. You have to work at it. You have to make time for love and passion. If only one person is making the effort, eventually that one person will grow weary. If no one is trying...well, there's nothing there anymore, is there? Love needs space, time, patience, effort, forgiveness, a compass, an accomplice and it needs to be needed.


You can't force love. It either grows or withers, and that's completely dependent on you. I've heard it said that making a relationship last means falling in love with the same person over and over. I used to interpret that as meaning it was natural to fall out of love with someone and then you'd work to get it back. But I learned that it doesn't come back if it goes and if it goes, it has either simply run its course or it wasn't really love. Sometimes we fall in "love" with people because they're close enough to what we want, or as close as we think we'll get to it and we rationalize that "right now" person into the "right" person.

Love, quite simply, is everything it's cracked up to be - the good, the bad, the beautiful and the awful. I suppose the fact that it does have a down-side is why people can be skeptical of true love. And you really shouldn't be. I've been there. You can't control love, you can't pick who you fall in love with - timing, circumstances, situations, previous experiences - all play a part in how you react to everything else in your life including the people you meet. People come and go, some are there just to teach you something, some are there to get you through something, and when you've learned the things you needed to learn, and gotten through the things you needed to move through the door is wide open for the love that was intended for you all along.

I am loved in spite of my imperfections because I can look beyond those things in others...
I am loved for who I am because I can love people for who they are....
I am loved beyond measure because that is how I love...
and I can do this now because rather than running from love after going through the bad and awful of it I ran toward it. I learned from my experiences. I learned who I really am at my core and I learned to love myself. 


And now I have the thing I always knew I wanted...
A Beautiful, Crazy..........LOVE.....

Women...

Ask most men and they'll say that all women are crazy, and we may be. But it obviously works since they seem to have trouble living without us. (Although I will make it clear that when I say "crazy" I'm not talking about those chicks that come with papers - the stalking, obsessive, violent, delusional women. I just mean your standard run-of-the-mill female crazy.)

If you're close to my age then you know exactly who Mary Ann and Ginger are. My mother and my aunts were never the types of women who talked about what it is to be a woman. Their generation didn't seem to talk much about anything other than the day-in and day-out of life from what I recall. They worked, they kept homes and families - but I can't recall ever hearing any of them ever speak of dreams they had for themselves, of desires, of wanting or being able to be anything more or anything other than a homemaker and mom. I knew nothing more of my mom having a sex life than the fact that about once a month the bedroom door got locked. Sex wasn't a topic of discussion and I certainly never saw any of them get dolled up.

TV from my childhood didn't really help that either. Carol Brady - home and family; Mary Tyler Moore - career but no marriage, no kids; All in the Family, Happy Days, Little House on the Prairie - all home and family; Laverne & Shirley, Wonder Woman, Charlie's Angels - careers, troubled relationships, no kids. All of these shows seemed to say two things - 1. that a woman would have to choose between a successful career or a successful home life, and 2. that a woman couldn't be sexy and be taken seriously at a career and she couldn't be sexy and be married or a mom. Then there was Gilligan's Island with Mary Ann and Ginger the perfect example of splitting the "good" woman from the "bad" woman. 



Every boy I knew in my small world went back and forth between who they liked better and every girl went back and forth between which they'd rather be. On the one hand you had Mary Ann - the wholesome girl next door, the sweetheart, the one the guys would take home to mom then marry. On the other hand you had Ginger - the bombshell, the sexy bad girl who used her womanly ways to her advantage, the one the guys swooned over, dreamed about. Somewhere along the way, our society decided being a sexual woman could only exist separately from the day to day person we're expected to be and that "idea" began to be branded into our psyches from the time of mass communication's dawning age in TV, magazines, etc.


The simple fact is that women are complex creatures. Unfortunately we're also easily influenced and swayed into sacrificing parts of ourselves to "fit in" with one of society's roles for us. Who says we have to give up any part of ourselves though? If we don't allow ourselves to be crammed into molds to keep other people happy then we can be anything and everything we want to be. Many times though, fear is that deciding factor in our decision making process. I know how powerful fear is, I lived with it long enough that I lost the ability to recognize it, it had become ingrained in my daily life - keeping me from making the best decisions for myself, keeping me from being myself. On top of that, as women we wear so many hats on any given day (chauffeur, chef, maid, mother, wife, employee, etc.) that we often sacrifice the most womanly parts of ourselves - the sexpot, the flirt, the lover (and we all have those sides to us even if we're scared to let them out.)



There's not a little girl out there who, at some point, doesn't dream of being beautiful, growing up to be a "woman" with curves and long hair who makes boys go crazy. And every one of them should be told that she's beautiful - not to the point of creating tiny divas, just so that they become accustomed to hearing it and knowing when it's being said sincerely and from the heart. 


As we get older, competition and cattiness seems to set into a lot of women. All revolving around guys.....enter insecurities....enter crazy. I know women who snoop through their guy's things constantly - pockets, drawers, emails, phones. I know girls who do it to guy friends that they're not even dating!! I know guys have their own things that they worry about - but they don't (in general) obsess over things like how they look in their clothes - "is this too revealing, not revealing enough, does it make me look fat?" They don't worry about running into someone in a store when they're not looking their best. The don't gossip about who's with who, or any of the petty details that seem to become the focus of many women's conversations and sometimes lives. They don't see another guy with a girl and zero in on the guy the way women zero in on the woman. "Look at her, he's only interested in her because she's easy"," look at how she's dressed", "You know he's only interested in her body". Women will do that shit without even knowing either person in the scenario!!! You know it's true. Hell, I've even sat in church and overheard women whispering in the pews about such things. It's one thing to know someone personally, and I mean KNOW that person and make such a statement, but when I don't know the person/people myself, I try to remember that judgment is not my place and that unless you've been in someone's shoes you don't know what motivates them. Maybe women's focus goes to things like that because they've forgotten that they're capable of being exciting, of being a full on woman. Maybe they wish they had the body, the guts, the moxie, the "whatever" that another woman has. I sincerely do not know what motivates that behavior.

My husband and I were eating lunch with a male friend who made the comment that if he were a girl he wouldn't want for anything, that he wouldn't hesitate to use being female to his advantage and that it wouldn't matter how old the guy was. (This came about because he personally knows someone who has an 70+ year old wealthy "boyfriend" who's taking care of her.) Suddenly my "hamster" was wide awake and not just "turning the wheel" but running a marathon in it. I can say that I'm pretty sure I personally couldn't do that. I don't say I'm certain of it because desperation alters how people react to things. I just know that I prefer to have love in the relationship equation. I don't know the above mentioned gal so I can't say whether love is there or not, I just based this on how he stated he'd be if he was a woman.

I posed the question on our public race team Facebook page asking the guys "if you were a woman, would you use your feminine attributes to your advantage". The handful of guys who answered, did so with big "Hell yeah, I'd have a mattress sewn to my back". I asked to try to gain some insight as to whether it's men or women who are responsible for the misconceptions about and the labeling of women with big tits, the ones who dance for a living, the ones who model, etc. as loose or amoral or as sluts or whatever words get tossed out there to describe these women.  

I remember high school well, and honey, you couldn't pay me to go back. I was at one end of the spectrum - one of the girls on the edges of things, never popular, never part of any clicks, never dating, but I knew girls who were at the opposite end of things as well - the ones with killer bodies and the reputations associated with them, who were constantly asked out. I can see now how it was most likely as difficult for some of them then as it was for me. Constantly having it assumed that they're easy and stories being told on Monday morning (and knowing teenage guys and using a little hindsight, I'm sure some of the stories, if not most of them, were blown out of proportion, or fabricated for fear of looking like they couldn't score with someone with a rep.) 

I have high school classmates on our Facebook page who remember the "high school" me. But there's the catch. They have memories of me - we didn't hang out. They remember the quiet, awkward, painfully skinny me who was good at drawing and made good grades. They remember the me who had crawled into a social shell after years of rejection. If they knew me, they'd also know that my two closest friends from JH & HS were forbidden to speak to me or continue to hang out with me when their parents saw that I wasn't the type to put up with strict rules and told them they needed to stand up for themselves against their moms who screamed at them and hit them. Of course that didn't happen, I was cut loose. It hurt me a great deal but I understand, they weren't in positions where they could leave home. 

If my classmates knew me, they'd know I possess a temper - which I keep strictly controlled - one that causes me to scream and break things. I control it mainly because I don't vent this temper on others, the damage it does is primarily to my things and myself. My temper is so well controlled that my son is sensitive to me even raising my voice. Maybe not the best thing since he doesn't seem to understand that it's OK to get angry or how to deal with feelings of anger in constructive ways. Luckily he doesn't seem to have inherited much of my temper.

Did anyone in HS know that I've always dreamed of being in Playboy? It has nothing to do with being promiscuous. I've looked at "porn" magazines for as long as I can remember being able to find my dad's and uncles' stashes. I think the human body is beautiful, possessing lines and movement that only God and nature can create. Would I do it even being a mom? Hell yeah I would, especially being a mom. Having a kid doesn't mean women have to stop being sexual or desirable. I think lots of marriages fail because one partner (or both) forget how to connect sexually, romantically, passionately. But that's another blog. 

Did any of my classmates know that I dreamed of being a free-lance writer? Not just that, the whole scenario was that I'd be a free-lance writer, travelling the country and world, with lovers in different cities. I could see having a kid but I never saw being married. That's me though, (and I think, a lot of women) a walking bundle of conflicts. Decisions I made along the way are why I am where I am, as well as why I am who I am. Would I do some things differently if I could? Maybe a few things, but I wouldn't really want to alter who I am today. I'm learning to fit the conflicting pieces of me together into what's turning out to be a very challenging puzzle of a beautiful foreign landscape. But I digress... 

High school seems to be a difficult thing for a lot of women to leave behind, some guys, but more women. Looking back, the girls I remember that were well endowed actually played down their large chests for the most part. I'm sure it was as problematic for some of them as being flat chested was for me. But back then we were all still girls, trying to figure out what being a woman meant.  Not an easy thing to do with so many seemingly conflicting roles out there. 

We allow guys to play a big part in that. When we're dating, guys are often looking for exciting, fun, sexy girls. When they decide to get married enter Suzy Homemaker. But even married, a guy's head will turn at the sight of a pretty girl showing off the fact that she's a girl. (You can't say Suzy Homemaker doesn't notice the Brad Pitts, Javier Bardems, or George Clooneys, either.) But Suzy will most likely get jealous, or insecure, or catty or any combination of the aforementioned descriptives......and off we go, completely forgetting that once upon a time that probably was her. And who's fault is that? The kids' because that's when you gained the weight? Sorry, not their problem to bear. The husband's fault because he never notices you? Maybe that's it in some cases, but do you give him reason to notice? Your fault? Couldn't be, you're busy working, taking care of the kids and the house, driving to ball games and pageants, planning yard sales, attending PTO meetings, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera....

Yes, guys, as a whole, can definitely send out some mixed signals about what they want in a woman. But the ways in which we've learned as women to interact with men and that we would even treat "getting" a man like a competition, speak volumes for how far we haven't come. In the end I think the judgments, expectations, and criticisms that hold us back as women are ones we put on ourselves and other women. Most of us can figure out that a nice suit doesn't guarantee a nice guy, why can't we figure out that a woman who's comfortable with looking womanly and sexy isn't loose? Just because you've chosen to downplay certain aspects of being a woman, set aside one or more of the hats to wear others doesn't make you better or worse than another woman who chose different a different hat that day.

The funny thing for me - as someone who has been flat-chested and is now surgically well-endowed - is that I still dress the way I've always dressed. I didn't go out and get a whole new wardrobe when I got my implants - well, I did actually buy bikinis cause now I have something to put in them - my taste in clothes didn't change, it's just that I'm shaped differently now. Put a flat chested woman in a bikini and nothing is likely to be said about her character - put a curvy woman in a bikini and somehow it's a statement toward her character, a reason to question her motives for being seen. (There's nothing wrong with being flat-chested as long as it isn't bothering you to the point of interfering with your enjoyment of life. Like I've said, that was me not so long ago.) But a small bust in a bikini doesn't make that woman any more innocent than a big bust makes someone amoral.


 

There's nothing wrong with Mary Ann. I love to cook, I like evenings at home, I'm at my most comfortable in jeans and a t-shirt, bare-footed cooking a meal, singing along to the radio loudly and out of key. I'm honestly a lot more Mary Ann than Ginger. But personally I always wanted to be Ginger. Probably because I was never considered the pretty one - not in my family, not in school, not in social circles once I was grown. I was always awkward and quiet. I wanted to be beautiful, sexy, adored. I wanted the fancy dresses - although I usually just felt like a little girl playing dress up when the occasion would arise that I could wear one. I wanted to be looked at as beautiful, sexy, desirable. I just wasn't able to really see what was in my mirror - add in the rejection, being cheated on, always putting someone else's dreams and wants before my own and it made being the woman I really am a very difficult endeavor.

It's been a long hard lesson to learn, mainly because I had no one to tell me, but I'm getting there - I can be a good mom and still have an exciting sex life. I can be smart and still be sexy. I can be a great cook and I can do my grocery shopping in 4 inch heels if that's what I want to do. I can make my guy swoon then be the sweetheart that bandages his head from the fall. I can do anything I want to do - dream, explore, create my own life, change my mind, start over, love ferociously, be a cookie-baking mom, in other words, I can be a woman and EVERYTHING that "woman" encompasses. I don't have to pick between Mary Ann and Ginger. And I'm glad I figured that out before I ended up like Mrs. Howell!!!


I don't have any real girlfriends to hang out with, the ones who will hang out with me, well we're always busy and running on different schedules, or we just don't live anywhere near each other. If they're happy, I'm happy for them. A lot of women don't like me though, and I've run into that since I was a teenager, although I couldn't wrap my head around it then. I  actually still have trouble understanding it and it makes me proceed with caution when meeting women, I just don't let it bother me now, that's the difference. 


Would I ever want to be a guy? Not a chance in Hell. Why? Cause then I'd have to date a woman!! And although we may be wonderfully infuriating conglomerations of the best and worst that life offers,
it doesn't change the fact that we're....beautiful CRAZY....women...  

Boobs....

That's right, I said the "b" word......boobs. Those round things on women's chests that come in varying sizes and styles and have the innate ability to turn grown men into, well....boobs. 

I've been on both sides of the "boob" playing field, Team Small (although in my case it was more like Team None-At-All) and Team Large. Yes, at the age of 39, I got implants. My husband and I have a page on Facebook and I wrote notes and posted them to our page throughout each step of the process. I'm very honest about myself, and there was no reason not to be honest about this.

Let me back this up by giving you some background. I was always curious about sex and bodies and that is for as long as I can remember. I've read since the age of three and by the time I was five or six I read my dad's and my uncles' Playboy and Penthouse magazines. Well, read them and dreamed of looking like the women in the centerfolds. I was always boy-crazy but that affection was almost never returned. Then I hit puberty and nothing, nadda, no need for a bra and no worries of my dad having an early stroke or heart attack !! I'm not sure who came up with bra sizing but DD is larger than a D-cup and there I was, 5 feet 8 inches of skinny and all legs with AA boobs. I guess whoever dreamed up the sizes found it funny to call the smallest boobs AA, or maybe they felt sorry for us and wanted us to feel like we had more somehow by giving us two letters. Whatever the case, the humor of it was lost on the teenage me. Whenever I liked a guy, the girls I saw him with always had boobs. I was dumped several times for girls with more "assets" and even told that.

Even though I felt cursed with my small boobs, I never hated on girls who had large ones, never sat around assuming she must be a slut. I honestly never was the type to bash other women based on their appearance, although I was often belittled over mine. During my first marriage I heard things like, "Boobs don't matter," but mine were never part of any foreplay or sex, or the time when looking at a Playboy magazine hearing him say, "If you had boobs they'd probably look like that." I just dealt with my insecurity about it by tossing on padded bras. Don't get me wrong the insecurity was my issue.

Enter the year 2008 - a divorce after years of being cheated on, starting over, forcing myself to face why I would let myself be in a situation like I was in, finding the love of my life, everything was upside-down and backwards and even though I finally had a man in my life that loved me and my "rare miniatures" that nagging insecurity was still there. So the research began.

         (This is WITH a padded bra - and you can see the insecurity on my face.)

 I knew I wanted big boobs so I decided to go where the doctors were accustomed to "installing" that size. Where I'm from the docs lean toward conservative "natural" sizes and doing what they think is best, not what you want. So why BIG ?? Look, at AA - it's not like people would look at me and go "ya know, something looks different, wait... don't tell me..." No, they'd know right away what was different, so there was no point worrying about what people might think or say. (Not that I should worry about that anyway since it's my life.) Factor in my height and how broad my shoulders are plus the fact that I've got a J-Lo booty following behind me and big is what it was gonna take to look balanced. An hourglass is what I wanted. No huge gap in the middle, some curve hanging over my sides, good projection - that's what I wanted. I didn't want to look at the boobs when the swelling had gone down and they were settling into place and think "I wish I'd gone bigger..." I'd hate to think I spent a lot of money to still not be happy. Look, I'm a country girl - that ain't gonna change. I'm pretty darn good at speaking my mind and I freakin' love to laugh and that includes at myself. I'm kinda like a Dolly Parton trapped in a Kate Hudson body. No offense to Kate, she's gorgeous but I wanted boobs !!! (Side note: Kate Hudson has since gotten a boob job, and she spent the same amount to get small implants that she would have spent for larger ones !!) That said though, no I did not pick Dolly size, think Pam Anderson...

I will say though, that this is not something you should do because a significant other in your life wants you to have bigger boobs. It's not something you should do because you have NO confidence in yourself and you think cosmetic surgery will fix it. Like I said, I had to gain enough confidence in myself to have the nerve to do this. I know I'm not the ugly duckling I always felt like in school. I know I have a certain skill set that makes me desirable. "Why get them at all?" I wanted to make the outside match the way I felt inside. I couldn't even fill out a size small triangle bikini top without the cups wrinkling. I love the beach and the water, but when you cover up constantly from embarrassment it puts a damper on things, especially when you look around and see girls that are 12 with more womanly shapes than yours. They weren't sagging - gravity had nothing to swing from for 39 years, so it's not like I needed a lift or to fill some void from nursing cause after nursing they simply shrunk down even smaller than before!!! No medical reason like lop-sided girls or a really dramatic difference in their sizes, I just wanted them. I honestly felt pretty sexy naked even with my "rare miniatures" - but when the clothes went on I felt like I needed the padded bras to look "right" in my clothes. The boobies were for me. 

That doesn't mean it was an easy decision. It's surgery, elective surgery, you're deciding to have this done to yourself, and if anything goes wrong, it was your decision. There are always risks to any surgery and if you've ever had a surgery, you know that anesthesia adds to the risks. That was the scariest aspect for me,especially since I'm a mom. 

I also had to break my habit of constantly worrying about what others may think. Believe me that's a tough one to overcome. I thought up every possible scenario..... 

( Insert possible stupid question here... ) 

"What kind of message are you sending to your son?" You know what, no one has been STUPID enough to ask me that, but I'll give you my answer anyway... 

I have raised an intelligent, sensitive young man and I did it in an environment where I was made to feel like I was less than everything that I am, an environment in which I settled for whatever happiness I could manage to find. But I got out of that environment and now my biggest struggle is teaching him that he is responsible for making decisions that will make him happy in his life. Teaching him that he can change things around him and in him that will make his life what he wants it to be. I know my son will not make decisions about people based solely on their looks because that's how I'm raising him. If that is truly a question that you feel you need to ask me then I think you need to look at the things on which you base your evaluations of people. I had implants put in, I did not have brain cells removed !!

Like I've said and, I hope, shown, I'm very honest. I'm also very sexual, I don't try to hide it, but I don't really advertise it either. Don't let the thoughts run too wild, I'm strictly heterosexual and I don't swing. These boobs help me look physically the way I feel - I'm sure some will call it a "porn" look - whatever. I'm a very happy girl now concerning my boobs. Without the huge rack, I was able to fly under the radar - most people looked at me as some sweet innocent thing. Now I've got tattoos and a big 'ol boobies and I'm sure some people will assume different things about me. But that just goes back to dealing with my issues of caring too much about what other people think. I'm still me after all, I'm just not going to be afraid to really be me or to let people see the real me, and believe it or not the tattoos and big boobs help me to that end.

Unfortunately for a lot of women, it's difficult to do everything we do in a day - mom, housekeeper, whatever profession we're in, chauffeur, cook, life management counselor, daughter, sister, and hundreds of other titles - and be able to look at ourselves as sexual creatures. Most of us get lost in a few roles of our choice and the other multitudes of amazing things that we are capable of being get lost in the daily shuffle. As women we should be more open and able to talk about things like our boobs, as well as all the other things that make us inherently women. I don't have time or the patience for cattiness and competitiveness with other women based on looks. A tit is a tit - it doesn't make or break the woman. Hell, we can feed our kids with 'em for crying out loud, but many of us still avoid discussions about body issues, including breast cancer & self exams based on some weird taboo or sense of security (or insecurity)?

Everything else aside, and as someone who's been on both sides of the fence when it comes to boobs, when it comes to men here's the bottom line.....

I know I'm not the only one who has encountered this type of woman so I'm just gonna go ahead and get this "off my chest" so to speak. I'm talking about those gals with the big boobs that have wrapped their entire world and sense of self-worth around their boobs. Let me let you gals in on a little secret - one that I know because I have always had more close male friends that I talk with than females - there's no such thing as a bad tit to a guy. 

Little, big, perky, droopy, even, lop-sided, a tit is a tit... 

If he can see 'em and touch 'em he's happy with 'em...

Willingness to show nips cancels out any physical defect... 

Men love tits and ALL women have some version of tits... 


I'd bet even gay guys wish they had tits, even if it's just to accessorize them. Sure big boobies are gonna turn a guy's head but you damn well better have more than that if you want to keep him. Let's face it, boobs have limited functionality and big tits or not, a guy doesn't want a bitch or a psycho. My guy wanted me even with little tits, and believe me he enjoyed the hell out of them !!! He loves the new tits too - because he sees how happy and how much more confident they make me - and maybe a little because he can't even fit his hand around around one !!! So gals get over yourselves, it's a level playing field in this wonderful age of science and technology. If you really can't stand that then feel free to go get even bigger boobs, but in the words of Ron White "you can't fix stupid." Bottom line, be the best you that you can be, cause the physical will only get you so far in life, honey. Different guys like different things, but when a guy really is happy where he is, I promise you it's what's in the woman's heart that's keeping him there.

Whether you like 'em or not, approve or not, I love my beautiful crazy.....boobs...

   

Ink...

Ink - (ĭngk) n. A pigmented liquid or paste used especially for writing or printing.
                   tr.v. 1. To mark, coat, or stain with ink. 2. Informal. To append one's signature to (a
                              contract, for example.)


Ink has been a part of my life for as long as I can remember. I began reading at the age of three, devouring books actually. By first grade, I was reading at a sixth grade level. (Of course being the curious child I was, by the age of five I knew where my dad and uncles kept their Playboy and Penthouse magazines and was reading those too, but that's another blog.)


Once I learned to write, an ink pen was my tool of choice. I think I liked the permanence of it - where I had been, what I had done, couldn't be erased. It could still be torn and thrown out but it was like I'd left my own mark on the universe. I used to write as much as I read. I wrote short stories, poetry, my thoughts and dreams filling diaries and journals. 


And doodles!! I didn't always use ink to draw, but being a lefty, if I used ink, at least I didn't smear my drawings. So I practiced, developed some confidence in my artistic abilities and learned to like the rough edges. I slowly added painting to my skill set - watercolors, acrylics, etc. - but found I leaned toward using the more permanent pigments.


Permanence........ I know in the grand scheme of things, I make no great impact on the world. I suppose growing up, I never felt very important. I wanted to be, but never felt it. I wasn't particularly praised for any achievements that I made or skills I possessed. Maybe that's why my younger years were spent immersed in books - seeking new experiences, places and adventures that seemed they would never be part of my real world. When I wrote I could recreate my world - even if it was only on paper. When I drew or painted I could control what was around me and how it appeared. 


Being older now I still don't feel like I make any great impact on the world, but then, a great impact isn't my goal. Being myself, being happy, being a good mom, being a good partner - those are my goals. A permanent effect on the world doesn't matter to me, knowing that I permanently matter to someone does. I can now see ways in which being myself impacts people. I get private messages from people about how I inspire them or how something I said was just what they needed to hear at that moment. It's strange to feel so small for so long and suddenly realize that even "small" you affect people, that small simple things - being yourself, being honest, being open to life - can turn out to be big in their own little ways. 


After many years of being sidetracked by other people's expectations of me, I knew I had to return to being me. In the process of becoming myself again, I returned to that familiar memory keeper I called "ink". I began writing again, I began drawing and painting again, and an old desire returned. Tattoos. I honestly always wanted tattoos, but when you live with a judgmental person who every time it's mentioned says "If you want one get one, but I think they're trashy," and especially when you feel like nothing in that relationship, it's very difficult to just do what you want to do. It hadn't really ever left me, I had just steered away from getting tattoos because of worrying about the judgments that would come with them. Somewhere along the way I'd become afraid of permanence and afraid of being myself. I had let being small turn into being insignificant. I knew if I was going to get back to me and be able to stand my ground there, my fears had to be overcome, I couldn't keep hiding myself and letting myself feel insignificant. 


People get tattoos for many reasons. Some later regret their thought process behind getting the tattoo and will say they regret the tattoo, rather than admit they regret a moment in time. Others proudly display their tattoos, mementos of their experiences, memories and milestones from their lives. People who've never wanted them won't ever understand why someone would. I get tattoos for me. Each tattoo I've gotten makes me feel more like myself. That's the only way I can explain it. My tattoos are permanent reminders of me...imprints from moments in my life, things I love, representations of things I remember fondly. I pick things that are constant and steady, touchstones of my life and who I am, even the tiniest details.

They also make me feel more "colorful", lighter, happier. It's not about feeling like a "bad-ass" or anything like that, they make me comfortable. They also make dealing with other people easier for me. Although I can be a "chatty Cathy" I also have a shy and introverted side. Tattoos, especially on a woman, can immediately bring the "pig" in a guy to the surface. Face it, people make assumptions, and for some reason when it comes to tattoos people seem to be much more apt to be straight forward with what's on their mind.  Whether it's "Why would you do that?" or a statement of appreciation for the artwork, or a very blunt invitation for sex, it seems to cut through the games and bullshit. A guy who's a pig won't bother to hide it, a catty female won't bother faking nice, and every now and again, it gives someone - who may not approach you otherwise - a starting point for a conversation. They may change my appearance but they don't change who I am. Criticize if that's your nature but before you do think of what you're about to let fly. If you are obviously overweight and out of shape and want to ask "how I could do that to my body?" be prepared to hear "how could you do that to your body?" Before you, with your trying-to-look-perfect appearance, nose in the air and snarled up face, make a snide comment about my tattoos or what you think I must be like, you need to have a response ready for when I ask why you live in such a way that you appear outwardly miserable and feel a need to spread misery and negativity. I didn't have a single tattoo until I was almost 39 - a lot of thought has gone into my tattoos.


I started simply enough with the title of a song by Government Mule - Beautifully Broken. I was going through a divorce, everything I thought I had was built on a foundation of lies and held together by more lies. If you think about it though, all of us go through things that we think will break us and few of us ever actually shatter. Most of us just develop stress fractures that mold our character and reactions and lead us on different paths. I love the look of cracked glass vases and sculptures. People seem like those pieces of art - complex, strong and weak all at once, they may withstand a great deal day in and day out but one tiny bump in just the right place could shatter everything.  

(I have since learned that I am much stronger than I ever thought I was. I still struggle sometimes with asserting myself but I recognize my strength and have stopped thinking of myself as "broken" - this may get redone at some point. But right now my focus is on completing a sleeve.)

Each tattoo has made me a bolder version of me...

My wings are from an Italian quote "We are all born angels but with only one wing. To truly fly we must embrace another." It was going to be my first tattoo but with only one wing because I felt I hadn't found that perfect match for me. But I've found the one that makes me fly so it became a set....

My guns are a reminder to myself about the strong willed - albeit sometimes crazy - stock that I come from....

 

 

Skulls are something I've always drawn, it's not a fascination with death, it's about anatomy, I have one that represents me and one that represents the man in my life....

 

A moon because I've always been a night person....


Waves and a sunset because I adore the oceans and sunsets.....

Crows because they're always around....

The quotes "I'll keep you safe" and "You keep me wild" because that's how my husband and I balance each other....

Two anatomical hearts with octopi tentacles entwining each other for several reasons, my love of the ocean, my love of anatomy, thinking the kick-ass sculpture I based it on was beautiful and essentially it represents love - a thing that grabs hold of your heart, surrounds it, binds you to another....

(Only outlined at the moment.)


And there's much more to come. It takes time just like it takes courage to really be yourself. Sometimes my courage grows and I add another milestone, sometimes I reveal a part of myself with a tattoo and the courage to be bolder follows. Either way I'll continue to be me. Maybe some piece of what I do with ink, my words or my art, will impact people. Maybe it won't. But it will forever be part of me.
 
It's my Beautiful Crazy....Ink.

Life...

Life, that thing that every time you think you’ve got it figured out, changes the game. It’s unpredictable, follows no rules, no plans, people try constantly to guess the meaning of it, define what makes a good one, but the only thing guaranteed about life is that no one is getting out of it alive.

In the meantime though, I’m learning to live my own life. . .

For children it’s easy. It’s like the little story of a teacher who asks each kid in her class what they want to be when they grow up. She hears many of the typical answers from her class - a policeman, a firefighter, a teacher, etc. When she gets to the last little boy in the class she asks, “What do you want to be when you grow up?” His answer, “Happy.” The teacher tells him, “I think you missed the point of the question.” He looked at her and said, “No, I think you’ve missed the point.”

Somewhere along the way, as we grow older, what makes us happy gets colored over with the things that make our families, our partners - even society - happy. It’s easy to fall into that routine, getting through each day trying to keep the people around you happy so that things are easier for you. It's convenient really because it gives you an excuse, a scapegoat to take the blame when your heart starts telling you you're not happy.

It takes guts to get out there and live - especially when what makes you happy is radically different from what makes the people around you happy and even more so when getting happy involves turning your whole life upside down and going against the grain of those around you. I'm not talking "Braveheart-charging-into-battle" courage. I'm talking about that tiny voice at the end of the day saying "I'm going to try again tomorrow" kind of courage.

I know because I've been there.

In school, I dreamed of many things as young people often do. I dreamed of having passionate affairs. I could see myself a single mom, but not really married. I dreamed of being a writer, of leaving my small hometown and its factories to travel. Mostly though, I dreamed of finding that one person who would love me without conditions, without limits - the one who could set my world on fire. 

The fact of the matter for that last "dream" however, is that I was never popular with the guys. I hung out with lots of them, but I was the more of the little sister or one of the guys. That and my desperation to be loved would be the undoing of the dreams of my youth.

At least for 21 years.......

I let my dreams be sidetracked by someone else's. Granted I thought in the beginning that our dreams were the same. He was in a band, he wanted to travel. He asked me to marry him and 5 years into dating - I found out he was cheating. That should have been it, I know. Hindsight is 20/20 but after 3 months apart and no one showing interest in me, that familiar fear of loneliness set in and I believed his apologies and promises that it wouldn't happen again were sincere. Within a year we were married. Turned out, he was the only one traveling. My job didn't allow me to take off every Friday. So I spent countless weekends alone. One year into the marriage, I got a call from a man saying my husband was sleeping with his wife. Again, my desperation and fear of being alone kicked in and once again I believed his lies that nothing happened. These gigantic "little clues" continued to surface every year, and every year I pushed them to the back of my mind. I didn't want to admit I was wrong about him, that the marriage was a mistake and huge disaster. Even after my son was born, the clues rolled in and I let them roll off my back. I had a different focus with a baby in the picture and the ex had the perfect cover for his double life. I was what his parents expected of him - a home life, a wife & family and every Friday he rolled out of town, out of state to play the role of some rock star. After so many years of internalizing the little clues, of ignoring what deep down I knew, after ignoring my own dreams and setting my own happiness on the back burner for so long, my self-esteem was at rock bottom and I had become numb inside and good at putting on that happy face for everyone around me. I had always told myself, "If I just had real proof, I'd leave." My own happiness wasn't a good enough reason to leave. I spent the better part of 21 years thinking I wasn't worthy of being truly happy.

They say be careful what you wish for because you just might get it. I got my proof in spades...that, and a life turned upside-down.

Most people are perfectly content to continue in situations where they're borderline happy or even flat-out miserable because of comfort and a fear of starting over. When I found myself on my knees in the dirt, I may not have been able to see where I was headed because of all the dust but I knew I was getting up off of my knees.  

I had my out - the hard way, but I had it. I didn't get vindictive or spiteful - I got my 18 boxes of personal things, half of my son's stuff and left. 

Funny how in the midst of chaos there can be clarity. Maybe it's because when you have a million things going through your mind that you don't have answers to, the only thing that can get above that noise is your heart. Even though my mind couldn't begin to deal with everything it would take to start over...my heart knew it had its chance.


My heart knew I deserved better (even if I didn't believe it.)
My heart knew it was tired of living a lie (even though it had become habit.)
My heart knew I could handle whatever was heading my way (even if I wasn't so sure of it.)
My heart knew that my life was supposed to be more than it had been so far (even though I had seemed to give up on myself.)
and most importantly........
My heart knew the person I needed in my life the second our eyes met (and wouldn't let me  walk away even when things were tough.)


In many respects, a life spent following your heart isn't easy. Your heart doesn't care about income and bills. It can make you do things you wouldn't do "if you were thinking straight". Following your heart through life can make many people around you question your sanity and treat you like an outsider. But in another respect, it can be the easiest life. Sure things may aggravate me during the day, that's life, but I wake up happy and I go to bed happy. 
I smile and laugh, every day.


My life may not be an easy one but it's a very happy one now, and best of all...
it's MY beautiful crazy... life...