If you consult any romance novel or rom-com be it young adult, historical or contemporary, and they will have you think that love is easy. News flash,

Love is not easy!

Whether it is family love, friendship, love or lovers love, it really is not easy. That doesn’t mean it is bad or not worth it. After all, isn’t the old adage nothing worth having is easy? The question ends up being if it is not easy, then is it worth the work you need to put into it.

Honestly, I will almost always say yes to that. There are a few small notable times when I said it wasn’t worth putting more and more work into a one way street. But, those are the exceptions to my general rule of once I let you in, you are in for life. I will bend over backwards, tie myself into a pretzel and a variety of other things to make sure you are ok, loved and know how I feel. As the previous post at the start of the month covered this does mean I end up being hurt a lot. On purpose or not on purpose. I will be honest, there have been sometimes this year where I thought it was time to stop doing that. It was time to be more cynical and perhaps treat people more like they were treating me.

In the end, however, I couldn’t do it. I don’t think I will ever be able to do that kind of thing. Why you ask? The short answer is that I truly believe in kindness and love. I do truly believe that if more people could just be kind and show love even in the face of something that is not love the world would be a better place. That doesn’t mean I don’t feel hurt, get exhausted and sometimes feel like giving up. I do. I am human like everyone else. It just means that after a bit of time, I will usually sigh, pick myself up and head back to seeing what I can do to help.

Love is hard. Loving an addict is hard. Loving someone with mental illness is hard. Very, very hard all of it.

But it is worth it.

Love might be hard, but it can also be rewarding. Love teaches you things, it teaches you that you are stronger than you thought and that missing someone sucks.  So I guess once again, I have gone off on a ramble, but I am okay with that because I needed to just ramble on. Currently it seems that is the form Birth of a Notion is taking a place for me to ramble. That is one thing I love about this blog when I sit back and think about it, that it changes and it flows and it moves like I do. We all grow, and change and learn and become different and then go back to something more familiar and become the best version of ourselves.

I have agonized over this blog on more than one occasion, about not keeping up with it, about how many different things it has been. It is like me. It makes me happy that I have finally managed to just accept this epiphany. So come along for the ride and the random ramble, or don’t it is cool either way. If you do come along, though I bet you will have a bit of fun. If you would rather something a bit more traditional,  you can always visit one of my more bog standard blogs that have themes, lol.

Anyways, I digress, Love is hard, but love is worth it. Love is worthy and Love needs to continue in this world, even when it is hard. Hate is the enemy. Hate will break us all and turn the world into a place that we may never come back from. So no matter how hard, I choose love.

 

Always try to be nice, but never fail to be kind.

 

It is Saturday once more and time to find inspiration to write. It has been a difficult week in that respect for me. I have barely even done creative work that must be done. I suppose we all have these times, eh? I can admit my mood has been melancholy but I hope for it to improve soon. They say time heals all wounds of course, but sometimes the scar still reminds us of the pain endured to get it.

 

 

Oft, in the stilly night,
  Ere slumber’s chain has bound me,
Fond Memory brings the light
  Of other days around me:
    The smiles, the tears
    Of boyhood’s years,
  The words of love then spoken;
    The eyes that shone,
    Now dimm’d and gone,
  The cheerful hearts now broken!
Thus, in the stilly night,
  Ere slumber’s chain has bound me,
Sad Memory brings the light
  Of other days around me.

When I remember all
  The friends, so link’d together,
I’ve seen around me fall
  Like leaves in wintry weather,
    I feel like one
    Who treads alone
  Some banquet-hall deserted,
    Whose lights are fled,
    Whose garlands dead,
  And all but he departed!
Thus, in the stilly night,
  Ere slumber’s chain has bound me.
Sad Memory brings the light
  Of other days around me.

 

People claim they are trying to be supportive and there for me yet they get all butt hurt when I answer in an honest yet slightly guarded way. Like seriously? Leave me here with my damn comfort food and I will just eat my feelings away thank you. I don’t need any wishy washy support, I need real no strings attached I am here for you even at your worst support. I am sure some reading this will think this is aimed at one particular person but it’s not. It is a clear and honest shot across the bow of all of those in my life who say they are there for me and love me and are my friends and are trying to be supportive and then they snap at me because I don’t meet their expectation of what I should be saying. There is more then one of you and you all know damn well who you are. For the record I can’t help but wonder if those who continue to do this sort of thing ever stop to think perhaps it is the fact that any time an honest less then sunshiny answer is given there is a price for me to pay and I am tired of paying it. So sometimes it is just easier to say, I’ll live which is an alternative and more honest answer then I am fine when obviously I am not.

Over the last two years I have been making a serious work of trying to take back things that were taken from me. Two years before that I started making pushes and efforts to embrace other things. I won’t go in full detail here but for me to accept things and take back things about me has been a long and hard process. Like it is for anyone who goes through it I am sure. For the most part I have made strides towards my goals I feel, and yet I have a long way to go. Sometimes it would be a great deal easier to just be “normal”,  there are so many days that I think if I could just fall into a role that society would see as normal and live in that small box it would be so much easier.

Not that it would make me any happier, of course. Being something you’re not only sets you up for more pain in the end of things. Yet much like the Queen, whom one of my dear cousins has decided to call my alter ego, I was taught what seems like eons ago to conceal. Yes, perhaps it was not the exact same way that Elsa learned and was told to conceal herself. Leading to never ending anxiety.. which of course manifests itself into freezing an entire land in eternal winter. Yet the effect is the same. Once again, I find myself feeling like I said in an early post on this blog. I must always be the strong one, the independent one, the perfect one.

 

 

I do have many blessings in my life and I will be the first one to tell anyone that. I am blessed in so many ways. I have love, a roof over my head, food in my belly and clothing to wear. I can even indulge in some hobbies and pastimes when I have actual time to do so and am not working. I know there are so many people who do not have all of these things. There are people in this world who are suffering. I understand that and I try not to be petty. However, because I have these things, does that mean my life is perfect? No, it doesn’t. No life is perfect as no human is perfect. Moreover, the grass is always greener on the other side of the pasture. Just because all some see are the lush green blades of grass doesn’t mean there are not weeds, trouble spots and other unpleasant things to be had.

 

The beauty of the castle that was created through Queen Elsa’s castle cannot be denied. Many who look at it will only see the beauty and the fact that it is a castle. They will forget that while indeed it is these things it was a fortress from the world. An ice gilded cage in which the Queen could hide herself away from the world. The only way she felt comfortable being whom she truly was meant being completely separate from the world, from everyone even the sister whom she loved. Because she had been taught that to be herself around people was a terrible thing. Being herself meant that she harmed her sister. Being herself meant that those around her who saw the beautiful power she wielded would be scared of her. They would fear that power she was born with, lash out at her because of it. Some small few might covet the power for themselves and trap her even further so they could have her kingdom. Fear and jealousy are nasty things that seem to travel together in a pack finding every weak point in the prey they seek and hitting those weak points as hard as possible. Even the strongest among us will eventually buckle under the strain.

 

 

At any rate. I digress and have gone on another long ramble of emotional vomit, apologies to all and sundry who take the time to read it. I really should go back to just putting the happy things of life on the internet. This post when I originally opened the page was intended to make an announcement that I was thinking of bringing my pen/paper/ink reviews back in some form or fashion as J said he missed them. I didn’t think anyone really paid much mind to them back when I used to do them. The last one I did was in 2017, good grief a lifetime ago (and omg the blog design I had on that blog…designed myself so not razzing any designers oh what was I thinking). Alas, things happened as I settled in to write the blog post and this is what we are left with.

I apologize to the readers of this post. Perhaps the announcement will come on a different and a better day.

I am fine.

 

 

 

 

You can ever learn is just to love and be loved in return..

Another great ATC, it seems to be the line up of ATC’s I have been scanning a lot of them. This is a pretty one. Don’t you think?