Wear it with dignity

 Aging is not for the faint of heart.

One day, you wake up and realize — youth has quietly slipped away.

But it didn’t leave alone.

It took with it your insecurities, your rush to please, your fear of not being enough.

And in its place?

It left you with something stronger:

A slower pace, but a steadier step.

The wisdom to say goodbye without fear.

The grace to cherish those who choose to stay.

The power to be you, unapologetically.

Aging isn’t about losing — it’s about letting go.

It’s about learning to accept, to release, and to truly see:

That beauty was never just in the mirror…

It lived in every story, scar, and silent strength we carried within.

Aging is a gift. Wear it with dignity.

Your competition isn’t other people. Your competition is your procrastination. Your ego. The unhealthy food you’re consuming, the knowledge you neglect. The negative behavior you’re nurturing and your lack of creativity. Compete against that.

One of the best feelings in the world is knowing your presence and absence both mean something to someone. So celebrate no regrets, just lessons. No worries, just acceptance. No expectations, just gratitude. Let’s share fond memories forever and be thankful always for our part in each others journey.

I'd rather live on my own than live with a face that looks at me with the wrong eyes.

“the art of happiness is also the art of suffering well.” ― Thích Nhất Hạnh, No Mud, No Lotus

The Gift of What Was

I choose to remember you with sunlight,

not shadows—the way your laughter

painted mornings golden, how we learned

to love imperfectly and completely.

Those years were not practice rounds

or rough drafts of happiness.

They were the real thing,

whole and necessary,

each moment a thread in the tapestry

that is me, now.

Thank you for the arguments that taught me

my own voice, for the tenderness

that showed me my heart’s true size,

for the ending that revealed

how much beauty I can hold

without breaking.

I am not the same person

who first loved you,

and that is the point—

every joy, every fracture

was a doorway

leading me here,

to this moment of choosing

gratitude over grief,

wholeness over the myth

of what might have been.

You were perfect for me then.

I am perfect for me now.

And somewhere ahead,

love waits again,

richer for having known

the gift of what was.

Graceful Intention

 I honor the love that was.

It was real, it was meaningful, and it shaped me.

We laughed, we cried, we grew—

and though the story changed,

I hold no bitterness in my heart.

I choose to honor what we had

not by clinging to it,

but by letting it lift me

into the next chapter of my life.

I smile at the memories.

They were mine,

they mattered,

and they brought me here.

Here is good.

Here is wiser, deeper, more awake.

I walk forward with joy,

grateful for love past,

and open to love yet to come—

in all its forms.

Outgrown

 

Community

 

New way

 

The dark

 

The Way

 

Which?

 

On your own terms

 

Try me

 

"I dwell in Possibility." ~ Emily Dickinson

Right now life’s teaching me the law of detachment; no forcing or begging, no chasing or settling. Not everything is worth fighting for.

We need to practice being the people we wish to be. So go give someone a death stare, spill your coffee on anyone acting creepy, shush a mansplainer. Take up space. Stay Feral 🤍

What’s the saying?… “The loudest boos always come from the cheapest seats . . . “

The light in the abyss between us

 

In its own time

 

Priority means that two things cannot be equally important.

You only have to start from scratch once. After that you start with experience.

Your personality is made up of how you think, act, and feel. It is your state of being. Therefore, your same thoughts, actions, and feelings will keep you enslaved to the same past personal reality. However, when you as a personality embrace new thoughts, actions, and feelings, you will inevitably create a new personal reality in your future.

When I say I want to travel, I don’t mean I want to stay at fancy resorts and buy keychains or shot glasses from souvenir shops. When I say I want to travel, I mean I want to explore and meet the people, and feel the culture of another place and become part of it. I want to explore the environment and walk where the locals walk and eat where the locals eat. I want my mind to be in awe and I want to see things with new eyes. I want to look at a map and remember how I was transformed by the places and the people I’ve met and the cultures I’ve experienced. This is the heart of adventure and travel.

Some people will paint a bad picture of you. Don’t try to prove them wrong. Just autograph that painting.

The plan

 

Badass

 

Have heart

 

It’s the same

 

People who don’t know how to communicate think you’re arguing. People who avoid accountability think you’re attacking. It’s not you, it’s their lack of self-awareness.

It’s worth it

 

A slight breeze

 

My entire adult life I lived alone. I never felt lonely. I had meaningful and wonderful relationships and fell in and out of love with many. But I never lived with anyone until the last 15 years. What I learned was that it made me resentful and lonely. I felt tricked. By society and the culture and magazines and advertising and tv. I don’t like to ask permission or make compromises about what I don’t care to compromise, like how I live and where I live. I makes me weak to capitulate. And such a tiresome waste of precious time. I find a great deal of pleasure in creating my own space, and doing my own thing without asking. It makes me strong and confident. A much better choice for me.

Perpetual relationship

 

Theatrical

 

Broke ground, finally!

 

Virginia Woolf // "I need solitude. I need space. I need air. I need the empty fields round me; and my legs pounding along roads; and sleep…animal existence."

Slow and simple

 

No undertakers

 

It gets a head of me 😉

 

Solitude is the crucible in which transformation can occur. The noise of the quest for external validation made the connection too superficial. The bond was fragile and conditional. No time for real introspection. Not even a prod in that direction. No partnership in the quest. So, now I recalibrate. No exhausting competition any longer. No struggle for control. I lived and arrived there at a very different energy level. I felt it was too potent so I dumbed it down and thus lost the magnetism and purity of it. It was misaligned. A distraction that derailed it into something transactional and superficial. Competition instead of compliment. No inspiration. No elevation. My clarity became clouded. Now I crave this period of regrowth. My new found isolation will serve as a filter, a form of protection, a sacred boundary. My journey was misunderstood. My sacred trust broken. I need a refinement of my connection with self. To walk my unique path. I need to confront the shadows and heal from the barrier to my growth. Rebuild my foundation. Regain my immense focus that became so scattered and diluted. I will find connections not fleeting and superficial, that transcend the ordinary. That share the inner work, face the fears, understand the sacredness of trust. Mutual purpose was absent. Vulnerability non existent. Instability the norm. To regain the compassion of reflective meditation. Fill the emptiness with possibility. Locate my lost intuition and self trust. Feel freer, lighter, more aligned. My old sense of peace instead of competition and control. A solid foundation of authenticity for the remaining journey.

Give it up!

 

Chin up!

 

Three little words

 

All the women

 

Who?

 

The small fights

 

Agatha Christie

 

Lighten your load

 

I believe that a thought has just gotten caught In a place where words can't surround it It concerns the years past and the shadows they cast And my path as I walk around it. ~ John Prine

You can't talk Butterfly language with Caterpillar people

Wasted time

 

From BLUE HORSES

 

Life Is A Path

 

'Talk to me when you’re older. Talk to me when you’re forty, and I assure you that what will most disturb you, most occupy your mind and your writing, many of your waking hours, will be the willful and consistent cruelty of people against those whom they cannot understand or control or tolerate. Cruelty is the only plague that never ceases and for which no cure is ever adequately fought.' ~ Tennessee Williams

A hard working person gives a hard working solution. A lazy person will give you the lazy man’s solution which is the easiest way to do it. Some of the hardest problems are solved by deciding they’re not problems. Work smarter not harder but with the enormous caveat that you have to work incredibly hard to get smart. You have to pay down the expensive debt of not knowing. Ignorance debt. How much is your debt worth? How much ignorance tax are you paying?

Buddha speaks

 

The fastest way to learn anything is simple. You admit that you don't know, find someone who does know, and stay humble enough to listen. You'll learn whatever you need to learn as long as you value your progress over pride.

To let go does not mean to get rid of. To let go means to let be. When we let be with compassion, things come and go on their own. ~ Jack Kornfield

It always seems impossible until it’s done.

Perfection is not attainable but if we chase perfection we attain excellence.

“We swallow greedily any lie that flatters us, but we sip only little by little at a truth we find bitter.” ~ Denis Diderot

“Don’t fall in love with a woman who reads, a woman who feels too much, a woman who writes... Don’t fall in love with an educated, magical, delusional, crazy woman. Don’t fall in love with a woman who thinks, who knows what she knows and also knows how to fly; a woman sure of herself. Don’t fall in love with a woman who laughs or cries making love, knows how to turn her spirit into flesh; let alone one that loves poetry (these are the most dangerous), or spends half an hour contemplating a painting and isn't able to live without music. Don’t fall in love with a woman who is interested in politics and is rebellious and feel a huge horror from injustice. One who does not like to watch television at all. Or a woman who is beautiful no matter the features of her face or her body. Don’t fall in love with a woman who is intense, entertaining, lucid and irreverent. Don’t wish to fall in love with a woman like that. Because when you fall in love with a woman like that, whether she stays with you or not, whether she loves you or not, from a woman like that, you never come back.” ~ Martha Rivera-Garrido

Don't forget to drink water and go out in the sun. You are basically a houseplant with complicated emotions

I can’t change the direction of the wind but I can adjust my sails.

“It is not true that people stop pursuing dreams because they grow old, they grow old because they stop pursuing dreams.” ~ Gabriel Garcia Marquez

Everyday

 

Make the step

 

From a step to a leap

 

Memory is a snare, pure and simple; it alters, it subtly rearranges the past to fit the present.

No man remains quite the same when he recognizes himself. Enlightenment is ego's ultimate disappointment.

True intimacy

 

To let go does not mean to get rid of. To let go means to let be. When we let be with compassion, things come and go on their own.

What would you do if you could never impress anyone again?

Nothing is absolute. Everything changes, everything moves, everything revolves, everything flies and goes away. ~ Frida Kahlo

Every morning I walk, thinking: if the doors of my heart ever close, I’m as good as dead.

 

George RR Martin

 

Express yourself

 

Face the right direction

 

Keep going

 

The only way to eat an elephant is one bite at a time.

 

The apology

 

Don’t stop

 

I will achieve great things thru small steps.

 

“In spite of illness, in spite even of the arch-enemy, sorrow, one can remain alive long past the usual date of disintegration if one is unafraid of change, insatiable in intellectual curiosity, interested in big things, and happy in small ways.” ~ Edith Wharton

I don’t know how many years on this earth I’ve got left, but I’m gonna get real weird with it!!

Audacity

 

Learn absurdism and laugh at the struggle

 

Eye on the prize