It took me a literal HELL of a long time to finally understand that one of my most self-sabotaging traits has always been the need to carry the load for the people in my life at any cost—even at the expense of my own preservation. Far too many times, I tried to protect the people I loved from the consequences of their own choices and behaviors when what I should have been doing was letting them feel every scrape and cut from those sharp edges so they could figure out their own survival.

For too many years to count, it was incredibly difficult for me to “love from a distance,” pray for the best outcomes, and save my precious energy for my survival. But here’s the deal, folks: sometimes you have to learn to say these most IMPECCABLE words out loud, as painful as it may be to “cut them” loose:

I AM NO ONE’S SAVIOR!

Holy SHIT! I think I just had another epiphany after writing the word “SAVIOR” in bold letters! Is this how it feels for God to sit back and watch all of us scrape and cut ourselves on the sharp edges of our poor choices and behaviors? Maybe part of free will is exactly that: the responsibility to choose, to learn, and to live with the consequences of those choices.

“Sow” this is how a person—and especially a parent—allows someone to learn the often bloody hard way that while we can indeed choose what we sow, we cannot always choose what we reap. WOW! Just when I thought I had the nuts and bolts of this thing figured out—MY MIND IS OFFICIALLY NUMB AGAIN!

My Dearest Cat:

Listen up, you divine apostrophe! No, you are NOT God, and no, you really CAN’T save people, you can ONLY love them. As selfish as it seems, you MUST continue to keep on choosing YOU, because, umm, what the hell use are you to any of us if your wings break again and you can’t keep touching that beautiful sky? So, put down everyone ELSE’S scissors and just keep shining your Light for the people in your life who need to see it, regardless of whether they even know they need it. In the meantime, when you feel helpless as you’re watching the people you love running with sharp objects, try and remember all the times God saw YOU running with scissors and how helpless He must have felt, too. If that Man has any actual hair on his head, surely YOU’RE the one who turned it grey. Yet, here you still are alive and well with scarred up cuts that are now your survival to tell. Yes, you fell down, but you’ve lived and have learned, what didn’t kill you DID make you stronger, and He HAD to let you do it. None of these seeds you’re still desperately trying to plant will take root otherwise.

Love ~ ME!

Happy New Year to all you beautiful people, and NOPE, this isn’t just another one of those cliché “resolutions.” It’s an impeccable promise to myself not to fall apart when I see people running with scissors, not to run with scissors myself, and to just keep being what I’m being: Jean Claude Van DAMN Iridescent!

SHARP EDGES

Mama always told me don’t you run – don’t you run with scissors, son. You’re gonna hurt someone. Mama told me look before you leap – always think before you speak, and watch the friends you keep. Stay along the beaten path. Never listened when she said, “Sharp edges have consequences.” I guess that I had to find out for myself. Sharp edges have consequences. Now every scar is a story I can tell. Should’ve played it safer from the start – loved you like a house of cards. I let it fall apart. But all the things I couldn’t understand – I never could’ve planned – they made me who I am. Put your nose on paperbacks instead of smoking cigarettes. These years you’re never getting back. Stay along the beaten path. Never listened when she said, “Sharp edges have consequences.” I guess that I had to find out for myself. Sharp edges have consequences. Now every scar is a story I can tell. We all fall down. We live somehow. We learn what doesn’t kill us makes us stronger. {Linkin’ Park}