personal

mother of mine

~ GennaClaire ~ Leave a comment

My mom has a gypsy spirit. And an infatuation with the Virgin Mary. She can talk to angels. And she is my favorite writer. No one even comes close.

Growing up, she drew hearts in my peanut butter sandwiches. And let me follow her around when I was scared by thunderstorms. On nights when I couldn’t sleep, she gave me a glass of warm milk with vanilla, then sat with me until my eyelids began to grow heavy again.

She is an artist. A dreamer. A friend.

She believed in me. Loved me. Made me.

I am forever grateful and proud to be hers.

Happy Mother’s Day, Mom. I love you.

 

(This painting is one of the many my mother did of her angels.)

love heals all wounds

Image ~ ~ GennaClaire ~ Leave a comment

The worst part is never when something terrible happens. It’s the first time you wake up afterwards.

After my heart broke, I cried until my body ran out of tears, literally dried up my emotional well. And then I sat in my bed, knees clutched to my chest, eyes open wide – staring at nothing – and rocked. Back and forth. For hours.

I suppose at some point my conscious numbness conceded to my body and I fell asleep.

It’s waking up that’s the worst. The moment you think maybe that was just a dream, then slowly process that it wasn’t. And the realization is stabbing. And choking. As if someone is taking your insides and wringing them out like a washcloth.

But on that morning, when I woke up in my college apartment, the walls were covered with words. Words of hope. Quotes I loved. My sweet roommate snuck into my room before I woke up and filled that place of sadness with kindness and friendship and concern.

I don’t remember all of them, but I remember the largest, written in bright green across the middle of my mirror.

This too shall pass.

And despite my bloodshot eyes and knotted stomach and heavy heart, I could not help but smile.

(Image source: Modern Hepburn on Tumblr)

to dad

Image ~ ~ GennaClaire ~ Leave a comment

When I was a little girl with polka dot bows and Velcro shoes, I always knew when the hydrangea bushes, lining the side of our little blue house, would bloom. Every year, it was late May or early June. My dad told me they were blooming just for me – to wish me happy birthday.

Now every time I see those big round clusters of violet and blue flowers, I can’t help but think of him. And how he taught me to appreciate the world around me and wonder at its beauty.

(Image source: Better Homes and Gardens.)

the details

~ GennaClaire ~ Leave a comment

That’s what you fall in love with. Not the whole of a person. Not their general appearance. Not their entire spirit or personality or being.

It’s the details. All the infinitesimal details. The slightness of your half-smile. The face you always make when looking in the mirror.

It’s refusing to wear pants inside. And how you hold me while we try to fall asleep. Taking every opportunity to dance naked. Buying holiday candy only after the holiday is over. And never wanting to walk to the mailbox alone.

The way you say “I’m sorry.” And how you always laugh hardest at your own jokes. Your grumpiness on Sunday mornings. And your strange obsession with oscillating fans.

That’s how I always know I’m starting to care beyond the superficial. When someone asks me what I like about you. And I have no answer.

Because there isn’t a single legitimate thing I like about you. There are only one thousand details.

the places we come from

~ GennaClaire ~ Leave a comment

I’d be lying if I told you I drink sweet tea out of Mason jars. Or feel comfortable driving a pick up truck. My backyard never did have a tire swing. And I can honestly say I don’t own a single a pair of cowboy boots and certainly wouldn’t know the first thing to do with a teasing comb. Most folks don’t even detect that faint Georgia accent in my voice except on select words like sugar, maybe, and Marietta.

But the South has crept into me in others ways. In twilights spent chasing fireflies. In the sound of fresh-picked blueberries falling in yellow plastic buckets and the smell of boiled peanuts from a roadside stand. In rainy tin roof lullabies. In over-yonder and reckon-so and I-do-declare.

And the South taught me a thing or two. Like how to catch a tadpole. Or how to flirt with boys. What side of the plate the fork goes on. And which vegetables are best for frying. It taught me important contractions like fixin’to and all-y’all. And when it’s okay to wear white shoes.

But it was while buried in the South’s endless summers and darting beneath her falling leaves and scalding every last taste bud with hot cocoa and waiting for the jonquils to bloom… it was in the South that I found my voice.

And realized all that I could be.


(Image source: CarolinaBlues on Tumblr)

they say you’ll be okay

~ GennaClaire ~ 1 Comment

Why doesn’t anyone ever say, “You won’t be okay.”

You won’t heal. Or recover. Tomorrow won’t be better. The worst is not over. You won’t be okay.

Some things just break you. Some moments, destroy you. Some people, consume you. And you’re not just okay.

And that’s… that’s okay.

Those things, those moments, those reckless people. They define us. Shape us. They twist us and coil us like hot metal after a high-speed crash.

And we’re not okay after that. We’re not okay. We’re totaled.

But somehow we keep going. Each day the same. Not okay. Still going. We don’t heal. We don’t get better. But we just keep going.

The sun rises and sets. And our chest rises and falls. And our eyes stare blankly into the night. Just don’t stop going.

You don’t always have to be okay. Just be. Be hurt. Be angry. Faded. Sad. Destroyed. Degraded. Lost.

It’s enough. All you feel is already enough. You don’t have to be okay anymore.  Just be.

love is inside of you

~ GennaClaire ~ Leave a comment

When I was 17 years old, I wanted breast implants more than anything else in the world.

I thought they would make me beautiful. I thought they would make my then-boyfriend love me. Or at least stop cheating on me. I thought those silicone-filled bubbles were all that was standing between me and happiness. Between me and actually wanting to be seen in a bikini. Between the me everyone saw and the me I felt I was supposed to be.

Eight years later, I couldn’t be more grateful that my breasts are real. They are no bigger, mind you, than they were my junior year of high school.

But they are mine.

At some point during those years that young, unsure girl grew into a woman who believed in herself. Who began defining herself outside of the things others thought she should be. How she should look. What she should do. And I began to love myself, breasts, stomach, thighs and all.

And more incredibly, when I finally began to love myself, I found someone else who actually did too.

i almost said “i’m sorry”

~ GennaClaire ~ Leave a comment

The brief thought caught my mind today. Would I ever see you again? And if I did, what would I say?

In that second, I almost thought I’d say “I’m sorry.”

I’m sorry you never got to see the apex of our love. I’m sorry you never realized what it felt like for someone to just adore you. To soak themselves around you. To become drunk off of the aura of you, the thought of you.

But then, like an awakening from any sad dream, I realized, you did have that. My infatuation with you was endless. My love, relentless. My devotion, senseless, reckless.

I gave you all there was. Every moment. Every beat. Every breath. Every thought.

And you clouded it. With greed. And lust. And disgrace. And disgust.

You looked straight through the purest of love and tossed it away for women you’re only now connected to on Facebook. For girls who couldn’t ever tell you the color of your eyes. Or why you’re so weak inside. Or how you spent your life losing inside of a winner’s body.

I’m not sorry. I’m sorry if I ever was. Because what happened between you and me was no mistake of mine.

I gave you all the corners of my soul and you walked around in circles looking for something more.

I had nothing more to give you.

There is something that does make me sorry still. I’m sorry I regret you. I’m sorry my first love was the gut-wrenching kind. I’m sorry I can’t think of the good times without thinking of the bad times and absolutely wincing in physical pain. I’m sorry that I, who cared only about you, fell in love with you, who also cared only about you.

So I guess if we ever run into each other, I will say “I’m sorry.” I’m sorry for any woman who loves with all she is and is returned the favor with lies and deception and callousness and you. For that, I’m truly sorry. And that is what I’ll say, should I ever run into you.