Pennies Are Only Worth A Cent

This past weekend I had an incredible opportunity to have an emotional and tender conversation with a beautiful, long-lost friend of many years.  Come to find out, she has been through many of the same things I have in the past year so we were catching up about men, dating, being a single 40 something, and making ourselves a priority.  One main thread of conversation was dating; how can we feel good enough, how do we keep the contact going without compromising ourselves and our faith, and how do we compare to everything else that is out there.  We started talking about men and their contact with us; how they text good morning and good night every day for weeks, check in with us, and flirt, then BAM.  Gone.  Poof.  Just like that.   Vanished with no goodbye or explanation.  I said to her "Oh, he found a shinier penny."  I will never forget, as she looked up at me at that moment, how her green eyes widened with clarity, realization, and wonder.  She said "yes".

One of my lifelong best friends, Katie, coined that phrase.  It's when something or someone seemingly more interesting catches the man's attention and he transitions from daily "thinking about you" texts and phone calls into virtually nothing. He didn't change his level of contact with you for no reason; he found a shinier penny.  Sometimes she seems prettier or nicer and sometimes she just tells him how handsome he is and he's attracted to that.  Either way, we become yesterday's headline.

Sadly, we are not always let in on that little secret, so we continue our end of the 'relationship', texting and calling, and they act like we are clingy and bothering them.  We get sparse messages in return telling us they're busy or they have to go, if they even bother to answer at all.   In most cases, it's for our benefit because, if he can be swayed that easily, he's not the one.  But it still hurts.  Sometimes you've loved him for a long time and sometimes you've just met, but either way it still makes us wonder what is wrong with us and why we were not even worth a "Dear Jane" text or other explanation.  The answer is nothing.  There is nothing wrong with us.  He's not the one and we should appreciate the shinier penny coming along and distracting him so we can seek out what is truly meant for our lives.  Unfortunately,  we don't always see it that way when our hearts are involved.  We try to hold on and make things work with someone who clearly doesn't want to be around us anymore.

All I can say is, know your worth and let the shinier penny have him.  There is a big, big world out there full of new and exciting things and, I believe with my whole heart, someone who will think we are the best silver dollar he's ever seen.

Dear Head...bite me....love, Heart

I don't know really where to begin today.  My heart and head struggle to the point that I feel like I'm losing my mind some days.  My heart relishes in a quiet contentment knowing I'm actually thriving in the life I'm supposed to be living.  My head, however, is a different story.  My thoughts swim with curiosity and envy wondering why everyone else seems so happy and why can't I have that too?  Is it even real?  Do people manipulate their happiness so that it shows only when everyone can see?

My friends all seem to be making positive, major life changes.   (Please don't misinterpret the fact that I'm over the moon happy for each and every one of them and I'd do anything to help make their dreams come true.)  These friends are moving in with their significant other, getting married, having babies, moving to new cities, and buying houses, cars, and boats. In my head I think, well, I'm still breathing so is that my accomplishment for the day?  Is that all I get?  Breathing?  Nothing fancy?  Just breathing?

Yet my heart reminds my head that I am set aside on a different path and none of those things are currently part of my journey.  My road is less travelled and not always popular.  Sometimes I walk it alone and sometimes I turn to see that I have a friend who loves me holding my hand for a few miles, and it's nice.  It's still my road and my journey.  It's taking me somewhere amazing, I'm sure of it.  God didn't spare my life 14 years ago to let me be miserable and I have to embrace that truth with my whole heart.  I want to be the best I can be in this life.  I want to fiercely love every inch of the lives lived by those closest to me and to learn to be kind to the others that I have, up to this point, just tolerated.    I want to be better than I was yesterday and, to be truthful, some days that's pretty easy.

I don't know why at my young age God has taken so many away from me only to leave me standing to face all the music for the first time in my life.   Some days that music is the light and airy  Tchaikovsky "Dance of the Sugar Plum Fairies" and other days it's the heavy and dark Chopin Piano Sonata Number 2 Opus 35 (commonly known as the "Funeral March").   I have always played in the band, going with the flow, however lately I seem to have become the conductor, setting the tempo and cueing the cymbals.

There are many things in the world that are beautiful; things created so perfectly that they didn't just happen.  They were put there for us to see and recognize.  With this new, quiet heart I'm seeing many of those things and that makes me happy.

It's simply not my time for what everyone else has and I have got to make my head understand that it's my time for something else instead.  What exactly, I'm not sure.  Maybe a time to focus my eyes on God instead of the covetous goods of this world?  No.  Not maybe.  For sure.