VernetteOutLoud

Five Minute Friday: Hero

Writing is like wrapping yourself up in words and giving yourself away. – Lisa-Jo Baker

I’m linking up again this week with the fabulous Lisa-Jo Baker and the lovely writers of Five Minute Friday. Click on the button below for more details on what this challenge is all about and how you can participate.

5-minute-friday-1

GO

In the eyes of a child, her mother is god.

As I got older however, she became more human.

I saw her raise three children on her own.

I saw her pick herself up after being retrenched from her job and do what she had to do, to ensure that we had what we needed not just to survive but to thrive.

I say it all the time, I am grateful for her sacrifices because she ensured that because of them we, her children will never be in the position that she was in.

I saw her believe me and love me through the worst experiences of my childhood and yes that’s experiences plural.

I saw her avenge me in her own way.

I saw her take on ovarian cancer like a true Spartan.

When I asked her maybe about a month before her death, what was the lesson she learned from that whole experience, she said “how to be strong.”

I don’t have her kind of strength…not even in my baby toe.

STOP

Cohort of Awesome

Friends can help each other. A true friend is someone who lets you have total freedom to be yourself-and especially to feel. Or, not feel. Whatever you happen to be feeling at the moment is fine with them. That’s what real love amounts to-letting a person be what he really is. – Jim Morrison

My Cohort of Awesome
This elite group knows and accepts the real me…the hard shell with soft underbelly me.
They call bullshit on my bullshit.
They get it when I need to go inward and need to be alone.
They are there to celebrate my highs and help me laugh through my lows.
They are the ones who said, “I’m here for you” and proved it…again and again.
They allow me to do the same for them.
They never make me feel like I have to fight for their time and attention or insist myself upon them.
They don’t judge me when I have Tiramisu for lunch and then complain about feeling sick afterward.
They are the reason Wine Sundays exist!

My Cohort of Awesome:
The one who has been putting up with my special brand of crazy for more than 25 years.
The one who is always up for a Tiramisu date.
The one who I can get lost on an island with.
The one I met and fell in love with the first day of 6th Form orientation.
The one I can send a “sweet” email and who reads between the lines.
The one who brings me homemade wine and leaves me changed forever.
The one who helped me through the worst September of my life.
The one I just “clicked” with.

My Cohort of Awesome.
The Family I happily chose.

Day 211

Dear Future Me,

Today you celebrate the most wonderful supercalifragilisticexpialidocious day of the year.

It’s V-DAY!!!

Happy New Year!!!

Happy Tiramisu Day..aaalll Day.

July 30th…the day God blessed this world with your presence. I say this to you every year and I will say it again, you are a present to this world. He chose this time in our history to have you walk this earth and leave your own impressive footprints.

Vernette, you are Love on Day 211 of 2014. You are wiser, more patient with yourself. You know that timing is everything and that nothing happens before its time. And you are okay with that. You trust that the path you are on is the right one for you.

I am so proud of you for continuing to do the work you need to do on yourself. You show up. You learn. You grow. You expand. You choose to be happy. You choose to Love hard. You choose to Love now. You choose to never settle for less than you deserve.

I see you smiling, laughing even as you sit marveling at how far you have come. I see you hopefully exploring and having wine and authentic Tiramisu in Tuscany. You are absolutely in awe.

I see you thinking about and being grateful for all the lessons and experiences that have brought you to this moment in time. I see you toasting the memory of the woman who brought you into this world and who has inspired your quest to be more and to evolve into the woman she helped God create.

I see you happier, more content in this body that has brought you so far. I see you comfortable in your skin beautiful lady. I see you smiling because the past is the past finally. I feel so proud to have become you.

I am so proud of you. Sawubona Vernette.

I see YOU on July 30th 2014.
Your younger, work-in-progress-doing-the-best-she-can-while-keeping-hope-alive self.

Tiramisu

Weekly Photo Challenge: Family

My sister and I with our brother on his wedding day.

Family: My sister and I with our brother on his wedding day.

Joan Didion and I could totally be pals…

proustSo I took Vanity Fair’s version of Proust’s questionnaire and guess what…Joan Didion and I should have coffee someday.

Here are my responses:

1. What is your idea of perfect happiness?

    That extra five minutes just before getting out of bed, where I set my intentions for the day ahead.

2. What is your greatest fear?

    Living a mediocre life…and leeches. SLUGS and LEECHES!!!

3. Which historical figure do you most identify with?

    I’m really stumped here. I cannot think of anyone…right now.

4. Which living person do you most admire?

    Hmmm…I really am stumped here also. I admire a lot of people for a lot of different reasons. ***I would so change this answer to Joan Didion now***

5. What is the trait you most deplore in yourself?

    I procrastinate a lot. Case in point the time this post is going to be published today…

6. What is the trait you most deplore in others?

    Disloyalty.

7. What is your greatest extravagance?

    Travel. I’ve been bitten hard by the travel bug. And Van Houtte’s Chocolate Raspberry Truffle Coffee K-cups. *stops to make a cuppa*

8. On what occasion do you lie?

    Those “How are you?”…”I’m fine.” occasions.

9. What do you most dislike about your appearance?

    My big forehead. Thankfully, my boobs are kinda big…so there’s that.

10. When and where were you happiest?

    Exploring Manhattan by myself last October, while on vacation.

11. If you could change one thing about yourself, what would it be?

    Starting before I’m ready.

12. If you could change one thing about your family, what would it be?

    Not being honest with each other. There have been too many family falling-outs because people were not 100% honest.

13. What do you consider your greatest achievement?

    Being able to be strong for my mother when she needed me the most and being strong enough to let her go when she needed me to.

14. If you died and came back as a person or a thing, what do you think it would be?

    A dragon of course. Because…dragons!

15. What is your most treasured possession?

    A pair of earrings my mum always wore. They’re not expensive…the beads probably cost $5 but to me they are priceless. I remember wearing them to the movies one evening and when the lights came on I couldn’t find one side. My sister and I looked EVERYWHERE. We were there still frantically looking when the staff came in the sweep the room. They saw how near-tears I was and they kindly joined in the search. I guess they probably thought I was crazy looking for such a cheap bauble. Anyways we didn’t find it and I left completely broken-hearted. Until I got home and opened the bag with the extra slice of Tiramisu I bought…and found the earring inside. I’ve never worn them out of my apartment since.

16. What do you regard as the lowest depth of misery?

    Seeing the one you love and not being the one they’re with.

17. Who are your heroes in real life?

    My uncle Earl. He’s been married to my aunt for 53 years. He is the father we all know. And my brother. I watched my brother take care of my sister-in-law during her pregnancy and that experience changed my view on men, husbands, fathers and brothers. When he grew up and became a man…I don’t know. But my sister-in-law is blessed with a good man. And yes I’m a biased big sister.

18. What is that you most dislike?

    Hmmm it would be disloyalty. Yes I said that before but disloyalty is like a pebble in my shoe.

19. How would you like to die?

    Old and grey…peacefully in my bed with my loved ones around me.

20. What is your motto?

    Love now.

I read Joan’s book, The Year of Magical Thinking shortly after my mum died. One of my friends gave it to me and that was the time I needed to read it. She’s 79 years old now…but I think she understands this writing business. Joan said that she never understands how she feels about something until she’s written about it.

I write entirely to find out what I’m thinking, what I’m looking at, what I see and what it means. What I want and what I fear. – Joan Didion

We should so have coffee…or tea…my Keurig makes both.