Random INFJ Musings

Saturday, October 12, 2024

My Actual Wedding Vows

Two days later after I wrote that last poem, I married my sweetheart, Nick, on a beautiful beach in Maui. We'd been officially together off and on since June 22, 2012 (our first date). We had a very small, intimate sunset wedding, barefoot, with just the photographer, the minister, my brother, and his Dad and Stepmom. It was everything I'd wanted in a wedding - small, private, beautiful, and barefoot by the ocean I love so dearly.

Once we decided to go through with a wedding in Hawaii after Nick was supposed to have a work trip there, then it cancelled, we found a spectacular company online to help us work through the details. The owner of the company, originally from South Africa, was our photographer. He also authored our actual vows. They had various options for vows, but this was the Hawaiian version and I loved every word of it from start to finish.

"I receive you as my partner and love. Beside me and apart from me, in laughter and in tears, in sickness and in health, in conflict and serenity, asking that you be no other than yourself. Loving what I know of you and trusting what I do not know in all the ways that life may bring.

With this ring I promise to grow with you, to build our love, to speak openly and honestly, to listen to you, and to love and cherish you for all the days ahead. From this day forward, you shall not walk alone. My heart will be your shelter, and my arms will be your home. With this ring I thee wed."

After forty-seven years, seven engagements, six fiancés, a slew of heartbreaks, therapy, peace, healing, and an extremely windy day in Wailea-Makena, I finally turned in my Runaway Bride sneakers. :)

Perhaps there was some deeper symbolism to that barefoot wedding after all.

On Marriage

I'll just leave the poem itself and follow up later...

On Marriage

My vows will never say til death do us part

Nor will I obey you

Because life is short

Hearts are complicated

And I've seen enough to know better.

Present moment is what I have to offer you

Again and again

Until we decide otherwise.

I present peace, love and growth

For a timely amount of our existence together

Until it no longer suits us.

I love to let you live free

And I expect the same

No pointing fingers, no blame

If we ever have to walk away.

I will know we tried

And gave it our best

Until it could be nothing but our worst

In time and effigy.

We grew, we mattered to each other

But our parents taught us

Not to expect perfection

And heaven and hell taught me

Reincarnation was a far more logical option.

You love me, I'll love you

And we'll see where this thing takes us.

There will never be a happy ending

And one of us will sometimes, eventually always need more backing.

But for now this is where life leads us.

Let's not leave it lacking.

~SDC

9/5/23

Burn After Reading

Hey there. Been awhile. :) Thought I'd try something new. Bought a deck of "Burn After Reading" cards at Target last year. Just now found them (again) after doing a bit of a remodel on my home office. So I opened them out of curiosity. Some of it sounds a bit blasé, but I'm pretty sure we can get creative after a glass of wine. Or maybe without one.

This card is called Quick Fire. We'll see how many I care to answer and publish. Ha!

"Firsts...

1) The first thing I bought with my own money

Oh that's easy. PANTS! A HAIRCUT! MAKEUP! GETTING MY EARS PIERCED! (NOT SURE WHY I'M TYPING THIS IN ALL CAPS LIKE A BOOMER but I digress). Suffice it to say, anything NOT to resemble a Fundy or a holy roller any more.

2) My first love

As an INFJ I could go soooooo many different ways with this one. My brain is literally running about 9 million miles per hour right now in eighteen plus different directions, from the meaning of love to trying to be silly ("Chocolate, of course!) to wondering if this means family or boyfriends or what, really-? Could probably do a whole blog around this question. But for now, let's go with an assumed opposite gender crush. I'd say someone I knew from Crowley, Texas whose church we sang at when I was 12, possibly before. I should have known I had an obsessive nature from that very experience, but nooooo, that took years and therapy later. Ha! Anyway. I looked him up after I left the road and we became friends, as I'd moved on years prior. I wound up inadvertently introducing him to my then pastor's daughter and dear friend (who used to date my brother). They wound up marrying and becoming missionaries abroad for a bit and producing four adorable kids together. She's really funny, btw. And still a lovely friend of mine. :)

3) The first song that moved me

Doubtless some lullaby Mom sang to me as a baby or the tune my beloved ancient Winnie The Pooh wind-up bear played when it was new...but otherwise, perhaps "Don't It Make Your Brown Eyes Blue" by Crystal Gayle. We lived in West Texas my first six years (ACK! I hate W. TX, but that's another story for another time). When I was about four years old my parents listened to a lot of modern country at the time (the early 80's), and I was rather fond of Ms. Gayle. Mom told me one day, when I was about four years old, they found me standing in the back seat of the car, swaying to her eye-changing tune, singing my heart out into a hair brush, emulating every move Crystal did. I announced I wanted to be a singer when I grew up. Unfortunately, my parents didn't find my dancing very Godly, as they banned all secular music (except the Beach Boys, the Oak Ridge Boys and the Statler Brothers for a few more years) shortly thereafter and placed their kiddos on a firm Southern & Country Gospel diet after that. Not even a lick of classical music was allowed, but I have developed a broadening appreciation for the genre in my adult years.

But there were always laundrymats to keep us current with at least SOME modern secular music. :)

*And now I must pause and go rustle up some dinner. Back in a bit.*

Thursday, February 22, 2024

Still On My Brain

All these years later. You'd think, as happy and peaceful of a life as I have now, these things wouldn't affect me or still double me over in pain internally from well over a decade, many miles and moons ago. And they don't - mostly. But thanks to a subscription to Facebook since 2007, sometimes the memories come back to haunt me. In the most random ways.

And sometimes it's seeing such hope at a beginning, knowing the heartbreak and disappointments of the years that followed, even when I've well and beyond moved on that catch me so unexpectedly and break my heart all over again. Gosh, the regrets. Things I'd do and handle so differently now.

But I rebound quicker these days, in time and through therapy.

These were two of my biggest young hopes in my mid twenties and thirties. Now neither will speak to me due to a life past, shared, full of regrets - one living soul pictured and one passed on. Thankfully I made peace with the one who passed. before he left. I hope sometime down the road before I'm gone I'm able to do the same with the other.

Perhaps I'll write more about this in time. For now, it's time to engage with the memories and make peace with what was once more.

I'll see you in time.

Saturday, April 2, 2022

Where do you go from this experience?

I'm still a bit lost. Trying to find my way.

Enneagram Pseudoscience Malarky

And the time you find out not only have you tested in the Pseudosciences as an INFJ for the past 20 years....But you're also an Enneagram 1w2! Oh, gripping. You're special kind of anal retentive jerk, to hear 'em tell it.

But embrace it. Why the hell not? The older you grow beyond 40 as a woman the less you care what others think of you anyway.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=adqK03NzV4w&list=RDMM&index=14

https://youtu.be/QK-Z1K67uaA

Here's how they define you - for better or worse:

https://personalityhunt.com/infj-1w2-the-complete-guide/

And you wonder if it's who you really are...Or who you were shaped to be due to your childhood you know all too well but can't write out and confess completely and reshape entirely yet due to misplaced loyalty or feared shame or a damning sense of protection to those who rely on you all too strongly, unfairly?

Some day you'll be free to talk. Perhaps those things hidden will finally come to light, and the shore in which you drown will be shallow and kind - to you and those who created you.

https://youtu.be/j3tB82dGhSA

Keys to Success In Life

Aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaand we're back! It only took a...holy sh*t, a four year hiatius-? And a worldwide pandemic FINALLY fecking sliding into an endemic

(did you get Covid, too? Before or after vaccines? How long for your recovery? Wait, are you even IN to vaccines or are they like the devil's slightly less sinister step-sibling to you? I'll tell if you will...If it won't prompt a Trumplike temper tantrum on Twitter, that is, anyway? Can't stomach the man, but it's a lifelong opinion with me, nothing new)

(Ooops, I gave away too much of my own personal persuasions there, but do love me regardless, will you? I've been there, done that politically speaking, and keep a relatively open mind that's FAR DONE with that stupid, childish trend of dumping perfectly wonderful humans over stupid politics and malleable religion)

to prompt a glorious return to this blog

(as well as some very crafty sleuthing to even find the damn thing and recover it, but that's boring, so onwards and upwards; enough cat-herding for now).

Or just a random lot of other scantily related events even I can't remember to tie-in with this later (foreshadowing! AHA!!).

Or perhaps a third glass of iced-down wine

(not red, I'm not a savage, for pete's sake!)

stoically reminded me I used to find this platform rather useful for mind-pillaging shameless sharing for the intended greater good and it was about damn time I tried again, was it-?

Regardless. Long about a glass and a half into the delicious Joullian 2018 Family Reserve Sauvignon Blanc

(the only SB I can stand, tbh, because it's oak-barreled and doesn't reek of forcibly tasting Irish Springs soap - long story; early cursing in kindergarten might have been a proclivity)

I was ruminating over tips in life I've learned one way or the other

(I'm quite stubborn; it might have been rather salaciously embarrassing how those came about but guaranteed they would make a darn good story if the truth were exposed).

Now that I'm on the third mega-iced down glass of wine - a beautiful 2016 Vina Luparia Los Enamorados Garnacha Rose, btw - I'm realizing I might not actually remember all the beautiful success tips I reflected upon earlier, but I'll do my best here

(I'm quite stoic and emotionally removed as a result of prior drama thanks to others now far removed from my own present tense; I admittedly have to drink wine to write with abandon to feel openly as deeply as I attempt to avoid showing to others on a regular basis, doubtless due to my very strong emotionally stolid Virgo moon, if you're into that hullaballoo):

1) "Do all that is required and then some." This was learned at a sermon preached during doubtless some revival, campmeeting or prophecy concert attended as a youngster in the ministry, probably in my highly naive, impressionable teenage years. I considered it sage at the time, and it has served me well for following its simple advice in return.

2) "LISTEN. OBSERVE." There's a ton of wisdom in the old proverb "You have two ears, two eyes, and one mouth for a reason." 'Nuff said.

3) Oh dear. There's a third point, traditionally, with every Baptist sermon I ever heard preached growing up

(that's an innumerable amount at this point, and we're not even acknowledging all the plagiarized sermons, either, for reasons none of us care to admit, but rather shuffle nervously with our foot until it's booted rather determinedly out of the conversation all together).

Typically the third point was the strongest, deepest, most cutting and convicting point every preacher emphatically emphasized, gearing towards that ever-important altar call right around the corner as he droned on and the roast was burning at home...

...what was it?

Pffffft. INTUITION. Oh heck. They might not have liked that one so much, come to think of it. Okay, for their sake we'll dub it the "Holy Spirit" tonight, tongue in cheek. Sorta. Semantics. Although I kinda like the Holy Spirit concept, third member of the Godhead and all, growing up fundamentalist like the Duggar family and all

(less kids, thank Christ...is this a good time for Mom's favorite WalMart joke growing up, that Sam Walton was the fourth member of the God-head? No? Whatever, it's my blog. Time-out for you. Three seconds. Okay, come back already, will you? And really, we LIVED at WalMart growing up. I wrote a song about it. We performed it. And Mom was so good at knowing WalMart she could literally predict a WalMart within three miles of wherever we were travelling back in the day. Never failed. We had Sam Walton's autobiography in all our busses, btw. Oh. Have you ever read his business philosophy? Kinda inspiring, to say the least. His prodigy are kinda embarrassing, but his philosophy was on point:

Sam Walton’s Entrepreneurial Philosophy

Commit to your business and believe in it more than anyone else.
Share your profits with all your associates, and treat them as partners.
Motivate and challenge your partners.
Communicate everything possible to partners.
Appreciate everything employees do for you.
Celebrate successes and find humor in failures.
Listen to everyone in your company and figure out ways to get them talking.
Exceed your customer’s expectations.
Control expenses better than your competition.
Swim upstream, ignore conventional wisdom.

Mkay, enough of that, just making a side-point I wish more Wally World managers would have followed when my family members worked there in East Texas long after I left home/the road in 1996 and beyond...Lawdy; I never shop there anymore on principle alone!).

But anyway.

DEVELOP YOUR INTUITION. It is beautiful. When followed authentically it won't lead you astray.

I think I've had enough of this subject for now. And it's almost bedtime. Nighty night. Here's the song that came to me right before the pandemic that worked its way through me all the way through to its near-end. It warned me of the pandemic and somehow, amazingly, helped me survive another wild life adventure.

P.S. Andrew Bird rocks.

https://youtu.be/Pv68Kivrl5g