>This, as I pretty much expected, is a full-blown home. Complete with laundry room and waterfront deck. I think there is part of some river zipping through the front/back yard. Sleep was pretty much lovely last night. I woke a few times, but I think it was more toward the time my body thought I was going to be late for work! Ha! Tricked it. Not only am I not going to work — I do not even have access to work from here! I am really going to relax while here because there will be virtually no chance for anything of the sort when I return to Mesquite.

I got up and made coffee, scrambled eggs with cheese, soy sausage and just had some shredded wheat ‘n’ bran with fresh strawberries. De-lish. I told Chris this was going to be our “launch” week. I really want to make goal before Easter. I think I only gained .4 pounds this last week, but at the beginning, shortly after the beer-fest (North Texas Irish Festival), it was more like three (before the decimal).

Enough of that.

We will decide we want to live. Or we will decide we want to die a little more on purpose every day — like the vast majority of the American population. I choose life. I’ve got a lot of it left — I have a good one, and it’s getting better. I know love. I know God. I know friendship. And I am learning to recognize and appreciate it all more everyday.

I started a new novel last night, but I was so sleepy, I only made it five pages. But my basic goal is as small as one page of leisure-reading per day, so in that, I scored a 500%!

We were driving along yesterday, and Chris was asking me geographic and historical questions, and I just had no answers. It felt very strange, so of course, I started thinking about why I know so very little about where I am from, and I came up with a few theories:

* I did not pay attention because I was too busy creating and living in fantasy worlds because the world I lived in felt unsafe.

* I did not pay attention.

* No one told me all that stuff (or I did not pay attention). I don’t really remember history being that big of a value in my immediate family. Maybe it was because I felt like my “present” was really more akin to the “past” since it seemed we were so far behind the rest of the world!

Really and Eureka! That might be it! I was so confused when I began to live in both worlds — country mouse and city mouse — that I had to choose one to be my “present” and one to leave behind in the “past.” This theory really resonates with me right now.

I remember that July 4th trip to Manhattan Beach, and Josh and I went to see THE PATRIOT with Mel Gibson. (Starring Mel Gibson, that is, we were not sharing popcorn with him; however, Christopher Knight aka Peter Brady, was sitting right behind us in the theater). There was this scene where someone came across trunks and remains of a person’s personal effects — furniture, clothing, utensils. And I just started to cry. I realized for the first undeniable time, that I had been so hell-bent on de-identifying myself with that rural upbringing and with not embracing the good that it instilled in (which was quite a bit), that I had lost my identity altogether. I had not just detached from the part of it that caused me distress — I had cut the cord completely and sent it ALL out of my consciousness.

I did not know, until I shared the stories that used to embarass me, that my life had been one of technicolor in a world where many people’s lives were only monochromatic. And I felt guilty. I felt like in denying that that life was mine, I was denying all the people who had worked so hard to build that life for themselves and for me. From absolutely nothing. That was sobering on that day. And that is where I felt my new life strangling me. Then the changes — the leaving Nashville and the music business behind, the ending of the relationship, the leaving the country, the return to Texas.

I am sitting on a screen porch, on a swing, drinking coffee. Just like in my dream life. Which dream? Which life? The dream of just being simple. Knowing the complexities and assimilating them when useful and necessary. But leaving them when all they do is complicate. That is the quest. I mastered it for a long while, and I was just about to let it all overtake me again, but I will not. I have been praying a lot this year (2007) for words, wisdom and courage. In all things. I think they are a masterful, powerful combination. I have been granted them on a few very pivotal occasions, and they have saved me. I remember, years ago, these journals would be filled one question mark after another. No more. I find that a very interesting characteristic. Is it because I do not have as many questions? Or is it because I finally realized I do not have all the answers? Look! Two questions! I think, to answer them, it is due to a little of both.

I think I am glad, too. All those question marks really began to drain the life out of me. I never took time to reflect on an answer, even if I thought I had found it. I would just come up with ten more questions to take its place. That, thankfully, is no longer my present, and definitely my past. I thank God, literally, for that miracle. An absolute freedom from bondage that had ruled my life for way too many years. And isn’t it funny how someone like the person that I used to be can be considered as “having all the answers” by so many other people? Unbelievable. I have not written this many words free-hand (I am transcribing this from my paper journal, by the way, in the interest of full disclosure) in I do not recall how many years. The last times were decidedly much more sad or angry. I am sure. Maybe that is why I stopped writing in books and started on the blog (http://rossovivogirl.blogspot.com). On the blog were generally positive and funny stories. And things I would not mind sharing — at least eventually — with others. And in the books were things that did not necessarily end up fitting into that category. Hmmmm. Another theory. Have I always been so “theoretical”?