Another One Bites the Dust…

It’s entirely possible that there are no good men left out there.  Rona Shively is finding that out in the latest Rona Shively Story.  She couldn’t depend on Trey, Norm disappointed her and now she’s starting to question whether or not she can really trust Garrett.  She’s on her third strike when it comes to relationships, but what’s really scaring her more than anything else is that shopping for baby blankets is a bit more treacherous than she had ever imagined.

If you haven’t read the last few stories, you need to get caught up before February of 2013.  Coming soon, from Stonegarden.net, the next Rona Shively Story!!!!

To order The Rona Shively Stories, e-mail me here.  The first fifty orders get $10 off the purchase of the complete set.  That’s all five Rona Shively Stories for just $40 plus shipping!  Take advantage of this great offer by putting “50” in the subject line of your e-mail!  This offer ends August 31, 2012.

Another Trip Around the…Sun?

Take a moment and watch this video, good song!

Trip Around the Sun

Well, let’s hope so.  I swear, looking back over the last twelve months of my life I would have thought there might be a few more victories there.  Sadly, I was doing pretty much the same thing this time last year as I am today.  On my 39th birthday, I was traveling to Cincinnati for a job interview which didn’t pan out and I was in relational negotiations with a loser.  That’s a nice way of saying that I was in mid-breakup with a guy I was trying to date.  It’s not like I didn’t accomplish anything, though.  At least this year, it was a different guy and I really did make some changes that I feel will turn out to be the right thing.  I just haven’t seen the fruits of those efforts yet.  It makes it difficult sometimes to keep planning ahead and to keep pushing toward new goals.  But in truth, I’ve been anticipating this day.  My fortieth birthday.  I’ve wanted so badly to be out of my thirties and now, I’m here.

Turning forty is a major milestone for me because it represents a fresh start after all of the upheavals and defeats suffered during my last decade.  My thirties represented the birth of my child whom I love more than life itself, the rise and subsequent fall of my marriage, the loss of some very important family members, the difference between admiration, infatuation, and true love, the realization that maybe I’m not cut out to do what counts as “real work” in this society, and an even bigger realization that I’m really not the one whose steering this ship.  I’m hopeful, that with God’s grace, I can move on to do something meaningful with the rest of my days on this earth.  And even though it often seems like nothing is happening, I know He is working in my life.  He’s certainly had me in a season on reflection and learning for the last ten years or so.   And I think I’m finally starting to form a clear picture of what He’s been trying to show me.

Looking back on the last twenty years, I can see where these times have helped me grow and where what I thought were the toughest trials I’d ever faced made me stronger.  God has a way of showing us who we are when we aren’t really paying attention.  All this time, I thought some of the things I were doing were just being done out of my inability to follow Him correctly.  As it turns out, it was part of His plan to help me overcome the most daunting strongholds that I still had in my life.  So, for my fortieth birthday, I’m giving myself the gift of giving up.  I’m giving up on things and people that are bad for me.  I’m giving up on relationships that hold no promise other than to hurt me and stall my progress.  I’m giving up what I believed to be control of my life to Someone who is better equipped than myself to guide me through this mess.  I’m giving up on trying to be what everyone else wants me to be.  And in doing so, I’ll be giving up on being frustrated and finally allowing myself to enjoy being the person God made me to be.  Yes, after forty years, I think it’s time I started being myself.  Maybe this trip around the sun will be more than just another trip around the same mountain.  I’ll get back to you on that…but in the meantime, have a wonderfully, blessed day!

Trick, Tramp, Skank or Slut?

Sorry to put it out there like that, but the topic of my discussion today is going to have to be about women who can’t seem to figure this out. I’ve run into lots of men in my day. I’ve dated a few, loved a couple and even married one. I’ve never been able to understand why it is so easy for a man to stray from the woman he says he loves. It occurred to me that the fault is not entirely that of the man. Though I like to believe that each of us is responsible for our own actions, I have to admit that if there are women out there who are more than willing to offer themselves up as some kind of prize to a man who is teetering on the edge of commitment then they are just as responsible for the behavior as the man who engages in it. And well, those women need to be slapped.

I believe in lifting women up and helping them to achieve their higher potential, but if the woman is so determined to get what she wants that she has no boundaries or respect for what another woman already has, then she doesn’t deserve to be lifted up. These women just don’t seem to care. They look for any and every excuse to justify their behavior.

“Well, if he could be that easily persuaded, then he didn’t love her anyway.” No, if he could be that easily persuaded it just means he’s a douchebag and that she will eventually need to get rid of him. It isn’t your job to be a catalyst. Get your own.

“But he loves me and he’s just staying with her because he doesn’t know how to let her down.” No, he doesn’t love you, skank. He’s just getting what he can get from you until you either move onto the next one or he finds another one of you to add to his lineup.

“She must not be doing her job as a ‘wife, girlfriend, significant other’ or he wouldn’t be looking for something else.” You know, sometimes men just look to be looking. She could be doing everything right even to the point that she’s given up on her own dreams to keep his fulfilled (and that’s usually the case). It is definitely not your place to determine what she may or may not be doing for him. He doesn’t belong to you. You don’t know the situation, you only know what he is telling you and I’ve got news for you, if he’s cheating, he’s also lying and he doesn’t give a damn whether or not he tells you or anyone else the truth.

“She’s let herself go, how can you expect him not to think I’m more attractive?” Beg pardon, trick. No. This is certainly not your call. If she has let herself go, it is probably because he has put her through hell and she’s given up on trying to make herself look good because he didn’t appreciate her when she did. Spend some more time with him and see how you look.

When I was single and out being stupid, I tried to be careful who I spent my time with. Sometimes a man is up front with his status and sometimes he tries to hide it. It used to burn me up to see the same married man out having dinner with his wife in the early evening and then see that same man hugged up with some tramp at the bar later that night. At the time, I didn’t know how to approach it. I thought, “It’s none of my business.” Well, in a way, it should have been my business. I should have said something to them. I knew both of them, not well, but probably well enough to point out that what they were doing was absolutely messed up. It didn’t really hit me until I got married that it would have been nice if I’d had the gumption to speak up. If more people publicly frowned on the behavior, then maybe it wouldn’t happen so often. Wishful thinking, but you never know.

There might have been something to that whole scarlet letter thing. If all the tramps, skanks, and low-down dirty cheaters had to wear a big red letter on their clothing, wouldn’t that be helpful to those of us who are trying to do things the right way? The bottom line is that if he isn’t yours, don’t look at him, don’t touch him, don’t think that he’s just passing the time with his wife until you pop onto the scene ready to satisfy his every desire. No, he’s not been waiting for you. If he was waiting for you, he’d have waited, ho. See, that’s how it works. If someone is waiting on you, they wait. They don’t just take an eleven-year detour and stop off to have a wife and kids while they await your arrival. Funny how that works.

So today’s lesson for all the tricks, tramps, skanks and sluts out there is that we must first look for a wedding ring. Second, we ask the question, “Are you married or living with a steady girlfriend or otherwise engaged?” Third, we make the decision whether or not we want to be part of the problem or part of the solution. Fourth, we think better of ourselves and of other women than to try and settle down with someone who has already been pretending to be settled down with someone else. This is easy. Give it a shot.

Until next time.

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Kindly remove your heart from my sleeve, sir…

Life is too short to bear the burden of someone else’s dissatisfaction. Huh? Yeah, that’s right. I said it. I’m sick and tired of being miserable because someone else can’t figure out how to be happy and out of some twisted kind of respect for them, being afraid to go ahead and do what I already know how to do. This is the absolute tip-top of a massive tower of bullshit.

Throughout our lives, we will encounter people who will somehow, whether on purpose or by accident, wrap us up in their own perceptions of who we are and who we are entitled to become. Our choice is to either follow their recommendations and live the way they say we should or we could listen to our own ideas about what we can and can’t do and then actually live our lives. The problem is that once we allow someone to dictate who we are and who we are allowed to become, it takes alot of work to get back to our own ideas. Alot of time, energy, patience, determination and real work.

There’s nothing like a life transition to throw you into a swirling mess of anger, frustration, and uncertainty. It’s like being flushed down a giant toilet and not knowing which ocean you might eventually end up floating in. Wait, did I just liken myself to a giant turd? See, it’s rough. It’s even affecting my self-image. Seriously, though, I’m in the middle of a struggle that I had no idea I would be facing at this point in my life. I say I had no idea, because for years, I had resigned myself to the notion that I would always have to put my ideas about who I was on the back burner until someone else was comfortable with them. I couldn’t be comfortable with them either until the important people in my life were on board. What a backward way of thinking!

I’ve been talking about empowerment for years, but lately, not really feeling 100 percent empowered in my own life. I’ve made lots of changes that I think improved the quality of my life and some that might have made it just a little more difficult than it needed to be. Through it all, I was led to believe that I was being accepted for who I was becoming. But, upon arrival at my destination, I was basically told that I had taken the wrong flight and that if I wanted to go where I was going, I couldn’t bring a carry-on. Had I known that originally, I would have taken the bus. What the hell am I talking about? No, I didn’t take a trip that went terribly wrong, well, maybe I did.

Metaphorically speaking, I guess I did. What I’m saying is that sometimes our relationships hold us back and we think it’s our problem. We’re told it’s our problem, we’re made to believe that we are the ones with the problem. In reality, sometimes it’s simply that the other players in our little production are following a different script and refuse to edit where it makes sense. Myself, I was born holding a red ink pin and am willing to slash through whatever looks stupid, sounds stupid or just plain is stupid. And so, here I am. Sitting alone on Memorial Day, typing this absurdly poignant piece of bloggery for you, my readers and feeling somewhat relieved that we had this time together.

Have a wonderful holiday, celebrate with family, remember your loved ones who have passed on, and don’t forget to be who you are, no matter who likes it.

Until next time…

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Rona’s Vision of Love…

In my last post, I talked about the importance of knowing what you want in a partner. I even threatened to have Rona come up with her own list of qualities she was looking for in a mate. Well, here it is. Rona and I sat down last week and went over some of the things that have been plaguing her relationships all these years. I asked her, (just play along), if she could list all of the traits she would want in a life partner, what would they be? Her answers were as follows:

Rona’s Personal Vision of Love

He would have to like the same television shows I like…and more importantly to hate the same ones I hate.

He would need to be somewhat affectionate, but not smothering.

He would need to understand that my rear end does not need to be swatted simply because it enters his vicinity.

He would need to like most of the same music that I like…and as with television, hate the same music I hate.

He would need to be somewhat adventurous. Note, adventurous has nothing to do with being open to playing a different video game than you’re used to playing. For God’s sake, get off the damned couch.

He would need to be ambitious enough to look for ways to improve himself without my constant prodding.

He would need to be fairly self-sufficient, at least to the degree that I am.

He would need to actually talk and listen when we are trying to have a conversation. It would be nice to feel as though speaking with one another and enjoying it was an option.

He would need to understand that I am not prone to sitting back and relaxing. I like to be busy and I like to be doing something that means something. Oh, and it would be nice if he were somewhat interested in doing something meaningful as well.

He would need to be at least as intelligent as I am. I’m no genius, but I really hate spelling things out for people. It tends to dampen my mood when I have to explain something simple to a grown person.

Lastly, he would need to understand that I am nobody’s mother. Especially not his.

Whew! Well, I’d like to say that Rona is on the right track with this, and I guess, she might be. At least she knows what she wants. In my latest Rona Shively book, This Side Up, Rona is struggling with some serious relationship anxiety. After reading the book, let me know if you think she might be on the right track with her list or if she should just hang it up altogether. You can buy the book at my website or at Amazon or Barnes & Noble.

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Rihanna has lost her damned mind…

It was recently announced that Rihanna has decided to go back to Chris Brown. All I can say is that this is not OK. If these two want to fade into the distance with their ridiculous behavior, that’s fine but they shouldn’t expect society at large to support their reconciliation. Ladies, it is never ok to go back to a man who has been abusive. I don’t care what the situation is, a man who will beat you is no man at all.

If you want to read the full story, you can find it here.

Whether they know it or not, these two pop stars have had a huge impact on our youth and all they are doing now is teaching the kids who idolize them that it is okay to beat up on the one you love. They’ll forgive you. This is what I like to call irresponsible bullshit. I hope that radio stations and other media outlets will not try to play up some stupid romantic angle on this story. That would be a real shame.

Until next time…

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