Quotes

I love Pinterest.  I love searching for recipes and ideas for new hair styles.  I am inspired by garden pins and decorating ideas.  But most of all I love the quotes that show up in my feed.  I love quotes.  Actually, I love words in general so loving quotes is just another medium for my fondness of written expression.

I save any quote that speaks to me.  I've archived funny quotes and salty quotes.  Nasty quotes and dark ones, too.  There are inspiring quotes and brutally honest quotes that seem custom written for me.  I think that if a person were to look over my Pinterest quotes board they would be able to get an accurate feel for what kind of person I am and where I've been. They might also be a little scared, but hey, I'd rather be scary and real than fake and complacent.

Occasionally I will read through my quotes and see if any of them need to be deleted because they no longer serve their purpose in my life.  Usually though when I search through those words I am reminded of who I am.  I forget this important fact sometimes.   Life has a sneaky way of making me forget myself.

I spent the weekend, quietly, and alone.  Well, I'm never really by myself, but I was alone for the night so that counts--at least in my book.  I cleaned the house, painted a table, went on a long run, and started editing my Pinterest boards.  Honestly, I was looking for a little inspiration in my world and it seemed like Pinterest was as good a place as any to start.  I edited mercilessly.  Threw out the overly-churchy quotes.  Tossed the passive aggressive quotes and figured that being honest and candid was a more pragmatic approach to dealing with idiots.  I deleted many, many inspirational quotes about being positive and being kind.  Frankly, I'm kinda tired of being kind to people who don't deserve my kindness.  How's that for candid?!

What did I keep?  Which words did I allow to remain as representatives of me, my thoughts, my intentions?  Oh, I kept plenty.  There seems to be a common theme with whisky quotes and statements about how to deal with assholes.  There are snippets about setting boundaries (which everyone knows I'm unable to do) and not worrying about other people.  I kept lots of lines of poetry, Atticus and Alfa leading the way. (Haven't heard of them?  Look them up.)  Oh, and lots of Hemingway. (Bill would be so happy, though not as happy as if it were Melville.)  Hemingway, despite his tragic demise, was a bad ass, with all the drinking and adventuring and fishing he wrote about.  Girl can dream......

But the concept I found to be most relevant and pertinent to me right now today was patience. Patience and I are not well acquainted.  Maybe it's from losing Bill--I understand, all too well, how short life can be and how quickly everything can change.  I operate on a different time frame now.  I understand how this tendency can read as impulsive, but I assure you it is not.  Spend a few hours in my head and you'll see just how much thought I put into every decision.  And I do mean Every.  Freaking.  One.   Having recognized this tendency now,  both subconsciously and at the surface level, I have withdrawn, figuratively,  from the world for a while.  I just want to sit patiently (yay, patience!) and see what unfolds.  No chasing or manipulating or forcing anything.  Just waiting.  And watching.  And learning.

Like I said before, patience and I are not good friends.  But we're quietly learning to respect each other.