Kissing Frogs

I love a good story. I always have.  I especially love a tale with a happy ending.  The more magical, the more epic, and the more fantastic – the better I love them. I’m a sucker for a hero’s tale. I have many heroes, from Wesley and his “As you wish,” to a Goonie that never says, “Die!”  The Author of Life sometimes creates great tales and woeful tragedies. I’m trying to figure out which one I’m living.

My first love was Superman.  Watching that mild-mannered, kind, gentle man rip his shirt open and become this brave savior - won my heart.  Batman was the ultimate misunderstood bad boy, and Jesus walked on water and defied death.  Within my personal tragic story, my soul cried out to be saved. But no savior swooped in and saved the day. I learned to save myself.

I am a Princess, and always have been, only I haven’t always been able to see it. What’s so funny is that I used to tell my brother’s a story about having been kidnapped and that someday my real parents, a king and queen, would one day find me, rescue me from my hell, and take me home.  The royal highnesses never came for me, but I learned to rescue myself. I learned to change my stars and create the life I wanted to live.

I’ve always believed in magic, believed in faith, believed in the supernatural – though I’ve never really seen any of those things manifest in reality.  I always made wishes when I closed my eyes. I always prayed to the God of the Universe. I always felt the presence of an angel in my darkest moments. I never got my miracles or displayed the magnificent power over science and nature. I never had a wish magically come true, but I learned to make wishes and dreams come true for myself through hard work and dedication. Perhaps that was the true miracle.

The stories of love are the best ones of all. I have a lot of love in my life. I love my children and grandbaby beyond expression. I love my god. I love my family, my friends, and my pets. I love my passions. I love humanity. I love myself most of all.  But, the one thing I haven’t been able to capture is that GREAT romantic, magnificent, fairy-tale love. That’s not true.  I had it once before, very briefly, but a Somalian bullet took that dream from me. I had my Prince, but I didn’t get my happily-ever-after. I feel like Rose on that floating door – forced to let go of my greatest love and promising to never let go of the dream we dreamt together. I never did. I lived those dreams James and I made together, because also like Rose – there was a life full of adventure waiting to be lived AFTER Jack/James.

Of course, within that life I promised to live, I’ve kissed a few frogs, but they never turned into my Prince. While each relationship I’ve had was beautiful in its own way, it was ever only PART of the dream, part of the story, and it only filled part of me. I had one of the best marriages of anyone I knew, full of love and respect – but no passion. I’ve had one of the hottest love affairs so full of passion I burned inside, but I did not have the love and respect. I’ve had romances and nightmares, but no happily-ever-after. With each one, I’ve learned more and more what I want and don’t want in my Prince, what I need and don’t need in my life, and what kind of crown I want to sit upon my own head.

I don’t need a superhero to save me. I don’t need a valiant warrior to rescue me. I don’t need a Prince to make my dreams and wishes come true. I want a partner that will love me just as I am and not want to change me. I want a friend that I can share all that I am and they not feel they need to fix me. I want a lover that wants to touch me, and kiss me, and hold me, and listen to my silly stories, and encourage me when I’m down, and push me when I want to give up, and comfort me when I’m scared, protect me when I’m in danger, and be someone I can count on, trust, and not be afraid to give my whole heart.

All the fairy tales and epic fantasies tell you about the journey that leads up to kissing frogs and finding a Prince.  What about when you find one?  What happens next? I don’t know that part of the story. I’m afraid – because I want the happy-ever-after – but I’ve never seen it. Its standing right in front of me, but my hands literally shake when I dare to even think if it’s possible – for me. I think it must be a mistake. I’m never the Princess that catches the Prince and gets to keep him. I’ve always been too much or not enough. Too soft or too hard, but never just right. There’s always been big bad wolves in sheep’s clothing coming to blow down every house I try to build.  But, could the glass slipper really fit this time? Could his kiss break the curse of death from my poisoned lips?

If I’ve learned anything from all my fantasy and fairy tales, and stories of superheroes, is that my answer isn’t going to come from someone else. My happy-ever-after is something I’m going to have to choose for myself. I’m going to have to believe in it, trust in it, and grab it with all my soul and strength.  Just as I rescued myself, and saved myself, and believed in myself, and loved myself – I will have to choose this too. I’m afraid because I’ve fallen and failed so many times before and am riddled with their scars and filled with their pain when I close my eyes.

I could fail again. But, if I do – I know how to pick myself back up.  I’ve recently kissed a frog, and he’s become a Prince. I’ve been rubbing my eyes, wondering if he’s real or just an illusion. Only time will tell and only the Author knows how the whole story truly ends. This is a new chapter. I hope it’s a good one.

Till next time,

~T.L. Gray

Waiting for Superman

If you’ve never heard the song by Daughtry, “Waiting for Superman,” then you should definitely take a minute and check it out. I’m not going to say it’s the best song ever, I don’t think I could ever really say that about any song, but it’s definitely a song worth listening to at least once. I’ve actually had this song for a couple years now in my iPod, and play it every so often, but for some reason over the last few weeks I can’t seem to get it out of my head.

A friend of mine told me recently, “Songs to a person mean what you want them to mean. They don’t have to be amorphic. That’s why writers write in such a vague composition when it comes to songs. They want to include everybody’s feelings and experiences.” I suppose I should get to the song and how I’m finding relation to what it says, or at least what it says to me; that is, after all, the purpose of this blogpost today.

Another dear friend of mine told me recently, “You know, you’re always waiting.” I know the context in which he was referring, and when he said that to me, it hit me hard, because even though I knew that particular truth somewhere deep inside my subconscious, I didn’t realize it. Realizing the truth about something is the first step to changing it.

The song starts out...

“She’s watching the taxi driver, he pulls away
She’s been locked up inside her apartment a hundred days

She says, “Yeah, he’s still coming, just a little bit late.
He got stuck at the laundromat washing his cape.”
She’s just watching the clouds roll by and they spell her name
Like Lois Lane
And she smiles, oh the way she smiles

She’s talking to angels,
Counting the stars
Making a wish on a passing car
She’s dancing with strangers,
Falling apart
Waiting for Superman to pick her up
In his arms, yeah, in his arms, yeah
Waiting for Superman…”

Wow, the imagery my mind creates with that story. It’s amazing. But the pain I feel in my heart creates this huge lump in my throat and I can’t stop the tears that start to pool in the corner of my eyes. I get this song. I feel it. I can even taste it. What is it I’m experiencing? What is it that I’m seeing and relating to in this song? I see a woman who had to endure watching the love of her life, the hero of her heart and imagination disappear right out of her life. I’ve felt this now… twice. Twice, I’m left waiting… waiting for one soldier that will never come back, and another that chose not to. I’m the woman left behind, refusing to accept the truth, living in a delusional state because the pain is too hard to accept. It took me more than 20 years to visit the grave and stop waiting for the first soldier, my first Superman; how long now before I stop waiting on the second?

Superman, the superhero, was my first love, ever. At 10 years old watching Christopher Reeve fly across that screen, it literally took my breath away. To this day I’m a diehard Supes fan. I’ve always wanted to be Lois Lane, the woman who stole Superman’s heart. I even became a reporter at one point, obviously in an attempt at fulfilling that deep seeded fantasy. But, the more I think about it, I’m not sure I want to be Lois Lane anymore. What does it mean to be Lois Lane? What does it mean to be a woman so in love with a man, who sees him as her hero, who worships him like a god, yet is always waiting and will always come second to the world? A woman constantly deceived and lied to? A woman, a hero in her own right, yet shadowed by the spotlight of the man in a cape?

The delusions and excuses we tell ourselves to block the pain of reality is a hard pill to swallow. We wait. We wait for the truth to become the fantasy. We make excuses. We cling to a hope that our superhero will fly back to us one day, so we wait. Just the thought of him in our fantasy makes us smile with a pure joy. Yet, we can’t breathe, so we take these small, tiny, minute breaths, which deprive us of the levels of oxygen we need to think more clearly. But we don’t want to think more clearly, because to think more clearly is to lose the fantasy, to realize he’s not stuck at the laundromat washing his cape - he’s just not coming back. We pray to the angels, we count the stars casting our wishes upon them and all the passing cars. We dance with strangers, make the appearance that we’re fine, we’re okay and living our lives. We’re mingling with others, laughing out loud, yet constantly looking for his face in the crowd, his eyes behind every pair of glasses, his smile, his touch… but we can’t find him among all these strangers. Inside we’re falling apart and become just a pile of broken pieces, waiting, waiting, always waiting. We’re just waiting for our superman to rescue us, to pick us up, to save us and put us back together. Why? Because... we’ve flown in the clouds with him, we’ve tasted the sweet softness of his lips and felt the strong security of his arms. We’ve listened to the beat of his heart through his chest of steel.

“She’s out on the corner trying to catch a glimpse
Nothing’s making sense
She’s been chasing an answer, a sign lost in the abyss,
This Metropolis

She says, "Yeah, he’s still coming, just a little bit late.
He got stuck at the Five and Dime saving the day.”
She says, "If life was a movie, then it wouldn’t end like this,
Left without a kiss."
Still, she smiles, oh, the way she smiles, yeah…”

When the heart wants what it wants, and the mind wants something different, a war begins between the two. I’m learning that love isn’t rational, and can’t be conquered, or overcome rationally, because it doesn’t fight rationally or fair. Love is a tricky little devil and stubborn as hell, and wild – so wild it can never really be tamed. We can be as delusional as this woman waiting for the hero that will never come, looking for any and every sign of hope, clinging to every lie because it’s better than the truth no matter how rational she wants to be. She’s not blind, she sees the reality, and the truth… she just can’t escape the reality of her heart no matter how rational her mind wants to be. Love can’t just be turned off. All she has to do is close her eyes and remember… and the burn of the kiss is still there.

I used to think this kind of love didn’t exist. I had convinced myself I had made it up. Loving a hero long gone, it was easier to deny the pain I held in my heart by creating a universe where I had only imagined the love I had thought I felt to try and escape the pain at its loss. The delusion helped me be rational in all my other relationships. But, what I thought was rational was just another delusion, because the love was still there, it was still real, and it still hurt that my hero had died and left me behind, left me waiting for a return that would never come. It took finding, feeling, and falling in love with another hero to show me the truth, to remind me what that wild love felt like, to show me the denial of it was the true delusion. Watching and feeling the loss of the second one, helped me grieve the first. I was able to finally say goodbye after all this time to my lost hero, but I haven’t quite figured out yet how to say goodbye to the second. I had no choice in saying goodbye to the first… he died. The second chose someone else. My head knows he doesn’t deserve me, that I don’t need to be saved because I’m the only one that can truly save myself, that I’m my own hero, that I can fly myself… without him. But my heart still desperately clings to the fantasy that he’ll one day fly back to me. And so, I smile, Oh, the way I smile.

I don’t want to be Lois anymore. I don’t want to keep waiting for Superman. I realize the truth - he’s not coming back, he’s not at the Five and Dime saving the day, he simply just flew away. Acknowledging the truth is the first step, now I’m just waiting on the change to happen and I hope it doesn’t take 20 years this time to accept it, and I’ll soon be able to say, “Later, gator.” Maybe my next great love will be something a little simpler and not involve capes.

Till next time,



~Lois Lane

If You Can Fly - Come Find Me

Not all changes happen on the outside.  The best ones, the ones that have the most impact, often happen on the inside.  I’ve always heard the phrase that if you want to make a change on the outside, you have to first make a change on the inside, or it’s not really a change at all.  I’ve come to realize that the outside is either a reflection or a mask.  I used to hide behind a mask, a secret identity, but I’ve since learned to shed my skin and expose all that I am to a harsh and judgmental world.

I've had some ups and down in my journey of change, expect even more, but I've accomplished so much in a short period of time.  I've not just lost weight, but I've focused on getting my body, mind and spirit healthier and stronger.  I've learned a lot about my limits, and pushing myself beyond those limits, and listening to what my body, my heart, and my mind needs.  I've learned to love and appreciate them for what they are, not only focused on what they could become. 

I used to not be able to look at my scars, being reminded of the pain in receiving them, some things no human should have to endure. I’ve seen the true face of evil – it has burned, cut, stabbed, raped, degraded, abandoned and used me. I don’t know how I survived, but I did.  But, the outward scars are not the only ones left by abuse, there are inward scars that run much deeper. Those are the ones no one but a few ever get to see.

I’m a beautiful woman, but I know that not everybody will be able to get passed my scars, both inwardly and outwardly.  Not everyone has the strength to look at them and see their beauty.  I would win no beauty contest and would never be the object of a dream fantasy, but someday, some lucky man is going to be showered with such an abundance of love he’ll be overwhelmed.  Because it required an abundance of love to get me where I am and to teach me to see the world, people, and things around me with a different set of eyes.  I used to have shallow eyes, and hid behind their prejudice, but I now possess x-ray vision.  I see hidden beauty where others only see skin. 

My skin is steel, forged by a stubborn will.  I use that thick skin to repel the bullets shot at me, letting them ricochet back at those who meant to wound me. I have a spirit that soars in the clouds.  The world wants to ground me, force me to keep my feet anchored to the earth, but I can’t.  My cape flaps in the wind that calls my name.  I don’t know where I’ll land, where I’ll go, or if the ride will be wrought with fear – but I leap anyway. 

So, I’m not an ordinary woman and it will only take an extraordinary man, a superman, to be my partner.  I’m a stranger and an alien, different and alone, and the world seeks to use me and my gifts for their own ends.  But, I don’t play by their rules. I won’t be found on the ground, only in the clouds.  If you can fly – come find me.

Till next time,

~T.L. Gray

Spinning Straw into Gold

You’d think a woman of forty-two would be too old to believe in fairy tales, have a rational and practical mind, and live a life with her feet firmly planted on the ground, but I realize this morning … I’m not, I don’t, and I won’t apologize.  It might sound crazy and even a bit absurd, but I find it a miracle I still believe in happily-ever-after, miracles, and the ability to receive the impossible. I may be disturbed, but if you know me and the nightmare that’s been the story of my life; perhaps that’s the greatest miracle of all …the simple fact I haven’t given up. 

I’m shocked I’m not in some institution somewhere, addicted to some narcotic or an insatiable alcoholic, a liar, or a thief. I have every reason, but no excuses.  I’m stubborn, perhaps naive, because I keep getting up.  I’m battered and bruised, tattered and torn, damaged and discarded, but I still dare to reach for the impossible. 

It reminds me of a song by Five for Fighting called Superman, “I’m not crazy …or anything.  I can’t stand to fly; I’m not that naïve …men weren’t meant to ride with clouds between their knees …I’m only a man in a funny red sheet, looking for special things inside of me …I’m only a man in a funny red sheet, I’m only a man looking for a dream. It’s not easy to be me.”    

The world tells me I can’t spin straw into gold, not without making a deal with the Rumpelstiltskins of the world that will compromise my values; that I can’t slay dragons because I’m not born to the right title or privilege; that Prince Charming isn’t for girls like me, that happily-ever-after doesn’t exist.  But I choose to close my ears to the world’s pessimism-steeped in realism. 

In darkness, I choose to believe in light. In pain, I choose to believe in happiness. In loneliness, I choose to believe in love.  In rejection, I choose to believe in acceptance.  In fear, I choose to believe in peace.  In failure, I choose to believe in success. In defeat, I choose to believe in miracles.  In death, I choose to believe in life.  Tell me there is no way, I’ll find a way.  Tell me there is no hope, and I will continue to hope.  Tell me I’m not able, and I won’t stop until I’ve become a master.  Tell me you don’t love me, and I’ll love myself.

For a little while I listened to the world, I let my way of seeing dim, to put on glasses of reality and lick my wounds.  I’m not stupid.  I know what’s real and what’s not.  I don’t live separated from reality, but I’ve allowed reality to take away the best part of me – my ability to see things (love, hope, a better future) that are not yet - as though they were,  and then have the strength to step forward to make them happen.  I don’t want to live in a world that dictates to me how things are… or how they will be.  THAT kind of world would have killed me a long time ago.  I am where I am, because I refuse to accept those things.  YES, I’ve seen the ugliness of this world.  I know its face - intimately.  I’ve seen way too much of it.  Those images, those memories, and the scars are plain and evident and I don’t deny them. Every time I see a scar, a burn mark, a stretch mark, or feel the pain from a past injury, or look around at my present circumstances and know what I’ve walked away from, I’m reminded vividly of each one. I couldn’t forget them if I tried.  But I deny their power to define me. 

So, today – whether you agree, disagree or think or I’ve lost my mind – I believe in happily-ever-after, in magic, in spinning straw into gold, and that I was meant to ride with clouds between my knees.

Till next time,

~T.L. Gray

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