As humans, we often seek and find refuge in a multitude of places. Our bodies, minds, and hearts require opportunities for retreat from life’s harsh realities, regardless of how accustomed we become to it’s difficulties and fragility. Emotional refuge, specifically, is something that we all need and seek on some level. Some may find itContinue reading “Finding Refuge…”
Category Archives: Love and Relationships
Good night, stranger…
Last night as I lay in bed dreaming of you, I ran my own hand over my bare shoulder and down my arm as some sort of telepathic experiment in which I imagined that you could feel me….because you are me. Or maybe, you reside in me…..because you’re always somehow with me….on my travels, duringContinue reading “Good night, stranger…”
Messages from the Universe
Heart broken and needing to shut myself off from the world, I walked around Gray’s Lake in Des Moines just before Labor Day 2021. As I passed baby catamarans docked on the shoreline, a man passed me and smiled. “Your hair is beautiful,” he said as he walked by. How strange, I thought. And yet,Continue reading “Messages from the Universe”
Not a love language…
Anyone familiar with the five love languages of touch, quality time, words of affirmation, gifts, and acts of service is probably not new to the idea that individuals don’t always interpret love the same way. That is, they show and receive love through actions or behaviors that may differ from others close to them. BecauseContinue reading “Not a love language…”
Don’t Let Them…
If I could do absolutely anything, I believe I would package hope and hand it out to anyone and everyone who needs it. There are just too many damaged and broken people out there….and many are adults who just can’t seem to find their way to satisfying relationships with those of the opposite sex. They’reContinue reading “Don’t Let Them…”
A new home with you…
You may be but a world away, but you are the keeper and holder of my heart. Perhaps you are unaware, but it’s been in your care for awhile. Like a stowaway….it hitched a ride home with you on a cold night under the stars in another state when I intended to love you onlyContinue reading “A new home with you…”
On loan from the universe…
As soon as we separate ourselves from others, others separate themselves from us. This was just one of the thoughts or realizations I had one cold day this past January as I house-sat for a friend in Des Moines, Iowa. I had been watching a few videos on minimalism prior to sitting down to write,Continue reading “On loan from the universe…”
A twin story…
When I was just three years old, I broke someone’s heart for the first time….and as I revisit the experience, I wonder what it might tell me about myself, relationships in general, and matters of the heart. But first, the story…. Like many children whose parents have depended on two incomes, I attended pre-school forContinue reading “A twin story…”
Love, hope, and wrong turns…
The tightrope between hope and despair is one many of us have walked a time or two in the search for love….so I thought a few words on the subject might be due. If you’ve ever hoped for something in love one minute, but found yourself wanting to throw in the towel the next, thenContinue reading “Love, hope, and wrong turns…”
The Season for New Life…
This is the season for new life. It does not come about without death, loss, and letting go….and embracing change and what’s to come. The gardener does not fret over last year’s bounty or famine, but sows the seeds for new growth and welcomes each leaf as it unfolds.
Lessons Learned: The 12 Most Significant Growth-Inducing Realizations of my Life (in the last 12 years)…
Like most people, I’ve learned many valuable lessons over the course of my life…..assimilating them into my world view until the memory of when and how I learned them was lost and it seemed there was never a time before when I hadn’t known their truths. But that’s not yet the case with the lessonsContinue reading “Lessons Learned: The 12 Most Significant Growth-Inducing Realizations of my Life (in the last 12 years)…”
Amid the chaos…
Jetting from jacuzzi walls, small pockets of air rise and escape to the pool’s steamy surface in mini geodesic domes before being released back into the atmosphere. Forming, disappearing, and replaced within mere seconds, each half-dome spends its short and insignificant existence among others of its kind…..above the water but below the sky. Large andContinue reading “Amid the chaos…”
Not really your friends…
About a year before we married, my late husband traveled to Japan, where he taught English for about six months. At the time he left, in the spring of 1991, we had been dating for over two years. Sitting across from each other in a booth at a local restaurant the day before his flight,Continue reading “Not really your friends…”
As many lives as you want…
This may come as a surprise to some….or not….but you can live as many lives as you want. Think I’m wrong or not following me? Chances are, you’ve already lived more than one. Did you party in your 20s and then settle down with a spouse and kids in your 30s? Or, have you triedContinue reading “As many lives as you want…”
Do it anyway…
By listening to our fears, we protect ourselves…sometimes from our worst nightmares. Overcoming fear, as I have learned from a few hugely impactful and distinct experiences in my life over the past 10 years, does not mean a discovery that the fears were irrational, invalid, illegitimate, and unjustified. We don’t conquer fear and that’s it…we’reContinue reading “Do it anyway…”
Jeanie Unbottled 