.In The Right Direction.

I'm not so sweet and wild anymore.

Einstein said the definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results. And let me tell you something: I am sure enough tired of the insanity.

I am no longer the girl who's feet wouldn't touch the ground; I am the woman who delights in standing barefooted in the damp grass. I am no longer the girl who doesn't remember to brush her teeth every night before bed; I am the woman who tucks a precious little boy into bed every night, teeth brushed, safe, and sound. I go to work, I pay the bills, I floss twice a day. I delight in the mundane things, the tedious, every-day tasks like making the beds and folding the laundry because it means that I finally am HOME. I'm finally where I belong -- not just physically, but mentally. My home has always been where my heart is and, for the first time in my life, it's not in some far away place. It's right here with my family, with my messy toddler and the spotted dog and the afghan my mom made me, in the old house where the wind blows through all the cracks. I am home, and I am whole.

This is the thing that I'm most thankful for this year. I am thankful for all the little things that make up the beautiful life I have, the one I always prayed for. So I'm making changes that reflect the woman I've become. I wear lipstick and boldly scented perfume, I drink my coffee strong and sweet, and crave the smell of horses, damp sagebrush, and vanilla.

Maybe there's still a little bit of the wild left in me, but mostly there is just strong. There is just solid. There are shoulders that carry the weight of the world sometimes, arms that carry my baby boy, hands that miss the way the reins feel in them, light as feathers. There is a heart that loves as hard and true as ever, but there's a brain too that knows just how much that heart deserves. There are guts and there is grit. Tears. Laughter. Eyes that always seem to have leftover mascara smeared around them and all the stars in the sky reflected in them.

I'm just Cassi, and it's pretty damned good to be me.

.Not Too Young To Care.

We're old enough to know better. 

And I've written these words a thousand times before in different incarnations, always erased if not from the printing, then from my mind. My dear, I have always adored you.

You, though; not that show you put on for the little wild things. I was wild once and maybe it suited you. But I was never so wild that I forgot where my heart lived...it damn sure wasn't some cowboy bar at last call, despite what you've heard.

Maybe I've got it all wrong but either way I just don't have a good feeling anymore. It's like never having enough quarters for the pay phone; you always run out of time.

We never did belong to each other.

If you don't know where you stand then it's time to start walking. I don't know how far I'll get but I'll give it a try. I think that sorrel horse of yours is fast enough to catch me. And if you can get a loop settled on, you better pull your slack and never fucking let it loose.

.The Greatest Love.

Of all the things I don't believe in anymore, romance was the easiest to let go. God knows I've probably never been in love and now I realize it too. Infatuation is an illusion, a distraction, a crutch for a broken soul. But Loving and being In Love are two different things...I've loved enough for a thousand hearts, because what is love but caring about someone and caring about what happens to them? I've wished them well on their journeys and thought of them on mine, but no one has ever been Home. They remember me a pretty face, legs for days, dangerous curves. I remember me using parts of myself to patch up their old wounds. There's more of me now than there was before both in the flesh and in the spirit and it's finally enough to fill the gaps and empty spaces, gild the cracks with gold and wear them like jewelry. You may think me a fool to turn you away but, my darling, you're the fool. You weren't the feather in my cap or the jewel in my crown...I'm the jewel, goddamnit. I'm the sparkle and the shine and the glittering symbol of my own queendom. I'll leave you with my perfume on your shirt on your own empty bedpost and I'll curl up with myself tonight, because I'm the greatest love I'll ever know.

.Postcards From Paris.

I want a postcard from Paris

and fingers perpetually stained with ink.

I want to wear my hair wild every day

with horse's hair braided in

and lipstick on bare skin.

I want peaty black tea every morning

and pink toenails hidden

in hand-knitted socks

and to make oatmeal and milk messes

with a blue-eyed little boy.

I want to believe in second chances.

I want to believe in romance.

I want your calloused hands and quiet soul

because I'm loud enough for the whole

world.

I want to ride bareback on a big sorrel horse.

I want an old claw-foot bathtub.

I want a Navajo rug.

I want a postcard from Paris.

.Baptized in the Bathwater.

Can this water get any hotter?

No, really. 

I think the only way I'd be satisfied is if it were hot enough to boil the flesh off my bones. Still, every inch of my skin is already pink and stinging. I imagine myself like an old wool sweater: worn and tired, stretched and stained, fragile and frayed. I submerge myself, let the water do its work. Soak into my fibers, clean them, shrink them. Rinse away the days past. Wring me out, reshape me. When I'm dry, I'm good as new. There isn't much that can't be swept down the drain at the end of the day. My darling, that is a blessing. 

The fight has not gone out of me, no...but it saves its strength for that which is truly worth fighting for. I sleep soundly under heavy blankets stitched with truth and love and real dedication. My dreams are sweeter than ever before. If you stand for nothing, you'll fall for anything...dear, I am done falling. 

But when I'm too tired to stand, I'll rest my aching bones and brain in the steamy water, and say a tiny prayer for each lavender-scented bubble that tickles my heated skin. I'm baptized anew each night in the bathwater, and I rise up with a clean heart, in better shape than when I started.

.Until Next Year.

I don't do resolutions...I can only do right here and right now. So here's a little snapshot of how I'm heading into 2015. Catch ya on the flipside, loves!

.Now and Then.

Now and then, I kick myself for being such an open book. Times like now, when I feel like a crumpled up piece of paper that somebody threw at the trash can. When the mad is gone and nothing but the raw hurt is left, I wish I was better at putting up a tougher shield.

But I am not. So I'll take the hurt. I'll let it throb in my guts and rise up like bile in my throat. I'll put it down into words like I always do, little as they may mean to anyone else. I'll let myself feel lost. I'll pull the blankets around me tight as if they could stop the cold that comes from the inside. I'll thank God for the fucking flu that means pretty soon I'll be knocked out on NyQuil instead of awake and praying for the phone to ring.

And maybe it's the fever talking, but I'll hold out the tiniest of tiny hopes that this isn't really another ending. The hopeful heart gets broken more than it gets held, but also gets another chance now and then.