TMI

What constitutes TMI?  In the "information age" that we live in, is there EVER too much information?

I write to you today because I'm the type of person who tells the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth when I share experiences I've had, or situations that I've witnessed.  I don't hold back on the "details" because a story is absolutely dependent on the details, is it not?  If I were to tell you:  "I went to the store yesterday."  that's very straightforward...to the point, right?

But what If I told you that:  "Yesterday, I made an emergency visit to Meijers, the dogs were starving and starting to look like they were about to turn on us.  That a 42lb of Dog Chow was on sale and I had a coupon!  That our refrigerator and cupboards were so bare...that I recently saw a tumbleweed blow through one of them and another contained a cow skull and bones.  An emergency visit became necessary when we used our last roll of "emergency toilet paper" and I just hate it when I have to resort to using a box of tissues to "get by"....

Is the idea of me using tissues as toilet paper TMI?

It is my believe that when you write to please EVERYBODY, you actually don't truly connect on a real level with ANYBODY.

Do you agree or disagree?

I once wrote a blog post about "DOES SIZE MATTER"?

It's a common thing you hear in movies, magazine articles....it's no news flash to hear the expression...

But I wrote about it and was informed that it "offended" some people who read it.

My response to this was, well, I was just saying what was on my mind, I didn't AIM my post at anyone, and I certainly didn't set OUT to offend

but yet I did.

I believe in Freedom of Speech.  I believe in the god given right to speak one's mind, and sometimes say what's on your heart, or your soul.  I think, and this is just me, the true test on what you should write and what you shouldn't, lies in what you hope to accomplish with what you've written.

Did you write to get a laugh?

To console someone's heart?

Did you write it to share your heart in it's rawest form, to connect and relate to your fellow man?

Generally, these three reasons are WHY I write "personal things" as opposed to every post being about my books, or book signings, or whatever is going on with my Author/Writing part of my life.

That is Fiction.  And Fiction is FUN, but I'm not a character in a book, and there's more to me than my imagination and the crazy things I wrote in my novels.  Not saying anyone thinks that, but I just wanted to say that my blog sometimes is a direct line of communication from my heart/soul to whomever might stumble by to have a read.  I am NOT afraid to write things as I see them, and in realistic detail, because THAT is how we connect with others on a REAL level, by being vulnerable enough to tell all the details.  Even the shocking ones, or the very intimate ones.

What's really pressing on my mind today, is something that happened a while back, I got a message on Facebook from a old co-worker/former classmate from school, and she said to me in not these exact words, but something to the effect of "your relationship gives me hope, and that love is really real, and out there."

This of course was like ...WHOA, Really?  I mean, how awesome is that?  I made someone have faith in love.  I gave someone hope that they too, can have a real, honest, connection with another human in a romantic way, unlike anything they ever had before.

How cool is that?

Can I even express to you how humbling that is to have someone say to you?

Now don't get me wrong, Jerimy and I can fight like cat's and dogs, and we've def. had our fair share of spats and miscommunications, and moments of angst...BOY have we!  I've wondered if we were going to make it, in the beginning, my mom and all my friends told me it was a lost cause, to give up and not wait for my relationship to catch up to the level of devotion and utmost importance that I had given it.  But I ignored all of them, and I held out hope....that one day, it would develop and be the wondrous thing I believed with all of my heart that I knew it could be.

And trust me when I tell you, putting yourself out there like that...OMG!  SCARY!

You feel like such an idiot pretty much 98.5% of the time!

If I turned out to be wrong, I'd look like a fool.

If I was wrong, I'd get "I told you so" from everyone I knew.

If I was wrong, my heart would be so devastated.

That was 2009.

This is 2014.

I wasn't wrong.

I never heard "I told you so"

and my heart was devastated a couple of times during my courtship of my Mr. Jerimy...*laughs*

But every scrape of pain my heart endured to win him

has been healed 100x times over in the amount of love that we generated together.

I would like to be able to share my experiences freely, without fear of offense to others...

I would like to be as raw and real with you that I would be with my best friend...whom I can bare my soul to.

Because those whom your bare your soul, share something that I think we were MEANT to experience with others...intimacy.

That's one thing I learned through writing my novels.

that it is a very INTIMATE thing to hold someone's attention.

To tell them a story, and make them FEEL something from what you've written.

I've made people cry.

I've made them laugh, I've creeped them out....which makes ME laugh!

Every person who reads something I've written has shared a moment of their time with me, 

and what is more intimate than knowing that you shared a moment with someone....that they GAVE you their time, their attention, the use of their imagination.

We live in a time when time goes so fast...LIFE flies by at a million miles per second...

so the fact that anyone takes TIME to spend with you, be it reading my blog, or reading my books, or leaving me a message on facebook, or shooting me a text...it took them taking a moment, to think of you, to stop their busy life in its tracks and interact with you.  Interaction is awesome.

So.....

with all of that said...

Is there anything I can't share with you?

If I bare my soul, will you scorn me and say that it was the dreaded

Or are we old friends, with no secrets between us?

is this a safe zone, where anything goes between friends?

And to end this very long blog, I leave you with "Frank the Tank"...Who I feel I relate to so much, he just says what's on his mind, with complete honesty...and no reserve.
I actually really like that about him.

For those of you who can't watch the video, I don't want you to miss out, so here's the transcript from the conversation above:

Therapist: Frank, this is a safe place. A place where we can feel free sharing our feelings. Think of my office as a nest in a tree of trust and understanding. We can say anything here.

Frank: Anything? Well, uh I guess I, deep down, am feeling a little confused. I mean, suddenly, you get married, and you're supposed to be this entirely different guy. I don't feel different. I mean, take yesterday for example. We were out at the Olive Garden for dinner, which was lovely. And, uh, I happen to look over at a certain point during the meal and see a waitress taking an order, and I found myself wondering what color her underpants might be. Her panties. Uh, odds are they are probably basic white, cotton, underpants. But I sort of think, well, maybe they're silk panties, maybe it's a thong. Maybe it's something really cool that I don't even know about. You know, and uh, and I started feeling... what? What, I thought we were in the trust tree in the nest, were we not?