February 21, 2013 – YA Chit Chat

This week I’m participating in August McLaughlin’s amazing Beauty of a Woman BlogFest tour. I hope you drop in on the site and sign up. I’d love to read your posts. Below is my offering to the tour.

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I met a woman once. On the outside she wasn’t a great beauty. She was what others called ‘attractive’. She sported a square face, almond-shaped blue eyes and hair the color of honey. She wasn’t tall. She wasn’t short, but she had a sense of style.

Her eyes twinkled most of the time, and her hair, even when mused, always looked great. She smiled a lot, loved a lot, and cried a lot when confronting deep heartache or overwhelming joy.

She never became angry when life hammered her with disappointments; instead she turned them into lessons, lessons that strengthened her over the years. Her brain was sharp and quick; her tongue soft and gentle.

She was strong in her moral beliefs and held tight to them, knowing if she sacrificed what was in her soul, she would be untrue to her spirit. However, she never forced others to believe as she did; rather, she simply guided their thoughts to accept, not necessarily approve, another way of thinking.

She was kind, loving, and a wonderful mother. She listened and offered her shoulder to cry on, and words of wisdom when needed. She never passed judgment, allowing her children to grow and become who they needed to be in their own time. And while she may have wished they’d taken different paths in life, she never condemned them for the ones they chose.

She loved openly, honestly, and with every inch of her being. She accepted the good with the bad, the wrongs with the rights, and carried herself with pride and dignity in the face of adversity. Where others would have given up, she held strong and weathered the storms. She never complained of a neglectful husband. There was a time he wasn’t so, and that was who she remembered. There was pain, regret, and heaven knows she had her share of life’s battle wounds, but she spoke of them as old friends, not enemies, and she embraced them openly and with vigor.

She had lost her youth, the elasticity of her skin, yet she still kicked up her heels with the best of them. She was a writer, a storyteller who loved life, and there wasn’t an animal she didn’t adore or a baby she didn’t want to nurture and kiss. She also took time to tap into the child within, to fantasize about dragons, castles and lands in mist and dreams.

She was everything I find beautiful in a woman: strong, confident, kind, loving, warm, tender, smart and funny. Who is she?

My future me. The woman I want to become. The woman I want others to remember me as when I leave this life and travel into the next. It’s a tall order, but I can do it. She’s calling to me. All I need to do is be as brave as she is and follow.

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Please be sure to stop by the other participant’s sites and read what they find beautiful in a woman: