Midnight Playground is Available for ordering or downloading!!!

Archway: http://bookstore.archwaypublishing.com/Products/SKU-001038918/Midnight-Playground.aspx

Amazon: https://www.amazon.com/Midnight-Playground-Simone-M-Richards/dp/1480836672/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1478548467&sr=8-1&keywords=%09Midnight+Playground

Barnes & Noble: http://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/midnight-playground-simone-m-richards/1125041350?ean=9781480836679

BookFinder4u (shows all current online links):http://www.bookfinder4u.com/IsbnSearch.aspx?isbn=1480836672&mode=direct

Here it is... my debut novel! Happy reading! 

Virgin, No More.

New blog post at Simonerichards.com

I've been super busy with all the steps regarding publishing Midnight Playground. It's a matter of a few weeks away.

I hope you'll join me over on the new website, read the blog posts there and give me your feedback regarding Midnight Playground.

So long, farewell!

I have believed, and have been proven correct in my belief time and time again,  that most men end up eliminating themselves from consideration or inclusion in my life all by their lonesomes. Some do it in a more spectacularly disastrous manner than others. The last one takes the cake. #hiddenracist, #stupidracistcommentcostmemygirlfriend, and #secretlyrelievedhesgone. Still processing what I'm gonna say to him the next time I have the chance.

I have NO room in my life or soul for hidden or out in the open bigots.

Goodbye.

Don't
Call.

My Journey, His Journey, Your Journey, Our Journey

And I'm not talking about the band Journey although the title of this blog post could easily be on a flyer for any karaoke bar here in St. Louis...

No I'm talking about that path we all march on from birth to death... our journey.

Sometimes it crosses others, sometimes it merges, sometimes it veers right when others go left.  The only consistent part is that you are still on it, on your path.  Only you can walk it, dance it, run it, drive it.  Sometimes we want to keep our journeys merged with other people's because it is more fun, more interesting, we love them or we are afraid to be alone on our own journey.  But what do you do, how do you cope when the paths diverge and you weren't ready yet?  Or you thought you weren't ready?

TRUST.  Yep that little word.  You must surrender to trust in your path. Sure, you can be sad that you won't be walking, dancing or running together anymore.  Please, shed some tears too.  Those are all good and necessary to healing and to seeing your way clearly on your own path again.  Try your best to fight the urge to analyze under a microscope every step you made while on the merged path.  Try your best to not be angry at your fellow sojourner who took the fork in the road which was only evident on his/her map.  If you can allow yourself to trust that you are walking down the path exactly as it is supposed to be, you can look forward to all that you are about to encounter, and you can be grateful for all that you have already walked.  Sometimes your paths will cross again or merge again and then that section of your journey(s) is even better than the first time.  But sometimes they do not ever come into contact again, and you have to trust that that was just how it was meant to be.

I walk mine.  You walk yours.  Sometimes we walk it together.

Until our paths cross again, god speed...

-the Philosopher

True Love - A Practice

I was introduced to the book True Love: A Practice for Awakening the Heart by Thich Nhat Hanh on the website www.brainpickings.org

(In fact, I have been introduced to quite a lot via that website.  If you are interested in expanding your intellectual capacity I highly recommend giving her a visit.)

Anyway, my interest was piqued reading her essay about this book and I rushed to the public library website and promptly reserved me a copy.  I have renewed it twice already.  It's a short book, 104 pages.  Written very simply but worth reading and re-reading.  I think I will end up just buying my own copy.  I can only renew it one more time before I have to return it.  I wanted to share with you my readers an extremely brief synopsis of the four aspects of love as described in the book.  For a much more in depth and beautifully written essay, go to brainpickings and read hers.

Here is my summary...

According to Buddhism, there are four aspects of true love:

1) Maitri meaning loving-kindness or benevolence.  It's the desire AND the ability to bring joy and happiness to the person you love.  "Because even if your intention is to love this person, your love might make him or her suffer."

2) Karuna meaning compassion.  This is the desire AND the ability to ease the pain of another person. 

To bring joy and compassion you must practice "deep-looking" or searching for understanding of your love.  Because when you know and understand his or her aspirations and his or her sufferings, you can bring joy and ease pain.  How often do we actually practice "deep-looking" with the people we love (including our family and friends)?

3) Mudita meaning joy.  "If there is no joy in love, it is not true love.  If you are suffering all the time, if you cry all the time, and if you make the person you love cry, this is not really love -- it is even the opposite.  If there is no joy in your love, you can be sure it is not true love."

and

4) Upeksha meaning equanimity or freedom.  "In true love, you attain freedom.  When you love, you bring freedom to the person you love.  If the opposite is true, it is not true love.  You must love in such a way that the person you love feels free, not only outside but also inside.  'Dear one, do you have enough space in your heart and all around you?'  This is an intelligent question for testing out whether your love is something real."

Hanh goes on to say that to love in the context of buddhism is to be there. To bring your true presence to your loved one, not only your body but your mind too.  He suggests this mantra to say to help you stay truly present, "Dear one, I am really here for you." 

I had several ah-ha moments while reading True Love.  And each time I re-read a passage or paragraph or dwell on a definition, I gain more insight into what was preventing earlier relationships from being true love.  I am definitely more at peace in my current relationship with 007 than earlier ones (especially Mike and my fox).  I am practicing deep-looking and being present.  I am learning what it feels like to love according to Buddha.  It is different, scary at times but there is no suffering like before.  I like that.  I will continue practicing true love and awakening my heart to it.

Thanks for stopping by and I hope you have true love already.  If not, may you find each other and enjoy it for the rest of your days.

"Dear one, I am here for you."
~The Philosopher

Four words

"Get your own water."

"I'm on my way."

The first sentence has scarred me with me many years of pain and confusion and feelings of worthlessness. The second sentence brought tears to my eyes because of all those years of pain and confusion and feeling worthless.

When my ex-husband and I were first dating over 22 years ago, I would ask him to fill my glass of water if he were getting up to go to the kitchen. It was one of those "hey while you're up, would you mind getting me ..." sorts of requests. I didn't think anything of it. I didn't think it was a big deal. A few months in to dating each other, he said to me that he hated when I would ask him for water and that he felt I was taking advantage of him and that I was just being lazy. I never asked him for another glass of water. It hurt when he said that. Had I known then what I know now, I would never have continued dating him nor married him but I didn't. I was young; I was a people pleaser. Those four words "get your own water" became ingrained into my psyche way down deep. The man I loved didn't think I was special enough to bring me water when I asked, so obviously I wasn't special enough to matter to anyone especially other men.

I have been divorced over ten years.  Who would have thought that I would still be feeling the after effects of those four words?

But last night as I sat in 007's car tears welling up in my eyes because I was overwhelmed by his kindness towards me. A simple act that he didn't think twice about almost knocked my core being completely flat.  He came to pick me up, to drive me home after an all-day pub crawl I had been on so I wouldn't have to drive home.  His text "I'm on my way" brought tears to my eyes.

Not only did he drive twenty minutes to get me, he parked & came inside the bar to find me. I was expecting that he would drive up, text me he was outside & I would leave. And I would have been okay with that because that's what I was used to, how a not special-enough person is treated, always feeling that I had been too much of a burden already, I couldn't possibly ask for anything more. I didn't ask him to come get me, my girlfriend made the telephone call. It didn't take much convincing on her part. She asked, explained the situation and he said he was on his way. Why was I so afraid to ask him? Because I was afraid he'd tell me no, to get my own water, reinforcing my belief that I wasn't worthy.

But he didn't. He came. He took care of me because I am special & because he is kind.

I'm moving through new emotional waters here. It's going to be hard to undo 20+ years of negative self-talk, to realize that people (including men) will do nice things for me because they want to & because they like me, not because of what they can get from me in return. I am so grateful, so eternally grateful, that the universe is giving me this gift of growth towards acceptance & healing and that 007 is her chosen tool.

I'm on my way.

Relationship PTSD

Hi. I’m the Minivan Philosopher and I have Relationship PTSD. 

Yep that’s what I wrote.  Relationship PTSD (R-PTSD).  The first step towards healing is admitting it.

 Most people suffer from R-PTSD but they call it ‘baggage’ or ‘issues’ or ‘acting crazy’.  When it is in actuality all of those things wrapped up together that form R-PTSD.  (Appropriately the acronym reads Re-PeaTing Stupid Dynamics.  Lord knows I repeated enough stupid dynamics in my relationships.)

 Why did I coin this term?  What is happening in my life that brought it to the forefront?  Am I in a difficult relationship? No. There is no relationship chaos.  It’s going just fine. And I’ve realized because of the absence of chaos, my baggage, my issues, my R-PTSD tendencies are flaring up and have nowhere to go except to sit right in front of my face making me name them and process through them. I am very uncomfortable.  It’s as if the tendencies or habits want me to give life to them, bring them out of the dark, damp place they’ve been resting since the end of my last relationship so they can assume their rightful and normal place in this new relationship.  This is the first time in my life though that I can see those tendencies with clarity and more insight than ever before.  I don’t want them to intrude upon my happiness or peacefulness.  But I can’t ignore them.  That is more dangerous.   If ignored, they will manifest in different ways and probably be very ugly too.  Nope, I must look each of them in the face as they stir to life and acknowledge where they came from, the hurt that created them and free them of feeling that they must protect me.  I need to forgive.  Forgive those that came before and forgive myself.

It started this way…

What comes next...

I have wanted to write about this for a while now and have been mulling over and over what's the best way to get this across.  I don't know if this is it, but what comes next will surprise you...


it will move you to tears....

it will make you jump with joy

it will make you grow taller and become more handsome...

it will make you lose weight...

it will make, it will make, it will make!!!!

I am completely done with those headlines on Facebook and around the internet.  You know the ones that say things like "this group of middle schoolers were complete brats but what they did next will shock you" or "this group of snotty, bratty, real housewives of _____ were moved to tears by what will surprise you"  or "this poor child who has been suffering from (insert rarest form of cancer you can find) shocks the world by what comes next"...  It's the classic 'selfish soul finds redemption and goodness through the actions of others' type of stuff.  It's the feel-good story of the century.  Every single one.

Yet it all feels so manufactured. So shallow.  Right down to how we are supposed to feel and react to whatever we are reading or watching.  How could all these impromptu, amateur videos etc have such high quality editors right there to capture the moment from several angles?  Is everyone else in the world walking around with a 3-4 camera crew documenting their lives and I'm not?  If so, how are they paying for it? Oh , perhaps ever so subtle product placement?

Thankfully I do not have a camera crew, because who would want me to post daily "I was too tired after work to think about what to cook for dinner but what I did next will surprise you!" Or "watch how the Quik Trip crew quickly gave me my change and made my day while they performed a flash mob dance to my favorite song ever on my unsuspecting, quiet and reserved self."  Oh puh-lease!!!  Enough already. 

Unfortunately for me this catchphrase has become just as irritating as when you notice during someone's speech their excessive use of "ums" and then that's all you hear and then you start making hash marks for every time they say it.  Yes, I am extremely sensitive to it now.  Like nails on a chalkboard sensitive.  So much so, that I consciously try to reduce the amount of time I use Facebook or other social media.  (Exception! When using it to post this link to tell you about this posting...)

Yet I worry for those who are vulnerable to such messages dictating their reactions, their feelings.  I worry that we are manipulating people into not trusting their own feelings and their own guts.  If we don't trust them to make up their own minds about what they read or see, they won't either.  What happens then?  I don't know but what comes next won't surprise me.

Some things I have learned....

Some things I’ve learned:
If you smile pretty, the sales guy at the Auto Zone will put on your new windshield wipers for you at no charge.
There is a big difference between organic chicken and that other stuff in the stores. Organic chicken actually tastes like chicken.
It doesn’t matter if I do one shot of tequila or 12 shots of tequila, I’m gonna throw up.
Children under 6 are brutally honest even when it is not requested.
No one is going to show up on my doorstep with my dream job on a silver platter; I actually have to go out there and get it for myself.
Houses do not clean themselves, no matter how much I twitch my nose back and forth.
I’m not ready to dance with just one man.
Floss.
You can’t orgasm when you’re dead. So you might as well have as many as you can while you are living.
Carrying around guilt and shame that is 20 years old is like burying yourself alive.
When they say to take ibuprofen with food, they really mean it.
I do not have to be unhappy; I can change my circumstances.
Dancing tango is like being hugged for three hours.
No matter where I have traveled, people are the same. We cry, we laugh, we get married, we have families, we dance and we die. Oh and the sun shines everywhere not just here.
Having children does not fundamentally change who I am, they enhance my life.
White wine or red wine, it doesn’t matter, as long as I’m sharing it with a friend.
I cannot live without passion in my life.
Sometimes I have so many thoughts rushing around my head that I just have to get it out on paper. And sometimes, I just want to dance.
Our hearts have an incredible capacity for love and that it really is better to have loved and been loved even if only for a short time than to have never felt it.
Not to give up on hope. Having once lived without it and after reclaiming it, I will never let it go again. It is too precious.

Delicious Ambiguity

I wanted a perfect ending. Now I’ve learned, the hard way, that some poems don’t rhyme, and some stories don’t have a clear beginning, middle and end. Life is about not knowing, having to change, taking the moment and making the best of it, without knowing what’s going to happen next. Delicious Ambiguity. - Gilda Radner

I wanted the perfect ending too. I wanted to have the perfect life. I wanted others to envy my life like I envied theirs. I was jealous of the happiness that seemed to be everywhere but in my soul. So I mimicked. I tried to replicate what I saw others doing. But no matter how I succeeded in following the paint-by-numbers direction, no matter how ‘beautiful’ I made it all appear, I was not having the perfect life nor the perfect ending. The happiness eluded me. And I cried, quietly and softly, inside for years. With every attempt to renovate failing though, my tears got less and less and resignation set in. My heart’s desire to be happy extinguished. No use continuing to try to appear perfect or to strive for that perfect ending I saw everyone else having. Life for me was always going to be gray with the occasional fleeting bursts of sunshine. Because no matter how hard I tried it wasn’t working. Why were others happy and I wasn’t?

My first memory of trying to manufacture or manipulate happiness was back in high school, I successfully stepped in and filled the shoes of a beloved classmate whom everyone loved. She had it all, I thought. She was blonde. Vivacious, outgoing, happy. She made you feel that the moments she spent with you were as valuable to her as it was to you. I wanted to be her. So when she moved, I did all the things that she did. I did the same activities. I even ran the same sport in track. And it worked. At the end of the next year, a boy, whom I had a crush on, commented to me that I reminded him of her. And I was thrilled but also sad because even though I had succeeded in becoming LIKE her. I still was NOT her. And I NEVER would be. I would always be Michelle. I couldn’t ever be anyone different. So I decided that I wanted people to like ME for who I was not for whom I made them think about.

(You might think that was the only lesson I needed to learn about manufacturing happiness. But no, I need multiple lessons before brilliance sets in.)

So for the next 20 years I didn’t try to be anyone but myself. BUT I followed the instructions laid out for me by many previous generations and influences in my life. I tried to amass those things that were necessary to make me happy to give me the perfect life, the perfect ending. Where people could look at my family’s photo and think, “Wow. What a great looking family! They look so happy!” I graduated high school (with grand hopes for my future), went to college on scholarship (still hopeful), got married (cause that’s what you did and everyone else was doing it and they seemed happy), went to graduate school on scholarship (having multiple degrees means you’re smart which if you’re smart, you have to be happy), had one baby (because people who were happy had children), started creating my career path (earning money naturally makes you happy) , bought a house (a mortgage means you are grown up and grown ups are happy), had another baby (mothers with multiple children are, naturally, happier than those with just one), got another job (earning more money had to bring me happiness), bought a bigger house (I had to live on this one particular street because every time I walked on it, everyone there seemed so happy), got a dog (pets are important for happiness, I read it in a magazine.), got laid off (oh wait, what about the money equaling happiness part?), saw less and less of my husband (oh wait, I’m raising two kids basically on my own. I’m still not feeling happy and now I’m getting angry), got another job but on a different career path (I could make everything right again if I were employed; life would have to get easier and happiness would then come), had another baby (another child would be the perfect antidote to the misery that was enveloping my life; the child would make me happy), and I began screaming and raging inside because my ‘perfect life’ was far from it and I didn’t want that ‘perfect life’. Happiness had eluded me at every turn and at every attempt so far. I woke up from my years of resignation and knew there had to be more to life than I was getting. And I was determined to change my path. My perfect ending, my perfect life was not what anyone else could describe or plan out for me. It was inside me the whole time. I had just been afraid of living it. I didn’t know where it was going to take me but I knew that it was going to be perfect… for me.

Walking the Dogs

Why have I spent so many years going around and around this park? I asked myself. Always on the same path. Oh I might change it up and start out going left instead of right but I never really veered from this path. And each time I went for a walk the experience was less and less of a joy and more of a burden. I followed all the others who moved in a circle around the park. All of us moving clockwise or counter-clockwise not thinking about why we are there; we are just doing it. Living in our gray world, walking on the black, marked path. And I hated to take the dogs on a walk with me too. They barked at everyone. They ran back and forth across the path. My shoulders and hands hurt from trying to reel them in and make them walk quietly and peacefully around the park. Not to disrupt the flow of the walkers and runners. My ears rang from the high-pitched bark and my soul hurt from the stares of others who judged me with their questioning looks of “why can’t you keep your dogs quiet?” I hated every moment of those walks. So I began to walk less and less. I left the dogs at home. We just couldn’t conform to the status quo. We couldn’t be ‘good circle walkers’. I couldn’t take the stares anymore. Then the vet said – the dogs NEED exercise. So guilt overtook the shame I felt walking us in the predetermined circle. I laced up my shoes, grabbed the leads, the dogs and took a deep breath.

When the three of us got to the park, I froze. I wouldn't budge. The dogs tugged and tugged on the leads to get moving. But, I didn’t want to walk the circle. I didn’t want to just move around like everyone else anymore. So instead I stepped off the path and extended the lead for the dogs and we trampled through the green space. We investigated the lakes, the underbrush and chased squirrels. We didn’t step on the path once. We went up hills and down trails. The dogs raced back and forth and didn’t bark. They just bounded happily. And then, it hit me. I have spent so many years just going around like everyone else and wondering why I haven’t gotten very far and why it hadn’t been very enjoyable. But I made that one small change to walking the dogs and suddenly the experience was much more enjoyable for all of us (even for those we would not see on the path).

It is time to make each experience mine no matter the form it takes. And when I walk down MY path and follow MY heart, the experience is so much more enjoyable. I'll do it again and again because it is so much fun! Time to take the dogs for a walk!