Wedding Vows

 Tommy,

Take my hand and trust in me, give us a chance and see, that life is so much more, then we ever dreamed it could someday be. 

Take a leap of faith with me, give love and light a chance. Close your eyes, baby, take my hand and let's make this leap again.

This time, when we reach the bottom, we won't wake up alone and in that moment we will see, that with love and faith, together we can go places we have only ever dreamed.

In a place of death and darkness past, I found a love I knew would last.

A love so deep our souls entwined, a bond so strong it withstood the test of time.

Both of us where born to fight and  carry that burning spark of life, not in spite of, but because, we grew up in streets so dark there was no wrong or right. 

Hurt, pain, anger, and lust, a life of struggle, hate, resentment and mistrust. 

We wore the chains of legacy, not knowing we had a voice. We walked the streets of those before not realizing we had a choice.

I was the shadow girl who always stayed apart, filled with darkness and a deeply damaged heart.

You where the boy, filled with noise, so cocky and so sure. You had the most, amazing, eyes, that always held a scheme, it was more then just a little strange that they ever happened to see me.

You always had this one track mind, forever trying to turn pennies and nickels into dimes. Always searching for something you didn't know you'd find.

One bright, fate filled day, I saw you walking down the street and the second that you SAW me, it took my breath away.

I looked deep into your eyes, and saw something you tried to hide, the brightest light and mind, and a beautiful heart buried deep,, down inside.

A look, a smile, a young girlish blush, a note, a feeling, a heady rush.

A kiss, a smile, and holding hands, I can still feel the subtle breeze, and gritty texture of the warm hot sand.

The laughter ringing through the dark, the willow tree and empty park.

Trust in yourself and trust in me, trust in what that incredible feeling that we both felt that night, below the bows, of we the willow tree. 

A sigh, a blush and teenage lust, you asked me for something more then you knew you would. I will never forget that moment you reached out your hand you asked for my heart, my faith and my trust. 

Days turned to nights and nights into days. Both of us slowly changed and opened up in so many different ways.

We formed a love, so deep and strong, our heart beats became one.

With every word, kiss and touch we found a feeling we had never known, we had found happiness we had found our home.

I know it's been 27 years since that life changing night, but I feel for you today what I felt for you then.

Tommy this I vow to you my love. 

From now until forever or until forever ends I will love you through whatever the world throws at us, through whatever challenge, this life sends. 

My love for you will always shine brighter then the sun, the moon or the stars. Tommy, I want you to know that I will love you faithfully, not in spite of, but because of all your scars. 

Maiden, Mother, Crone

The Maiden

I was born into darkness and depravity and fed anger, hate, resentment and bitterness more often then actual fod.

I lived on a diet of darkness and only once ever knew or saw glimpses of the light and a different life as a child. 

The Mother

Until the day life grew inside of me and was taken away. The day I truly became a mother was when I truly began to live. From that moment forward I saw the world differently and I could never go back and never again be the same.

In Motherhood I found all that I had never really known existed in more ways then words ever could have said.

So when I had my daughter I promised her a different life. Something better, something good and something right. 

We grew together she and I and we learnedd about pain, about disappointment, and about life, but we also learned to laugh and to love each other through the darkness, because we knew no matter how dark life got that eventually light would come again. So long as we laughwd and never gave up the fight, so long as we loved our world would always have light. We found healing together 

And learned to not just survive but to love life and thrive. To never give up and to continue the fight.

Next came my son, tinged with darkness and light, born into this world in a the moment between my death and my life. 

An old soul is what my son was, one who had many lifetimes and remembered them, not just this one.

My daughter was my sun and my son was my moon. My life became theirs and theirs became mine. Three souls connected and then came the real fight. To grow and to heal and to walk in the light, to not hate the part of me born in the deepest darkness afraid of the the light. For far to long I erased her, wished she hadn't ever existed at all.. until finally with time came wisdom and something changed me inside.

I spent my life building the world I thought I should want, a world I thought my children would need. I tried to build houses over a foundtion of rott, the walls would all eventually crumble and break and stones turned to just mud and straw.

It wasn't until one late night as I cried all alone by the ocean. As I gazed up at the bright stars and admired their shine. I envied their ability to shine stay so bright, especially in the deep darkness and in a place with no life.

It was then that I remembered something my grandmother, a very wise woman, once said. Baby girl don't fear the darkness any more or less than the light for the deepest of shadows only comes from the brightest of lights. Life is a balance of both not just one, we couldn't exist in this world with no moon and stars, and just always the sun. It takes both light AND darkness for the living to thrive. For only corruption can come from too much of anything at one time, unbalanced darkness oDon't hate the wounds earned in the dark, don't hate the scars that left you marked. For those are your story, all parts of you and no one will ever know their tur with if you hate them, not even you.

The Crone

Now as I enter the longest stretch for a soul, my turn in the phase as a crone. I do it with wisdom, dignity, integrity and pride and I do It with heart and eyes open wide. Rather than cover my scars, I put them on display because they tell my true story of what I lived through and that I survived.

As I enter my time as a crone, I have strength and have seen wonders most will never know. Because I learn d to not just live with but love who I become and then I thought my children how to do exactly the same. 

The secret to happiness isn't something you look for and find it's a choice we have to make deep down inside.

The message my grandmother gave to a child was, at last, received by the crone, many years and thousands of miles from the place she once called home.

Home and happiness can't be found no moaater how far we search, because they aren't a place, but rather a choice that our souls each have to make. 

To love all of who we are both darkness and light and that the only way to truly lose is by giving up on yourself and your life.

Memories are the true treasures and the only things in the end that still matter when we're gone. 

From birth unto death and as each night turns to dawn the love and laughter is all that's left of us in this world when we've gone.

At the Crossroads

 At the Crossroad

We all eventually come to points in our life where we have to make the kinds of decisions that can and will change life as you know it forever. I think that this usually only happens to some people once or twice in a lifetime. For others, like me, it happens over and over again. How do you know which way to go? As those roads intersect, sometimes your choices are clear, and sometimes all directions are unclear. 

I firmly believe in "No Regrets", but also sometimes often wonder how things on a different path might have been. I mean that is only human nature. As these last years have brought with them so much change, I have constantly found my self standing at the cross road trying to decide which way to go. I sometimes stand and review my choices and think them through as much as possible, and at other times I find my self making reckless decisions. Either way I always try to remember that who you are stems from who you where. So I look back and I remember. I remember my life page by page, chapter by chapter and book by book, and I smile. I smile, because I realize that my story is a long one, filled with trials and tribulations, filled with love and hurt, filled with all of the people that have helped write my story. I smile because I realize that I carry with me secrets of life that some people will never know. I smile because I realize that only the people that are unafraid to live life and experience it will find themselves time and time again at the Cross Road. I smile because I know beyond a shadow of a doubt, that only those who can tread on the roads riddled with pain, will ever really understand why it is necessary. I smile, because I know that if you don't take a chance and walk the road less traveled some times, then your life will be filled with the mundane, and that, is a fate I could never stand. So the next time that you find yourself at a cross road remember that although some roads look less traveled and a little harder to walk be brave, stand tall, and know that sometimes the best things in life are achieved through hard work, passion and perseverance.

"Never let your fears stand in the way of your dreams!" 

Love & Luck to you all!!

~MJ SCHWEIKER~