True Freedom

It doesn't matter how old you are, where you live, or anything. There is always someone else telling you what you can and can't do. Don't eat sugar or fats, don't mix plaids, eat your vegetables, drive slower, love your neighbor. that kind of stuff.

No one is really ever in real and total control. Except in their imagination. And for me, the best place to show that freedom, the only place there I am really really in control... a coloring book.

I don't think it matters if you are five or ninty-five. Coloring books are fun. They are relaxing. You can have the final say in things in a coloring book. If you want to make the puppy-dog purple, you can make the puppy dog purple. If you want to make Eeyore look realistic you can. The only thing that limits you in a coloring book is your imagination and your crayons.

I have many coloring books. I have Snoopy, Winnie the Pooh, My little Pony, Richard Scarey, Thomas the Tug Boat, Sleeping Beauty, a very special one I got when we last went to Disney world, even generic ones with cartoony bugs and kittens and puppies and stuff. And I have a special one that has black pages that make your colors really stand out and kind of glow because it's black paper.

No matter how bad a day I am having, or how good a day, I know my coloring books will be there for me. They won't judge me or yell at me. They wait patiently for me to come to them. They welcome me. They are old friends.

They don't care how long it's been since I've picked them up. Be it three months or three minutes, they are there. they hold the imagination and the promise of exciting things. And they dont' care if I color the caterpillar with celtic tattoos or if I make it all green.

I know some people find their relaxation in a drink, or a book, or a bath. But for me, relaxation and freedom are found on a blank page and a box of 64 colors.

~~Written by Jessica with help from Jaisyn.

I just gotta say

Boo and I were talking today and we were dicussing the use of the LJ in a person's life. We had found someone who had posted to their journal that to be part of a community you must post everyday and you must read your friends stuff every day.

My question is why? Why must I post every day in order to be part of a community. Will my community disown me for not posting every day? If they do, I don't think I want to be part of that community.

My community is my family. The family I made. They understand that there are times when I am not feeling social and don't want to talk. They don't judge me if I decide to post twice in once day or only twice in a month.

I don't use my LJ for validation that I exist in someone else's world. I do not sit here with baited breath waiting for a comment to something I posted. If I did... well.. I would hope someone would help me to get a life.

I'm touched when a friend comments about one of my work adventures. Or sympathizes when I talk about a bad day. But I'm not going to disown Woogieman because he hasn't commented on something I've written... or for the fact that he hasn't posted in ages. And I'm not going to only speak to Boo because she posts everyday.

That's just plain petty and infantile.

In my opinion, the point of having an LJ verus a real book form journal, is to share things with people. But if you need to have the validation and confirmation that you are ok by having comments back on stuff taht is written in your LJ... all I can say is...

GET A LIFE

It's unrealistic to expect people to post everyday AND reply to every little thing someone else writes. Hell today is the first day in almost TWO weeks where I have been healthy enough to sit at my home computer and type. Instead of coming home from work and going straight to bed. And if those who read my LJ can't understand that... that's just too bad for them.

And you know what... I know that some of the things that I write don't warrent a comment. I mean... do I care if anyone else cares that I don't like Peaches and Creame Oatmeal. Nope. Am I going to go drown myself in self loathing and misery because no one sympathized with me over the oatmeal comment. Nope.

I got better things to do.

So to those people who say I must post everyday and that I'm no real friend because I don't reply to everything my friends write in their LJ all I can say is... then don't put me on your friends list.