Embrace Who You Are

Fire works at Sky Sox baseball game.

I have a release date for book three in my Rock Shop Mystery series. Stone Cold Blooded will be available October 10. To celebrate, I am planning guest appearances on blogs and at author events. Stay tuned for more news!

Embrace who you are. What do I mean? ​We are all self delusional to some degree. 

Example. Years ago, the elevator doors opened to an amazing vision. An elderly lady stood on wobbly spike heels. Her trim hips and legs were encased in leopard-print spandex. An industrial bra hoisted high a bosom that should have long ago succumbed to gravity. Topping it off? Blaze red hair and red eyeglasses sprinkled with sparkly spangles. Oh yes, and plenty of makeup.

Am I being critical when I suggest she might have been self delusional? She probably was still hot stuff in the geriatric set. We should all look that good at 80. Maybe she deserves our praise for strutting her stuff long past her stuff's expiration date.

Okay, how about some less ambiguous examples. The coworker convinced he or she is a genius when you're pretty sure the person couldn't escape a wet paper bag. The dude who thinks he's God's gift to women, while the ladies gag at his approach. The dear family member who belts out tunes for everyone's appreciation, but consistently sings off key. The fixer-upper whose projects routinely self-destruct.

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Chalk Creek Campground, Nathrop Colorado

​Oh so funny, until you catch yourself in a moment of self delusion. One of mine came this summer. Our elder daughter and her family vacationed at Disneyland. The grandkids brought me back a thank you gift for babysitting the cat. 

I was pleased to receive an Eeyore mug, thinking the kids thoughtfully gave me something with a gray donkey emblazoned on the side, like the donkeys in my novels.

No, my daughter explained. The Winnie the Pooh character Eeyore reminded the kids of me. Seriously? The depressed donkey who constantly loses his tail? Whose catch-phrase is "thanks for noticing me"? 

Long hard look in the mirror. Okay, so I do have a doom and gloom, Old Testament prophet outlook most of the time. The Zombie Apocalypse has already arrived, people, and you are so unprepared.

What do I do with that realization? As the title of my blog declares, Embrace Who You Are. I'll just have to roll with the fact that I view the world through gray-tinted glasses. I also find humor in that gloom. My attitude is very much that you can cry or you can laugh, so you might as well find something funny in the bleak situation in which you find yourself.

A large part of who I am is a writer. Life has pulled me away from writing as much as I'd like. Things are settling down now. I am going to embrace the writer part of me and plunge full-force back into creating fiction.

We're all a little self delusional. Have you experienced a moment of self revelation recently?

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