Tag: love

Winston

By Destiny Wallingford

On March 28, 2019

In Uncategorized

Winston “Winnie” Sheri Wallingford

Our little lady Golden Nugget entered this external existence March 18^th, 2019.

Our hearts are profoundly grateful for the ten days our sweet Winnie held us in her presence; she is a brave, beautiful, warrior-dragon princess.

In the abundance of the morning light, Winston left her physical form, surrounded by her father, mother, & brother. Though Winnie’s earthly body is no longer with us, she remains living through those her organs will save, the many who met her precious strength, & those who learn her story of limitless love.

Winnie is an angel of endless hope, who awakened the depths of our souls just as winter awakens to spring. Winston, we hold space for you. Dad & I are here… as a reminder of your infinite imagination. We vow to feel for you, to hear you, to listen to understand, to hold you, to love you, and pay forward your unconditional love. Winnie girl fly free you wise, selfless giver.

Bittersweet

By Destiny Wallingford

On January 23, 2019

In Uncategorized

Last night seemed surreal.

As I stepped up to the podium to read my words from the piece “Due Date“ in front of a local community of artists, writers, givers, teachers, and fellow human beings, I floated. Months of notice on my work’s inclusion in The 2019 SLCC Community Anthology, Tide, could not prepare me for the half-in-and-half-out-of-my-body-experience. The reading unexpectedly caught me off guard by proving rather difficult. I’ve read and re-read those words many times over. I know them; they are my truth, my heart. I am also somewhat practiced in sharing my truth. So what possibly could be the root of my shakiness?

The moment.

The moment couldn’t be rehearsed or re-read. The moment unlocked parts of sacred emotions stored within me, something I could not anticipate. I could not predict the depths of my truth. Losing a baby is hard. And nothing ever changes it. Not even pregnancy.

Because there I stood, 32 weeks and 1 day along my second pregnancy journey– one year, two weeks, and three days to when I miscarried– where all time encircled me as one. I wandered across a thought revolving the recent Lunar Eclipse and how our bodies parallel the shift with a monumentous karmic purge by means of bodily changes, big emotions, and traumas surfacing in the name of letting go of crowded energies. Peculiar may begin to describe what I felt pregnant, standing among strangers, mourning for a life lost. Guilt’s another good one. Guilty of being pregnant and sad. Sad for the pain endured, not just by me but by all the mommies and daddies out there who’ve felt the same kind of gut-tugging grief. I don’t know one ever moves past it, just through, with a scarlet scar on the other side.

I struggle with the question, “Is this your first?” upon someone taking in my rounded belly.

Today I found the courage to answer authentically, “No it’s not…”

My first angel is somewhere… with yours and hers and his. Our lights of infinite love and compassion. Many people thanked me last night for sharing what I wrote back in July 2018, a time where I believed period bloat overtook me. All along, I was pregnant. These threads of human experiences weave deep.

One Year: A Letter on Love

By Destiny Wallingford

On August 13, 2018

In Uncategorized

One Year.

Nine.

Fifteen.

Newlyweds; yet hardly.

People ask, “How’s the married life?”

The response?

“Perfectly imperfect, just like all the other years of waves we’ve ridden together…”

I am just now grasping how to purely love.

I knew you a lifetime ago. Bleach-blonde hair chatting clever remarks behind me on a hill of a baseball park. One look and I felt up to knowing you for much more than our springtime meet cute.

We’ve learned so much: How to work together professionally on a daily basis;

How to rebound from screw-ups;

How to design, build, and problem solve as a team.

I am your sous chef & creative eye.

You are my head cook & tool man.

Journeyman to apprentice. Lover to best friend who’s slept over too many nights in a row, we’ve discovered we need breaks— “Me time” is healthy & key to us being able to look at each other as much as a working couple does.

I respect you and your win-win approach to living. You exist in a caliber all your own— where you give people your utmost best; where your kindness, integrity, and selflessness inspires me. Many miss it, even some of the closest to you. I see you. I watch your actions as they prove the power of your intent. The callousness you experience, like resistance to good, is a reminder of the Yin to the Yang of all things. Breathe my love, you’ve got this & me by your side.

We’re grasping how to disagree with compassion, understanding nothing binds us or divides us unless we allow. May we continue to progress, bettering ourselves and as such, the pulsing being which is us.

Happy Anniversary, William.

Love,

Your Wife

Love, love, love

By Destiny Wallingford

On December 27, 2016

In Uncategorized

A word which keeps rising up for me is love. Like a strong urge, love meets me and I approach situations, people, and myself with more of it. When I fail to give into the urge and surrender to fear, anger, and a myriad of other emotions, I seem to flounder in my maneuvers. I feel as though love continues to appear as my own personal compass or intent. When I let love guide me, I am grateful for doing so.

As par for the Universal way of things, I stumbled upon an article in an old Costco Connections magazine I was fixin’ on throwing away (fixin’ is Southern lingo for about to). Titled Spring Clean Your Spirit, contributor Wally Amos’ experience struck a chord with me:

“Learn to get out-of-the-way & receive the constant love that is flowing into [your] life.”

Amos goes on to admit he found himself living in greater ease, both personally and professionally, as soon as he consciously decided to get out of his own way and gave up being the “general manager of the universe.” Insert Aha Moment here! Reading Amos’ words I realized I too experience unrest and anxiety when I do not allow love to hold the reins. As a result, challenges only magnify. Like Amos, I too operated under the false premise of needing to control outcomes when really so little is controllable. The route for life living is much deeper than control. The underlying thread is love. When surrendering to the here and now without trying to fix or control, there is space to meet situations with love, charity, faith, and hope. These attitudes allow us to walk the path of true warmth and bliss. Love is Universal. Love holds the power to overcome. Love is kind and empathetic. Love forgives in an understanding of shared humanness.

So when you battle emotions of rage.

When you feel lost among your decision-making.

When you are not sure how to remedy relationships.

Go to love. Make it your default course of action & you’ll find yourself floating in the light of its continuous flow.

Because Love Never Dies

By Destiny Wallingford

On August 30, 2016

In Uncategorized

Just over a month ago I wrote a poem in honor of my Yorkie’s Geburtstag.

The prose ended something like this:

I’ll see you again

When this life is over

There is never an end to love

Last week I lost a person who meant a great deal to me. I loved him perhaps more than anyone I have ever lost. There are so many layers to relationships and it may seem harsh to compare loss to loss. Nevertheless, this is the greatest loss I have yet known. My friend entered my life a decade ago and held a strong presence ever since. I still remember him telling me his college career strategy that afternoon– Fierce. He didn’t like putting things off and preferred to conquer life with haste.

Over the years, my friend saw me at my highest of highs and lowest of lows. He wasn’t afraid to put me in my place because he did so with the utmost care and understanding. Often we laughed together until we couldn’t breathe. He is one person I enjoyed talking Politics with, not because we always agreed. Because we challenged each other. He stood as a confidante with a vast heart. He loved people with soul and tenacity. His imagination was larger than life. My animals adored him, Feline & Yorkie alike. I can still hear his laugh echoing in my head as I feel his blue-eyed smile in my heart. And I miss him insatiably so. I miss the memories over meals we will never again be able to share and the brainstorming of business ventures to come. I miss his quirky humor.

He is thirty years old with a monumental life ahead of him. How could this possibly be real? The Five Stages of Grief step in. I looked them up, not as a way to overcome loss by cleaning up the murky mess into tidy spaces, but in a deep realization of Denial. I am in Denial my friend is gone. The Five Stages of Grief claim Denial helps us to “pace” our grief, and that grace exists in denial as nature’s way of allowing in only as much as we can handle. I saw his burial but I don’t believe he is truly gone. In fact, I believe it less now than before the service. Friends tell me he is always with me, and I am doing my best to hold onto the theory through the immensely heavy grief. Despair lies in grief and I feel it. Desperate, excruciating hurt.

The other Stages are Anger, Bargaining, Depression, and Acceptance. The Stages are not linear, one after the next. Instead, we ebb and flow among them, bombarded by one, then another, and back again. I can attest. Last week I felt Anger rage through me. I experienced myself Bargaining to restore my friend’s life, playing “if-only” along in my mind, making an honest attempt to negotiate my way out of the pain.

As of this moment, I feel Depressed my friend, my family, is no longer in my world and the worlds of many. Unsettled is my soul. I struggle to sleep and wake to loss’ magnitude. I realize Acceptance may merely arrive in the form of experiencing more good moments than bad ones.

I do not wish to be asked questions about my friend’s death. I do not wish to answer inquiries about his services. I do not wish to be asked how I am doing. Last week I did the hardest thing I have ever done in saying goodbye to one of my best friends and greatest relationships of my lifetime. Some moments I live in complete devastation. Other times, I am overcome by the hilarity of fond memories. If I choose to talk, listen. Don’t tell me about how you think you know where I am at, or attempt to relate your parallel stories of having “been there.” Right now I am grieving and I do not wish to be told about your Christmas plans. Last week took the ground out from underneath me. What I considered plan-worthy changed completely.

The only truth I seem to know now: There is never an end to love.

If I only had 24 hours left to live…

By Destiny Wallingford

On April 28, 2015

In Uncategorized

As a facilitator of a life and business-consulting group, I actually prepared this very question for clients to contemplate as part of their curriculum. Looking back at my notes, I am not sure I ever constructed a written response myself. And wow, I am learning so much from what came up! Many matters rose to the surface: At first, I felt like I would go somewhere; experience some grand destination on my bucket list. After I waded through the reactions, I knew this is not the way I would spend my last twenty-four hours. Like internal knowing overrides, I shifted gears…

I’d fly my brother to me instead… To a cabin in the mountains over-looking a serene lake, rather, to join William, my parents, siblings and plus ones, along with our animal kingdom (Abby, Gebur, Bear, Sadie, and Maximus). A meditative walk or hike through the terrain would start the morning. We would wind up cooking a good ‘ole campers’ breakfast – bacon, flapjacks, eggs, hash browns, and fruit – as there is no better breakfast than one made and shared in the mountains. We’d toast to Mimosas and reminisce on memories gone by. We’d laugh and cry and probably debate who remembered what correctly, never really caring for the truth. We would spend the time just as we had in the beginning of it all – simply, lovingly, embracing the now with the family we loved always. As the afternoon turned into evening, we’d evolve our antics into our family knack for charades. We’d play with the animals, and listen to the birds sing as they nested nearby. My brothers would undoubtedly find a snake, suggesting to bring it home as another pet. The gals would protest. The day would be so much fun! We’d take Gebby on a boat ride across the lake. I know I’d definitely go for an evening water ski with whoever wished to partake. Maybe we’d eat dinner, or perhaps just mingle over a cheese, cracker, berry, chocolate, and wine selection, as the men built a fire for all to enjoy. We’d gather around, share stories, cuddle, and smile… I’d wish I could only stay with them all for more than just a little while. I’d proclaim the depths of their meaning to me, each one of them, and their impact individually. I would ask them to live fully, make each moment count. And when they wished to see me, I would tell them to meet back at the cabin in the mountains for I’d be there waiting in the sunshine and in the moonlit trees, in the stars, in the water’s reflection, and the fragrant flowers pollinated by bees…

There are other options, which came to mind about how to live my course of time. I’d write that book. I’d leave a message behind for all the people significant to me. Maybe I’d ask my mom to cook that meal. Or fall asleep in bed next to Gebur and William to end my day. Maybe. Though where I just traveled back from in my mind, the landscape I created feels so sublime, I don’t believe I would change a thing. With one exception: I’ll write that book within me now. I’ll give the message to each person I value each occasion I am with their presence. I’ll let the worries, the fears, and the behaviors which do not serve me go, so I may create more space for the undertakings I felt urged to place into my last day. I’ll choose more wisely. I’ll follow my intuition. I’ll act on my dreams and give unto others. I’ll fill my pages of life with intention, with purpose. So as my last twenty-four hours embrace me day-to-day, I may transition from them naturally, freely, and say, “I Carped the fuck out of that Diem, my life, today!”

Maybe that’s more than one exception. Perhaps it is all the same.

Three Years & Marbles

By Destiny Wallingford

On February 17, 2015

In Uncategorized

Time flows.

Time settles us, and tucks us in.

Over three years have passed since I resided in the Valley — the Salt Lake City of Utah. If you would have asked the three-year-younger-version-of-myself if I shall ever return here to live, my answer would have been, “Hell no.” If you could have heard me when my little family journeyed back through the canyons of Colorado, or on the Interstate system of I-15 in Utah Valley, you would have heard, “Absolutely not. We are not staying here. This is a pit stop.”

And here I am. Utah, I am back.

I traveled many places. Modeled many faces. I have wandered lost, unfocused, enraged. I met many friends — Bostonians, Cheeseheads, Jerseyites, Floridians, Steelmen, D.C.ers, Bosnians, Bulgarians, and plenty of those Buffalo Bill’s fans to go around. I fell in love with humidity as I struggled. I cried. I triumphed. I challenged myself. I grew tall inside my tiny framework. I showed up in my life, everyday, even when fear fumbled through each nerve and joint in my body. I researched. I learned. I studied my head haywire. I laid on my yoga mat under the wave of the palm trees’ tropical breeze and watched my Yorkie’s hair flutter in tranquility. I sat in stillness. I regained Faith. I learned I never really knew the depth of love and its actions. I discovered I am a people-person. I am a teacher who loves the water.. who loves to swim… who loves grains of sand but prefers a beach with crashing waves, rock, and seashells.

Like Pan, I found my marbles, and when I did, my voice flew, my passion as a writer renewed. With my marbles I stumbled upon the world: It is a stunning setting of diversity, and when I walked outside into it, I saw myself accepted as I am, no change required. Me. Pure and simply complex, me.

Finally, I digested my beauty, my uniqueness.

I experienced tragedy. I felt pain thousands of miles away. Time over time, life threw me into the wringer and I came out stronger. I exited better than I entered, through Faith, through patience, and through acceptance… through knowing what truly matters most.

I acquired a crush on fine-tuned Public Transit, while recalling my affection for art and its museums. I came to know Cancer as so limited; it cannot invade the soul or conquer the spirit. I experienced what it feels like for another’s trust to rip away, and on the other side of the sword, the pain of my trust in another being singed. I became timely. I evolved. And then I swallowed this lesson: YOU CANNOT TAKE ONE THING, ANY ONE THING, WITH YOU WHEN YOU DIE. So I discerned, even more fully, to not place energy on thingamabobs, thingamajigs, or whatchamacallits.

Live light, travel light, spread the light, be the light.

Chance showed her face and I accepted her invitation to take risks. The risks taught me actions do not always end up as envisioned; they unravel exactly as intended, for learning, for growing. Though of course, if you’d like a sofa in your living room, envision a sofa in your living room and you can attract it. You are capable. The world is your canvas to create — expanding on one of the invaluable morals I journeyed back to Utah with: The world in my home.

And so it is with this lesson, which has settled in my bones — the world in my home — that I own with certainty, I must be here now. Not forever… now. A pit stop. A perfectly imperfect pit stop. I was destined to follow my way home. I must let go of the attachment to the belief that I would never move back and let it be as it is. Being in the here and now is beautiful. I see clouds puppet their shadows across the mountain ranges. I witness sunsets of violet and rose. The birds who are my neighbors, sing to me each day. I do not know all. Yet as I continue to bend with time, the teacher within will show me the path onward…

…perhaps to a beach with crashing waves, rock, and seashells, where one may play with her marbles…

Powered by WordPress & Theme by Anders Norén