Dear You

Dear You,

Hi it's me. I was going through some stuff this morning and found the basket from the first time you ever sent me flowers years ago. I don't attach sentiment to objects but I kept the basket thinking I could use it again because it was sturdy and nice. Seeing it today made me think.

It made me think about the good, the bad, the love, the hurt, the beauty and the ugly.

I started crying, big tears just rolled down my face as memories flooded my mind. I thought about adding the basket to my box of donation things but I couldn't do that. Maybe I am more sentimental than I thought. So I let it sit there not knowing what to do with it. Here this THING was, reminding me of you, bringing to memory things I wanted to keep tucked away.

It even ran through my thoughts to destroy it. Just stomp it and rip it apart like some thing to make my hurt go away but this basket was not the center of my hurt, it was just a THING. The hurt resides in my heart and I can't just destroy the THING and make my hurt stop. The only thing that will make the hurt go away is time.

So I will keep the basket. As I'm writing This letter I have decided that I will use the basket for something positive because when I got the flowers in the basket, it was a kind thing, a good thing.

Everyday for a month I am going to write a little note to myself of something positive that happened that day. I will put the notes in the basket and at the end of the month, I will sit down and read all the little notes from the month and remember that even on my bad days, something good happened.

My first note today will be "I found this basket and put it to a positive use."


Love Always,

Me

Only The Positive People

Today I have my latest rant for you about unsupportive people. I have no place in my life for people who are trying to drag me down. I want positive people in my life and the people who are not, are being CUT!!!

"What got Brandy fired up?", you may ask.

Well, let me tell you!

My ex-husband called to speak with our son.  After they spoke, I chatted with him. I tried to share a few possible work directions I have going on in an attempt to be nice and social for my son's sake. For those of you who don't know me, I've been working from home for the past 3 years in Second Life and online.

As I was telling the ex about these work things he says,"You will do anything to not get a real job!"

A real job?!?! Like working from home is not a real job because I define my own schedule and don't have to punch a clock. Even more important to me is that I get to be here for my kids! Self employment isn't for everyone, but it works perfectly in my life.

 I hung up on him.

There have been other people in my life that have only served to drag me down too. I'm over it...those people are no longer welcome in my world. I'm the a supportive friend to people but it is very important that I feel supported by them too. Relationships should be give and take...not give give give till it hurts. The sort of people who never give back are just emotional vampires.

So from now on, only positive relationships for me. I'm not saying my friends have to be happy and cheery all the time, I know people have ups and downs and I will be there to support them. I just expect it to be a two way street. It's time for a spring cleaning! I'm not saying just dump people, but examine the relationship and see if it is one that is really healthy for you.

Having positive people in your life will make your days better. Period.

I have a few amazing supportive people in my life. They add so much richness to my day. Most of all my best friend, Seth. I've said it before but he is always there for me and I will always be there for him. Good and bad ... because that is real friendship.

He wrote this great song about friendship and being there for people.

We Found Love In A Virtual Place

Can you define love?

I can't define it for you, only for me.

I think love is different to everyone. I think there are more kinds of  love than people typically think about. Every little kid is brought up on the Disney idea of love. Every girl is a princess and every guy is heroic and true. They meet, fall in love, face a danger and then live happily ever after. THE END

Wait...not so fast!

That is not everyone's idea of love.

Love can be shared and expressed in so many different ways, such as, the love of a parent and child,  the love you have for a spouse, the love you have for a dear pet. There are other loves too and other sort of relationships. Second Life is a good example of a plethora of different sorts of loves and relationships.

Love is complicated and what you feel for one person is different than you feel for another. In Second Life there are so many different dynamics to consider. Do you separate your SL and real life? Some people do, some don't or varying degrees in between.

Love is not black and white and we can love different people in different ways and for different reasons. There are various types of relationships based on how we love people. I know I have had different types of relationships myself. Friends, lovers, romance, and there are shades of grey in there as well. Sometimes you cannot define what kind of love you have for someone, you just know that you love them and your life is enriched because they are a part of your life.

I think the problem with these unique relationships that people have comes when other people impose their ideas or beliefs on them. Other people bring in the drama, when they message wanting to know what is going on. If it was a close friend, wouldn't you already tell them. So I think if people mind their own business we can have more confidence in our relationships, even if they are not traditional. Who are we to judge someone's definition of a relationship or love if it works for them?

We can find love, companionship, friendship, emotion and more in a virtual place. We just sometimes need to expand our way of thinking.

Finding The RIGHT One In SL or RL

Last night I posted this on Facebook:

A friend and I were talking about the subject of dating tonight and he said to me...

"So you dream big, and won't let yourself be side tracked by anything or anyone that is not going to advance your dream"

My response to that was "I'm very driven and I want to be with someone who wants to be part of my dream"

The more I think about it... the more I am sure that is accurate... if the person we are with is the right person, they will share in our hopes and dreams and help us work towards achieving them!

I felt the need to expand upon this because it really has stirred something inside me... I guess it stirred up some anger. There are always going to be compromises in relationships, where to eat, what movie to watch, what car to purchase, but not your life's dreams and goals!

I work full time in Second Life as my career, therefore, 95% of the time I spend in SL is for work purposes. That being said, I also have wonderful friends in Second Life that I could just not do with out. The friends I speak to the most are the friends I also work with like Seth Regan (known in SL as Mankind Tracer), my best friend, who is my business partner and the musician I manage. Often times we will be talking about work or music and also life, kids, books etc. The friends I don't work with, I just am not able to keep up with as much, but I know most understand that while I may be logged into SL, it is not for recreation and when I have a moment here or there, I do message them or join them at a concert. They also know that they can message me because I have mad multitasking skills and can chat in IM with them while I have 4 or 5 IMs going. Response time might be a little slower but that is just how it is.

For the people who do not understand, I only offer you this.... if I had a tradition job, would you be upset if I couldn't talk often while I was at work?

My Second Life is far from typical and I don't expect everyone to “get it” but I do expect to be respected.

If someone wants to be part of my life in a dating capacity, I want them to be proud of the fact that I am driven and goal oriented. If they do not share my goals, I expect them to be supportive in the very least and understand that this is who I am and what I do. Just as I would be supportive of their career and help them any way possible. We should all expect this because if the person we are dating cannot be supportive or helpful in achieving our goals, who will be????

Sometimes you have to face facts that you and the person you are dating want different things and that is okay. I would rather know early on that the paths chosen for life do not match and be able to be friends than frustrate each other trying to make things work. I know I sure don't need the stress of that in my life.

I know people who are so in a hurry to find love that they lose sight of the fact that they need to find the RIGHT person to love. Love is not a race and you will not die from being alone. Take your time and let the right person find you. Cultivate healthy friendships that can give you companionship. This goes for Second Life and real life. I also, firmly believe that the very best relationships have great friendship as the foundation, so take time to get to know someone and find out if you even want the same things in life.

In Second Life we have the opportunity to meet and interact with people from all over which is great, however, those people also have a chance to hide behind an avatar and put their “best face forward”. It is even more important to get to know someone you are dating very well in SL. I encourage everyone to use voice or even webcam and Google search their name and before you meet in real life spend the money to do a back ground check. You can never be too cautious!

I guess what this all boils down to is, that if the person is the RIGHT person, SL or RL, they will be supportive of your dreams and want to be part of them, not try to derail them. Sometimes dreams and goals will change as you change and that is fine but your significant other should still be supportive and flexible.

Second Life Monogamy

Photo by Lauren Randolph 

A friend and I were sitting around about a year ago and talking about monogamy in Second Life. He came up with the term SLonogamy and then I defined it as : being with only one person at a time in Second Life on a romantic level, despite what your real life marital status is.

Yes, in SL it doesn't always matter what your real life marital status is because SL is viewed separately from real life. Married people come into Second Life a lot of times as an escape from the marriage they are unhappy with. That being said, I am not accepting or condemning this, I am just stating that it is done.

The focus on what I am writing is Second Life Monogamy so we will stick to that topic. I have noticed that in SL, polygamy is far more accepted than in RL. I think that in a place where you can change into a dragon, a mermaid, a pig that walks on hind legs or just about anything imaginable, people are more apt to accept multiple partners. 

I guess I am old fashioned because I believe in monogamy in SL and RL and if your relationship has the potential to move from SL to RL, then why would you not be monogamous in both places. I frequently run into men who are open about their polygamy or just say "I don't want a steady girlfriend" but they still want to be intimate. There are women out there that are the same way but since I am a woman, I can only speak from my perspective.

Ultimately it's each person's choice as to how to live their Second Life. I choose to be monogamous because I think more of myself than to be part of someone's line up. If someone thinks I am great, then they can be with only me. I really feel it is unfair to date many people at once because then you never really give any of them the chance to be "The One". If you do the "weeding out" method of dating several people at once to see who you are compatible with, how will you know if you have different personalities to consider. You can  like qualities from each person and pick apart their faults because tomorrow night you have another choice.

Even if you are upfront with these people you are seeing, don't you think one or more might get attached? What happens when they are online at the same time? I know I don't want to be snuggling in front of a movie and have the guy I'm seeing in IMs with another woman making plans for in a couple hours. During the rare moments that I have quiet time, I would like their full attention. In the end, if it's not a truly polygamist relationship, someone will get hurt.

I often hear the excuse of "I'm still hurting over my ex" so they don't want a relationship. Then DON'T DATE... don't get intimate with a woman until the time you feel you can offer her more than a one night stand or being part of a harem.A good woman, won't want to share and a great woman will walk away knowing they are too good to not be the one and only.

Ok... off my soapbox now... thanks for listening :)

Little Help From Your Friends

Brandy & Seth @ Club Graffiti

I am very fortunate to have some great friends in Second Life. During the past week that I have been dealing with my recent loss, my friends have been so supportive and caring. They have IMed me to see how I am and offer words of encouragement, they have offered to kick "his" butt for me, they have kept me distracted and have been overall wonderful. To all of these friends I want to thank you because with out you I might not have been able to rise above this so quickly. I love you guys!!

I still have my moments of course and unanswered questions but that is natural. I think that I will always have questions because things have been left with no closure but over time those questions will cease to be important.

I want to give a HUGE shout out and thank you to my very best friend, Seth Regan/Mankind Tracer in SL. He was there for me from the moment I found out that the now ex-boyfriend was a fraud. Seth has been so supportive and caring and I really do not know what I would do with out him. Since we became friends over a year and a half ago, Seth has been my rock!

If you are going through a rough patch, I encourage you to reach out to your friends. They can be the best support system you could ask for. Even if you don't live nearby, they can still be there for you to listen or distract or empathize.

Your friends do care about you and your well being. Sometimes opening up to people can be difficult, but in the end it is worth it because your real friends will care and be there for you. They also might have a similar story that you can relate to. The greatest thing about Second Life is the global community that we have and can have friends from all walks of life.

Who Is Your Partner Really?

I'm sitting here staring at the cursor blink, wondering where to start.

If you know me on Facebook, you might have noticed a change in my relationship status from "In A Relationship" to "Single". I would like to thank everyone for their words of support on FB.

This is probably the hardest post I will ever have to write but I need to get it out there. The reason for the change in my relationship status was because I found out that the person who was supposed to be my boyfriend was not all he claimed to be.

He was kind, caring, intelligent, sensitive, manipulative and deceitful. Several days ago I discovered, with the help of friends, that the man I was spending time with, chatting with every day, watching movies with and confiding in, is not what he claimed to be.

I have had friends say "Brandy, you are not a gullible person." Which I believe to be a fair assessment. I am intelligent, well spoken, a professional business woman and well known in the Second Life live music community.

Meeting someone online is always a risk that they will not be what they propose to be. According to http://www.theweddingreport.com one in six couples meet online. So, meeting online is very common place these days.

Second Life is not a dating service but people to meet and pair off in Second Life. We invest real time and emotions into these relationships. I would just like to caution you to make sure you know who you are dating. Use voice or webcam to verify gender and get a real name and do some searching online. A simple Google search can come up with a lot.

If your relationship will never leave the confines of Second Life, you may not feel the need to take as many precautions, but how would you like to find out that the man you were dating for the past however long isn't even male?

In the very least, VOICE VERIFY!!! You can voice verify in a matter of just a couple minutes... is a couple minutes worth peace of mind?

At some point the whole story of my relationship will come out I'm sure and my close friends already know. For now, however, this is the part that I choose to share. If you take nothing else from this post, please just use caution, I was never in danger but the emotional scars are just as painful.

Second Life Movie Night

Have you ever wondered how to keep things going long distance? How can you get your real life kids involved while in Second Life? One way I have discovered is a Family Movie Night in Second Life.

No, I don't have SL kids. While I respect everyone's choice to be what they want in SL, adopting child avatars is just not my thing.

My boyfriend and I have always enjoyed watching movies in Second Life. One night when I was over looking for movies at Lightening Video, my daughter came over to the computer to tell me something and noticed I was at the video store. She was looking at the movies with me and suggested I get Kung Fu Panda 2, mostly because she wanted to watch it. This actually gave us an idea! Family movie night in Second Life.

I bought Kung Fu Panda 2 and a few days later, my boyfriend and I parked our avatars in front of our SL television, put the sound on speaker, cammed into the screen and with my daughter and his child we sat in different states watching a movie together. We commented and laughed in local chat during the movie, I even had movie snacks at my home.

Even though we are about 10 hours drive away from each other, that night we were able to share the experience of watching a movie with our kids. It left me with a warm happy feeling that we found a way to act like a family from so far away.

Open To The Possibilities

I just sat here for the last two hours watching a movie, well, letting a movie play while I thought about things. Particularly, I thought about my relationship with my boyfriend. I've had some lingering questions in my head that I really needed to come to terms with. So with kids in bed, no work I MUST complete and a movie for background noise I was able to just sit and think.

The thing I really came up with is that we need to allow ourselves to be open to the possibilities. I shut my heart away for a long time and just kept potential suitors at a distance. I put my heart behind a wall with armed guards because I was afraid. I was scared to death of being hurt again. After two marriages that didn't work, of course I wasn't ready yet to open up to the idea that someone could love me just as I am. I'm the single mom of 3 kids, I'm 36, struggling financially for various reasons, a bit emotionally scarred and stubborn. I was content for a long time to just love my kids and my work and focus on making a future for my kids and overcoming life's challenges.

What is that expression... we make plans and God laughs. Well, here I was hiding behind my wall and along comes a man. Someone I knew very casually for a long time but never really got to know, till one night we started talking. That conversation lead to another much longer conversation... hours and hours of talking and getting to know each other.After a time, I felt my wall dissolving slowly like when you put sugar in a pot with water and it melts. The armed guards up and left... damn deserters!

I found myself completely falling for this guy. We could talk non stop for hours on end about so many topics. We just clicked. Of course, things were not with out their challenges. We did this back and forth thing for a long time while we were trying to sort it all out. Drove me a bit mad but in the end I gave him one more chance. He didn't disappoint me, he showed up to be my Prince Charming. Things have been great since. I think we have just reached a place where we are able to speak each other's language and I know I cannot imagine my life with out him in it.

I think the biggest part for me was leaving myself open to the possibility that he could be my Prince Charming and giving him that chance. Yes, things started off a bit rough but we got through those bumps in the road. Trust me, several times I tried to rebuild the wall only for him to come around and knock it down again. I'm so pleased with the way things have turned out and he is an amazing man, so kind and loving and creative and yes, flawed, like we all are. However, he thinks my singing isn't horrible (love is deaf I guess), he encourages my endeavors, and he sees my flaws and loves me inclusive of them. I think he is a keeper.

The moral to this story boys and girls, take the time you need to heal, but don't let the scars hold you back. Keep yourself open to the possibilities. I was telling a dear friend earlier tonight, you are perfectly you, and someone will come along and love you for all the things that make you who you are. If the people you are meeting right now do not work out... they are just frogs and sometimes you have to kiss a few frogs to find your Prince!

As for the questions in my head I was thinking about... I am just going to leave them open to the possibilities and see what happens.