My Role Model

By Suzie Carr

@girl_novelist

This past weekend, I flew to my hometown and had the pleasure of visiting with my ninety-five year old grandfather. I took him for lunch at his favorite local restaurant where they serve up French Meat Pie and mashed potatoes. This treat delighted him, but not as much as when I asked him to tell me about some of his favorite things in life.

This question created a two hour conversation where my grandfather transformed from a feeble old man to a lively young man telling his tale and reliving those special moments in his life that brought him the most joy. He told me all sorts of interesting facts I never knew about him, and I didn’t know them because I never took the time to ask.

This man lived his whole life stockpiling tons of valuable knowledge and funny memories, the kind of stuff that could fill hundreds of pages of a memoir. His face lit up as he recounted his first sight of an airplane, his first drive in a car, and his first time watching television in color. He spoke fast and animated, anxious to tell me as much as possible in the time we spent together. He laughed and joked about his first date with my grandmother, about their wedding day, about the time his older brother took him fishing, and about the reason he goes by three different names (no one could pronounce is real name, Aurele, so they called him Johnny and Joseph instead).

My grandfather has always been my role model. He is the epitome of a great man, a loving man, a generous and humble man. He believes in hard work and perseverance. He believes in dreams and in laughter. He is genuine and tactful. And most of all, he is a forgiving man who has learned to move forward despite hardships that would crush most people I know. I aspire to live my life as happily and grateful as my grandfather.

My grandfather’s health is failing, but his spirit is not. I do feel blessed that I was given this special moment with him.

Before it’s too late, reach out to those special people in your life. Take them out for coffee and ask them about their life, their dreams, and their favorite memories. They are filled with stories and are just bubbling over with desire to tell them to someone who really wants to hear them.

Hoping you’re equally as blessed,

Suzie

I feel it's critical to support the community, and so I've committed to donate a portion of my book sale proceeds to Chely Wright's LikeMe foundation (http://likeme.org/) to help provide support, resources and education to LGBT individuals, and their families and friends.

The Journey

By Suzie Carr
@girl_novelist

I’ve been quiet on my blog for the past few weeks because I’ve been focused on completing my fourth novel – Inner Secrets. In early January, she’ll be ready to be unleashed onto the world! I’ve been writing this book since March, and have finally relinquished control over the keyboard to my editor (@editor_girl).

The journey has been fun, and as is always the case, has seen me through the twists and turns of everyday life. I always develop a sense of sadness when I complete a book. The characters attach themselves to me, and I find it hard to let go of them. But, I know to continue as a novelist, I must part my ways with them and start fresh meeting a whole new set of characters that’ll sweep me away from reality a few hours every day for the next six to eight months.

I am ready to take a new journey. So, it’s time to switch my mind into brainstorm mode and start on novel number five!

To give you a sense of Inner Secrets, here’s an excerpt from chapter one:

Dear Journal,

Allow me to introduce myself. My name is Hope Steele. I turned twenty-eight yesterday and I’ve got something to confess.

I am gay.

Just seeing these three words scrawled out on my page jolts me. I am charged tossing my truth out and seeing it stand on its own, strong, confident, fearless. I’ve told two people in my life to date, my best friend, PJ, and her girlfriend, Rachel. I’ve lived the better part of my life with this secret, and might just lose it if I have to live another moment hidden. So, here I am, confessing my truth on paper, hoping I can get to know the real me through this journaling.

So what’s the big deal that I’m gay?

Well, you see, I’m married. I’ve been married to my husband Ryan for two years, ten months, four days, ten hours and thirty-one minutes.

It's nice to be back blogging. Drop me a line and tell me what you think of this excerpt if you get a chance!

Wishing you lots of happiness,

Suzie


I feel it's critical to support the community, and so I've committed to donate a portion of my book sale proceeds to Chely Wright's LikeMe foundation (http://likeme.org/) to help provide support, resources and education to LGBT individuals, and their families and friends.

The Destiny of Love

Today is my parent’s forty-ninth wedding anniversary so I feel inspired to write about love. 

When you consider all of the things that must align properly for two people to meet, falling in love is a remarkable miracle.

Is it luck or destiny that helps us find that special person with whom we share our lives? Is it random fortune that causes two people to meet in exactly the right place together at the right time? Or is it divine intervention that brought them to this place?

I have many people in my life who struggle to find that ‘special love’. They search bars, classrooms, corporate settings, and countless other places only to return solo. Defeat looms heavily on their shoulders as though in some way they think it is their fault that a magical spark didn’t happen between them and one of the millions of other people in the world.

Those successful in love will tell you that finding that right person is all about timing. I think about all the great relationships surrounding me. The one thing they all have in common is that they all bloomed from a single, defining moment in time when the two people had a clear path to each other, despite obstacles that stood in their way.

Here’s a clear example: my dad actually met my mom at a dance where he was on a date with her sister! My brother met his bride when on a random military leave for a day in South Carolina. A friend met her girlfriend in a college class that she decided to enroll in at the last minute.  Another friend met her husband when she had engine trouble one day and just happened to beg this mechanic, now her husband, for help. As is the case with all of these first meetings, paths crossed at the right moment in time.

When it comes to finding love, we never know when, where, or how it will come at us. One day we’re lonely, the next we are floating on the wings of love. To me, finding love is a hopeful pursuit. The waiting brims with hope for a bright future. One never knows when she will walk out of her front door and find that special person.

The hopeless romantic in me believes it takes more than chance for two compatible people to find each other in this great, big world. I’d like to think that it is destiny that brings us together with the ones we love.

Wishing you much love in your life,

Suzie
I feel it's critical to support the community, and so I've committed to donate a portion of my book sale proceeds to Chely Wright's LikeMe foundation (http://likeme.org/) to help provide support, resources and education to LGBT individuals, and their families and friends.

Here and Now!

"If you are still talking about what you did yesterday, you haven't done much today.  ~Author Unknown"

Do you ever find yourself reliving the past and planning for the future more than living in the moment? The here and now is such a precious lot of time, yet, many of us tend to ignore it. A while ago, I was fortunate enough to meet a person who was completely aware of the present. She had an aura of happiness around her that was unlike anything I’ve felt before. It was like she radiated with a burst of energy that actually gave me energy back!

Now back then before meeting her, I seriously fretted way too much in worrying about my future and all the what-ifs of a lifetime that wasn’t even guaranteed to me. Caught up in this cycle of looking back on past failures and looking forward worrying about many of the same thoughts that created those failures in the first place, I neglected to enjoy the moment in front of me, the only moment guaranteed.

Wanting to get to her level of joy, I asked her straight up, ‘where exactly is your power source located?’ and she replied rather anecdotally, ‘it’s in the here and now’.  

I remember walking away from that conversation with her vague answer in hand, trying to melt it down to some logical sense.  I suppose I was looking for something more substantial that I could tap into right away. I was seeking a logical solution; one that offered a checklist of steps I could scratch off as I got closer to this ‘energy source’.

But her answer made me think, and through my thinking, I began to focus. In this determined state of mind, I delved into a whole new set of experiences that flirted with my senses. My world suddenly blossomed into sweeter scents, more delicious tastes, prettier views and a more definitive sense of awareness.  I was savoring the present, making the best of my life as it was gifted to me, and have been ever since.

Do you have a method of living presently that you can share? I'd love to hear and learn about it, if so.

Here's a video that has inspired me.

Hoping the same for you!

Suzie

I feel it's critical to support the community, and so I've committed to donate a portion of my book sale proceeds to Chely Wright's LikeMe foundation (http://likeme.org/) to help provide support, resources and education to LGBT individuals, and their families and friends.

Beautiful Days Ahead

Recently a friend of mine ran into some adversity and she turned to me for guidance on how to move forward. I tried earnestly to say something to her that would spring joy back into her life, but was at a total loss for words. What do you say to someone who suffers a break in hope? “Don’t worry. It’ll get better with time?” Most of us have been in that place where we feel humiliated, overwhelmed, and hopeless all in one. This is not one of life's places we want anyone we care about to be.

As deflating as adversity can feel at the moment, I believe it puts us in a place that helps us grow into even better people. Without pain, without agony, without defeat, we have no frame of reference on which to judge greatness when it shines itself onto our life. I am a firm believer that defining moments, like the one my friend was going through, shape our lives just as the powerful storms and angry volcanoes of years past have shaped Earth. Without conflict, we'd have no Grand Canyon, no Mount Everest, no separate continents, and in respect to our singular lives, no respect for ordinary days when all is calm and right. And just as the storm clouds clear and open up to bright blue, sunny skies, so too will this shroud of regret for the past and fear of the future be lifted for my friend.  For everything is temporary.

Wishing all the best days for you,

Suzie

I feel it's critical to support the community, and so I've committed to donate a portion of my book sale proceeds to Chely Wright's LikeMe foundation (http://likeme.org/) to help provide support, resources and education to LGBT individuals, and their families and friends.

A Little Zest Anyone?

In my mind, the greatest teachers of how to experience a zest-filled life aren’t the paid actors on television, or the seasoned columnists, or even the well-educated leaders of the world. Such an esteemed honor goes to the best deservers -- to the children in our lives.

In the inquisitive minds and innocent spirits of children, where inventive ideas emerge and creativity flourishes, there is a great pool of discovery brimming that, on any given creative playground, could overflow with Niagara Falls-like power.

Have you ever sat and listened to children play? I mean, really listened? Not with one ear trying to decipher your best friend’s debate over which latte is better, mocha or white chocolate, and the other cued in a child's make believe parades down the great street of imagination. I mean with full concentration. When you do, you’ll soon discover the experience of belly-tickling laughter and giggling marathons (must-haves for zesty living!)—opening your mind to not just what is apparent, but more importantly, to what is not—the area outside the box of your own reality. 

Study a child’s rendition of artwork and you’ll see what I mean. From the earliest portrayal of self-expression through art, my niece was not limited by the famous color-in-the-lines rule. She would run that crayon against the page in every direction that she wanted, and in the end, she would proudly smile and feel good about her unique work of art. She didn’t worry about what her auntie would think of the countless red and purple strokes filtering outside the bold, restrictive lines. She cared only that the colorful lines were hers. The more stray lines of color, the broader her smile grew.   

Self-expression dictates uniqueness. Making something our own. When we learn to stop worrying about what others will think and instead care more for what we will love, we open our hearts to living a life bubbled over with more expression, more passion, more wonder, and a whole lot of zest. 

Hoping your day is filled with wonder, 

Suzie 

I feel it's critical to support the community, and so I've committed to donate a portion of my book sale proceeds to Chely Wright's LikeMe foundation (http://likeme.org/) to help provide support, resources and education to LGBT individuals, and their families and friends.

Hidden Blessings

By Suzie Carr

@girl_novelist

Breast Cancer Awareness Month has taken on a whole new meaning to me this year, and here’s why…

My thirty-eight-year-old sister just got married this past June to a wonderful man who adores her. They enjoyed a fairytale wedding surrounded by family and friends, and then celebrated their new marriage with a fun-filled cruise to the Caribbean. Life couldn’t have been any happier for them both.

Fast forward three weeks into their new married life, and my sister made the sobering discovery of a lump in her left breast. Panicked, she called her doctor who immediately examined her and sent her for a breast ultrasound and mammogram. She learned that not one, but two lumps had invaded her once healthy breast. So, the doctor performed a biopsy. Unfortunately, she was told she had breast cancer of the milk ducts. Less than a month after marrying her husband, she faced an uncertain future.

Fortunately for my sister, this has a happier ending than some women get. She was told that milk duct cancer isn’t one that is easily discovered on one’s own, and so by the time it is usually discovered, it is a later stage cancer. Thanks to her performing a self-breast exam and discovering the lump, hers was discovered at a very early stage.

This past week, she had a double mastectomy and thanks to modern day medicine will have reconstructive surgery in three months once she’s healed. She is cancer-free and will not have to endure chemotherapy or radiation.

Here’s the real miracle in this story. The lump she felt was not cancerous. It was a benign cyst, as was the other one discovered in the mammogram. If she hadn’t performed a self-breast exam and discovered that lump, her outcome a year or more from now, could’ve been fatal. What she at first viewed as the worst thing that could’ve ever happened to her, soon became her saving grace. Discovering that lump saved her life, and now her two children can continue to enjoy their healthy mom.

Please do yourselves a favor and perform self-breast exams, and encourage the women in your life to do the same. It really does save lives.

I feel it's critical to support the community, and so I've committed to donate a portion of my book sale proceeds to Chely Wright's LikeMe foundation (http://likeme.org/) to help provide support, resources and education to LGBT individuals, and their families and friends.