Candid Corvid Productions

The difference between what I needed our lives to be and what he was intent on pursuing hit me like an arrow to the heart, shattering my remade identity.

“ERROR…ERROR!

FIREWALL HAS BEEN BREACHED:

PROGRAM TAKEOVER NOW IMMANENT!”

It was hard to read him now from those days they had played as children in open fields: he, a gamboling calf with stars in his eyes, and she as a half-horse human learning to never compromise her integrity.

His keen spirit and mind, the warm-hearted desire for her in his eyes, tantalized her senses in ways that made her forget all propriety and just want to climb onto his strength, and ride him.

Excerpt from Coming Of Age, by Athena Stairs

This is a challenging topic to discuss for me because I am not sure if I can explain it well enough for others to understand where I am coming from.

To be straight forward, I think money and having money is wonderful. However, I will not trade my values and morals to get it.

I have always seen the greater worth behind someone’s giving me a gift, for example, yet frequently received projections of implied or direct shame and/or beratement in my upbringing for desiring anything – after I was led to believe I should.

Talk about mixed messaging!

And, I would witness “spoiled rotten” children being over-indulged and clucked and doted over whike given “everything” – yet, when it came to my turn, I was treated as if I was a beggar and unworthy.

This was my reward for being a good, warm-hearted, polite, and generous kid – and explains a bit behind why social media often shows bad behaviors.

To be popular, “desireable,” or successful has been taught as being given to those who walk all over everyone else in the name of claiming their prize.

No wonder society is barely hinged together and broken famiies and broken trust is all around us.

This backwards messaging caused me to have conflicted feelings about receiving gifts or money from anyone, as there also always seemed be tied to it some sort of heavy onus in expectation.

Worst of all is that I was taught that if I desired anything at all, I was greedy, corrupt, and had ill intentions.

These are not my traits, so why would I want to desire anything that tries to associate me with them?

Listen.

Gift giving should be from the heart – with nothing expected but the hope it will give the receiver happiness of joy’s pleasure, and/or render some comfort to lift their day.

If you have money and wish to spend it on someone, if they are receptive and you come to some sort of mutual agreement, there should be nothiing from society or anyone to stand in the way as long as transactions are of a “proper” nature.

Having lost my own family’s stability to divorce cutting everything apart and leaving me with nothing, I went through the hardship of recovering from homelessness while striving to keep my children’s heads above water so they could continue growing peoperly while having no financial stability.

My efforts are a mixed bag of failures and rare successes against great odds – but, honestly, I and my children should not have had to go through any of it.

At this point, I would be glad for the opportunity to be “lifted” and accepted onto “higher ground.”

I have “put in the efforts” and deserve my reward.

Before now, I had never considered choosing a partner based upon money, wealth, or status. I have always prioritized love over material gains.

However, if I were to remarry and have more children, my partner having financial security will be a requirement.

Money, status, and position are important – but not for reasons social media claims. It’s about what these qualifiers represent.

Financial stability ensures ability to weather liss or hardship’s storms. A good reputation of quality of character and the ability to navigate well in society ensures that a man can provide for his mate and loved ones.

Having these established attributes more ensures that a man who invests in marrying and raising children will be more likely to commit to this life path, take it seriously, and ensure uts prosperity.

Therefore, I am looking for a “Master Plan” – “A Man Who Can” – who will take our love to its limits, and Beyond.

My grandfather, the band leader and humanity proponent, refused to bridge into the coming age.

He grieved over loss of the musical movement days he’d come through, and worried that true performance art values and morals were being corrupted.

Though he would not help me become part of his living legacy, I was held up close to it all, snuggled warm for as long as I could be.

I absorbed nuance of the process of artistic adaptability as his music evolved and movies and musicals filled the big screen and TV.

And as my life suffered patterns of disruption time and again, I learned to instinctively identify patterns of continuity – no longer bound by rules of conformity because these precepts would not welcome me.

My grandfather’s presence was the scent of love, endless cocktail hours, and burned cigarettes left filling his closet of countless professional jackets and outfits.

I still remember the lingering smell of leather shoes after feet recently vacated where I would hide in his closet, and the adoration for each other in my grandparents’ eyes when they would dress up and go out for an evening together

I listened to his piano composing process and wondered why it could not easily transfer on to me when I would sit right there next to him on the bench (I was very, very young, then).

I used to think it was because of the trauma and my being closed off, held away from the world.

But now, as wild magic finally comes forward from me into making new songs all my own, I begin to understand.

What I am meant to be now was not reflected then.

I am meant to be a bridge between generations.