Music fades away in a relationship between soul mates

Music fades away in a relationship between soul mates

Life & Living, Love & Relationships
I wrote the lyrics to The Music Fades Away on September 14, 2001 – three days after the 9/11 attacks. Having lived in the New York Metro Area at the time – having seen the buildings under siege first hand – was an insane reality for me. To be that close to one of the worst terrorist attacks on our country was truly incomprehensible.  When all was said and done, thousands of lives had been lost. Thousands of husbands and wives would not be coming home to their loved ones – a thought which hit me hard having just been married myself in May of that year. As a writer, it’s always interesting for me to go back through dozens of journals, spiral-bound notebooks and even countless pieces of scrap…
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Tea drinker – stop hurrying and enjoy a cup with someone you love

Tea drinker – stop hurrying and enjoy a cup with someone you love

Love & Relationships
While I love my morning cup of coffee, throughout the day I’m a tea drinker (the non-caffeinated variety so I’m not bouncing off the walls while I’m trying to work). I’m not sure when I got into the practice, but it reminds me of my beloved grandmother. She was a devoted tea drinker – consuming countless cups of the caffeinated brew on any given day – all daintily prepared in her white, bone-china tea pot. Maybe it was all that tea which helped her live to be 93 years old. Who knows, right? Maybe my grandmother and I have some English breeding somewhere in our genealogy. We both love tea (and those little tea biscuits you always see people on Downton Abbey munching on). As I sit here writing this…
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Caregiver angels exist at Christmas and all year long

Caregiver angels exist at Christmas and all year long

Generosity & Kindness, Love & Relationships
“Caregiving often calls us to lean into love we didn't know possible.” - Tia Walker, The Inspired Caregiver: Finding Joy While Caring for Those You Love Over the last few days, I’ve been trying to craft a holiday-themed blog post with little success. Regardless of what I came up with, nothing seemed meaningful or poignant enough for the season. That was until I read this quote about being a caregiver. “Being a caregiver is a great honor but it’s also an incredibly stressful, ongoing experience. Still, it’s a privilege to take care of someone, especially someone who took care of you.” – Jim Gaffigan, actor and comedian, on caring for his wife Jeannie during her long road to recovery after suffering a brain tumor. Powerful words from a man who’s known for…
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Unsatisfied feelings should be replaced with moments of happiness

Unsatisfied feelings should be replaced with moments of happiness

Love & Relationships
“Sometimes I think we live in a world where, even when things are good, people always feel unsatisfied with wherever they are, so I think first I just want to enjoy being happy where I am now and not let my ambition take away from being in the moment.” - Jacob Whitesides The more I interact with people, the more I’m beginning to see how unfulfilled and unsatisfied they are. I believe that discontented feelings are part of being human, and therefore, are not always easily controlled from day-to-day or circumstance-to-circumstance. As many of us are already well aware, life can be a challenge – which only perpetuates feelings of being unsatisfied. While I personally can relate in my personal and professional life, something happens every so often which reminds…
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Letting go of the past helps clear the way for your future

Letting go of the past helps clear the way for your future

Love & Relationships
“Holding on is believing that there’s only a past; letting go is knowing that there’s a future.” Daphne Rose Kingma When my wife and I decided to move from New Jersey to Colorado four years ago, I left with a heavy burden. An abundance of unresolved emotions concerning familial relationships we all deem so very important. In short, letting go was almost impossible. This week, we were back in New Jersey (only the second time since we moved) for a short visit with family and friends. I was only back in the Garden State a handful of hours when I found myself yet again plagued by those unresolved emotions and crippled from finalizing an itinerary for the remainder of the day because of them. Pretty pathetic, right? Actually, it’s a…
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