Ashley Needles

For part one please visit:  https://ashrienlives.blogspot.com/2019/08/no-greater-love.html We sat in the hotel room whispering excitedly about what the next day would bring, we discussed the last few months. Alex couldn't wait to spoil Angie rotten. As he talked about make-up-day and trips to seven eleven on payday, I thought about a long-ago lost love I reached out to after Angie disappeared. Lee grew up in the drug world, he went to prison and became a high ranking member of the eighty-eight, a white supremacist group. We'd gotten back in touch a few months prior to Angie's disappearance, but knowing how he felt about child exploitation and his extensive contacts I went to see him in person. Skilled with computers he conducted a search on the dark web looking for Angie. Each day he brought back no results. Each day Lee called his contacts across the country in the drug game looking for a lead. The members of the eighty-eight put out the word on Angie's d...

In my marriage, I grew cold and distant, I was dark emptiness taking up a small space. When the marriage inevitably ended, I was left wondering if I was capable of love at all. Wondering if my coldness led to the death of something great for many people. Since then I've tried a few tepid attempts at love, with each trial showing me new errors. People say, "You just haven't met the right person yet," but that isn't true. Relationships fail not because there is some mystical magical right person out there for each of us but rather because we are human and being human means failing sometimes. (Of course, just because there is no "right one" that doesn't mean there aren't wrong ones. There are after all a few truly terrible people mucking about in the world but these are the exceptions, not the rule.) I am currently a failure at relationships, but with each failure, I learn and grow, and eventually, I will be a fantastic success at one relati...

In today's world, people live three times longer than in the middle ages, not surprisingly this means the average person has three marriages. The average length of a first marriage that ends in divorce is eight years. Two years of that is typically spent in the agony of questioning whether or not to leave. There are those fantastic exceptions, of course, those lifelong romances so many of us aspire to, but is that realistic? Is it healthy? Would it be better if instead of saying "Til death do us part," if we gave more pragmatic and achievable commitments? What if we made monogamously committed partnerships that lasted five or six years at a time with a one year period to decide if we wanted to continue through the next several years with that same person and follow through with the contract? Maybe there is something harshly jaded in this thinking but personally, I love variety. I've dated a plethora of people and found priceless treasures in each and every ...

I've been a victim. I am a victor. The course of my life is determined by who I choose to be each day. I do not let the circumstances of the present or past dictate my future or how I feel about myself. I choose to believe in what is beautiful. I choose to believe the best of the world and those I meet. Greatness comes from seemingly small consistent daily actions. Happiness is a sacred strength of spirit. It requires both a sword and a shield. Happiness is gained through what we give to this world without expectation of return. Happiness is protected by protecting ourselves from those who would destroy it, destroy us, or deny us our power to have it; we must cut them from our lives. We must shield our happiness by focusing on those who do good to us and others. Gratitude sustains internal joy. Entitlement destroys all that is good. Expectations of others are daggers we stab into our hearts. Unconditional acceptance of ourselves in every moment heals...

We create with each thought the life we live. It is far too easy to focus on the betrayals, the slights, and the losses that rip our guts out. I recently talked to someone dead set on the belief he was alone in life and everyone would leave him. His pain shot through my soul leaving fifteen gaping bullet holes. One for each person he lost in a single year. I wanted to take his burning agony and set him free but he clung to it like a tired toddler with a blanket in a tantrum. There was no reasoning with him. He pushed all comfort away with vicious determination. He was blind even to the possibility his thinking was negative. With such a magnitude of loss, it makes sense he would see things in such a harsh light, but freedom, joy, and change lay in questioning the reality with which we are presented. It isn't easy to do that though. In order to survive we've been built to avoid the things which cause us pain, and for him, pain stems from connection, from anchoring hi...

Fight to be happy. In other cultures, this is a common mentality. Yet in the USA I've noticed a strange entitlement as though it is the world that is required to make people happy and not the individual responsibility. From my experience happiness isn't created outside of the self and happiness cannot be bought, nor found, nor given. It is rather a determination of will power to find joy in common things. When I wake up I make myself a promise to be happy no matter what. There are times when this isn't easy. When my sister died, it seemed a little absurd to try and find things to be happy about in the midst of grief but I did discover it was possible. I was happy to know so many people cared. Happy to know she wasn't alone when she passed. Happy her children had the chance to say goodbye. In the average day to day though, it is in the little blessings where I find happiness the most. I love the sound of Messy's nails tapping on the floor as she follows me ...