100 Days of Wonder – #21
Maleficent. In dragon form. She’s spectacular. The first time I saw her I just stared. I was actually speechless. The engineering, the steam punk beauty, the heat of her fire breath and the way she utterly and completely commands attention – awesome. Then, in 2016 and 2019, I got to run past her in a backlot on the marathon course and get even closer. Mind blown.
I was looking for a quote and there are loads saying something along the lines of ‘Evil Queens are just Princesses that weren’t rescued’ and that’s just nonsense. Princesses don’t need rescuing! They rescue themselves and they certainly don’t turn evil because Prince Charming didn’t arrive on time. I prefer the idea of villains just being heroes whose stories haven’t been told. That I get. Although I do think some villains in our stories are just villains. I’ve had a few in mine that however I try and position it and re-tell it from their perspective, I can’t see them anywhere near hero like. But I can also see that in their own stories, they’re probably not villains. In fact maybe I am. Because how we think of ourselves and others is shaped by our stories and how we choose to tell them. All we can do is try and tell them with empathy and kindness but also with a firmness that allows us to stay in control of our own narrative. We need to keep the power to tell our stories and allow others to tell theirs. Don’t let your wings be stolen from you!
100 Days of Wonder – #20
In 2023, Kath and I celebrated our 20th anniversary. You can just see our Happily Ever After badges in the photo. We have the cute couple photos from our celebrations too but I really like this one because it sort of captures a sense of fun and silliness and because in many ways it is very us. I can’t really describe why but the photo captures our sense of adventure, our togetherness that doesn’t depend on us physically being in the same time and space constantly and our joint willingness to not take anything, least of all ourselves, too seriously. I can do what I do and be who I am because of her. Once you find your human, anything becomes possible, the rough times are much more survivable, the highs so much sweeter and the mundane, every-day boring stuff of life become the things that you look forward to, crave and seek shelter in. So, not that long ago in a galaxy not that far away we celebrated 20 years of being each other’s biggest fans, of championing each other and of supporting each other in making the world a better place – hopefully at least a little bit for other people but most certainly for each other.
100 Days of Wonder – #19
When I started this series of blog posts I put a number of pictures in a folder to use and each one I downloaded from the cloud had a purpose, a story I wanted to share. I can’t for the life of me remember why I downloaded this one though. It’s one in a series of photos of me and Kath in the Animal Kingdom in January 2023 eating churros and being silly. We were just having fun and got the giggles. Maybe the reason I downloaded the picture is simply because it made me laugh and think about some of those special moments – this one included, when you feel completely at ease, completely comfortable in who you are and so completely in sync with another person that everything feels completely right. So let’s not overthink the story here and just take the opportunity to stop and go back to a moment where everything felt right and enjoy that memory. Here’s to many more of them!
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