Always On My Mind

Papa Gene with an OU football...no surprise there :)

On January 30, 2013 the best man I know passed away. He was kind, thoughtful, funny and completely selfless. He had the best heart known to man and loved more than any other person I have ever met. The person to whom I am referring is my grandpa. Papa Gene had the biggest heart, so it is almost ironic to me that his heart is what caused him to no longer be with us. In all honesty I truly believed he had a whole lot of years left in him, but I suppose God knows better than I. I say this so that those of you out there who have grandparents that you love, but you do not spend as much time with as you should, do not take them for granted. When you decide that you want to go spend time with them, they may not be around.

I wrote my Papa Gene’s obituary for the funeral home’s Web site and used it (with a witty twist that I know he would have appreciated) for the funeral program, so that is not what I desire to do with this post. Instead I would prefer to spend this time to tell you all some of the things that I wish had have been said during his service. I want to give you all some insight into who it was that my Papa Gene was and why he was so important to me. This is more or less a tribute to him and maybe a great way for me to grieve. Whatever the reason, be it therapeutic or otherwise, you should continue to read this.

Growing up I thought I was the luckiest girl in the world because I had a grandpa who was funny. Not just funny to me, but apparently funny to all. He was random and would just say things completely out of the blue, such as, “Oh God, why did you make me so sexy”. He loved sports and took me to my very first OU women’s basketball game when I was around 6 years-old. He also loved food. That man could tell you about all of the best places to eat, what was good there and how much it cost. He seriously could talk to you about food and/or sports all day. So basically as long as your home carried ESPN and the Food Network you were good to go in his book.

Papa Gene also loved to watch old TV shows and movies. I would come home and he would be watching the Gene Autry show and laughing his adorable little laugh and then talking about how ridiculous one of the characters on the show was. He was a huge Elvis fan (was born on the exact same day even). I tried to convince my little brother Josh that our grandpa was Elvis and that he decided he no longer wanted to live that life so he chose to fake his death and have a life of normalcy. This was actually not a hard story for one to believe because I had “facts” to back my case. Papa Gene had side burns, an old Cadillac and was really excited about the brand new leather jacket that he had recently gotten. I don’t know if Josh really believed me or not, but I bet there was at least a few moments of pondering on his side.

My Papa was not just an old school kind of man; he was pretty down with the times too. My senior year of high school I lived at my grandparents’ house and would watch “Desperate Housewives”, not for the amazing plot line and epic character development (hahaha), but simply because he thought Eva Longoria was hot. He also liked watching “Two in a Half Men” even though my Grandma Dorma found it highly inappropriate. Poppy enjoyed old Brat Pack movies because he thought that Mollie Ringwald was adorable and he would always watch romantic comedies with me, which he always referred to as, “little teeny bopper movies”.

The best dates I have ever had in my life were with my Papa Gene. We use to go to the dollar movie, just he and I (the real theater every once in a while….side note to this…the theater closest to my grandparents’ home is called Starworld 20 Dickinson Theatre’s, in my family we simply refer to it as “The Dick”, if this is any indication for you about how serious we all are…hahaha!). We would always go see some silly little comedy and he would complain about how stupid the movie was when we would get home, but the whole time we were at the movie he would laugh and laugh. We almost always went out to eat before or after and more often than not would stop at Braum’s (Bram’s, according to Poppy) for ice cream that I was not supposed to tell Grandma Dorma about…LOL.

My Papa Gene was my date to my senior Football formal and escorted me senior night out on the football field. I was an athletic trainer in high school and no matter how hot or cold, so long as it was a home game Poppy was always there. I also did a whole lot of plays and pageants in high school, which he was not as good about attending, but he would always let me perform my competitive pieces for him before I would go to a drama contest. He was always good to ask me not just about myself, but about those who mattered to me to, because you know when you’re a “teeny bopper” your friends are the most important things to you in the world. He would even ask me about my pets because he knew they were important to me too!

When Papa got sick and went to the hospital he never complained. In fact he would always talk about how he was fine. He was ready to go home and he wanted to eat food that was not “crappy”. I went up there to see him a lot, but wish I would have gone more. We watched a lot of news and a WHOLE lot of Sportscenter. He talked to me about my Thunder team, even though he could have cared less because the basketball games on that he cared to discuss was the OU women’s team, which we talked about too. When it was just he and I at the hospital we would watch Charlie Sheen’s new show because it was, “kind of naughty”.  Truly this is where my grandpa was the best. One on one’s.

The day I received the phone call that he had not made it through the night was a hard one, for I knew my life would never ever be the same. There would now always be something missing. Not everyone knows this, but losing my Papa Gene was as much like losing a parent as some may experience. My biological father has chosen to be fairly absent in the last few years and pops in and out when it is convenient for him, but my Poppy , he on the other hand has been a consistent. He was not always great about verbalizing how it was that he felt (because in all honesty, he probably could not have gotten a word in edge-wise), but I don’t doubt at all that he loved me.

Like many girly girls, growing up I have thought about my wedding, but probably not to the extent that some have. I have no idea who the groom will be (crossing my fingers for Zac Efron), what kind of dress I’ll wear, what the color scheme will be etc… however, the one thing that I have always wanted is for my Papa Gene to be the person to officiate the ceremony. See my Papa Gene was a retired pastor, so he would not even have to be ordained online…he was legitimately legit…lol. Now I know this is something that will never happen for me and that makes me super sad because he will be missing on that day.

I should have made a point to go see him more since I have moved back closer to him, but I did not. As mentioned before, Papa Gene had a bit of a sweet tooth and Village Inn has free pie on Wednesdays. I had talked about taking him to get a free piece of pie and he said he would go. We planned it a few times and had to reschedule because of me. We never went and got that pie. It seems stupid, but brings me to tears whenever I think about it. It was not about the pie; it was about the time we would have spent together. I say this so that any of you reading this will think about these things and go get that piece of pie with your person before they are not around to have pie with.

Love Always,

Cassandra B.

"The Other C.B."

New Year...New Me

I am not one for New Years Resolutions, as I am a firm believer that when we set these kind of goals we are simply setting ourselves up for failure. How many people do you know that have these resolutions and they truly believe that this year will be different. They talk it up all the way up until January 1 and then slowly as time progresses these changes never really happen. Why do we do this to ourselves over and over again.

I for one think that we should always try to be better than the person we were yesterday. Self improvement is important and should not be a thing that we set aside until the first of the year. If that is what we are going to do then I guess it's alright for us to go ahead and wait another 365 days to set any new goals for ourselves from today on. Does that make any sense at all? No matter what day or month of the year I think we need to self assess and see what it is that we can do to make ourselves better people.

Me, Autumn and Mike...it's a small world after all :)

I also think the best thing to do is to take baby steps. By doing this we are not setting ourselves up for failure, instead we may actually see some results. An example is instead of saying that by January 1, 2014 I want to be 100 pounds lighter, set a goal that does not sound so insane. Say that each week your goal is to lose 1 pound. At the end of seven days if you have reached this goal then you can be proud of yourself. By being proud you will continue on the right path as opposed to a self destructive one where you just beat yourself up and admit defeat. There are approximatley 52 weeks in a year so if you do this, then you will have lost 52 pounds by the following January. No that's not 100, but hey look at you...you are now 52 pounds lighter and proud that you reached a goal. That's not too shabby to me.

My goals are simple...I'm not making any new years resolutions. The words actually have a negative connotation to me. Instead I would like to say my daily goal for self improvement would be some of the following: be more positive, more assertive, more forgiving, more appreciative of what I have and not focusing so much on what I do not, telling the people in my life how much they mean to me and expressing that to them so they know. I want to stop assuming that I know what people think...I don't. I want to become more self-accepting. I want to be a kinder, nicer person. I want to focus on forgiving those who have done me wrong or disapointed me, and when I say forgive them, I mean really find it in my heart to forgive them. I want to accept that sometimes (often times) I do wrong or make mistakes and sometimes there is no way to go back and fix these things.

I want to strive to be the best person I can be and the best way to do this is to take a look at me on the inside and be honest with myself about where improvements need to be made. By doing this I believe at the end of every day I will start to become the person I was inteded to be. This is not something I hope to see results in the next year, but hopefully every single day. This is not my "resolution", but instead a promise to myself and how shitty would I feel if I broke a promise to me...lol.

I feel like for the most part I'm a fairly honest person and I will be the firs to tell you that I make mistakes and wrong choices every single day. The worst thing I think I could do would be to be dishonest to myself. Hell, the first step is admitting you have a problem, then you can grow. I hope to learn from my mistakes and grow from them, not repeat them. So I challenge you all to do the same thing and do a self-assessment of yourself. Step 1- cut a hole in the box...oops, wrong step 1...haha...just kidding, but seriously...Step 1- be honest with yourself, what could you do this week to make you a better person? Write down a few things and try them out this week. As you do cross them off your list and by next Sunday look at that list and see how much you've already done. Baby steps! You should be proud because it's the little things in life...and those little things add up.

I hope this wasn't too preachy for you today, but I thought it was worth saying and what was on my heart to talk about today. I hope you all have a very Happy New Year! Be positive and realistic...you never know what awaits you in the future! This reminds me of my goal for today...and that is to not be a Debbie Downer for 24 hours...so far...so good ;)

Love Always,

Cassandra B.

"The Other C.B."

Case of the not so EX

I don't know that this is normal or not, but for me it has in fact been the consistent. I haven't had a long term boyfriend in years, but I have had long-term relationships. I mean some would argue that even without the titles, these men in my life have been somewhat of an important factor in making me the woman that I am today, the same way any relationship would. The problem with the lack of titles is that people do not understand why it is that one would get upset when finding out that this person has moved on, gotten married, expecting a child, etc...

The fact is, just because these men were not my boyfriends, that does not mean that I cared for them any less than I would have had they have been a title. In fact I would say that most of my best relationships had no need for a title. The one that had the biggest title actually meant the least, so this goes back to Shakespeare and his whole, "what's in a name" issue. The question I am posing today is this: Do you think it is possible to have an ex that was never a boyfriend?

Perfect example. There was a guy I was friends with. We never actually became boyfriend and girlfriend because the timing was never right, we didn't want to mess with our friendship, blah, blah, blah...there were a thousand different excuses. Regardless, I still loved him because he was my friend. I entertained the idea of loving him in a different way and did not realize that I actually did until I found out that he was getting married. If he was just my friend and I didn't think of him in any other kind of way, then why couldn't I just be happy for him? Instead, I moped around for a few days and then decided that I would just have to be happy for him and that the possibility of he and I was just never going to happen. I was so good at this that I actually had myself convinced that I was happy for him, so long as he was happy. That was until I got the phone call.

After five years of our first attempt at whatever that was, and four years of his now failed marriage, the two of us started talking again. This time I thought, "maybe this is it"! Obviously timing was a concern again, as I did not want to be the "rebound" girl, but he was one of the most amazing men I had ever met and I already loved him as a person and knew that in my heart he was someone that I would want to have a family with and grow old with. He was the only person that I had ever considered this to be an option with. I did not tell him this, but in my head I believed that there was a reason that after all this time he and I were supposed to be together and that this was all part of God's plan. I promise after all was said and done, this was not God's plan, but instead I suppose a lesson to be learned.

He ended up breaking my heart in a way that I cannot even begin to explain. I thought he was sincere in all things that he had said because he wasn't just, "some guy" he was my friend and we respected each other. I had known him since I was 16, so it wasn't something new. I had always pictured my husband being my best friend, so to me this was perfect. But obviously not perfect for him. I loved him, that I can't deny, but how could he have broken my heart if he was never my boyfriend? People didn't understand and I didn't know how to explain it. To me it made sense. I knew what I was feeling, but nobody else got it.

So I did the typical girl thing, where you go through the different emotions like 50 times a day. I was mad, I was sad. I listened to a lot of Eminem and Alanis Morisette on my mad days and more Toni Braxton, "Unbreak My Heart" kind of music on my sad days. Did I have a right to be this hurt without having ever been his girlfriend? After a few weeks, I finally started to feel like myself again, and it didn't hurt so much everyday. Wasn't this the same thing that all of my friends went through when they had a break-up? Pretty sure it was. So it's like we broke-up without ever having been together. Weird...

In that five year gap of him getting married and me finishing up with school, I met another guy. This had bad written all over it from the beginning, but there was something about him. Truly only God gets this one and at times, even I am confused as to why I felt the way that I did about him, but this too I could not deny. I really LIKED him. I met him right before my 22nd birthday and he's kind of been in my life ever since then. We became friends, but kissy friends. As the years progressed and we saw each other less, I would say we actually developed a real friendship and started to care about one another for more than just flirtatious reasons.

This one had girlfriends off and on throughout our friendship, but our relationship remained fairly consistent  We flirted and would sometimes talk about what it might be like if we were ever to date, but that was it. Nothing more than passive conversation was ever had about us having an actual relationship, you know titles and all. So finally after three years of extreme sexual tension and insane amounts of flirting, I couldn't do it anymore and passive wasn't going to work for me so I just asked, why were we not more than friends and after several minutes of dancing around the question, I decided that I was done because I couldn't do this anymore. But, what couldn't I do anymore? He wasn't my boyfriend...what exactly was I ending? I'm not 100% sure, but I can tell you that when it was done, I felt a void, so obviously something ended.

Skip to now, boy number one is going to have a baby and the night I found out about that I cried. I cried because deep down I guess a part of me still believed that maybe, one day, he and I would have that. Instead, he is going to have that with somebody else. I think it was the finality in it that hurt the most. I do know one thing though, he is going to be an amazing father. Guy number two and I have remained friends and who knows, my BFF Eric swears that somebody (even though he really doesn't want it to happen) that it will, maybe not for long, but it will. I for one have no idea.

These are two prime examples of the relationships, or lack there of that I have had in my life the last, say five years. These are the men of my twenties, so far and where some may argue they weren't real relationships because they were not my boyfriends, I can argue the other side. The feelings, emotions, hurt, etc...all those things that I felt were real so maybe the relationships were too. What do you think?

Love Always,

Cassandra B.

"The Other C.B."

Sex & the City-ish!

Today allow me to go ahead and introduce myself. I think it's the polite thing to do. Here's a little background info about me! I am 25, with a Master's degree in journalism from the Gaylord College of Journalism and Mass Communication at the University of Oklahoma (Boomer Sooner!). I also have a bachelor's degree from Northeastern State University in mass communication, with an emphasis in broadcast journalism and a minor in communication studies. So what all does that say about me? Basically, that I love to write and talk...hahaha!

I graduated a little over a year ago, and like most American's in this economic drought, it was not until recently that I was able to find a "real" job. And as you also may have guessed it, it is not in my field of study. I do enjoy the job and can pull things that I learned in school to help me with it, but I'm not anchoring for a news station, writing for a newspaper, or really any closer to becoming the next Chelsea Handler or female version of Ryan Seacrest. With that said, I am very greatful to have been hired and that it is somewhere I am happy at. What can I say, the Lord works in mysterious ways.

Why tell you all of this? It's simple really, I want you to understand why I am posting this blog and what it is all about! I miss being a journalist, it's who I am! Our whole lives we think about, "what am I going to be when I grow up?". My list is numerous, I was going to be an actress, a pop-sensation, a performer, a TV show host. No matter what it was it had to do with something in the realm of entertainment. I love pop culture, and my best friend Eric will be the first to tell you, when it comes to news, I can tell one everything there is to know about "fake news" and here lately (in a long long time), nothing that's going on in the real world (really sad for a journalism major, I know...I know!), but hey give me some credit. I am simply trying to be honest.

Palin & Bradshaw (get why I call her that now? Haha).

So the idea of this blog came to me about a month ago, but due to the start of a new career and trying to move, it has been put on hold...until now! My friend Tarina and I have nicknames for one another. I call her Palin (I'll post a pic and you can clearly see why) and she calls me  Bradshaw. That one may be less clear to some.

She calls me this because, I use to write a column for my college paper, The Northeastern. It was one of my favorite things to do. I also love anything that sparkles. I love shoes, writing, purses and I am all that is feminine! I believe one should embrace being a woman because it is a wonderful/beautiful thing. So in a nut-shell she calls me Bradshaw  because even though my life is not nearly as eventful as that of the fictional character from HBO's hit sitcom, there are in fact some similarities.

While planning for Palin's bridal shower/bachelorette party, that was of course Sex & the City themed. I was posting on her Facebook wall something about it and it occured to me that Carrie Bradshaw and myself, both have the exact same initials. So I thought to myself, how can I make this applicable to my life? Naturally I came to the conclusion to write. Just like the ficticious columnist in the show.

I do not pretend that I am the fashionista that is Miss SJP, or that I could even begin to pull off some of the things that she does, but I can appreciate and love some things about her. This is my passion and one that I hope not to lose, so even though I am not getting paid to do this, nor am I building up my employment resume', I am doing what I love. I hope that you will follow me as I continue to write about whatever it is that moves me throughout the days, weeks, months and maybe even years of my life.

This blog or column is my new "fun for me" project and one that hope someone will find, read and love as much as I do. That is it for now, but I promise there are new and exciting things to come. Keep looking and I'll keep posting!

                                                                                                            Love Always,

Cassandra B.

"The Other C.B."