rus vanwestervelt

Evening. It is 9:38 p.m. He sits alone in his room, frustrated and sad–a misunderstood 11-year-old tired of trying to express his need to overcome the loss, to fill the void left by his father’s sudden death. His mother finds her ways: a boyfriend’s consoling kisses, a demanding job. His sister is always surrounded by [...]

Namaste. It is 9:25 p.m. Please allow me a moment to set aside the philosophic and deeper analysis of my life. Just for a moment, if you please. When The Phantom of the Opera first came out in 1986, I was a little more than obsessed with both the show and the soundtrack. I saw [...]

Good evening…it is 6:37 9:11 10:02 p.m. Tough day, but I’m getting through. I wanted to spend a few minutes “thinking out loud” in tonight’s entry. I’ve been struggling with my writing direction, as you know. So….here we go. Just going to put this out there. Here’s the deal. I love writing. I love my [...]

Good evening. It is 8:11 p.m. The fact that I did not write in my blog yesterday would have been devastating 22 days ago. I would have seen this as a failure to complete anything, and it would have derailed me to, perhaps, abandon this journey. But this is not 22 days ago. Instead, I [...]

Wonderful evening. It is 9:53 p.m. There’s a good chance that I won’t be writing in the morning, as I need to be at school early for a publication upload. I’ll be around later in the day, though. Just a few quick things about the day, and then it’s off to bed. First, I can [...]

Good morning. It is 5:24 a.m. Halfway point is here. But does that even mean anything anymore? When I started this journey 20 days ago, it was all about getting to day 40. In fact, I’ve been asked recently by several people about how challenging it might be to hold on for the final 20 [...]

It is 11:23 a.m. Just found this nugget from Hugh Prather’s 365 Thoughts (excerpted from Nov. 4): A sure way to stay unhappy is to hold tightly to the past that we have painstakingly accumulated. One reason little children are so happy and have such boundless energy is that they have very little past to [...]

(copyright 2010, Rus VanWestervelt, taken at Goucher College, Towson, MD October 2009) Good morning. Blessed Sunday! It is 6:43 a.m. I wanted to share with you part two of yesterday’s post. I’m sorry I didn’t get to it last night, but after coming home from Holland’s meet (she had her best meet of the season [...]

Namaste. It is 5:31 a.m. I know…Saturday morning, and I’m writing earlier than I usually do on a weekday. Holland has a gymnastics competition in Laurel this morning; timed warm-ups begin at 8, so we’ll be on the road by 6:20 a.m. Well, I wouldn’t exactly call yesterday a pivotal day, but I do think [...]

Good morning. It is 5:48 a.m. Last night, I mentioned how glorious Day 16 had been. I wanted to expand a little on that this morning. We had our Lines of Love meeting at Carroll Community College with a room filled with kind and supportive individuals who are excited about raising awareness about mental illness [...]