What Danielle's Birthday Says About Her

Your Birthdate: December 28

You have a Type A personality so big it makes other Type A's shrink away in shame. You never shy away from adversity - and you love to tackle impossible problems. Failure is not an option for you, and more than a few people are put off by your ego. You tend to be controlling, and you hate leaving anything up to chance. Your strength: Your bold approach to life Your weakness: You don't accept help Your power color: Bronze Your power symbol: Pyramid Your power month: October

What Does Your Birth Date Mean?

By special request...

Though it's rare these days sometimes I try my hand at more creative pieces. This one is from 2-6-04 and is being posted by special request.

An Open Window on a Winter's Night

Sometimes in the winter one's house seems to become a prison. The dry, dusty heat from the radiators becomes stuffy and suffocating. That is exactly the case on this very night tonight...so, I open my bedroom window. I only open it about 5 inches or so and contrary to my expectations I feel no sudden gush of cold air or icy blast, instead it just sort of feels like my room is letting out a deep breath of air, like a sigh-a sigh of relief. It just feels so good. I can't think of a more imaginative or appropriate word. The thing that strkes me most is the sound. It is still very quiet yet now there is life in what I realize now was more like a stuffy tomb. My room breathes and I breathe. I can hear the air-not wind-just air as it moves and circulates about my room, my body. Just outside my window I can hear the "drip drip" of water dorplets falling from an icicle. It seems too cold for ice to be melting and it gives me a sort of reassurance that Spring is coming-that life is coming. I imagine that below my window the droplets are forming a glossy, icy pool on the snow's surface. I imagine the street light, though at a distance, reflects and dances on the pool bringing it to life. It is not a fantastic bright light but a graceful and gentle one that is the shade of a deep, subdued yellow.

The sounds are so deceptive- it really sounds like an evening after a Spring rain. The air is cool and wet-such a contrast to the usual dry frigidity of winter. My room doesn't even feel cold yet, just cool like an early Spring evening- you'd never guess it's February 6th. In the distance I can hear the constant movement of vehicles on the highway. Traffic sounds steady yet I doubt it's all that busy at this time on a Friday night. The sounds of the cars blend w/ the dripping and breathing and the sound of my pencil. Only the occasional breaking of a big rig in the distance or a slamming of a car door in the nearby parking lot interrupts the serenity of this moment.

Danielle the fatalist?

Do you believe in fatalism? For some reason this concept is one that seems to come up for all of us from time to time and it's making a prominent showing in my life at the moment.

fa·tal·ism n
1. the philosophical doctrine holding that all events are fated to happen and that human beings cannot therefore change their destinies
2. the belief that people are powerless against fate, or the attitude of resignation and passivity that sometimes results from this belief

Lately I find myself asking if fatalism really even exists or is it something we just tell ourselves to make us feel better about a situation we feel is out of our control. As many of you know I recently broke up with my latest boyfriend and we, too, said upon our parting "if it's meant to be, it is meant to be." But is it? If it was going to happen then wouldn't it be something that we made happen? I guess part of me is what you would call a "fate skeptic." Frankly, I just don't see it at least when it comes to relationships where we so often hear these words. Now, I certainly believe there are many factors that are out of our control, but that does not mean that I am going to resign myself to a powerless attitude of passivity allowing life to to just go on as it is so-called "meant to be." No, I'm going to take control. As for the relationship front, I'm going to take control by letting go. As for life in general, I make the decisions of where I want to go and what I want to do and how I handle myself when things take a sharp turn. I mean, God didn't put us on this Earth to have things turn out just as we always want or expect them to. When something "goes wrong" we should not fool ourselves into thinking that this is what is meant to happen and we must therefore live with the result, instead we should see it as an opportunity-an opportunity to take a new path and embrace more of the life that God has given us. As FSD says in his book THE NEAR SIDE OF JORDAN "God's call to us is an invitation into life as it is." And while this sentiment is indeed comforting and sounds a bit fatalistic I must add that "life as it is" is not just what happens that is beyond our control, but how we handle that situation and take control of it for ourselves. This goes for everything from relationships to life in general. The name of the game is to have faith b/c if you do you will never be alone. I know so many people who have lost that faith b/c they have been given a "bad hand" in life. But in the end you will not be judged by how you feel about your situation, but by your actions. Keep faith, take control. That is what you should do instead of leaving it entirely up to fate. I guess I'm not sure where this leaves me on the fatalist front then. I seem to show sentiments leaning towards both sides. I guess that leaves me a "moderate fatalist-fate skeptic" combo of some sort. I mean, I guess if I'm meant to be a fatalist one day, I'll become one right? Lol, just kidding- for now I'm going to stick with my own label above-b/c I can.