Oxymoron Diaries | Fragile Strength

Oxymoron Diaries | Fragile Strength. This oxymoron phrase has been rolling around in my skull for a few weeks now, but today seems to be the day that it pops on out and enters the real world. I heard this in a song recently, don't remember which one right now, but it reminded me of something I've had written on a piece of paper laying on my desk for years - "I'm strong on the surface, but not all the way through." Truthfully, I think that phrase came from song lyrics, too.

It may seem impossible to be fragile and strong at the same time, but I think a lot of women face that scenario on a daily basis. I know I do. Some days more than others. Men, too, I'm sure.

Think of it this way ... you KNOW you have to get something accomplished that is very important, but you also have a million other commitments and a million other items that need to be accomplished that are very important. Plus you may be the only person around you who has her act together most of the time, but some days after the important stuff is done, you literally fall to pieces. You were strong enough to accomplish your goal, but the second it was done, YOU were done. PERIOD.

Doesn't happen often, but SOMETIMES you just want to take a sabbattical and be responsible for nothing and no one. Some days you want to let the fragile side take over and have someone help YOU, instead of the other way around. That doesn't mean you aren't strong, it just means you're human.

Everybody needs to take a break and rejuvenate. Make sure you do that. I know I need to put a little more PINK in my day planner sometimes. (Anything pink in my planner means it's personal time.) When I start feeling fragile, instead of strong, I know I need to take a step back after I've accomplished that pile of important stuff and take a deep breath, be fragile for a moment, and then go out and kick some more butt.

Yeah, kicking butt gets me over that FRAGILE mood in a nano second. Today I am going to murder some weeds in my garden. I'm gonna kick their butts!

About The Oxymoron Diaries ... new Fiction on Amazon

Abigail Nutter has walked a fine line between the apathetic urge to hang out a welcome sign for blood relatives, in-laws, out-laws, kissing cousins and stray animals or digging in with cold emotion and a quarantine sign, boarding up windows and padlocking doors against intrusion.

The Oxymoron Diaries' Twelve Ounce Poundcake, tells the story of Abigail Nutter,a local writer temporarily forced into multi-generation serfdom, disrupting her daily life in sadly amusing, mildly psychotic ways. As evidenced throughout the telling by random sprinklings of oxymora, she routinely takes her inspiration from everyday life, causing her family to frequently prefer she write her column in invisible ink. From 'plastic glasses' to 'nice and sleazy' and 'cold as hell' to 'safe sex', each chapter is subtitled by a relevant oxymoron, subtly teasing readers with the upcoming possibilities.

Abby's mother, Eve, a control freak, and her editor, Kemper, a sixty-something nymphomaniac and plastic surgery junkie, add to the endless instances of oxymoron humor, but no one more so than Belly, her nearly ninety-nine year old grandmother and self-proclaimed living fossil, who has been dropped on her doorstep for the winter.

Abby's husband, Bryan, who she fondly calls Moh, except when he's in trouble and she calls him Mohby Dick, is dismayed when two months later Abigail suggests their uninvited guest live with them permanently.

Hence ensues many emotional ups and downs, laughter, tears and heartbreak before the Nutter family realizes that with a touch of humor and a sprinkling of unconditional love, they can turn burdens into welcome loads. What surprises them the most is how Belly does not fit into the burden category as much as they anticipated. Broken marriages, broken families, and broken bonds turn out to weigh so much more than a ninety-nine year old sprite of a woman.

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