Mandy Ricks

Tag: self care

  • Fear is not always right

    Time arrives uninvited,
    bringing fear and too many questions.
    It feels as if the love in your heart is cracking, splintering.

    But before you crumble,
    look up one more time.

    There are still things reaching for you:
    hope, strength, small impossible moments
    that refuse to die quietly.

    Grab onto them.
    Clutch them like a lifeline.

    Because fear is loud,
    but it is not always right.

    And sometimes love carries us
    through one more night
    than we thought we could survive.

    -Mandy Ricks

    This poem is for my daughter Samantha and her precious cat Pebbles. She has had Pebbles for sixteen years, since she was a child, and sadly today he is very sick.

    We’re all hoping for the best and clutching onto all the love and hope we can.

    -Mandy

  • Get back up

    Life is hard,
    cruel.
    Scars never stop aching.
    But a point in time comes
    where survival hardens into something dangerous —
    something that gets back up-bleeding,
    smoke in its lungs,
    determined to set fire
    to anything that tries to bury it again.

    -Mandy Ricks

  • Strength

    Real strength comes from quiet consistency more than dramatic gestures.

    -Mandy Ricks

  • Listening counts

    Some take risks without hesitation, others don’t dare.

    It’s cold enough, my legs ache again. Maybe I just can’t stand it today.

    This morning I sang along to American Pie. That counted for something.

    Dancing in the gym sounds fine to me, though I haven’t decided yet.

    When it’s the end, does it still count if the fat lady took Ozempic and isn’t fat anymore?

    Listening counts. Being heard matters.

    -Mandy Ricks

  • Today

    For the first time in decades
    I sit in my house, empty, alone.
    It feels okay.
    No distracting chatter,
    or thoughts.
    Just quiet.
    Who’d have known this peace
    would finally arrive today
    of all days.

    -Mandy Ricks

  • Those steps

    You don’t have to feel ready to take the next step, a big step, or even a small step. You just have to be willing, for a moment, not to step away from yourself. -Mandy Ricks

  • Monsters

    I hope today brings you one step closer to where you want to be and one step farther than where the monsters live. -Mandy Ricks

  • Grasping

    Are you grasping for some joy, perhaps some inspiration? But the dark keeps marching, twisting your thoughts into a spider web. Each tentacle sticking to a thought creating darkness and doom. But fight it , fight it. Because you are much stronger than doom and so much stronger than. One. Single. Thought. -Mandy Ricks

  • Change

    I was having a chat with ChatGPT about a quote by Albert Einstein on the need to be intelligent to accept change. But we both agreed that it doesn’t really take intelligence to accept change sometimes it just takes guts; raw, messy, heart wrenching guts. And getting back up, always getting back up.

    So, here is our quote on change and intelligence.

    🌿 “Intelligence isn’t loving change — it’s finding your footing when change finds you.”

    -Mandy Ricks and my friend @ ChatGPT

  • Maybe

    Maybe we want to suffer more than the people we hurt so that they’ll forgive us.

  • Preachers

    Those that don’t know preach
    second chances and starting over.
    But self forgiveness is a difficult thing.
    Perhaps the best we can hope for
    is acceptance of our mistakes,
    acknowledgement of our efforts,
    and a gentle heart to hold our shame.

    -Mandy Ricks

  • Tiptoe

    Life’s too short to tiptoe through someone else’s rules. -Mandy Ricks with Willow