Rita Hogan       
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A Fairy Tale Heart

2/14/2017

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​If you are woman, more than likely you recall what it was like to watch your first Disney princess movie. For many young girls, it was the moment when their adolescent hearts were first introduced to the wonder of romantic love. Like a prick to the finger, activating a dormant spell, they began dreaming of the day their prince would come. They imagined themselves as Sleeping Beauty or Cinderella who waltzed to the beat of a prince’s heart until the first stroke of midnight. They dreamt of the knight in shining armor who would one day fight for their honor and win. They lived, breathed, and even acted out the fairy tales they spun.

Unlike most young girls, the fairy tale in my heart wasn’t of blue eyed princes. I didn’t dream of castles back dropped against dazzling blue skies, or of riding off into the sunset with Charming himself. My dreams were simple. I wanted to be loved. I wanted to feel safe and to know that I mattered. These were feelings I had experienced little of in my formative years, and as I grew older, I began to wonder if I would ever find them. It was the fairy tale in my heart that kept me going until one day it transformed from this idea that hung on the edge of my forever and into my reality.

My prince charming didn’t come riding to me on a beautiful white stead, with hooves pawing the air in eagerness. Nor did he own the castle surrounded by a thousand hills. The man I met and feel deeply in love with was as flawed as I, with the kind of imperfections that are discovered only after the movie ends.

In spite of our shortcomings, and with God’s grace, true intimacy was planted and took hold in the soil of our marriage, a connection that to this day still makes my fairy tale heart flutter with joy and the longing I felt when we first met.

My type A personality would love to take credit for the affinity we share, but unfortunately I cannot. It is my husband’s stake to claim. He holds something more valuable than a castle with a thousand hills or untold riches. What he possesses is the key to any successful relationship; a servant’s heart. His nature flows deep and wide with the steadiness of it, and over the years, I have benefited, gratefully, from his kind and loving generosity.

With his selfless approach to our marriage, my husband has mastered the ability to look past my flaws when I am unable to look past his. When anger sits in the driver seat of my life, whether just or unjust, and the brakes finally bring me to a crashing halt, I don’t find my prince charming peering back at me in the review mirror; I find him standing there beside me, holding open the door, and waiting for me to step into his arms. I can truly say that not once have I felt the sting of rejection for my failure to be as kind and as compassionate as he.

They say that chivalry is dead, and when you step back to take a really hard look at our culture, with its self-absorbed ways, the idea of taking on a servant’s heart may seem almost foreign and nearly impossible. There’s no question it is difficult and temperament can play a part. I am a perfect example this. In my ‘everything has to be just so’ approach to life, I have found it to be more challenging to follow in my husband’s footsteps than I care to admit.
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While I may lag behind, eventually I remember how my prince charming has already led the way. The imprints he has left on our path, make it easier for me to step back into the selfless mind set he so effortlessly lives day in and day out. And I am reminded, over and over again, that in any relationship worth having, it only takes one person to make that first step toward selfless love, not two, only one. Take a chance and be that one.
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Love You Like a Love Song

2/3/2016

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When writing this blog, I couldn’t resist borrowing the title of Selena Gomez’s song from her album, When The Sun Goes Down. Long before Jane Austen penned her classic tales of love, or Harlequin published their first romance novel, man has been singing about this seemingly all-consuming emotion, composing evocative lyrics, and using them to express their deepest longings.   

We first enter this world experiencing the familial bonds of love, but as we grow older and are influenced by books, movies, and love songs we begin to crave that one sublime connection with another person, an affinity that transcends normal everyday relationships of family, friends, and peers. We long for the one who will make our hearts swell with unchartered feelings. The way we dress, carry ourselves, or the connections we make seem to point us in the direction of our search.

As we live our lives, we discover that love stories are central to so many things ranging from the ordinary to the extraordinary and everything in between. So if love is everywhere we turn, why write about it?

Because the romantic love we seek, from as early as adolescence, is written upon our hearts, a solid engraving that neither time nor even pain can erase. Love is what drives us, compels us, and moves us. It is what makes us feel the slow ache when we hear a line from a song like the one from U2’s Iris.

Something in your eyes
Took a thousand years to get here 

In The Dark Side of the Rainbow, this all-consuming emotion is at the heart of the story. One long ago summer, before tragedy struck, two hearts began that migratory journey of love, before it was cut short too quickly. Blinded by rage and revenge, Olivia’s feelings for Landon are submerged beneath her grief. Landon, now a broken man, yearns for what he’ll never have, those lost moments of first love. He grieves for the woman he can never forget.

While their story may be as old as time and as ancient as the tribal dance that beats across the African plains, it is the moments in between Olivia and Landon’s story that will surprise you. I hope you enjoy The Dark Side of the Rainbow.

Blessings,

Rita Hogan

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The Art of Life

6/8/2015

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In July of 2012, I began writing for the first time. It was an incredible thing for me to experience the way a story could unfold from the inner workings of my mind and soul and seemingly come to life through mere words.

I started my first novel, In Between, excited but wondering if I would ever finish. Thirty thousand words into the story, I told myself that I had another thirty thousand in me. At sixty thousand, I looked up from the words I’d written, bleary-eyed and determined to go the distance. A hundred plus thousand words later, with tears rolling down my cheeks, I wrote the epilogue to my first story.

A short time later, I came across this quote from Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, one of my favorite poets:​

Great is the art of beginning, but greater is the art of ending.

I felt the power of those words because I had just lived it. We all have. Whether it’s the marathon you finally ran, the promotion you’ve worked so hard for, or the picture you painted that eventually sold, we can all empathize with the words written by Longfellow.

Life is an art. With every breath we take there is an expression of ourselves for the world to see. While we are busy articulating the art of our life, we also take in the narration of others. It is the exchange of meaningful expressions that make us who we are.

The goal of my website is to inspire others to embrace the art of living and to leave the place in this world we call our own better than it was when we first began.
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    When I replicate the world around me with words, interweaving the real and the imagined, I feel as if my tiny space in this grand scheme of life has been well tended.

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