So many beautiful, stimulating thoughts cross my mind.For once, harboring negative feelings as the dominant ones are not the constant. How it happened still amazes me. It is accurate to write that like everything else in ones life, if you want to change, you have to work at it. I am now thinking more proactively about ways to reward efforts that I make, and I don't mean with things that are physical. I mean with things like, a checklist of accomplishments. Or by adding another level of ways to do even better. It may seem like something that everyone did in primary school. I am doing this now. Lol.

so emotional baby

I got some sage advice today before going off to the funeral of a dear relative and darling Auntie. She was not feeling well and everything just progressed quickly after that.Her death impacted me dramatically because of the way that she lived her life. She was fun loving, bubbly, confident and beautiful. Her twin brother, I don't know how he shall deal with this sudden loss.What her death has taught me is that there is really no time to waste. Do the things that you want to do and do them no matter what! This life is so short, so filled with uncertainty. I was thinking of taking a picture of myself and putting the words, living while terrified underneath it. What I mean is that, I have found that there have been things in my life that I have no idea how to handle them, but I put one foot in front of the other and I get what I need to get, done.I am usually criticizing myself.But today, that can wait.I am taking a moment to feel good about myself for a change. I have a brave streak, an adventurous streak. When I feel confident, look out. I am unstoppable. When I can see how to do something, it gets done!I have seen myself turn people around for the better more times than I can count. I inspire myself. I like that I can make light of things, turn the other cheek and really move on from something that seemed to make me feel stuck. I am always looking to do something better. I don't wallow for long. I am loving, warm, friendly. I put people at ease. I actually care about people. I like making others happy.I am a problem solver. I take no pleasure in the misfortunes of others. I want everyone to feel good about themselves. When I am faced with challenges, I don't blame other people. I get introspective about what i can do to be better, do better, or I understand that some things cannot be changed and I do my best not to sweat the small stuff. There is much more about me to like than to feel distressed about. Right now I believe that finally I am telling myself the things that I must, to be genuinely happy. Alot of it will come from acting instead of processing and weighing every step. I remember when I would ask myself what I needed, and I would face a blank page. I could not even conjure up the simple sentence...walking in the grass and looking up at the sky. I was so tightly coiled. I have faced losing people I love, I've faced having no money. I have faced many things, and I know people who make my issues seem self indulgent. I am more good than not, and I feel so fortunate right now. So happy.

not the same

Not at all. I used to be very comfortable with reaching people through friendship. It was simple. You say something to me, I say something back. I knew that I was charming, and funny and quick with puns and facts, figures and history.It was a no brainer. I even used to say, getting to know someone, meeting someone and disarming them was not ever a problem for me, it was what to do after that? It was a good way to be myself, to get what to me was fundamental about any relationship, and that was and has always been to establish friendship. It is honest, natural and right in my mind. I cannot imagine not being that way. Yet, now, I see a part of it as actually limiting me. I see that in its innocence, I also did something instinctive that had an underlying heaviness to it. While I was getting to establishing friendship, I was also judging and layering the information in categories, assessing the person for similar and dis-similar traits. I was being clinical. I was determining worthiness, longevity, future challenges. In a way, I was being overly analytical, not 'personable' at the end of the day, and ultimately not able to even be myself. How could I be, if I had my guard up even when I thought that conversation came so lightly, and smiling, laughing and exchange was actually more loaded than I acknowledged? Now, I am not condemning myself for this. I enjoyed doing this for years. I probably would not have been any the wiser that I had this tendency until this very entry, this very year. The things that I am observing now in this new situation have changed everything. I stand in wonderment at myself. I see myself, and I have so much to say about that. I see myself looking at myself observing myself. My new thing now is to listen to what I do to claim that this is what I say I want, against what I feel, emote, and really do. I see now how much I molded and re-shaped what I received from people who came into my life with their own issues and met me with mine. I think the first time that I suddenly challenged my way of seeing this was with The Towers. I'd done this with my ex-husband too, but he completes the illusion so well that it was like watching a shadow for a second come into perspective, so no, I never took the musing further. The Towers did it, when I implanted a thought into his mind about something that I wanted him to do, and when we met again, he not only did it, he stated it as though it were his idea. I noted it in my mind when it happened, and I wondered about the power of it and decided not to abuse the ability. But, I didn't do it to see if he would take the instruction, I did it to see something else. I was curious about the fact that I could be talking to him so very well, for hours in fact and then, suddenly I might say one small thing and upset him severely. I didn't understand where his insecurity was coming from? I concluded that there was my behavior, his behavior but also his expectations that came into question, because the angst never felt as though I did anything, it seemed to come from something I unwittingly triggered in him. .......... Now, I see how much I can write all of those entries about what I desire in a partner and meet that person and not be ready in the least for what I say I want. I see every day in friends, family and strangers everyone struggling with their emotions in some way. .......... What has been amazing this year is how much I realize I must let go to be able to see that I hold nothing to begin with. Having the feelings that I do now, I can't go back. My old playbook is burned. My comfort zone has evaporated. I am exposed. I have to take everything one step at a time. This isn't that love that is addictive. I am not to stock up on joy juice. It just didn't work out like that, and it nearly did. I could have rode that horse with ease. But I am not meant to this time. This isn't same old, same old. No sir. This time I have to say loud and proud that this is what I desire. This is what I will work for. This is what I am working on. In a way, I am loving myself so hard! Lol. Everything I think I am feeling and maneuvering or whatever I am being cute with, I see it as me embodying myself.I don't know what other way to describe this feeling. There is so much room for me to see. I am not distracted at all. This is all that I can manage tonight. I have so much more to write. But this is it for now.

I am on the verge of something new. Prior to this experience, I had other encounters that I wrote about at length on these pages. Yet, somehow, this feels as though those were nowhere close to what I feel now. In a way, this is accurate because, I never really looked at any of those things as certain. They were speculative at best, and they held me in a limbo. I have been in such a limbo for so very long that I almost do not know how to interpret this new experience. However, I know that I have some fight in me. I am not about to let insecurity steal my chance at achieving the things that I have bent my own ear back about wanting so badly. I believe that I can do this now because of all of the work that I did in 2017. From taking a dance class after wanting to do so for endless years, to realizing that I could not go back to business as usual. In fact, not going back to business as usual is what this entry is about. The usual is just not in the cards in 2018. Driving is on my agenda. Whittling down my major debt this year, which I see on the horizon. Then there are the cosmetic issues that I have to deal with and the document filling with my sister to see to. I have some other things to complete. Also, I have to shift over some of my investments to a new account that I expect to yield better results.All of that is in my sights. Everything will get done and I use my discipline with my exercising as my guide. I train even when it rains. So I got this! The sense of accomplishment and the reward that I see after is so addictive. I love to see the outcome of all of the hard work. Love it!!!

Waiting and anticipating, and curbing my feelings...everything I experienced was beyond my thinking. In a moment like this, I am scared and excilerated at the same time. I have been around friends and acquaintances who claim to want certain things, and I have seen how we all can talk ourselves out of our goals because we are more afraid of losing what we are yet to work for. I deliberately write this tonight so that I have the strength of my conviction. I fought this man. I felt so much and I was so afraid and I am still filled with fear because I have no idea what can happen. But equally, I am much more buoyed by the fact that walking away again would leave me forever tormented. I would even say that what is happening to me isn't even really about him at all, because I am not making any claims or having any expectations. I don't think that I have ever gone into a relationship with less baggage than I have now. When I state less baggage, what I mean is the assurances that I always felt necessary to have, which is a great deal of time getting to know the person and using that as a gauge to move forward. I am devoid of that, and it doesn't interest me to size him up in that way. In fact, I now find that meeting him with all of that artifice is so extraneous! I can see clearly how doing that can impact liking someone. We both arrive with our guards up, our experiences in a duffle bag as if we are heading to a boxing ring and not towards the love we seek. What I am looking at now is the next steps that I feel...not the ones I'd usually plan. I have work to make, things to do, then we shall connect again in April. Or perhaps sooner. But, again, I am just in a haze of sensations. I don't feel the usual things...the ok, lets text and hold hands. That isn't it. The organic nature of the thing is what interests me. I desire to let it flow.

We shall be seeing each other tomorrow. Gosh. I can't wait.

Living my life like its G O L D E N

When I started this blog all those years ago, who would have thought that it would last this long? When a new year begins, it is inevitable that there is a feeling of optimism that it brings. I feel that way.I can rattle off my plans, and I am apple cheeked about the outcomes. It is actually adorable the way I feel, when I observe it. I realize that all feelings are an amalgam of being 'alive.' It is in fact a privilege to feel them all. It is a feat of humanity to go forth in the world with ones thoughts anchoring their outcomes. When I think about it, nothing is certain. Nothing, and within that, lie the possibilities. The way we live today can be turned on its ear so easily. For example, my daughter is fascinated by tape recorders. She wants to know what they are and how they sound. That's almost hilarious. I remember when that was the only way to get music of my own to listen to. Now the technology is passe. Its so long ago that its like she's asking me about the Gramophone. Time just flips over. Everything changes, and one has no control over anything. Not really. Yet, here we all are. I have gone from terrifying fear of nuclear holocaust to terrifying fear of global warming in one lifetime. Amidst all of that, you have to get up every day. Put one foot in front of the other. Stave off debts and insecurity, and failure and desire and fallibility. Waw! We are all so delicate. Such tiny, insignificant creatures. Yet, we still have so much to conquer. We may be exploring but a fraction of our potential as human beings for example. I have spent all of my adult life reading everything I can about spirituality and self improvement. I have believed and then believed nothing. What I know for certain is that the more I acquire, the less I know, and I am good with that. I am good with dissonance. Lol. This year, I have the opportunity to see what I can do with my mind. Where I can take it, what I can put it through, and how I can propel myself to where I choose to go, and that's golden.