Figuring out 50: Work in Progress

Yes, 50 was a pretty good year. My heart is full as I reflect on the wonderful year I have nearly completed. I’d like to name a list of fun adventures I experienced, but the truth is the whole year was one big adventure. This past year, I walked boldly down the path of choosing myself fully and unapologetically for the first time in my life. It’s almost as if the emotional weight of others and choices made for others physically weighed me down to the point where I was resigned to believe the mediocrity and melancholy were my only constant companions. What a sad existence of blah blah blah.

Recently I received some feedback from someone I once took care of for too many years. When you are a caretaker, you come to realize that no matter what good you do in a person’s life, once you decide to change your situation, you will be demonized, criticized and blamed. Ultimately the feedback I received was probably cathartic for the individual, definitely passive aggressive, but mostly oppressive. It was yet another person telling me to silence myself, to make myself smaller because my truth and the expression of my truth was uncomfortable to read. If what I write is uncomfortable for readers, I encourage them to embrace the freedom of not reading what I write. I write for me. If people enjoy reading it, that’s wonderful. If not, that’s just fine.

I credit yoga as a major catalyst for change and growth. The movement that yoga encourages enabled me to access a freedom that does not exist outside of asanas and yogic expression. When I’m bent over in wide stance forward fold, inhaling and exhaling, barefoot on the mat in the warm yoga studio, I am free. Add some stacked blocks upon which my head can rest, and I’m in heaven. The seemingly simple act of breathing in and out, focused solely on the rise and fall of my breath, takes me to peace that has not existed in my world for some years.

I have made many choices based on others, based on what I perceived would be acceptable, based on what other people needed or wanted or decided. I’m done with that. For 15 years, I was spending a small fortune to color my hair every other month to cover the grey. And let me tell you, grey hair is strong and determined, and my grey would appear within a week of coloring. It was a maddeningly expensive cycle. Eight months ago, I decided it was time to stop because I was coloring the grey so that I didn’t look too old for potential suitors. It took some time for me to realize that was the reason, but when I did, it was so freeing. I have beautiful grey hair, and it’s healthy. Hopefully, by this time next year, I’ll be fully grey and gorgeous.

I don’t know what the future holds, what 51 holds for me. I will continue to reflect on how people and experiences in my life have contributed to the work in progress that I am. Self analysis is an important part of growth and change, and I seek to evolve into the person that I was created to be. I cannot imagine that my God chose misery and regret for me. I am certain that my life was meant for joy and freedom and peace and love for me.

 

Help Me Yoga

I’ve been trying to go to yoga classes more frequently. I have no excuse, given the proximity of the classes to my home, and the fact that I am paying a healthy fee to attend as many classes as I want. They need to offer more beginner or 101 or “big girl” classes, but I take the classes I can, and make the modifications I need.

This place, this yoga studio, is a Godsend for me. When I moved last month, I made a decision to change and improve my life in big and small ways, and yoga has had the greatest effect. My soul needs what yoga is sharing with me.

Being a big girl, I am acutely aware of my limitations each and every day. There are movements that challenge me in ways I never expected. There are decisions I have to make before I even get out of my adjustable bed. There is seating I don’t dare attempt to slip into, there are places I simply will not venture, all because of my size. Now, I know that my size is a direct result of my choices, so I am not asking anyone to pity me. I’m just sharing the realities of my physical situation. Not all areas are safe spaces for me, and I am blessed that yoga is a safe space for me, as I am.

In my yoga classes, there is no judgement. One of the instructors always reminds us that there are no trophies at the end of each class. I compete with no one. I come into the class, speak to the people in the space, and focus on my breathing, my balance, and my body. The class, the space, is the only place where I can focus just on me — Reese — and largely let the cares of my world go. I let the weight of the world stay outside of the studio, far from my shoulders, and I take care of me.

In my real world, I carrying the needs, assignments, expectations of others squarely on my shoulders. On my job, in particular, I have to handle the work of my group and others, and there is very little help. I do not have the luxury, have never had the luxury at this job of asking for and getting help. Outside of the office, I am not the one to ask for help. I am, however, the one that people do not hesitate to ask for help. I cannot count how many rooms I’ve helped paint, how many parties I have helped to set up, and or clean up, expenses I’ve helped pay, or children I have babysat. There are times I envy people who can ask for and accept assistance.

In the family in which I grew up, we helped each other as well as others. We assisted at soup kitchens, served in church, helped with weddings, classes, funerals, and showers — bridal and baby — and parties. When I got married, I learned quickly that I was in a much different environment, and the family that I joined was not equipped to help or assist me in any way. They were solely takers only willing to offer help to other takers. My ability to ask for help was destroyed by the reality that it was simply not there for me.

Yoga is teaching me to accept help. The first few classes, they offered students little discs that we could use to let the instructors know that we were willing to accept help with poses. It’s funny, but I did not hesitate to take the disc in the class because I was more than willing to accept help in the class. Just thinking about it now, I was eager, and when the instructors offered suggestions or re-positioned my poses, I was so grateful. In fact, in today’s class, I could not stop smiling because I realized that while I struggle to ask for help anywhere else in my life, Kimber — the instructor today — reminded me how natural it is to accept help willingly, freely, without shame or embarrassment.

I’m 50 years old, and I am learning how to accept help. It makes me smile because it’s such a simple concept for so many others, but for me, it’s the beginning.

 

Figuring out 50: The end of 2021

It’s the obligatory NYE post. Here’s what’s on my mind.

I’m melancholy. There are tears in my eyes, some sadness, some hopefulness, but mostly I’m exhausted. I am so very tired. I have truly given so much of myself in these past 50 years, and it feels like this year seemed to take even more out of me. It’s not the fault of 2021 — this I know — it’s just the year that my head and my heart took stock of the people who held space in my life, and I’ve learned that so much of what I poured out appears to have been quite a bit of a waste. That’s a hard, nasty pill to swallow, but I will keep it 100 with myself from now on.

I deserved better than what I received from too many people who benefited from my generous loving heart. I deserved better, but I allowed myself to settle and to tolerate, all the while pushing myself down, suppressing Reese, and that has been flippin exhausting. I deserve better from myself.

So as I look forward, I am planning on getting my rest. I will be resting from the foolishness, from the avoidable disappointments, from the pursuits of relationships that only drain my spirit, from the elements that serve to keep me tired. Instead, I am filling my life with time well spent — time well spent with family and friends who are family, time well spent reading wonderful books and exploring my creative soul, time well spent listening to Adele, time well spent challenging myself with yoga and strength training, and time well spent with Jesus. I am worth the effort.

 

Figuring out 50: Yoga 101

In an attempt to get my health in order, I decided to resume yoga… after a long, long, long absence. I’m pretty sure it’s been over 12 years since the light in me connected with the light in anyone. I know I wasn’t married, and I was taking time to focus on mindfulness. I should have stuck with it, but there’s no time like the present to restart something I know was good for me.

There a a few things that I remember about yoga. First, the tooting. When I decided 14 or 15 years ago to try yoga, a friend (at the time) to me that when you do yoga “right”, your body frees itself, and the gas flows or blows. As a germaphobe and a person with a highly sensitive nose, the last thing I want to experience with strangers is flatulence. Still, I wanted to be so good at yoga, that I would toot with comfort, and hear toots without chuckling. Then, and now, only one of those is happening.

The other thing I remember about yoga is that it allows me to focus on what my body is doing. When I get into a pose, I find a focal point in the room, and I hold it in my sights until my entire body focuses on that focal point. I challenge myself, my stillness, my strength, my calmness until it’s time to come out of the pose. I appreciate having the chance and the ability to reduce all things, however temporarily, to a single stationary space. With all the chaos and movement and uncertainty in my world these days, yoga is a welcomed addition to my life, and the choice to engage in this mindful activity outside of my home is surprisingly enjoyable.

I have finished 2 yoga classes. Initially I planned to take 2 classes a week, but after learning how far I am from feeling comfortable in a 101 class, I’ve decided on 1 class a week, with the option for more. I try not to compare myself to the other people in the class. What I can say is that I was able to do more in my second class than I was able to do in my first class. That’s progress, and that feels good.

 

Figuring out 50: And So I Begin…

It’s eve of the big 5-0 for me. I haven’t really focused on the significance of turning 50 for most of the past 365 days. Getting through year 1 of the pandemic took so much of my focus that I didn’t even get the chance to gear up for 50. Now, 50 is almost here, and I have an adventure in mind for the next 365 days. It’s time for me to figure out what 50 means for me.

The ideas for blogs, articles, posts, etc. come and go for me on a daily basis. There are a multitude of subjects that I want to explore. For one thing, I have so much about my marriage and divorce that I want to share, dissect, process and move beyond. I’m still trying to come to terms with those 10 years that seem like a waste of a good decade at this point.

It’s funny, my birthday is a reminder of the worst relationship of my life when it was always the best day of every year up until the green came in. My parents have always made a big deal out of my birthday. None of those audacious gatherings parents throw their children these days. No, just my parents, my siblings, and a homemade lemon cake with lemon icing, candles from the grocery store that were used for all of our birthdays for what seemed like years, lights off with my aunt singing Stevie Wonder’s Happy Birthday song, and me smiling like it was the best day of my life. And every year, it actually felt like the best day.

When I started dating him, we bonded over having birthdays so close together. Before him, I hadn’t really had a birthday with a sig-ot, so as our relationship progressed, and we made it to my birthday, I was excited to see how he would celebrate me. He was big on over the top gestures, so I just knew I was going to finally be celebrated by a non-relative. And then I learned that his sons were starting football on my birthday, and that was that. I told myself that I understood, and that it was no big deal, and we would celebrate another day. We didn’t.

The next year, the same sort of thing happened, by then I was used to where I stood in relations to the children’s schedules, and we ended up doing a joint celebration that focused mostly on his birthday. I was still celebrating with my family, so I didn’t really allow myself to get down on the fact that my birthday was not that big of a deal to him.

After we got married, we would travel around our birthdays at first, but eventually the business or the children would require his attention, so I stopped expecting an acknowledgement of my birthday by him. The last birthday I endured with him ended up in the police being called, and me barricading in my room out of fear. The next 2 birthdays were spent going through the rigors of divorce.

Now, I’m so happy when I get to be around people that care about me on my birthday. And I make a point to only spend time with the people that genuinely care for me. That’s a small but mighty group that has walked with me through the toughest and brightest times in my life. They remind me of what I mean to them, of what I am worth to them, and they celebrate my quirks. They are my family, some by birth and some by choice, and I am deeply grateful for them.

And so I begin year 50 as a grateful to be loved and grateful to be free adventurer. Let’s see what’s in store.

 

I am a Writer

I am a writer. I’m naming it and claiming it.

I’m walking in the direction of my passion. I see it as part of my life, as part of my soul, and I’ve neglected it for too long.

This blog — name yet to be discovered — is my vehicle for finding my way into my 50th year.

The plan is to write about all of the things that I’ve held inside or have been left unsaid out of fear, fatigue and failure to choose me.

Full disclosure — I hope others will join me on this journey where I will share my thoughts on DEI, religion, relationships, growth and change, and other random observations.

Reese writes.

 

Not just a story

I wrote this letter years ago — 2014  when my family was going through a devastating situation. I re-read last night. It encouraged me, so I’m sharing.

So, last night I was reading a devotional, and it was the story of Jesus raising Lazarus from the dead in John 11. We’ve read and heard this story so many times that it becomes predictable when talking about it. Anyway, when I was reading it last night, I noticed for the first time that their family is like our family – 2 sisters and 1 brother, where the brother is in a challenging situation. The Bible talks about how very sad Mary and Martha were that Jesus had not come before Lazarus died because, as both sisters said, “Lord, if only you had been here, my brother would not have died.”

Think of it, when they knew that their brother was sick, they sent word to Jesus to come and heal Lazarus because they had seen Him heal the sick, so they knew it could be done, and they knew how much Jesus cared for Lazarus. They had faith when the situation was difficult but manageable in their eyes. Just like them, we prayed so hard for a quick and easy resolution when we saw you in distress, when we thought your situation was difficult, but appeared to be manageable to a point. Like Mary and Martha, we made assumptions about the possibilities, and we made decisions about what we wanted from God. It’s like we sisters knew that we needed Jesus to step in, and that Him stepping in would make a big difference. Still, we wanted to put limits on how we wanted Jesus to intervene and when.

All the while, Jesus was ministering to other people, attending to other needs, and He knew all along that what Lazarus was going through was not going to end in death. Jesus did not race to Lazarus’ side. Instead He assures the questioning disciples that God will get the glory from the situation. “Lazarus’s sickness will not end in death. No, it happened for the glory of God so that the Son of God will receive glory from this.”  And even though He said it, the disciples and those around Him didn’t understand – they didn’t comprehend the extent of God’s love for Lazarus or His foresight or His omniscience and omnipotence.

When Jesus decided after 2 days that it was time to go to Bethany and see His friends, the disciples were so worried because people were trying to kill Jesus. By this time of His life and ministry, Jesus had acquired many enemies. The disciples were scared for Jesus, but they were also scared for themselves because they knew they would be targets, too. But God was unafraid. He knew what was ahead of Him in every sense. He knew what was ahead of you, too. He went to Bethany, and He went to His friends.

As comforted as Mary and Martha were when Jesus arrived at their home, they were so sad when their brother died, sad and hurt that Jesus allowed Lazarus to die, as if Jesus chose to hurt them, as if their timetable was the same as His. They had Jesus in a box, and that hurt Jesus and it angered Him. It’s like people keep saying, “I trust, I trust, I trust,” but when it comes right down to it, they trust for a specific result, but judge when the desired result doesn’t happen. That’s not trusting. That’s wishing. And Jesus wept, cried real tears as a result.

As the people watched Jesus, they continued to make assumptions about Jesus, commenting on Him wanting to be taken to Lazarus’ burial plot. They saw regret in Him, but they were wrong. This was the moment that Jesus would again show His unfailing love for the world, for His people.

And Martha… funny one, she is. When Jesus told them to move the stone from the grave, the always practical Martha said, Lord, he’s been in there for 4 days. He will smell awful! As if Jesus didn’t know that Lazarus had been dead for 4 days. Maybe she was trying to rub it in a little that Jesus had allowed so much time to pass before coming to them. As if Jesus is held to life’s time constraints! It’s almost like saying to God, If you don’t do it this way, it can’t be done at all.

You know the rest of the story. You know that Jesus called for Lazarus to come out, and he did. But before we get to that part, notice in the text how the scriptures stop referring to Lazarus by name. They call him the dead man. For everyone but Jesus, the situation is done and over. They have all quit. But God… thank God for the But God’s!

Jesus prayed to God, thanking Him for listening. He said, “Father, thank you for hearing me. ⁴² You always hear me, but I said it out loud for the sake of all these people standing here, so that they will believe you sent me.” God could have healed Lazarus from a distance. He could have done the simple and the expected. We wanted that. We wanted for this whole situation to just go away. We did not want to deal with the pain, the fear, the unknowns, the loss, the doubts, the consequences. And we would have been happy, just like Mary and Martha would have been happy. But Jesus had something different in mind for them, and He has something different in mind for all of us.

If Jesus allowed Lazarus to just heal up and be fine, His miracle could have been dismissed as coincidence. “Oh, Lazarus got better on his own. He just needed to gargle with some peroxide! That was chance, that wasn’t God.” And if “nothing” happened in your situation, we could have said the same thing, “That was chance. That wasn’t God.” But the truth is that there are so many things that happen, or don’t happen in our lives that are not chance at all. They are God working, God performing miracles, God being God, and we just take those things for granted day in and day out. There are so many accidents we aren’t involved in each day because God worked out the timing on the road. There are so many sicknesses we don’t get, so many fights we avoid, so many jobs we do well, so many blessings that really are miracles from God. They are NOT chance at all.

Instead, God performed a very public miracle. He showed not just Mary, Martha, and Lazarus that He loved them and that He had the power to change their worlds, He did what He did “for the sake of all these people standing here, so that they will believe you sent me.” After all these unbelievers saw what Jesus could do and did, the Bible says they believed on the Lord Jesus Christ. Some didn’t, but some did, and their lives were forever changed. On that day, Jesus didn’t just raise Lazarus from the dead. He prevented many others from going to hell as a result of unbelief. He did more than the expected. He did more than He could. He did more, he did greater, he did better than Mary and Martha could have ever wished. I cling to that. I cling to the Lord’s love and power and grace and mercy for all of us, and in my heart, I believe it!

 

The waiting

The past couple of weeks have been stressful and I have been extremely emotional. As I have drawn closer to God, my mind has been attacking my peace, and my once-pleasant demeanor has been covered in clouds of sadness and confusion. This whole Out There thing is overwhelming.

I mean, I put myself out there, and my mind keeps bringing up the past — recent and distant — and I allowed myself to have expectations. As much as I say I want to trust in the Lord, I find that I have been more people/ person-focused than God-focused during this waiting period. As a Christ-follower, I know that there’s nothing worse than to be person-focused, so I have been struggling.

But then I started thinking about the waiting. The waiting is brutal. Waiting on someone else to come to the same decision I have. Waiting on someone to try to see what I already see. Waiting on someone to give more credence to the good years and not the bad year. Waiting on someone to decide, to choose, to apologize, to forgive, to try…

Waiting is rough, especially when you are waiting on a person. And that’s when the light bulb flashed on.  God has called on His children to wait… yes, but to wait on Him. The Bible says to Wait on the Lord and be of good courage. It does not say Wait on this person, or wait on that person. God says to wait on Him, and that realization has made the difference for me.

I believe in my heart and mind that God is in control, and that nothing happens without God’s knowledge or without God allowing it to happen. He allowed Job to lose everything, and to be restored. God allowed Lazarus to die, and to be restored. God allowed the pain and the healing, the sadness and the joy, the death and the birth, the despair and the hope. God has allowed it all, and that is why I can do nothing but wait… and trust.

So I will continue to wait, but now I am waiting on God and God alone. I’m waiting for His peace to cover me, for His comfort to surround me, and for His plan to be laid out for me. There is no person who has my heart and my future in his hands. God’s got me. He’s not dangling His love or His promises or His plan. He knows my weaknesses, my shortfalls, my sins, my pains, my joys, my strengths, my mistakes, my everything, and yet He still deems me worthy of His love and His time and His plan. He’s reaching for me with open arms, welcoming me to Him, forgiving my wrongs, championing my strengths, leading me to a life rich in His love.

God is so good.

Isaiah 40:31 —But those who wait on the Lord
Shall renew their strength;
They shall mount up with wings like eagles,
They shall run and not be weary,
They shall walk and not faint.

Ps. 27:13-14– I would have despaired unless I had believed that I would see the goodness of the Lord
In the land of the living.
¹⁴ Wait for the Lord;
Be strong and let your heart take courage;
Yes, wait for the Lord.

Lamentation 3:25 —  The Lord is good to those who wait for Him,
To the soul who seeks Him.

 

Out there

I’m out there… I put myself out there and I am scared as hell… scared enough to use the words scared as hell. I am determined to keep my eyes up and focused on God, and I will continue to take care of myself regardless of what comes next.  I am out there.

As a writer, my goal is always to be out there, to lay my soul on the table, and deal with what comes. I think that’s one reason why I took a far too long hiatus. My heart has been heavy for a number of years… for a variety of reasons. I’ve often said that I love hard and deep. When I love, it is fierce, and I love a lot of people. I love my parents, my sibs, my extended family, my dear friends, my godbabies, and even a few who don’t appear to love me anymore. I ache when they hurt, when they are sick, when they are struggling, and I cheer when they are trying, when they are fighting, and when they are happy. And even though I haven’t mastered the art of loving without ever making mistakes, I will continue to love the best way I know how.

So, I’m out there, and it is hard, and each day gets harder. I cling to my faith in God during this struggle, and I am so often reminded that God is so very faithful to me. God has picked me up from the ground where despair was my only constant, and His love has not failed me.

In the summer of 2013, my family was hit with some hard news that would engulf us for years to come, though we had no inkling of the full extent at that time. I was on vacation with my husband in Key Biscayne, Florida, and despite the beautiful surroundings, my heart was so heavy, and I was slowly becoming undone. One of the things I did on that vacation was to sit on the balcony and look at Biscayne Bay in the distance. I could see these colorful buildings all the way down the coastline — pinks, and greens and blues — and the cloudless sky, and the refreshing water of the bay. It was so peaceful, so I would sit and pray and cry and pray.

One day as I was sitting on the balcony looking across the bay, I noticed that the sky was slowly getting darker above the colorful buildings I’d been watching. There were boats in the bay, and the water started to look a bit aggressive, and it was clear that we were in for an early afternoon storm. I remained on the balcony, observing all that was happening. The wind picked up, the dark sky started masking the colorful buildings, the boats in the bay started moving closer to the other side. From where I sat, I could see rain in the distance, but my side of the bay was dry. Southern Florida is known for short bursts of rainstorms. For more than a few minutes, I didn’t think that the storm was going to even affect our side of the bay. (Just call me Pollyanna…)

Eventually, the darkness and the storm were so intense that I could no longer see across the bay. It was as if there was an impenetrable wall of weather that was set to do nothing but destroy the other side of the bay. Meanwhile, where I stood, the rain and the wind were showing more force on our side of the bay. I should have gone inside to the room if only to save my hair from the madness of the humidity, but I remained on the balcony. The storm came closer, and I slowly backed up, but I remained outside mesmerized by the storm. Ultimately, I moved to the corner of the balcony closest to the door — the only spot that remained dry.

I vividly remember marveling at what I was seeing at the time. I had been praying and crying over what I didn’t know was ahead of me and my family, and I was asking God for a miracle … a miracle of unknown dimensions, a miracle I couldn’t even define at the time.

The storm eventually stopped. People were no longer running for cover. The water in the bay was back to the peaceful flowing. The sun was bright and hot. And as I ventured from the safety of my corner, and moved towards the railing of the balcony, I looked across the bay and I was amazed. The brightly colored buildings were even brighter than before the storm, once again showing off! The sky was clear. It was just gorgeous… almost as if no storm had come at all. The only evidence that a storm had even come through the area was the presence of a few displaced branches and abandoned bikes in the resort, and a huge rainbow across the skyline.

I thank God that I had the presence of mind to stay on that balcony for the duration of the storm. I am so glad that I took pictures during the entirety of the experience, because I have a record of this event that had such an impact on my mind from August 2013 to this very moment. I never doubted that the whole event — from peaceful view to the storm to the bright sunshine — was God presenting me with a sign of His power and grace. At the time and for years after, I believed the sign was specific to the situation with my brother.  I repeated the story to him, to our family, to his friends, and to others as proof that God had a plan for what was to come, for what we were going to endure. I truly believed that though a storm was coming and things would look bleak, that God would make a way, and it would be as if the storm had never happened. That event was powerful for me.

I never shared any of this with the one person who would have understood me better had he known what I was going through, and now, as our lives have taken an unfortunate path, I wish that I had. I wish that we could have been looking at the same symbol of hope.  I now understand that the storm in Key Biscayne was not solely about a singular finite situation.  I now understand that God was showing me a sign and lesson that was deeper than the small frame on which I was focused at the time.  There will always be storms, and sometimes the intensity of the storms will cloud our views — views of the beautiful, views of the possibilities, views of what is far, and views of what is near. We may want to run inside to avoid the discomfort and potential frizzed out hair, but if we can just trust God to put us in a place to watch Him work, we will be rewarded with something beautiful and unexpected.

I am waiting on God to end the storms. I’ll admit, I did not anticipate such a long storm or so many storms. I have ventured from the safe space a few times, and the wind and the rain have pounded me, but I am back in the safe space. I know that God still has my heart. I know that whatever happens at the ending of these storms, God is still in control. He’s helped me grow and learn to trust Him and His ways. He’s also worked enough in my life that I understand that the miracles I think I’m praying for may or may not be in His plan. I truly have no idea.

I am out there, but I am not alone. God’s got me.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Moving forward

Blame it on Shonda and Elizabeth… We all know that I love Ms. Gilbert for the brilliance that is Eat Pray Love. That book helped me come alive after years of just floating. It spoke to me and many others in ways that no other book had done, and I am forever grateful that she presented her truth in such a way that it seemed natural to look inside myself to see what I had in there. My copy of EPL has so many notes and highlights that just a glance will give anyone an insight to who I am.

Shonda Rhimes, well, she’s new for me. I was never a fan of Grey’s Anatomy, mainly because of the unfortunate presence of Ms. Heigl, so there’s a great deal of Shondaland that I have not seen. I am a fan of Scandal, but I never really focused on who was writing those amazing storylines. It was the actors that presented them that thrilled me. That is, until, I listened to the audiobook version of The Year of Yes, which I first found incredibly annoying until I realized that the person reading the book — Shonda — sounded exactly like me, and her thinking was so much like mine that there was simply no way that she wouldn’t have some knowledge that I needed.

The fact is, both of these books and authors resonated in my life because they stepped from behind their curtains to share the truths of their respective journeys of self-discovery, and I am a person who craves to get to the bottom of the truth of who I am and how I can be the best version of myself. What I’ve learned is that there is no “best version” of me without the honest look at what my life looks like, and how that makes me feel. I will not stop trying to be the best version of Reese, and this is another step forward in that journey.

I love hard. If there is confusion about what that means, read page 65 of EPL. I grew up in a loving home with wonderful people, and that’s the foundation of my life. There was no tragic childhood trauma for me. I was a happy kid with happy circumstances that were expected to lead to an inevitably happy life.

Of late I have been struggling to maintain that so-called happy life. There have been several big, grown-up, adults situations that seriously compromised that so-called happy life, and, without going into great detail, I can say that the wounds are deep, the scars are visible, and the pain does not really go away.  My focus has been to find a way to cope rather to find a way to heal. Until recently, that is.

Life can be deeply challenging to navigate. Just when you get used to things being one way, the wind blows or the car spins or the dog bites or the computer freezes, and then everything has to change. And sure, I’ve read Who Moved My Cheese countless times, and I know that change is inevitable, but sometimes, I just want to go back to way I was, the way I felt in my perfectly uneventful happy life.  Of course, I was under the age of 10, so things were much different. Still, it is change that inspires us all to grow, and so I’m working on finding my way to healing, not just coping.

And this process is not easy, so I have enlisted the help of a “healer”. Okay, she’s a therapist, but I call her the healer because she listens which makes me listen, and I see myself moving beyond the coping stage.  I look forward to the healing and the growth.

Today was a good day.