I was told that this year is going to be full of a lot of things that don’t make sense.  It is ringing true.  The new job I was so happy to obtain has brought a new set of challenges in that this office really likes to drink!  The office has a nice café in the center that not only includes coffees and teas, but also vodka, wine, champagne and a bevy of beers.  My coworkers are big on happy hours and routinely take the last hour of the day to congregate in the café and pour their drink of choice while talking about all the drinking they do when they are not at work.  I don’t usually go to these “happy hours” which has me singled out as the new girl who doesn’t like the people in the office.  I don’t know why I am so weirded out by it.  I have been in plenty of offices where alcohol and drugs were around… maybe it is the whole Memphis thing that has me feeling extra introverted.  I’m back in that muck of what I once was and I don’t know how to escape it.  My friends in LA wouldn’t even know what to do with me right now… I’m such a shadow of the person I was when I lived out west.
 
Maybe I am in one of those middle of the night moments I read about for the umpteenth time in my favorite book, Calm My Anxious Heart.  I find this book to be similar to the Bible and The Big Book in that every time I read it, I glean something new.  The author, Linda Dillow, talks about the night before God parted the Red Sea.  She speaks on how the Israelites were most likely freaking out… they were pegged in against the Red Sea with no where to run to, no where to go… so all they could do was listen and wait for their death.  She speaks of a little phrase found in the Bible with immense impact… “All that night the LORD drove the sea back…” God didn’t perform His miracle in daylight; He chose to perform the miracle in the middle of the night, in complete darkness, while no one was watching.  The entire night the Israelites had no idea their God was overcoming what was overcoming them.  Quite an interesting thought to ponder.  I don’t know why I am back in Memphis or why I have a job with a kitchen full of liquor for happy hours or why I am back to feeling more alone than ever.  None of it makes sense, but like I said – none of it is supposed to so maybe I am exactly where I need to be… Maybe it will all make sense at some point.  I was told that it would after certain things fall away from my life and new things emerge…  Maybe while I am sitting here dealing with loneliness, fear, anxiety and a general desire to leave planet earth… God is working on my behalf in ways I can’t know, touch or see at the moment.  I can say that I am putting my program to work in this situation just like I did in the last situation.  I am making sure I get to meetings, making sure I make time for things I enjoy like walking (it clears my head) and I am keeping busy.  I recently joined the media team at that church that makes me feel so uncomfortable.  This church does live, broadcast and web feeds so the opportunity for learning is huge.  I am currently training for a position in the control room and as much as I dread showing up, I find that I have a blast once I am there.  I often think it is crazy that a timid, shy and anxiety filled me would find enjoyment in speaking engagements, live show production and other similar things that scare most other people.  I just like the energy of making something happen and truth be told I am somehow good at it too.  I just have to get ME out of the way.
 
Another thought from this book is the creation of an Anxiety Box.  Not unsimilar to what a lot of people refer to as a prayer box, only instead of prayers, you place all the longings, desires and dreams that keep you awake at night and steal your joy during the day – into this box.  You hand them over to your creator and you allow Him to deal with them.  Just like in sobriety, sometimes you find yourself handing over these joy killers all day every day.  I know I have been deeply depressed.  A lot of my dreams seem to be dying as each year passes, at least they are dying in my own mind.  This marks another major lesson for me this year.  It was impressed upon my by my higher power (Jesus) that I need to stop making assumptions (jumping to conclusions) about how my life is going to go.  I have it in my head that I am going to get to a point where I simply cannot go on…  I guess I have it in my mind that I am going to stay single, never amount to anything, become homeless yet again and just have to jump off a bridge and become fish food.  It is a reoccurring and dominating thought in my inner life… It just seems that everything in my life is moving me toward this end.  This would be one of those moments where you think Sweet Jesus would appear and tell me how much He loves me, but no… He told me that I have to stop jumping to conclusions about my life, my abilities, about everything.  And there is truth here.  I will not lie.  No one takes me out of the game more than myself because I tend to decide ahead of time how things are going to go, how people are going to perceive me and whether or not I will be successful or liked or whatever.  I’ve always had this assumption that I am not wanted, not good enough, not smart enough, not fast enough, not pretty enough, not thin enough, not fat enough… just not enough, just not wanted.   Somehow everyone else on the planet makes the grade and I don’t.  This is such a deeply ingrained part of me that I make assumptions based on this thought pattern all the time and I rarely realize I am doing it.  All I can do right now is pray to be made aware of when I am jumping to a conclusion or making an assumption that I should not make.  It probably comes from some survival skill that is way too strong from early life trauma and while it serves a place in certain situations; it cannot continue to reign supreme in my life.
 
On a positive note, I have taken myself back off the Caramello bars!  LOL!  I am back on a decent schedule that allows time for the things I need and while I am still enjoying some chocolatey sweets, I am choosing healthy, low sugar options instead.  I guess choice by choice I am making decisions that prove to myself that I am worth it.  In life, just as in sobriety, we sometimes find that we have to find simple ways to override our brains.  Our brains are designed to retain system balance and system balance doesn’t always mean keeping us alive and healthy.  This tidbit is one of the best things I learned from my first sponsor.  Just because the brain wants to restore a perceived imbalance doesn’t mean you should follow its impulse.  It will reach for the easiest and fastest way to achieve its end, which usually means walking down a bad road. The same is true in life.

As I type this post, I am nearing the end of my stint in retail.  I never knew how important keeping a schedule was to my sobriety until I entered the world of retail at Christmastime!  I have worked nights, days and weekends with minimal days off and it has wreaked havoc on my soul.  I have always known that I was a lower energy individual and that my time to myself is important to my mental and emotional balance, but this time in retail proved just how important it is!  I have talked previously about how my ability to cope with any sort of perceived stress is at an absolute zero in my sober life.  During my stint in retail I had zero time for things I enjoy, zero time to veg out and zero time to well, breathe.  As a consequence I spent most of the holidays in a sustained craving for a release and the most desired form was the insane desire to cut.  I haven’t had this particular desire since I was a teenager.  It was like my mind just skipped over the whole alcohol and drug thing, knowing it was a road to nowhere fast, and opted for cutting to release the insane amount of pressure and anxiety building up inside me.  I cannot even explain this pressure, just that it was almost too much to bear and that I routinely daydreamed about jumping off a bridge into water and quickly drowning or I dreamed of cutting… the cutting dreams were actually bringing me some relief… they lessened the pressure a little bit.  I started to crave cigarettes again too, which is something I haven’t craved since I quit drinking back in 2012.  So how am I still here you ask?  Well I prayed, begged and pleaded with God to somehow help me AND I took myself to any meeting my schedule would allow AND I found some ladies I could confide in and I told them what was going on inside me.  I used the program of AA like I am supposed to when my world gets turned on its side leaving me wanting any escape possible.  I also ate a lot of sugar… I believe I was eating a large Caramello a day just to keep myself alive plus a lot of other sugar. I learned early in sobriety that there will be days that I will have to substitute sugar (alcohol) for sugar ( candy, chocolate, etc) and I did what I had to do to keep myself sober.  I kept putting one foot in front of the other by going to work, going to meetings and letting people in the program be my support system and I made it through… still sober today.  An extra tidbit for those who experience this same type of internal pressure/anxiety… I also started doing alternate nostril breathing multiple times a day.  It’s kind of a reset for your nervous system and it helps quiet the chatter.  I know of the practice from yoga, but I have not used it for anxiety/stress/anger until now and it does produce relief!
 
On a brighter note, I have finally landed a new job that will take me back into a balanced lifestyle.  And I have a generous amount of vacation to start with right off the bat!  I am not even sure I can use all of the vacation the first year!  I want a family trip, a ladies excursion and then maybe a fun trip somewhere to just visit life elsewhere.  We will see, I guess.  It was this job that saved me, really.  As soon as I knew I had it, I could see light at the end of my craving tunnel.  At least I am hoping that it is the crazy schedule and not Memphis that has produced this prolonged and deep rooted desire for escape!  I guess we’ll see on that note soon since my new job has me staying in Memphis!
 
And so it begins… New year, New Job, New Life… Back where it all started.  I want to complete my new years resolutions this year.  I have been working with my higher power (Jesus) to formulate a plan to make things better for myself and I have quite a list to charge my way through.  Some of the things on the list aren’t even fully conceptualized, but I trust that things will become clear as I approach and/or begin each task.  I don’t even fully understand each task, but I feel that the key to making my life and me better rests on the completion of these tasks and so I will complete every last one.  Understanding or not, makes sense or not… I just know I need to complete the list.  As of right now, I only have the first half of 2018 to complete, which means I need to get going, because there is a second half that will begin to fill up as I complete what is on the first half.  I kind of feel like I am at the starting point of what is to become the rest of my life and I have no idea what that looks like, but I am ready to try.  And so it begins… my next chapter…. How will you write yours?

Resolutions for 2018

• Pay Off All Debt – my calculations say it is doable!
  
• Complete first drafts of two projects
• Design & launch a third smaller project – pending funding
• Get back to leadership thru CR or Church
• Go on one excursion this year
• Take one vacation this year
• Register for Life Coach & Real Estate programs – pending funding

At the end of this month I will somehow have five years of sobriety!  What a whirlwind it has been!  I feel like I have been and still am on a tour through all of the things Jessica needs to improve about herself.  What can I say?  When you spend the most important years of your life in a bottle you just don’t learn to do life, much less respond to it.
 
At this stage of the game, I know I have to find some financial security for myself.  I am making financial security priority number one.  I have been focusing my job search on higher education in Memphis and in the not too far away cities though there is a part of me that would like to be back on a coast.  I know that staying in Memphis would be the best decision financially, but I also know one should never put all of their eggs in one basket.  I am also looking at a few other career options outside of higher education…both in Memphis and outside of Memphis.
 
I guess it is just time to do some adulting.  I have five years of sobriety, but I still have trouble handling stress and it has changed the type of jobs I go after.  I often find myself comparing myself to a hurricane…. I definitely feel as though I am one.  I roar into the office in the morning, wreak havoc all day, then roar out in the evening to the gym.  To be frank, I pretty much do this everywhere I go.  I expend a lot of energy that could be used elsewhere.  Someone said I should try flipping my schedule – working out in the morning and doing yoga in the evening.  I don’t know… I have very unstable blood sugar so I am not sure how that would affect things, but I might try it once I land a new job.
 
One of the bigger elephants in the room is the fact that I cannot seem to find a way to be happy.  Every city I have lived in had something I hated about it.  Every church I have attended had something I hated about it.  Every job I have held had something I hated about it.  One could argue and possibly win the notion that everything I have ever been a part of had something wrong with it.  It has always been after I have left a place or an institution that I could really appreciate it for what it was and continues to be.  And so after five years of sobriety, I have to ask the question, is it me?  The answer is most likely yes.  So then what?  I guess I must get to the adulting.  Find a career I don’t mind doing that will pay me a living wage and afford me the time off I need to do the traveling I want to do and start enjoying life for what it is instead of what it could be. 
 
For some strange reason “Happy” always seems to be in the future with me, but the problem is if “Happy” is always in the future, then it is never in my present and I cannot experience it.  That whole life on life’s terms thing in AA is my lesson right now.  I have to do life on life’s terms, be grateful for what I do have and find a way to enjoy the blessings I have been given.  How this works out in my day-to-day hurricane lifestyle… I do not know, but this is to be my lesson for year five of sobriety!  I guess, in part, I just realize my age and realize that I am far more emotionally stable than I have ever been (I know it doesn’t sound like it) and I want to capitalize on the gratitude I do have and enjoy every experience I can.  To do this, I have to find a way to calm down and stop complaining!
 
I don’t know if I will be staying in Memphis or moving somewhere else, but I do know that I have my work cut out for me in the year ahead.  I am looking forward to getting back on my feet financially and I am looking forward to enjoying all of the new experiences this year will bring.

The drive back home was riddled with blinding rainstorms and interstate standstills so I had plenty of time to think back to life in Los Angeles and life in Jacksonville… The people I met, the things I learned, the growth that took place.  As I look back over the last five years there are definitely some people who stand out in my mind.  Some of these people are like Kirsten, Liz, and Tracy who became my close friends and made life fun.  Liz was my adventure pal.  We scaled a waterfall, paddle boarded and kayaked our way through various marinas and hiked our way through various mountain ranges during my time in Los Angeles.  I hope to start an annual girls adventure vacay with some of my LA friends and some of my Jacksonville friends soon.  I have so much more to see and experience and I want to make travel a top priority once I have the debt paid off and am back in my own place.  Kirsten, Larissa, Nora & Lauren were my Mosaic friends.  I met them all in a life group.  On my first visit I knew I’d found friends and we became just that close friends doing life together.  I miss having that in my life, but I am hopeful I will have some ladies to do life with again soon.
 
Someone I probably have not mentioned at all on this blog is a man named Joel.  He was a producer at a church I went to for a while prior to making Mosaic my home church.  I was freshly sober and scared of everything and somehow got put on the production team of this church to basically run the services.  By that, I mean I ran the ever so important Macbook that ran the pre and post house music, the pre and post screen loops, the worship lyrics, the teaching screens, the videos… the only thing I did not run was the lights and sound, but I learned how to do that too… well, the lights at least.  When I say I was scared of everything, I mean I really was scared of everything and everyone.  I had no idea how to do anything without alcohol and I walked around looking like a deer in headlights to everyone I encountered.  People were always asking me if I was okay and I always gave a very unsure “yeah”.   Joel had the task of taking this deer in headlights girl and making her into someone who could run church services like a pro and that is exactly what he did.  I remember the first time I was up to run point and he, being very smart, did not tell me.  Instead, he let me figure it out when I heard him praying for me in our pre-service prayer.  I had no time to freak out or get upset or think anything really.  The only thing I could do was quickly go over what I needed to do and just do it and I did.
 
This experience came in handy shortly thereafter when I was working with a filmmaker on a live non-profit show that featured celebrity guests.  One day I showed up a tad late at our downtown show location and the first words out of her mouth were “good you’re wearing something nice.  The host cancelled.  You’re it.”  And just as before, I did not have time to freak out and I relied on my previous experience to ask the questions I needed to ask and memorized what I needed to memorize and about 45 minutes later, after introducing myself to the celebrity guest and getting some information from him – I took the stage and played host for the evening.  It was so much fun!  I got to welcome the audience, introduce the guest and occasionally remind everyone why we were all there – for a charity called Kids Need to Read.  It was a great evening and we had a great time and more importantly I had a great time doing something I never thought I would ever do!  I’m an introvert after all, but I have realized that doing what I never thought I would do has been the name of the game for this deer in headlights girl.
 
After leaving Los Angeles, I got involved in Celebrate Recovery and soon found myself back on a stage.  This time I was giving my alcohol testimony and I did it for a few CR’s in the Jacksonville area.  The more I get on stage, the more comfortable I become.  I have learned the hard way that the only way to get over something that scares you is to do that very thing you fear.  Now, I give other people advice on how to overcome their fears and I routinely put those with public speaking fear on the spot because it is the only way anyone can ever over come that fear.  My next move is to get my teaching/preaching feet wet either in CR or in a Women’s Ministry, but I guess I need a CR or a church home for that. 
 
Actually, my CR leaders Jay and Karen in Florida also had a big impact on my growth over the last couple of years.  Looking back I now know the reason I was led to Celebrate Recovery – I needed a lot of healing.  I needed to learn to love myself.  I needed to learn how to make healthy choices and healthy decisions and healthy boundaries.  I needed to raise my self-respect and my self worth and that is exactly what I did.  I also was able to get my ministry feet wet by learning to become the women’s share group leader.  Jay and Karen are also the ones who got me onto the testimony circuit and provided feedback so I could get better at speaking in public.  I also needed to learn to love others, but I think that comes with being comfortable with yourself and understanding who and what you are.
 
This leads to the people that made the most impact on me. The Liz’s, Tonia’s and Tracy’s – the people who like me for me.  They think I am funny and intelligent and pretty and a whole lot of fun.  I didn’t know anyone could like me without alcohol.  I lived most of my life under the oppression of extreme social anxiety and it was not until I got sober, learned to be comfortable in uncomfortable situations and started making sober friends that I found true friendships that showed me things I never knew about my self.  I do belong and I do have a place in this world and there are people who cherish me for me.  I guess this is the biggest lesson I have learned because it is the lesson that freed me from trying to be anyone except me. 
I do not know what lies ahead for me, but I do know that I can handle whatever is coming my way.  Right now I am focusing on job hunting and once I land a job I can start making a place for myself while I get back on my financial feet.  I always wanted to leave Memphis and never come back, but maybe I wanted to leave because of what I needed to learn.

Well folks, that’s a wrap on Florida.  After a stress filled and tumultuous month of May, I am heading home.  I have come to a standstill on the chest knot after having a diagnostic mammogram, an ultrasound, some x-rays and a CT Scan. The only thing I know for certain is that it is the joints of ribs 5 through 7 and there is absolutely no mass, tumor or cyst to be seen.  While I have not ruled out a form of bone cancer, I would not have the possibility of moving forward until the end of July so I feel okay picking the situation back up when I get on insurance in Tennessee.
 
The nail in the coffin of the state of Florida is the fact that I cannot afford my own place and I cannot find a room to rent either.  I crashed at one friend’s place for a couple of months and left once I thought I had found a nice place to stay through a friend of mine.  Unfortunately, it became very clear that this person had never had roommates before and tried to control my every move and so I had to leave because while I can understand a few ground rules, this person has no say on whether or not I call my sponsor every day, go to church every Sunday or go out to parties with them when they invite me.  So I find myself almost homeless yet again and now I have a different friend letting me crash for a few weeks.  Half of my stuff is on her back porch, part is in my trunk and part is in my room in bags or suitcases.  It is this whole continuing to be homeless scenario that has me ready to go back to Tennessee where I have a nice house I can stay in while I get back on my feet.
 
I have decided to treat my home city just like I would treat any city I have moved to – like I haven’t been there before.  I am going to find groups and Meetups to join, rediscover the churches and just see what happens.  Having my brother around will also be of great benefit since he does a lot of car and truck restoration.  He has already said he can get the water out of my door and fix my seal – something new I am dealing with until I leave rainy Florida. 
 
A lot of my friends are asking if I will be staying this time and all I can say is that I plan staying a couple of years, but you never know what’s around the corner – I could be gone in a couple months or stay a lifetime… I guess I will find out when I head north on 75 in a few weeks. What I do know is the person returning is not the person who left.  After living on the West coast and the East coast – I have changed a lot.  I am not the same person; I have new perspectives on so many things.  But one thing my adventures have taught me is paradise is nice, but it can also be lonely if the people you love are too far away to enjoy it with you.  So here’s to going back home and making the old new again and enjoying time with family.  Hope each of you has a great June too!

They say God might not be there when you need Him, but He is always right on time.  I guess the saying stands for those moments when life turns your time table on its side and lets it stay sideways for a while.  Events seem to happen at the absolute worst moments and nothing makes any sense.  You start to feel like you are in one of those metal crushers, you know the ones that crush cars?  You already thought pressure was coming from every angle possible, but you have been proven wrong when new and stronger pressures appear out of nowhere.  Each day you discover a new meaning to the phrase “stuck between a rock and a hard place” and that is one onion you never had any interest in peeling. 
 
I have been focusing on getting out of my job and getting out of my temporary living situation as soon as possible, but now due to a health hiccup, I am not even sure I can do that! This health hiccup, until resolved will keep me in the exact situation I am trying to escape.  I can’t even give up and go home because I have to keep my health insurance. It’s as if God through out a spike strip to halt me in my tracks.  The fact that I know I am not wanted in my temporary living situation makes it all the worse.  It really sucks when you are going through hell and the one person you find yourself at the mercy of really doesn’t like you, nor you him for that matter.  I am constantly afraid he is just going to abruptly kick me out.  He has already thrown the fact that he is letting me stay in his home in my face and people who do favors and then throw it back in people’s faces or hold those favors over their head are the exact people I don’t want to associate with and they are the exact people that would throw someone out abruptly.  My only saving grace is that I start paying rent this month so if he does try to throw me out – he is going to have to pay me for it.  Oh, and my wonderful car with the brand new coolant system is still having coolant problems.  I am back to adding coolant every few days!  I honestly don’t even know what to do right now.   I am trying to keep my plan on track by continuing to job hunt and if something more comes of this health hiccup, then I will have to re-evaluate the plan at that time.    I will know more in a couple of weeks, which incidentally coincides with my deadline of switching gears and preparing to head back home to Memphis.
 
The one bright light in all of this chaos is the fact that I have not even had the inkling to pick up a drink.  I mean what good would it do me anyway!  Yes, it might make me oblivious to all of my problems, but the problems would still be there only I would probably have more problems if I gave alcohol another chance.
 
I don’t know what I am being held in place for, but I just have to continue riding this crazy wave and trust that it will take me to where and who I need to be.  Besides, those of us that know Jesus will never find ourselves outside of His hands.  My Jax pastor said something the other day that struck me:  when Jesus was in the garden asking for the cup to be removed, the cup He was referring to was not all that would happen on the cross, He was referring to what would happen immediately after – the momentary separation from God that He would have to suffer on our behalf so that you and I would never have to spend one second out of His arms.

I don’t know who turned my timetable on its side, but whoever it was – Please sit it right side up!  Chaotic is the only word that comes to mind to describe my life right now.  Dead End is another good description for my life right now as that is all I seem to be encountering at the moment. 
 
I had to leave my rental situation of the last two years at the end of March.  I have never had any issues finding a room to rent, however, I have not been able to find a place this time around and so I am typing this blog from my friend’s dining room table.  I am staying with her and her fiancé for a few weeks which doesn’t sound too bad, but the house is tiny and they are getting married and about to have a dozen people staying here and so as I said timing is just horrible right now.  I also lost my roommate and my neighbor who have been a great help to me when it comes to my car of never-ending problems.  I helped her pack up some last minute things and drove her up to her new town and while doing so that wonderful Low Coolant Light started flashing.  The entire coolant system in my car is brand new including the thermostat and sensor so I really have to ask, What now, Chevy?  Maybe your new cars are award winning, but your old cars are far from it.  Problem is that I no longer have anyone to help me with my car.  It goes down, so do I. 

And of course, I had to say goodbye to the world’s greatest dog, Lilly.  As soon as I would open my door in the morning I would hear the thump, thump of her tail wagging on the floor.  At first sight, she would jump up and run to greet me and flop over onto her back for a morning belly rub.  She also helped me with my exercise by taking me on very brisk walks through the neighborhood.  She is a sweet girl and I will miss her and my roommate very much as they were both very good to me.
 

While I was going through all of this cleaning stuff out and packing stuff up and trying to find a place to live, my work asked me start working overtime.  Again, timing is just not working in my favor these days.  My work is asking the impossible of me, completely disrespecting me on a daily basis and they pay me quite close to nothing for all of my trouble.  I guess I should have never taken this job as it certainly has put me in a tight corner, but I didn’t know the financial issues surrounding this university until after I started work.  I have been trying to find a new job, but that too has been one dead end after another.  What do you do when all the doors are closed and your typically vocal gut is completely silent?  Well, I have been grappling with the idea of going back home to Memphis for a while, but I have been reluctant to quit my job, which would mean loosing my income and my health insurance.  I can only have coverage through a group plan or Obama Care since I have that ugly “C” word in my medical records.  Memphis is also a place where a lot of bad things happened.  While I do have family there, it is just a hard place to go back to due to all of the things that went so wrong there.
 
Unfortunately, my decision might be made for me shortly because if my car is going to start acting up again, I will have no choice but to abandon ship and go home.  It already has a starting problem and if I have to start putting coolant in it again and start taking it back up to the shop again I will have no one to help me out.  I will have to fork out money for a rental car every time as well as the money to fix whatever is wrong.  It would be far better for me to take it up to my brother in Tennessee and have him look at it and if needed have him help me find a tide-me-over car for a couple grand and unload this car of a million problems. 
 
Back when all of this upheaval started, I asked God what in the world was going on and what I needed to do about it.  Thus far, He has only stated, “ You need to learn to ride the wave.”  I am literally flying blind and just taking each day as it comes and trying to understand that any control I thought I had now seems to be gone.  Circumstances are taking over and ushering in a new reality.  I have known that I was racing against a ticking time bomb with my car, my job and my finances and it appears the bomb is starting to detonate, it appears I have lost the race, it appears that I am watching myself crash in slow motion… But I have to continue to ride this wave to its destination leaning not on my own understanding and trusting that the wave will take me to where I need to be regardless of how uncomfortable I am while in transit.  
 
God may call it riding the wave, but I think I am learning how to trust.  My trust meter is really low for myself and for others.  Erwin had this to say recently, “…many of you are wondering where your opportunities are, but they have been there all along, you just treated them like giants and ran from them in fear…” This is especially true regarding some opportunities that have come across my path.  They were awesome opportunities that any sane person would jump at, but I would find a list of reasons why I might not be a good fit.  As I said in my previous post, I have burned a lot of lies I have believed about myself – the easy part.  Now, I have the hard part – the part where I have to start acting as if the lies really are lies which, means stepping out of fear and into faith and facing these so called giants head on and trusting that I am fully capable.

It’s been a year since I penned Corralling Part 1 and I never wrote a part two, but then again, this special one is still in her holding pen.  I was driving the other day and reflecting on life in Florida and life in Los Angeles and the vast difference between those two lives.  I was also reflecting on my financial situation, which as we all know was just re-torn to smithereens. I was thinking, ‘how can I be in this situation again! How is it that I keep winding up here.  Why can’t I get anything going for myself!’  And just before I would come to a place of movement, I would think I guess I am just in a burning season.  I have thought this many times before, but this time God had something to say about it.  Abruptly and with force He interjected the following:  You are not in a burning season.  You chose this.  And you keep choosing it.
 
I knew exactly what He meant.  You see, I have a history of talking myself out of amazing opportunities and shrinking back into my little shell.  I also have a great talent when it comes to pulling out all the stops for a job that I won’t like and won’t pay me near what I am worth or need. 
 
I have been going through a CR Step Study so that in the future, I can lead a CR Step Study and we just had our burning party.  In this particular CR, after Step 4 and 5 are complete, we burn our inventories.  Since my focus for this step study was to rip out all of the lies I have believed about myself, I wrote all of those lies down on a couple sheets of paper and threw them into the fire and watched them turn into ashes.  It was only a few days after this that God told me that my so called burning season is due to my own choices and those choices have been rooted in fear due to the lies I have believed about myself for so long that I don’t even know where I first heard them.  Or perhaps I do know where they come from – experiences and events that scarred me and made me think less of myself.
 
This brings me back to that sermon from Erwin McManus that I seem to recount over and over again on this blog and in my life.  That sermon where he asked,  “whose voice are you listening to?”  Whose voice is getting the last word in your life?  Is it God’s voice or someone else’s? 

Well, if you want to know if you are listening to God’s voice then you have to know what God says about you.  While I am not the best at knowing scripture, I do know that according to scripture God delights in me.  He knit me together and considers me a masterpiece.  He loves me more than I will ever understand and while He is not always proud of my actions, He is always proud of the lady I am becoming while I venture through life with Him.  I also know that the Bible says we can do anything He has called us to do.  Maybe that is my hiccup.  Maybe I don’t know what I have been called to do.  I do know that we all have a calling to love God and to love others, but I believe we each have personal callings that match a passion burning within us.  And I am a lady of a million passions so maybe as Kim McManus said the other day, I am overwhelmed by choice so I keep not choosing.  I fear I don’t know how to choose correctly, or I fear I am biting off more than I can chew or maybe my fear in choosing allows the voices that aren’t God’s to flood me with lies and so I choose wrong again.
 
My life is about to get turned upside down all over again.  My roommate situation is ending at the end of March and I am desperately trying to get out of my latest job choice mistake by the end of May.  I am unsure if I will be renting another room in Florida for a few more months or if I will go back to Memphis, but I do know one thing – If a good opportunity that excites me ever crosses my path again, especially in the next few weeks, I am going for it.  100%.  Let the Lion Roar.  I am done with talking myself out of amazing opportunities.  I am done believing the lies.  I know the difference between my gut telling me something’s not right and plain old fear so from now on, - I am going with my gut.  It’s what brought me to Los Angeles and it is what brought me to Florida and one of these days my gut will lead me out of this holding pen. After all, my life verse is Joel 2:25 and I do believe that God will restore the years the lies ate away.
 

They say if March comes in like a lion that it will go out like a lamb.  Is the same true for years?  Let’s just say 2017 roared in and all but brought me to a complete standstill.  For starters I had to say goodbye to the sweetest and fiercest cuddlebug I’ve ever known.  Rosie, the toy stealing Boston, became very ill very quickly and had to be put down given her age.  She needed a very invasive surgery that brought no guarantees so my roommate did the right thing by escorting her to the big park in the sky.  The day she left us I contracted what I am calling a stress response.  I have a neck and back trauma from flying off an overpass about a decade ago.  I believe my stress reactivated this whiplash so to speak and I found myself in constant pulsating sharp pain in the lower back part of my neck on the left side of my body.  I also had limited mobility and I stayed this way for about a week to ten days.  As soon as I was back to normal physically and mentally, my car overheated while I was driving home from seeing a friend.  The red light started flashing and an alarm started going off which I am told was meant to make me pull over, which I did not.  I saw no steam so I figured I would continue driving.  It turns out my radiator was blown and I had to spend a pretty chunk of money on a new one, however, my coolant light was still flashing.  Going on my neighbor and roommates advice I put coolant in with the motor running and found that the small leak I was eventually going to get fixed had turned into a shower under my car.  No Wonder.   I had put about three bottles of coolant in the radiator and people kept asking me if there was a spot under my car and there wasn’t and there never would have been since it only showered coolant while the engine was running. And back to the mechanic I went only to find out that I had two leaks and needed to replace the rest of the components of my coolant system.  My main hope now is that the transmission will last long enough for me to get my debt paid off so I can buy a new car and I know what I want when that time comes… if that time comes, God willing.
 
So as I said in my previous post, my two main resolutions were financial based and fitness based.  Both have been blown out of the water.  I had one credit card paid off and was making head way on the other, but those are both back up at the top of their limits thanks to Christmas and my lovely car.  Then there’s the fact that I have restarted workouts, but am having issues with my upper body.  I am finding it very easy to reactivate my injury and weights are just not in the cards right now.  Though, I am finding it possible to slowly ramp up yoga practice.  So you know there’s some light.
 
This past week I became very angry regarding a co-worker who is now my boss.  I don’t have any hate for this individual and I do wish her the best in life – I just wish her life didn’t have to intersect with mine.  We share an office and she literally goes out of her way every day to remind me that she loves everyone in the office except me.  I have no idea what I did to her but she has been hateful toward me from day one.  This hate drama and the fact that I really need to get out of this job and the fact that I am very unhappy doing this job are starting to take a toll on me.  I just can’t seem to shrug it off and enjoy my day to the best of my ability anymore.  I am beginning to get stuck in an I hate my life mode at work.  It seems that this holding pen I am in just keeps getting smaller.  Every time I think I understand the act of corralling I somehow find myself in a smaller space with even less to breathe.  Being someone who has been touched my cancer and being someone who has stiff armed cancer for going on ten years now, I know that we are not guaranteed tomorrow and that we should each make the most of the time we have on Earth.  And I actually think that it is this “life is too short to not enjoy it” mentality that is getting the best of me right now.  I haven’t been happy in Florida.  I don’t have a community here. My job doesn’t provide what I need on a social, mental, emotional or financial level.  Yes, there are some good things to point out like my living situation, my involvement in Celebrate Recovery and getting to love on Rosie and now Lilly. But, I am at a boiling point. I say all of this to share that this past week in a moment of extreme anger (sitting at my desk and going off on everyone inside my head) my entire upper back and left side of my neck re-clinched and back to pain and immobility I went.  This would be the moment that I realized that my neck and upper back pain and stiffness are in fact a response to stress. 
 
I have shared previously that I am trying to follow the adrenal body type plan in an effort to curb the effect of stress on my mind, body and soul.  It speaks volumes that I can now literally stress myself into immobility and pain.  I have to find a way to deal with the daily stress of life before I literally stop my own heart.  Yes, I am a yogi.  Yes, I know I should know how to calm and center myself.  Yes, I am a Christian and I should have the peace of Jesus.  But I was also an alcoholic for like 16 years so I never really learned how to deal with life, in fact, my way of dealing with life whether good or bad was to drink.  It’s like putting a band-aid on a wound that requires stitches.  Yes, you are covering it up, but it is never going to heal properly.  That’s what my drinking did for me.  Yes, I could get through some really traumatic events like losing my dad and facing my own cancer, but I never learned how to handle life on life’s terms and so while I appear to function appropriately and wisely, I am for all intensive purposes, a raging toddler on the inside.
 
So maybe my new New Year’s Resolution for 2017 should be to learn how to ride the wave of life without letting it steal my inner joy.  Well, you know how it goes… We tell God our plans and He smiles and nods and then He finds a way to tell us His plans… His plans tend to prevail.  I know that much.

In Memory of Rosie, the toy stealing Boston who was as fierce as she was sweet.  Her humans miss her very much.

New Everything seems to be on my docket for 2017.  It’s an everything must go sort of season in my life.  For starters, the house where I have been room renting, is going on the market this month and it is being listed at base price to sell quick!  Second, my car appears to be on its final leg.  I own an Impala and anyone with an Impala from 2000 to 2005 probably knows what I am going through.  Actually, most of you have probably already gotten rid of your Impalas.  According to the Chevy forums, there is nothing that can be done, unless of course, God reaches down from Heaven and puts a stop to all this crazy coolant system nonsense.  Third, after having spent a semester in my new job, I can tell you that I must leave this place!  There is no money at this institution and moreover, people in my department haven’t seen a raise in five years!  That’s just plain crazy.  I do love the holiday shut down and time off structure, but that can be found in other institutions that actually pay their people so ya know… I will be leaving.
 
Change is everywhere right now and I do not know if I will land on my feet or crash on my butt.  The only person I can blame is myself.  I left Los Angeles for some financial stability, but the decisions I have made regarding employment have not exactly helped me attain much of anything close to stable.  So now I find myself at a dangerous cross roads.  I have a decent amount of debt to pay off and am in need of a new car and a new place to live and a new place to work.  My brother has been pushing for me to come back home for a year and while he does make sense numerically, I don’t want to move without a job, which would put me in the realm of blowing my savings.
 
So with all that said, let’s talk New Year resolutions.  You do have them right?  Mine are simple this year and fall into two categories: Finances and Fitness.
 
Financially, I need to get the rest of this debt paid off so I can buy a new car!  And of course, a house would be nice too! The main way to do this would be through a new and better paying place of employment.  I am geographically open, though I would like to move closer to my mom and brother.  I would also like to be in an area with a lot of hiking.  One doesn’t really hike in Florida.  There are tons of trails here, but it is more nature walking so to speak.  Plus I haven’t really been able to find a good hiking group or find any outdoors buddies to go exploring with so I have been at a loss in terms of one of my favorite past times.  I am a professional when it comes to living on nothing, so the challenge will be to keep living on nothing until the debt is gone.  AKA, not buying new things, which is very hard to do once those credit cards start lighting up with zero balances.  Self Restraint is needed indeed.
 
The second category is fitness.  I am not necessarily trying to loose weight, but I do want to be healthy!  I need to get back to eating mostly fruits and vegetables and zero sweets.  I am trying to follow the adrenal body plan which means I need to add in protein.  I have toyed with the idea of bringing seafood back into my diet, but I just don’t feel right about it.  I mean if I can talk to it, I shouldn’t eat it. Right?  I also need to up my morning and evening workouts.  I do yoga every morning, but I need to start getting up earlier so I can get more time in on the mat and I need to be doing an hour of cardio and/or strength in evening when at home.  Once my debt is paid off, I would like to join a gym or program where I can be taken through a series of exercises.  I just do better with someone telling me what to do and making me do it when it comes to workouts.  I am good at doing the workout, but I am also good at making every excuse as to why I don’t need to give 110% or why I need to do the beginner version or the low impact version or ya know whatever.  I have decided to take a picture of myself on the first and last day of 2017 to further motivate me to eat healthy and keep up with the workouts.  Perhaps I’ll share my results with you this time next year. 
 
I guess I do have a third category in terms of New Year resolutions, but I feel that it is going to have to take a back seat until I am in a new job.  The third category would, of course, be my creative endeavors.  I have a few ideas that involve a second blog that is topic focused for 12 steppers and a YouTube channel and I do want to get back into my writing.  Since this is more dependent on the first two resolutions getting off the ground, I will dub this a bonus resolution, which in turn gives me more motivation to make the first two resolutions happen.
 
I wish all of you a Happy, Prosperous and Adventurous New Year!