I have really been thinking a lot about what I want in my future.  Obviously, I am aware that I don’t have full control, but I do have some control.  I can direct the sails of the ship so to speak and I must leave the rest to the Creator God.   ​

I think I have been afraid to direct the sails for the most part.  I get afraid way too early as was mentioned by my 2024 tarot reading.  It’s true.  I do get afraid way too early and forego everything to appease my fear more often than not.  I actually feel like I am in some time warp because I am exactly where I was twelve years ago and I about to do the exact same thing I did twelve years earlier.  I’m trying to see it as a positive that maybe I really do get a second chance.  I am one of those people who tend to need several trial runs which life doesn’t usually afford.  Now what would really knock my socks off is if I ended up moving the exact same weekend to the exact same place.  That would be insane and a definite nod from above.  We will see sooner than later!

Anywho, back to getting clear about what I want.  Maybe I needed to run the first time.  This idea definitely relates to my on again off again relationship with alcohol.  During my first nine years of sobriety I had a really hard time and I think it was because I needed to show myself why I needed to be sober.  After three years of drinking myself into oblivion and putting myself in an insane amount of debt (all the isms came out to play) I can definitely say I am just a better me without the alcohol.  I am finally at peace about it.  I understand it in a way I didn’t understand it before and as a result, I am not struggling with my sobriety anymore.  It is what it is.  Me with alcohol means me on a couch or a patio with a drink in my hand and that’s pretty much my entire existence.  Me without alcohol is me hiking, painting, exploring, photographing the beauty around me, road tripping, sightseeing, and learning all kinds of crafts, trying new forms of dance… Me without alcohol means an ever expanding experience and so now I know.  I just can’t do the alcohol.  I’m good.  So what does this have to do with the thought that maybe I needed to run the first time around?  I needed to see and experience my life in that industry and outside of that industry.  That industry is hard and it comes with a lot of concessions and I understand now that I need that industry which makes the concessions much easier to handle and navigate.  I guess to take it deeper, I needed to experience both worlds - the one where I let fear drive many of my decisions and the one where I sit with the fear and let it know it is going to be okay because whether this makes sense or not, we are doing it.
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They say everything is for you even when it feels like it is not.  I feel like maybe the detours I took myself on were a necessary part of my journey.  I needed them.  I needed to choose a road, walk all the way down it and realize what I really needed after all, was the other road. I mean let’s be honest, I am known for going off trail so I should have no problem making my way back over to the other road no matter how much wild terrain I have to cross.

Crushes are a funny thing aren’t they?  You literally find yourself enamored with someone you have never met!  I think they are peculiar to say the least.  For me, attraction is so much more than a pretty face.  I need to hear your voice, discover your vernacular, study your thoughts, your actions, your expressions… All of this together forms the crush.  But even so, there might be crickets if I ever got the chance to meet a crush.  Could we carry on a conversation over dinner?  Would we vibe?  Or would it be forced conversation and painstaking silence?  Would we get each others jokes and sarcasm or would we take every phrase the wrong way?  There are so many men I would like to have dinner with to just find out.  I’m a curious cat.

Crushes for me aren’t always just some weird looking guy who catches my attention.  Many of them seem to have a purpose.  Many of them bring something into my life I might not have otherwise had if it weren’t for the stupid little crush.

“Billy” for instance, this crush goes way back.  But something I read stuck with me and served me when I moved to LA.  He said, whatever you are looking for you can find it in Hollywood, in Los Angeles. He also said the key is to be very intentional about what you are looking for.  If you want social climbers, you can find them everywhere. If you want fair weather friends, you can find them all over the place.  If you want some of the best quality people and friendships that will last a life time - you can find them there too.  But you have to  be intentional about it.  And that is what I did.  I set my intention to cultivate lasting and quality friendships and that is exactly what I found in LA.  The best friends, the best people, I often wonder why I left, like I really wonder that a lot! I’ve stayed in touch with almost all of them!

Another crush taught me the “Shh”.  I was going through a lot of mental and emotional stuff at the time.  I read several articles and watched some interviews and videos where “Steve” used this “Shh” to quiet his mind, to quiet his thoughts when they were racing out of control and taking him down a bad path.  I started using the “Shh” myself.  Then the “Shh” became something that worked a little better for me - “I can see you”.  Have you ever tried telling your thoughts you can see them?  Telling your mind you can it?  For me, at least, it has a silencing effect.  All thoughts cease immediately for enough seconds to make me forget what was going on in my head and I instantly feel better and lighter.  I wouldn’t have gotten to where I am now without the “Shh”.

More recently, there was another “Steve" that garnered my attention.  I had gained a bunch of weight, had lost some hair, was just going through it as a woman in her early 40’s and I read about this dude and his love for ballet.  I recall him talking about how great of a workout it is and how he only started taking ballet for pure vanity.  He had seen some male ballet dancers and wanted to try to look like them.  I thought, well, hell, I’m gonna try it too.  Something very out of the ordinary for this tomboy who played soccer growing up.  My claim to fame is having to intercept passes from Team USA’s, Cindy Parlow.  That girl had cannons for legs and I had to shake off every pass I successfully intercepted.  So, any who, I’m not the girliest of girls and I don’t exactly have a right and a left foot if you know what I mean.  But ballet?  I have fallen in love with ballet!  I found Ballet Misfit on YouTube and took her Complete Beginner series and then her Beginner series and I will be taking her Intermediate Beginner series later this year.  I am also loving a ballet fitness program by YouTuber, The Lazy Dancer.  Dansique Fitness is another favorite.  I highly recommend anyone wanting to learn as an adult to start with Ballet Misfit.  She will teach you everything so you can do other more advanced videos or take in person and be able to keep up - something else I plan on doing later this year.  The interesting thing is the ballet has started some sort of renaissance in me.  I am getting back into my writing, and my photography and I am just all around getting back to the creative self I seemingly left in LA.  I cannot imagine my life without ballet!  It saved me.

And now there is “Mr. Fantastic”!  He’s a doll isn’t he?  And he is definitely living his best life right now. His love of theatre and reading up on all of his theatre background reminded me of how much I loved being a part of a show!  I have done live show production in a previous life (this one, but it seems like another life time at this point).  I have worked in the control room too.  I loved it.  I loved creating the experience.  I loved working with whoever was on stage.  I loved being a part of a team, of a family?  I loved being a cog in the wheel of putting on the show.  I miss it, actually.  I had a lot of fun, and a lot of laughs, a lot of sheer terror when everything was on me with a live audience, but I really did have fun.  I say all of this to say I am being reminded  that it is time to make myself a part of the show again. I guess “Reed” is layering on to the renaissance I am experiencing.  I don’t fully know where this crush is taking me, but I am excited to find out.

Note: If any of the “superheroes” mentioned above are reading this and spot themselves - I’m always up for some good conversation! 😊😉

I had a 2024 reading done.  I am not sure why.  Every time I have done one, the past and the present is on point, but the future - well, I am still waiting.  I actually have two more years, but whatever.  I am such an impatient person.  This particular reading really rocked me in that it really sang me a song I would love to sing.  I am trying to put it all in the back of my mind.  I think I even figured out that what was seen as an Emperor coming in was in reality a new man crush that came to my attention a month later.

But what I have not been able to put in the back of my mind was a warning.  A tempting.  A repeating of a mistake I made in 2014.  I know 2014 all too well.  It was the year I packed up and left LA.  I took myself clear across the country to the east coast.  Everything seemed to be lining up and working out and it did for a while, but then everything fell apart.  And by everything, I mean everything.  I became homeless.  Bouncing around in friends spare bedrooms until I finally just left and went back to Memphis.  I wouldn’t say Memphis is home.  I don’t ever want to say that.  But I have some family there and so that is where I went.  The decision to leave California put me on a disaster path.  I went through seven layoffs.  I went through every dime I had and then the pandemic came and completely destroyed me.

I’ve always thought that leaving LA was the mistake.  That I should have stayed there.  Afterall, it is the one place where I was okay.  Like really okay.  Life was hard there, but it was also good.  It didn’t dawn on me till this past week, that perhaps there was a bigger mistake that I had never thought of.  My job was no longer working for me.  I hated my boss.  I wanted out.  And when I want out - I only see red.  I have realized I tend to stay too long in situations that aren’t serving me.  I tend to put up with shit for too long.  By the time I realized I really had to go, I was already gone.  I waited way too long to start trying to find another job, much less give myself time to decide if I wanted to stay in my career and try doing it somewhere else.  All I could see was red and red took me out of my job, out of California and clear across the country to a beach on the east coast to find an easier life and an easier pace.  All this time I thought my mistake was the leaving, but I am realizing my mistake was the staying.  I had stayed too long.  Had I taken time to figure out what I wanted to do next and given myself time to start looking, I would have found something.  I would have maybe never left the west coast and maybe never gone through seven layoffs.  I maybe wouldn’t be where I am right now.

And right now is repeating 2014.  I originally planned on leaving my job last summer, but I stayed.  Now, I am seeing red. And that red cannot take me to the same place it took me last time.  In the reading, I was also told I would be running back to what I ran from.  And I am doing that.  It turns out easy is boring for me.  I need the excitement. I need the fun. I need the challenge.  I am in essence trying to run back to what I ran away from.  The difference is this time around I know what I need to do and I know what I need to go after.  Wish me luck, would you?  I honestly can’t take a repeat of what happened from  2016 to 2021.

I felt like I had been on pause.  Like I was standing still and everyone else was moving around me.  I was tired.  I was sleeping 10 - 12 hours a day.  I was extra late for work every day.  I couldn’t focus on anything.  I forgot assignments and projects that had been handed to me.  Workouts that used to be easy felt impossible.

That is how my November, December and January went.  I was on pause.  I wondered if I suddenly had Seasonal Affective Disorder.  I wondered if my hormones were out of whack.  I wondered if this is just my new thing for this year as I have had a crazy medical issue every year for the past few years.  I never realized what was happening.  My brother called me worried about the polar vortex and snow storm coming our way.  He told me to go get food and figure something out for if power goes out.  He said I might not survive if I lost power.  I told him it was okay.  I told him I had had a hard life and things just never panned out for me.  I told him I didn’t want to fight anymore.  I told him it was okay if he let me go.  I told him drifting off to sleep in the freezing temperatures sounded like a good way to go and the thought gave me peace.

A couple days later I realized I was very depressed. I guess it came on slow.  I just became more and more tired.  My mind got fuzzy.  I lost interest in almost everything except the one or two things that made me smile.  Since I have had some interesting health problems over the past few years I just assumed it was something else creeping up and making it self known.  I had no idea I was experiencing depression.

I went to God.  I didn’t pray for it to go away or have it taken from me.  God knows I have prayed for so many things over the years that He has seemingly ignored.  I just wanted to know what I was dealing with.  So I asked, Is this physical or is this spiritual?  I asked, if this is spiritual, take it away for two days so I know.  If it is physical leave it be so I know I need to go see someone and figure out what is causing this.

You know when a thought comes into you head that is not yours?  Have you had that before? Like you know it is not you?  Not your voice, not your chatter.  It startles you because it is not you?  I had that in that moment.  The voice said, it will be lifted off of you as you move into February and it was.

I don’t know I thought that was crazy.  I watched a church service online today and something said got me thinking about the prayers God has recently answered and the ones He seems hell bent on ignoring:

Prayers Answered - Recent and some long term

• Kicked a very dark depression as soon as I asked
• Showed me within 24 hours of meeting a man I had some interest in that he was 100% not it
• Led me to a herbal mixture that is helping with mood stability
• Has kept me cancer free
• Small prayers like wonderful parking spots under lights and cameras while in the city (my car has be ravaged by hooligans)

Prayers God seems to Ignore - all long term

• Removal of addiction tendencies and desires
• Removal of sometimes paralyzing anxiety and fear
• Removal of sometimes extreme self doubt
• My Life Partner

I don’t know.  I thought it would help to write some down and look at what He answers and what He seemingly ignores to try to piece together what He’s actually doing.  One thing I do see is God is definitely the dad on the front porch holding a rifle when it comes to me.  And that is something I asked for when I lost my dad many years ago.  I also see Him keeping me in a position of opportunity as in He is keeping me physically and mentally well so that when doors open I can walk through them.  Like a dad he watches out for me, but He is leaving the real work up to me.

I have come a long way in terms of my addiction, my anxiety, my self doubt… Fear is something I still have some work to do on.  As far as a life partner, I honestly don’t go on a bunch of dates and I really don’t want to.  I am not on any dating apps and I don’t want to be either.  I know it is so cliche, but I want someone amazing to pop into my life.  I’ve always been one of those people who says we are either going to intercept each other or we’re not.  I mean I spent most of my twenties and part of my thirties going to all the places and doing all the things and nada.  So I know if I am meant to meet that special someone I will.  I just haven’t and maybe I won’t.  I am in my 40’s now and I have to accept that as an option.  I don’t know what will become of me if I don’t have someone in my life, but I can’t worry about that now - it is too far off.  Too many roads between here and there and who knows what could be on any of them.

I guess in making my list, I have received the God I actually asked for - the dad on the front porch with rifle ready to strike anyone who does anything to his precious daughter.  As much as I love that version of God in my life, I need to let God be God in my life and maybe realize I don’t need the Father figure like I feel like I do.