2025 doesn’t feel like a fresh start, if anything, it feels like the last three years continued.  I have been brought face to face with my inability to realize the situation for what it is.  I am being reminded of each and every time God has provided a miraculous way out and I swatted it away.  I am being reminded of the many times God has tried to set me up in careers some only dream about and I said No.  I am being reminded of the insanity of my own mind and my own inability to surrender no matter what situation I am putting myself in.  I am being shown just how blind and defiant I am.  This has been my last month of 2024 and so I ask why?  What am I to do with this knowledge of my own ineptness?

I fee like I am entering a time of withdrawal. I am letting go.  I am giving up.  I am of a singular focus.  I am entering a hermit season.  2025 is the year of the hermit for me.  I have one focus and that is to get a better paying job and pay off around $10K of my debt.  And then repeat that for the next three years.  The problem is I always get side tracked.  I can never stay on course.  Life happens and I get caught up in it and forget the goals or aims I had.  Like when I first moved back to Memphis, I was only supposed to be here for like a year or two tops to regroup and zoom right back out to one of the coasts. But I got caught up in friendships and jobs and hobbies and family and I just forgot all about saving money and leaving Memphis.  I have never been good at staying the course which is where the hermit part comes in.  I need to have one singular focus.  I can’t care about anything else.  I am realizing I can only focus on one thing at a time and right now it has to be my own financial well being.

There is a lot I am not saying here.  And it has to do with my being in and out of sobriety and even when I am in sobriety my own isms will run riot me into a grave. I have been sober for a year and six months as I type this and it was a year and some months into my sobriety this time around that I started realizing my isms are killing me way faster than any substance ever could. I came to this realization through music.  I had a dream and Eminem was in it.  The blonde, cocky, asshole Eminem from Eight Mile, not the cute one Mike Tyson punched.  I don’t typically dream and usually deem any dreams a message, but this one I chalked up to WTF.  A week went by and I recalled the dream again and decided to look him up to see what he’d been doing since Eight Mile and it was a hell of a lot. Every song I decided to check out had something to do with his own reflections on addiction and those songs got me to see my own story in a very different light. He even posts his chip every year like I used to.  And so I decided to check out some Zoom meetings.  I actually love hearing from people all over the world and the country.   While I don’t need the program to stay sober, I do need the program to fight my isms.  They apparently require constant attention.  Looking back, I have always been a better me when I was in the program and so I will give the program another go this time for the isms, because the obsession that plagued me for my first ten years of sobriety has finally been lifted.

But I guess all this goes back to my inability to see the situation for what it is.  I have thoroughly run my life into the ground yet again.  But it’s okay.  I am actually okay.  I am glad I learned the lessons I finally learned.  I am glad I finally proved to myself that I cannot drink and need the program for my isms and I am glad I understand my insane impulsiveness and consumption tendencies. All of this is good.  I am glad I understand I have an issue seeing the situation for what it is.  I am glad I understand I don’t know how to do life on life’s terms. All of this is setting me up for what is coming next. Now, I can actually start getting somewhere. I don’t need to walk into 2025 defeated. ‘How easy can I let it be to pay off the debt I have created’  How Easy Can I Let It Be….This is the energy I restarted this blog with (and subsequently forgot about) And this is the energy I need to carry into 2025. Besides, God has been talking to me again.  That still small voice is there again and I have listened.  The other day I wanted to make a Zoom meeting I pretty much always enjoy, but something told me to not rush it.  And so I did not make the meeting.  I ended up in another Zoom meeting later in the day, where I listened to a guy tell quite a story, and I knew without a doubt I was supposed to hear him.  I immediately knew that while it is important to know where all I have gone wrong, it doesn’t end there.  He is the God of a million chances and maybe even a million more. Thanks for letting me share.

I have been reflecting a lot lately.  I feel like the fall and winter are perfect times to reflect on what has worked, what hasn’t and what direction the winds seem to be blowing.  I can say that I spent the majority of this year trying to be somewhere else.  It didn’t happen and now I am thinking it might be for the best.

I feel like I am coming to a spiritual surrender of sorts.  I am in one of those moments where the mess I have created could swallow me whole.  I tried may darnedest to make several things happen or change this year and none of them did.  And perhaps the aforementioned mess is why.  I really am in between a rock and a hard place and there are several bubbling disasters that could put me in ruins depending on when they finally boil over.

I was listening to K-Love one day and the radio personality, as they call them these days, was sharing about a prayer she had prayed and how a few years later her life was completely different in the best way.  It wasn’t what she wanted or planned, it was entirely different and entirely better.  I thought to myself at the time, this is what I need!  And so I prayed the prayer too hoping for something to come and make this life of mine worth something or at least more fun.  I cannot remember the prayer for the life of me and maybe I’m not supposed to.  Maybe if I did I would start editing it or obsessing over it.  I know it was something along the lines of do with me what you will or make my life what you want it…you know similar to the Jesus take the wheel scenario, but it was somehow very different at the same time.  Anywho, it has been a few months now and while nothing in my life has changed, I, myself, am starting to change.  Some of the things I have been chasing, I don’t want to chase anymore.  I’m evolving. It could be my desires are being aligned with God’s plans or it could be that desires I never realized I had are being revealed.  I do tend to get blinded by the light so to speak.  Maybe I’m starting to see clearly.  All I know is the only thing changing is me.

I’m getting more focused too.  I have been using my intentions again and I started off with three ever important intentions: financial freedom, meet husband, have more fun.  I was later guided to focus on one and I picked the financial freedom.  I’m in the process of paying things off and shedding belongings and simplifying everything really.  I have been doing this for the past year and will be doing it for the next year or two or three depending on what happens work wise.  This is my main focus and the biggest stressor I have so if I can get it knocked off I will be better able to have more fun and meet someone.  It would take a very understanding person and probably someone with a recovery background of their own to even entertain my life right now.

And so this is where I am.  In a surrender of sorts, where I can’t help but surrender because I am changing, my desires are changing, what I thought I wanted is changing and I’m not sure what the next right move is anymore and so I surrender and focus on the financial freedom and leave the rest to God.  I was told by a psychic that 2024 was a Golden Bridge year for me meaning it is the year I become who I need to be for all that God has in store for me​.  And I think she might have been right after all, just not in the way she saw it.

Family is an interesting concept.  It brings both joy and sadness.  Happiness and Anger. Relief and Stress.  Some family is given to us and other family is chosen by us.  Regardless of origin, we all need some form of family in our lives.

I come from one of those families that don’t tend to keep in touch.  I lost my dad in my 20’s and I’ve never spoken to his side of the family since.  To be honest, I didn’t speak to his side of the family much before that.  My mother’s side is the only family I have known.  I have great aunts and uncles that have kept in touch with me over the years.  Mainly because one of those aunts took on the role of grandmother because I lost both of mine when I was still learning how to walk.  Even so I do have cousins on my mother’s side who have never spoken to me as adults.  So my given family currently consists of my mother, brother, four aunts and an uncle. Most of whom are 70 and above.  My mother and father had one of those whirlwind romances, the kind where you meet and within a few months you are married.  They were both only children.

My chosen family is a family that keeps growing, thankfully, and they are spread around the country.  Being as such, we don’t keep in touch like we used to, but I have a lot of soul friends out there.  We just pick back up where we left off even with years and multiple evolutions of ourselves between us.

Something I really need to work on is a local family.  People I can see and spend time with in the here and now.  I am so focused on getting out of where I am that I have stopped trying to cultivate new friendships locally.  Of course, many of the friendships I have cultivated here have already moved out of the area.  People think Los Angeles is transient, I say Memphis is transient mainly because people who move from up north or out west tend to leave quickly.  Actually, I have more friends still in Los Angeles, than those still in Memphis.

Family can also be tough when you believe opposite of each other which is my current boat.  My entire family is extremely conservative.  They all voted for Trump and are doing victory dances online and in real life.  I have always been the oddball out from day one.  I mean the entire family has birthdays within the span of a few months and I’m out there all my myself in the middle of the year.  Everyone in my family eats traditional southern cooking and I don’t eat meat or dairy.  I see everything different from those who I call family.  I’ve always been a part of my given family, but I never felt like I belonged to it.  And it has come to my attention that some of my extended family didn’t know what to do with me either.  Some of them would bite their tongue around me when I was a teenager because they didn’t want me thinking the worst of them.  This whole being together but separate happens in chosen family too.  I have friends that I connect with and have a great time with and trust and see many things the same as they do, but we also have some very big differences - mainly in how we each live our day to day lives.  I have a lot of friends that I would never do in a million years some of the things they have done.  I just wouldn’t.  Luckily this hasn’t caused any issues in our friendships.  They know who I am and I know who they are and we just roll on individually, but also, together.  Our shared values keep us connected, I guess.

Of course there is also the family we create with one other person, our life partner.  I don’t have one of those.  I haven’t even come close to having one, actually.  I think a large part of my life was just spent on other things.  I am interested though.  If anyone was going to come into my life for the rest of it, now would actually be a good time.  I am very concrete in who I am, what I believe about myself, and the world around me, and I know what I want in the other person.  Much of my life has been a constant shedding of identity and starting a new one, but I think the shedding is finally complete.  I have found me and so perhaps he can now find me too.

As we are getting closer to 2025, I am hopeful to expand my chosen family.  I want people in my corner who believe in me, appreciate me, and can help me better navigate life.  More on this next month….

I have been on an insane whirlwind of crazy when it comes to this body I inhabit.  For most of my life I was a lower energy person, but other than that I enjoyed great health.  I played soccer in adolescence, hiked great distances in my 30’s, and pretty much enjoyed life not really ever giving much thought to my health until one day when everything went sideways.

I went through about three years of colon spasms and got diagnosed with IBS-D which is a catch all phrase doctors use when they have no idea what is wrong with you, but your symptoms fit into a bucket of other people with similar symptoms that they also have no idea what is wrong with them.  I went to doctors, stopped eating certain foods, and got on probiotics and the spasms went away, but the Russian roulette with food stayed.  Every time I would eat I would never know if I was going to be sick, lethargic, bloated to the point that it hurt to walk, etc.  This has pretty much continued until just recently, but I have so much more to tell about the crazy things this body has put me though.

Out of the blue one day I started having blood in my urine.  If you look that up, you will find per the internet that you should start making your final arrangements. 🤯. I went to see doctors, had tests done, had invasive and embarrassing procedures done and all anyone could tell me was there was no answer.  Approximately one year later the blood simply disappeared.  The next year would bring a new harrowing experience in the name of vertigo attacks, at least that is what I call them because I feel attacked.  All of a sudden everything goes upside down and starts spinning and I am brought to the floor, unable to move, with my forehead on the ground and trying desperately not to vomit.  These episodes which is what the medical community calls them can last a while and leave a horrific wake that can last for days.  I again went to the doctor, had all kinds of tests done checking every possible culprit with yet again no answer.  The ultrasound tech who was checking my carotid artery said something along the lines of your thyroid looks weird, but other than that there was no answer.  (Thyroid tests have been normal and continue to be normal). I now carry anti-vertigo medication with me at all times.  Even when I have an attack, it takes approximately one hour to recover my ability to function and the aftermath of extreme lethargy and brain fog can last upwards of four days.  I was having one vertigo episode a week that year.  It was a tough year to say the least.  But again, the vertigo attacks just disappeared about one year after they started.  A lot of things started to return to normal and I thought well, maybe I am out of whatever that was…. Only to be hit with the worst  of them all!  Winter came, well not winter, fall, really.  But it might as well have been winter because I could not tolerate the cold.  Even 60 degrees was killing me.  It wasn’t a bone chilling cold, it was a soul killing cold I felt and I could not function at all.  I was in pain.  Physical pain, emotional pain, spiritual pain.  I became super depressed and even suicidal.  I had never been through something like this before.  I used to hike in 20 degree weather.  Now I cannot be outside in 60 degree weather.  I wondered if I was experiencing some sort of Seasonal Affective Disorder out of the blue.  Just when I thought I couldn’t hang on much longer, we had an early spring.  The sun was out more and the weather was warming up and this time the 60 Degrees felt wonderful.  As the temperature rose so did everything else in me.  I began to feel good again until it was too hot outside.  I literally spent the entire summer indoors.  I could’t take the heat this year.  I was lethargic all summer and guess what has been trying to return?  My vertigo attacks.  I have only had one full attack, but I have also had like 50 instances of feeling one try to come on, but it didn’t.

What also doesn’t help is that during the middle of this mayhem I gained over 30 pounds and had trouble doing things I normally did without any issues.  Despite all of this insanity I was in the gym working out and doing what I could, but the weight just kept coming.  It got to the point that I hated the gym because of all the damn mirrors. I hated what I looked like.  I didn’t recognize myself anymore and I decided to just quit.  Nothing I did mattered anyway, right?  So I just did yoga and little walks and dealt with the above medical mysteries until this past summer.  This past summer was the summer I stayed inside because I found that this year’s crazy issue was not being able to tolerate cold or heat.  Being stuck inside, not being able to play golf, or go on hikes, or do anything I enjoy really started to get to me.  My body was weaker than ever because I was doing nothing for it.  I was a fraction of who I used to be.

I’m trying to remember how this desire arose in me to get some of my strength back but I honestly don’t recall.  I know I was watching NWSL games on TV and reliving some of my past life wondering how the hell I ever played flank midfielder while watching Alyssa Thompson fly from one end of the field to the other even though she’s not a midfielder she certainly seems to come out of nowhere sometimes. I also had listened to a podcast from Dave Asprey about a guy named Jason who trains celebrities out of his own studio in Los Angeles.  Jason was the guest, I guess and I enjoyed that particular episode.  It left me wanting to know more about this Jason guy.  So I started looking him up. I found out about his studio, the celebs he has trained, his protein powder that he sells to the masses and a workout program he put on the PlayBook App that is similar to how he trained Brie Larson for her role as Captain Marvel.

And then he blocked me. Interesting thing was I was going to cancel my order of his protein powder and nix trying his workouts when God very sternly told me, “Don’t let him deter you.  I brought you to him for a reason”.  And by getting the protein powder and doing the workout program, I did indeed find out the reason.

First, I was getting fed up with not being able to do anything anymore.  I decided I needed my strength back and that I would focus on tstrength and leave the mirror alone.  I committed to doing his program even though I didn’t have all of the equipment.  I know enough to figure out how to do some of his exercises with the equipment I do have and I did the whole program at my house.  I can honestly say his workouts are very sneaky and very effective.  I am doing things I didn’t think I would ever do again thanks to this program.  I can also say I am hooked and back into strength training again.  The amount of change that took place in a four week program is just nuts. No wonder he is who all of the celebrities go to!  Jason, if you are reading this - please put another program or two up for us who can’t train with you!  I know we are supposed to circle back through the program adjusting weight and moving from modified exercises up to advanced versions. I do.  But why not drop a couple more programs?  Just saying.

The second thing that God was talking about was the protein powder!  It’s plant based with a full amino acid profile and contains digestive enzymes and it actually tastes really good.  This protein powder has done for me what I cannot seem to do for myself.  I am a teapot always going off.  I am highly emotional thanks to my Aries moon and my sun is Taurus so I have double the spice and double the nice.  This protein powder calms me!  Like I’m not as volatile as I used to be and I am not sure why.  The other thing it does for me is it has really helped with my daily bloating and I haven’t had as many issues with food since I started taking it.  I even got a bottle of the digestive enzyme blend it contains to have at night because I noticed by dinner time I was having some issues again with food.  How crazy is it that a protein powder fixed an issue I was seeing doctors for for years?  Maybe my issue is I lack some digestive enzymes.  Still I don’t know why it calms me, like it does and so I don’t want to ever be without it now.

Anywho, I credit Jason Walsh for getting me back into strength training and helping to pull me out of the desperation I was in even though I’ve never met the guy and he blocked me on social media.  Jason may have made this protein powder (Rise311) for his clients, but I think God had other plans for it and one of those plans was me as it is seemingly Jessica Proof.

So what’s next for me?  Well, I am definitely going to continue working out and keep up the strength training despite what comes my way next.  I plan on doing Jason’s Brie Program again in a couple of months after I do a couple of other ones.  I am worried about this coming winter because I don’t know if there will be a repeat of last year, but I am trying to just take each day as it comes and enjoy some of my new found strength.  I honestly spent all summer trying to get back to a more moderate climate and it is just not happening right now.  I am where I am and I guess for a reason.

It’s funny that we never think about our health until something life altering happens. I am trying to be more proactive these days.  My mental, emotional, spiritual, and physical health is important and I am paying more attention to it and moving stuff around in my life as needed.


What about you?

With a name like adventure, you might be surprised as to what this post is about.  I know I am.  I am on an adventure of sorts.  An adventure of the soul where I am fully embracing my past, my present, and my future - whatever it may be.  I am accepting realities I don’t want to accept and trusting that God has something in store for me yet.

I was doing a self love exercise this weekend and my answers to some of the questions floored me.  It is so easy for me to remind myself of everything I have done wrong and every single little thing I do wrong in the present, but I have not allowed myself to realize the wins.  When I started this blog up again, my very first post was on alcohol and how I came to realize it just doesn’t work for me.  I talked about how it just slowly takes over every time I start drinking again.  What I did not share is that I battled addiction on and off for most of my life.  I actually often wonder what my life would have been like if I had not had to quit soccer so early.  It was the only thing I loved more than what a bottle could do for me and it kept my addiction at bay for many, many years.  What came up in the exercise was the simple fact that I am forgiving myself for my addiction and someone chimed in and you conquered it.  I know some people reading this might not like that thought or language and if it isn’t safe for you - then please stop reading and click off the page.

It’s true.  I did finally conquer it.  I cannot explain it.  I came to an understanding about myself.  I have done life with it and I have done life without it and I finally understand that I cannot have it in my life.  The yearning is gone.  The desire is gone.  I’m good.  I’m a different person.  A person who does not drink.  I can go to bars and breweries and sit with people having a drink and it doesn’t phase me.  It’s just not something I do.  I don’t want to.  I love who I am.  I love myself more.  I’m just as happy ordering a hot tea with flowers floating in it and I know what I’m  saying, who I am with and I can drive myself home, get up early the next morning and do whatever I need to do the next day.  I love sobriety, actually.  I am very discerning about who is allowed into my life these days.  I even snoop on people a while before following them on social media.  I am that guarded with my energy.  Only good energy allowed.  Only good people, healthy people, positive people, people growing and flowing in the same direction as I am - in my life and online.

I also conquered crippling anxiety.  I don’t think I’ve given myself credit for that one either.  Now days, I understand how to push through it instead of letting it destroy my life.  I mean I spent an entire New Year’s Eve in a bathroom one year because I was hyperventilating and couldn’t stop myself!  I went from being that girl to being someone who can give talks on stage to a large audience.  I even served as a host for a celebrity filled event that had me constantly finding new ways to remind the audience of why we were all there (it was for charity) and trading jokes with the celebrity speakers both on and off stage!

So what adventure am I on?  The adventure of learning to love myself and my life no matter what it looks like.  I forgave myself for many things in that exercise.  I cried for a couple of hours a cry that was from so deep within it startled me.  I forgave myself for being terrified of all men because a few were severely cruel to me.  I forgave myself for never realizing how pretty I actually am.   I forgave myself for using money like some people use sex and as a result living in the deepest financial hole imaginable and not being able to move back to the coast or travel with friends.

I believe in giving credit where credit is due.  I am a writer and a photographer and I come from a songwriter and have some poets in the family.  It is just ingrained in me to always give credit where credit is due, but I haven’t given myself credit for what I have done right, for what I continue to do right.  I haven’t given myself credit for the wars I have won and I have won many besides the two I mentioned above.

The adventure I am on is one where I embrace my wins more than I fret about my falls.  The adventure I am on is one where I look up to God and ask what’s next, instead of looking down and asking what now.  The adventure I am on is becoming a very exciting one.