Blooming at 40?? Yup! 🙂

Before I begin, can someone please tell me how to center the text on the mobile app with the new editor? I suppose I am just realizing how much I use my phone for blogging and not being able to center the text has nerved me to no end!! And has stopped me from posting on more than a few occasions.

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Brief

Maybe you have noticed, maybe not…but things have been the quietest they have ever been around here. There isn’t any particular reason but life has decided there are more things to confront, heal, and process than I had originally speculated. Will I allow it to break me? I’d prefer to let it shape me but that doesn’t go to say it’s easy. If there are two things I have learned about all of this self-improvement shit, it’s that hard realities must be faced with honesty and patience is required throughout all of it.

Patience

When 2019 arrived I made it my mission to forgive those who I felt have wronged me in a way that continues to impact my life. I don’t hold resentments over petty things so my list of those to forgive is short. So short in fact, I had moved through half of that list in the first month by forgiving one person!! Well, technically there is no half to three…there is but I should say there is no half of a person. Lol. However you want to look at it, my list consists of three people. One of those being myself.

Unbeknownst to me, the order I had planned to do the forgiving in, least impactful to most, didn’t go as planned. This is where patience plays a vital role. I’ve realized life unfolds on its own terms and if I encounter resistance its because that isn’t the time for things to unfold. At the beginning of all of this, I found myself trying to force one thing only for another to prevail. Instead of pushing back on my plan, I let go of the reigns and decided it would go much more smoothly if I invested myself in the things that were showing up, in no particular order. I’m not a fan of surprises but let’s just say it has been interesting.

Hard realities and honesty

Being that I have a history with substance abuse, it is a given I will be reminded of things I did that hurt others. Of course, this was never my intention but so the story goes. Alcohol became the filter remover I thought I needed to heal and accept myself but the reality is I spewed some ugly, hurtful words to those who truly matter.

Many of you can attest that I have been at a standstill in my growth/recovery for quite some time. This was the most aggravating phase but it was because I had a vision of how I imagined things to go. I didn’t realize in order for the big things to surface, I had a million little things that lead up to them.

I kept searching and yet there it was, right under my fuck’n nose. I asked and would receive but the truth is…I wasn’t listening. But believe me, I hear it all clearly now. This has been the push I needed. Forcing me to connect with myself on a deeper level (is that even possible?). I’m here to say and as a witness we can always improve but instead of beating ourselves up over it, if we allow it, it comes and goes. The weight that is lifted is much greater than the pain.

The growth that has happened here was made apparent in the way the universe presented it. There’s no way I could’ve missed it. And if you wanna know the truth, it humbled me, shattered my heart, and taught me a huge message about judgment. I am still smoldering and so, I am still a bit sensitive. I am learning to do things different and I may fail but that’s ok. I will never know success until I’ve tasted failure.

Baby steps.

I’m taking baby steps.

And while I tiptoe my way through the last few months of the year, I am going to continue seeking what I desire from within. I’ve accepted this is life and with every step forward, there is the possibility of a step backward…but I think I’ll work on my perspective, and maybe, just maybe, I will find peace just from taking the next right step.

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Last Day

Trembling,
her toes grip
the edge of the cliff.

According to society,
as a mother,
she is unfit.

How about sick?

Burdened since birth,
life is her curse.
Punishment
and
Continuous
pain.

Not quite insane.

On the edge she hang.
Shattered pieces
held together
by a fragile frame.
Never again the
same.

Fingers pointed
and
opinions shared
yet not one solution.
She gets it.
They have no care.
Rather
they stare.

Exploit her.
Ostracize her.
Pity her.
Shame her.
Reject her.
Judge her.

and Berate her
until
she’s weak.

She kneels.
No longer can she stand.
Doubt lingers
while pointing fingers.
Control it
they say.

She pleads,
Let this be my last day.

8.5.19

Today there was a breakthrough in your recovery. Isn’t it crazy how in one sitting, one conversation with your therapist, you were able to identify this trigger happening six days ago and your sophomore year in high school?

Unbeknownst to me yet came from me?! This is a big day for you and the future success of your healing. Don’t minimize it and don’t obsess looking for all the other times it’s shown up in your life. Just be proud of yourself for once. Although you didn’t realize the work that was being done, you were able to do it without strenuous effort or loss of sleep.

You make me proud Candace. Keep being honest and keep pushing for healing within. Things will fall into place when it is time. You don’t have to force yourself to heal. Just love yourself and you will.

Officially…

It is Official

It is the last weekend of summer vacation, for the last time 🙁

My daughter starts her senior year in five days!! Wow! It hasn’t quite registered that 13 years of schooling will soon come to an end but waking this morning the thought hit me.

I mean we look forward to these days, right? I have almost made the decision to leave this area when my daughter graduates and writing this makes it seem as though I need to make the decision. Not permanently rather explore and be wowed. I need to stand on the edge of a volcano, next to a waterfall, or count the stars from the desert. I am restless. Bored and starved of inspiration.

But before I think about any of that, I must make sure to take each day, from the first day of school to the last, to be present with my daughter. Recovery is a wonderful thing but it doesn’t give back the days you lost while actively using. I knew when I had my daughter that she was it for me and instead of absorbing every milestone, we cheered and moved on to the next. Accomplishment after accomplishment checked off making each a distant memory. There are things I wish I had made a bigger deal and of course, the opposite is true. My goddaughter starts kindergarten this year and that really brings all of this into perspective. My child will soon (February) be an official adult.

She has always been treated as a person, never a child and that makes me wonder if that was the right approach. How much of a childhood did she really have? Does she appreciate that we’ve always respected her as an individual? Should we have done more to make sure she wasn’t too mature?

There are so many unanswered questions but from looking at the way she carries herself, presents herself, makes decisions, and respects herself, I must say, we (our family village), did some things right. Sure she is a little lazy, some days entitled, and other days moody but for the most part, she’s a decent, kind, compassionate, and persistent young lady.

But annnnywayyyys!

I finally got around to editing my site icon. Whatcha think about? Personally, I’m dig’n it.

I will end this note with please be kind to yourself today. You deserve the finest pleasures and joy just as much as the next guy. I love you and really, that’s enough for a few people!!

Be Kind to Yourself

❤

The Same Lesson. Over, and Over, and…

Yesterday was departure day and…

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The photography featured in this post is strictly prohibited from use.

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For our last night we pulled together as a team and gathered most everything, separated things into individual piles so things found there way home with the correct owner and just like that, it was morning. I must say this time I realized a few things.

A. I prepare too much food.

B. There is a such thing as too many bags.

C. Teens are still cool without there heads tucked into phone screens.

D. If I come back to this location, which I won’t, request the site that’s at the bottom of the bathroom hill.

E. A three bedroom tent that pops up easy doesn’t make it easy to get back in it’s portable bag with wheels.

F. I am great with empowering speeches but the action that is supposed to follow the speech…what’s that?

G. It is impossible to make four people happy. You can accommodate in every way you imagine but being that we cannot be another, we will miss something.

H. I don’t know how to relax.

I. My full out camping days are over. I may venture on some solo trips but as far as preparing for, maintaining the campsite, setting up and breaking down – no more. It’s too much to be considered a vacation.

I learned a lot this trip and accept it for what it is. I will continue to do the things that once brought me immense joy as an experiment phase before I venture into more thrilling, new adventures.

Rental Tubes and my daughter and her best friend at the start of our 4 hour float

I found it impossible difficult to focus my attention on what it was I wanted to let go of but…I was able to work through other things. For the first time ever I actually saw myself as a worker ant. I am non-stop. When I would recognize my “grouping” of objects, I would verbally tell myself to sit and a few times I would be in a half-sitting position before I’d bounce up (never sitting) to put one last thing where the “kitchen” stuff goes. Yes, at a campsite.

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Overall things within myself were hectic. I couldn’t shut down mom mode, I was organizing, preparing for…and, once again, trying force things in my life. My way. Force things to be done my way because it is the logical way BUT here’s the thing, my way isn’t necessarily the right way nor the only way. That is what I took away from this mini-vacay and so it goes, no vacay at all because I was still there trying to anticipate what may happen instead of just allowing things to be. Am I happy this happened? Joyed actually because it gives me a specific place to focus. The exact place I have said all year deserves my attention and that is the present. So I shall continue to just be…well, work to be anyways. I will get there. With persistence, I will arrive.

Currently. Perfect Timing.

I sit in solid darkness.

My phone light reflecting off my face.

A campfire to my right, my child in the tent to my left (when I’m outside of the tent), an industrial fan that sit on top a plastic box care of Circle K (common gas station), a waterfall directly behind my right ear, and crickets inside my head. This is the sounds that soothe me.

Comfort me.

Calm me.

Lightening bugs flicker everywhere.

Whispers are heard over the insect sounds.

Teens chuckle as the river flow make a faint crisp sound.

I am in heaven.

My heaven.

Tomorrow, I’ll be in extascy floating on a tube drifting in and out, gazing at cloud patterns, cold, clear, clean water under my ass.

Turtles popping up as fish scurry to the top. Do fish scurry?

Anyways. I feel at peace.

Yes, I am still using technology but it is because everyone else is already asleep. And I did all the damn work!!

Jus kid’n, the 3 of them contributed 25% total. 😂 but I love them still the same. 💟

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Oh, yeah. I came here to let some shit go and I’m gonna do just that.

💟

7.26.19

Sigh

Literally.

As of this moment, I am in mini vacay mode and omg, does it feel…like, a panicky-calm. I know. I know.

But it’s true. I panic because I am waiting for the day I just say, “I’m not going back”. The day where I give into my dream of camping through life. Living rugged. Earthy. Outside. Weathered.

But inspired everyday from what my senses feel around me.

While I am a fiery force to deal with I am a country girl at heart. Not a cow girl. I am a nature lover. I could ditch every form of communication and live like a frontier person. Yeah, it’d take some getting used too but I know I’d be more fulfilled than I am currently.

It seems when things become instant, gratitude goes out the window.