Love. Self. Entirely.

Footprints

Lately, I have been dreaming about the beach. Of walking barefoot in the sand as the water laps onto the shores brushing my toes as it drifts back to the sea.

I really love the water. I'm not sure why because I sure as hell can't swim but to me, there is nothing better than looking out onto the ocean and seeing nothing but the rippling of the waves into the distance. I've loved it since I can remember and I hope to lap it up as much as I can when I go to the Dominican Republic.

Water, the ever evolving circle of life and as I stand on the shore. My footprints leaving my own little mark on the warm sand. It's funny but I like to always look back and see my footprints in the sand; maybe because I can't believe how much I have actually walked but I tend to do this but only briefly, my eyes always focus back towards the water and the distance and my moving forward.

Maybe that's the symbol of my life right now. Always changing, never the same looking out to the distance constantly moving forward.

It Hurts Me To Admit This, but...

I love the new Miley Cyrus song, I admit it! I love a song by Hannah Montana. I can't help that it makes me somewhat sentimental. I guess anything involving making a change in life can impact someone in their teens, twenties, thirties and beyond. I have thought in great length about all that I have to do in this life and what I will accomplish and I guess this song reiterates that fact to me. Besides, the words are quite poetic - if she wrote them herself - she's quite a good lyricist!

What do you guys think of this song? Any other secret fans out there? :)

Ushering In A New Era

Today, my future tenants are receiving their keys. That means that technically this place is no longer mine but theirs (even though I’ll be living here for a little while longer).  Truthfully, a tiny part of me is sad because I’m leaving the familiar but the greater portion of me can’t wait to move on from here. From this place and all the frustration that I’ve felt while living here. I’m not saying that I won’t ever be frustrated again – I wish it was that easy - but I know moving outside this environment will help me in the grand scheme of things which to me is the most important. Even if it’s for only one year, imagine all the possibilities!

Which ignites me to ask, is there anyone else out there embarking on something new? It doesn’t have to be “big” to anyone but yourself; are you chartering new territory and how do you feel? I have this nervousness – which borders on pensive excitement – because I technically don’t have a place to go…yet. I’m looking at various places and there is a strong contender that I met last night but who really knows? The potential of being homeless is not looking good BUT I know that I could always bunk in my storage unit, if needed. (That is a joke or at least, I hope for it to continue to be one!)

In the mean time, I still need to finish up my packing. Get some keys made and prepare for the new dwellers of this condo to take over.  A week from now I’ll have a maid, a handy man and a carpet cleaner in this abode to usher it into it’s new era.  For now, I’m surprisingly calm about it…for now.

Until next time, have a blissful day.

Keeping it Forward

I have officially moved the majority of my belongings into storage. Now, I have a few pieces of furniture that I either plan to sell or donate to the local Goodwill. My body definitely feels the strain of it being that I moved things all by my lonesome. Which truth be told, I didn’t mind as much as I originally planned. Maybe it was the exercise that I knew I was getting or the fact that hauling my things out of my condo into a storage unit finally cemented in my mind that this was indeed going to happen. I am moving from this place – if only for a year – and I’m going to fully live my life.

Even though, this lease is only for a year knowing that I don’t have to live at my condo for that time frame makes me so happy. You have NO idea how much so. My goal is to eventually sell my property but being that it hasn’t happened yet, I don’t mind having someone else stay there as long as I don’t have too.

I went through all of my stuff. Various clothes I no longer wear, knick knacks in various places that I’m not sure why I bought were all carefully bundled up and hauled off to the Goodwill. I really think that I want to be as free as possible. I don’t want to be tied down to anything – except the house, because I can’t be rid of it – I really just want to leave with the clothes on my back and leave the rest up to God, luck and chance.

Of course, I won’t do that. At least, not yet but give me time. I still have to minimize my debt, pay some people back and save, save, save! I’m so ready to be on the move this time. I can’t wait to see the world, start designing with materials that I acquire from places outside of Georgia and being the person that I really want to be.

I’m scared, yes. Hell, even at times I still think I’m doing the wrong thing because even though I am going back to school, I’m still conditioned to think that I should want to be settled down right now.

I tried to be “settled”. Settled isn’t working for me right now and I’m ready to go out and see things that have piqued my interest before I finished college. Pushing the thoughts away didn’t work; trying to find happiness in solace in other things in order to not listen to my gut did not work; so really, I’m done with trying. 

It's time to live. :) 

Traveling Free is Where I Wanna Be...

I personally think the universe is aligning itself to personally tell me something. For the past few months, I've been on this "search" trying to accentuate my life in some fashion or another. I knew playing derby wasn't it. Even though I love playing derby but that I was using it as a crutch...I didn't want to think about my options. I just wanted to woefully exist; for what, I'm not entirely certain. 

Yet lately, that has been harder and harder for me to do, my nomadic tendencies are full thrust sending my wanderlust and thirst for knowledge into overdrive. I can't ignore and I won't ignore it anymore. Last night, I talked to a retired derby chick who owns a local coffee shop here called Dr. Bombay's in Candler Park. Her friend signed her up for the local rotarian club that picked her to go to India for 4 weeks to help women start up their own businesses. A free spirit, she immediately told me about her life, spirituality, derby and the person she is today and who she hopes to become. I loved her immediately and I find it odd that I met someone like her now (or even if it's the only time we'll interact), it's odd that I met her when I'm trying to move forward in my own personal journey. Still, let me dip into my buried Southern roots for a moment long enough to exclaim that "the Lord is tryna tell me somethin'".

Next, lately I have been devouring the website of one, brother who is living life on his terms. I love and appreciate that but even though I'm quickly becoming a huge fan of his blog. I suggest everyone that reads this to check him out, his name is FlyBrother - gotta love that. I decided to read one of his guest posts at Travellious - which is a new site for me - about Sacrifice & Uncertainty. Reading his entry I, at once could feel the tears well up in my eyes NOT because the story was sad (and you all know me, I'm not an overly emotional chick) but because I could sense the freedom, the thirst for knowledge and quenching it and how travel mixed with strangers in a strange land shapes you as a person (and hopefully, the other person as well). It again reinforced to me that I want to travel the world with abandon, take pictures, write, paint and become healthy in both mind and body but even better than that I want to understand human connection and communication on a global level and I want to share that with the world. Not my art - even though, I'll share what I deem good - I want to share communication. Now, how do I connect that into a job or career is beyond me, maybe I'll have to create one for myself, who knows? At least, I'm heading in the right direction. For once, I feel like I should be doing this not for others but for myself. 

Wednesday Rant: Discover Yourself Today not Tomorrow.

"Twenty years from now you will be more disappointed by the things you didn't do than by the ones you did. So throw off the bowlines. Sail away from the safe harbor. Catch the trade winds in your sails. Explore. Dream. Discover."

Lately, I have been doing my best to move forward in my life and be as constructive as possible. I've made some bad decisions during the past 5 years - I'm not making excuses for any of them nor am I trying to sugar coat anything - but some of those mistakes have affected the choices that I'm currently allowed to make. For the past year or so, I've allowed those mistakes to cloud the perception of my present; I allowed them to become my mental "shackles" and keep me chained to all things I've done wrong and how I'd never be able to escape them. Which all culminated (along with other things) on March 2nd when I mentally just broke and hit my rock bottom. For the first time in my life, I was helpless, hopeless and vulnerable and alone. Single, no apparent goals, stuck in a place that I didn't want to be and I felt aimless. Like I could just drive off, leaving everything behind and just start over somewhere. Granted, reality struck and I realized I couldn't just shirk my responsibility but at the time it seemed rather nice.

Welcome Back to the Wednesday Rant!

I have been noticing lately that the older I get, the more my sensitivity is often piqued. It seems that even though I was slightly sensitive when I was younger (teens, young adult, etc); I often had I don't give a good damn aesthetic that I've come to see as a coping mechanism. Or maybe, I'm just too old to worry about putting up that "strong" front, something has hurt me and I want to feel that pain and not care who knows it.

This past weekend, I was hurt real bad. It was something derby related and it hurt me...alot. So much so, that I left the game right after it was over and went home. Now, I'm okay but it took me at least a day to shake the anger. 

Goodbye, Nice To Know You...

There are times that I wonder that on the day I finally sell my condo, will I finally feel free? Or am I just fooling myself?

 

I am waiting to either rent it out or sell it and right now everything is at a stand still. I’ve had a lot of people come by to see it but no real takers, not as of yet, anyway.

 

I’m ready to let it all go, though. I’m not sure why I’m so hell bent on getting rid of everything and starting anew but I am. I feel it’s time, I tried for two years to make some place a home that won’t ever be and I’m okay with that. At least I tried and I didn’t give up. It’s just time for me to move on.

 

Yesterday, I spent a bulk of the day by myself thinking about my mother mainly and how I really wish she was here with me now. The person that I am at 26 is vastly different from the person I was when I was 23. I look back at myself then and it doesn’t even seem like the same person but it wasn’t the same person.

 

Don’t get me wrong, this is not coming from a place of eternal sadness just reflection. I’m tired of not fully living and I realize that I purposely let myself not feel that I am. It’s fucking crazy but I think I noticed that a portion of me likes the cyclical patterns of the familiar – even when part of me craves for something different. That part of me that wanted change wasn’t big enough or strong enough, yet.

 

Still, the thing I realized is that my waiting here for the day for it all to click might never happen in any aspect of my life. I have to make it happen; be proactive even if I’m scared out of my bloody mind. I want to go to school, I want to live overseas, I want to see and experience all the sights and sensations that I’ve read about and above all else – I want to live in the present moment. Not in my past, not in what I think my future will be. I want to continually live in the present because that’s all that is guaranteed to me. To all of us, if we ever stop and think about it – if we ever let ourselves fully understand it.

Guess Who's Back & Black?

I have these moments when I feel that I’m living a life but not the life I’m supposed to lead. I fill my days with so many hobbies and things and put so many obligations upon myself only to realize that it’s not what I want. It’s happened with so many things, graduate school degrees, pole dance teaching, and roller derby. It’s this  never ending cycle and the end result is still the same, I feel briefly accomplished but the same feelings come rushing back that this is NOT what I should be doing, you don’t quite fit here. Now, I’m not saying I stick out like a sore thumb; it’s more like I’m a circle peg in a sea of square pegs jostling for a spot and try as I might—even when I think I have it—I can’t seem to get it to work.

New Year, New Me, New Blog (coming soon), New Team...

Yes, I know I have been gone for a minute but I have a good reason this time. I have been sitting around debating on what I want to do with my life and how to go about it and you know what I've decided? I'm just going to aim for the stars this year. I'm going to push myself in everything that I do and keep it moving (peacefully) to the best of my abilities.

I'm going to do a overhaul on everything, myself included. I have been slowly sticking my foot in to the ocean that is my life but this time I have to fully commit - and I am.

I got into a car accident on Tuesday, my car is pretty much totalled but I'm okay. I am thankful for that at least. I'll have a new set of circumstances to deal with later I'm sure but right now I'm happy to be alive and in one piece.

The next thing is that I'm going to take my blog into a new direction, I have decided I really want to write a book and I need to gear my mind towards it. I need to quit hindering my progress and I know that I can accomplish alot when I put my  mind to it. Why do you say that? Well, that brings me to my new team - and new chapter - in my life...

I'm a Atlanta Rollergirl! I'm a proud member of the Sake Tuya's! I'm very excited not only did I get placed on a team but I was rather high up in the draft (which I'm shocked by because I'm not known for my sports prowess at all!). So, I just have to keep going and improving both in my personal life and on skates!

How is your 2009 going?