A New Beginning

I have received many messages asking me if I'm doing okay, where did I go, and if I'm coming back. First,  of all   I do greatly appreciate yalls love and concern for me  because in my mind I'm always thinking no one will notice if I'm gone. I started this platform years ago simply because I wanted to express my true self ,my art, and find people who understood me during a time when I had not yet learned how to accept myself. I didn't expect that it would become what it is now.  I have met people  here who have inspired me and helped me heal and I can never thank you enough for the huge impact so many of you have made in my life.
      I have been away because I received a promotion and I have been busy at work.
When I do have extra time available I'm kayaking with my family since finally it's gotten a bit cooler in the Texas hill country. I'm extremely happy and greatful for my life these days so no need for yall to worry. I am doing better than fine . I have contemplated returning many times to do a new photo shoot and tell a new story. However,  I'm realizing that I'm at that part in a painting when you want to add more details, but the more you look at what you have created you have to accept that the masterpiece is truly complete. I've grown into the person I always imagined and wanted to be as a child. I learned to see myself as beautiful, I found my definition of success, and have validated myself as worthy of all great blessings God intends for me. Along the way in the journey the closer I got to those goals the more I realized that I required less and less to be happy in my life.
At the beginning of my platform I was very materialist and superficially dense because I needed it to feel good about myself. I don't need that anymore. I would dress up to feel important because I didn't feel important. I was chasing perfection to feel more put together thinking that it would inspire me to get myself together; and you know crazy enough that did work! However, the more possessions  I  accumulated and the more beautiful and put together I became the more uncomfortable I began to feel inside but I had not yet figured out that I had taken those beliefs of others into myself.
      My entire life people have treated me like being pretty is my only worth and the only thing I'm supposed to be doing is sitting around being cute. It's not awesome to have people see you that way but I have learned not to see myself that way, and how to use that perception of how people see me to my advantage. If I'm not seen as smart or capable people with bad intentions ALWAYS jump on the opportunity to belittle me, manipulate me or dismiss me. I judge people based on what they do when they don't see me as worthy.

I am a Quality Assurance Analyst for everyone who keeps asking me what is it that I do and thinks I have a secret only fans 🤣. How stupid would it be not to connect an only fans to my platform if i had one yall! I am a very candid and open person I would have told you regardless of what you would think ... But honestly I never tell everything about myself because I absolutely love my privacy which is why fame is not for me. I just never tell people about my job because I didn't think it was important to the relationship I have with people. And besides...If you tell people everything about you it will  interfere with seeing  the narrative they construct about you. That  is  far more instresting than trying to manipulate them into seeing you a certain way so that they will like you. Here's a tip.  Don't seek to be liked , seek those who are captivated with understanding why you are you. 
But anyway.... 
I love my new position but it's a lot of tedious work that loads my mind and makes me really tired after work. I'm still creating things and still taking photos with my family but I do not wish to share most of those experiences with the world anymore because I am no longer seeking to find myself or others. I create for myself now and live my experiences omnipresently. I just simply don't want to miss anymore of my life ,expecially since I've lost so much already being distracted.
  I don't intend to delete my account  because for me it's one of my greatest works. I found myself screaming out of an open window to the world via social media. 😏 You all came and you listened to me , interacted with and became a family when I thought I was alone out here. It's because of all of you that dispite the evil and hardships I've  endured I still believe that there is a lot of good in the world and I didn't become cold and stop believe in love,  friendship and unity.
There is a chance that I will post in the future if I feel compelled to do so because I still get an urge sometimes but I'm just too tired to do it most of the time.  But for right now I have a new journey to embark on. I've learned that we can't move forward into the light of blessings we always dreamed of if we don't know how to let go of the old chapters when the story has ended. I've reached a new beginning and I'm not who I used to be anymore. I need peace now to enjoy my life without the attachments that will only hold me to a past already completed.  The time has come for a new beginning. 

I wish you all love of yourself and the life that you live.

Antoinette Lavoisier 

Making Peace with the Past

Is been a very long time since I've written for my blog. I've written many things I had intended to post to my blog but I just didn't because the subject matter was so very heavy and it takes alot out of me. For as long as I can remember I have always been an over thinker and over feeling  to the point that I was completely consumed in thoughts about past betrayal,  pain and abandonment.

All it would make me do is ask myself the same questions over and over again.

When the fact of the matter is it doesn't matter why anymore. Life goes on. It had to happen or I would have not happened the way I was meant to.

Those thoughts kept me in a constant state of turmoil,  self doubt and self hatred trying to rationalize it all. The worst part is I know why and I've always known why I had to go through so much.  The problem was getting myself to accept that there was no other way possible of becoming who I am today if I had been loved the way I wished for. Some of us are lucky to come from a place of love and acceptance... But have you ever noticed how many of those lucky people behave? They can't help or understand anyone who isn't  like them no matter how much they sympathize with us. They can't understand our stories and are terribly naive and some of them are ungrateful of the love they have  been blessed with. All of us who have been through the most horrible things either decend into darkness because we had no support or become the strength of our communities. So in away rather we are cared about from the start or not there are still consequences for both. 

I know I should be grateful for the knowledge and experience to become a stronger person, but honestly sometimes I'm still angry that I had to get resilience that way and it's an obstacles I intend to someday over come.
I had to suffer majority of my life to be helpful,  supportive and inspirational to other people and it wasn't even a choice it just started that way and stayed that way. Since elementary school I have been the care taker and emotional support for every group of people I have ever associated with. It's my purpose and my calling and I'm very good at it.  But I would not have chose it for myself because it's taken so much from me to develop this skill. Please don't jump to conclusions and missunderstand me thinking I just want to be selfish and say screw it to everyone .  I generally love people and having a close family that loves, supports, and inspires me has been a long term dream my entire life.... But I understand it's not going to be possible for me and that's just the way it is. I love helping other people and for a long time it was the only worth I saw in myself and that is the real problem right there! 

I've felt like a service person to the world without a life or worth of my own as if I'm only good for giving all of my time and energy to other people that need me while all my needs go neglected.
Growing up Christian is where I first inherited these beliefs. I was told my life was not my own, I was only here to exist to do God's work around God's plan to spend my life trying to repent for the original sin I was born with. This concept alone was the beginning of my lack of self worth and hatred. It made me feel like God hated me from the start because if I didn't offer myself to suffering for others I would then die and go to hell . I had no personal self worth and it made me feel like the only way anyone could be loved and cared about is through service.  I feared God like I was instructed to because I feared more suffering and consequences , I was miserably motivated by fear alone. Relationships that are motivated and controlled by fear is a prison both inside and out and I would rather be dead than trapped in a loop of fear. I believe in God but not in that way anymore. I don't belong to any organized religion of any kind because I don't believe in anything  fear based controlling my life and majority of faiths are rooted in fear. However, I have a great respect for faiths of all kind because at the base of them , I believe we all want to be better people and are actively trying if only through our beliefs. But this is not about religion or belief it's just how I got to who I am today. I try to avoid bringing up religion and beliefs because it's the biggest divider between us all but still it has had a major impact on my point of view. 

You can't speak to the world and expect them to understand and relate to experiences of others if they reject you from the beginning because you don't share the same God or beliefs so I try to keep it out of my subject matter all together. I want to connect about the struggle of the human experience that we all face. I don't care what you believe I just know regardless of what you believe this life is still hard for all of us. We get stuck in past trauma and past pain and we spend our present time afraid to love, afraid to feel and afraid to really live.  We repeat those steps continuously over and over again regardless of who we pray to we all want the same thing.

We just want to be happy and since that's all I really want it's the only thing I give energy to now and it helps me appreciate my life and the people in my life.

 If it worries me, stresses me, makes me uncomfortable, or feel uneasy like I can't trust it in anyway I'm just not actively participating with nonsense and unnecessary drama anymore. I don't want to talk about pain anymore. I don't want to talk about the past anymore.  I only want to savor every experience in the present and be excited and optimistic about the future. It has been very challenging to do that but I have found away and although its still a work in progress I want to share with others how to do just that.  You know already where and what I came from.  From this day farward I am only focusing on where I'm headed.  Not coming from a good place or being in a good place is a logical reason to keep working on reaching a good place. I forgive all of those who struggled to find love and to love themselves who couldn't love me either. I forgive all of those who have hurt me intentionally and unintentionally. Non of us are perfect or really knows what the hell we are doing. Expecially when our only motivation is fear we do things we don't intend to do sometimes even if we had the best intentions. It is a lesson for us all and I chose not to be bitter, or shield myself from future connections with people who will have the capacity to give to me the way I give to them. Every pain endured and every tear I have ever cried has made a fortress of the temple that is me. Not only do I have the strength to sustain myself I am blessed to have enough strength to protect and bring strength for other's. It may not always seem worthy of the sacrifices I had to make to get to this point but , I'm still alive and I truly believe that some day I will have the opportunity to live out the blessings deserving of those sacrifices.

Forgotten

My Grandmother was diagnosed with dementia some months ago. When I first heard my initial reaction was to get to her as soon as possible before I was forgotten. But then I began to consider what it would be like to forget. I imagine it would make life easier and bring back hope even if it's just a little while. If I could forget I would never have another intrusive thought or painful memory. It would bring back my innocence and trusting nature. I could look at every experience with brand new eyes and no fear .
    

Life is hard for all of us and for those of us that have escaped a difficult and painful existence in our past it's our memories that haunt us with reminders.

       My grandmother grew up a middle child who was over looked and neglected by an emotionally unavailable and abusive mother and a busy working father. She grew up very poor in a time when being black and a woman was far more difficult than it is now. She tried to find love but ended up a single mother of 8 children from assorted fathers. When love didn't work she put herself through school and money and stability became her driving force and only aim. She's known as a stern and strong woman. If you don't know her you would think she feels nothing; but if you paid even the slightest attention or stood too close for too long before she pushed you away you would feel the pain radiating off of her. Sometimes she would get these far away looks like men with PTSD would get after war. I would ask her what's wrong Granny and she would say, "I'm just tired Pooh." As a child I though she meant she was sleepy, but now as an adult with my own PTSD I understand better now......  Because of my Grandmother's life experiences she has many prejudices. She's not okay with homosexuality , any one who isn't Christian or white people.  Then I grew up and became bisexual, I'm not a Christian, and with my second white husband. It's an understatement to say that I'm a big disappointment. The last time I saw her she hurt me and my family pretty badly due to her racial prejudice. But I took the slap meekly and hugged her before I left like it didn't even happen. That was 2 and a half years ago and I haven't been back since. I stay away because it isn't fair to my personal family to be somewhere where people don't mind being harmful to them. Plus their is nothing I'm more tired of than being hurt and rejected intentionally because of who I love. It gets hard for me to hide what's really said about us and I never wanted my children to know and feel inadequate with family the way I always have. As they have grown older the truth about my family has started affecting them now and the only way to protect us is to just stay away. Dispite all that has happened I want my Granny to leave this world in peace . I miss her now and I will miss her after she is gone.  The though of her forgetting me now seems more like a solution than a problem. I would rather her forget who I am because then it would be like it never happened at all. Her memories of me would go out with both the pain she has caused to eliminate her feeling guilt and fix the pain others caused her that has held her prisoner her whole life. I will of course still remember but since she is the beginning of my mother she is my earlier start. With her end is both my mother's and my own new beginning. I choose to let go of what she will forget as well because I know she would have been better if it had not been for all she's been trying to forget for so long. Trauma poisons and curses families. It makes it difficult to trust and difficult to love those we truly love the most. I don't want to be a victim of my pain the way my mother and grandmother has been. I choose to understand who they are and how they got that way... even if the way they are doesn't work for me and I have to keep a distance for peace and to keep from getting hurt. I don't need to be remembered by anyone expecially if it brings more comfort to be forgotten. I'm willing to sacrifice being known for the possibility that in her last days somehow she feels joy and good memories again. I will choose to only remember her light. She's the reason I grew up to be so strong and ambitious. She's the reason I make great margaritas and know how to style a hat with an outfit. Growing up I thought my Granny was super woman and I will now and forever always be proud to be her grand daughter even when she forgets me I will always know I am because of her.

The Ariel Trope

When I take on a character to embody I always do my research. I have seen the little mermaid a billion times as a child but as an adult the experience is very different. I set aside my pre assumptions about what I think I know and then I flip it over and view it from a new perspective. I think many of us don't realize the great impact that the stories we memorized as a children would have such a big effect on our adult life's.
        Like many other's in my age range (30 to 40) I grew up watching Disney movies repetitively. Disney made me believe in magic and wish on shooting stars. I once believed that some ultimate love would free me from my dull and uneventful upbringing and I would be rescued by some handsome prince and run off happily ever after. I found out too soon that life is more like a Tarantino movie in the way that it is comediclly dark and clever. It's only happenstance that you survive covered in blood and trauma to be greatful that you survived at all and then you can be happy.
     I'm embarrassed at the fact that in my youth I was an Ariel. I was just completely fascinated with all things far apart from myself. I was always more instrested in other cultures and other places in the world while I felt my own world was a trap. I took for granted that I grew up on the coast of the gulf of Mexico that was just the smell of fish and petro chemical plants to me. I felt insignificant growing up in black culture assuming I would always be held back and down and embarrassed by my creole blood line that was know as dumb voodoo believing hicks that couldn't be trusted. By the time I was 13 I knew more about China, Japan and how to be a cool and popular teen from advice from 17 magazine than I knew about the state I live in.
    In the Disney Little Mermaid it appears that Ariel gives up her voice for Eric but truly she's giving up her voice and the entire world of her own to live on land. In Hans Christian Andersen's 1837 story every step she takes with new legs in this new world resembles being pricked by sharp knives. She doesn't  marry the prince he chooses someone else and she attempts to kill the Prince to get her voice back but can't bring herself to do it and kills herself instead. She turns into sea foam when she dies and as her spirit floats in the sky, she eventually earns a soul by carrying out good deeds for a whole 300 years before ascending into heaven.
      The more I think about it Ariel becomes a villain herself in her pursuit of killing the prince due to her plan going all wrong. She has been manipulated by the sea witch to kill the prince to receive her soul back but you cannot convince me that rage and scorn from being rejected by the prince isn't playing a part.

Many of us make that same mistake.  We fantasize that we are going to find the perfect life and happiness outside of ourselves and then we blame the outcome on that man or woman that didn't make us happy , or that new place we moved halfway around the world that turns out not to be the Utopia we imagined.  We become bitter and angry at the world around us for not giving us what we thought was promised to us. We build resentment and lose hope on ever being happy.

The little mermaid kills herself instead of the Prince for 1 or both of these reasons:  Either because she has lost all hope that her fantasy failed her or because deep down she knows that she set all these events in motion when she sacrificed all she was to try and be something new she assumed would bring her happiness. Rather she takes responsibility for her actions or sees herself as a victim is un important to the consequences but vital to her ability to recover and see the lessons of her choices. She could have explored forever but without ever knowing who she truly is she would still be lost and incomplete.

Don't misunderstanding me now.... I myself at heart is an explorer in the way I approach living my life. I love new places and cultures and discovering new things.  Where I went wrong in my youth is that I didn't embrace the base of who I actually am first! I didn't learn to appreciate or see the beauty of my own culture, the hair that grew out of my head, the sand beneath my feet and how valuable I was purely in my existence and my talents. I well hid that I was smarter than I pretended to be most of my life because I didn't want to push people away by appearing smart and boring. People assumed I was dumb anyway because I was pretty and big breasted and I played the part to please them. I didn't see my creativity and talents as enough due to constantly comparing myself to other's so I waited late to harness my true potential.
   There is a saying that the easiest and most profitable way to success is to become an expert at what you are naturally good at and meant for. Therefore in order to reach our truest potential and success we must first become an expert of ourself. We must study our hearts and talents to the extent that we see all of our possibilities and become powerfully confident in ourselves in reaching them.
Life is not a fairy tale and there is no place you can go,  no love you can meet that will complete any of us if we don't explore ourselves first.  It will be difficult and disappointment searching both inside and outside of ourselves regardless but if we start at square one instead of running to square 30 we will build a stronger foundation for ourselves and make healthier choices throughout our journey.

For those of us that were the Ariel trope in the story it is never too late to decide to start an expedition into ourselves. 

The influencer

When I first started this social media thing  I was just posting selfies like all the other girls for fun and personal jumps in my self esteem. I did not expect it to grow into a business opportunities or that it could even be considered a real career. When people think of "influencers" they picture 17 to 24 year old girls with perfect bodies sticking out their lips and posing just right for their butt to look big. The media has exposed many influencers as spoiled brats with clout asking businesses for money and free merchandise and then not even completing or committing to the work required. OOOH...? I bet you probably assumed there is no work involved in just looking pretty in front of a camera! Well if you assumed that you would be wrong. There is a whole lot more to it when contracts are involved and that's not even the worst of it.... Staying relevantly marketable means you have to constantly grow your audience and stay current to be considered valuable by brands or social media careers. If you do not throughly understand how your social media platform works in detail down to each update staying current and growing is pretty much impossible. Expecially since social media sites have learned that they can make a profit by charging you to advertise to your own followers. Unfortunately influencer is a stigmatized career because those in the forefront of the business are usually still under 25 years of age and in most cases not educated in brand marketing and advertising. Many of them just want to have fun and look good in front of their peers and they do not take it seriously at all. They approach small businesses for free merchandise without professionally finding out if the business even has a budget for advertisment. They sign on with too many brands and don't meet deadlines or they never meet photo advertising requirements. It's the way it is because it's still a fairly new option in advertising and predominantly is made up of younger people with huge amounts of followers that did not plan to turn their platforms into a business in the first place. In the beginning brands chose social media influencer because it's cheaper than paying a whole team of photographers, models, hairstylist and for a shoot venue. It saved them lots of money and the naiveté of influencer was a plus as well because most of them do not know what they are worth to brands and are usually under paid. It's a crazy industry on both sides of the coin I assure you...  However, the influencer isn't going anywhere anytime soon because  it has become the necessity for advertising because social media has the most influential impact on society.

    So then there's me yall...

   I'm going to be 38 this November.  I'm a fat black girl and a mother of 2. I'm only 5'2 which is pretty much unheard of in plus size modeling who are always tall. That doesn't sound like an influencer at all does it?  I don't even have a big butt but I'm an influencer! Luckily every kind of subculture you can imagine there is an influencer for it because big business wants to reach everyone and everyone these days and in the future will be on social media.

I generally like what I do for the most part because I'm an artist at heart and I enjoy building a mood for other people to feel. I like nature and beautiful things and I absolutely adore costuming. Instagram gave me a place to showcase my creativity and tell my stories. I didn't expect it to be therapeutic both mentally and emotionally.  I didn't expect it to grow me as a person as much as it has either. In many ways becoming an influencer has positively affected my life and I am grateful for the experience. I have discovered that I can do great things with and for myself I had never believed in the past I have true potential for.  I have met many people who get me with the same interests and thoughts and feelings as I, after feeling like an outcast majority of my life. It has mostly been good to me but there is a dark side as well. 

      The worst dark side for me is stalkers. I have been sexually assaulted in my past long before I became an influencer. I had a gun pushed into my back before by a man I didn't even know at my job as a front desk attendant at a hotel and I have dealt with crazy men my whole life. So naturally I am not comfortable with being stalked because I know first hand it can be seriously dangerous. Sometimes I don't feel safe and the higher I climb in this career the more terrifying it becomes. It's the reason I don't post photos of my children anymore on my page and the reason I avoid large crowds and being noticed in public. I receive loads of messages everyday from people that can start off nice with compliments and support but the moment they aren't getting the attention they want from you or you tell them they have gone too far and have to set boundaries they become abusive and threatening and will troll you and try to hurt your career. I have had to learn the valuable lessons that friends and fans are not the same thing. Fans don't see you as your true yourself. They see you as a fantasy and they impose unreasonable expectations on you from their delusions. They began to think that just because they have read all your blogs and saw all your photos that they actually know you and understand you better than you know and understand yourself. They start to believe that just because they complimented you that you owe them something in return and will try and guilt trip and manipulate you to get what they want. Admiration and attention is not all that it's cracked up to be under the surface. Admiration can turn sour on a dime and calling attention to yourself always brings alot of negative attention with it. I have always known that but it's a whole other thing to experience first hand. 

   There's other things that suck too like people pretending to be brands trying to scam you. People stealing my photos of my husband and I to advertise dating sites or putting your photos on porn hubs. I've had people try and steal my whole identity and make a new page with my photos and catfish people.... smh... that was by far the funniest. 

    For those of you that think you may want to try this influencer thing I encourage you to go for it but please invest in marketing knowledge and research so you don't get used by brands or scams out there. For your safety never take photos of where you live, or your car with your plates showing. Don't post your location until after you leave that location. Don't take any brand deals that want you to buy something from them first. 

Being an influencer is and can be a dream job. You get invited to places often and sometimes companies will reach out to you for influencer trips to exotic locations. You get a ton of free stuff as well but don't get hooked on that if you want a pay check. It's great for those who has a creative talent of any kind to showcase to the world and it can take you far if you stay on top of educating yourself and learn as many avenues as possible so that one day you can transition out. Because like most advertising and entertainment careers it's extremely demanding work to have to constantly  put yourself out there in the limelight every single day. As you cultivate your audience learn to dream bigger and come up with things completely independent from someone else's brand and make your own. Start an online business, write a book or use all those social media marketing management skills you have learned and run someone else's social media business. There are tons of opportunities out there for influencers that doesn't require you to ever post your face in public.

         

  

Apologize to yourself for all the apologies you waited for

I used to believe that everyone will change into something better with time and experience. I waited in my heart to be rescued and resolved of my past pain. I fantasized about apologies that never came and I would wrap myself worth into it when they failed to manifest. I felt unloved and down on myself thinking I wasn't good enough to be given explanations or an apology. 

Growing up my Mom would tell me that my feelings didn't matter because feelings change. So for most of my life everything I felt that hurt me I ruled out as invalid and even though I was crazy for having feelings at all. I pushed my feelings away and waited to feel differently than I did because I believed I was just gonna mature and arive to a place where it would magically change because I was older. I found out the most difficult way that she was right about how feelings changed but wrong about how they did. 

I stayed so bottled up that it poisoned me into a prison of depression most of my life with unresolved pain. The feelings left unexpressed and unacknowledged ate through me like acid completely weakening my spirit and self esteem. I actually believed her and I would gaslight myself into believing that maybe I was wrong or misinterpreted my experiences because if I could be the blame then I could bring myself peace. To this day when someone hurts me I always blame myself because I need to find control to help myself process it. In the past I would verbally abuse myself by calling myself stupid and weak. 

Today I am not harsh and uncompassionate with myself but I still root back to my desions and illusions of what I thought it was to pin point the red flags I should have taken more seriously. I had to learn that the only person that was ever going to rescue me was myself and the only apology I was ever going to get would have to come from me as well. I've learned that not everyone grows up to a positive place from their experiences because some are too difficult to grow into good from. Many people grow into stone walls and lack the capacity to express their truest emotions so its no wonder they can't acknowledge the the feelings of others. If we don't have an example of how to love we fall short in how to show it to those we could have had loving connections with. I know better to wait for anyone to resolve or validate the way I feel and expecting it give someone else too much control of my life. I know now it wasn't because I wasn't loved. I just expected it from people that were deeply damaged themselves that knew nothing about love but pain. 

My only regret is that I had been living in an illusion for so long. If I had known sooner I might have found some kind of happiness alot sooner than I did in my younger years. One of the worst things any of us can do is wait for those that have been our source of pain to see it or acknowledge it at all because they seriously aren't paying attention to how you feel. The reason why is they are too consumed with pride and personal protection that prevents them from making a move to show you love. No matter how many times they may have reduced or rejected you they are not willing to risk being rejected by you. It's not because you aren't important, it's not be you aren't beautiful, it's not because you aren't deserving of compassion.... It's because someone did the same thing to them and deep inside they are so broken that they aren't able to humble themselves to take anymore risk with their heart....  not even for you. It wasn't until I learned to sympathize with those that hurt me that I learned to move on and love them from a safe distance. You can't be too close because hurt people don't know how not to hurt people, expecially people they actually love. 

Stop waiting and take control of your destiny now.  Your life is yours and that's why it's so important to learn to love yourself because in the end it's up to you to to set yourself free from dead end cycle of waiting for someone else to see you as valuable.

What doesn't kill you makes you stronger

It seems as if every post I read on instagram lately are all the same theme. We all are so over this pandemic shit and cannot wait for it to end. Some of us are depressed about it and over flowing with anxiety. Some of us like myself is just absurdly impatient and waiting. I think one of my worst character traits is how impatient I am. I hate to wait for anything and the longer I do it bleeds into negative intrusive thoughts that overshadows all the ways that I am blessed. I am grateful that I am conscious of it so that I can call myself out and be accountable for controlling those thoughts. We all are affected some of us far worst than others. It's not comforting in anyway to know that it can be worst; then guilt sets in when you witness the tired and sunken eyes of those that are struggling to keep from being homeless and feed their families. Alot of us are just bored and drowning in stagnation. I will admit reluctantly but accept that I am one of those people.
On my ungratefully impatient days I am frustrated with this small house, mad about the heat that has always been in Texas and annoyed by my own children arguing. It takes a great deal of mind power to confront myself and see the silver lining. My children are safe and healthy enough to give each other a hard time. This small house has allowed me to get my family financial stability and improved my credit for a brighter future to give my children what I have never had. I sometimes have to sit my youngest down who hasn't been able to play with his friends and hardly leaves the house and say to him all the truths that I too are struggling to deal with. My best friend has a second son that I have yet to know or even set eyes on. I had so intently planned to be there to share the experience with her. I can afford to actually go now and my presence is a health threat that both of us are too concerned with to risk. I put all of my effort into my work because I feel like much of my youth was wasted with distractions instead of being committed to bettering myself. I've never been more focused in my entire life than I am now. After my last near death experience who I used to be did not survive that crash. It's been 2 years ago now and I have finally accepted that she is gone but I still have not gotten used to myself but I'm content with my results. I have learned to protect my energy and I don't give myself away to what's too far to reach and what cannot exchange the energy that I know is required for me to be invested. I only crave what I can bring in close enough to truly feel and trust because I need all of my energy to propel myself farward to my dreams that I once was too afraid to even reach for. I hate this pandemic like everyone else does but I have to admit in many ways it has replaced alot of the time I have lost over the years when I was too broken to even have bright aspirations.
I think the best thing we all can do right now is dare to dream bigger and be honest with ourselves about who we were before this began and ask ourselves if we were truly satisfied. Sometimes we must be reduced and reshaped by tragedy and difficulty to build better versions of ourselves. I think this pandemic is just like my car accident but for the world. As horrible as it is out there the good changes are building a different world for us all. I suspect that many will get lost and descend beneath the rubble but those of us that survive will be stronger and better that it all happened.