Mental Musings

This writing was turned spoken at women's conference web talk in October.  You know when you were little and you got asked “what do you want to be when you grow up” and you had to draw a picture of a doctor, firefighter, teacher, astronaut, an artist, a mom…everyone started scribbling and coloring right away. Me, well, I would stare at that blank paper the whole time and finally at the last minute, as the teacher was calling to pass them forward, I would quickly draw a stick figure that would resemble some sort of occupation of what a grown up was supposed to be doing. Or maybe all of them smashed together because you had no idea what you wanted to be. I floated through the years... existing. Being one of those kids who everyone knew about but never felt like I fit in just right with any one crowd. I was a kid who liked all the things, I was the one who hung out with the outcasts but would still be invited to glitter nail salon sleepovers. In high school the life I thought I was to

I will preface this with a "disclaimer" if you will - this post and much of my blogs are writing about my situation, my individual thoughts on what I may be experiencing at the moment or when I feel like writing. I will then develop it into some sort of coherent thought pattern that becomes the blog. I am not an authority figure or trained professional on anything I write about. I write about it with the understanding that I can't possibly be alone in this experience or this particular emotion. I write to help people and to give and probably gain some perspective. So here we go -  I'm a doer, a helper, a figure-it-outer. I'm someone who will ask once and if it doesn't get done, I'll just do it myself. I'm someone who others have came to for advice, a listener, someone that can help them unpack issues. I am also highly-sensitive, an introvert, and an empath. I'm only now really becoming to know what all of that means and how it can work for me.

It's taken me over 6 months to look at myself in the mirror. I mean, of course I've looked in the mirror...see the messy hair, patchy skin, dark circles, tiredness, unbrushed teeth, acne, gray hairs, vacant stare. I barely recognized the woman I saw there. Yet there was a glimmer there, that fight, that hope started back at me with such force I would be doing myself a disservice if I did not stare back and wave. Many people go through changes, updates, mid-life crises. That is the one major thing about life, it changes you. How you adapt and change with it, is what makes you - you. Life kicked me square in the gut recently and I have to slow down and take a long hard look at what I need to do to overhaul my life. What does one do when they need to make changes.... they get on google, the read all the links, they buy all the products, they subscribe to all the news letters. They do the thing, then they get bored, complacent and feel stuck again. Because, let's face it, s