One of my favorite games in the world is “What If?” I’ve shared it here in old posts and it’s time to bring it out again. We’re in 2025 and the last 5 years have shown us all that ANYTHING is possible whether it be the most magical experience of our lives or the biggest nightmare that makes it feel like we aren’t living in reality—a twilight zone. The time has come, however, to take control of that game again and start looking at possibilities in a different way. This game covers any spectrum of idea from reading a book to leaving a job to moving to buying an RV to travel all over the country to leaving our partner to finding the right partner to picking up a pen and writing a book or opening a laptop and searching for help. “What If?” is an amazing gift and we were given not only the brain to imagine such things, but the capacity to fulfill it and make it happen if we so choose. We overcomplicate so much with control and trying to anticipate every step along the way when all we really need to do is allow ourselves to get carried away every now and then.
So, my list: What if I publish my book sooner than I anticipated? What if I find a new job? What if my current job allows me to work from home more? What if my husband gets a new job that affords me more time to focus on my projects? What if we created the coolest space imaginable in our basement? What if my garden becomes highly productive this year? What if my work goes viral? What if I get my first speaking gig? What if we were able to go on that dream vacation to Universal this year? What if my business takes off within the next few months? What if I hit every milestone on my health goal? What if I fall in love with this life as it is? What if I stop pushing so hard to do all things at the same time and just focused on one main goal? What if a new opportunity opens up where I’m at? What if I look at the space differently and realize that certain facets of what I do are enjoyable—and what if those enjoyable pieces become a new opportunity for me? What if this limbo is the sign I am looking for that it’s time to move on and write that new chapter? What if we picked up the family business again?
I ask myself what each of those scenarios feels like for me and it feels like freedom—any of them. It feels like hope and possibility and something I want to make tangible. I mean, I have ADD and OCD so sometimes this game can lead me down the path of future tripping and thinking about how to make each scenario happen—and I can talk myself out of each one of them just as quickly as I can imagine them. But we play this game to realize the abundance we have, specifically the abundance of opportunity we have, and then to find what feels right to us. Because the truth is that anything can happen. Life is unpredictable in some regards, and people certainly have their moments of unpredictability as well so there really isn’t anything we should discount. If it pops into our heads, then it’s a possibility. Take some time to play what if—feel free to share the what if’s in your life here!
“What’s funny about doubt? We’re not born with it, it’s developed,” Loren Ridinger. We need to remember this because anything we learn we can unlearn. And if we have the habit of doubt, if we allow doubt to creep in over anxiety and fear, we need to ask why. We need to evaluate what it is that gives us the illusion that we are out of control, powerless to not believing in ourselves. Because when we have that doubt, it spreads like poison throughout our mind, body, and soul. Doubt developed as a way to control people. I’d like to say that it is innate but that isn’t true. When we failed at something we would instinctively try again or we’d look for another way to do it or even ask for help. We start to doubt ourselves when we hold ourselves to the standards someone else sets for us and when we feel there is only one right way to do something. We doubt when we really just need to proceed with caution and look at all the information. We need to control and eliminate this emotion because all it does is hold us back. And once we plant that seed of doubt, it grows unbelievably quickly like a vine entwining itself throughout our entire being, tying us to the wall.
As I said, whatever we can learn we can unlearn. It is up to us how we frame an event or an emotion. It takes a lot of practice to sit with something and ask ourselves what it is and what we really feel. For example, has anyone ever expressed anger when what they really felt was sadness? Absolutely. What about frustration when we really feel desperate for something to work out? Of course. So, what if we have labeled insecurity as doubt or fear and what we really need to focus on is building ourselves up enough to prove to ourselves we can handle anything that comes our way? Eliminate the insecurity because insecurity is the pathway to doubt. We need to practice keeping our word to ourselves and I can attest to that first hand. As soon as we start to let ourselves off the hook for things because we don’t feel like doing it, it becomes a slippery slope of lowering that bar we talked about last week. When we do what we say, we learn what we are capable of, the more we show ourselves what we are capable of, the less we have time or room for doubt.
The mind is a really cool thing when we stop to look at it. It’s a grey mass, a lump of tissue that has neurons and synapses firing through it and it is literally the operating system for our entire body—and even cooler, it tells us how we feel about it and how to get to a certain thought or feeling. It tracks what we do, it remembers and we can access that memory. Even cooler is our ability to channel the energy, the very palpable energy, generated by the brain toward specific goals—we transfer a simple neuron firing into a trigger for action throughout the body. If we can learn how to do that we can train ourselves to learn anything. Don’t let doubt be the marker that keeps us where we’re at. Ask where it’s really coming from and address the source. Most of the time we can find the source with some effort and address it head on. We dig up that seed and put it where it belongs: in the garbage. If it’s no longer there, it can no longer wind its way through our mind. Once we remove that source and doubt no longer creeps into our lives, the path is clear and we realize there was never really anything funny about it at all and we could remove it all along.
Today I am grateful for a reality check. Unexpected things happen all the time and we had a doozy thrust upon us this week at my 9-5. Change, even if you think you see it coming, can still be unexpected. The change we thought was coming happens but it is completely different than what we thought it would be. I’m not entirely shocked as much as I am completely blown away so it’s an odd feeling. And I will talk about it more later in the week because I need some time to process this now, but it feels like part of my identity was just taken away. Yes, I know, I often use my 9-5 as an example of what I don’t like, but I’m seeing things a bit differently. It’s hard when the symbol of something you’ve know nearly your entire adult life is suddenly taken away. It’s hard when you were afraid something like that was coming and then it happens in the most unexpected time. But when big change happens and shakes things up, it’s a chance for us to reorient ourselves based on where we are at and what we want to do. Yes, it will test us to the point of fight or flight. Yes, it is scary even if part of you was prepared for it (I was honestly already actively working on transitions in my life). Yes, it’s sad to lose something that you thought was a possibility for the future/a possible way the future could go. Sometimes the path of least resistance is a slide and it’s taking us all the way down, away from the top after the climb. Sometimes we have to take the scarier path to keep going up.
Today I am grateful for truth. Always and forever, I will be grateful for truth. No matter how much it may hurt, I would rather know exactly where I stand with someone than believe we have a certain type of relationship only to be devastated to find that’s not the case. I’ve had an inkling for a while about some people close to me whom I considered near and dear to my heart, an inkling that told me something was off and that we weren’t on the same page with this relationship. I’ve had confirmation of just that within the last 48 hours. Relationships can be a slippery slope—they are complicated and we all have different dynamics and experiences that make for potential issues with interpretation. There are constant decisions whether we are working toward the same thing or if we are on the periphery of each other’s lives or if we are passing through. Relationships change—and I have learned that I need to make a new decision regarding the type of relationship I have with some friendships around me. And that’s ok. I don’t want people around me under false pretenses or if they feel obligated and I don’t want people around me who only use me. I’ve met some friends, people I never thought I’d see eye to eye with, and they have shown me a new level of truth and respect, a new level of aspiration—going for goals without malice or fear, but encouragement. Not fixated on the negative or looking for the next wrong thing—but people who want to advance and move on and tell a new story—one that isn’t solely about them. And I let them be.
Today I am grateful for Love. I’m understanding on a much deeper level how important love is to keeping life rolling and things healthy. When we feel drained and exhausted by those around us we aren’t able to keep up with the day to day of life let alone other demands on our time. Any demand that doesn’t align with who we are takes time away from the things we need to be focusing on. Things we don’t do out of love, but obligation, become tiresome, and that translates to our live feeling tiresome. When we get in that state of mind, we lose sight of the blessings around us—and the blessings around us are infinite, even in the thick of pain or trouble or annoyance or any of the other million and one problems we have/create in our lives. But when we operate out of love, everything becomes clear. Love isn’t just the warm, fuzzy, casual “love” thrown around where we feel a momentary thrill pass through us—love is a driver. The reality is love is a state of mind, not just an emotion. When we enter that state it’s easy to see possibility and joy and flow. We create in love.
Today I am grateful for work. I’ve been peeling away the layers of the things I like doing versus the things I feel obligated to do. We so often say that we hate doing work but the truth is we hate doing work that isn’t fulfilling. If what we are doing doesn’t resonate with us, it feels exhausting and motivation is nothing more than to get the task done. But when we are focused on something that has purpose, will enters the picture and suddenly we have a desire to do the work. Humans are capable of amazing things. I’m watching my husband tackle a project he has never done before and he’s doing it beautifully—like it’s innate to him. I’ve watched him take on projects before and the thing I sincerely admire most about him is his ability to DO. He has an ability to understand things that is unparalleled when he sees it one time. It sticks in his brain. As I’m getting older I fear I am losing that level of elasticity in my mind, but I digress. I find I am still able to focus and do the work that calls to me, the work that makes sense. I also had a realization that I’ve been forcing myself to do things I don’t necessarily want to do just so I can prove I can do it. Like, I want to be strong, but do I really need to be able to lift an armoire on my own? It’s cool, but I would rather apply my skills and time to my writing/business etc. My goal isn’t about proving anything anymore—I don’t want to show the world that I can do anything and everything. I want to do the work that holds meaning and be a creator, not just a do-er. And when I’m in the middle of that work, life feels different. I like the work that creates stability in my environment, that allows me to create the environment that I love. I don’t need to be the strongest, biggest or the -est of anything. I just need to be me, do the work I love, and feel the reward of that effort. Do what feels right. Make time for that. That is the work worth doing.
Today I am grateful for standards and metrics. This one I am struggling with but my gratitude for it is real. I’ve operated for too long in ambiguity where I have a general idea of what I want to do and I work a little bit toward everything every day. That’s all I’ve known. I try to fit in what I like to do in the time I have available when my brain thinks of it. I’ve realized how hard it is to lead whether it is in our own lives toward goals or leading others. Leading is about guidance and influence rather than sheer force. It’s about clarity and level setting and understanding where we are at in relation to where we want to be and then knowing how to close the gap. I always felt I had a pretty clear vision of what I wanted to do and where I wanted to be—and I do—but I was always fuzzy on the how to get there. I wasn’t sure of what the RPAs looked like to ensure that I was heading in the right direction and the work I was doing was meaningful. I did a beautiful job planning out my January—like I am really proud of the work that I did and put down on paper. Unfortunately, I wasn’t able to stick to a lot of that even though it was really specific. I had put down too many things for each day, I overestimated what I could do in my time, and I also gave in to temptation too often. I spent some time this past weekend working on developing a better plan with clear metrics so I’d know if I was meeting my goals. I’m still struggling with putting down the timeline for these goals, but I have a better idea of the work I need to do to get there. I have a better vision of what I need the day to day to look like. When we have a clear vision of who we want to be and what we want our lives to look like, when we find that inspiration, it’s easier to know when we hit a milestone. I’m grateful to have a tool so I know my efforts are meaningful and progressive.
“Instead of taking ownership and saying I fucked up and I’ll do better moving forward, you change the standard, you drop the bar so low you end up with [nothing]. It happens so gradually you don’t even notice it. So hold the standard, even in those seemingly insignificant little things. Stop lowering the bar to meet your current level of effort,” Bishoi Khella. Yesterday we talked about not shrinking to fit in and this goes right along with it—don’t change our standards when things get rough. Don’t become something we are not, don’t make it easier for ourselves because we either fear we can’t do it or the thing we love becomes a little less convenient. One mistake isn’t a reason to derail anything we’ve done so don’t let one mistake become another and another until nothing remains of what we want to become. Each time we allow ourselves off the hook (with the exception of when we physically ACTUALLY need a break), we lose accountability over what we are trying to accomplish. We push off what can be done today until tomorrow because we’re comfortable now. But then tomorrow becomes today and suddenly today becomes tomorrow over and over again. We learn we can’t hold ourselves to our word.
The dreams we want will not create themselves. We are powerful creatures and we can do a lot of things, but we can’t make something out of nothing. The ironic thing is we can turn something into nothing if we continue to ignore what we need to do. This is the smallest box we can think of. We know we’re meant for more and we know the space is already too tight but we still try to force ourselves to stay tiny even though all it takes is standing up. Admit when we want to sit for a minute—I’m not advocating for senseless overdrive and burnout. We need to know when it’s time to get back up and we need to actually do it. Don’t bring the bar down to our level unless we are going to use it to stand up and then raise it back where it needs to be. When we keep it there, that’s when we get in trouble. No, change isn’t easy, but when we make it non-negotiable and we take responsibility and authority for it, suddenly it’s all in our hands and everything we want opens up for us. And yes, even the little things matter. So stay the course, every single day. Our integrity and commitment will get us where we want to be—and we are the only ones who know what we’re doing when no one else is watching. Don’t betray ourselves for the sake of a chance to put in less effort. Just put in the max effort we can when we can, give 100% of what we’ve got even if all we’ve got is 25%, and we will never regret it.
“Change is hard but staying in the places you’ve outgrown is destroying you. It’s making you not trust yourself. The truth is the magic happens when you stop shrinking into places you no longer fit—you’re bigger than that,” JB Copeland. Oh how we make ourselves adapt and change and play the game instead of calling the shots ourselves. We are inherently creative and that isn’t meant to be caged. Guided and developed, yes, but not altered for consumption. The change I spoke of yesterday is the deepest level of unbecoming that we can think of. Most people aren’t able to handle full expression because we have attached so much and so many different meanings to how we are supposed to act and interpreting behavior rather than outright asking what someone meant by something. We are so jaded with self-importance to a degree that we expect everyone to know everything we mean anytime we say it. We’ve allowed ourselves to believe that just because we have the ability to share our thoughts at all times that we need to—and that people will understand everything we say from our frame of reference. The human mind doesn’t work like that.
The opposite is true as well—trying so hard to put ourselves in a box that we lose who we are in favor of appeasing others. When we cage ourselves into the definition others have of us we lose all creative space. Here’s the thing, the stuff we tell ourselves we do out of necessity becomes a cage as well. I’m guilty of it too. I adore my home, I love this life I’ve created but I really struggle with my 9-5 but I absolutely need that work if I’m going to continue to live in this home with this lifestyle. Can I make changes that feel like a better fit? Of course, but there is the risk of losing the pieces that I really like as well. The trick is to discern between what is serving and what isn’t—and that requires knowing what we’re going for and who we are. One lesson I’ve learned is that staying where we are if we have a desire for something else absolutely sucks. We waste time doing the things we think we need to do to maintain something that isn’t fully us. I can attest to that. It’s only recently that I’ve understood what it means to let go of how we defined ourselves. I thought I needed to have an entirely new version, a new person in place in order for me to move on, but the truth is change is a gradual thing. Not to say there aren’t life-changing events, but more often it’s the little things we do on a daily basis that have the biggest impact.
So when we wake up and we don’t feel like the life we’ve created fits, when we get the urge to do something different—do it. I’ve had issues getting up and ready for work the last couple of weeks to the point where I have actually ended up leaving the house late. Like I’m creating unnecessary stress and scrambling because I can’t get myself moving toward what I used to do. It used to be no issue to see the time and just stop what I’ve been doing and get ready for the day. Now, it’s harder and harder to pull away. I’d be lying if I said the vision is 100% clear because there are still a lot of factors at play here, factors that don’t involve just me. But I am well aware of what I am able to do and I am taking more time to do the things that make sense for me and my family. I know the little things that we’ve been working on are difficult but it’s more of a discomfort. We can get past discomfort. We can’t get past missed time to do and be who we are. If we know something isn’t working or doesn’t feel right, then we need to make different decisions and undertake the change that will get us where we want to be.
My experience with the song I spoke about yesterday has me fixated on that type of expression—the raw completeness of it. It got me thinking about music in general. Most humans have a deep connection and appreciation for music because of its ability to move, evoke, and express emotion. Sound alone creates healing and as far back as we can see, humans have utilized sound for just that reason as well as for celebration, notification, inspiration, and for sheer fun. I’ve always loved music intensely. From the time I was a kid, I used to sing. On the nights I would go with my parents to play cards, my dad would often bring his guitar and I remember singing along with everything he and my uncle would play—I almost couldn’t stop myself. Days I would go to work with my dad we would always sing in the car—perhaps not well, but I was always compelled to sing. My mother and I would dance more than we would sing but that same level of compulsion to move the body was there. I remember at any wedding we would go to I’d end up dancing with my mom because she loved it so much and I loved it too. I’d actually dance with my grandmother too and she used to sing in church all the time.
I shared my gratitude for music this past weekend for its ability to say what I haven’t always been able to say. There is a very real emotional and spiritual connection to music. Tell me you’ve never been absolutely moved by something you’ve heard, something that stopped you in your tracks, something that clicked and connected to a feeling you’ve had or wanted to have. Music truly is the highest form of expression as it is nearly universally understood. Perhaps sound in general. It falls right into what we’ve always talked about with frequency and vibration. Tesla’s understanding of the numeric equivalents with sound, and how we’ve developed our understanding of the harmonics, tones, undertones, melodies, and timing of it. Sound isn’t just noise—it is language. Ancient humans understood this and it’s why we still use sound to calm ourselves, our children, and even animals respond. Think of the soundtrack to any movie and imagine the scenes played out without that music. Would you feel the same way? Would it have the same meaning?
The point of what I shared yesterday was the desire for that level of expression. The need to be able to share exactly what I was feeling rather than dance around it or hint at it—but to outright say it exactly as it is. To share the desire for desire itself and no shame in that feeling. We have a shared humanity and there are things we all feel deeply. There is no need to beat around the bush about it. We have lived in a world of symbolism, allegory, metaphor, imagery, and imagination—and there is NOTHING wrong with that. That, too, is the magic of human creativity. But what we need more of now is an understanding that the direct expression of the real emotion we have is just as beautiful. We don’t need to make it sound a certain way—we just have to talk about it as it is—we let it be what it is. I’ve twisted and manipulated my words to make them sound a certain way because I thought I had to imply rather than show. I was a fan of the classics and thought it was, I don’t know, classier to suggest a theme than be blunt.
I think I wanted to dive deeper into this because I’m working on changing this facet of my personality—I want to be more direct with people. Not in a mean way, but in a clear way that fosters more connection. The dancing around and hinting at things that were important for me to convey isn’t working and as I’m getting older, I see more and more how important connection really is. My intent is often lost in translation so to speak. If we want to be understood we need to express clearly. Words are so important to me and I have the ability to use them to say whatever I want on the page—I do not take that for granted. There is no need to be shy or discreet about it because that only confuses the message. Don’t dilute what we have to say to make it acceptable to others. That isn’t the point of creative expression. The point is to share what we have. Change isn’t easy. It’s taken me nearly a lifetime to develop the courage to start sharing as I have, a further several years to make this writing a consistent habit, another year to make it a scheduled practice, and now I want to refine it so I’m saying and living in truth rather than implying it. We can change with focus and effort. We can learn a new language. We can learn to be healthier. We can learn anything as long as we are completely raw and receptive to it. One step, one thought, one song can change everything—we just have to let it.
I had lunch with a couple of friends the other day and as I was leaving to head back to work, a song came on that I’d never heard before. I’ve been on a big audio book kick so I haven’t been listening to satellite much. Regardless. This song stopped me in my tracks. My heart pounded as I heard the lyrics—and it was one line that caught me. I felt something absolutely transcendent in me. I was fully, entirely connected to that moment and everything my body was doing—everything my body wanted and how it felt. This is the music that comes from raw, honest, pure feeling and expression without filtering. Like I always do when something catches me like that, I started looking up everything I could about it when I got back to my office. They lyrics, the artist, who this person was, listening to the song again and again. As the story of the song consumed me, I asked myself something: have I ever told a story with that much feeling and honesty as in these three and a half minutes? Yes. But have I shared it? No. Those are the words I still keep for myself, afraid of what people will think. The life I’ve created is so separate from what I show, and I only let a few people in—once you’re in, I’m an open book, but before that, I’m giving you the professional me.
Being vulnerable takes tremendous courage and skill. I’ve honed that practice over the years with over 1,700 posts here plus what I have on social media. And for me it is a practice. I’ve been trained to protect myself and I’ve opted to protect myself based on experience—while I share the true stories of my life here, they are absolutely chosen and tailored before I share them. But I’ve learned that the real connection and beauty in life isn’t protected–It’s fully exposed. The things we do to protect these most precious parts of us or our experiences end up suffocating them. What I thought was protection and self-preservation ended up taking the life out of me. It wasn’t the real version of me—I always felt like I needed to be edited, that I shouldn’t show it all. But that isn’t real. That’s a half-truth and the full truth is that makes me feel like a fraud to fear sharing the whole thing. I’ve been pretty open here, there really isn’t much I’ve censored, but I’ve tailored the message in an effort to make it palatable and relatable. There comes a point where we simply accept the story as it is and we just tell it. We hope there is a connection from it but we no longer try to force it to relate to everyone. Not every experience we have is a grand universal truth—I know there are certain things people will NOT experience. Truly, I’m not talking universal truth, I’m talking about the stories we make fit into something else-0mitting details or changing them to how we wished they had gone instead of what happened.
So. I realized that I need some time to get in touch with the raw talent in me, the creativity that I feel surging at all times that I don’t know if I will ever be able to keep up with it because it’s a never ending torrent of thought I try to catch with a net. I love that feeling and instead of trying to funnel it into one thing, I need to let it be all things. It’s all connected in who I am and I am certainly more than one thing I show. I need to let it be what it is just as we all need to let ourselves be who we are. There is absolute magic when we let ourselves be seen like that. The freedom. Yes, that level of out-there-ness can be terrifying, frankly it is terrifying, but there is nothing like taking that chance to walk in our full truth and authenticity only to discover that we can fly there. We are always supported on that venture. We are always welcomed in the space between potential and reality. Sometimes we feel it and are lucky enough to put it all out there, and it catches like fire in people. Sometimes we do it on our own, sometimes it takes hearing a song to remind us of how much further we can go in sharing our humanity. I want to be a flame and I want to fan the flames in others. I want to dance in the fullness of my creation, content and secure that my message will get where it needs to even if it doesn’t get to everyone. I’m not a fraud for having a façade—we all do. I’m a fraud if I know it’s there and I keep wearing it. The holes are there, so there is no point in keeping it whole. Don’t fight who we are and the mask is never there.
I wasn’t going to share this piece at first because it seemed a bit trite or cliché—and some parts felt too personal. Frankly, I also had most of this week scheduled but here we are. Later in the week I’m going to share about a project I’m working on with my husband and some of the residual effects of it including a mental breakdown/breakthrough (my fav) and new respect for him. But I need to share something almost selfish now—my husband 100% came through for me in a way I’ve NEVER felt in our entire relationship. He truly has always been emotionally supportive in the way that he was and is always willing to listen when something is on my mind (which is also always). As anyone with ADD/ADHD, OCD, and anxiety knows, it’s exhausting to have that level of activity and over-stimulation going on in the brain all the time. I will fully admit I relied too much on him to carry that weight for me. I have to admit I felt he owed it to me in some regards. At first he was willing but over time that connection and understanding have deteriorated—he got tired and detached. I can understand that now, but I had no control over certain facets of my brain and I spiraled and the anxiety and everything else got worse so we battled all the time between his perception that I just wanted attention and he couldn’t help me and my increasing need for actual help from him even if it was just listening.
So, last week, we were working on the project I’m going to talk about later, and he stopped because he wanted to play darts with me and I couldn’t get into the game—I was playing poorly and all I could see was what still needed to be done. Even if we couldn’t finish it all then I wanted to at least do what we COULD do. Then last night we had a similar experience but this time I really lost it because I had already told him the week before that I couldn’t keep sitting with all of these started yet unfinished projects—I can’t let go and play when there are things that need to be done that we CAN do. We need to stop pushing to tomorrow what can be done today, especially when we say this is what we want because no one else will do it for us. I explained last night that it was too much stimulation and it was stressing me out. And for the first time in a long time, instead of saying he didn’t know what to do to help me, he leaned over the pool table and he HEARD what I was saying and he asked what we could do to help alleviate some of that stress. I swear my soul nearly cried. In that moment I knew he 100% understood exactly what I was talking about and what I needed. He put aside anything that he wanted to do in that moment (play darts) to help me work through what I needed to resolve (that I was tired of leaving projects started and unfinished because it gave me anxiety and made me feel worthless because I couldn’t finish anything I started). And it legitimately worked. I felt better. We did a few little things to move forward with the project and we TALKED for a long time and then we went and played darts.
All we need is that presence, that understanding to feel love. Life can get heavy enough just on its own without factoring in some of the crazy shit we put ourselves through. Going through it alone just makes it rougher—and when we feel alone together, when we have that partner there but we still feel alone, that is one of the worst feelings in the world. I spent too long feeling alone together. There were reasons that happened and I understand that now. Some valid, some not, some of their own volition and some we created or some we ended up doing to each other. But the point is, when we come together and address the situation, whatever it is, it suddenly feels less dauting or scary and answers come. Even if it isn’t a huge breakthrough, just getting it out there helps. We literally came to a new understanding together last night about where we were at and the people around us and all of that came from playing darts when it didn’t feel right, having a breakdown, putting things together, and starting over again. All it took was 30 minutes of conversation and another 30 minutes of action and the weight of the world felt lighter than it has in a long time. Neither of us felt like we needed to lift it on our own anymore either—we had mutually decided to put it down for the time being and pick up more manageable pieces together. I write this in the deepest state of appreciation for a person I have loved and hated and relished and despised and yearned for and tried to drive crazy who gave it all back to me in equal spades. We aren’t perfect, we are human. But now it feels we are human together, on the same trajectory. It feels whole.
My husband and I were playing darts in our basement—something totally new for me. I’ve been struggling to let go and have fun—something not new for me. He has been patient and kind and encouraging, and while we’ve been doing this together, we’ve been talking about our plan to fix up the basement and make it ours, make it a nice hang out space. We already use it as a play area essentially since we have the dart board, the pool table (he fixed himself) and my grandmother’s old bumper pool table. I also have all of my workout equipment down there and it is a truly transformative place even if it isn’t pretty. We’ve known for some time that we had some mice downstairs and we also knew there would be an issue with that because of the way the insulation was installed. They used Silvercote/encapsulated fiberglass punched into the concrete and they used regular insulation on the raised unfinished 2X4. They didn’t want to fully frame out the basement so they did it to keep the space warm but we live in the country with lots of little critters so they’re looking for warm too. And what do they do with such cozy quarters? They burrow and tunnel and pee and poop in it…so when we had to remove a section unrelated to this project and we saw the home these creatures made, we knew it was unhealthy for us to even have it down there. We removed it with gusto and are now left with the task of putting it back together.
We’ve always worked really well together on projects, honestly. Even if we didn’t see 100% eye to eye, we have always understood the assignment and what we were trying to accomplish and we would always find a compromise. We have fun together, talking about the idea, planning it, getting the materials, and starting it. With this project something different, something more clicked in me. Our conversations over the last few months have changed in context as I’m seeing more and more of the things he said he wanted to do coming through. The things he ways he’s looking for he actually means. This project is reinforcing the idea that couples who play together stay together, but it’s also shifting perspective about the past. See, as we’ve been working together on this, it’s very clear that we are taking what the people who lived here before us built and how they did, for whatever reason they had, and we are reframing it (literally) into something new. It hit me in an instant that we can do the same thing with our past. A little over a month ago I found out some things were happening that shouldn’t have been and it triggered every raw emotion from what had happened nearly 20 years before—apparently it did the same for him because he started telling me things he’s never told me about his perception and experience of those incidents. There were things I didn’t know and didn’t remember and it nearly shook the foundation of what I have built these last 20 years on. I had felt like a victim in so many aspects—some valid—but I was clinging to that identity as a means to skew things in my favor, using guilt rather than growth to build from.
Suddenly things made sense and fell into place, conversations I wanted to have are happening, and we are telling each other the entire truth. For the first time, I wasn’t angry about it. Yes, there were intense feelings and sadness and regret, wishing certain things didn’t have to happen—because they really didn’t have to happen—but this was a peak, a catharsis for both of us. There was no more hiding or resentment or wondering what happened. There was freedom. And he looked at me and he told me in absolute earnest that what happened then happened then and we’ve been together for 23 years and we are going to leave it in the past. For the first time, I agreed on that. This wasn’t the usual trying to sweep it under the rug and avoid responsibility type of let it lie—this was a we know what happened and we both see it differently now. Now we are at a point where we have mutually agreed to move forward. We have this unbelievably complicated, sometimes sordid but often lovely history and now we have come together to bury it. We aren’t using the past as an excuse to create expectations on each other or to do things behind each other’s backs to prove a point about power. We’ve mutually made the choice to take down what was there and start anew. The foundation was never bad, the construction just got sloppy over time and let the mice in. That can be fixed. We just need to expose where they got in and accept responsibility for where we made the hole and then fix it.
With intention, focus, purpose, and mutual understanding, we can clean it up. Yes, it requires going through the mess and getting rid of all the crap and that can take some time, but once all the muck is gone, that foundation is exposed and we can create something new. It doesn’t change what existed, those things are very much still there. But it changes how we look at the entire thing. It only takes a mistake or a miscalculation of ¼ inch to throw off an entire build so even if the pour is strong, when we start adding to it, if we stud out incorrectly, we can’t hang the drywall properly. So the point is this: we can take anything and start again. And if we don’t have to start again, we can always change how we look at what happened. Sometimes we just need to let go of what was and create a new vision. Sometimes that original vision is there but we get rid of the crap that skewed the build. There were lessons in the past as much as I hate having gone through some of them—there were things to learn about worth, self-worth, boundaries, and how relationships work. We needed to understand what love really means. It’s neither complete dependence on each other nor is it two separate entities existing under the same roof. It’s both. There was a reason we have stayed together as long as we have—it hasn’t all been bad. We just needed a different perspective. Changing how we see the past changes what we can see in the future. And I see an entirely fresh start, creating what we want together from the ground up with nothing hidden in the walls. It just took a little perspective and sweat. It took aiming the darts elsewhere rather than at each other and putting the effort into what we want rather than what we can’t change. We just build up from here.
Today I am grateful for new connections. I had a class this week and met a new colleague. I got to speak with another employee from a different department, someone I’ve know for some time and I was able to articulate some of the pain points I’ve had with my department. Within minutes I had contacts and a potential solution to develop my program further. The same day I had a conversation with a coworker about high school and two comments came out: “C’s get degrees” and “It’s not the grades you make it’s the hands you shake.” I used to hate that kind of commentary because it felt schmoozy and cheap. But there is some validity to how we work with people. There is a real reason to take the time to get to know people. Just today I had lunch with some colleagues and we connected on a personal level outside of work, and when you have connection, there is a bond there. It’s a certain level of care that brings out the need to help and support each other.
Today I am grateful for health. Humans are meant to age differently than we do. We aren’t meant to deteriorate and fade away, we are meant to develop strength and function and move throughout our lives. Witnessing what I did to my body over the years and the work I’ve done over the last 10 months, I am constantly and consistently amazed at what we can bring the body back to. When I started this health journey in earnest, I hadn’t realized where my body was at. I knew I wanted to improve but I didn’t know how much. As I’ve gotten certain abilities back, I am in awe of the condition the body is meant for. I am by no means a paragon of anything physically, but I have made incredible strides and experienced first hand that we can come back from a lot. Anyone who has witnessed or gone through such a transformation personally understands the feeling of respect for the body that comes—that level of appreciation at all times will keep us grounded in reality and able to better maintain our health.
Today I am grateful for music. I will share a story later this week about a song I heard, but I need to remark on how grateful I am to experience music on that level—nearly, if not completely, spiritual. I struggled to find words for many of the things I felt as a kid and there always blessedly happened to be some song I would hear that seemed to capture exactly what I was feeling. The challenging things I couldn’t say, the hopeful things I was too scared to really say, the words I wanted to say to other people. Music always filled that gap for me. I loved how there were these people out there, people I didn’t even know, who seemed to completely identify and understand me. Like they took my thoughts out of my head and put them in this beautiful order that made it all make sense. It was relief. I had an English teacher who said that song is the highest form of expression humans have and that struck a chord with me. It was never lost on me how music is saved and cherished and it is a language of its own that can be shared forever, marked on paper with its symbols that somehow people see and understand. I will continue to sing, perhaps not always well, but still with all my soul and that part of me will always recognize the soul when I hear other’s music as well.
Today I am grateful for raw. It’s been a while since I let myself get dirty. Things get cluttered and messy and unclear all the time. I have the best intentions for getting things done and I fall off the track with distraction or things not going how I anticipated, either taking too long or I’m missing pieces to get it done how I wanted to. But all of those unfinished things start to accumulate and the stress of it has gotten to me lately. I felt disconnected, moving too quickly and unsure of what to address first. Everything seemed so intricately connected that choosing the wrong thing could make it all fall—or doing the wrong thing first could make it all come apart. In those moments I like to get back to my body—even if I forget about it until then. We need to listen to the cues our body gives us whether it is to slow down or eat a certain thing or that we need to respond to some other call. I feel this constant pressure (totally self-inflicted) that tells me I need to do it all and get it all done. And I think I can do it ALL. So I end up starting it all and get overwhelmed with everything that’s left unfinished and then I can’t figure out what to do first to finish something so nothing gets done and then I spiral. And that’s when getting raw helps. I felt lost yesterday night because of that overwhelm and my husband gently shared his view that we had done a lot that day even though I felt like I hadn’t done enough. My mind is stressing because I still see everything that needs to be done and I don’t want to wait to do it if we can do it today. He is looking at the fact that we did something. And he brought me back to reality with his view. And we compromised—what we can do needs to get done and we will be content with what we can’t do until the time is right to do that too. And it helped.
Today I am grateful for giving new experiences. Yesterday we had to pick up a piece of furniture from a friend and coworker of mine and I knew my husband wasn’t totally thrilled about it. He didn’t necessarily want another piece of furniture and he wasn’t sure if he’d be able to help me with it, but I knew from the start that this piece would be helpful—so my logic was if we could get it for free let’s make the effort to at least go pick it up. Regardless, he agreed and I wanted to show my appreciation and it was early so I suggested a new place for us to get some breakfast. I’d heard of this place from a former employee of mine when she’d brought in some food from there. It was really good but I hadn’t thought of it in years and then the other day on the way to work I happened to look to my right and saw the sign for it. I looked up the menu and it wasn’t anything we’d had before so this was the perfect occasion to go there since it was on the way to get the furniture anyway. We all had so much fun—my son especially with picking out and trying new things. While it was a new experience for me as well, I can’t tell you how much fun it was to see them doing something new. Opening a world to people is a gift, even if it’s just a new place to eat.
The Intentional Dreamer 