Shiney.....

It has been a long time since I have really written anything but tonight I feel inspired. On the way home, I looked up in the sky and saw a clear almost black sky...and beheld the beautiful white moon shining pure light. What a beautiful night. I know the stars are out there but they were not visible at all....the bright light of the moon outshone them. It was breathtaking. And somehow, in seeing that, it made me realize something. Sometimes, things about you shine so brightly, that all of the rest of the small nicks and imperfections in you are not visible as long as you let your bright light shine. For a long time, I was dull and lackluster. I let the bright light within me become faded and forgot what really made me who I am from the inside out. I finally feel shiny again...and it makes me overwhelmed to think of how dull my light had really become and why. I also know that I will never allow that to happen to me again. I have love, adoration and gifts to give. And although I didn't believe or know how I would ever be able to give them again, somehow I have found my way back into truly living once again.

I must say that it is interesting how life sometimes forces you to look at the journey and not the final destination. What is the destination really? These last 6 months, although brutal at times, have really forced me to look at the journey without knowing the destination at all. Still don't. I really didn't know where the path was leading....I just knew in me, even on my most difficult days, that there were reasons for it all and I just had to trust in the universe that the lessons that were there for me would be learned and I would become better for the experience. There were days when I didn't know how I would come through. Moments where I believed that I was so damaged that I didn't think I would recover. Times when I thought my walls were so high, I didn't know if they could every come tumbling down. But I have learned that although the walls were constructed, I forgot the mortar. And I am glad to know that the damage was not permanent. And although I am left with some battle scars, they are mostly healed and almost mended.

The thing is...I have these friends. These women who have raised me up at times when I really didn't believe in myself anymore...in the fact that I would make it through. They continually reminded me of my value, generosity, freedom of my spirit. They reminded me that although I had been told certain things for a very long time...that I started to believe were my truth....it really wasn't at all who I was or what I was about. It is funny how when you are told certain things for a long enough period of time, you begin to believe in them. And although we are all faulty in some way...and everyone is less than perfect...the things that others say do not always truly define who we are....they are simply subjective opinions. I did begin to believe certain things because, again, when you hear them enough, you do start to take them on. But what I have seen through my healing, my girlfriends constantly shining this light on me, is that I have always been whole. I just forgot how to shine.

I have learned certain truths about myself. I need, mostly more than anything, to be heard. For a really long time my voice seemed to carry no weight whatsoever. No matter what I said, or how I said it, I was not heard at all. I felt like I was in a vacuum and no matter what I said or how I said it, I appeared to be the only one who could hear me. Interestingly enough, my 'flaws' were continuously pointed out to me...although the flaws that were being highlighted were completely false and had nothing to do with who I was...and everything to do with the flaws of another. And I am the first to admit that I have chinks in my armor...but they do not define me.

I have amazing support and love all around me that has really been apparent through this part of my life's journey. My girlfriends, my sisters, they never let me forget that I am the sum of my parts....and that the parts create a whole that are perfect in the imperfections of me. I finally feel ready to allow certain things to come my way that I really didn't know how I would be able to see again....let alone embrace or desire.

The question in my life became, how does one summon up the strength to carry on when you feel like you have nothing left to give. But continually I found a way to trust in the universe and that the path it was taking me on was for reasons I was yet to know or to discover. But with time, I just decided to trust. I didn't understand fully why my life went so upside down or want to trust that it was all for reasons that was yet unknown to me. What I found first is that even when I felt I was the most tapped out, I always found a way to be there for these women in my life when they were having trouble too. When I didn't believe I had anything to give, someone would need me...my ear....my voice...my opinion....my shoulder, and no matter how I felt at the time, I always had something left for them. This lead me to realize that even when you feel like you don't have anymore...there is always a little more left inside when I really needed to be there for them. And part of the journey was discovering that....I could do this for myself as well. Part of this journey was seeing that even when I felt I had nothing for them, I always did. That lead me to realize that even when I didn't think I had anything left to give myself, I really did have it inside of me all along. And what a gift that was. As I started to learn these lessons that the universe was showing me, things slowly started falling in line. I found my job that I love after being in a job that continually made me feel inept and stupid although I know I am neither. My car was repaired after the accident without me having to pay a dime. I started to know my way around the new city I lived in and didn't resent having to be here...I started to like it here and feel lucky that I have a mother who loves me this much. I started to see my past as my past and release it so that I could embrace the new now that was my reality. I really resisted the change even though in a lot of ways, it was created by me and for very very good reason. And finally, I started to feel normal....well, my 'normal' anyway. I started to see the value in those amazing people around me...and how we all struggled but always had enough left over to give to the other. And I started to smile again. To trust that really, this journey was all about rediscovering things that laid dormant or were hampered for one reason or another.

Isn't it amazing how when we really open our eyes, we can truly start to see. And sometimes how blinded we really are because we hold so tightly to the past, we forget to embrace the now. As I sit and look around me today, I am constantly amazed at the people that are here in my life...here for me each and every day to be near me, love me, listen to me and help me along this road that I thought I didn't want to be on only to find out that the road is beautiful. And that it is really where I needed to be for a very long time. Life sometimes come out of nowhere. You don't always see change coming. And I used to have a hard time with that. Rolling with the punches is hard for me. Change was a huge challenge. Playing by the rules....trying to be in control of certain things....well, it just isn't all it's cracked up to be really. I could only learn this by having my life spin out of control in every way imaginable to really see the things that are truly important...and the things that are really not. Part of the lesson is sometimes you have to open your hands. Let go. Adore all of the things that are new and allow them fully in even if it seems that you don't always know where they may lead. Sometimes you just have to trust that something greater than yourself is watching out for you and knows why you are on this road...even when fully, you do not.

I am so open and full of joy. Things that I have not experienced in so long...I can't even remember when I have felt this wholly full. I have a wonderful life..and I just forgot that. I forgot that I almost LOST my life to an illness...and how that changed my point of view...how I wanted to remember that every minute counts. I forgot that I am enough as I stand...I am not broken, damaged or bad. I am fine. Just the way I am. As I stand today. Do I work on improving some things? Yes. Of course. Who doesn't? But I also have learned to like some of the things about me that I really didn't before. I am comfortable in my skin so much more so than I have been in a long time. I embrace the bigness of my personality at times. My loud laugh. My boldness. My courage. My voice that carries. Because they are the things that I am continually told by the people that matter that these are the parts of me that they love or admire the most. For quite a while, I felt like these things hindered me. My girlfriends continually told me that they not only did not, but that these things were wonderful and that if I changed a thing, they would be very upset with me. But the truth is that the passion with which I love....the unbridled way I embrace life....the strong bonds that I have created around me....well, these things are amazingly good.

And although I have felt the trial so strongly, from it I have emerged. Like a phoenix from the ashes...I had to be burned and stripped down to build back into the way I truly want to be. Full of life, love, joy and passion. I know I never lost these things really....they were always in there but I just forgot.

Now I am continually reminded of the good around me. To expect the unexpected and how sometimes things are thrown at you from a place you didn't know they were coming from...but that sometimes that is what is best. Sometimes it is those things hitting you that continue to make you feel alive...even when you still do not know where the journey is taking you in the end.

I am thankful, grateful and blessed to be. I love fully and with all that I am. I like that I am that way. I take chances and risks that a lot of other people won't take. I want to do things that are out of my norm...be adventurous....be candid.....feel freedom.....be in the thick of things....go places that I never thought I would...do things I didn't think I was really made to do. I believed that living in my little box was the right place to be. But as someone close to me has said, rules are there for those that need them. And really, I don't need them. What I need is to be all of me...every part...and put it out there for those to see.

Funny enough, Dr. Suess put it best really. "Be who you are and say what you feel, because those who matter don't mind, and those that mind, don't matter."

And in the words of me and my best best girlfriends.....it is simply time to just be.

xoxo