GETTING PERSONAL

This has become a challenge for me at making my blog more personal.  There are just some things I have a hard time getting out.  I guess I was kind of raised and self taught that airing your dirty laundry is just......trashy.  Even though this is my blog and my journey and probably only a hand full of people read it.....I've still had trouble breaking through that barrier of sharing more personal stuff.  I share a lot of what is interesting me at the moment whether it be fashion, home stuff, gardens, photos.  But getting "down and dirty" is my barrier.  I have always looked at sharing to much as a weakness.  I may get angry and do a generic rant, but no one knows what I am talking about and how it relates to me personally.  Scaring of sharing......that's me.

I just still have so many dreams and goals and it seems kind of like I am cheating myself by not being totally brutally honest on here.  This is after all my journal....right?  I actually keep a private journal.  I have in the past post blurbs of my private journal.  And actually lately I haven't even been writing in my private journal.  I haven't been sharing that much on here either.
Lately I have felt a little lost.  I've kind of been floating through my everyday life.  I've been heart broken and hurt and healing and heart broken and hurt and healing.  I step a little into the healing and the cycle starts over.  So I've kind of been a wanderer as of lately.

I am functioning wanderer.  I can maintain my everyday obligations and life while feeling lost and wandering.  I'm not one of those who can't get out of bed or who can't keep their job, just because everything feel like it is falling apart around them.  A functioning wanderer......maybe I should change my blog name. :)

It really doesn't matter why or what is falling apart.  What matters and how I handle it and what I am doing to make my life better.

For one......stop talking about what I want to do and do it.  Just live my life.  I made the changes 9 months ago so I could live the life I wanted to live.  So I could feel free to be myself and do the things I wanted to and live the way I wanted to live. 

So what was that I wanted to change?

The way I felt about my self, the way I felt about what other people thought of me, doing more, feeling more, living more.

I wanted to go to church on Sundays. Yet on Sundays I loligag around and then feel guilty I didn't just get up and go.  So what am I doing now? I get up and go to church on Sunday.  No matter if I'm tired, get up late, the kids are being bad or don't really feel like it. I just get up and go.  I know there will never be any regrets that I got up and went to church.  But I sure feel guilty when I get up and don't. So.......GO!!!

I wanted to live material wise smaller and life bigger. I wanted to feel like my home represented me. So what did I do? I left a $270,000+ huge home in TX to live in MO in a small just enough space rental house probably worth $100,000 cute cozy kwirky decorated with my photography and art and thrift finds, enough bedrooms for my boys and me, a small yard with apple trees and flower garden area and nature and close to my parents and my sisters and old friends.

I wanted to be in love and be loved by someone that loved and respected me and the ways I felt I deserved. So what did I do? Well to to put it bluntly and not drag out the story I left the man I had been with for 10+ years. We didn't want the same things. We were so far from each other we weren't even friends anymore. I wasn't getting the respect or what I felt any respect that I deserved.  I didn't feel loved for who I was or even like I could just be me.  We had different beliefs, morals, behaviors, goals.  The only thing we had in common were 2 wonderful boys which made every bit of that 10+ years worth every second.  I will say I am not ready to take that next step into finding that person to be in love/to be love/respect, etc.  One step at a time baby.  One step at a time. :)

I wanted to be healthier. I always talked about wanted to work out but half the time was to drained from my situation to do it. I wasn't happy with my physical health or mental health. So what did I do? I started doing yoga at least 5 times a week trying to do it every morning to get me going. I started reading a daily devotional.  I started meditating almost daily.  I have had spurts of mediation in the past but never stick with it. In the winter I got my butt on the treadmill.  I started using those workout videos that I kept buying and never used.  I started using FitTV on demand channel.  I started praying more not just when things suck. As the weather gets warmer I plan on adding walks outside and swimming.  

I wanted to break out of my shell.  Over time and becoming a mother and working and trying to be responsible and being married to the life of the party.  Sometimes I will feel like a recluse.  Some self imposed and some imposed upon me. I will say I am a person who is very comfortable with being alone.  I enjoy alone time to reflex, meditate, read, just be.  But sometimes you just need to break out.  So what do I do? Say YES.  You know that movie The Yes Man? Kind of like that but not so extreme.  In the past when ask to do stuff I would say "I don't know" "maybe" we'll see" and a lot of the time blow it off either from self inflicted guilt or guilt inflicted upon me. Now even if I'm tired and have unimportatn things to do like....clean.  I don't blow other stuff off.  I'll say yes.  Not to the point of being irresponsible.  But for example my sisters just showed up at my house one random Tuesday and said "we're going to watch a tap dancer/jazz musician." In the past I would have been like "I got to get up for work" "nah maybe another time", etc, etc.  But I said......"yes." I have never regretted saying yes the way I regreted blowing people off or saying no.

I wanted to explore more into my photography.  This is one that is still plans in motion and not a lot of doing except taking more pictures and putting myself in postions to take more creative pictures. So what did I do/am I going to do? Take more pictures. Go to more places, new places, explore different place to take more pictures.  Look for creative places to take pictures. All of these will result in more pictures that could be framed and sold.  I have put into plan a craft booth to set up in September to sell my photography.  I have also started working on a plan to work on putting together a photography book with stories of seniors who have touched my life in my job. That is something I have talked about doing before I ever got into the senior care career. 

I wanted to pull out more of my creative side. What did I do?  This one is still more sporatic.  I wanted to blog more, read more, journal more, do more crafts, get back into a creative job, paint, draw, write, go to thrift stores.  This one I just let my mood guide me AND I don't feel guilty #1 if I leave a craft mess all over the place and don't get it cleaned up right away & #2 I don't feel self imposed guilty if I'm not doing something crafty constantly.  I just go with the flow. If I want to sew I sew.  If I want to read I read.  If I want to paint I paint. Get it. As far as the job market it took me 6 months to get back into my creative job after moving back to MO.  For those 6 months I was sitting at a desk pushing paper....snore, but I knew it would come around.....and with less creative at work there is more creative at home. Now it's a little more balanced out with creative at home and at work.  So if I don't have time to be creative at home it's ok cause I probably have at work. :)

These are just a basic few changes. There are other changes I am making on a daily basis.  You always keep growing I think. And sometimes I do take 2 steps back and 1 step forward, but I try not to let it get me down, cause the next day I may do 4 steps forward and 1 step back.

My boys have struggled some too and prospored some too.  They are ever growing also.  I think the biggest thing is letting them know they are loved.  None of these changes are their fault or their doing. And if they see their mother living her life and happy and loving them they will grow up to search for their own happiness...whatever it may be. 

I just feel like I am more myself and happier and feel like I can be myself and not apologise or feel embarrased about the pretty damn cool person I am. :)

My biggest thing was just getting off my butt and just doing all the things I said I wanted to do, I really wanted to do, I dreamt about doing..........................

And I know I still have more exploring of myself to do. And more changes. And more growing. And more life to live. The difference is I'm excited about doing it.