So I've been a grateful member of a wonderful recovery group for almost 2 years now (4/1/14). I am absolutely not the same person I was that day because of this program 100%. I left it for a few months thinking I didn't need it anymore, but I do. Every.damn.day. Forever.
A lot of people think you stop needing something just because a particular person (substance, thing, place, etc) is out of your life, but that couldn't be further from the truth.
I am blessed beyond measure to belong to such an organization that is there whenever I need it and is available to me 24/7. The people I have met and become friends with have forever changed my life. For the better.
Life isn't easy. I will never be perfect. Situations will be difficult. But I know 100% that if I stick close to this program, I can overcome anything and find complete serenity. It's only been 2 years and I am in awe of the transformation by working the steps and attending meetings has done in my life and for my well being, my outlook on life and for my life in general.
I walked into these rooms with debilitating anxiety and depression and willing to do anything as I had hit rock bottom.
Today, I still have some anxieties and depression, but I no longer have this looming sense of panic and doom over my head as I did prior to coming to this program.
Today, I am able to Let Go and Let God and truly understand the meaning of it. Sometimes I have to remind myself to literally do so. Other times, I have the realization that I did it already. Automatically. Because of this program and me working it for me, I can do it now. And that baffles me. Talk about a sense of serenity. This program has continued to bring me miracle after miracle and counting on my God (of my understanding) has been the single greatest freedom I have ever felt.
Today's reading was spot on.
CTC, March 28
What happens when I physically hold on tightly to something? I turn my head away. I squeeze my eyes shut. My knuckles ache as my fists clench. Fingernails bite into my palms. I exhaust myself. I hurt!
On the other hand, when I trust God to give me what I need, I let go. I face forward. My hands are free for healthy, loving, and enjoyable activities. I find unexpected reserves of energy. My eyes open to see fresh opportunities, many of which have been there all along.
Before I complain about my suffering, I might do well to examine myself. I may be surprised by the amount of pain I can release by simply letting go.
Today’s Reminder
How much can God give me if I am not open to receive? When I hold onto a problem, a fear, or resentment, I shut myself off to the help that is available to me. I will loosen my grip on something today. I will “Let go and let God.”
“All I had to do was become the least bit willing to open my clutched fist a tiny, grudging bit and miracles happened. That’s God as I understand Him today.” ~ As We Understood
So I dyed my hair back to good ol' chocolate brown. You can still see the highlights a bit, but I figure I'll re-dye in another month or so and hopefully it will cover them up more. You can really only see them if the sun's shining on my hair. Needless to say I am much happier. Please pardon the no makeup. I've become fairly lazy in my pregnancy and just haven't felt like putting any makeup on lately. More days than not I am makeup-less :)
I also got some new specs from coastal.com and I love them. They are pretty different and a lot bigger than what I'm used to, but I really dig em.
That's all I got for today, I'm a woman of many words apparently. Happy Good Friday and hope y'all have a wonderful Easter! (or as I like to refer to it as "Zombie Jesus Day". Hey, get a sense of humor. They are nice)
So, I've been reflecting a lot on my life and the mystery of it. If you had told me this time last year where I would be right now, I may not believe you. But life has a way of making twists and turns that we necessarily didn't see coming.
I've always marched to my own beat. Since I was a little toddler. If I wanted something, I went after it. And I would never wait for anyone to help me or for them to do it. I'd do it myself. That hasn't changed too much in my 40 years earthside.
Turning 40 this year has given me a bit of a shift if you will.
I've certainly made some mistakes in my life or taken the road that is less sought after, but I don't regret a second of it. I've had many unconventional relationships, had a child out of wedlock in my early 20's, eventually did get married to a man I 'thought' was my soulmate, which ultimately ended in divorce around this time last year. I never have really considered myself a huge risk taker, but thinking about it, I truly am. Not in the "I'm going to go skydiving or take risks that could risk my untimely death" type of risk taker, but a life risk taker. And I create my own path. I always have. And now is no different.
I've done things in my life that I haven't been afraid to do or that might be outside of certain people's "approval" and received quite a bit of judgment. I normally don't care too much what other people think of me and my decisions and that still holds true. But I have to admit it stings sometimes. I mean we are all human and we all seek others approval. Some more than others.
Despite some judgments or worries from certain people in my life, I've made a pretty good life for myself. I have a stable career, make decent money, own my own home, have a beautiful 17 year old daughter who is an amazing kid, I take care of my responsibilities and overall have a good life. I still have goals I have set for myself that I have yet to accomplish, which I'm sure I will have until the day I leave this earth, but for 40 years old, again, I've made a decent life for myself.
I've never been very level headed when it comes to relationships. I tend to just go with my heart on things, which in turn has caused me some heartache in the past and currently, but again, I don't regret any of it. And I definitely take responsibility of my own willingness and actions in said relationships. I wouldn't be the person I am today without those experiences.
I've found myself lately feeling as though I have to make excuses for things or try and make others understand my decisions or to justify them. Especially as of late. And I don't like having to feel like I have to do that. But I still feel as though I have to because I know I am being judged. Family, friends, extended family, strangers, acquaintances, you name it.
But the more I think about it, why do I even bother? If someone genuinely cares about me and loves me for who I am, they won't judge me and they will understand and stand by me no matter what without me having to explain anything. Because THOSE are the people I want in my life. Family or friends the same. The reason I am now writing about all of this is that I discovered that a family member de-friended me on Facebook simply because of the fact that I am pregnant expecting a baby and not married or technically "together" with the father of the baby at the moment. And that's fucked up. Truly. And I know I say I don't care, but I do because this is someone that is my family. And it hurts that they are so judgmental and so critical of something that they have created their own judgment based on something that may not be true and they don't know the complete story...but don't even bother to ask or to understand.
Don't get me wrong, I understand my family and my friends and the father's family and friends are all worried about the situation and concerned. But being concerned and worried is one thing but being outright hateful and judgmental is another. Especially when it's not even your body or your relationship. I appreciate the concern, I really do, but I don't appreciate or accept the judgment or the hatred. Because it's not your place. My path is part of God's plan that He has for me. I am not in charge and neither are you.
So with all of that being said, turning 40 has made me realize that I simply do not have time for bullshit in my life regarding relationships, family or friends or anyone else who will judge me. (I also think it's a combination of my Al-Anon program and my yoga/meditation practice that has brought me to this realization) It's sad, but I don't and I won't spend any more time focusing on it. I will, however, spend all of my time taking care of myself, my children and going after my own dreams because I have lots of them and no one can stand in the way of me reaching them but myself. I am an overtly caring person and have always done for others, but I have also not included myself in that equation. It's time I start doing that and living a life that makes ME happy as well. And not feeling bad or guilty about doing so.
So by all means, if you want to judge me for things you honestly don't understand as opposed to loving me for who I am, don't let the door hit you in the ass because I simply no longer have time for it.
Just when I try and accomplish something LESS high maintenance, I end up unhappy and even more frustrated.
I've been thinking about for about a year now to start taking steps to let my natural grays start growing out. But wanting to do so without the drastic and yucky "line" that would form in letting this happen with the natural progression.
Here I was assuming this may be a fairly easy practice, but much to my chagrin, not so much. Especially when your natural hair color is dark brown. If my hair was blonde, it would definitely be an easier process.
I admit I should have done a little more research before I tried to begin this process, but that was my mistake. So here I am irritated and feeling defeated.
A history of my hair color - natural is dark ash brown. I've colored my hair over the years most colors under the sun...mainly staying within the reddish tint, but I've been relatively boring the last 5ish years with my plain jane dark brown. Because we all know that once you add any red to your hair color it's difficult to get it out in the long haul of things. I've been going gray for a while now, but honestly, the majority of it is at my temples, not necessarily the whole top of my head quite yet. However, the silver foxes at my temples always decide to start making an appearance pretty much the day after I would dye my roots. Le sigh. And I wear my hair up a lot, so there's not much hiding it...I was forced to dye my roots usually every 3-4 weeks. And that was me being lazy. It would be more like every 2 weeks if I were to actually stay on top of it.
Point is, I was growing tired of having to keep up with coloring my gray roots every month or so. It may not be too often to some of you, but for me, it's just too much of a hassle and awfully high maintenance for my taste.
So I got it in my head that I'm ready to start the process a few months ago and I start researching photos. I found a salon that appeared to have a good gallery of photos of hair color that was a little outside of the box, so I figured I would try it out. Here are the examples I took in:
So much to my disappointment, the colorist looked at my hair and said we could definitely get it there, but it's going to take quite a few appointments. Being human and always striving for instant gratification, I was bummed, but she did say that we could take it light enough that day to make a difference. She showed me some colors and I specifically pointed to the brass blonde and said "I DO NOT WANT THAT!" I told her anything as close to gray/ash tone as she could get, I would be ok with. She heard me and we got to working on it. 2 hours later, I thanked her and left astonished. Because you know, when it comes to real life confrontation with hair stylist/colorist, I can never say if I don't particularly like something. A Groupon of $60 + $60 on top of it, here I am.
Now I'm no brain surgeon, but this looks pretty f'ing brassy to me! I was super upset and immediately started calling around to try and find someone to fix this horribleness. I made an appointment with a funky salon in downtown Dallas seeing that they had a gallery of pretty extreme colorings and had great ratings, so I figured I'd give it a shot.
I went in a week after my bad experience and talked to the lady there - she totally understood my frustrations and said she was definitely right in saying it will be a process, but that doesn't mean I had to settle for brassy blonde and be unhappy with it through the process. I was confident she would help me and she really "got" what I was wanting and showed her the photos. So she put some demi permanent dark brown on my hair that day and sent me home with deep conditioning treatments to use 3 times before I come back in 3 weeks later. Forked over $80 and off I went. About a week before the appointment, the demi permanent color was starting to fade and I could see a little of the brass showing through again, so I was super glad for my upcoming appointment and was really hoping that she would help me out. 4 hours at the hair salon confident that I would be happy with the babylights she had spent a couple of hours brushing in.... anddddddddddddddddddd NO. She said "oh, it's a beautiful beige!" and "it's definitely more ashy as opposed to brassy." All I saw was brass on the top of my head on my bangs on my forehead. I said "wow, it's still brassy." She saw my disappointment and showed me the back, where I will admit I could see it was a little more ash in the back and the babylights were a better effect so it wasn't so choppy throughout my hair, but I still wasn't satisfied. I kept trying to stay optimistic. She told me to get this purple shampoo they had and it would help with the brass until I came back for my 2nd round of operation gray highlights. She rang me up...$215 is your total. Excuse me, WTF?!?!
I've been trying for 2 weeks to be ok with my hair. I've used the purple shampoo and kept telling myself, it looks better and to try and have patience, that it will get to where I want it.
But you know what? Fuck this. Excuse the language, but after trying to be optimistic and have patience, I am literally sick. I'm out over $400 and still HATE my hair. Really hate it. Not even remotely "ok" with it. Blonde tones and blonde hair is gorgeous on other people, but it looks terrible on me and my skin tone. And I'm not ok with it. I have an appointment on 4/16 for my 2nd round and I'm cancelling. No way am I going to pay another $200 to be even unhappier and keep shelling out that amount of money for 2-3 more sets of highlights to finally get it to where I want it. At this point, I should have just bit the bullet and had someone bleach my hair completely out and dyed it dark gray. It would have looked better and by now, the damage to my hair is just as much that would have caused. It looks dry and frizzy and the color is horrible. This is today and yesterday.
I'm doing a deep condition overnight tonight, then going to Sally's and getting dark ash brown and going straight back to where it was before all of this mess over the weekend. I'm so sick about this experience, but it was a hard lesson learned.
At this point, dying my roots every month is a much better option and letting my hair grow out and become healthy again is the route to go. In a few more years once the grays start to infiltrate my whole head, then I will revisit this transition, but at that point, I'm going to go the 'completely bleach out, then dye my hair gray' route. F all this other BS.
Public Service Announcement: So for any of you contemplating this same transition, do NOT attempt to do it the way I attempted to if you have dark hair. You will just be disappointed...and out a lot of money. :(
I've been thinking a lot lately about violence and hatred. It's hard not to when it's shoved down your throat every time you turn on the tv and see the news, or browse the interwebs to see the same thing, or open up your social media accounts. Or opening your eyes. It's everywhere. Even when we try to escape it. We can't. It's nearly impossible at this point.
It's equally as hard to not get sucked into participation when all of us are up in arms on both sides of the political spectrum. But what is happening right now exceeds all things political. It's just the face of the underlying matter.
There is so much fighting on both sides. I get it, ok. I understand that Republicans are upset at the current situation...after all, they have been beat out twice in 2008 and again in 2012. Completely understandable to be unhappy about the current situation and even upset. If the tables were turned, I would feel the same way...just like I did when we had GW Bush in office for 2 consecutive terms. And I will admit, I was outwardly upset and in fact, it caused way too much stress in my life at the time. I've been pretty content since then because a President that I voted for twice, backed and believed in (which I still back and believe in) has been sitting in office. I don't agree with all of his decisions, but I still stand behind him. And he hasn't said or done anything so outright hateful or spiteful to deter me otherwise.
Which brings me to my feelings on the current situation in America.
We have taken hatred to the extreme and I'm afraid there is no turning back if we don't take some sort of stance. On BOTH sides.
I guess what I don't understand is regardless of whatever your political beliefs, whatever your stance on current affairs, etc.... why don't we all agree on having basic respect for others? Is that such a far stretch? Isn't that a universal commonality that links us all? That SHOULDN'T divide us all? I hate to sound so simple, but can't it just be that simple after all?
In my opinion (and this is purely my opinion alone), I am pretty unsettled with all of our current political candidates this election. I am an open liberal (and yes, I do have a good corporate job and have supported and support my family, make good money, work for my own things...you catch my drift) and I tend to side with Democrats on most issues. Not on ALL issues. Just because I'm a liberal, don't assume that I am a loaf and want everything given to me and think we should work hard just to give everything we have away. Because that's not it. I know the value of working hard and earning my own money and supporting my family and reaching my own goals on my own will. But I'm also very open minded and believe in helping others, accepting others for who they are regardless, and have compassion for my fellow Americans as well as any other human beings for that matter (and let's not forget about animals, because frankly I prefer hanging out with animals more than most human beings, but that's neither here nor there). I have a bleeding heart for certain.
Personally, I think HC is untrustworthy and wish-washy just to get a vote. I agree with BS's political stances as they mirror a lot of my beliefs, but honestly, there's something about the guy I just don't mesh with, so I'm not backing him either. On the opposite side, TC seems snaky to me, Kasich and Rubio actually seem like they are fairly level headed (but again, I'm a liberal and I do not agree with a lot of their beliefs....but generally they seem like respectable people and handle themselves in a mature, adult manner).
So then this brings us to Trump. For months now, I have been watching this mess unfold. Because it is a mess. I've honestly tried to reach out to friends and listen to their reasoning for supporting Trump. I get the exact same answers from those I have asked and from things I've read in comments from Trump supporters.
They go something like this.
"I like what he stands for."
"I like that he says what he feels and doesn't care what anyone else thinks."
"I like that he's not your typical politician."
"I don't necessarily agree with everything he says, but I agree with what he stands for."
"He's what we need to turn around this mess that our government is in."
There are others along this same line, but I don't need to go on, you get the point.
And those arguments alone make sense to me. I get it. But why am I never offered anything deeper in reasoning besides the above mentioned comments?
So then there is what he says, what he does and how he acts. All things that are just ignored by Trump supporters because here's another one "I like Trump because I hate Hillary and Bernie and I will vote for him before I ever vote for those two."
Again, simple human decency. Isn't this something that should not divide us?
Regardless of what someone says they stand for or believe in and you agree, how can you get behind and support someone who openly has criticized the handicapped, the obese and even instigates becoming violent with anyone who doesn't agree with you? No matter what political party you are affiliated with. Ask yourself this question. Seriously.
Because over the last several weeks, I have mistakenly been involved in some heated discussions regarding this same situation and I get all of the same answer, then when I ask any Trump supporter this one simple question "How can you support someone who openly has criticized the handicapped, the obese and even instigates becoming violent with anyone who doesn't agree with you?", I get crickets. Literally. Or they automatically turn it back on me and get mad at me and say they don't have to answer to someone who is so misinformed or my favorite "typical Liberal. Anytime someone doesn't agree with YOUR beliefs, they are automatically idiots."
Well, no. I don't think people that disagree with my beliefs are idiots. I do believe that people that support and defend someone who has openly criticized the less fortunate and invokes violence openly to others...well. Need I say more? Make sense? There's a difference. We are all somewhat brainwashed by simply the media alone, but this is almost cult-ish and truly not far from the Hitler reign.
But I digress. Because I have had a bit of an epiphany if you will over the past few days as my blood pressure starts to rise as this nightmare continues to unfold that when we (as liberals and democrats) start playing into this man's game, he wins. Because that's exactly what he wants and that's exactly what his supporters want so although they instigate it, they can turn around and say "SEE, I TOLD YOU. TYPICAL LIBERALS...NOW WHO ARE THE VIOLENT ONES?"
So I've made a pact with myself. Although it may in turn keep me from being informed (but really how "informed" are we with the current media), I am temporarily unfollowing all media outlets on my FB and unfollowing any FB friends that post anything encouraging hatred from EITHER party. I will not watch the news and will refrain from participating in any discussions regarding any politics or active groups against other groups, etc. Or any 'lives matter' groups, because ALL lives matter. Not just one specific group. And stop with the war on cops and the government. Seriously. I'm tired of diversity. I'm tired of the current state of affairs. And sadly it's come to this, but I am not going to involve myself anymore because my life is too precious and too important and becoming angry and hateful is NOT who I am regardless. And I'm not going to feed into the darkness anymore. I will spread my own love and light and share it with others.
Who knows, maybe it will also give me a break from stupid coverages of the Kardashians or any other un-newsworthy crap.
And please...any negative comments will be unread and deleted, so save your breath. You are on my page and my blog, remember, I am not trolling on anyone else's...this is my avenue to express how I feel.
So I will wrap up this blog post by posting a song. This song keeps popping up in rotation on my ipod and I've been thinking about the lyrics and the meaning behind it intently lately. I'm pretty sure it's my higher power giving me a sign to pay attention. Because this song can also be interpreted metaphorically with all of the spoken violence as well.
Fire in the sky outta the blue and into the red depths, Time for you and I to try to fall asleep in the bed they've made us, All came crumbling down tears in our eyes as it rained confusion The whole world has changed
But I don't understand how one can kill a man In the name of peace, that's ridiculous
They say eye for an eye So they fire from the sky and they come outta nowhere Time for you and I to turn on the big screen see what's happening And as those children die, pawns in the game of collateral damage, The whole world goes mad.
Standing here on quick sand, the more we fight we sink And vengeance gives us hope, at least that's what we think, At least that's what we think. As we make amends by getting our revenge, We sort nothing out, just add to the doubt With God on both sides, if death is justified Whatever the name, then we're all to blame.
As the spirits fly, To honor those who have passed, We got to get along, while the time still lasts Bury the hatchet deep, so we all can weep And heal all this pain, so we can live again, So we can live again
As we make amends by getting our revenge, We sort nothing out, just add to the doubt But with God on both sides, if death is justified Whatever the name, then we're all to blame. But I don't understand how one can kill a man In the name peace, that's ridiculous But I understand that I will defend my family, from both sides of misery.
