If I Start Now.... 3,567 Miles To Paris

It is 3,567 miles to Paris, France from my house in Connecticut.  I have decided to run that.

I am gong to run 3,567 miles.  I am going to lose this weight running.  And I am going to create a Run-To-Paris tip jar... each mile gets a dollar.  By the time I finish I should be able to pay for my trip to Paris. I should be done in about a year.  So next year for my 51st birthday I am going to Paris, FIT, TRIM and uber SEXY!

This is my vow. I WILL RUN PARIS!

Revisiting fear...

I have been around long enough to know fear.  I have looked at myself from the inside out, upside down, right side up and back again.  I know fear.  Fear isn't just the boogey man under the bed.  Fear isn't just the bump in the night.  Fear woos you like a faithful lover.  It shows up just at the moment you are about to jump into your dreams.

Fear woos me like a faithful lover, it shows up at the moment I am about to jump into my dreams. Fear is so convincing that I start to believe that it is my own voice being intuitive.  And that's where the damage is done...I believe by waiting for just the right moment to dive in is better than just diving in because the water is perfect right now!   I find myself sitting on the edge watching everyone else jump in and swim to their success.  This is not about measuring myself against others success.  It is about admiring others success and wanting success for myself.

Fear shows up in all kinds of ways and I thought I was better at recognizing it.  Well perhaps I must remain on constant alert. Fear never takes a vacation. As long as I am striving for a better experience of myself fear will hover and look for ways to keep me stuck. I think I was under the belief that if I whipped my fears once that would be enough.  But new fears show up at each step toward my success.

I know who I am. And it is this awareness and consciousness that is my best offense against my fears. I get to create and craft my story of a lifetime. I get to dream uninhibited.  I get to chase every dream as if my life depended on it. It does.

The fears and doubts and uncertainties are illusions.  They are not life-threatening... I know real peril and I do not deliberately put myself in harms' way.  This is another fight... a battle of keeping my eyes on God's grace, or succumbing to my fears that are not of God.

Every minute of everyday I get to choose.  I get to choose love over fear. Today love wins. 

Hey Dad (My letter to My father on Father's Day)

Father's Day isn't weird for me (even though I had a psychotic Dad).  I love celebrating the men who are good, strong, decent, caring, honorable fathers. I want to say a few things to my Dad now that he is dead....as of a week or so ago. Plus it's Father's Day. Perfect time.

Hey Dad,

I don't think you intended to harm me. I mean, I don't believe that when I was born you were just waiting for me to grow up a bit so you could have sex with me.  I do not believe that at all.  I don't have any answers for your actions... I have long since given up blaming and shaming myself for your madness.  Although I still struggle with intimacy (giving myself fully and openly in love) I struggle with the truth of things. I struggle with weight and the fear of being small again.  Because when I was small I was a child and being a child I was in danger and I can't ever go back to being small and in danger.  My weight loss journey is a vicious cycle.

I am still working this shit out. At 50 years old I am still pushing through fears and insecurities. I am now trying to handle this weight and my psychosis for staying fat. I know better in my head, but my memories are strong and deep and the body can't endure the possibility of revisiting that kind of assault and brutality.  My body is resisting weight loss; it is protecting itself and in the back of my mind, my brain is helping it.

Hey Dad, I have been most fortunate to have had some good men come through my life. Good men who far outweighed the bad ones. Good men who gathered up my broken pieces and quilted them together helping to create a whole me.  Some were passing through and did what they could for me and some are still in my life holding me up and loving me for no reason. No reason. Ha ha ha! that just opens me up... to be loved for no reason.  Like God does.

Hey Dad, I blamed Mom for many years for not doing enough to protect me.  I was mad with her for not being able to believe me until she got proof. I hated her and wished her dead. I spent a lot of time trying to break her heart.  Thank God she was made of finer stuff... the stuff of angels.  She let me free fall from my life and find my way back to the world. I did.  But I would fall many times over.  I paid a heavy price for your shit...and I am still paying.  But the difference now is the balance due ain't so high. I am more me than I had ever dreamed I could be.

Hey Dad, I'm a mom.  I adopted 4 kids. Remember when you said I was too weak to birth children.  You were right on some level... I couldn't birth any, but so what.  I have 4. 4 is divine.  It has real meaning to me.  They will never know harm under my roof. And that for me,  is how I pay it forward.  Taking care of the 4.

I am getting married again.  Marrying a man who sees my broken pieces and is not daunted by them. He is a binder of wounds and loves me so. It blows me away how I am able to jump across the gaping wounds of my childhood to get to love in the present day. I believe I am worthy of this love. It grows me profoundly.

So Dad wherever you are, I hope you are at peace. Truly.  I have released you from my hatred.  I have released you from my spirit.  And now that you are dead dead dead, I no longer have the anxiety of running into you on the streets where I live.  I can't tell you how liberating and divine that is.

No, not at all, Father's Day is not weird for me. I love celebrating all the beautiful, positive, caring, daring men who have come through my life with unimaginable gifts of love and friendship.  Your shit was the key to opening the door to a life filled with love. I believe that now.  It's my story to tell.

As I sit here and ponder you and this Father's Day, there is a deep sense of real peace for me.

That's it.

12 Symptoms of Spiritual Awakening

My Dreams Don't Have an Expiration Date

They don't! As long as I am breathing I can start all over again and again and again.

Some dreams may seem out of reach as long as you listen to your jury of doubt. But if you have faith and wrap yourself in God's care, there's nothing that can't be done.  I tell myself this on the regular basis. I know when discontent, worry and unease sets in.  I change.  I become unrecognizable. In my mind the world is dark and ominous.  This is not who I am.

I take a deep breath and I try again.  The world responds in kind. God has been waiting on the path all along... why didn't I see that before?  And those moments of aha  is how my whole self realigns with the divine.  I start again. I start again. I start again.

A life That Earns My Self Respect....

Sometimes we're too easy on ourselves, lacking self-discipline and giving ourselves slack and in places where we simply shouldn't. Then we're loaded with guilt and suffering! The only way to end the torture of self-condemnation is to try to live a life that earns your self-respect.... Marianne Williamson

Like a lightening bolt this struck me to my core!   It is not news that I am undisciplined.  What is news is the level of depth my undisciplined self goes.  The root of all of my suffering is my undisciplined self.  I cannot examine myself for too long and not see the patterns, the unwillingness to grind it out and push push push.

I quit more times than I persevere.  I have triumphed because I was forced... kicking and screaming to victory.  So imagine my surprise at this epiphany. Yes, I must end the torture of self-condemnation.  That's the real beauty in turning 50, the willingness to clarity.

Add in my Sweetheart pushing from the other side, God all around and me in the middle. I enter this life like a piece of coal and with all the pressure...some lovingly applied and some not, I am emerging as a diamond.

My challenge will be to retrain my mind and actions... to instill discipline into my life in a way I've never done before.  I do believe I am doing this without even realizing I am doing it. Or what's more accurate I am doing it as part of my spiritual faith walk. all the pieces are coming together.  I see it.  Health, love, God.  It is my personal goal to integrate all of my life into a seamless adventure.

A seamless adventure where I am whole, inside and out.  A life that earns my self respect.

A Month Of Celebrating 50

I have been 50 years old for a month now.  I love it!

There is a certain kind of confidence that just went onto overdrive. I mean I have always been confident...even when I wasn't.  Being 50 is a kind of permission to amp up my badassery in a way that didn't occur to me in my 40s.  Yes, I have fears... but right now I know them when they show up and I am not gullible to their seduction.  My fears don't paralyze me anymore or cripple me.  There are moments when I cry about all that is in front of me, but beyond that I have the tools to reign myself in.

Many of the dreams I held in my heart have found their way into existence.  I've done a lot of things, but what I like most about myself  is that I still have a dreamer's heart.  I still think about what else I want to do. I still contemplate next steps and next course of actions.

God is still working with me.  There is a fresh new wind blowing me toward a new direction.

My 50 is so magical.