Rise up: Single is my new Strong Suit

I'm not one for sugar-coating anything. I'm hurt. I'm scared. I am thirty-nine years old and maybe for the very first time in nearly four decades....I am truly single. Alone, no phone numbers, no back-up, no anyone.

Me Shooting Long bow to RISE UP

I spent the better part of a week in a sloppy, sad pity party for myself and then I sat up and realized that everything is just beginning if I so choose it to be.

Relationships are hard. My Divorce feels like a big red "F" on my life's report card. My heart recently got broken (again.) and I find myself less angry or confused or blaming; but single-focused.

Instead of running through the laundry list of my faults or possible reasons things don't work out in my relationships I am turning into myself-Full introspection.

Full acceptance.

I've gained and lost weight and beat myself up about it. I have had mood swings that could make a typhoon peel back. I have made mistakes, earned some karma and I'm still standing. It is easier to point a finger or blame old partners for "this" and "that" but I'm too old now and I know better. Whatever happened, happened because I either allowed it, caused it, or attracted some low vibrational energy that I ( I repeat) that I was putting out into the relationship. So here I am. Sweet.

I'm not looking for a "hoo-rah." I don't want pity or pats on the back in some thin-solidarity singledom-pep rally. I think I'm sharing this post and video because the bottom line is when life kicks you in the guts the point is that we have the choice.

We have the choice to see ourselves as able and worthy; NOT entitled. We have the choice to NOT hold on to anger or past mistakes, but instead, to look to the future with the seasoned eyes of a human who has hurt and healed (or is still healing..) and had to claw back from a dark, vapid, easy-to-fall-into-place.

If only one man or woman reads this, watches my silly video of my empowering hobby of archery and thinks to themselves: "I can rise up." or " It gets a little better day by day." Then that is worth everything to me. I am alone. I have one family member miles away and three beautiful kids to raise but in times like these I am alone. The thing I choose right now is to trust myself.

The best gift, I think anyway, that we can give ourselves is the truth and the trust we deserve about who we are, who we've been and most importantly, who we want to be.

I want to be strong. I want to be happy. I want to be better than I was yesterday, last week, last year. Maybe I'm knocking on forty's door...and I'm carrying some strings and baggage but I choose to be a better decision-maker, life-liver and love-giver, today, right now....
fully single and nose-deep in my strong suit.

So whatever you might be facing today. Whatever ugly doubt is trying to convince you that you can't do it...RISE up. RISE UP a little, a lot, for a minute, for a year...just keep RISING until you don't ever question your God-given right to do so.

I love you, I love me, I love throwing fast arrows with a bow, I even love some of my "extra padding" that my ex-boyfriend hated, so love yourself, love each other. Love.
~~~~~
"Shimmer with a smile. Life is hard, bloom anyway."

A Manifesto for the "Gypsy-Souled" Woman. ( Even the one's who are just a little too scared to admit it.)

Cliches exist for a reason, right? They describe something concisely. I'm admit I must seem to be a bit of a cliche right now, but I laugh because I've never felt more ME. The cliche I fit into is "Divorcee-mid-life-crisis" something or other. Yes, I am getting divorced. Yes, I'm a bit of introvert lately. I don't think it is that strange given the deconstruction of one's life and the immediate need to heal, especially after (and still present) persecution and alienation.

I also have stopped handing out the F*&KS I give. I care about my kids and their well-being as well as people I love in my small, but tight, circle. I've been writing like crazy. Two weeks ago, when the words wouldn't come easily, I started to paint. First watercolor, then acrylic, now I'm obsessed with oil on canvas, and mixed media. I hate rules. I can use wax, jewelry, stones, crystals, quotes I've written and much more. It feels just like life: real things stuck in a medium to live on in a new sense.

People can laugh or pass judgments or try to predict my next move or whatever is fun to talk about, but I think I've just stopped carrying the weight of what I thought I should be, and I just am.
 In a sense, I laugh too, more about how I was trying so hard and it took this long. I've always had this "Weird" or "Mysterious" range of me:

~ I never wear socks or shoes...even in Chicago winter (in the house).
~I used to never wear jewelry, ever.
~I sing, dance, embarrass people with disarming truth on purpose, for sport.
~Historically I have had no filter for what comes out of my mouth.
~I have and always have had, a strange yearning to either pull someone out from their own head, darkness, sadness, or help fix whatever appeared to be hurting them.
~I fashioned myself a mender; a listener and a levity bringer and to every type of person imaginable.
~I can't remember a time I wasn't highly sensitive or wasn't told I "feel too much." or "love too big."
~I most certainly am always battling something I can't explain pulling me to run away, wander and leave it all behind and the grounding beauty in the routines and little brood I've created.  I allow the feeling instead of deny it. It's sanity in my book. I'm scared of people who never think of turning around, heel-stepping into a run and disappearing at least once or twice in life.

BUT...The paradox is that I could also be conniving, lost, restless, manipulative and retreat from people at the first sign of mistrust. I belly danced as a child. (while balancing swords.) I danced to songs in my own head. I am enthralled by debate and negotiations. I have an affinity for magic in the most non-classical sense. I think we all have a smidgen of a gypsy soul.
I'd happily be a gypsy, and I'm certain I probably was one in some other life, but I love nice things too much and my neurosis would cause me to have an app for every public bathroom on my travels.  Yep, another paradox.


I don't need things, but man there are some I really like. iPhones, incredible candles, luxury boutique hotels, for instance. I inhale and get tingles when I smell the starchy-soft smell of fresh cleaned and pressed hotel sheets. I don't like diamonds or wear expensive jewelry, but I adore bangles and energy bracelets and dangling earrings now. I am a complete snob with wine, seating for flights and books.

I absolutely love pretty things, long eyelashes, well kept hair and feminine figures of ALL sizes. (Mostly because my natural body shape is more like that of a twelve year old boy.)
I believe in magic and miracles and enjoy the comforts of nice experiences not labels or pretense.

People have misjudged me my whole life, for better or worse. No one has really figured it out. That makes sense! I am just now, finally letting myself try to form it. So here is to the women out there who (try to) live from heart and soul.

To the iconoclasts who still follow some rules:
To the hippies that buy five dollar coffee: 
To the soignée gypsy souls grounded in grace:

We exists, we are, and I'm not really worried in the least if someone thinks I don't quite fit into any one box or that I am a sellout or a cliche. I know these things to be a good start for me...and so it is my manifesto for living, even just a little, with the Gypsy-Soul singing out. 

~~~~~~~~~

"Shimmer with a smile. Life is hard, bloom anyway."

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