28 on the 28th

Well, yesterday was my birthday and my "golden" birthday at that - I turned 28 on the 28th.  I am starting to feel a bit old but this year has so many good things in store!  Saturday was the perfect omen... I had one of the best days I have had in the past 3ish years.  It was anxiety free.  Stress-free.  It was wonderful.  I had a relaxing train ride, got to meet my friend Nancy's twins (who are ADORABLE), chicken piccatta & a delish bottle of vino for dinner, and finally I got to see the musical I have been dying to see ... WICKED!  Sunday, I took time to reflect on just how good the day was.  Just how good I felt.  Just how happy I was ... genuinely happy. 

No Dad ... that is NOT a map of Mordor & Wicked is not a nightclub.

Which leads to me to my 5 over-arching goals for 28!  What do I want to accomplish this year?

1) Get healthier; physically, mentally, and emotionally.  These have been goals of mine for as long as I can remember.  But, I have only ever been able to focus one at a time before.  No mas.  This time, I am going to simultaneously make it work.  I am well on my way for it currently, and I even ate VEGETABLES last night at my birthday dinner.
2) Have HEALTHY relationships with men.  This is something we all know I have not had since roughly 2009ish.  I have let the past couple of guys I have dated treat me pretty damn shitty (good work, KK). Ashley once told me once you're out of the thick of the forest, you start to see the sky more.  While I am not rushing, I am going to trust my intuition more (it's already helped me out once!) and not ignore red flags.  If they quack like a duck, they're a duck.  If they moo like a cow, they're a cow.  And, if you think they're a bad egg, they probably are and will be a rotten egg.
3) Complete my newest project. So maybe I won't complete it, but I want to get a damn good start on it!  I have mentioned this project before and I am not quite at the point of full disclosure but I am doing it.  I have no idea HOW to do it, but I am.  I have even recruited a few people to help out.  I couldn't be more excited!
4) Get rid of toxicity in my life: things, people, and places.  There are so many toxic things in my life and this year I want to focus on getting rid of them!  I have already gotten rid of a few people and places, and now I just need to continue.
5) Work on my life plan. By this, I mean actually form a life plan.  I will be done with my Master's.  I will get some more certifications, I am going to be taking classes for my new project, etc.  So, what is my next step?  Professionally and personally.  Do I want to continue to travel?  Do I want to stay in Pittsburgh?  If not, where should I move?  All things I need to figure out before 29!

As I left the Gershwin theater on Saturday night, one of the signs really resonated with me.  It said, "Reality Straight Ahead."  Naturally a great photo-op, but it was very true.  I was leaving this fantasy land where I spent over 2 hours singing, dancing, and (of course) crying.  I had to get back to reality.  But, my reality doesn't need to be the same reality it was prior to walking in that theater.  It doesn't need to be the reality I have known for so long.  I can change my reality, make it something different.  In the words of Elphaba (who is kinda my soul sister): it's time to trust my instincts, close my eyes and LEAP.

Intuition // A Powerful Tool

Whew!  The past few weeks have been QUITE the whirlwind!  So much has been happening and so many plans have been made.  I have done some more planning of my big project, begun to reach out to the appropriate stakeholders, and I am well on my way to booking a trip to start the process!  And, lucky for all my readers - I got my bloggin' groove back! 

Last weekend was a blast.  It was great to be back on the beach in my old stompin' grounds!  Atlantic City lost some of its flare but hey - I am not 23 anymore :) and Avalon was just as beautiful.  This weekend is a NYC weekend - ending it with a road trip back to Pittsburgh on Sunday.  The best part?  I GET TO SEE WICKED.  I have been dying to see it (for a casual decade), and I finally found someone to see it with.  I finish grad school in 22 days; only 3 weeks of classwork left!  And, I have my big San Diego/Hawaii trip coming up! 

But, I won't let my excitement get in the way of life lessons to share.  It is so easy for people to sit around, feel pity for themselves, over-analyze every little thing (guilty!), and not look at the positive things in life.  This is something in a recent event I could have done but I chose to look at the positivity in it.  The lesson learned? LISTEN TO YOUR INTUITION, BETCHES.  My relationship with my intuition the past few years has been rocky; I have ignored her when she was telling me shit wasn't right.  Well intuition... I'm sorry, I love you, and I'll never ignore you again. 

I started talking to this guy my friend met at a bachelor party and introduced me to.  He seemed GREAT.  He seemed to be aligned with me in so many ways, I would consider him one of the more attractive guys that I have been interested in, very successful, owned his own house on 80 acres of land, owned his own company, and was educated (although from PITT - ew).  As in, he could have an actual conversation with me that held my interest.  He was making me laugh.  But, something FELT OFF.  While he was very attentive, it was almost too much.  He almost seemed way too eager (to the point it was getting on my nerves) and I started to feel I was being mimicked and he wasn't genuine (sound familiar?).  Now, I am not one to just assume the worst in people (but even when I have, that apparently didn't matter) so I let it go for a bit.  Monday, I just couldn't anymore.  Something was tugging at me and while I am not planning on settling for one guy right now (how else would I get great dating stories for the blog?), I didn't want to waste my time.  I did some investigative work (Pittsburgh is quite the small town).  He said he didn't have a Facebook.  WRONG.  Turns out homeboy has a serious girlfriend - very serious.  My inner goddess did a happy dance and praised my intuition while I decided to give him a piece of my mind - and that I did.

Intuition.  It is a powerful tool for women.  It is something we need to learn to trust.  It is a gift from God that is meant to protect us and protect those around us.  Intuition - you're my #1!

Rolling with the punches...and a new project!

A recently learned lesson of mine is that the punches will keep coming in.  Even when you think they will stop... they will actually just keep coming.  My dad once told me life is one disappointment after the other and it is how you REACT and HANDLE those disappointments that will define you and who you are.  It will teach you your true character, strength, and determination.  One thing I am learning in addition to that is who I AM and MY character does not need to be defined by the actions and choices of other people.  Something I need to remind myself of daily.  Why someone is a certain way or acts a certain way in all reality has nothing to do with me.

I am going to go with some real talk right now.  I am kind of lost on my next steps in life.  I am on the horizon of my 28th birthday in a week and I totally thought I would have my shit together by now.  But, I don't.  In fact, I am officially at another point in my life where I need to redefine myself, who I am, what I want, and most importantly what I NEED.  The scariest part is I have NO IDEA.  I guess you could say I know what I need, but there's a whole lot of fluff going around in my head.  There are a lot of what the hells, are you kidding me, disappointments, unexpected shocks, expected shocks, and total mass confusion.  How and where do you begin to make sense of where you are in life and where you want to be?  How do you being to comprehend, for example, pure evil?  Do we all at some point experience pure evil and have to learn to understand it?  Do we ever actually learn to understand it?  Do we all at some point experience something life changing; something that changes you and your character and who you always were?

So while I am on this journey of re-self discovery or re-finding myself (whatever we want to call it), I am not going to just forge ahead and forget my past.  I, in fact, have something coming down the pipeline that is going to hopefully be not just therapeutic but huge for me.  While I might not change the world, I want to make my small dent.  I want to make a difference.  And, what I have planned might.  Even if it is just a few people, that is enough for me.  More details to come in the next few months as I have to keep this project under wraps as I figure out how to do it and certain legalities.  But it's something I am incredibly excited for as long as everything goes as planned! 

Self-Reflection // What was the PURPOSE?

When I first started this blog over a year ago, I was going through a pretty rough patch in my life.  I felt I had lost the "glow" I spent so long working to get back after another rough patch.  The past 6 months have been a whirlwind and mix of overwhelming and debilitating anxiety, hard-core motivation, strength I never thought I would have, self-reflection, and more changes inside of me than I thought possible in such a short amount of time.

I have begun to think about where I want to take this blog.  I realize I don't practice yoga enough to just blog about that, I surely don't date enough to write a dating blog (but I do have some funny stories I will eventually write about), and I really shouldn't be giving out life advice when my life is the hot mess express train.  So, maybe I need to make it a hodge podge (is that even spelled right) type blog.  I am just going to write about whatever the hell I want and when I want.  Why should I have structured writing when my life is not so structured?  That would make me a hypocrite, no?

I have spent a ton of time really focusing and reflecting on what has happened to me and what my next steps should be in life.  A first step is to be able to finally cut the ties of the past and move forward into the future.  No more looking in the rear-view mirror and ONLY look through the windshield.  I have never been a very "churchy" person.  I grew up Catholic, went to church, and occasionally go to church now.  I have dabbled in other churches before but Ashley (my new roommate) convinced me to go to a non-denominational church last weekend.  For whatever reason, I decided to actually go with her - in fact, I felt compelled to go.  Now, it was a bit out of my comfort zone but besides that, it kind of reaffirmed my faith in the big guy.  The sermon was all about the storms of your life (referring to the book of John and the miracle of Jesus walking on water) and if you let go and let God into your life and put your faith in him, it'll all be okay.  One key takeaway I took from this sermon was that worry and stress are fruitless activities and miracles don't happen because you worry or stress enough.  Miracles happen when you make change and ask God for help and let him take control; you basically say, "okay, I can't do this or control this so I put it in your hands".  Interesting concept, right?  Even if you are not religious, at the end of the day, you CANNOT CONTROL EVERYTHING and you certainly CANNOT CONTROL OTHERS.  So, whether you let go and let God take over or you let go and just see what happens - the message is the same. 

Now, why did this reaffirm my belief in God?  Well for starters, I am not a regular church-goer.  Because I was randomly called and felt the need to go to church, then go I go to church and I hear the absolutely PERFECT message for what I needed to hear that EXACT weekend, it reminded me that God is good, that I need to LET GO, and I need to have some blind faith (if you will) that it will be okay and he will get me through it.  I also started to reflect on some of the negative things I have been thinking about God the past couple of years.  There have been so many "Why me, God" and "Why are you doing this to me, God" moments.  In retrospect, the things that were happening were not malicious on his part; he was simply trying to send me red flags.  Each time, it never failed, the "red flag" and "warnings" were worse than the previous one because I kept ignoring it, I kept ignoring my gut/intuition, and I kept ignoring what I KNEW and focused on what I thought I FELT.

This weekend, I was blessed to be able to go to the Pirates game Friday with Ashley (and be totally photobombed) and go out with my two very best friends in the world (Ash & Becca) Saturday for a wonderful dinner and then danced until the bar lights came on.  Because of that message I heard last week and this 'reminder' of what I believe in and that I need to just chill, let go, and that everything will be okay - I was able to have one of the best weekends I have had in a very, very long time.  So while I have a LONG way to go (further than I have gone in the past 6 months) ... I am well on my way and SO excited for my future.