Running

Many of you might know that in 2010 I had to leave the world of professional women's football due to an unrepairable knee injury. I haven't been able to run ever since then which has taken a toll on me both mentally and emotionally. 

Until last night. I got on the treadmill last night and ran/walked for 1.7 miles and it felt amazing. There was a little pain here and there but mostly when I ran without proper form. 

This morning my knees are a little upset but not swollen. This is huge for me. I was feeling so good after the treadmill that I pumped out 50 crunches, 14 slow push ups and a 45 second plank. 

Guess who's on her way back. 

The Positive Side

In thinking about my post from yesterday and how I've been feeling these past few days, I think I need to take a moment to focus on what I have accomplished in this life so far because right now I feel like a complete failure.

Yes, I'm not sitting in a very attractive place and I have a lot to work on but do you know how I got here? By making the best decisions I knew how to at the time. 

I served our country in the Marines. I graduated from basic training #1 out of 100 women and I graduated from diesel mechanics training #3 out of 50 men. 

I raised a son who has grown up to be a very loving and compassionate and creative addition to this world. For seven years, between the ages of 2 and 9, I did it on my own. I was in my 20's back then, as well, and received no help financially from his Father.

I put myself through college to earn a Bachelor's degree. 

I put my son through college so he could earn a Bachelor's degree.

I became a published author. In an actual book.

I helped open a youth GLBTQI center in San Diego.

I served as treasurer for Southern Oregon GLSEN.

I helped start a women's professional football team in Portland that still exists for women who have always wanted to play full contact football.

I walked away from a job that was killing my soul and supported myself through odd jobs, walking dogs and taking photographs.

I ran a successful Kickstarter campaign for a photo project that is very close to my heart. It funded $10,000 for my travels around the US and Canada.

I did what I needed to do to raise my son and to survive and I gave back to my community as well as I could. Now I get to take my turn in this life and find my happiness. I get to make that decision to go back to school and start on a new path and as my Mom pointed out, that is loving myself. 

There. That feels a bit better.

A Shift In Perspective

There's a character I once started to develop in my thoughts a while back who I never did sit down and write about. She's an older lesbian who lives in a little cabin on some property on Mt. Hood in Oregon. It's just her and a few big dogs up there. She had given up on love relationships long before so she was single and preferred to keep it that way.

I think I may be becoming that character.

I find myself in this place where I have no desire to be in a relationship after spending most of my life doing nothing but obsessing over being in a relationship or getting into one or figuring out what's wrong with me that creates this track record of failed relationships. Falling in love and finding “the one” was all I could dream about or think about. Being loved was all I wanted.

Now here I sit with none of those wants or desires. I've asked myself if I'm just numb. Perhaps, in a way, yes. That feeling of desperation and brooding over love that I have had in the past, when in those periods of being single, is not here. This is so new for me that I'm stumbling through it feeling a bit confused. Am I depressed or have I really made this major shift in perspective? Or, am I depressed or sad about making this shift in perspective? I seemed to have let go of the idea of being in the happily-ever-after and have embraced just being. Which is a good thing. A healthy thing. In my perspective, at least. My inner romantic seems to have been replaced by a realist and cynic.

Over the past few months I've really opened my eyes and taken a good, hard look at myself and where I am in life and can see the reality of its unattractiveness to others in this world. I am burdened with a tremendous amount of student loan debt for my own degree and most of my son's. I have old credit card debt. My credit score is terrible. I own only a car and all of my belongings fit into said car. I haven't rented my own place since April of 2012 and even in getting that place, I needed some help. I have a finance degree that I have absolutely no desire to find work with, hence no desire to bust past the $15 an hour salary in the field of business.

About a year or so ago, a friend of mine on Facebook posted something about a dating site requiring that you post your credit score in your dating profile, or something along those lines. I disagreed with and even tried to argue that my credit score or my financial position in life does not define who I am. That I am a good person with lots of love to give despite my crummy financial state. While that may be true, the reality of this world is that being a good person and loving well isn't going to hold things together or help make dreams come true.

I am 44 years old. How I expected anyone to look past all of this and “just love me for me” is beyond me. It's also incredibly unrealistic and not at all conducive to a healthy and equal ground relationship. It's been my experience that when someone in my position is in a relationship with someone in a much better position in this life, judgement and resentment eventually raise their ugly heads. Those two things are toxic to love. They'll slowly choke that love out until they are the only things that remain.

Back in 2010, I thought that all I needed to do was learn to love myself. That's still part of it but it isn't all of it. This time my plan is to stay single. For a while. While I work on these things. I think I've finally found a career path that resonates with me and my passions plus it will sustain me and is one I want to excel in. It'll require taking on more student loan debt, but it's worth it to me. I've also finally learned to be smarter with the money I make and have discovered the joy in watching my savings account grow. This summer I start back to school to work on my pre-reqs for the Radiography program, which I am beyond excited about. While doing that I'll need to work to pay the bills and, as another re-req for the program, I'll need to volunteer at one of the hospitals. While all of this is happening I'll be living as simply and inexpensively as possible and working on paying off all of my old debt while working with the company who holds my student loans. Also during all of that I will be working on finishing up the photo project book I started a couple years ago.

Basically, I want to get to a better financial spot in my life before I even start to think about getting into a relationship again. Even when that time comes, if ever, there will be many years of dating someone before committing and when that commitment happens I want to walk into it on equal grounds with that person. Which could mean I'll be single for a good long while but I am willing to accept that. I'd much rather it be that way then some other way that will end painfully again. I can't bare that pain again and I definitely can't bare to be the cause of it.

In the past, this all would have been an incredibly sad situation to me. Sad and lonely. But it isn't. It just is what it is. Reality. I've finally moved past the fairy tales and the desperate need to be loved and it feels, well, realistic and healthy. Ok, yeah. Maybe a bit lonely at times. But, this is my time to be selfish and find the things that make me happy and support myself through school and not worry about how it affects someone else who has their own hopes and dreams. This is when I figure out what my hopes and dreams are. This is when I stop simply surviving in this life and start to thrive.

Who The Hell Am I Kidding?

I can't stay away from this place.

Yes, I'm on the path to finding myself but I'm a long way from that goal. That's what this blog was about, right?

Putting my thoughts and experiences out there has helped a few people and helping people is one of my passions. Plus, writing helps me, so, bonus.

I'm still in a very introverted stage but I want to keep this outlet open.

I can't promise any sort of regularity, specially when I start back to school, but I will be posting when the inspiration hits me.

Thanks for understanding and for reading!

Time To Wrap This Up

I've been thinking a lot lately about wrapping up this blog, moving posts regarding the photo project over to a page on the project's web site and moving posts about photography stuff over to my photography web site. It's something that's been on my mind for the last few weeks and I think it's time I simply make the call.

My life is heading in so many different directions now. I have a lot to finish up on the project, I'm beginning to help with a fellow photographer's new project in NYC and once I get back to Portland I am planning on going back to school for a new career. Plus, I've felt myself doing much more internal dialogue and paper journal writing then I ever have before and, to be honest, it all feels very raw. I'm just not sure I am brave enough to expose that sort of vulnerability in this realm. It's been suggested to me that I write a memoir of sorts. I'm thinking about it. Goddess knows, I have enough journal entries to help me with that.

This blog started out being about me finding myself and I feel as though I'm finally getting there, or at least, on the path. At this point it feels like I need to continue on that path on my own, in a more quieter way, so I am honoring that feeling and letting go of this online space.

I wanted to take a moment to thank everyone for reading and for taking the time to respond, email, or comment during this blog's 3 year run. Knowing there are others out there going through the same things in life has made my life a million times better. From the bottom of my heart, thank you.

Peace, love and enlightenment to you all. 

Namaste.

Growth

"Some periods of our growth are so confusing that we don’t even recognize that growth is happening. We may feel hostile or angry or weepy and hysterical, or we may feel depressed. It would never occur to us, unless we stumbled on a book or a person who explained to us, that we were in fact in the process of change, of actually becoming larger, spiritually, than we were before. Whenever we grow, we tend to feel it, as a young seed must feel the weight and inertia of the earth as it seeks to break out of its shell on its way to becoming a plant. Often the feeling is anything but pleasant. But what is most unpleasant is the not knowing what is happening. Those long periods when something inside ourselves seems to be waiting, holding its breath, unsure about what the next step should be, eventually become the periods we wait for, for it is in those periods that we realize that we are being prepared for the next phase of our life and that, in all probability, a new level of the personality is about to be revealed." - Alice Walker

Finding My Perspective

I'm not going to lie. The past week or so I felt myself fall back into a funk. Back into the old thought patterns and back into the old self talk that does nothing but drag me down into a dark pit of self torture. Even though I knew I needed to change the thinking patterns, try as I might, it just wasn't happening. I was allowing the dark fog to completely envelope me and, quite frankly, it sucked.

I was practicing the fake-it-'till-you-make-it strategy until yesterday morning when a friend sent me a text message asking how I was doing. I emotionally vomited all over my reply to her then immediately felt ridiculous. I even said at one point, "I'm a fucking broken record." Dammit, Wendi. Enough already!

Having the awesome friends that I do, she demanded I sit under the dinning room table to get a different perspective. She wanted a picture to prove I did it, too, so there was no getting out of it. Reluctantly, I moved the chairs and climbed under the table. Immediately I felt like a kid. It seemed silly but that was the point. I started laughing in the midst of all of the tears and that's exactly what she was going for.

As the day progressed I found that I was able to bring myself back to the moment by using the mantra, "Be here now." With that, I was able to recognize and finally stop those old thought patterns by really taking a look at them. Now, lately I've been working hard on letting go of some feelings around my past but I am finding an intense resistance.

What I finally realized yesterday is that I don't have to let those feelings go in order to move on. Letting them go isn't going to help me forgive myself. Forgiving myself and allowing myself to hold on to those feelings, the good feelings, the feelings of love for those who are no longer in my life, is something that I can do. Really, why would I want to let good feelings go, unless I was allowing them to hold me back on my path? I don't have to allow that to happen.

Knowing I can, or rather, giving myself permission to forgive myself and still have love for those who I hurt while also giving myself permission to be happy is a perspective I have really needed in all of this. While it's one I've seen, it's also one that I have had to remember over and over until I finally got it. Holding on to those feelings doesn't mean I'm dwelling on the past, it simply means that I can still love them and hold a place in my heart for them without it being associated with sadness. They can simply be feelings that feel good.

You know that saying, "It's okay to be sad sometimes"? Well, it seems silly, but, it's also okay to be happy. Oddly enough, it's a permission that I have to give myself every day until I really do get it. Until I not only get it but fully accept it and embrace it for myself.

I am not a bad person. I am a good person who makes mistakes and who is learning from them. Forgiving myself does not mean forgetting about what I did and moving on like it never happened. Forgiving myself means the end of beating myself up and fully embracing the lessons learned from making those mistakes then using them to become a better person. Accepting my humanness and letting go of the idea of perfection. 

Life is about making mistakes. It's what we do after those mistakes that matter. Holding myself accountable, apologizing where needed, asking for forgiveness, forgiving myself and not only seeing the lessons in all of it but actually learning from those lessons is what really matters.

All of the people in my life are mirrors reflecting back at me. Stopping to really look into those mirrors and seeing, really seeing, the lessons they have for me is a tremendous gift I can give to my future self. I am so grateful for them. All of them.

Onward.