truth

Its come to my attention lately that many of you are re-reading books from your childhood either with your kids or late at night with a flashlight under the covers, only to discover their deep, hidden meaning.

They may have marked us as children but they deliver a whole NEW meaning to us as adults.

Mary Poppins – Believing in Magic– Ditto Harry Potter

The Little Prince — So many people I know were marked as children by this book including my husband.

A Christmas Carol — which is the story behind one of my all time favorite movies, It’s A Wonderful Life

The Velveteen Rabbit — Great lessons in self acceptance.

All the Cat In The Hat books, really anything written by Dr. Seuss is genius and ripe with life lessons.

Just to name a few…

Kinda makes me wonder, was it always the intention behind these books to deliver a sort of one-two punch, by subtlety seeding our dreams with their hidden wisdom as we listened as children at bedtime, only to bestow an even greater, better understood message upon us as we read them to our kids?

Wouldn’t that be something?

Here is a great example of what I’m talking about in a short essay by Pam Grout. Harold And The Purple Crayon.
Take it away Pam!

“World’s best “how-to” book not found in the self-help section

“Your opinion of yourself becomes your reality. If you have all these doubts, no one will believe in you and everything will go wrong. If you think the opposite, the opposite will happen. It’s that simple.”
–50 Cent

“My favorite how-to book will never be found in the self-help section of the bookstore. It was written long before the term self-help was even coined.

It’s a children’s book called Harold and the Purple Crayon and it rivals Oprah when it comes to addressing the possibilities of the human condition.

Written by Crockett Johnson in 1955, this little 65-page masterpiece tells the story of a little boy named Harold who decides to go out for a walk one evening. When there isn’t any moonlight (and, of course, everyone knows a good walk requires moonlight), Harold just takes out his purple crayon and draws the moon.

He also needs a sidewalk (which he draws) that leads to a forest (he only draws one tree because he doesn’t want to get lost) that turns out to be an apple tree (or at least it is after Harold’s crayon gets ahold of it). Unfortunately, the apples aren’t ripe yet, so Harold draws a frightening dragon to guard the tree.

When he falls into the ocean, Harold is able to grab his wits and his purple crayon to draw a boat and set sail for a beach, where he draws a picnic lunch with nine kinds of pie.

The whole book is about Harold’s great adventures scaling a mountain, soaring in a hot-air balloon and touring a city, all created by his ever-faithful purple crayon.

It’s a powerful book because it demonstrates a great spiritual truth—we are the authors of our own lives. We draw every detail—even the dragons and the oceans we “accidentally” fall into.

Harold could have gone on his walk, noticed there was no moon and sat down and pouted. Isn’t that what most of us do? “Damn, no moon. Better call my therapist, hit some pillows.” Or he could have drawn his moon, compared it to El Greco, and said, “I’m a hopeless sham. What was I thinking? Me? An artist?”

Instead, he kept reaching for his purple crayon and drawing every event, every answer, every friend he needed. We all have that power.
Harold was only a kid. He hadn’t yet lost his imagination, his sense of wonder and awe. No one had explained yet that he couldn’t have whatever he wanted. As long as he had his purple crayon, he could ride the universe.

Remember that big box of Crayolas with the 64 awesome colors? With that one small gold and green box you could have absolutely anything-—navy blue carousels with peach prancing ponies, magenta castles with yellow-green drawbridges, puffy white clouds and purple grass although your teacher might have frowned on that kind of thing. “Grass is green, don’t you know.”

Each year of school, the Crayola stash gets smaller. By the time we graduate from high school, we’re wielding nothing but a blue Bic for figuring our checking account.

Let’s go out this week and get some crayons. Let’s create our world the way we want it. And if we happen to fall into an ocean or run into a dragon, we’ll just draw ourselves a lifeboat and head for the beach, where at least one kind of pie will be waiting.”

Pam Grout is the author of 17 books including E-Squared: 9 Do-it-Yourself Energy Experiments that Prove Your Thoughts Create Your Reality and the recently released sequel, E-Cubed, 9 More Experiments that Prove Mirth, Magic and Merriment is your Full-time Gig.
Pamgrout.com

“Why can’t these guys just like me for who I am?” I lamented, picking at the appropriate numbing agent for 1:30 on a Tuesday afternoon –– a Joan’s On Third, gooey chocolate brownie.

I had posed the question to a girlfriend sitting across from me. The married one. The one I always whined to after the latest, greatest, guy proved NOT to be “the one”.
This time however, the answer I heard did not come from her. She was distracted, looking away.

No, this voice had wisdom, gravitas, and rumbled with authority –– think Bea Arthur.

“It’s because you are never yourself with them.”

“What? What did you say? What do you mean?” I stopped my yammering mid brownie, suddenly feeling exposed. Self consciously I started looking around at the tables nearby; had someone been eavesdropping at my pity party?

“Do you see any Splenda? I need some Splenda for my coffee.”
My friend was twisted in her seat, distracted; more interested in doctoring her drink than solving my latest dating dilemma.
Suddenly, after spotting the sweetener, she was up with a determined focus, bolting to the cream and sugar station situated by the beverage pickup.

It was clear I was hearing things. “Oh great, now I’ve lost my mind” I mumbled, loosing my appetite, pushing the brownie full of divots away from me with one hand, while excavating the chocolate underneath the fingernails of the other with my teeth.

I stayed another five minutes and then excused myself, racing home. My friend was lost in her decaf, no foam, extra milk latte, A.D.D., and I was figuring it would be better to be freed of my faculties in a less public venue.

With my Whoa Is Me – Greatest Hits tape running on its endless loop inside my head, the question came up again and again on the drive home.

“I’m a good person. Why can’t these guys ever just like me for me?” Just like most rhetorical questions it was directed at no one in particular.

“Would you rather seek to love – or be loved?” Bea was back.

“Wait, no fair!” I called foul. “You can’t answer a question with a question, let alone a trick one. Besides, I need to think about this…let me get back to you… um, over and out” I figured that’s how you let the voice in your head, (the one that was now asking the tough questions) know that the conversation would have to wait. There was traffic on Laurel Canyon and I needed to pay attention.

Later that night, as I lay in Savasana, completely rung out toward the end of a Yoga class; Bea, being the ultimate opportunist, decided that moment was the perfect time to pick up where we had left off.

“Well? What did you decide? Would you rather seek love, or seek to be loved? You can’t say ‘both’ because they are inherently different.”

“Shit! That was going to be my answer. Okay… shoot…I seek to be loved” I replied, flipping a mental coin, hoping I’d guessed the right answer.

“How do you go about accomplishing that?” she pressed on.

“I just try to be the best version of me. I put my best foot forward. It’s all about first impressions you know” I was getting annoyed with my pushy new imaginary friend.

“No, you’re putting your false foot forward. You are never the best version of you, you are the version you think THEY want you to be –– so they will love you.”

Ouch. And holy shit. Apparently Bea’s was a voice that told you the truth. The hard truth, the things your best friends were too afraid to say to your face.

“You have reinvented yourself over and over again, trying to fit a certain expectation. You’ve never truly just been YOURSELF.” Okay Bea, you can shut up now.

But she went on, her voice an insistent rumble.
“There is no power in seeking love. You have no control over the other person, what they do, what they think. You’re not even sizing them up, to see if they’re a good fit for YOU. Besides, it is unsustainable, which leaves you tap dancing as fast as you can, forever seeking to be loved.”

My heart felt like someone and just finished target practice. Damn her!

I rolled up my mat, stowed my blanket, all the while fighting back tears.

Yoga does that to you. It opens your heart and makes you weepy. But so do blabbermouth, truth telling disembodied voices.

My soggy eyes stuck to the ground, avoiding the teacher’s gaze as I silently made my way to the parking lot.

On the ride home I gave Bea the silent treatment. I was angry. What gave her the right to see me so clearly and to talk to me that way?

As the days wore on I felt transparent, vulnerable, and hurt –– often all at the same time. But one thing had become crystal clear, and I didn’t even want to admit it to myself…Bea was right.

During that time I remembered a favorite quote from the Bhagavad Gita, the ancient Indian text, “It is better to live your own life imperfectly than to lead a perfect imitation of someone else’s life.” which was now taking on a whole new, very personal meaning.

“You can seek to love” it was barely a whisper.

9 p.m. I had just finished meditating, trying to find my balance. About a week had passed. I guess Bea was taking my emotional temperature, waiting to see if it was safe to start another dialogue.

Bea had balls.

Feeling mellow and a bit woozy from the meditation, I decided to answer her.

“And what does THAT look like?” I still had an edge.

“It feels empowering” her voice this time was softer, gentler.
“It feels open, expansive, like choices and freedom. If you can love without expectation, seeking nothing in return, you will get all that you desire.”

“That sounds too good to be true.”

“Oh, it’s true. And it is good and simple – but it isn’t easy. There is risk involved, I’m not going to lie. It requires vulnerability, authenticity, and transparency. All the feelings you experienced this week. You got hurt — but you didn’t die. And you learned something about yourself.”

Bea was right. About that and so many other things.

She will always be my voice of reason, the one I am so lucky to connect with when I am unable to drown out all of the others.
She speaks to me when I get off course, in her deep growling but compassionate voice –– of love. Nope, no stock tips, no lottery numbers, not even any fashion advice.

Only love –– because seriously, isn’t that all that really matters?

Carry on,
xox

*Below is a recent essay by Anne Lamont. I love her writing. A lot.  And I think this piece is one of her best, or at least it pierced the hard candy shell that sometimes surrounds my heart and got into the chewy, caramel center.

I love that she reminds us that words can be dangerous, they can gut someone faster and more efficiently than the sharpest Ginsu knife. Let’s all be careful with that.

And Horrible Bonnie.  God I love that!

Can I be your Horrible Janet you guys?  Reminding us ALL that everybody gets to be free?

Anyway…I though this would be a great piece to start your week.  ‘Cause I love ya!

Carry On,

xoxJ

“Nearly twenty years ago, I arrived at a fancy writer’s conference, in what were some of America’s most majestic mountains, where I was looking forward to meeting a great (and sexy) American director, who’d given a lecture the day before. But he had already left.

There was, however, a letter from him, to me: to not-all-that-well-known me. It began well enough, with praise for Bird by Bird, and gratitude for how many times it had inspired him when he got stuck while writing screenplays. He singled out my insistence on trying to seek and tell the truth, whether in memoir or fiction, and my belief that experiencing grief and fear were the way home. The way to an awakening. That God is the Really Real, as the ancient Greeks believed. And God is Love. That tears were not to be suppressed, but would, if expressed, heal us, cleanse up, baptize us, help us water the seeds of new life that were in the ground at our feet.
Coming from a world-famous director, it felt like the New York Glitterati was stamping its FDA seal of approval on me, and my work.

Unfortunately, the letter continued.

He wrote that while he had looked forward to meeting me, he’d gathered from reading my work that many of my closest friends and family members seemed to have met with traumatic life situations, and sometimes early deaths. So basically, he was getting out of Dodge before I got my tragedy juju all over him, too.

I felt mortified, exposed. He made it seem like I was a sorrow-mongerer, that instead of being present for family and friends who had cancer or sick kids or great losses, I was chasing them down.
And I flushed in that full body Niacin-flush way of toxic shame, at being put down by a man of power, that had been both the earliest, and now most recent, experiences of soul-death throughout my life.
My clingy child was drawing beside me, What did I do? You can’t use your child as a fix, like a junkie. That’s abuse; plus it won’t work.

Well, duh–I fell apart, on the inside, like a two dollar watch.

I had stopped drinking nearly 15 years before, stopped the bulimia 14 years earlier, and so did not have many reliable ways to stuff feelings back down. Also, horribly, my young child, two thousand miles from home, upon noticing my pain, clung even more tightly. I wanted to shout at him, “Don’t you have any other friends?”

What I did was the only thing that has ever worked. After finding a safe and stable person to draw with my son, I called someone and told her all my terrible fears and feelings and projections and secrets.
It was my mentor, Horrible Bonnie.

She listens.

She believes that we are here to become profoundly real, and therefore, free. But horribly–hence her name–she insists that if we want to be free, we have to let every body be free. I hate and resent this so much. It means we have to let the people in our families and galaxies be free to be asshats, if that is how they choose to live.

This however, does not mean we have to have lunch with them. Or go on vacation with them again. But we do have to let them be free.
She also knows, and said that day, that Real can be a nightmare in this world that is so false. The pain and exhaustion of becoming real can land you in the an abyss. And abysses are definitely abysmal; dark nights of the soul; the bottom an addict hits.
And this, she said, was just a new bottom, around people-pleasing, and the craving for powerful fancy people to approve of me. It was a bottom around my psycho doing-ness, my achieving-ness.
She said that because I felt traumatized, and that there had been so much trauma in my childhood, and so many losses in the ensuing years, that the future looked like trauma to me.

But it wasn’t the truth!

There was a long silence. (Again: she listens.)
Finally, I said in this tiny child’s voice, “It isn’t?”
Oh, no, she said. The future, as with every bottom I have landed at, and been walked through, would bring great spiritual increase.
She said I had as much joy and laughter and presence as anyone she knew and some of this had to do with the bottoms I’d experienced, the dark nights of the soul that god and my pit crew had accompanied me through. The alcoholism, scary men, etc.
She said that what I thought the director had revealed was that I am kind of pathetic, but actually what I was getting to see, with her, and later, when I picked up my luscious clingy child, in the most gorgeous mountains on earth, was that I was a real person of huge heart, laughter, feelings and truth. And his was the greatest gift of all.

The blessing was that again and again, over the years, we got to completely change the script. Thank God. We got to re-invent ourselves, again.

But where do we even start with such terrible days and revelations? She said I’d started when I picked up the 300-pound phone, told someone the truth, felt my terrible feelings. Now, time for radical self-care. A shower, some food, the blouse I felt prettiest in. Then I could go get my boy and we could explore the mountain streams.

Wow. We think when we finally get our ducks in a row, we’ve arrived. Now we’ll be happy! That’s what they taught us, and what we’ve sought. But the ducks are bad ducks, and do not agree to stay in a row, and they waddle off quacking, and one keels over, two males get in a fight, and babies are born. Where does that leave your nice row?

I got about five books out of the insights I gleaned from our talk. I still have a sort-of heart-shaped rock my son fished out of a stream later. Sadly, this director’s movies have not done well in the last twenty years. Not a one. And all of his hair has since fallen out. Now, as a Christian, my first response to this is, “Hah hah hah.”

But Horrible Bonnie would say, Now you get to tell it, because then it will become medicine. Tell it, girl– that we evolve; that life is stunning, wild, gorgeous, weird, brutal, hilarious and full of grace. That our parents were a bit insane, and that healing from this is taking a little bit longer than we had hoped. Tell it. Well…okay. Yes.”
-Anne Lamott

*This is a guest post by my dear friend Jeanne Sullivan. We were roomies at that badass writing retreat I had the privilege to attended in August. http://bookmama.com

Take it away Jeanne!

Just last Christmas I found myself on Christmas morning without presents under the tree.
We did our usual exchange with the family between my mom and sisters, but mine was a gift certificate that arrived via email. My kids, not yet of driving or earning ages, hadn’t contributed to the pile of wrapping under the tree. And my on again, off again relationship was off again. All that to say, I thought it wouldn’t bother me; I thought I didn’t care. I thought I wasn’t such a materialistic person. But when 2 pm came, my boys went to their dad’s house; and I had a good cry about it. Then I moved on.

Flash forward to February, and I’m laughing with my son at breakfast about how I’d ordered a flash drive for him at Christmas and forgotten about it. I’d come across it cleaning out my office the day before in a box with something I’d bought for myself: a Bamboo stylus I had been so excited about! Apparently, so excited that I completely forgot about it for two months while it was sitting in an Amazon box on top of my bookcase.

And just like that, the idea hit me.
If it was that easy for me to forget about the stylus, I bet I’d also forget about a new pair of boots, a sweater, and a brand new iPad.

Here was my plan: I’ll order myself a Christmas present every month between now and then. I’ll pay the extra $5 to have it wrapped and follow my son’s suggestion to lock them in the attic like I do their presents. I’ve had a smile under my hat about it ever since, part grin and part gratitude. You see, at other times in my life, I might have thought: “there’s no way this would happen again” or “I’m sure I’ll be in a relationship next year.” Or my favorite denial strategy:

“By next year, I’ll be so mature that not having presents under the tree won’t bother me at all.”

Those ways of thinking were for back then, when I wasn’t yet forty and cared a lot more about what other people think. Back when I wanted to be better than wanting a pile of presents under the tree. And, life might be short, so just in case, I decided to plan differently for this year.

Last February, I conceded that things could change: “Maybe I’ll be in a great relationship with a man who showers me with gifts by December 25th this year. Maybe I’ll cultivate a huge circle of friends who have nothing to do but think about their single sister’s supply under the tree. Maybe my kids will work all summer mowing lawns just to put a few gifts under the tree for mom.”

While I’m as optimistic, maybe even more so, than the next person – I sure am glad I took matters into my own hands. At this very moment, I have no shame in sharing that I have the MOST presents under the tree – ten to be exact. The final present to myself, from myself will arrive on December 23rd from Stitch Fix. This was, ahem, the same strategy I used for buying my own birthday present this year, and it worked out very well.

Vulnerability, like good wine, is always better with friends.

Won’t you to share your insights, fears, stories and dreams with me in the comments below?

Which holiday is hardest for you? What could you do to make sure it’s better this year, even if it seems silly or selfish?

Jeannie Sullivan

With a pocketful of entrepreneurial dreams, Jeannie left her VP corporate gig in the middle of the recession to launch her own consultancy. Within her first year, she was leveraging a revenue mix to bring home six figures annually doing work that she loves. Her coaching practice attracts professionals who are ready to create commerce on their own terms by starting a business, innovating their business strategy, or unleashing their true talents on the world. You can learn more about her at jeanniesullivan.com.

You ever feel like shit? I mean so bad that every “tool” in your toolbox can’t help ya? Yeah – me too.
Check this out -A Powerful Talk with my guy, Michael Neill, and his pal Ali Campbell, on just this subject.

Me love you lots,
xox

The hubby just returned a couple of weeks ago from an arduous off road motorcycle journey through the back country of British Columbia. It was brutal. He returned with a banged up bike, a couple of cracked ribs – and some great stories.

As he sat in a much needed bath, soaking in Epsom salt, he regaled me with tales of breathtaking scenery, ferry adventures, muddy, rutted roads, his epic falls (this is the guy who doesn’t fall) and all the laughs shared around the campfire at the end of each day with wine and great grub. I know most of this tribe, they are smart and funny and major badasses.
Unfortunately, no one was able to avoid dropping their big, heavy, overloaded bike.

But here’s the first rule of off road adventure riding: you just don’t talk about falling, about going down. And you NEVER name names.

Zip it.

A couple of motorcycle journalists went along, to chronicle the ride for their various publications.

When the first article came out, as I read it, I couldn’t text my husband fast enough:
How much does it cost to have someone killed? This guy has broken the first rule!

I was joking, of course (sort of) but there it was, in print, the jerk mentioned the rough terrain, and my husband BY NAME, saying he had fallen twice.

“Of course he did” hubster replied over dinner that night.
“We got into it a couple of times. He’s a young, insecure know-it-all, and after awhile, when I heard him throwing inaccurate stories around about people I know, places I’ve been and courses I’ve taken, well, I corrected his facts and he didn’t like it. Hence,(he says hence in conversations – I swear) he felt the need to try to embarrass me. No biggie, we all know what went down. The fact is EVERYONE fell – parts of it were reduced to a mud pit.”
He was laughing and cringing; holding his left side.

Another journalist’s article came out last week and it was well written and more importantly, humorous and accurate.

Then, a couple of days ago, the first guy published a second piece. 

It has now become his Hero’s Journey, with his bike the heaviest, (it wasn’t) his struggle the hardest, due to riding on street tires (they weren’t) and his proud claim that he was the only one who had the skills and wherewithal not to fall (WTF?)

Dude, it was already a really good story, you didn’t have to lie about it.

All the guys from the trip are emailing each other privately to vent, they’re too gentlemanly to publicly humiliate him by leaving comments on his website.

We all know why he did it. Insecurity, inferiority, blah, blah, blah…I don’t care.

Why do people lie? Especially when you have twelve other people out there that know the truth?
Now he’s just writing fiction. It’s the tale of “The Boy That Cried Hey, Have You Heard How Awesome I Am?”

Somebody really smart (I can’t remember who) said that most non-fiction is really fiction, because it come from the writer’s perspective. Hmmm…

I can’t stand lying.
When I write I do not lie. I may embellish (I didn’t really kick my Christmas tree until it begged for mercy, I stopped when it asked me politely the first time). But I write humor. Although, when I write about real people and real situations, I’m SO careful to depict them truthfully.

My stories aren’t written as vanity pieces, to make me sound good; on the contrary, most are cautionary tales of all my fuck-ups.

As I sat and stewed about this guy, I remembered some words of wisdom from my therapist, back in the day. She was a very beautiful and wise woman. Imagine Yoda and Oprah in the body of Candice Bergen.

1) “Janet, the biggest mistake you make in life, is thinking everyone feels and thinks JUST – LIKE – YOU. I can assure you, THEY DO NOT.”
That little nugget has saved me a lifetime of misery. My internal rules, dialogues, morals, and views on life are mine and mine alone. If I want others to know them, I have to communicate them.

Which brings me to:
2) “Janet, you’ve gotta cut people some slack, they’re not mind readers.”
This one needs no explanation.
Although, the guys do have a kind of Jedi mind meld about their rules of the road. They are un-discussed, yet understood – apparently with the exception of a certain Pinocchio.

3) I truly believe – with all my heart – that liar’s pants – should actually CATCH ON FIRE. 

There. I vented. I feel so much better.

Have you heard or caught someone in an epic lie? Something that made them sound awesome, while trashing everyone else? Share please.

Big, group hug,
Xox

I’m going to print this and put it up everywhere!!

Authentic

au·then·tic adjective ə-ˈthen-tik, ȯ-

real or genuine

not copied or false

true and accurate
: true to one’s own personality, spirit, or character

How authentic are you willing to be? It’s my new obsession, but it can be tricky, because there are seemingly endless layers to authenticity.

I feel like I’m an open book, almost to a fault. I’ll tell anyone, anything they want to know about me. Have you read this blog? It horrifies my husband! In fact, my practice lately has been to dial down the TMI. 
Well…not on this page.

But is that authenticity?
Maybe because it’s easy for me, I’m gonna say no.
I’ll tell you with a laugh, that yes, I’ve farted in yoga; but I may not tell you the truth about your cheating-ass boyfriend, when you ask my opinion. Besides, when someone asks your opinion…they don’t REALLY want to know.

By definition, being true to yourself, accurate and genuine, are the hallmarks of being an authentic human being, but how do you navigate friendships, love relationships and jobs, when you’ve developed a permanent groove from habitually “biting your tongue”. 

I’m finding there’s an art to authenticity.
Expressing a truthful, but measured response.

Sometimes “No” IS a complete sentence; especially when elaborating could open Pandora’s box, or a can of whoop ass.
“It’s just not my thing” or “I’ve never been a fan of that” have saved my life.

I’ve been in retail sales all my life, and I made it a practice to NEVER lie to a customer just to make a sale. I know it pissed off my boss on numerous occasions, but again, if the earrings looked like shit, I steered them in another, sometimes less expensive, but more flattering direction. I know it was appreciated because they made a point to tell me so. A sales person who tells the truth is an anomaly, and it makes an impression.

Gently letting your best friend know that she’s too old to rock the leather mini skirt to the reunion, instead of being the kind of friend that just nods and gives a thumbs up, then turns her head and rolls her eyes. That’s SO not okay! And completely not authentic. A two second “wince” will save her hours of public humiliation, and having to see the pictures on Facebook for years to come. We MUST do this for each other, we MUST show up this way!

Here’s another layer: Our appearance…
In my obsession to live more authentically, I’m growing out all my blonde highlights, and I’m leaning into letting the whole thing finally be the color it’s been dying to be…grey.
I’ll still be getting a rockin’ haircut so I don’t look like Barbra Bush… I’m authentic, not crazy!

But how far am I willing to go with this?
Not concealing the dark under eye circles?
No false eyelashes!?!? 
No make up of any sort? (gasp).
What about nail polish? Spanx????? 
Is that authentic? Or just a cruel thing to do to the people that have to look at me everyday?

It’s kinda funny…or is it?
Are we just trying to “look our best”?
If we’re trying to look 30 when we’re 55, shouldn’t someone be giving us “the wince”?

Here’s my real struggle: Can I just let my chicken neck and my grandmothers hands, that are now at the end of MY arms, be the markers of my journey so far?
Can I /We be authentic enough to let our TRUE selves show up?
How would we be received by the world?
This is definitely a work in progress, so I’m thinking one small step at a time.

Here’s a sentence that goes to the heart of the matter and is really powerful:

IF I’M TRUELY MY AUTHENTIC SELF, WITH MY WARTS, FARTS, CHICKEN NECK, MY TRUTH TELLING, GOOFY, GREY HAIRED, MYSTICAL, PERFECTLY IMPERFECT SELF. AM I STILL LOVABLE?

I’ll leave you with that, talk amongst yourselves.

XoxJanet 

Sometimes we have no idea what the Universe has in store for us.
We can have our sails aimed into the wind, sailing full speed ahead,
when in an instant, lightening will strike, and a giant wave will capsize
us and shred our boat.

We think we have it all figured out. I KNOW I did!

But life took me by the shoulders and spun me around.
Just like my mom did when I was a kid and told her I had washed my face, when it was evident I needed to be sent back to the bathroom.
It shook me a little and sent me packing, 
in the exact opposite direction of where I thought I should be going.

Now, I don’t know about you, but I can tolerate, 
even appreciate, a little course correction at times.
But I don’t like drama, and I like to think I don’t draw it in.
This was something so ridiculously out of left field, 
It was a total loss of my business!
Overnight!

I had plenty of insurance, so I wasn’t worried…in the beginning.
With the other stores having 12 inches of water damage and my store having 4 feet,
Recovery mode looked different for me.
It wasn’t clothes and shoes that had gotten wet,
Or cosmetic damage like at the restaurant,
I had furniture and art, lamps and leather chairs and stuff that just shouldn’t sit 
Immersed in four feet of filthy water for 6 hrs.

I heard everyone saying “at least three weeks to get back up and running”
Did I want to get back up and running?
Things really hadn’t felt like they were “running” at that point,
More like a slow stroll, or a pathetic commando crawl.
Would I even be able to repair the inventory?
Lord knows, I didn’t have the capitol to buy more.

That’s when the first of two miracles occurred.
I even knew they were miracles at the time, THAT’S how 
“In your face” they were.

Xox Janet
(To be continued)…