Let there be light - Moving forward

I was talking to a friend yesterday about our Thanksgiving menu and she mentioned that she saw my ex at a restaurant a few months ago. I am not sure why she picked this moment to give me the news just a few days before the anniversary of our break up.  The day before Thanksgiving.

This is a tired story and this will be the second year that I feel that I am truly over it.  This didn't keep me from spinning my wheels for a half hour of so or having a dream this morning about being back there in that house. What I can remember about the dream is that I had gone to the doctor and he ask me to look into a clear bowl and tell me what I saw.  I said it looked like a piece of coral flooding in water. Evidently that was the wrong answer and indicated that I had some kind of brain disease.

I was happy when I woke up without a diagnoses this morning. I was also grateful to have a home improvement project to work on today. Yesterday after a trip to Lowes for a light bulb for my microwave I came back with under cabinet lights for my whole kitchen.

I feel like my life has been in limbo for a long time. This includes what to do with my sad dreary kitchen. I kept thinking that at some point I would feel inspired to gut the whole thing and design a dream kitchen like the one I had before.  The person that wanted that then doesn't exist anymore.  

I think I have been waiting for that person to show up again and take charge. It has been a long wait and I am starting to accept that she isn't coming for me. I left most of the girl I was behind and I am here with mostly a blank slate. I have noticed lately that parts of her have been popping up here there.

Like today after installing the lights I couldn't believe how excited I was getting about redoing my kitchen. After adding lights to one side of the kitchen couldn't believe the transformation. I was so excited I was coming up with one idea after another for what I wanted to do next.

I do love design and have always improved the places I have lived no matter how little money I had. Truthfully when the budget is small creativity really is all you have.  Investing time in your home and making it reflect who you are can transform your life. Having a beautiful space can make coming home at night something to look forward to.

Tonight with the extra light in the kitchen I actually enjoyed making dinner for myself.  I have decided not to gut the kitchen for now and just address the things that will make it more inviting. The lights went a long way in doing that this weekend I am planning to paint.

Being inspired today gave me hope that I am on a path to the new me which includes some of the old me as well. I wanted to believe that I could be inspired again but it has been so long I was beginning to wonder.  Today I am grateful for the new light in my life.

Finding Your Own North Star - Feeling Light

new.discovery.com

I took the the day off yesterday. It was raining cats and dogs and no one was really looking for me so I made and executive decision to just stay home. I felt like a kid pretending to be sick and getting away with it.

I think my situation with work has put me into temporary grieving mode. The death of a dream. I had imagined that my partner and I were going to build something together like sisters and the work would be fun. Two creative people doing what we love and getting paid for it. But that was only my dream.

I realized that this situation along with the death of a close friendship around Christmas was the beginning of yet another grieving period. I couldn't really see that it made me not want to do this any more. I thought it was the design work and not the circumstance that was making me so unhappy.

From the time I was big enough to move furniture I rearranged my room at least once a month. All 60 lbs of me would sit on the floor against the wall and push my furniture around with my feet. Thankfully my mother didn't mind my reoccurring decorating sessions from black light posters to beads in the doorway. It kept me out of trouble just as it does today.

The problems I have been having made me doubt my love for design and my ability to be a entrepreneur. I have always been a entrepreneur even as a child when other kids played house I played restaurant or store. I always had a money making enterprise on the side that made real money. I loved the whole process of coming up with something someone wanted and would be willing to pay for.

I have also been doing a lot of reading this week which has helped me find my way. First a Martha Beck book Finding Your Own North Star and then The Power of Now. Martha's book is about finding something you love and the money will follow after a lot of work.  She says if you listen to your essential self instead of your social self you will be led in the right direction.

It is really about aptitude but she has methods in her book for first identifying what it is you don't like about what you are doing now and then how to find what you do like. I have read this book about four times it is way more than a book about careers it is about seeing how we cave to what is expected and become depressed because we are doing things we don't want to do. This book is also about the grief process and actually has a chart of the stages and what you might be feeling. It also help to show you the difference between grief and depression.

I went to bed night before last and ask God to help me find joy in my life again. To restore me to sanity once again and show me which way to go. I can no longer live the way I have been living in fear all the time. I decided to surrender and let the chips fall where they may. My sponsor says ask God to either " lock it or block it."

I woke up yesterday morning feeling light. I decided to stay home and my heart was singing. I watched design shows and just did whatever I felt like doing. After watching a few shows I thought "who are you kidding you are already doing exactly what you love." It hasn't been fun lately but that doesn't have anything to do with design itself. It has to do with the people I have been working with.

This is a creative business with a lot of technical stuff on top of that. Then there is the emotions of the customers and meeting every one's expectations. Having problems with fellow designers and contractors has added and extra layer that pushed me over the edge.

I have decided that I just need a little time off to find some inspiration. Even just not being here yesterday made me feel great. I actually worked on my new business plan. Just realizing that I do still love design made me feel like I am no longer on the fence. I can move forward and put my energy where I need it

Why am I always surprised by grief? If it doesn't come in the usual package I don't always see it. Losing a friendship and realizing my business partner and I don't want the same thing is a big loss. Even if I know I am better off it still hurts. I am no longer emotionally dead like I was before the program so I have to feel my feelings. What a bummer. It is why I have done all this work to be human.

Standing in the Light

I was moved by an interview that Oprah did with Lisa Marie Presley about her relationship with Michael Jackson. It made me realize that it doesn't matter where you come from or how much money you have addiction still has the same effect on our lives.

She spoke about how special she felt when she was with him and when he let his guard down and let her in how she just wanted to stand there in that light and soak it in. But then the drugs would become more important and he would withdraw and leave her in the dark.

I understood what she meant and remembered how intoxicating it was to be in that light. I was special, I was a let in a part of an elite group. Sick attracting sick was really what it was all about. I needed for someone else to make me feel special because on my own I was nothing. I didn't have my own light so without theirs I was in the dark.

I could see it on her face even though it was 10 years ago the addiction to the addicted. We are the same lost and looking for something to fill the void left by whatever. Someone to save me to take me away from myself really. The voice in my head telling me that I was nothing if no one needed me.

I was surprised by the reaction I had to this interview and wondered if I could still get sucked in? I know I could, but it would be eyes wide open and no one to blame but myself.

I make my own light now and so that makes their light a little less bright.