Wow, I read my last post and so much has happened since then. I am actually sad and sorry I haven’t been here in so long. I do love to come and write. Next month I will be a college graduate. I am simply elated, out of my skin with excitement. I have worked so hard over the past few years managing a 4.0 while working full-time and also having some very challenging health issues. I am nothing but proud. Here I am, almost done with school. What will I do? I am going to take a break. I will have the last two weeks of August to focus on myself finally. I can sit back and relax, go walk in a forest and be close to nature, go on a fishing charter with my husband. Drop my youngest off at college, I am sure I will be back to write about how much I miss him and his antics. I can spend time with my family now and not feel rushed to get back to school work. I can take some Epsom salt baths. I can work on my cello again! My possibilities are infinite. Over the past few months, I managed to reset my nervous system, found a new therapist who is absolutely wonderful, started to heal my body and change my way of thinking. It very well may be the viel of going to school being lifted but whatever it is I cannot show enough gratitude. My therapist is on vacation for two weeks, she recommends we keep our appointment time with ourselves. So here I am with me and you. I am reflecting on my last visit and the eye-opening and soul-opening experience it was. At one point I said, you are going to make me cry, she said, that’s ok, sometimes we just have to. That is so something I would say and I knew that’s what she was going to say, but I just didn’t want to. Did you ever think your tears were something in the form of cleansing? They are. It’s just another form of energy readjusting itself. When I ended my session with her she said something that resonated with me. It was something I have heard many times and even said to others myself. “Everything is temporary”. I sat there on the floor looking all confused. Why didn’t this lightbulb go off in my head, how did I not remind myself of this? It didn’t matter, I quickly jotted it down on my notes app on my phone. I went on after the appointment to pick up some yarn for a blanket I am making. OMG, yes you read that right, I am creating something. Shocker I know, but it is small, and it feels so good to do it. When I was heading to the checkout I had to walk by a display of books. Books always make me look at them. I love to read. There was Joanna Gaines on the cover with a giant smile. Honestly, I was like oh it’s her, she’s everywhere, how is she so happy all the time, etc…As I stepped closer to read the print on the cover I couldn’t see from where I was standing and it was like it slapped me in the face. Her smile was gleaming as if to say I got you. There was the title of the book and then under it in finer print, it said, “Every piece of your story matters”. I stood there in shock almost. I walked away but instantly got drawn back to read the line again. I cried in the store and had to walk away, no one would be in the fall isles, I headed that way. Those two things were what I needed to see and hear at that time. I need to get back to my roots of gratitude daily. It makes such a huge difference. I need to feed my soul again. Being done with school is amazing, I did something for myself and my future, but now I can get back to myself. I have really missed myself and I had little moments of time when I knew that but I didn’t know how much I missed. We all have the opportunities to start over each day, new beginnings. We can change our own trajectories, and manipulate our futures by responding now. This appointment with myself has been brought to you by self-care, emotional intelligence, and the desire to always want to be better. (In a healthy way.) My time has come to sign off and go do laundry and pick up the mess I left of dishes this morning. I have time now to come here, time to write, time to think. I will come to visit and leave myself on the page in vulnerable type so that I may bring change to myself as well as whoever reads this. Remember- Everything is temporary, and every piece of your story matters.