A New Day

Wants change when entering new life cycles.  Desires transform as atmospheres transits.  Needs modify with maturity.  Experience inspires the greatest renovation, for good or bad, healthy or unhealthy. Tomorrow is gone and it’s a new day.

I’m changing, it’s that simple. I’m emerging into a new creation, formed and transformed by my experiences, and I like the changes that are happening and the beauty that I am becoming.

Yes, I believe I’m beautiful.  My doubts and fears whisper to me I’m cursed, unlovable, unwanted, and not enough, but those are the lies sent to keep me bound to the earth, or drowned beneath the waters, when I was meant to soar in the heavens.  There is greatness in me and she’s been held captive for way too long. 

I don’t understand what led me to choose my captivity, but I clearly understand I was the one who clasped the shackles around my own heart, wrists and ankles. I was the one who bound myself to something detrimental and destructive to my soul, to my heart, and to my mind. And I was the one who had to break those chains and fly free.  Perhaps that was the lesson that I needed to learn, to be reminded that no one else will fight for me, no one else will love me the way I need to love myself. 

Love – what a concept that is so simple, yet so complicated. It’s bigger than I can understand, but something I desire and know I need to give AND receive. I do give love – always. To my friends, my family, and my lovers.  I always give my whole heart.  But, I now understand that receiving it is JUST AS IMPORTANT.

I will no longer accept anything but the greatest of love from anyone that wants to be a part of my life.  I am learning to let go of those who can’t or won’t love me. I am finding the strength to walk away from passive/aggressive assholes who use my love, but are incapable of returning it – because I love ME. 

I am building my tribe – a tribe of men and women who are not afraid to open their hearts and arms to me in honest friendship.  Who will not only allow me to love, inspire, encourage and support (because that’s who I am – the ultimate cheerleader) them, but who also feed my soul with love, inspiration, encouragement and support.  I have a lot to give - but what I give is love, light, sun, and life.  Vampires operate in darkness and seek the lifeblood of the lost and helpless.  I got my wooden stake firmly in my hands and I’m not afraid to use it.  I’ve been sucked dry and preyed upon for long enough, but my heart still beats. My tribe has helped me mend my wings and breathe the clean air, and bask in the sunlight. I’ve got a great beautiful golden tan that glows.

I am ready to share my heart again. I’m ready to allow life, and love, and happiness back into my universe.  I’m ready to smile, to seek adventure, to chase dreams, and to fall in love.  I want romance – great romance.  To hell with these insecure broken men who are too jaded to be romantic, daring, and willing to risk everything for love.  I need a hero, not a coward.  I don’t want someone who lies to themselves and the world about not needing love and romance – for their peace.  FUCK their peace. If James taught me anything it’s that love is worth the effort, it’s worth the risk, and it’s worth the fight.  I’ve never felt more loved in my life since him – but I’ve been feeling his presence more and more lately.  I believe his spirit has been reminding me that I am worth chasing, worth fighting for, and worth moving heaven and earth just to love me. I already know I love with my whole heart – and I give my heart and soul to the man in my life.  I will accept NOTHING less in return. I am a good woman with a great heart, and any man would be lucky and blessed to have me in their life. Only a real man will be able to handle me. Little men and broken assholes can keep walking. Leave me alone.  There are plenty of damaged broken women to prey upon, but not me, not anymore.  I’m not trying to save anyone. I can’t.  I want a man that doesn’t need to be saved; one that can fly with me, not pull me down.  

I’m flying. I’m soaring and there’s nothing that I can’t do or achieve. My only frustration is deciding which dream I want to chase first! My future is so bright.  I am rich in happiness.  I have successfully found my inner peace. I’m enjoying the wealth of good health that is lending to the fulfillment of my dreams. I’m 47 and have no addictions, no major ailments, and good heart and mind. I am a force of nature and I have been unappreciated for way too long. I’m about to remind the world just what I’m capable of achieving.

Kindness – I seek kindness most of all.  My world had been so dark and so toxic for so long – that simple kindness is a golden treasure.  My soul is thirsty for kindness, and my shield is polished, and my sword is sharpened to protect me from cruelty. Whether friend or lover, if you’re not a kind person – I’m walking away – quickly.  The sharks swim beneath the water, but I’m not in the water, I’m in the air. I’m fire. I’m a phoenix risen from the ashes. It’s a new day, watch me blaze in the light of the sun.

Till next time,

~T.L. Gray

Budgeting... Heart, Mind and Soul

We’ve talked about the importance of budgeting our time, our goals, and our resources.  Now, I need to get to the core of our being, because no matter what we decide to do on the outside, we have to have balance in our core.  I’m talking about budgeting our hearts, minds and souls. 

What exactly is a budget?  A budget is as system itemizing something we have, want, or need, and breaking it down into increments of debits and credits, incoming and outgoing, supply and demand, etc.  It’s assessing what we have and developing a system to gain what we need.  If we don’t make an honest assessment, we can make erroneous decisions that will cause us to over-budget or under-budget and fail. To reach success, we have to clearly see the path to that success, and then be faithful and committed to the budget we set to reach that desired success.  We could get lucky, but luck always runs out. We’ve got to take control of our life, our choices, and our successes and failures.

Other resources we often overlook when we make a budget for our lives are those intangible resources, but happen to be the most essential in our success or failures of all other budgets.  Just as important as budgeting our money, we have to budget our heart, our mind and our souls.  We can over-extend ourselves, or under-utilize our potential by ignoring these resources.  These are essentially that define who we are – the core of being a human. These are the elements that directly lead to our successes and failures, our happiness or depression, or our love or indifference. 

Heart – We have to budget our hearts.  We have to set a limit on the things, people, and focus we allow to affect our hearts.  We can set our affection on the wrong things or people that will hurt us, destroy us, and even break us.  We can also put too much focus on our heart, letting it lead us blindly, become obsessive over something or someone, and it will unbalance us.  Balance is key.  YES, love!!!! Oh, Mylanta, allow ourselves at times to get lost in our emotions. Enjoy the euphoria or pain of it, but we must keep it in balance.  We can’t get blind and stupid by love to the point we lose sight of everything else, especially what we want and need, and who we are. That’s unhealthy and it becomes detrimental to any dreams we’ve planned or hoped to succeed. We also can’t chase our dreams without love, without using our hearts. If we close our hearts because we’ve been hurt, or we have failed before, or we are too afraid, then we’ve already failed. It means nothing.  We can gain the world, but what good is it if we are indifferent?  Indifference means not caring at all or feeling nothing - which is worse than hate. Hate is at least passionate.  Indifference is void of passion.  Indifference is cowardice.   Without heart, we will give up, because it is our love for ourselves, for the dreams we have, for our family and the people we care about, that pushes us, inspires us, and gives everything we do meaning. Even God says that there are three essential things in this life – Faith, Hope and Love, and of those three, Love is the greatest. We can’t choose to love everyone and everything, nor can we choose to love nothing or no one. Protect our love.  Protect what and who we set our affections toward.

Mind – we have to budget our minds.  If we set our minds to too many things, and not balance it out, we will spend too much of one of our most valuable assets in the wrong area, on the wrong thing, or the wrong person, and not give the attention and focus we need to our goals, dreams, and aspirations.  We have to protect our minds, protect what we focus on, what we allow to distract us.  We can ‘check-out’ sometimes because life is hard.  Many times, instead of focusing on what I needed, I allowed myself to be distracted by the wrong things or person to avoid thinking about the hard things.  I’d “check-out”.  I’ve also allowed myself to focus too much, to the point of obsession, and neglected to focus on other areas of my life. Neither was healthy or productive.  There has to be a balance. We have to budget our minds and limit the things we focus on, allow distracting us, or taking up our time.  Write out a list of what we want and need, and then protect our minds and do what we need to keep and maintain a balance to our focus.

Soul – this one is the part of us that we often neglect most.  It’s that inner-being, and many of us can’t even recognize it. We try to numb it, ignore it, or control it.  We can’t.  This is core of who we are, and I believe this is the being that continues beyond our existence, beyond this physical plane, beyond this life. We have to budget for and with our souls. We have to make time for this part of us. What good is it to gain the world, but lose our souls?  To allow life, people, circumstances, guilt, pain, and all other bullshit to come in destroy our souls?  We can lie to the world. We can lie to ourselves, but our souls know who we are, what we really want, what we really need.  We have to protect our souls – cut the vampires out of our lives, allow love into our lives, let love fill us, and then through our souls, let that love back out into the world around us. There are soulless people in this world. There is darkness and evil. I’ve seen it. I’ve experienced it.  This world is so full of hateful, mean-spirited, selfish, awful people, but we don’t have to be one of them. It’s so important to protect and nourish our souls.

These are the keys to success – in EVERY area of life. We only get one. We only live ONCE.  We only have a tiny portion of this existence to make a difference, to be counted, to have purpose.  WE control what those are by how we budget our lives by the choices me make. Make good ones. Choose love.

Till next time,

~T.L. Gray