I'm Mfing Awesome, Yo!

Why is it so hard to make friends? Humans need social connections to survive and thrive. I feel that developing friendships gets harder as we get older, but then wonder if it slopes back down after a certain age. Since moving to Texas, I have met many wonderful people that I believe had good intentions to grow a friendship with me. I have been here for nine months and feel disconnected. The other day, I was sharing how I was feeling with a new person in my life. She expressed she had been experiencing the same thing. That conversation inspired this post. As a child, I did struggle to make friends, but not like how I do now. I kind of just picked someone that liked the same things as me and then would be friends for however long. I have noticed that as people get older, like golden years older, they start to lack f***s. By then I think I might be like "either you like me or you don't." I have shared in previous posts why friendship is distinctly challenging for me...

I am starting to feel myself disengage. This tends to happen when I feel my current circle is not connected with me. It probably does not sound like a big deal, but it is. I understand the ramifications of isolation and disconnection all too well. I am terrified of this feeling of disengagement. It can lead to detrimental physical, mental, and emotional consequences. I am feeling very sad, lost, scared, and alone. It's pretty damn dark down here in this hole and I have gone out into the wilderness without my gear of coping skills. I can faintly hear my long distance friends calling out to me, but I cannot figure out how far away or in which direction they are. It is cold, damp, and dreary. I can see little glimmers of light through the thick branches and leaves. I am weary. I am also enlightened-very aware of what is going on. Once you are enlightened, you cannot really go back to being ignorant. I know I am out in the darkness alone, but I cannot find me. I am desperately m...

I would like to quickly share how I feel about the phenomenon I call the Sonar Ping text message. This is when someone texts you a "Hey," "Hello," "Sup," [hand wave], etc. You send a quick response back and then you do not hear from them again until much time has passed. I can only guess as to why people do this. Maybe, they want to make sure you are still available to them-when and if they actually want to make time for you. Or possibly, they want to make sure you are alive-feeling guilty about ignoring you. Or perhaps, they genuinely wanted to connect with you but, something is preventing them from completing that chain. Usually this type of behavior does not bother me, but right now it bugs the f**** outta me. You see, I am desperately craving connection and attention. I miss my friends in Florida so very much. I miss my face to face interactions with them. These days, I am alone a lot. Texting is just not quite cutting it anymore. Texting from cer...

A lot of people have decided that I took a few steps back. I disagree. I was recently terminated from my job...that is the nice way HR says: It has been surprising to most that I am not terrified or ashamed. I will say that I felt betrayed and my feelings were hurt. But, I was not surprised by any means. Do not get too excited if you are looking for the juicy details of what went down. I am not going there. It took me all of about two hours to get over my hurt feelings-this comprised of cleaning out my office, turning over projects, and driving home. I was quite confused by this. But, I took a matter of fact approach to the situation. I started researching my rights and thinking about my next move. As I reflected and researched, I reminded myself: the position was not a good fit for me super successful people have often attributed their success to being fired I have always come back bigger and better each time I am knocked down BONUS: I have a new story for my resilienc...

I hope y'all are ready for some more Brené Brown fangirling! In my dark moments in life, somehow she always shows up to show me the light. Whether it is in a social media post, a video I run across, or a book I pick up to read at the right moment. Brené, thank you for being you and having the courage to show up and be seen.  I recently finished reading Brené Brown's book Dare to Lead . In that book she discusses values. She says that we all have two core values and the rest of the values we believe in are supportive of our two core values. I believe my two core values are: courage and legacy. When I would talk about values in my classes, I would mention integrity and authenticity as being some of my core values. I now believe those have a supporting role in my core values of legacy and courage. It takes a lot of courage to show up and be your authentic self and to sometimes stand alone in integrity. I want to be represented accurately which is why I get so upset when people...

This week has been a learning experience for me. I have been very introspective-processing a lot of information on relationships and connection. The universe sometimes likes to give me a lot of data to work with, so I can learn a little somethin' somethin'-then I share it with ya'll. Lately, I have been trying to figure out what "family" is. When we are young, we are taught that "family" is made up of our relatives, period. As we grow into adults, that is what we often continue to believe. Then sometimes, something funny happens. You start to realize that you have strong amazing connections with non-relatives. You may notice that you really are not that connected with your relatives. If you are anything like me, you start to feel some kind of way for not having what you think you are supposed to have-start questioning yourself-start forcing a square peg into a round hole-toss out the beloved rock you love. Okay, I just got kind of weird with my analo...

I had a fairly solid plan. It went to sh*t! I recovered and devised a new solid plan. It went to sh*t! I am weary...but will build a new plan...later because: I am currently baking cupcakes without frosting at my brother's house because my car is in the shop and I have barely any food in the house. I am using what I have to make these cupcakes, now muffins I suppose. I even had to sub' an ingredient. I live out in the middle of no-where, not even a corner store is within walking distance for a girl that grew up in the 80s/90s where we walked everywhere! Cupcakes are my therapy. Making them helps me focus on something else and eating them feeds my sorrow. Let me back up a little for you.   I was aware my new plan was falling apart, but I kept focusing on things working out. On a daily basis, I am looking for new strategies on how I am going to fulfill an agreement I made when I moved here and survive, then become successful. As discouraging as things have been, I have be...