Emotions

Scared Shitless…But Doing It Anyway!

/ Gardy Loo Pismire / Leave a comment

Three weeks ago I was in Thailand with my boyfriend, who, on the second day of our trip, decided to end things with me. There was no fight. No argument. No nothing. Just a surprise conversation while lying in bed together. Talk about a sure fire way to lose your libido!

If I am honest with myself, I knew the relationship wasn’t quite right (mostly for him) I am optimistic and he is a pessimist. He is a neat freak whereas I am not so anal. I embrace life and love fiercely whereas he says he isn’t sure what love really is. But I knew the end was coming when he said I reminded him of his mother..he disliked her. And, well, the big thing…he has never found me attractive…yes, he had the gall to say it (more than once) and as we all know there was nothing I could do about that except lose my confidence and start feeling somewhat insecure. But still I persisted. Why? We laugh a lot, had great ___, are compatible and were economically similar. And he taught me things, important things like fly fishing, he values our friendship and a truly nice man who tries to look out for my best interests even when I am sometimes unable to determine what they are. Sometimes as you age the things that were once high on your priority list suddenly slip a little while other once inconceivable things now take their place. Luckily, we are good friends and enjoy each other’s company so we still had a good time but seriously walking on the beach NOT hand-in-hand was not exactly how I envisioned a beach trip to Thailand and Laos.

Anyway, the day before leaving the country, I put my house up for sale…kind of on a whim but then again not. It sold in one day. I worked hard on this house. New wood flooring, painted the inside and outside myself, new roof, faucets, fixtures and tile in the bathroom, a beautiful garden with 7 ft high fence to keep the elk out, along with numerous other projects all completed in two years. I love this house, that I painted red which was located then two miles from the ocean. And I sold it and a whole lot of what I owned. Why? Right now….this second…. in this moment of complete panic… I am not sure why. But deep in my heart I know I did the right thing and these are the reasons I believe I did:

Fist off, I think the housing market is going to crash and wanted to get out while the getting was good. I didn’t want my house to be worth less than I paid for it. Secondly, I live on almost an acre and one-half and with the traveling I have been doing it isn’t practical with all the mowing and upkeep on the garden. Furthermore, I do not like the direction that this country is headed at the moment. And finally, I always wanted to try to live in another country for a bit. Everything combined created the perfect storm and I went for it. Now, as I pack boxes and unload many of my earthly possessions I am questioning myself.

“What the fuck are you doing?”

“Perhaps it is early onset dementia?

“Yes, maybe. I couldn’t remember the word for fork the other day”

“Everyone says start writing notes to yourself.”

“You tried that and lost the notebook”

“What kind of 64 year old woman sells everything and sets off an a big adventure that most 18 yo’s without gut issues, hearing aids, and often severe gas don’t even consider?”

And so it goes. The never-ending songs inside my head.

So here is the plan. I hope to housesit around the world. I will be homeless May 15th, a week later will attend my youngest daughter’s graduation from college, fly to my other daughter’s house in Tennessee, visit my Dad in Michigan then by the middle of June arrive at my best friends house in Las Vegas. Then, June 20th, I will leave for Queretaro, Mexico to housesit for two months. It’s a beautiful historic town and I think I am going to enjoy stepping back in history a bit. From there…who knows. But Ecuador seems to be calling my name.

I hope you will join me on this crazy journey that I am taking and know if I can do this you can do something scary and a bit difficult too. And if you want to know about where I was five years ago with a cheating husband and my six kids, well then, just read this blog!

Loved – A 10 Minute Poem Challenge

/ Gardy Loo Pismire / Leave a comment

By Cheryl L Hosman

If you could be loved

The way you want to be loved

Would it be

Sweeter…slow and tender

Like old lovers who know 

That their time is running out soon

So what is left is savored 

Like a wine left on the shelf

To ripen to its optimal self

Finally to be drunk with appreciation

And gusto?

Would there be

More pleases and thank yous

In your life by those who love you

Sharing with you a sense of gratefulness

And genuine warmth

For all you do for them

Each and every day

And would their recognition of you

Make your eyes sparkle turquoise blue

Like the Caribbean on a windless summers day?

If you were loved the way you want to be loved

Would the caresses be long and lingering

Melting your body into care-less-ness

Where nothing mattered but the moment

And your chassis didn’t keep track 

Of the movement of the sun across the sky

Because your skin was once again

Alive and free feeling the winds of change

Blow across you?

Would you allow that love that you need

To grow through compassion and grace

Could you be patient whilst you were being discovered

Through the eyes of a virgin

Trying to look into your soul

To help you obtain what your

Heart truly desires?

Or would that kind of love 

Be muted because you were still

Discovering what you need

After all of those years void of intimacy

Afraid to wish for 

Those things you 

Never imagined could be yours again

But can be awakened if only you ask yourself ….

How do I want to be loved?

Divorce Gets Uglier…How Is That Even Possible?

/ Gardy Loo Pismire / 4 Comments

Well, as this divorce drags on my Fibromyalgia grows more painful too. I guess this is a direct manifestation of stress.

Recently B stated he would be coming to CA with our 18 yo son Paul. He wanted to see Gracie and take her with him. Problem: he refused to sign a short two paragraph document stating that we both had joint physical custody and she lived with me. That she would be with him from x to x and that he was not allowed to leave the state with her without my permission. He refused to sign. Our eldest daughter and friends who know B said do not allow him to take her. He will take her back to Texas and if she is back there getting her home will be difficult if not impossible. We all believed he might not bring her home because he stated he was going for full custody of her and that she left the state without a good discussion.

He bought the tickets last week. He still wouldn’t sign and I had no idea what I was going to do. After thinking about it I realized that he had left no time for Paul and I to see each other except during the time we would exchange Gracie. This was unacceptable since both Paul and I had told him many times that we wanted to spend extra time together. I called Paul. He told me that his father had told him he would have to spend time with me another time.  I asked him if he wanted to spend more time here after his father’s visit ended and he said yes  and immediately sent me a message that read:

Hi mom! I would like to spend 10 days with you. That would mean alot to me!!

Love you.
I sent the message stating I would buy Paul’s ticket and that he was now an adult and I urged him to talk with his sister, his Dad and watch the news and make a decision that was best for him. B who responded with:
I have his ticket already purchased.
Long story short within a few hours B canceled their trip “due to the Corona Virus.”
A few hours later he sent this:

I told him we would take the trip when things calm down. You and Gracie are welcome to come here and visit, I will pay forGracie’s flight. Give it a thought, it might be a better solution.

So yeah, you already bought tickets won’t come and then offer to have us visit you….that makes sense.

I called Paul the next morning. B had not even told him the news that they would not be going. Paul started crying. Paul was upset stating his father had already told him they would come no matter what the status of Corona was .
I wrote Paul the following :
I know today you said you were very upset about not coming out to visit. I found some direct fights from Austin to San Francisco and there is also the possibility of a flight from Austin to Sacramento. As an adult you are able to make your own decisions but I would urge you to talk to Dad, your sister and listen to various news outlets so you make a decision that is right for you. I know that you are going out to eat and last week were at the Pearl. Here they may be shutting down some restaurants tomorrow so if you were to come know that there would be limited opportunities but there would be plenty of time for us to spend together. I am not going to urge you one way or another because I think that this needs to be your own decision. So if you decide to come, I would love to have you. If you decide to stay in Texas, know I love you and we will get together another time.
Love
Mom
Long story short:
  • 1. B refused to sign the temporary custody visitation agreement regarding his trip to California.
  • 2.B bought tickets for himself and our son Paul July 8, 2020 knowing that the COVID situation was getting worse but is still taking the boys out to dinner and in public in San Antonio which has a high rate of COVID infection. I have pictures of these outings.
  • 3. A week later on July 15, 2020 when B realized that I offered to let Paul stay out with myself and Gracie for an extra 10 days he canceled the trip to California without informing Paul. He was away in Oklahoma at that time and has no problem traveling.
  • 4. The next day B sent an email stating he would pay for Gracie to come to Texas instead and I could go too. This makes no sense as:
  • A) B had already bought tickets for himself and Paul to come to California and told Paul he was not concerned about COVID
  • B) If Bis really concerned about COVID why would he ask Gracie to come to Texas which is another COVID hot spot. Why should she travel when he already had tickets purchased for himself and Paul?
  • C) The real issue is that Mr. Dieter wants to deny Paul and I access to one another and is afraid to have him stay in my home for 10 days in case he chose not to come home to him or COVID shut things down. Paul is not enrolled in college at this moment and is doing nothing that should prevent his traveling to see his family in California.
  • D) Paul is an adult. He should be able to make his own decisions without having to worry that his father will be mad at him for choosing to come and see his sister and I. This was one of Paul’s concerns that he expressed to me.

Big Changes

/ Gardy Loo Pismire / 2 Comments

Well, everyone is facing major changes these days…are we not? It is in how we handle them that we will one day be able to look back and determine our own humanity and if we rose to the occasion of acting and being our best or not. Determining what is important to our concept of a higher good and promoting what we consider to be virtues that we wish to live by will, undoubtedly, be a test for us all as we go through this uncharted territory.

But I digress.

Last week I flew to Texas to be with the kids. I took them to an island off the coast for Spring Break and we had a wonderful time. Our condo was right on the beach and to hear the waves rolling in was a treat and something you could depend on in these uncertain times. Of course, South Padre Island is party city during break, but not this year, as events began to be canceled due to the virus outbreak.

After arriving back in San Antonio Sunday night, I began to get concerned about if I would be able to fly home on Thursday. With all the corona virus news and the policies that the President was implementing it seemed like the right course of action would be to leave in the next day or two. Getting stuck at my Texas home with B, possibly indefinitely, sounded like it could be very uncomfortable. It was further complicated by the fact that his traitor sister, who promoted B’s affair, was driving in on Thursday with her daughter and I figured that three against one did not make for good odds. Frankly, I began to question just what they might do to me. I mean, they have no loyalty to the person who has helped them over the years (me) and I was concerned that they could concoct some sort of story and I might see the inside of a jail cell, so I changed my airline reservation and got a credit fo $200…a rather nice surprise!

Things began to change rapidly in regards to the corona virus across the state and the country. By the end of the day on Monday, the kids school was being closed and the diving program was possibly being terminated for a undetermined amount of time. When I went to pick Gracie up from practice I thought that perhaps it would be a good time to ask if she wanted to go with me and give her a taste of what living with me might be like. So I asked her if she wanted to come home with me and she couldn’t say yes fast enough. So I told her that she had to tell her dad and then I would book a ticket for her.

When we got home B flat out said, “No, she is not going. She has school and practice. No, she may not go!”

Gracie begged.

He was unrelenting.

I finally told him school was closed and I would get her to practice her and frankly, she had the right to make her own decision and that at her age a judge would let her do what she wanted. I told him I was going upstairs and would try to order a ticket for her. He was angry and not happy but I booked a ticket for her anyway. Later he accused me of plotting to take Gracie but in reality I had no plans of doing so. The reality of the situation is this: because of the corona virus, an opportunity arose, and as a result of it, Grace and I decided to take advantage of the time together that it presented.

Later that evening I told Paul and that because he had a neurology appointment on Thursday he could not come with me. However, if he wanted to come after that he was welcome to do so. He seemed hurt and angry that night but the whole entire time I was there he appeared to be angry at me. For instance, when I asked innocently what B was doing the weekend we were on Padre he gave me a big defensive “WHY?” and it began to seem that he was beginning to, for lack of a better word, make it a B (and him) vs me type of situation. Frankly, that saddens and worries me.

Later that evening I asked B why he seemed to dislike me so much and he replied, “I don’t hate you. I still love you and care for you”  to which I replied something like: “…you know, it was hearing (the butt dialed) conversation between you and your sister that made me leave. The distain and hatred you have for me was so evident and never once did you correct the lies and ugliness your sister said to you about me. That is not love. The things you said were not loving so please don’t tell me your care for me and love me because no one speaks about someone they love the way the two of you spoke about me Hearing the two of you broke my heart and it became evident when you talked about Nhi with such love and me with such anger that it was time for me to leave.”

Anyway, the next morning, before our departure, B played his instrument and hummed all morning long. Not a word was mentioned about our impending trip.  He dropped us off at the airport giving Gracie a brief hug and was gone.

The airports were eerily quiet. On our flight from San Antonio to Las Vegas the 145 passenger plane had 32 people on it while the second leg of our flight from Las Vegas to California sat 50 individuals out of a possible 175. I have never seen so few people on a plane in my life.

So Gracie and I are here. She will be doing long-distance on-line learning through her school. It is nice to have one of my kids with me….it feels good…it feels right and it is wonderful being a hands-on mom again even though my fibromyalgia is still kicking my butt. But having Gracie here makes the pain bearable because she is such a joy to be around.

Another interesting development…B’s sister did not come after all but her daughter (the Meth-head (clean for a little over 100 days) flew in instead of drive…my, how plans change!

If you remember, B stated after I left, that he would have to hire someone to help him even though my kids said they did not need anyone to come in nor did they need any help. I now suspect that he brought his niece to Texas to be the nanny. When I asked how long she would be staying the original answer was a couple of weeks. I then asked if she didn’t need to return to her job at which point B said, “Well, maybe three weeks or a month. I don’t know at this point.” What I do know is that on her Facebook page she wrote “TBD” when a friend asked how long she was staying. As friends who have met her said at this turn of events, “Well, how would that work? Gracie is more mature and together than she ever will be.” And so, a messed up 26 yo is at the house providing guidance to my sons and I don’t like it one bit. Luckily, the boys are both anti-drug so I hope that provides some level of protection.

One more thing. Since moving here and living alone I have found it difficult to sleep at night. I have heard every creak and groan of the house during the night. So yesterday, Grace and I went to pick out an alarm. Here it is…

 

X8LazJwoROqtTfjMvDgvMg

 

 

Going Back To The Gaslighter

/ Gardy Loo Pismire / 2 Comments

Tomorrow I leave for Texas. It will be wonderful to see my kids but it will not be wonderful to see their dad. Every time i am there I am terrified that he will do something…what I don’t know but I do know that I do not feel safe. Physically I feel safe but mentally I do not. When someone has screwed with you for five years and everyday was just new lie waiting to be inflicted on you…there is no way to feel safe ever again.

I did make it to the doctor regarding my Fibromyalgia. She prescribed the usual Cymbalta and was concerned about how my legs were in such crippling pain. I have some blood work to do and back to see her in two weeks. My therapist had an interesting take on the matter. She said I needed to honor my fibromyalgia in that it was telling me to slow down and take time for myself and that the more I try to deny my anger at this situation I find myself in regarding the divorce; that the worse the Fibromyalgia is going to get until I give myself the mental and physical rest it needs from five years of mental abuse. I guess she should know. She has been on this journey with me from the start and she knows exactly what B did to me and just how conniving and destructive it was to me and the kids.

In a similar vein, someone I love and respect sent me this video of the new Dixie Chicks song, Gaslighter, and said, “How fitting. Someone made a video of your marriage just change the words from “we moved to California” to “We moved to Texas.”

Even more true to just how much B’s affair and our impending divorce has just about done me in over the past five years. I can relate as Maines sings. “I’m your mirror, Standing here until you can see how/You broke me.” Just insert my photo in Maines place and you can see how broken I really am. In fact, this song feels like a personal anthem dedicated to me.

So I leave you with this wonderful new video and if you have your own gaslighter in your life I hope that you get some strength knowing that you are not alone in the situation.

P.S. Thank you for all the lovely responses and comments. For whatever reason I am unable to respond or reply. Just know that I so appreciate your support.

Grocery Store Blues

/ Gardy Loo Pismire / Leave a comment

Almost every morning I arise and recite some positive affirmations which I find brings positive thinking to the forefront and negative thinking into the further recesses of my mind. Unfortunately, I have neglected to do so for the past several days and it all caught up to me today in the grocery store.

Since I left my home and family I find that the hardest thing is for me to do is to go to the food store. Frankly, it is the loneliest place on the planet and I find this is where these life changes that I am facing knock me flat and kick the shit out of me.

OIP-1

I used to like to go shopping. When you have a family as big as mine and cook just about every night; the grocery store is a place of endless ideas. It is a positive place that you can go to show your appreciation to your spouse and your love for everyone in the house by getting foods they enjoy and then cooking them and preparing them with love in your heart.

Since I have been single I have found the grocery store to be my own personal nightmare. Sure I get to pick what I ALONE WANT TO EAT but there is a true emptiness in doing so. I really have no desire to cook a fancy meal for me, myself, and I; so my shopping cart looks barren and desolate like the basket of someone getting over the flu.  Few things in it and none of them very exciting or wholesome. Lots of healthy frozen dinners, milk, yogurt, lettuce, carrots and that is about it.

Which is why I became shaken while walking the aisles today. I found that I had a very strong impulse to leave the cart sitting in the meat section and run out the doors. I have never had this happen to me before and it felt disconcerting. At took everything within me to stay and continue what I had come in for. It wasn’t a panic I was feeling. Just an all encompassing sadness. All I could think of as I cruised around was the laughter around the dinner table that I so desperately miss along with the appreciation I felt for a job well done. And all of this exists no more in this life that I am creating. It took everything I had in me not to break down in tears in aisle 13 (coffee) aisle 8 (school lunch snacks) and the produce aisle where golden apples once beckoned like the sun. My eyes were so thick with water that when I opened the freezer door I misjudged and slammed it hard into my forehead almost knocking myself out. WHAP!!!!! Just like something out of an I LOVE LUCY episode.

Some sweet teenage boy looked at me and said, “Hey, lady are you okay?”

“NO, NO IAM NOT.  I AM NOT OKAY. I AM NOT OKAY WITH HOW THIS ALL TURNED OUT. DAMN IT!!!

I am feeling:

Sad

Scared

Weary

Lonely

Vulnerable

Excited at times

And pretty much feeling worthless and unsure of myself…like walking the plank over an ocean full of thrashing sharks waiting to nibble at my bones.

I know it will get better. I know that someday I will be creating new memories of dinners with new friends and neighbors which will make perusing the aisles fun again. But for now the grocery store is the loneliest place on the planet and it is a place I just don’t want to visit anymore. It holds too many good memories and its shelves are stocked with expired items that are not mine to put into my cart. I can no longer taste the flavors of life at the dinner table anymore only the cardboard wrapping that protects what is inside.

OIP

 

Running On Empty

/ Gardy Loo Pismire / 2 Comments

OIP-1

And so I start my new life. A life that once offered such promise and now I know not what it brings. One could say we never do…know what life brings. But when I was married for 32 years, I know that life brought me hope, assurance, and feeling appreciated. Now I feel nothing…but empty. An all encompassing emptiness like the lack of sound around you as you stare wide-eyed at the snowy silence in a forest.  That surreal reaction that feels so other worldly because it makes your ears hurt with the nothingness that fills them. That is kind of what leaving your children to get away from your cheater “I’m in love with our tour guide who is 20 years younger than you” feels like when you finally put your foot over the threshold. All the remains is a vast and unending silence. And while I am glad to be away from B’s constant lies, the price I am paying for doing nothing but believing in him…in us… in our family… is a heavy price to pay. He cheats…he has our kids. She cheats…she walks into my life and I am replaced. Everything I have poured my heart and soul is gone. Everything I loved into since I ran out my door at 15…never to return…gone. There was nothing to return to then and nothing to return to now…but emptiness…vacant hearts…desolate times in which I could not compete with the forbidden kiss of a woman across the world. A love, once whole but now dried up… falling apart… flaky and hard… like a day old biscuit.

Yet, every morning I put my feet over the side of the bed refusing to give into grief and pain that pulls at the roots of my insides, snapping like a rubber band against the skin…a wince coming just prior to letting go of the stretch. And so I stand, taking my first steps just like I did 58 years ago when first steps were exciting and everyone squealed in delight. Not terrifying as they are now. Falling when you are one = bandaids and kisses whereas when you are my age it can mean broken bones and even possibly death.

I feel like I should be grateful…I have a place to land unlike so many others in this world. But I feel no gratitude. Only the emptiness of once abundant touches…gone. “Hey, mom…I’m home!”…distant dreams. I miss my kids. I miss my life. But most of all I miss me.  Who I was when I was their mom? When I was someone’s wife?  When I thought I knew what I was and what I wanted. Now I look in the mirror at a stranger. A person’s whose eyes flash like a loud neon sign, ” Vacancy!” There is nothing here because I don’t even know the place that I am at, the language that is spoken, or the resources available to me. Life on this side of the aisle is so different and full of unknowns. Like being dropped off on a desert island with one match and being told, “Okay, now go make a life for yourself!” Does striking the match guarantee fire? Where to I even begin?

I have been reading Joan Didion’s book The Year Of Magical Thinking in hopes of reacting to grief in a normal way, yet, there is nothing normal about this. Grief when someone leaves you alone due to death protects the mind. While all encompassing you know that the person who left you didn’t have a choice. They didn’t want to leave you. Grief when your husband is in love with someone else is different. They had a choice and they choose someone else.  They wanted to leave you or wanted you to leave. Either way it makes no difference. You are rejected for who you are and all you ever hoped to be. You are not enough…never will be. This kind of grief doesn’t allow for “what if’s.” It just allows for the coring out of your heart and soul…all that is left is dry dusty bones held up by pieces of your life that fill in the joints making it possible to remain upright like a medical skeleton hanging in a med school dorm. Something hanging there that no one even notices anymore in the age of the digital life. Something regulated to the obsolete.

I will be okay. I keep telling myself this because if there is one thing I have learned in life it is that it will be okay…eventually. It always gets better…eventually. And when my eventually comes I will kick up my heals and dance celebrating who I am and all that I have created. But for now I sit quietly contemplating the same life questions I did when I was 15, 20 and 35. Who am I? Who will I become? What do I want? How do I go about achieving this?  The devil is in the details and the details have yet to be revealed.

OIP

 

 

Funny The Things We “Think” When We Leave

/ Gardy Loo Pismire / 2 Comments

OIP

I arrived back in California early in the morning. I had nothing at my home. No beds, no chairs, no spoons…no nothing… except lots of memories and heartache. This is the house where I first separated from B and the place I would leave in order to “rekindle” my hopes and dreams about our marriage. And it hurts to know that soon I will return as single person after 32 years of togetherness tricked into believing in a carefully crafted mirage. But I digress…

The only thing that was open at 12:30 a.m.  was a Walmart in a town about an hour away from my house.  I stopped. If you have ever been to a Walmart at that time of the day it is depressing. The buzz of the automatic floor cleaners greeted me while nary a person could be found. Silence permeated a place that usually roars during the hours of 8 a.m.- 10 p.m. It reminded me of the hours that teens spend locked away in their rooms avoiding their parents.

OIP-1

I wandered through the aisles in a daze…on a autopilot…aware…but not really…of what I was doing. It was as if I was looking through glass…seeing the light shining through but what was behind the glass was GONE. There was nothing to look back on and no future to look towards. Just a vast empty place…the place where my heart once beat rapidly whenever I saw B. A place of comfort and security. A place that no longer existed except inside my head.

Soon I came to the aisle loaded with dishes, cups, and silverware of every shape and color. I picked up one of each thing to put in my cart and then, just as quickly, put them back onto the shelf. I just couldn’t commit to anything permanent. The bowl in my left hand seemed too weighty, too purposeful. Even though this is what I needed…TO BE GONE…it didn’t seem real and I wasn’t even sure that I wanted it to be true yet. It felt like a commitment to being forever single and baking lots of bread that I cold never consume all by myself.

“Maybe living back in my fantasy of how it once was is better than how it is now,” I thought as I fought back tears.

So I headed over to the paper goods with a mission. It’s a place full of throwaways…things to dispose of…items not to be kept forever… just like my marriage. It felt comfortable but sad. Cheap plastic cutlery, paper plates, and red DiXIE SOLO cups stared me down. I picked them up, the weight of them almost bringing me to my knees. I went to the self-check out (a very lonely place at 1 a.m.) and scanned each item checking my cart for any items left behind. All I saw was my heart, lifeless and barely pulsating….  according to B it wasn’t worth much… so I left it there at checkout #8 quivering on the conveyor belt. After bagging my necessities, I headed out the door with my twin-sized blow up mattress. It sat high in my cart advertising my new single status like a Vegas neon sign to the homeless man and his dog sitting at the cart return.

Two days later I felt stronger and headed down the mountain to Goodwill. There I found some 1980’s juice glasses, a variety of mis-matched silverware, and a nice set of four matching bowls. This I could do. It made my departure a little more real but not so real as to overwhelm me. This GONE thing was becoming more doable. Yet, I am homesick…missing my children and feeling guilty for “Abandoning” them…when I really haven’t.

Three days later I was feeling even stronger and more sure of my decision then ever. I was contemplating buying a matching set of dishes at a store a step up from Goodwill. The fact that a complete set of dishes is now a thought although not yet a reality is encouraging. For picking out a set of dishes signifies permanence to me and I have not felt quite ready to admit defeat. But each day I am stepping out and dipping my big toe a little deeper into my new life. It is a re-birth and it takes time. And this time around I want to craft a life for myself that is purposeful and meaningful in all areas of my existence…emotional, physical and spiritual. And while Goodwill is a good place to start this adventure… I know I do not want to begin with the left-overs of others. This time I will choose exactly what I need and want to nurture myself and my new beginning. I deserve to give this time to myself and I will. For I am worth it.