2017

It's been the year where two things had no choice but to co-exist. I got my life back and lost my life at the same time. I've found so much joy I could've bursted and I've cried so hard that I thought I would physically split in two. I lost family members and made incredible new friends who quickly became family.  I also met my writing hero Elizabeth Gilbert. But that's a stand alone highlight of my entire life not just the year.

The truth is hard to face but it's always in the back of my head. I'll hide it in the back, darkest corner of my mind but it's always there. I knew at the end of 2016 what 2017 was going to bring me. I couldn't have predicted the magnitude but I knew changes were on the horizon.

So now on the last day of this year of so many truths, I'm filled with anxiety and anticipation for 2018. Because since I'm starting from scratch, there are no rules. It's overwhelmingly exciting and scary.

And in the spirit of starting fresh, I'm starting the new year digging my nails into what I know for sure.

First thing I know for sure is that I've been very wrong about who loves me. And who loves me has been at the center of me ever since I could remember. My highs and lows have always been connected by the people who've promised to love me forever. And 'forever' it seems is an impossible goal. So I'm cutting ties with 'people who love me' as the center of me. And I'm going to stick to loving myself as the center of me. What's good for me stays, what's bad for me can kindly get the fuck out.

Second thing I know for sure is that the only thing I own is myself. I can only control what I can control. I have no control of what people will do to me: good and bad. So I'm going to stop living connected to the whims of the people in my life. A legally binding paper won't stop someone from becoming a stranger slowly and yet again all at once. Nothing will stop people from saying they love you and treating you like garbage.  Lie to yourself to help you sleep at night but the truth is always right in front of your face. Keep it simple, Missy: stick with the truth.

Third thing I know for sure is that self-care is self respect. A lot of things contributed to my divorce but I would say the thing that really broke it was my self-respect. When I love someone, I love them with everything that I've got in me. But I know for sure that I always love myself just a little bit more than that and that makes all the world of a difference. Not just this year but every year.

Women often live right below the zone of "Who do you think you are?" So we mostly will do everything but never cross the line where someone will come for you with "Who do you think you are?". I know exactly who I am and what I bring to the table in all of my relationships. I have the ability to forget about myself to the point that I'll make myself sick with stress. And even then, there is a limit to what I'll put up with.

So who do I think I am for thinking I'm better than average anything (life, love, sex)? Because I said so, that's why. You want me in your corner in a fight, you want me in your corner in Life. You might even enjoy having me in your bed.  But if you promise me everything and you spit in my face, eventually I'll let your shit burn to the ground.

You should've never asked me to believe in happy endings in the first place. You should've never asked me for forever if you never meant it. Both of us would've been better off.

The last thing I know for sure is that anything is possible. If you really want to live your life you need to put yourself out there. Vulnerability is essential to live your life to the fullest. Right now the most vulnerable thing I can do is write my truth and share the blog on Instagram. Maybe these things that I know for sure today will not be true for me next December. Everything changes, that's the only guarantee we get in life besides death. Control what you can and let go of what you can't control. Expect the best, prepare for the worst and always expect the unexpected.

Cheers to you, 2018. May you remind me every single day that I belong to no one but myself.

Tinder

My friends want me to join Tinder. It gives me a stomach-ache just thinking about downloading the app. I feel like Tinder is a magnet for crazy. And I’m still recovering from a very quick brutal public break-up/divorce.

“Do it for the stories” they tell me. Fuck you, I say to them, I’m a writer. I can write you a story.

My friend let me drive her Tinder account last night.  Apparently “driving” someone’s Tinder means you’re using their profile to swipe yes or no. Or is it right or left? I don’t know. But she let me drive her Tinder just so I see how it works. I know you’re not supposed to judge a book by its cover but I saw some weird dudes.  One guy was doing an arm curl at the gym. Pass. Another dude looked like he was looking for a beard. Pass. Another dude had on very expensive sunglasses and giving the peace sign which was an obvious way to show off his very shiny large watch. Pass. Another dude took a picture with his mom. Nope. I gave her back her phone in under 5 minutes.

She didn’t find her Australian boyfriend on Tinder. She went on vacation to Thailand and met him there and they started long-distance dating a couple of months after she got back from Thailand. Now she’s moving to Australia because she found love in Thailand. She was on Tinder for a total of 3 months before she deleted it for her current boyfriend. This is a real story. This is the kind of love story I hope is in my future.

“So if you didn’t fall in love on Tinder then why do you want me to try it?” Just for practice she says.

Practice for what? I don’t want to date anyone, I don’t want to fall in love. I’m pretty bruised and battered from this very long and exhausting relationship.  That JUST ended, 8 weeks ago. And legally ended a little over 24 hours ago.

And now I’m supposed to jump on Tinder for practice. To practice what exactly? Dating? Where I get to roll the dice on a stranger who may or may not be a total waste of my time? Been there, done that.  I practiced away 6 years of my life.

“I’d rather put some stamps in my passport first”, I said to her.

“Yeah but what about putting some stamps in your sex passport”, she said.

That got me thinking for a minute.

But then I thought about all the things I have mapped out for myself for the next year. About finally graduating college, traveling to Chile to see my family and then traveling to New York for 10 days for a Book/Writing Convention. Maybe I’ll trade in my car for a shiny Camaro. And hopefully wrapping up the year in Scotland where my cousin is in school for his PhD. Scotland... Scottish men….that might be fun. Hot Scottish men…a bucket list level roll in the sack.  That could be fun. Definitely more fun than practicing anything on Tinder.

I used to be...

I used to be married and now I’m not. Today would’ve been my 3^rd year wedding anniversary. And I’ve been sitting in my feelings all day trying to make sure I remember every detail of where I was 3 years ago and where I am now and how I got here alone.

The one scene that is stuck in my head is when we took our vows. I went first and looked him in his eyes and even cried during them. I meant every single word. Now thinking back, I think it was the first of many times where he was there in body but not in spirit. Yes, he looked in my eyes and said the words but I think that might’ve been the moment he checked out. Which would explain why I found out 4 months into our marriage that he was crushing on his female co-worker and texting her that he loved and missed her during a trip to Disney I had planned with all of our friends. It was at this time that I also found the receipt of a Christmas present he bought the same female co-worker. He bought another woman a Christmas present 6 weeks after our wedding day.

She’s just a friend, he would say. You’re the one I love, he would say. And yet there were still videos of women masturbating saved on his phone. And an ongoing relationship with this woman at work the entire time we were married. I guess the beginning of the end was, the week of Christmas last year. When his phone was going off and he was dead asleep. We had just finished moving back into his parent’s house so that we could save money for a house. His phone was going off non-stop and I finally got fed up and when into it to reply to whoever it was. And that’s when I found a Skype conversation with the same female co-worker that went on for months.

In the thread, he would tell her that he loved her and that she was so cute and awesome. He told her how he thought they were soulmates and that they should runaway together. He told her about how they should go to the movies and cuddle. This conversation went back several months, before during and after my mother’s transplant surgery.

These are the memories I need to hold on to and try to celebrate.

Not my dress or my makeup or the pictures or even the moment when I said my vows and meant them.

I should hold on to the memories of being his wife more than the glamour of being his bride.

Because being his wife was hell. Not just because of this woman at his job that he couldn’t help himself but betray me with.  That was one part of it. The other part was when he would call me a dumb bitch for making the temperature warmer a couple of degrees. Or all the nights I voluntarily slept on a couch because I didn’t want to be groped every night like a cheap hooker or deal with the loud lawnmower snoring coming out of his face for hours on end. I should remember all the times he told me there was something wrong with me for never wanting to have sex with him.

I should remember the time he told me I was being selfish because I didn’t want to move to Orlando when my mother was sick with liver cancer and waiting for a transplant.

I should remember how he called me a miserable cunt bitch that one time I tried to have a conversation about always vacationing in Disney and never going anywhere else. 

I should remember his hot breath in my face as he yelled at me that "Even Beyonce got cheated on".

I shouldn’t grieve being his wife. But I guess it’s okay for me to grieve how great it was being his bride. Just for today.

Jacksonville

I'm in Jacksonville. I came away to my first adventure alone & came to Jacksonville. Of all the lovely places the world has to offer, Jacksonville seems like a very random place to be. But I'm here for a special event. An event to meet & greet Elizabeth Gilbert. It's been almost 2 years since I got to speak to her over the phone. Two years since I changed the course of my life in 50 words or less. I'm hoping that when or if I get a chance to meet her, I have the courage to look her in the eye and just say "Hi. I'm Missy. We had a Magic Lesson once." I just want to look at her in the eye and say that & that will be enough for the trip.

When I got here yesterday, I was immediately filled with dread. I started going over all the smarter things I could've done with the money I spent on this trip. What could I be doing instead. How I could've picked a better stop on her speaking tour. I didn't do well on my Statistics final so that didn't help my mood either. I thought about whether I even deserved to be here given the fact that I probably failed this class.

And then I fell asleep and had a great night of rest. Not just sleep but rest. I closed the hotel curtains and slept until 9:30am. I have enough of the curtains open now that I can see the river. Being close to water calms me down, even from the sixth floor of a hotel in the middle of downtown Jacksonville. The tv is on but on mute. I don't know anyone in this city and haven't left my room since I got here almost 24 hours ago. And it's so quiet.

What I'm saying is that I've put myself in an uncomfortable situation. And my first instinct was to fly right back home. But given a second to adjust, I'm okay.

I'm excited to see how the event goes. I'm not scared of what might be happening back home without me because what will be will be whether I make myself sick with anxiety or I just enjoy the quiet serenity of this hotel room.

My friend recently got laid off from work so she's going to temp for a while before moving to Italy. What a great life, to be so untethered and free to pick up and go on adventure without anxiety or fear or commitments to anyone. She's moving to the other side of the planet and she's excited. I came to the other side of my home state and wanted to go home. Courage takes time. It's a muscle I haven't flexed very much in my life. But stay tuned, World.

I'm on a path since the day I wrote those 50 words to Elizabeth Gilbert. I'm coming back to myself. Who I am right here in these words is who I really am. Outside of my wild & curly hair, outside of my flaws and virtues, outside of my body, outside of what I want and what I don't have yet. These words are the truest part of me.

It's time I built a home for myself in myself.

Being scared of changing relationships is not as terrifying as it once was. Maybe it has to do with the people  in my life but I hope it's because I am so in MY body, mind and spirit that there is no other choice but for everything to change.

Being afraid is not an excuse anymore. Fear of feeling the feeling of change is no longer an excuse.

I'm 34 years old and I've been afraid for most of my life. It's true that really scary things that have happened. But this is my life. I am responsible for it. So I'm going to lay the weight of the past down on the side of the road and sprint forward.

Being so spiteful to myself for my mistakes, letting my mother's voice be the most vicious voice a mind could host. All of these things fucked me up.

That was then, this is now.

The immensity of my personal freedom comes to me in waves. And I love it.

And I will make fear a backseat passenger. And self-hatred can get out of the dam car and stand on the side of the road as I drive off.

Life doesn't have to be and/or. My life can be both. Because I said so.

I used to feel trapped because I thought that if I worked in anything but what I thought or knew to be why I'm on this Earth (teach, write, create), I was failing. If I didn't find a way to travel or go on an adventure, I was failing.

But what if doing the stuff I never thought would be part of my career plans gives me a way to do all the other stuff (travel, yoga, change the world). What if there was a path to my dream life was mine to make regardless of the circumstances in my face? The power in that thought gives me actual goosebumps. I feel like I could fight crime. But I won't. I'll just fight crimes against myself at the hands of myself.

Maybe I'm not courageous enough to live out of a suitcase and live in Italy. But I came to Jacksonville alone on an adventure to meet a stranger I know is my friend. This is the adventure of today. Italy may very well be just around the corner.

My life is not one thing or the other. My life will be both because I will build it so. I will make it so.
(04-25-17)

Words Matter

Several words have been given to me but I’ve never really taken the time to find my own words given to me by me.  Negative words stay with me easier than the ones that actually matter. Using words like ‘magic’ and ‘extraordinary’ make me feel powerful, strong and alive. They make me feel connected to who I am at my core.

On an ordinary lazy Sunday morning last May, I saw a post on Elizabeth Gilbert’s FB page where she announced she would be recording a podcast over the summer leading up to her next book release, “Big Magic”.

Elizabeth Gilbert is a world traveler, published writer, sometimes yogi and overall extraordinary woman. Her most popular book so far is “Eat, Pray Love” having sold millions of copies worldwide which eventually became a major motion picture. She rocks my world every day with her FB posts or really any time she speaks her wisdom. She’s one of my heroes. A conversation with her would’ve been better than winning the lottery.

This is what I wrote to her:

05-17-15

My soul burns for the extraordinary life. In my extraordinary life I am joyful, I am an educator, a writer and a humanitarian. I’m a master yogi and every page of my passport has a stamp. My current life is ordinary. I work at a call center, I’m ten classes away from my English degree w/a minor in education, yoga hurts and the last time I used my passport was 9 years ago. And my mood is basically a minefield. I need guidance building a bridge between my ordinary life and my extraordinary life. Ps. You rock my world!!

The words to my submission flowed out of me like I had already known what I wanted for myself, I just hadn’t written it down. 

I have only ever had dreams. I have only ever been a dreamer. When I wrote my entry to the Big Magic podcast, I was putting together a plan of action to make my dreams my reality. There was a chance Elizabeth Gilbert’s people would bring it to her attention and there wasn’t. I didn’t really care about being on a podcast, I was really just hoping for some words with one of my heroes.

About 2 weeks after my submission, I got the email saying they wanted me on the podcast. To say I was ecstatic was an understatement. Several celebratory dances were had. I couldn’t wait to hear her voice, wisdom and words just for me.

Of course there are words that take the color out of life. Medical diagnoses are these kinds of words. They are clinical, cold & grey.  The worst and scariest of these kinds of words is: Cancer. Cancer is the unstoppable force coming for the immovable priceless object.

The day after I found out that I would be on the Big Magic podcast, I went with my mom to the doctor. It was an unusual day of our mother/daughter relationship because there was nothing to fight about so our mood was light and fun. When we got called into the exam room, the doctor followed us in and introduced himself. After some small talk, he began shooting rapid-fire information. This is what I heard:

“Your mother’s latest CT scan…we found a tumor in her liver, measures about 2.5 cm. insurance? Get insurance, as soon as possible we won’t help her unless she has insurance, Liver transplant. Best treatment: liver transplant as soon as possible but that requires insurance, needs to find some as soon as possible”.

The air left the room and my body just like that. “Que dice?”/ “What is he saying?” my mother asked.  I heard her voice a thousand miles away. I wanted the earth to swallow me so I wouldn’t have to be the one to do this. My body and soul left me but I could still feel the tears, rage and devastation boiling from the bottom of my stomach. I thought to myself “Not now.” I took a deep breath, swallowed big while I turned myself to the right to face my mom and look her in her eyes to translate every devastating word. My tone was even, controlled and optimistic. As I spoke, her eyes emptied and the oxygen left her body as well. When I was done, she took a deep breath, swallowed big and said, “Okay”.

I don’t remember much from my drive home, as I had to make it 16 miles from Miami to Miramar in rush hour traffic while fighting the emotional bomb that was trying to go off. The moment I turned the key into my apartment, it began to come out of me.   Hyperventilating turned into screams that burned my vocal chords muffled by hands. That turned into sobs that came from the deepest part of my soul.  They traveled from my stomach, up my chest, scorched my throat before I could release them out of me. It burned from the inside out to be in that much pain. “Not like this” is all I kept thinking. “Please, God. Not like this. Please don’t take her from me like this”. My husband did his best to comfort me. But it’s hard to hear anyone when I know it’s the end of the world.

My mother is where I come from: my bloodline, the little lady with a giant warrior heart? I was made from her. But the treatment plan that could save her life were just words on a paper unless someone could get reimbursed for saving her life. In my rage and heartbreak, I concluded that nothing and everything matters.  And all we really have to our names is who are. The rest is circumstantial.

A week after my mother’s diagnosis, I had the first of two conversations for the Big Magic podcast with Elizabeth Gilbert. Speaking to Liz about my art and exchanging big magic words with one of my heroes didn’t just change my artistic life, it sustained me during an impossible season of uncertainty & waiting. It brought me back to life.

People are made up of words. Our identities, our emotions are a collection of words formulated in what it means to be alive and human.   The words that you give yourself are how you love yourself. The actions that follow these words are how we let the world know we were here. There are some words I have given myself, but most have been given to me to carry.  Putting my life intentions into words was the first step to a self-portrait created by me for me. The whole experience made me hold on to the good, powerful words like my life depends on it because it does. 

Elizabeth Gilbert’s books are a spiritual exchange with a best friend that I’ve never met. And our beautiful exchange of words in real life surpassed any and all expectations I could’ve dreamed of. My big magic experience gave me the words to start to live authentically in an identity that has eluded me since childhood. They brought color & magic and the possibility of the extraordinary to my life.   Because of our words, I am now a dreamer AND a writer.