It’s been a challenging but rewarding long holiday weekend. It’s been busier and more challenging than I would have wanted but I’m starting to learn that there’s a plan for everything and it’s not always the one we might wish but it’s always towards our greater good. I am grateful and thankful for having had this time to figure out that despite what often feels like chaos and disorder there are a few things I know definitively.

1. One of the things I love most about nature is that there are no ads there! I dragged my husband put to walk in one of the several large parks in our neighborhood we have not yet explored and as we were entering it I head some distant car or radio somewhere playing the Woodside Honda jingle. And it occurred to me in that moment that we were about to leave that behind for a bit when we headed into the park, that the moments I spend in nature devoid of being mentally invaded by jingles and poster boards, commercials or brand names are what allow my mind to find rest, contentment and recharge. Nature doesn’t try to sell you anything. If anything it allows you to reconnect to yourself and the present moment and it that to see and feel a wild, uncontaminated beauty. I need it like water.

2. My husband is my partner in the truest sense. I know he doesn’t like being in nature as much as I do or for the same reasons but when he’s there with me he fully commits as much as he can and in a spiritual sense, he’s the one who tethers me when I’m flying to high or become lost in curiosity and amazement or even fear. To have a life partner who can truly support you, someone you can laugh with, let go with, build with is truly a blessing. When I lay with him at night, when I’m in his arms, when we touch I know with everything in me that he’s my one, the one I fit with, the one I can trust, I can fall into. We respect one another’s space and boundaries and are always working towards discovering ways we can fulfill each other’s needs in a balanced and authentic way.

3. Cleaning is a spiritual thing. Lately, when I am at my most frustrated or at a loss or helpless feeling, I clean. I never thought I would ever be a woman who cleaned for catharsis but I guess I’m becoming one. Whenever I do it, I feel like it’s symbolic. I feel like creating order and cleanliness in my living space is creating something similar within me or sending a message in the universe about what I want and need, that I am opening up a way to allow new things in. My reason for cleaning on Monday was more specific. My mom is coming to visit and stay with my husband and me for a bit and I’m very excited to have her here and to spend quality time with her. Coincidentally, the new moon was this weekend so cleaning and disposing of trash in preparation for my mom’s arrival is all happening in divine order as she would say. I’ve just been listened to music all day, my husband and I teamed up to clean and sweep and store groceries while taking small breaks in between. The small things are beautiful things. Monday felt exactly right.

4. Disciplinary practice is the only way to manifest anything you want. I have been getting up in the morning and doing my yoga and stretches for months now and today for the first time, my lower back doesn’t feel tight or achy. It was so much easier for me to clean and help my husband carry groceries and generally not feel like I’m falling apart because my back is better today. Physical and mental health are the first level of wealth and we all deserve that. Staying on top of my physical health has been one of the best gifts I’ve given to myself and it won’t be the last. Making time each day to tend to my body, gets me out of my head and into my heart and spirit. It makes all the difference I need to be able to see that I am capable of more than I am able to presently comprehend.

In the vein of services like Trunk Club and Stitch Fix I would love for someone to get on creating a monthly clothing and accessories service that is more culturally Black centric for the Black female professional and or office worker.  For example, my monthly selection would look something like this. I only wear pants to work like once a week if at all, so most of the time, I would just love fabulous feminine dresses in bold colors or prints for the Summer and some uniquely designed  separates that I can wear all year round. I want to be able to pick from a selection of clothes and accessories that looks something like what I’ve put together here on this page; clothes that would compliment my shape, accommodate my bust size and curves, remind me of my proud history and ancestry and make me feel amazing all at the time. Yeah, I don’t think that’s too much to ask for.

Lately, I’ve had this scary thought running over and over in my head. Aside from how am I going to pay all my bills and student loans and still get those earrings and that new shade of lipstick I love. The question is, “If we’re not living our life purpose then what are we doing?”

What am I doing?

What are you doing?

What are we doing?

I mean besides just getting by, besides just paying rent, besides just living in fear of crushing debt, anxiety, aches and pains and depression, what else are we doing?

Have you ever met anyone who was living their true life purpose?

Have you ever wondered to yourself in a brief moment of seeming wholeness and bliss and wondered, what if I just don’t go back to work? What if I just called out again? What if I ride passed my stop.

If you’ve ever wondered that (and I do all the time) we’re clearly not living our life purpose and the reason why the question is scary to me is because I feel like a large percentage of people feel this way. Sometimes I look around in lunch spots, on the train, standing in the subway or just in meetings at work and it feels like most everyone has sold themselves short, has normalized the slow and insidious grinding down of the spirit and settled for a paycheck that is not worth their time.

And we promote this among one another and to innocent children as if it was normal as if we weren’t sending completely mixed messaged to ourselves about what it really means to be alive.

What are we doing?

What have we done?

What have we traded in our dreams for?

We walk and pace the streets, the halls,  the living room  in a never ending dialogue with ourselves. We’re looking for permission. We’re conditioned. We’re trained like animals.

You ever watch someone do what you wish you could be doing but then get lost in watching and consuming, essentially worshiping that person while still

doing…

nothing?

Why is it so hard to locate our authenticity? Or rather, why are we so scared of our authenticity? It’s literally the reason why I have over a hundred blogs entries in my draft folder right now.

Sigh*

Am I in broken record land yet? Let me know.

In a conversation I had with my good girlfriend recently, someone who, to me, is living more of her life purpose than anyone I know, she said that 2016 has been savage so far.     We’ve seen a lot “dying but no doing.”

Truest thing I’ve heard all month. We’re obsessed with mourning the dead as well, while in the mean time our own lives here on this physical plain, hang in the balance.

Today I found out from a co-worker that someone we used to know who worked here who hated her boss notoriously left without having secured employment elsewhere. Now I know how long she suffered or rather tolerated her time here and I was so happy when I heard last year that she had finally gotten out. But I took that to mean she found work elsewhere. This an intelligent, detailed, hard working young woman. But no, I’m told she didn’t move on to something else right away. She had just had enough.

I know a guy who I worked with years ago when I was a bookseller who literally just walked off the job one day. Just said fuck it. Everyone thought he was crazy.

I thought it was kinda stupid but I totally understood. I secretly envied him for it.

I’m not the type to leave a job without a plan. But I also don’t seem to have a concrete plan at the moment. Just some promises I made to myself that I would like to keep.

I don’t want to die here. And when I say here, I don’t necessarily mean at this job. I mean I don’t want to die never having realized my life’s purpose. There’s a there there and many of us expire there.