Confession… I hate needing people. Worse than pretty much anything in the world. Feeling needy to me is a total admission of weakness. I am instantly turned into a 5 year old child when I have to reach out for help… and I’m always terrified that I’ll be turned away or refused. So I try everything I can to never need anyone. Never be vulnerable. Never open up.
Never.
Yes… yes it is… everything is different and I am happy. This is the good stuff.
So here’s today’s wisdom from the unwise… love the life you have today kids. You may not have it in a day, in a week, in a year.
Find your happy… and live your love. Out loud. Sing. Dance. Buy the shoes. Eat the damned cake.
LIVE!
❤️
Yes… yes I am… I hadn’t really wrapped my mind around that part of reality but I am. This weekend after I spent three days showing off my new world that realization finally sunk in.
I am simply ridiculously happy.
And that led me to recognize that this was the best choice I could have made for me. My life has changed dramatically. I miss my village up the road fierce. But I now know that no matter what the future brings this decision will never be something I regret.
Never!
And once again I am reminded that you miss 100% of the shots you don’t take. I took this shot. I had a 50/50 shot at the outcome. I scored.
And I am happy.
So I’ve been posting on Facebook pretty regularly and I’ve given updates and commented and replied to some folks on other social media channels and via texts but now that the storm has passed and the shutters are mostly down and all has been checked and verified, here’s the rundown on the biggest Hurricane I’ve ever ridden out in this crazy place I call home.
Yes, it’s crazy, yes I love it, yes it’s home. Always. Home.
To be clear, I am truly protected by Angels. That’s the only explanation I have for this weekend… divine intervention is pretty much the only thing that comes to mind. And mind you, I’m definitely not a religious person. But if you know me you already know that and we won’t go into it right now. But suffice to say that I am blessed. For those of you who don’t know, I either own, rent, or borrow 3 homes in Punta Gorda and Lakeland. So when Hurricane Irma started making her way here I took care of the Punta Gorda plan and sent lots of texts and made lots of calls to the roomies on how to prep the Lakeland house to survive the storm. By Saturday morning the two in Punta Gorda were fully shuttered and/or boarded and the Lakeland house was far enough inland to not be a concern. Then I heeded the call and got out of town. So… long story short… at the end of the storm every one of these homes ended up being within 30 miles or less of the eye of the hurricane and NONE had any damage at all. Oh wait, I forgot! There was one broken candle holder in my home in Punta Gorda that apparently was pushed off a window ledge at the height of the storm due to the window vibrating. Well, that’s what I think happened. Truly I can only guess because – duh! – I wasn’t there. 6 to 8 feet of projected storm surge pretty much guaranteed that.
#nope #evacuee #notcrazy #scenesfromarefuge
So I weathered the storm fine personally… without electricity from Sunday around 8am to Monday when I packed up and left to return home… but I’m pretty damned sure I never want to spend that many hours watching trees bend in positions that they were never designed to bend into. And the noise… lawd the noise. Every bang and bump had me saying “what the hell was that!” But finally late Sunday night it was over in south Florida… and then when I got back to Punta Gorda on Monday afternoon I found that everything there was completely unscathed. Nothing missing, nothing damaged, and the condo even had power. Of course I did find that my friend’s boat was definitely trying to jump the building… stern-heavy isn’t a good thing in a hurricane, make a note… but from the condition of the freezer the power at the condo wasn’t even out long… the ice cream didn’t even thaw FFS!
Stupid Boat Tricks FTW!
And as for my home in Lakeland… wow. The pictures are amazing. There are so very many trees down all over the historic district and Lake Hollingsworth, including a great big one right across the street from my house and yet my beautiful oaks stood the worst of the storm and are still standing. I lost a few screen panels in the pool cage and an errant branch was thrown through one of them (thanks Irma – that’s pretty petty of you), and I currently have 3 panels of Privacy Fence that are laying down on the job, but there was no roof damage, no leaks, and my roomies did a fantastic job of keeping everything together… in their first hurricane, because they were already #Detroittough and now they too are #Floridastrong.
Wow.
So Lakeland took a surprise hit and Punta dodged a big bullet with storm surge that was less than half the projected amount and at the end of the day all is well. Honestly I hope I don’t have to live through 24 hours like that again. Evacuation was a good plan, especially when I was coming back through Naples on I-75 yesterday. TBH the semi laying on its side at the truckstop in Alligator Alley was pretty epic but the bigger story is that everything survived… and I’m so proud of our state and how we did it with humor and grace and generosity. An example, I found gas yesterday morning south of Miami at a Costco but I don’t have a card. The man in front of me in line not only let me use his Costco card but also tried to pay for my gas. Seriously. Because #Florida.
Because #home.
Weird, wild, wonderful Florida. The place I can’t quit. The place I love. The place that will always be home to my heart and soul. Even if it’s also the place that periodically tries to kill me. No, not kidding… when I got back to the condo I found a baby Rattlesnake coiled up at the gate. Apparently he needed shelter from the storm? I’m just hoping the rest of his siblings aren’t lurking around anywhere else… and BTW thanks Mr Fireman for conveniently showing up to take the shovel and relocate that displaced resident to his proper home. He’s apparently endangered. And his place on the list moved up when I found him here.
#Yikes
But in the end everything survived. Even the damned rattlesnake. But most especially all of the people I love and the places I call home. And now I too am back home. So everyone stay #Floridastrong… everything will be back to normal very soon. Or as normal as it ever gets down here. Meanwhile Boat Drinks for everyone! We’ve earned it!
Cheers!🍊🌴🍹
So it’s been a long week, there’s been some mishaps, but this morning I woke up and it’s Thursday.
The best Thursday ever.
Today, after all, is payday, I see the weekend peeking around the corner, and it’s a Holiday weekend, and and and…
So hi there best Thursday! I for one might be the happiest girl in the world to see you in the history of ever.
The. Happiest.
Yay!!!!!
Five months ago everything in my life started changing, and I didn’t even know it.
I started changing.
Five months ago I sent a resume to a company in Fort Myers that I’d never heard of. Four and a half months ago I came down to Punta Gorda for the first time. Continue reading
So yeah… lots of stuff going on kids… ALL. OF. THE. STUFF. Head is spinning from all of the changes that are happening really damned fast and if you follow me on Facebook then you already know the scoop. However, until I get some security updates done on this bloggity blog thing I won’t be talking about ALL. OF. THE. STUFF. on here for a while.
Remember the social and cyber stalking I dealt with a long time ago? Yeah… that’s a problem… again…
Ugh.
Here’s a toast to 52… it’s been a mix but I’m ending it smiling and that’s what counts. Thanks to everyone in my life for all of the love… I am blessed beyond measure for the gift of each of you. You’ve carried me through lots of change, lots of things I never expected, and so many things I didn’t see coming.
I may be blind… don’t tell the DMV 😉
But now it’s time for year 53… so c’mon kids… let’s do this… go big or go home!
JK you don’t really get to go home… well maybe that person in the back… not even sure why she’s here anyway… oh and Wellman… he’ll ghost if I don’t give him permission so I might as well say he can leave. The rest of you? Nope!
Get busy living or get busy dying… it’s a choice… I choose life. And today I am happy. Because I choose happy.
Now let’s get this party started!
for you shall surely get it… or something like that. And with that, all I can add is wow! Just wow… because really there just aren’t any other words that apply.
Seriously… Continue reading
whatever the hell that is anyway.
So yeah… I’m thinking about permanence these days… or the impermanence of permanence… or something like that. Because every time I read that something comes with a “lifetime guarantee” my first thought is “whose lifetime are we talking about here?” No really… that’s always what I think… not even kidding. Because if we’re talking my lifetime that’s a lot less time than I’d like to think it’s going to be… brutal reality is that I’m on the downhill side of the slope and if I can get another 30 decent years I’ll actually be damned lucky. But if we’re talking someone like, oh, I don’t know, maybe my son or my daughter? Well now we’re talking getting something of value. At 25 and 30 they’re going to get some serious value out of that whole “lifetime guarantee” stuff.
Damn it to hell.
Anyway, where was I? Oh right, cursing my age again… it happens pretty frequently these days… sorry… birthday Tourettes I guess. But yeah, I’m not even sure anyone believes that whole thing about “lifetime guarantee” anymore, nobody under the age of 40 anyway. Everything is disposable… and I mean everything.
Don’t believe me? When was the last time you saw a TV Repair Shop? Or any kind of small appliance repair shop of any kind for that matter? Yep… everything is disposable.
And that’s why I’m ruminating on that phrase… because I don’t believe anything is forever anymore. Life is teaching me that the hard way these days and I’m finally starting to get okay with it. Life moves in seasons and in phases… some days you like something like carrots and then suddenly you wake up one day and figure out that you don’t… and maybe you never did… maybe you just thought you did.
Maybe not.
So you move to another vegetable and you hope for the best, understanding that there’s lots of vegetables in the world and variety is a good thing to have in your life. But what if you ran out of vegetables…
What if?
Some of you… not naming any names or anything… might rejoice. Until you realize that you have just managed to limit your options for foods by more than half and now you’re going to be eating a pretty boring plate. That’s the thing with moving on… if you aren’t careful you eliminate options… take things off the table… but you also need to add things back in if you’re going to continue to learn and grow and develop. Options are good… they make us think and consider… they make us adapt… they make us flexible. Conversely removing options, eliminating them, reducing yourself to a very few of them makes your viewpoint limited, constricts your world, and puts you into a box that you can’t easily escape.
Not even if you gnaw your foot off or some such nonsense.
I’m seriously in the camp of nothing lasting forever and I still choose to see that as a good thing. Regardless of what that moron who built the Noah’s Ark Museum in Kentucky believes we are all evolving. Every day. And we’re changing… whether we know it or see it… and sometimes this means that what was meant to be a lifetime may not actually turn out to be that long. Or sometimes it means that we live multiple lifetimes in the space of one life… and we have to let things come and go… like the tide washing in and out… and allow ourselves to both mourn the losses and look forward to the arrivals… because if we’re doing this right then something new is always coming to replace the old.
Always.
And once you adjust your expectations, once you let go of what you think should happen and accept what is happening, then you can find the freedom to live this moment, the way it lands in front of you, with no guarantees or promises… because that’s life. Maybe it’s not what you wanted… but it really doesn’t care about what you want. Maybe you can hold onto it with a stranglehold and try to get a few more years from it. Maybe.
And maybe not. Because there’s no guarantee.
The House of Flying Monkeys... 