I cannot believe it's January 12th right now. The last time I updated was August 30.
What a roller coaster ride.
I dreamt of being on a roller coaster last year three times that I can reflect on now as a more peaceful time in my life.
I chose to live in Louisville, Kentucky. I was supposed to move to Japan, I spent three weeks attempting to live in and near family in Omaha, and I left in the middle of the night to Louisville. That was a fucked up month. A fucked. Up. Month.
My first time coming to Louisville was in July. I came here for a week while my daughter and her father went to Omaha so she could visit my parents before we left for Japan. I fell in love with the miniature city right away. The people, the diversity, the art, and the southern spin on a modern culture all appealed to me.
I spent five amazing days here and left for Omaha to give my goodbyes to family and old friends.
The easiest way to sum up what happened mid-August Omaha is that I had a family matter that halted my trip to Japan, and staying in Omaha did not work out. (I could spit while typing right now.)
I think I moved here August 19th? 20th? Something like that. I spent a week trying to figure out what the fuck had just happened, and was like, "Fuck it. Time to look for an easy money job."
That's how I ended up at Howl at the Moon.
^ I started in September, this picture was taken in October. Notice the pink.
I had the money for a house October 12th. Ready for the best part?
I had nothing to put in it. My belongings made it to Japan, and I never did.
I can't even tell you how rough it has been. From October to December, all I did was work my ass off and freak out. I didn't want to go home. I hated looking around our empty fucking house and I pretty much hated myself for doing this to my daughter.
I just wanted to be drunk. And I HATED drinking.
I got Medusa tattooed on my back by my best friends boyfriend on Halloween.
Around Thanksgiving I was getting burnt out on the whole situation. Fighting between working my ass off between a bar and kicking off a non-profit, holding down a house that had nothing in it, not buying anything because I already own all of it- it's just on the other side of the god damn world, and the huge amount of guilt I was feeling as a mother.
I woke up, slapped my face, and was like, "Fuck this. We're painting."
I got sick of having everything hold me back. Well, to be more honest, having NOTHING to hold me back. I kept relying on my stuff to get here for normal life to resume, I was just in vacation mind frame in the meantime. When that way of thinking wasn't working out, I started to get my shit together.
By December, I was still partying and trying to get myself out of the routine all of the time. (But all of the people I know are so fun.
)
When the New Year came, I was so fucking exhausted of 2011 that I welcomed it with WIDE open arms. I didn't kiss anybody on New Years Eve, I exhaled.
It was so nuts, right when everything was twisted, tangled, and just about fucking hopeless- things started getting easier. I just had to admit to myself I was a wreck and I had to look around and give myself credit for what I had done. I came a LONG way in a SHORT period of time, and kept pushing myself to go harder and got pissed off when I couldn't. I was living fast because at the moment there was really no other choice. Go big or go home, and I have a daughter. No. Choice.
And just when I started to become comfortable in my tiny (shit hole) of a home, and I started to let myself relax and take things slow- I found out that my things will be shipped back on January 25.
I made it.
I won't see my shit for another month-month and a half from now- and I don't give a FUCK.
Because I did it by myself. I came like a thief in the night to Louisville, set up shop, and started rising up from $34 I had when I stepped out of my car in front of my friends house early in the morning.
Butterfly
One day a small opening appeared on a cocoon, a man sat and watched
the butterfly for several hours as it struggled to force it's body
through that little opening.
Then it seemed to stop making any progress. It appeared as if it had
gotten as far as it could and it could go no further. So the man
decided to help the butterfly, he took a pair of scissors and snipped
off the remaining bit of the cocoon. The butterfly then emerged
easily. But it had a swollen body and small, shriveled wings. The man
continued to watch the butterfly because he expected that, at any
moment, the wings would expand to be able to support the body, which
would contract in time.
Neither happened.
In fact, the butterfly spent the rest of it's life crawling around
with a swollen body and shriveled wings. It never was able to fly. What the man in his kindness and haste did not understand, was that
the restricting cocoon and the struggle required for the butterfly to
get through the opening, were God's way of forcing the fluid from the
body of the butterfly into it's wings so that it would be ready for
flight once it achieved it's freedom from the cocoon.
Sometimes struggles are exactly what we need in our life. If God
allowed us to go through our life without any obstacles, it would
cripple us. We would not be as strong as we could have been. We could
never fly.
