build your beautiful self

I have been in a state of silent reflection and observation for the month since my birthday passed.  I mentioned I would write about my 40th year and transition into my 41st, and I am sorry, I didn’t. I am always here, I am always available, I am always looking for great conversations with wonderful people from all walks of life and age ranges.

I couldn’t bring myself to write about the last year until now.

As I type, my hometown of Minneapolis is under a state of marshall law basically. It has been on fire for days. Love is spread during the day and chaos and fire burn the buildings at night.

I watch videos that my friends are posting showcasing the devastation of my home world on fire and what it looks like burnt down to the ground until rubble remains.

This whole collective trauma couldn’t have come at a worse time. It came a time when the world was suffering and completely fear stricken. Livelihoods lost in an instant with no control over it, devastates families living on the brink. Being locked in for months. Nature was even closed down in most states.

My 40th year of life was wonderful and awful. I was able to spend time with my loved ones on my birthday in my hometown. I learned so many new things, met so many great people, worked through my mental bullshit and came out clearer then I had felt in years. Life was really starting to shine it’s light back into my life after years of the dark.  The economy was booming however and home prices were through the roof. Our business efforts were starting to gain traction and we had our plates spinning in the correct direction and in unison finally.

On the other side of the pendulum, My 40th year offered pain and heartache, suffering and confusion. January was great! We went through a month of achieving our goals and living a disciplined lifestyle. Then February, sickness struck my family. I was down for the count for days. I had fever, chills, muscle aches, couching, stuffy runny nose. My Steve got it next and he lost his sense of taste and smell and was sick for weeks. My little Hailey got it after that for a day and it was scary. She basically collapsed trying to go to bed. It was awful. We also had heated arguments all over the place with regard to political issues. There was so much negativity in the air.

March. March was a total ruthless bitch. We were notified that there was a virus that was spreading fast and killing almost everyone it came in contact with. We were condemned to our homes to lock ourselves in and try to not get sick ourselves or get others sick. The masses went and cleared shelves in the stores that sold living essentials. It was mass hysteria. We are still limited on toilet paper and my grocer hasn’t has a drop of normal flour since. Literally not one ounce of unbleached flour. I have to drive 20 miles to a local market to find flour that they bought in bulk and packaged themselves to sell. We have people on every single front arguing their points to one another. We have had to wait in lines forever long just to buy groceries and normal living products. We could only order takeout or delivery if you wanted to eat out so we opted to cook at home. We don’t want to pay for ‘going out” while our food we cook at home tastes the same or better then what we get.

My father passed away suddenly toward the end of March and I was left with my head and heart spinning. I am so sad for my loss and I loved my father so much. I had to travel back home in a corona ridden, freshly released disease state. We wore medical grade masks, we brought bleach wipes on the plane and wiped every inch of the seats we were sitting in and hand sanitized our hands until they were so raw it was painful. We couldn’t have more then 10 people at the funeral, he was shorted on his 21 gun salute and funeral service with celebration of life afterward.

Mourning the loss of my father and having to live in this new reality was very difficult. I worried about the remaining members of my family. Feeling the effects of not being able to go outside and enjoy nature or have any business open for entertainment at all was torture. Then my hours were cut and in an instant 1/4 of my income was cut. Steve also had hour cuts. We were living at the edge of our survival levels of income once again.

April, the birthday month. I spent my 41st birthday by the ocean eating takeout wings in our car. As awesome as that sounds, we were eating in the car because we couldn’t go out to eat traditionally and we couldn’t go sit out by the water on the cliffs because there was only exercising allowed. No sitting or stopping and police guarded the parking lots. The month came and went. All the business deals we were working on stopped. Forbearances were delivered as options to homeowners who couldn’t work and checks for 1200 bucks were handed out to everyone that filed a tax return. People were living better on government subsidies then they were in their day to day life.

The roads are bare, I can get anywhere in record time because there is only essential travel allowed. It was eerie. The entire world is filled with fear. In the month of April I start to grow weary of staying indoors and not even being able to walk a trail or sit by the ocean. I grow tired of going to work and coming home with nothing left to do. Nothing to experience. I turn on social media and all I see is the fight for and against wearing  a mask, how the governmental leaders are pieces of shit or heros depending on who you talk to and the negative drowns out any positive.

Fast forward to this month. May. I get offered a position with the company I consulted for. I am making more money and have the ability to finally work from home at a job. I can’t tell the one person I love to tell things like this to. (My Dad) It saddens me. I found a personal development group that triggers my interest and am now working through a course to remove emotional triggers and get back to living. Since signing up there have been shifts mentally for sure and how I now look at scenarios. The state is opening up beaches for exercise (people walking or running for miles and not one person sitting. If you sit, cops come up on their motorized vehicles and tell you to move or you get a ticket. They started opening up our restaurants again for dining in with regulations in place. Tables 6ft apart from one another, 50% occupancy capacity, you must wear a mask when you come and leave from your table, only open until 8pm, etc. Going out and having a drink for the first time in months made us both so happy.

We had also been able to save more money by not being able to go out, we got our stimulus checks and had promise in our hearts and souls, finally, again.

Now today. Today, the second to last day of the month and my hometown has been on fire for days over the event that caused the rubber band of tension to finally break. People looting store. Hate groups coming out and precipitating the hate and violence.

The mayor is ghosting the community looking for support, protection, and answers. Cops scared, once again, for their lives just going to work. There is such unrest. A community of people are suffering because of the collective suffering. I believe this event was the straw that broke the proverbial camel’s back. People starving, worried, scared, anxious, insert any fear word here, are lashing back. Taking advantage of the chaos.

My friends who are of color, fear for their families and themselves. It is a disgraceful time in our history. Imagine what they will write about this.

Pandemic/cop killing/riots for days that spread across the nation… our own internal terror acts. I don’t even know how to describe it. I am heartbroken for my friends and family and business people who are suffering, who are fearful, who feel lost. I am not in my hometown, but I can still feel the collective pain. There aren’t words to describe this time. It is utter horror, utter chaos. It is anarchy.

Nature is resetting. People’s minds are trying to reset. Someone once told me that life is a pendulum. It swings from the extreme positive to the same extreme negative. Eventually stops in the middle. Neutral. Calm. The pendulum has certainly been swinging fiercely from one end to the other for about 10 years. Maybe even more.

I am sending love and thoughts of peace and healing to all my loved ones and ones who I don’t know. I pray for peace in this life. I don’t want my children and your children to grow up in a world filled with so much hate and anxiety. I am grateful my father didn’t have to see what we have come to as a species.

Pray for Minneapolis. Pray for Mr. Floyd’s family. May they find peace in their time of mourning. May our species as a whole get back to neutral and enjoy life again.