by Sarah | Jul 23, 2019 | 50 before 50, All About Me, All of Us, Blogging Life, Bucket List, Oola, Personal, Redefining Perfect
Well, it’s pretty well known that my main goal that went on the Oola bus was to move to Florida.
And, here we are!!
It’s been a crazy two years, since I found Oola, and a crazier year since I got to put my dream on the bus!
At times I never thought I’d make it here.
At others, I remained steadfast and certain it would happen.
Now, as the chaos dies down and we settle into a bit of normality – something has been nudging me.
A new goal.
A somehow much scarier one.
One that I’ve denied for much longer than I care to admit.
A dream that I’ve talked myself out of any, and every time it has popped into my head.
I deemed it a passing fancy.
Something I was never strong enough to do.
I don’t have the constitution for it.
The persistent nudging hasn’t stopped, so I cautiously stepped out and told my husband.
Then my BFF, and my mother.
Yet I kept it close to the vest.
I told myself it was because this one was for me.
But really, in the end, I recognized it for what it was – Fear.
Ooh, that Oola Blocker of blockers.
Fear of what?
Being ridiculed. Failing. Being told I could never do it.
Once I recognized this, I knew it was time to say it.
So here it goes.
My crazy, new goal…
I’m going to school to become a nurse.
It’s in many ways so much scarier than moving across country.
But it feels right.
by Sarah | Jul 18, 2019 | All About Me, All of Us, Personal, Redefining Perfect, Story of Me
The past couple of years I’ve made huge leaps in discovering who I am, who I want to be, how I want to live.
I want to be me.
Unapologetically ME.
It’s not always easy, though.
Old fears, traumas, habits, and soul blocks are everywhere.
I make a decision for a new Oola goal – and I hide it. I claim I’m keeping it to myself because it’s just for me…but it’s fear. Fear of being mocked. Being told I can’t do it, that I’m “not strong enough” (something I heard about surviving auditions on Broadway…yet years later I became a writer and handled plenty of rejection).
It’s been so easy to slide back into a hermit life during/after the move.
SO much happened. SO much stress. SO much turmoil.
Say bye bye world, hello couch.
I’m trying to push beyond it. To work past those blocks, comforts, and habits.
My word for 2019 is REDEFINING.
I’ve had so much happen into 2019, I can’t help but embody that word in so many ways.
Yet, that old song is easy to sing. To use as a shield. To smile and pretend I’m okay waving the rose in the back of the corps.
I said I was going to stop hiding my true self.
I’m working on it.
I promise.
*~*
(Also, that Oola goal announcement is coming soon…promise. Fitting it into my post schedule. 😀 No more fear)
by Sarah | Jul 1, 2019 | All About Me, All of Us, Blogging Life, Pagan Me Happy, Personal, Redefining Perfect
Once a month I’ll be posting a new Spirit Animal. This is both for me to study and learn, but also to help inspire each month.
This month the animal made itself known to me within moments of moving into our new home, because they are everywhere around it.
The Butterfly.
Sure, it’s Florida. Butterflies are far more common, blah blah blah…but I mean everywhere around my house (which has no yard to speak of due to sandy soil and lots of shade, and some poison ivy)…but there is a bunch of undergrowth creeping in from the tree lines and the butterflies flock to them and dance along.
Then, as if to seal the deal, this happened—>>
That’s a red-spotted purple that was hanging out in my driveway. I held out my hand and it climbed on! Stayed there for probably ten minutes before it fluttered away! I mean, so cool.
Anyhoo…onto the meaning.
Which, I think is fairly obvious to anyone and everyone.
The Butterfly is about transformation – metamorphosis.
Freshly planting ourselves in a new home in a new state is a huge transformation. I’ve also recently come to a big decision about my future that feels like what is supposed to happen, though the transition itself will be hard work and exhausting.
Butterflies are also about a connection to the anscestors. They’re a totem for those who are in tune with the ancestors…which honestly I feel like I’ve been struggling with since I got here.
Our transition was NOT easy, it was not all sunshine and happiness, and the deep spiritual connection I feel I’d been working to forge before I got the job down here feels rather distant and disconnected. I’m working on learning how to establish a routine working on night shift and still including all that I need to with family, home, and spirit.
In other words, though we are in Florida, in this lovely new home, and in my new job…I feel like at this point we are the mass of goo inside the cocoon. We haven’t grown our wings, we haven’t flown yet…but I feel like it’s there. Though right now it feels like we keep saying “If this happens, then we…”
We are taking steps, though. We went to the beach. We’re going to Disney Springs. We have treated for the disgusting bugs. Hubby is putting out applications and has at least one interview set up. Things are happening to set up that final burst of transformation.
The most important lesson the butterfly has for me this month is that transformation isn’t easy. It hurts. It’s work. In the end, though? It’s totally worth it.Â
Life is beautiful on the other side.
We’re seeing glimpses of it.
Life begins at the end of your comfort zone – and that’s where we are. It’s time to transform.
What animal is speaking to you this month? Do they have lessons for you? Â
by Sarah | May 13, 2019 | All About Me, All of Us, Blogging Life, Pagan Me Happy, Personal, Redefining Perfect
Once a month I’ll be posting a new Spirit Animal. This is both for me to study and learn, but also to help inspire each month.
This month the animal made itself known to me in a way that should seem obvious to have happen, but it was truly a first for me. During meditation at the beginning of April I had an experience that I wasn’t expecting. Often during meditation not much happens except a sense of chilling out, stillness.
This time, though, several images appeared as silhouettes in my vision…and they were all of my recent spirit animals. First, the lumbering form of the alligator, followed by the skunk, and the graceful giraffe…then out of nowhere flitted a bat, so clear and strong I knew not to ignore him.
Given that I’m not currently writing this from Florida…the immediate message might have been obviously clear, but I didn’t research him right away so I had no way of knowing what was about to occur and why he’d made himself so obvious so early in the month, when I hadn’t yet even posted about the giraffe.
Today his first and most pronounced meaning is blatantly obviously clear:
When the bat flies in as your spirit animal, he signifies a time of great changes.
Uh…well..I would say DUH, but that would be rude…so…yeah, he totally and completely did.
Maybe I shouldn’t have stopped there in my research, because I’m often digging deep into the meaning of the animals that approach me.
This time his appearance is so utterly clear and in my face, I saw no point in looking deeper. Sometimes, just like us, those spirits are BLUNT. lol.
What animal is speaking to you this month? Do they have lessons for you? Â
by Sarah | May 10, 2019 | All About Family, All About Me, All of Us, Blogging Life, Friday Feels, Personal, Pour Your Heart Out, Redefining Perfect
One of the biggest struggles I’ve faced in recent weeks with us moving is my dad being ill.
To be fair, it was his encouragement to not wait that helped us move up our original timeline, but still…
Add to that the fact that my mother and I had made steps to heal our fractured relationship, and it’s been a tug-of-war on my heart.
Then one day the call I’d dreaded came, or so I thought.
My mom called from the hospital.
My head and heart spun with the possibilities of what on earth could have happened to dad…
But it wasn’t him.
It was HER.
The “healthy” one of the two. She has some ailments, to be sure…but my dad is the one that’s truly ailing.
So when your healthy parent goes in to the ER with chest pains, and has to follow it up with a heart cath.
Everything goes upside on you.
Then you have two parents to take care of.
The “healthy” one isn’t as healthy as you thought.
Who do you check on first? Who do you keep an eye on, and who watches who?
One’s issues are expected, almost commonplace now – but now new panic and worries arise.
And you have to struggle with how to deal with all of that – especially with a parent that doesn’t like to be a bother.
Than, you get the call that you have a job and you’re moving in a month.
While I know they’ve got plenty of help here what with my brother and aunt living close by…it’s still rough to have gotten this job and be moving so quickly after this sort of chaos.
In so many ways I’m still struggling to make sense of my dad’s illness – and I’ve known about it for almost 15 years.
It’s hard to think that I’ll be so far away. That I’ll need to keep an emergency flight fund on hand at all times…and now not just for him, but for mom too because we still don’t know what happened or why she ended up in the ER (the heart cath came up clean, thank goodness).
It’s put a damper on our course.
It’s added anxiety to a relationship that was just starting to mend.
I feel a strong sense of guilt leaving…even though I know this is the right path for us.
I suppose now, more than ever, I’m feeling what my mom felt almost 30 years ago when she had to pack up her family and leave Buffalo to move out here to Hickville.
I knew I was leaving one sick parent…now I worry about them both.
I always thought Mom could survive on pure stubbornness alone.
Apparently not even she’s that good.
by Sarah | May 6, 2019 | All About Me, All of Us, Blogging Life, Oola, Personal, Redefining Perfect
I’ve had a few different jobs in my life, as many of us have.
I’ve been in food service as a waitress, a host, a barista, a cafe manager. I worked in retail at several different places from a clothing store to a dollar store. I was in banking on and off for 20 years. I hated banking. With a white hot passion hated it.
In 2017 I dared to quit my job without something to back it up (Very un-oola, but I didn’t know oola yet) and left the banking industry determined to never go back to it.
It wasn’t easy, but thanks to a few good turns of events, a good friend, and a little sprinkle of luck I landed a new job in a completely new-to-me field.
Health Care.
I swear I mean it when I say I had NO idea what I was getting into. I knew I’d be working in the ER, but how much would I have to see? I have a very poor/weak constitution when it comes to things like blood and guts. I’ve never worked in health care, and while I have special needs children, my medical knowledge was pretty much…next to nothing.
I never dreamed how much this job would change me, my life, my goals. How it would inspire me to hope to return to school. How I would feel I found the place I belonged.
Over the past year and a half many things have changed, and some things at my job have changed, too, to the point where my job was just flat out not the same…but I still loved the people I worked with and the company I worked for and my managers and the doctors, nurses, and the many varied stories. My tasks were always the same, but every single day was so different.
Having to turn in my notice here was the true definition of bittersweet. It gave me great joy knowing that I was pursuing my dream and preparing to move, but I have never struggled so much to leave a job. My last day led to some great laughter, great hugs, and great tears.
This place took a chance on me, a woman with absolutely no experience in the field, and gave me some real goals for my future. They turned out a person that loves the field of healthcare administration and cannot wait for the opportunity to learn more and do more.
I have been saying for a while now that I’ve found what I love to do and where I love to do it, it was just in the wrong state. I’m hoping that my next position furthers this belief and brings me as much joy as this job did.
I will miss my doctors, my nurses, my hospital.
Leaving a job has never been so hard.
Only the draw of the future I’m meant to find could have ever made me leave.
Now, as the chaos dies down and we settle into a bit of normality – something has been nudging me.
