COMING BACK, AGAIN, AND AGAIN, AND.. AGAIN!

My blogs have been few and far between, and I feel it. I  have many ways of expressing myself but writing has taken a back seat to design, to other types of stimuli. I'm such a passionate thing, I want to touch on all things that I am passionate about yet, time only allows so much. I do manage to get quite a bit in, but usually feel and taste the need for one thing or the other that is out of balance.
I know for me that too much stimuli, whether it be doing daily chores, or working around the clock, or trying to catch a movie early evening, walking the dogs, cooking, creating, trying to stay afloat as a business person, can leave anyone feeling a little left out of an inner balance.
I will be the first one to say to all of my clients, "Balance is the key". I start there with diet and exercise, and then they can do with the rest as they will. It really does apply to every situation. We all know what works and what doesn't for us. We just have to be adults and step up to the plate and take a stance on what that equals, how it looks and just do it. Sometimes it takes banging your head into a wall, or doing things so repetitively that you look at your life and say..........." Uh, NO!" Just can't do that anymore. And then there it is, the gumption that you thought you didn't have is right there, because you tired your own self, of your own doings. How great. No one had to tell you, or maybe people do but it took YOU feeling so sick and tired of the same ol' habits.
It's nothing to feel heavy over, I think. It's just an objective view of your life, how you run it and how no one or anything can be to blame if you are feeling low, or tired, or done with it all. We have us, ourselves, to talk with, to check things out, to place the cards where they may, to feel good or not good, find out what it takes and then lovingly and compassionately, move forward in new directions that will suit you more that what does now.
We have to be our own director. Unfortunately, that can get tiresome, but then we fall short, get lazy and then no longer do we feel the power to take the reigns. All of a sudden it is up to "someone" else or "something" else to make it all happen for us. No longer to feel empowered in our lives.
We want a drug, or someone to ease all of our discomforts. It gets to be too, too much and yes, we all need a helping hand, and I think that will always be there. I believe in a higher power that will always have our backs. I truly do, if we do the best to take responsibility for our beings in the highest of ways.
Everyday, I have to check in with myself, quietly, objectively, to see what's happening, how I am feeling and why. Do I like it? No! It's a pain in the ass actually, but I'll be damned if I am going to wait for some outside source to fill me in on ME. I'm not opposed to it. I love therapy, but I also love knowing who I am, why I choose the things and situations that I do, and try, with all of my heart, to act accordingly.
It does mean, coming back to myself, time and time again. I think that looks different to everyone. We all have our list of things, of priorities for ourselves, our goals, our desires and how it all feels and looks in a world that is so fleeting. When I say fleeting, I truly mean that with every morsel of my being.
I'm nearing 50. I realize it is a number but I also realize that things are changing. I have no want or desire to be someone. I embrace my passions, quietly, and share with a few, but I wake up everyday with the same anxieties that everyone does, the same fears, the same regrets, the grief of lost ones, or past mistakes............ all of it. I choose to heal myself in my private ways. I choose to heal through meditation and prayer, through silence.
Not everyone is the same.
It takes COMING BACK, AGAIN, AND AGAIN, AND AGAIN, to that place that only you know feels right. The place that tells you, in your own time, what is needed, what is not needed, and how you can go about it.
I don't believe that any one  person can give you the answer. I believe that there is a world of teachers out there who, if you listen close enough, are telling you exactly what you need to hear, and they are right there in front of your face, and it doesn't have to be this psychological essay, or drama, or some long drawn out thing. It could be as simple as one sentence that sets us straight, and then it is up to us to act. Only we know what we need to do to act.
It kind of reminds me of doing inventory at the end of the night at a restaurant I worked in. I hated doing the foot work. As a matter of fact, I loathed it!!! Ask anyone! But if I can say so myself, doing that inventory every night gave me a really good picture of what things really looked like and what I had to do the next day to fix it, or make it right.
We have to have some guide line of the structure that we "think" we have. It will always, always change, and that is what I am noticing. Change is constantly happening and I cannot change CHANGE! If I fight it, then there I go, being the salmon who is swimming upstream, taking all of the blows from the water, but if it just relaxed in the water and let the waves take it, it would find it's natural home and safety.
I'm so grateful for the private teachings I receive from nature, from my animals, and from the people in my life who show me what it is that I want and what it is that I don't.
I  continue to bathe in gratitude for my learning, for being able to stay as open in this life when most of my life has shown me that I "should be a closed, closed soul".
Life is not easy, and it does hurt. If we are at all connected to something other than ourselves, we will feel the emotional roller coaster of pain, of sorrow, of abandon, of love, of crying and laughing. It's just part of the whole journey. It's all embracing.
I can't fool myself into thinking that if I have a good attitude that things will disappear. I know that if I keep the faith and a positive outlook and I make my meditation a priority than I will be given all of the same situations, the same losses, the same loves, the same sum of life, but.......... I will have my foundation resting in a place that does not feel one way or the other. The foundation allows me to be a bystander in my own life, to take in all of the facts, feel them like any human would but to take it to another place that I hand it over to, a  place of sheer trust, a  place that says" I am not in control here". A godly place, if you will, that only I know, is a place of total trust. It takes the weight off of me doing any kind of specific work and allows me more opportunity to trust in a process so much greater than my everyday thinking.
THIS IS WHAT I WANT AND NEED TO NURTURE. This is a belief of mine. I share not to say that THIS is the way, but a way that has continuously worked for me, has humbled me in the greatest times of despair and has kept me low key, not wanting, not needing, but just being.
I thank every situation in my life that is teaching me to stay humble and grateful and optimistic about changing the ways of thinking in our society.
If I can do the work myself, it will be a big fat game of domino's. I'm not looking to change anyone or say my way is the way.I just think we ALL are making life way more complicated than what it is.
Go on....... go outside........... chill...............put the list down. Relax in your being and forget about the should's, where you think you need to be, or what you need to have.
Life is happening and it's happening fast.
Seize this moment.
I am.
~

Back in the Swing 'a things........

It's been awhile and boy, has my life taken lots of twists and turns. I've not written my blog in some time. I journal quite often, but my blog that I love so much has gone dormant due to life changes, trying to stay afloat with change, and trying to keep self motivated so I am not beholden to any crazy structure in a building that makes me feel more dead than walking the grounds of a cemetery. Truly, it has been nuts.
I will be writing again and more consistently but wanted to break ground and let you all know I am still here and will be sharing the events of my life, and all that goes along with that. Life is golden and no matter what shows up, I always have the opportunity to jump on the positive wagon and CREATE my life, not succumb to what should be or what I think HAS to be.
There's always the chance to change and to see what is good for me in a very balanced way. That, to me, is hard core work, and especially to apply it in a very conscious way. WOW!
No matter how old I am....... I'll be doing this work.
It ignites me, and also, puts me to the test.
I miss you all and thank you for being a part of my life.
~

LOST FOR WORDS

.... But then again, I always seem to find them if I find myself on this page.
It is usually like that. I feel so full, so ready to empty my soul of whatever lurks in there...... no matter what it looks like, and tonight, so much is there. I don't know how to name it, nor do I want to, I just know there is something there and it needs to surface in one way or the other.
I have not been logging things on a regular basis. I just decided that when the moment strikes, write! After all, the thing that I love the most about writing is that there is no rhyme or reason, you just write what you want, when you want, and there isn't any right or wrong about it. No one can tell me that what I wrote was wrong, because it is my own individual experience and I share it with no response required.
My time here, alone, and sharing it with individuals who I meet up with have been nothing other than exquisite. Even if it has been a situation where it hasn't seemed "perfect", although we all know there is no situation that is "perfect", I have managed to see things in a better way. A way that will turn the seemingly chaotic and dysfunctional to a lesson and a way to get me to kneel to my funny bone, to see the absurdity of a situation, and to move on with a lightness that makes for a much better road to walk on, rather than an uncertain cobblestone road that we think we can't tread upon.
My life teaches me so much! I do get to see my life in an objective way most times, and sometimes not, and then I love to hear my friend tell me how she sees things and I laugh, and say, "Reallllllllllyyy?"
I always take in certain peoples opinions of how they see things. My friends that have known me forever. It's not to say that everything they see is right on, because often, my ways are taken for a "gabriela thing".
Not so.
I'm pretty straight up.
I like this, I don't like that, and let me try to be fluid in the meantime.
I'm stubborn yes, I like things a certain way, but will never be so stuck as to not budge,  ya know?
It's taken me years upon years to come to the place I am now.
I don't want to compromise who I am for anyone or thing.
If I do, I begin to die a slow death.
I want to live a certain lifestyle that I think is worthwhile. It may not be that way for everyone.
That doesn't mean my way is the way. I just see things a certain way for me, just me. That doesn't mean that I think everyone should live that way. That is just for my little evolution here.
I  have lived a life from how my mom thought I should live it because she is a mother who has certain values. I always respected them. I have not always agreed with them. We always agreed to disagree, but when it came to seeing things from a Mother's perspective I had to give way. I  have never been a mother, at least never having a child. I feel like a mother in every other aspect of my life, leave a child behind.
Come time for me to make my own decisions, I retreated to nature, to animals, to writing.
This is still the place I find myself complete.
When I was 4 I retreated to the woods with my notebook. I stared at the trees, the beautiful autumn leaves, and the dirt that I rode upon with my little Honda 50 motorcycle..... riding to find a comfortable spot outside of the norm....at 4 and 5. I kid you not.
I knew something then. Life spoke to me in big ways and I didn't know what to do with it. All I knew was that I needed to cultivate it. Back then it was more like, " I gotta get back on my mini bike and into the woods.......that was cool as shit!!!"
It wasn't like I literally thought I was on to some spiritual revelation, but I tell you now, I knew, without a shadow of a doubt, that something inside of me was extraordinary and it was going to be a mission of sorts, for me to discover what this "thing" was. I didn't feel special, but I certainly felt different in my alone way. I considered it sacred beyond belief!!!
Early on, I separated myself from the "norm" and was on a self discovery path that I wasn't quite privy to, in a literal sense, but inwardly knew exactly what I was doing with a great sense of purpose.
That certainly wasn't to say that what my peers were doing was wrong. I just felt like a huge observer and laughed quite often at how we, as humans, acted so robotically. It truly wigged me out to see these things early on, and too, to go ahead, with small steps to discover myself within the "norm" and then to step out of the norm. To experience the difference was mind blowing to me and wound up being a sort of quest for me as a young child and adult. I was captivated by life, human nature, and especially the workings of the mind and how it related to me and the world around me.

I hear my brother saying, " It is a BLOG" and it should be one paragraph, and I look at that for a second, and then I say to myself, " Who the F...cares?" Who is to say that a blog equals this or that? Oh, it just goes on and on, with the should and shouldn'ts.

I have always been about who you are and what that looks like,  no matter how it "should" look like.
I embrace everyone and how they want to "show up" here. It's intricate guys. We are all here with crazy emotions, a past that more than likely decides half of our future, weather we like it or not, unless we take the bull by the horns and actually MOLD our next half of our lives.
ARE WE?

RISK MAY INVOLVE FAILURE.... BUT.....

.... IF YOU DON'T GO OUT ON A LIMB, HOW WILL YOU EVER KNOW?

Actually, I am not a firm believer in the word "Failure".
To me, you try something and if it doesn't work you just go to plan B. I guess you can deem it "failure", but that word always seems to have a negative connotation, and "failing" to me is not a negative, it is just a little punch in the arm that says, "hey, let's do this next time and see if this works", and onward you go to see if  plan B is going to make "IT" happen.
I remember years ago sitting in my jacuzzi sharing a conversation with someone after my Interior Design business went down, and I went from making 6 figures, having 2 BMW'S, building my own home, traveling the world buying, going and doing as I pleased, to scrambling to make my mortgage, and wondering how I was going to keep this all up. The person in the jacuzzi said to me, "Admit it, YOU HAVE FAILED!!! Go ahead, ADMIT THAT YOU FAILED!!!
It was a really wild moment in time for me. I thought, "WHOA, there is some serious gumption behind that statement", and.... interesting that I would have never looked at my situation as a "failure" but a learning experience and to try things differently the next time.

That statement stayed with me for years, and honestly, I felt bad for the person that said that to me, because I knew that they themselves were in the most frantic state, a non believer in making things happen, and someone who was so accustomed to the norm, which is a regular job, with benefits, and everything you can imagine that would make you "safe and sound" in the world.
It isn't a judgement, just an awareness how we are all different, and how one persons way can seem better than the other.
I say, "stick to what feels right in your heart and soul".
It doesn't feel right for me to stick to the status quo. Not because I am trying to be different, but because I always try to find alternate ways to do exactly what I want to do, to stay in love and in line with whatever that vehicle is, and to have fun along the way. It's stressful like anything else, to try to find out what we love and to stay true to it, especially if it doesn't look in line with what "needs" to happen, doesn't offer much "security" or anything on the list of what "looks good and right" in today's world or economy.
It IS a crap shoot, and I say I am not a gambler, but in this sense, I have to be. I always ask myself, "What is the worst case scenario?". What could possibly happen if you venture off to find out if you like this, or don't like that?"
I will never know unless I push the limits on my own belief systems. Lord knows whatever beliefs I have are for sure limited and old school. All OK, but not for me, for the most part.


I don't like to feel imprisoned by ideas!!
I find my way as if I am walking in the dark at night with a flashlight.
I peek around the corners hoping there is nothing lurking there, but nevertheless, I peek! I go, with the flashlight like a brave little soldier, hoping nothing bites me in the a.......sh tray!

We are all the same on this ride.
We are all afraid.
We are all wondering what lurks on the other side.
We all want solid, concrete answers.
We all want something that is tangible, but the truth is, there are no guarantees, not anywhere at any time.
So, how do we maneuver in the world knowing this as a total TRUTH?
Without hiding from ourselves, how do we move, stay at a peaceful calm, knowing all of life's realities, like it or not, and be OK, and to stay true to what we want and love, even if it is outside of what everyone else is doing?
Where is the balance?
I say, "Do what rings true first and foremost, and see where that takes you". Outside of any kind of ideas of what should or should not be, and see how you feel?
You will be surprised at what shows up for you.
You will probably have to separate your own feelings about how you think your life should be going in order to adhere to a higher Truth, but once you get the gist of how trust works, you will reap the benefits of an amazing consciousness.
No such word as FAILURE.
MOVE AHEAD in the direction you know in your heart will work for you, without any obstacles!!!
This way, I support 500%.
Remember, NEVER A FAILURE IN RISK. NEVER A FAILURE........PERIOD!!!
~

TRUE LOVE..AS I SEE IT!

I think we all go through life wondering what this THING IS called TRUE LOVE. In all of my years, since a child, there has been many forms of a true love, from my mother, to my grandmother, to my sister, to friends, and to close people in my life that have given to me without an expectation. So is that it? True love is giving without expectation? What does it all really mean?
I am proud to say that this month I will be 45. WOW!! Look at that "number", as it IS only a number.
I can say that there has been some pretty great "true loves" in my life. I do have to say though, that as I get older, that definition changes, and as I mature, I see that it is NOT about what we GET from someone, but accepting the whole of someone, and RECEIVING that whole, however that shows up, and practicing TRUE LOVE in being able to step away from the self, and to allow humanness, and altercation, and differences, and to be able to be vulnerable enough to take some punches when you don't feel like taking punches.
To be able to listen without interjection, and to be humble enough to let your stuff out, as if it is going to be hung out on a clothes line, not being sure if it will even be hung out to dry. You just know you are putting yourself out there, wet, hanging, and feeling a bit cold and hard.
You wonder if you will dry OK.

True love doesn't always show up as the "coming home with roses on the table" sort of thing, although, that is always lovely to me. Flowers are a sentiment, and dear to me. Maybe it is the old fashioned girl in me who likes to be courted and sent flowers just because. I'm that way, but then again, I am a mushy kinda girl! Who DOESN'T LOVE flowers?

I am learning that just because I am a softy, it doesn't mean that life or situations will always be soft and the way I like them. It isn't that I didn't know that, but when it comes to love, you kinda hope and wish that things will be this way and that way, and hell.............I am in love so it should show up like THIS. It just isn't that way, and it is not a bad thing. I think we all have our ideas of how that should show up, and the whole picture is set, because who doesn't want their perfect fantasy of love to come true?
But when love shows up at your door, and it doesn't show up when you want, and how you want, you start looking at the age old version of how" romantic love should look", and if it is not happening, you wonder, if you are stuck in a time warp and just have grandiose ideas, or that you are just not caught up with the times that encompass all of the daily stresses, the economy, the reality of time and space, and the humanness of where we are all at in our evolution, take that all into consideration, and find the TRUE LOVE within all those REAL LIFE situations and begin a new way of looking at how to love, without a fixed idea of how things should go or not go.
Love is so beautiful to me. Love, TRUE LOVE, does not equal the three times a week MUST that we should have the big O. I mean, seriously, let's get a grip!!! Half the time I hear people say, "Oh yeah, we have it at least 5 times a week", I'm thinkin' ... Oh, go right ahead.....have fun! Hope you had a conversation or two that week.
Oh god, I'm sorry. I am so crazy when it comes to all of this. Kind of like the, "Honey, why don't you wear lace anymore for me", statement. "Because, honey, the honeymoon DOES IN FACT END, and the fact of the matter is, I LOVE WEARING BOXER SHORTS OK?"
I want fun and spontaneity, love and compassion, to be listened to and to listen, to understand and to be understood as much as possible. I know that being understood is almost impossible as we are all eclectic human beings with a mysticism about us and we cannot all be understood, ever. I KNOW THIS. The human mind and soul can never be truly understood. And that is OK. It is that beautiful thing where you just sit back, as if at an art opening, and watch someone, without having to understand their ways, and revel in their eccentricity and not have to know all of the whys and how's but appreciate what is before you.
Maybe I am boiling this all down to TRUE LOVE IS....ALLOWING??
I don't know, I am on this ride like you are reading this.
I write as it flows through my soul.
It's the very thing I love about writing.
No one can tell me if it is right or wrong. It is here, inside of me, I listen, I write, and I allow it all to flow onto these blank pages.
I learn as I go.
So amazingly precious to me, honestly!!
Today, I feel like a baby learning how to love and how to be open, and to allow myself to be vulnerable again.
We all have been hurt before and I am not a believer in allowing our past to dictate our present moments, or future.
I think we have the ability to heal ourselves through prayer and meditation and the willingness to be open time and time again, because not one situation is the same.
I do not want to walk around like a suit of armor, fighting off anything that may seem of "harm" or of a danger to my heart.

I would never want to miss out on any beauty that life has to offer because I have been scorned in the past.
I think life is "scorning" in general, and so if I go by that reality, I will know to love that much more.
People are deserving of our presence. The here and now with them. Not the past that we dredge up, because we are afraid of being hurt again.
"In life honey, we get hurt, that is the reality of it", says my mother before she passed. "It's not a bad thing, it's just the reality of life"." We love, and we get hurt, but NEVER, EVER, STOP LOVING". I live by my mothers words. I listen so intently from a woman who has been hurt over and over again. She NEVER stopped loving ANYONE who had "hurt" her.

So, I never was interested in getting my PH.D, but if there were any subject that I would like to master over, it is that of LOVE.
I always want to be allowing, and loving, and present!!! I want to listen, and listen closely with no interruption.
I want my love to be my only love, and create something so different and bold that, to me, will shatter glass.
Allow people to see the beauty in a TRUE LOVE, that stretches beyond ideas, and beyond the norm.

There is a formula that I keep to myself, and when the moment presents itself, I want to unveil this phenomenon and see if not only myself, but the one who I invite in will cherish the 4th of July the rest of the 364 days that remain.
I giggle at my own revelations, and too, feel charmed by a life that makes me sick, and mad, and all at the same time, utterly grateful for my very existence here.
What a wild, wild ride. That fantastical magic carpet ride beckons me, every last second of my days.
I'll never veer from that ride, for it is the ride of a god damn lifetime!!
Thank you for all of my moments in this wondrous, wondrous life!
Before you know it, it will all be over and I do know for sure, that I would have been grateful!!!
Pissed some people off, but nevertheless, extremely grateful!!!
I love you, as you so well know.
Gabriela

FOOD AS TREATMENT... NOT A DRUG!

This subject is alarming, sad, understandable to a degree, and so complex, that it has driven me to stay up late nights with my night light on, reading and researching, writing my own hypothesis on what it all means.
I do personal training and nutritional consulting for a living.
I am not, by any means, a fad diet girl. Not one person gets the same diet. I mean why?? We are all different, have different body types, different age groups, male to female, oohhh god, I mean the list goes on. It makes me wince to hear of a "regular diet plan" for one person. I mean, in a big way!!! I want to say STOP IT! PLEASE, JUST STOP IT!!
Does anyone take into consideration, the history of an individual? Their particular circumstances, likes, dislikes, allergies, etc...?
I know that many people DO, DO THIS. But I have seen over the years by working with many professional naturopaths, Md's and practictioners, that they get lazy! They use a certain protocol and see that it works and then they use it on everyone, in hopes that it will do some sort of good, AND, make them money to cover the costs of the huge inventory they just bought to supply just a few of their clientele.
This, to me, is alarming, but real, and it happens all over, all of the time.
I want my clients to be able to relate to me, to what I have to share as not only food for the soul, but food for thought, to be able to learn what it is that I may know, and to take it with them, daily, to be able to go to the grocery store without me, to be able to learn how to choose foods, supplements, learn how to read labels, and to be able to discern right from wrong, for their particular bodies, and to feel good walking out, knowing that they will be eating good satisfying foods, that are tailored to their bodies, to their lifestyle and that it will undoubedly keep them on the mark so that when they show up for their regular exam, the doctor shouts out, "Holy Mackeral, WHAT HAVE YOU BEEN DOING?" You look amazing and your charts are off the rictor scale!!!
I don't need any kind of accolades, truly! The proof is in the pudding, and many of my clients can tell you,  the fact that they just listened, and didn't have any say in the equation, was no sweat off of their back, and was actually less stressful because they trusted me, and let me do my thing.
There is nothing I love more than a challenge, and boy, have I been challenged, but nothing is out of my reach or out of my control, yet, that would not let me prove my stance on how I partake in diving into someones body, and what it needs, when and how.

There are some simple structures that I have people adhere to, generally, but then it gets extremely specific.
It sounds so noble, so 2011 that one be Vegan or Vegetarian. OK, it is a fabulous start, but IS THIS FOR EVERYONE?
This is where the detective work comes in.
I DO BELIEVE THAT A DIET BASED IN WHOLE FOODS such as vegetables, fruits and legumes are great, but then add dairy, meat products, and eggs. This is where the line starts to get fragmented and we see that what may be good for the  Goose, may not be good for the Gander.
Mind you, this is just my own tiny philosophy.
I am still a student, learning and discovering, studying, researching and finding my own truths in this hip and oh so age old concept.
It's like someone who can sit for hours doing crossword puzzles. It takes a total concentration. But once you sit long enough you figure it out and see that x equals y and it fits like a glove.
OOOHHHHH, like the last line of a poem. Don't get me started now!!!

I do believe that wherever you are in your evolution, you can instill these basic beliefs so that they can bring you back to a sense of yourself, FOR YOURSELF, so that you do not have to rely on outside forces to help you stay healthy, and to overcome addictions or fears, or the whole list of things that come up for all of us that we all want to go to the nearest shelf and grab some pill that will make it all better.
THOSE THINGS WILL NEVER MAKE IT ALL BETTER!
I can tell you that from experience.
Coming back to a whole foods diet, practicing daily breathing, daily meditation, and regular excersise, is not just a fad or Hollywood way of looking to be fit and trim. It is the stuff that works.

Over the years I have formulated my own program of the how's and what's that work, and if we keep a regular regime of these things, it will constitute great behaviour, amazing gains in your spiritual evolution, and in your daily realm of stress or no stress.
It doesn't really take much, but a consistency of instilling one, to two, or three behaviors that will keep you aligned inside, and be able to deal with the muck out there.

Trim down the fatty foods. Google low fat or vegetarian recipes. Find out what workouts seem interesting to you and make a move. Share this with your kids and family.
Instead of grabbing the remote control, grab your kids hands and lead them to their bikes, and you get on yours. Go for a 30 minute ride and come back and grill some chicken and steam some vegetables.
There is transition with everything so start by having the willingness ok?
Anything further ask me. I can help.
If you are feeling a certain way, ask why?
Let's figure it out, instead of going to Doctor down the road who is just doing what he knows because he has been taught that.
Start taking responsibility for your health and take as much interest as you do in logging on to Facebook everyday. I am sure you will come up with some pretty solid answers.
I will continue to help and to guide us all along.
I promise you that!!

~

NUTHIN LAST FOR LONG.........

So, the Joni Mitchell song goes....... and so this blog goes out to a beautiful soul who was loved by many, who took her life and made the decision that it was her time to go in this lifetime.

From early on I have experienced a lot of suicide, unfortunately!

In the 8th grade my best friends father committed suicide by hanging himself in the house. I went through this experience with her and it completely traumatized she, her mother and her sister. They were to be "watched out for" in the following years. I stayed close and never, ever, could grasp the enormity of what they had gone through. My family stayed with them and I was always stunned, really, at the amount of positivity that they had embraced. Just the amount of bravery that had come with such trauma.

Theresa was my best friend. Her father was her idol. She was left with this to deal with for the rest of her life. Her mother was my mother's best friend. It was a wild, wild experience for me as a teen, and for my mother, as an adult, witnessing such trauma from someone she had loved so much.

I could write stories amongst stories, but to shorten things,  later on in life, as we all aged, and had moved on in our lives, I woke one morning to a phone call from my mother. She was reluctant to tell me the news she had.

My best friend for years and years, decided, later on on life, when everyone thought she was happy and had her first child, that she wanted to exit life in the same fashion that her Daddy decided to go. She hung herself in her garage.
It hit me so hard, like going full force into a brick wall.

The very thing that was so devastating to her as a child, she wound up doing to herself, and to her family.

I write this tonight, not only being reminded of Theresa, my dear beloved friend, who I spent so many gorgeous times with, happy and sad, but to a friend of my friend, who just recently took her life.

Many people have judgements on these individuals. I DO NOT!
I understand the complexities of the mind, how it can trip you up, and also, if you do not do what is necessary to nip things in the bud, how it will seem that life is unmanageable!
I almost feel as if my words are inadequate, for I really have no reference point in this area, to ever want to take my life with all of the chaos that has entered into my world.

I have purposefully put myself in that situation, as a visual, to be able to understand the extreme mindset of those individuals, and I can tell you honestly, I GET IT, but have always found refuge in my "God", or whatever it is that saves me daily, from a mindset that is so destructive.

I will not say, for myself, that this life is easy. I WILL NOT! But for some reason, with all of my frailties, and my misfortunes, I have found a greater sense of something. I don't even need to label it really. It's a blessing beyond my comprehension, that is all I know!

I  have been blessed with something that has worked in my favor.

This blog is for Angela. May she rest in a peace that is coming to her.

For some reason, she was in enough pain and wanted a way out. Bless her heart now and always.

Please do not judge these individuals who have made certain decisions.

It does not make them "bad  people, or souls".

Let it teach us about courage, about fear, and how we can overcome any obstacles, how faith is our best friend, and that in times of complete despair, we can reach out and cry for help, and you WILL GET IT!!

Please, although you do not know this soul, say a prayer for her, that she makes it to a comfort zone, somehow, wherever that may be, and that she will be loved, no matter what, and taken to the next level of her understanding here on this ever so gracious earth we live on.

May I never complain, or worry about the petty things that come my way.

I know in my heart of hearts, that I have been given the key to life, and to NOT adhere to those simple things will lead my mind to the same destruction.

It is up to me to participate in a healthy life that allows me to see my crap, to make a move in the direction of clearing it out, and to taking responsibility for what needs to happen next.

We live in a completely luxurious world.

Don't settle for the dark night of the soul!

There is so much more.

Sweet prayers for those who have chosen differently. I embrace you all and give you love like nobodies business.

I am an open vessel.

You are loved.

Goodnight.
Gabriela