About love...

You know just the act of talking about things you love makes you happier. I am not basing this on any scientific fact, just on personal analysis and observation. Being the extreme over analyzer that I am, it might as well be fact.

So I am going to keep talking about my favorites, and things I love.

I recently got into crystal healing. Well, in the past year. It is so hippie, earth mother, goddess, witch baby YA YA and it is the best.

I had big loss in my life in 2013 then again in 2014, and I was in an extremely unhealthy relationship. The combination of all of those things was wreaking havoc on my soul. Something I used to be so proud of, what I like to call my "extreme feeling". I have been extreme feeling my way through life, but all the loss, and emotional manipulation forced me to minimize. I took those feelings and constantly told them they were invalid and not valuable and that they were just making things worse, so I put them in a box and shoved that box into the open wound that was my heart and stitched it up. Luckily I am a terrible seamstress, and with time, recognition, and reflection I realized I missed my extreme feelings. I missed the girl who could lie on a bed listening to music just FEELING, for hours. The end of the toxic relationship, and the addition of a helpful therapist, I began to open back up again. I started to welcome love and friendship and experiences. I listen to music again, I watch movies, and hangout with my friends. All things I did, but all of it was in black and white for years. Now I am back and I am in technicolor, baby!

In January I admitted something to my therapist, I have been drilling into my head for years that I am happy alone and will be content being single forever, but I am not happy and that is not what I want. It never really made much sense because I believe family and relationships are the "only true currency in this bankrupt world" (butchery of my favorite Almost Famous quote) it was incongruous that I thought I could lock all those desires away. I had a weird childhood. A parental role over my mom, a distant almost burdensome relationship with my dad (luckily we have fixed all that) so I have a very mixed idea of what love is. I never wanted to be weak like my mom, so I try to be strong. I never wanted to be needy like her. One parent was weak but loving, the other strong but distant...so here I am 34 and trying to blend those two, I want to be strong and loving. I am sure it can be done...but it is gonna be hard work. You know what else is hard work, having to convince yourself that you don't actually need that thing that you've needed your whole life. I am tired of fighting the internal struggle. I can be a strong woman and love someone, want someone, need someone. Those things are not mutually exclusive, and it has seriously taken me years to figure this out. So here I am, a big open ball of extreme feeling that just wants to be loved.

Well I went off on a bit of a tangent there, didn't I?!

Well in my quest back into the world of loving and feeling I stumbled onto crystals. I inherited several from my witch baby Aunt Cathy, so I thought I would check out their meanings, and man have I jumped on that bandwagon. I started with some simple stones and have have moved into a pretty vast collection.

This is a chakra balancing set. I am obsessed with the blue one, it is a Sodalite and represents the throat chakra...which is totally fitting because I am a Gemini and I am controlled by throat, neck, air. It helps with communication problems and heals the thyroid. 

I know all of this sounds a little like hocus pocus but honestly it helps me think about the mind and body and how it is connected to everything around us. My favorite right now, of course, is my rose quartz necklace. 

This is the love stone, naturally. I wear it with my beautiful Tiffany & Co key

The two together represent the unlocking of my heart...but you probably could have guessed that, because you're really great. I am going to the beach with a bunch of my girlfriends this weekend and I will bring my crystals. I will hand them out and we will stand in the shallow surf under the full moon and talk about what we love, what we are grateful for, and what we hope for the coming year. It is one of my favorite times of the year. It is so funny which friends will totally humor me and which ones think I'm a hippie nut. But they all love me and that's a start. 

xoxox

MY favorites!

When we were kids people always asked us what our favorite things are, or simply as kids we talked constantly about our favs. I made a new friendship recently and one of the things we were doing to get to know each other is talk about our favorite things. It is interesting how fluid favorite things can be, colors, songs, movies...all that can change. However, so many things are constant, the feeling I have when I stand in front of the ocean for the first time each new summer. The vastness of it all, the insignificance of the minutia in our lives. The terror of the unknown, and the trust we have with life and the universe to deliver us where we need to be. Now you may be thinking that is a lot to get from just looking at a body of water, but this is something that progresses every year of my life! I was in Mexico and stood in front of the caribbean sea, and it is the most beautiful ocean arguably in the world, but that is not my favorite. Next week I will be in Litchfield staring at the brown cold Atlantic ocean, and that is my favorite. It is the sea I grew up with, the strong pull and influence in my life. When I go to the west coast the pull of the ocean just feels wrong, backwards. I am an east coast girl, for life!

I have 3 new favorties and wanted to share them here:

1. TV Show: ROADIES!!!
If you don't have showtime, go on Amazon Prime and buy the season pass to this show. I was an Almost Famous ADDICT! I watched that movie constantly and lived and breathed the soundtrack. This show is that kind of Cameron Crowe writing, great music, the tour bus, but in the best way possible, because it is the story of the stage crew. The people that make every show possible. As a technical theatre person, who spent the past 22 years of her life being the crew, managing the crew, and directing the crew, this show speaks to my soul. One summer I was hired a couple of times to help tear down concert stages in Charlotte, it was the most fun. One of the crew members for Kid Rock saw me carrying some heavy rigging and said that he wasn't used to seeing girls do the work, usually they wee just hanging around trying to meet the band...and without stopping I looked at him and said "I'm not that kind of girl".

2: Jewelry: Mango Women's Rigid Bracelet Set 
Just ordered these from Amazon. I have an Amazon problem. I also have a shopping problem. I actually said that I am not allowed to buy any clothes in July. So good so far...bc apparently I just buy jewelry instead. I love a bangle though and this set is stretchy, but doesn't pinch. I am going to wear them tonight to see American Idiot at Trustus Theatre for the 2nd time bc this is a 2 time show...for sure. Anyway, check out these bracelets in the link above! I am not being paid for this, just sharing!

3: Soma Sustainable Carafe because WATER!!
I also have a water problem, well it probably isn't a problem bc you are suppose to drink a lot of water. I am obsessed with water. I have a large brita that I keep out because normally I just drink room temp water, but it is the summer...in South Carolina and I live in a tiny old house that heats up like a dry sauna. In the afternoons it is usual for my house to be 80 degrees which is better than outside but when you work from home, it is distracting! So when I saw the Soma I got excited bc it would fit in my fridge and not take up a lot of room, which is another issue. I have a really weird fridge, older model that was not designed well, spatially. Anywho, this filter fits, and keeps my water super cold and refreshing. I have used it for 2 days and am in LOVE! The water tastes better than the brita too. Drink two of these a day and you are well passed what you need on a daily basis!

Ok that's all for now, although I also rewatched the movie SNATCH recently and you should too, Guy Ritchie doing what Guy Ritchie does best...also Brad Pitt "Do you like DEGS?"

Also the song "Needed Me" by Rhianna..."Didn't they tell you I was a savage" yesssss!

xoxoxo