MICHELLEISMS

“A woman has many faces as she goes through her life. It’s like we need more than one hair-do. We have many, many changes in the evolution of our lives. We have, we learn, and we grow; we view life differently, and life views us differently.” ~  Sharon Stone

At any period in my life, I’ve been a daughter, sister, friend, girlfriend, wife, landlord, employee, super hero, arch nemesis….the list goes on and on. It’s changed and evolved throughout the years, but the fact remains that I am a constant work in progress. This year has been the most difficult since it has forced me to totally change my way of thinking. That old saying “think outside the box” has never rang so true! I’ve found myself realizing that some things don’t have to be so cut & dry and finally learned that 9am to 5pm are NOT mandatory work hours. Yes world…I’ve evolved into this person who views the world through brand new eyes and have no one to answer to but myself. It’s both liberating and terrifying at the same time but having been through dayum near any awful experience you can think of and making it through, I feel invincible!

“Life is a process of becoming, a combination of states we have to go through. Where people fail is that they wish to elect a state and remain in it. This is a kind of death.” ~ Anais Nin

I think the old me is gone. Dead. Never to be seen again. I’ve been looking for her but she has totally disappeared! I coulda swore she was here just yesterday, but I think it must have been an impostor.  I had lunch with an old co-worker the other day, who talked about how proud he was of some of the things I was doing. We talked at length about the old days and he shared some recent tales of what’s been going on at the office. He asked about some of my friends and I told him how everyone is either married or boo’d up and how I’m mostly traveling in different circles these days. I made a joke about me being locked down soon and moving back to the suburbs and he was like “who says that’s for you?” *ding* AHA MOMENT! I realized that I’d almost bought into the idea that I should be following the Joneses. I realized then that my focus should be on doing what I love, following my passion and living my life to the fullest. I’ll figure out the rest as it comes to me.

The moral of this story? Sometimes that vision of where you think you’re supposed to be at any particular time in your life is askew. Turn it upside down, look at it sideways….hell…go circle the block 3 times and shout ‘hallelujah’ to the heavens and then check it again. Just try a different way of thinking once in a while and know that things can be quite different.