Boy, this one is scary to post. I wrote it and reread it, which I never do and I question whether or not to share this but, I’m doing it scared.

I don’t make resolutions. I never have, really. At this stage of my life, I’m even less inclined to. My “resolutions,” if you will, are daily commitments that I make to myself to be my best. While others are declaring their desire to be or do things differently at the end of the year, I often find myself reflecting on the previous year. So I guess this year, I’ll write about it particularly since it’s been quite a year.

January – This month was about being brave and taking the next step. As those of you that follow me know, I was considering a dramatic change in my life. I was pursuing a new job in a new place that required me to walk through my fear, self doubt, and uncertainty. I had to come to the thorough understanding that I couldn’t know all the eventualities or possibilities of what I might face if I were to take this job and move across the ocean. I had to trust that I would figure it out, no matter what. That is a huge departure for someone that has always created this giant flow chart in the sky. I’d have to have responses at the ready for any variable that came my way or I couldn’t make a single move. Analysis paralysis was my jam. Fear and uncertainty kept me painted into a very boring corner but it was familiar, predictable, and safe. I took the job and made the move to Hawaii, by myself, with two suitcases. Wow.

February – I flew to Hawaii on February 1. It was one of those surreal experiences. I couldn’t wrap my mind around the fact that I wasn’t going on vacation. I was leaving Portland – the place I’d spent my entire life. I was leaving all my friends and family. I justified this by telling myself that I hadn’t physically seen anyone in a year anyway – thanks COVID – so what’s the difference? When my daughter moved to Texas I learned that geography didn’t equate intimacy. So, I got on a plane ready to embark on this new adventure. Aside from trusting, I really had to answer the question “if not now, when?” Was I going to do what I’d always done and expect a different result? Worst case scenario, I go back. I had a week to try to set up some semblance of a household for myself. Imagine being 56 years old and starting over with nothing. I’d done it before after my divorce but that was 20 years ago. I spent the first month or so with a bed, a beach chair, a lamp, a TV, and a step ladder. I was enjoying the simplicity of just being in Hawaii. On February 8, I started my job. The first day, the chefs prepared lunch for the staff. The clients were arriving the following day so it was only staff. As we prepared to serve ourselves, my team presented me with a lei and sang an African welcome song to me, complete with ukuleles and percussion instruments. At one point, they said to me – now it’s time for you to bust a move. I thought I might die with fear. It was noon on a Monday and I was stone cold sober. This isn’t going to happen. But at the same time I thought here is an opportunity to show up differently. These people don’t know about my social anxiety or my introverted orientation. If I’m going to lead this team, I’m going to show them my vulnerability, right now. So while I didn’t exactly boogie down, I shimmied just a bit which was honestly all I could muster. The remainder of the month was spent welcoming a full house of clients trying to heal their lives and me learning my new role, organization, city, and team. I remember each client – their name, their declared issue, their growth, their shortcomings, and their departure. There were so many pinch me moments with the realization that I get to do this work in a climate that makes me feel so good.

March – March delivered what I called the three C’s of comfort – my car, my couch, and my cat. It was a banner month in terms of helping me feel settled in this new world. In many respects as I look back on this period, all was right with the world. My boy Oscar was with me, comforting me, loving on me, and giving me the connection that I was needing. My car provided me with familiarity and what I refer to as my church – driving fast with the music cranked and windows down – if the rain wasn’t torrential which it was a fair amount at that time. I continued to feather my nest a bit and settle into my job. The owners asked me to just be there and to not make any changes for about three months. My boss came to Hawaii to spend the month with me downloading everything she could from her brain to mine. It was a bit of a firehose situation but I did the best I could to receive. My perspective was to just be open to whatever she wanted to share with me. While there was much that I could see that absolutely needed to be done differently, now was not the time. I needed to get a thorough understanding of how things were done currently and why, as well as what had been tried in the past and the results of such attempts. 

April – my boss left with the statement that I’d do a much better job once she was gone. She was right. I’d deferred to her so much. I needed time to marinate on what I know that works and what she’d created. It seemed so odd to me that she was so willing to hand me the reins of this business. She barely knew me. I mean, I know I’m trustworthy and would care for her business as though it was my own but she didn’t know that yet. I suppose we both took a leap of faith in this relationship. Toward the end of the month, all the clients left, one by one. We had to close up the house and everyone was laid off – except me. I had much to learn and could surely keep myself busy. Life however, had other plans. My baby boy, my heart cat Oscar, began to fail. He was 17 years old but he’d always been so spry, I guess I thought I had a lot more time with him. He declined very fast. Over the course of four days, it became obvious that while I wasn’t ready to let him go, he was ready. So, I helped him pass peacefully. That was very, very difficult. To be in a strange place with no one and have to deal with that experience was almost more than I could bear. 

May – I had decided to put myself out there into the dating world which during COVID in a new place meant online dating. Because of my emotional state with the loss of Oscar and being alone, I craved connection. Unfortunately, that led me to some fairly devastating experiences. I was ripe for the picking for people that want to take advantage of sad, desperate women. I got a lot of attention and I lapped it up. I’m hesitant to share but what the hell. I’m not going to start withholding in this space now. The short story is that someone attempted to blackmail me with very personal information. I’d talked to a person for hours every day for a long time. I’d shared very intimate details and this person attempted to get money from me to keep that information private. They went so far as to get into my Facebook account, copy my friends and family’s names, and compose messages to them with this private information and send me screenshots. They wanted $5,000 to not execute on their plan. They would text me and I would block the number. They would immediately text me again from a different number. They probably texted me from over 20 numbers. They emailed me from as many addresses too. I did not send any money but I did remove my digital footprint. So now I’m still sad over the loss of Oscar, I’m scared, and I’m isolated. I didn’t want to share this experience with anyone so I didn’t. I was embarrassed and in a serious shame spiral. But, Mother’s day came and I Zoomed with my daughter. I couldn’t conceal my tears so I told her the story. From there, I began to share it with other friends. The beautiful thing is that every woman I told had had a similar experience. There’s the power of telling the truth and the loss of power that shame holds by bringing your story into the light of day. It dissipates. And honestly, it grew my connection to these amazing women. Turns out, I’m no different from anyone else and I had nothing to be ashamed of. I wanted to find love and allowed myself to be manipulated by skilled perpetrators. There’s no shame in wanting connection. 

June – this is where things get interesting. My boss said she was going to come to Hawaii because she could tell I needed support. She could hear the stress in my voice. How nice, right? It’s been four months. It’s time for me to start making my mark and making the necessary changes to the business. It was going to be an uphill climb so she was going to come offer reinforcements. She invited me to the beach to have a meeting in the ocean. Who has this life? A meeting in the ocean in Hawaii? Yes, please. Unfortunately, that’s when she informed me that she had sold the business. Excuse me, what? I moved across the ocean for you people and you’re bailing? And we all know what happens with new ownership. Management is the first to go. I was angry and scared. On top of that, I’d just hired someone I knew from Portland and he literally came to Hawaii on the same plane as her. I was furious. Needless to say, I had much to process. I did begin looking for another job both in Oregon and Hawaii. But, I had my daughter’s wedding coming in July. I decided not to make any decisions. I’d focus on the wedding and re-evaluate when I returned.

July – I began to find information on the internet about the new owners of the business that was very unsettling. While my current boss assured me the new owners had no intention of making any changes, I found ads on Indeed for positions at our center. Oh, and of course, I’d been sworn to secrecy about the impending transition so I was carrying this information alone. My current boss tried to assuage my concerns. I wasn’t convinced. But I came to realize that my passion was the work. It wasn’t tied to those people. So I set the work drama aside as best I could so I could focus on my daughter’s wedding. Couple that with the fact that I’d adopted two crazy, very sick kittens that had a bunch of issues – one of which was ringworm which I too got, thank you very much – the ownership of where I worked was pushed to the back burner. The wedding happened and it was the most incredible experience. We were able to actually have a wedding without masks during COVID. It was a god damned miracle because Oregon only allowed the removal of masks for 3 weeks. The wedding fell in that window. After the wedding, I stayed in Oregon for a week to connect with friends and family. I packed my schedule full of every person that is important to me. Honestly, it was an exhausting pace but I was determined. Needless to say, I cried every day. It became obvious to me that I did, in fact, leave a whole life behind and I had none of that in Hawaii. And, the whole reason I moved had changed. Leaving Oregon to return to Hawaii was very difficult. I remember flying into Honolulu and looking down at the island from the plane – and crying. I never imagined I’d be tearful flying TO Hawaii. But that’s what happened. I was coming back to nothing, I felt. No friends. No family. No one that loves me. And a job that wasn’t what I’d signed up for. And to add insult to injury, when I went to pick up said crazy kittens, one of them had died while I was gone. She was just too sick for too long. Her little body succumbed. So, I took home another kitten because I work too many hours. They needed companionship. Turns out you can’t just throw two kittens together and have them bond. After much growling through doors and inappropriate marking, they finally met one another and soon became a bonded pair, thank God. Hearing two kittens crying all the time was a lot to deal with. If I was with one, the other was crying. Ugh!

August – August was odd. I’d just returned from this experience in Oregon and felt such a longing to be connected. Work was odd because now that the business was selling and the closing of the sale was imminent, I literally had nothing to do all day. I decided this would be the perfect time to get the hell away from the work instability. I’ll go to Mexico for two weeks and tend to myself. It was a great plan but it didn’t work out that way. When I asked for the time off, not only was I not allowed to leave but in fact, I didn’t have any PTO accrued. And to make matters worse, the time I’d taken off for my daughter’s wedding was more than I had coming so I actually owed them some time. Uh, wait, what? What part of four weeks vacation this year and five weeks vacation every year thereafter was unclear in the signed offer letter? The owner and HR basically mansplained their position to me. They twisted the language in the offer letter to suit their agenda and that was that. I expressed my extreme disappointment over what seemed to me to be intentional deception and any semblance of trust that remained vaporized. Had the place not been sold, I would have quit on the spot with or without another job. The owner cried crocodile tears over the idea that I didn’t believe I could trust her but that door had slammed shut, hard. You choose the behavior, you choose the consequences. So I stayed in Hawaii, looked for jobs here and in Oregon, and waited for the sale to close.

September – this is when it was all supposed to change. The sale of the business was tentatively scheduled to close on September 20. This time period was difficult with the addition of producing documents and such to support the sale and other shenanigans. I was also not allowed any contact with my new boss. I was in a holding pattern trying to run this business. I needed to fire someone, I needed to hire someone, I needed to purchase things, and I was stuck in this dysfunctional triangle between my soon to be former employer and my future employer. While those two duked it out, I ran their business as best I could without having the ability to actually DO anything. And, because of financial cut offs for the sale, all purchasing for the business was now being done with CASH. Imagine trying to account for and reconcile $15,000 worth of cash, repeatedly. Our credit cards were gone. No one was authorized to sign checks. We don’t have any net 30 accounts. Neither owner lives in Hawaii. It was bananas. September 20 came and went without a transition of ownership. But it wasn’t presented as though it was postponed for a month. It was metered out in 2-3 day chunks of time. Oh, we’ll close on Monday. Woops, nope, we are closing on Friday, for sure. Wait no, it’s actually next Tuesday. I think I got a lot more grey hairs in those days.

October – things really DID change in October but not in the way I anticipated. The sale of the business did NOT close in October so we continued this start and stop dance of moving the closing date. My first visitor came to Hawaii! I got to spend several days with one of my closest friends. We did amazing things together and realized we could be awesome travel partners for future trips. As I look back on that weekend, I felt so good, so settled, so content. Sigh, I was good. The following weekend, I met a man on a whim and that changed everything. I’m only going to allow myself a few sentences to capture this experience because while it was profound and so meaningful to me, I need to put it in perspective and that is that was only a very short time in a very long year. When we met, in an instant any semblance of guard I thought I had was gone. It was like I recognized this soul before me that was way beyond attraction or lust or infatuation. I have never felt so safe nor have I felt more loved by any other man in all my years – though he didn’t actually love me. He truly saw me and tended to me in ways I could never have imagined. I think the moment I realized how special this connection was when one day, I was on my way to see him and I texted – “do you want me to bring anything?” His response was just three little words – “all of you.” That was the moment. That was it. So simple and so important. A week after we met, I learned that whatever this was would only last for a very brief time. A future with him wasn’t possible, period. The question was posed, did I want to stay in it or let it go? My decision was I’m in – all in. I chose him in that moment and in each moment subsequent to that. I chose yes time and time again with much thought and did so deliberately and consciously, eyes wide open. Circumstances and timing that were determined prior to our meeting meant that he would only be in my life for a matter of weeks. And so began a beautiful, accelerated love story that required living 100% in the moment and creating unforgettable memories, and that we did. My God, did we do that.

November – finally the sale of the business happened! A few days after I decided to stay in it with this man, the new owners came to Hawaii for a few days. More change, for the love of God. I have this man that I want to spend every minute with and nothing at work is going to be the same. I think I had whiplash for a time there trying to adjust to all the shifting in my life. The owners turned out to be great people and I decided to not make any decisions about staying in this job or going for a few more months. I was just going to ride it out for a bit. Things with the man continued to develop in the best ways but very soon, that experience was colored by his impending departure from my life. Unfortunately, I squandered a few weeks with him being overwhelmed by sorrow but I was doing the best I could. As my emotions were swirling, I was also feeling called to continue to share my story which I truly believe is my purpose. I was invited to tell my story on a podcast which was the springboard to reignite my writing and repost my blog. People from many unrelated areas in my life were encouraging me to soldier on with my writing. This crazy momentum began picking up speed which led to me making another decision about my next steps.

December – I had an incredible epiphany that allowed me to let go of my sorrow for whatever time remained with this man and truly enjoy what was – and as it turned out unbeknownst to me, only one more weekend together. As this was happening, I decided to follow my purpose and invested in a year long coaching program to write and publish my book. Then, he left. We said our goodbyes in the same place where I fell in love with him. It was sweet and beautiful because he’s still him and I’m still me and that didn’t change. We were only meant to overlap for a minute but what a minute it was.

Since that time, work has become exceedingly more challenging and my reserves are depleted. I continue to be tasked with more and more and have no support, here. My resiliency is being stretched to its limit but I press on as best I can because that’s what I do. I signed up for this book thing and have been completely without words or inspiration. I haven’t written a single word in over a month, until now. I’m rebuilding my support system and trying to treat myself with a little tenderness, patience, and grace.

So here we are, today, in this. So many questions are on the table. Did I make the right decisions? Do I regret my choices? Do I even want to be here anymore? But where would I go? I go with me so that would solve nothing. I just want to fast forward six months because I know this too shall pass despite how hard it is right now. But in order to walk through this shitshow, I must find the lesson, the reason, the takeaway because there’s always something and in this case, there are several somethings. I’m fucking strong and I forgot that for a while. To do what I’ve done in this past twelve months, by myself, is kind of a big deal. To quote my girl Brene Brown: “When I see people standing fully in their truth, or when I see someone fall down, get back up and say ‘damn, that really hurt but this is important to me and I’m going back in’ – my gut reaction is ‘what a badass.’” I’d say I qualify for that club. As much as I discount any of my accomplishments, I need to remember what’s in me – what it took to do this year. I’m strong, determined, and capable. 

I’ve taken some hits in the heart department but something else I’ve really come to realize is that my capacity to love is my superpower. My heart is the best part of me but rather than labeling myself as ridiculous for feeling so deeply in such a short period of time, I’m owning my story, unapologetically. I’d been so wounded for so long but another gift of all this struggle is that I opened my heart to another person. I didn’t think that would ever happen again. Another quote that really speaks to me is this: “Vulnerability is not winning or losing; it’s having the courage to show up and be seen when we have no control over the outcome.” I chose to be vulnerable and show up with my whole heart. I chose courage over comfort time and again. I could not choose the outcome. But, I will never regret those choices, not ever.

And one more thing I’ve realized about this experience with love is that while this man was the most incredible human I’ve ever known, my part in creating this experience is that I was different. I didn’t hold back. I didn’t shapeshift to be liked. I was my truest, authentic self because really, I had nothing to lose. This time together had an expiration date from the get go. He had his purpose calling to him and I admire the hell out of him. I wish all the best for him knowing that I am not part of his story. But I will always remember how he looked at me for the first time… and the last. 

So how to close out this year, that’s the question. As I said, I don’t do resolutions but rather look for realizations and continually commit myself to being my best. My focus in 2022 is to fulfill my purpose in whatever form that takes, beginning with the completion of my book. Who knows what the result of that will be. At this time last year, I wanted change which is hard to believe because my MO is to stick with whatever, however bad it is because it’s a known entity and fear of change is bigger. But I wanted a richer life. I wanted new experiences. That’s why I left all that was comfortable to truly live and boy howdy, has this year delivered in ways I could never have foreseen. I didn’t know I would love and I surely didn’t know I would grieve. I don’t think that lightning can strike twice in the love department and I’m Ok with that, mostly. I preferred the emptiness in me when I didn’t know it was there. It may be time to go dormant again. We’ll see.

I’m absolutely living one day at a time with no expectations. My future is unwritten and wide open. The biggest lesson that has been presented to me this year has been to accept change because that’s been the only constant. For a hermit crab, Cancer that values safety and predictability and would just as soon stay in her shell, to say this has been an enormous stretch is an understatement. I’m also realizing that even though I hate it, and I really, really hate it, I can and will sit with my discomfort and eventually, rise above….because that’s who I am, and more than ever, I know that now.