Old New, Lessons Learned and Lists

I've been racking my brain. Trying to figure out what I wanted to do for my birthday. I couldn't think of a thing and I couldn't pick an outfit. I could not even muster up an ambiance or feeling I wanted for the occasion.  All things that are generally atypical for me. It was not until last night when after looking for dresses online for a few hours that I closed the computer and went to my closet. I've been sick all week and so I have not really eaten anything other than soup twice a day.  My hair was undone, my face was bare, I did not even have on shoes...but I slipped on a dress--my favorite dress. I have owned this dress since 2007. I bought it to wear at a bachelorette party. It is a size 12 and I am not, nor was I then, a size 12 but it made me love the dress even more. Then and now. It hugs but not too much. It's short but not too much. It's sexy but not too much. It is exactly how I want to feel on my birthday.  Like me.

It dawned on me then as I walked around my room in the dress, that what I wanted most this year was not something new, it was something old. Something meaningful. I did not want to go to the hottest new club. I wanted to feel comfortable. I wanted to laugh. I wanted to be with people I loved in a space I know. I did not want pretense or extravagance, I wanted it to be just enough but not too much.

There was something about figuring out what I wanted to do for my birthday that made me want to make a list of things I want in a greater sense. I mentally began to draft a list:

• To publish multiple non-fiction books
• To be a multi-millionaire with multiple streams of income--in this I want to be sure to only align myself with people and projects that I feel parallel my values.
• To, at some point, work with Zappos in an official capacity (I see this company as an example of the aforementioned)
• To one day have Harvard call me.

There are more but that is where I started. For only a moment I thought of the audacity I had to make such a bold list. Only for a moment. In the next breath I knew that nothing I wanted was out of reach and I have to only set the intention and pull it to me.

I had a moment last week in talking with EmJ about old friends and how I didn't like the idea that some of my oldest and dearest friends feel we are not on the same "level" because of things I have accomplished and they have not.  It makes me sad and I want to bring EVERYBODY with me but the thing is...you can't.  Moving up, stepping out...it can be extremely lonely for a while.  It can serve as a test. Can you stand to be blessed? Do you have the wherewithal to sustain the shedding of old skin? Can you let go to let come?

I feel like that was what this year so far has been for me. I have had to let a LOT of things go. Namely, the pictures in my head of what it was supposed to be. The pictures in my head of what I was supposed to be. I had to let it all go so that the truth of what and who I am could emerge.  I am not yet in the emergent space. I am still the lotus closed underneath the mud.  My eyes are just adjusting to the darkness that surrounds me and  I've ceased my panic.

Jessica, give yourself the same time you would offer to others.