2019 the Year I’m Exhaling

2018 was a terrible acid trip.

I’ve never done acid or anything hard, but if it were to go bad, that was my 2018. It was an obnoxious co-dependent relationship that I’m absconding from with purple and black bruises.

My only desire is to tell you off.

I understand your commitment to my growth. Clearly, you had my best interests in mind when you paired me with the married guy. Last January, We really started off with a bang, when his wife called me crying.

All of sudden, I became the other woman.

A poisoned positioned I never imagined and felt vehement, I would never be.

Exactly, why I choose not to date the separated, just got out of a relationship, non-divorced types. I knew I knew from my own destructive marriage, what it felt like to be cheated on. Thank you 2018, now I involuntarily experienced both sides of the coin. Again, your commitment to my growth is unyielding.

I also, apparently and willingly, gained twenty-three non-essential lbs in six months. I found myself at a job I came to loathe, where I was told to produce and produce. I did. I was successful, I did what I was supposed to do.

My life consisted of toxic people and stress at the cost of my own inner peace. Not being monetarily compensated for my efforts, but appreciated made it all stupid and pointless.

In and out of family court with an ex that decided to explore the wildly illegal side of life. Voluntarily, putting himself and by default, my children inconsequential danger.

This was all part of the plan, right?

I found myself in the eye of a hurricane. Little did I know, this was only the scratching the surface of my year to come. How was this my life?

2018, the year of dick pics.

Dick pic after dick pic — every shitty guy possible on all the dating apps — left me utterly starved and desperate for love and connection.

This encounter with my male counterparts turned into the epitome of Men are from Mars and Women are from Venus. When did it become standard form to send unsolicited pictures of your genitals before a social greeting?

How are men spending more time snapping portrait pictures of their genitals as opposed to forming actual connections with a potential partner?

We are being assaulted unwillingly, by men's genitals daily. The last-ditch effort of toxic masculinity to force us to swallow it, amidst its crumbling patriarchal ideology.

I fearlessly found my inner sex goddess last year.

Cut to me hooking up with van guy, I so aptly named him. This was due to neither of us having the privacy to hook up in our homes. This left my van. It was equally hot and exhilarating — and empty.

It was, however, the best empty sexual experience of my adult life. He had the equipment and was fairly skilled at using it. It meant nothing. It left me achingly empty and frantic for true intimacy.

Then there was retired, hot, tattooed, badass detective guy. He stood at 6'2, bearded, tatted, and muscled. He exuded intimidation. He was was my literal alpha male fantasy off the pages of my erotic romance novels.

In my actual reality though, he was still involved with his ex-wife and ex-girlfriend. True to Gemini fashion, he would not decide. He was very happy to offer me his community d *#@. As generous as the offer to share him was, I began to feel I was getting the short end of the stick from all these men.

Again, How was this my life?

I swore off dating and sex.

No more friends with benefits, I was done with empty connections. Cut to an incautious summer of three, back to back powerful eclipses.

I came face to face with a decision.

If I wanted the love and life I truly sought, was I willing to dive to depths of my dark shadows. Was I willing to sit in the core of my wounds? I decided emphatically yes.

I was all in. I walked terrified and shaking into the eye of the storm — All my wounds, my pain, my trauma, and all of my past I buried deep.

Everything started to shift for me. Layers of the ego identity I built my entire existence on by societal, generational, and environmental constructs crumbled at my feet.

I was left exposed, vulnerable and raw. I was left with the essence of me beneath the persona.

It was both heady and unsafe.

After several months, meditation became a huge part of my morning and evening. A life of positive affirmations, binaural beats, journaling, no more toxic jobs, no more toxic friends, and no more negativity.

I hiked daily.

I spent every day in nature either by the water or in the forest. 2018 became my most transformative year.

My life wasn’t where I wanted it to be exactly, but I wasn’t angry anymore. I wasn’t depressed anymore. I was healing and healed. I began to deeply, unequivocally love myself. Something no one ever taught me, except for maybe Oprah and now Brene Brown.

I felt worthy and deserving of not only love, a partner, but my dreams. Unquestionably foreign, my life became about my wants, needs, and desires.

I ended the vicious painful cycle of looking at myself through the eyes of my parents, society, or anyone else’s eyes. I began to look at myself through my own beautiful brown almond shaped irises.

I realized implicitly only my opinion matters. I viewed myself with unconditional love, gentleness, and forgiveness. I wasted my entire forty years scrutinizing myself through what I perceived someone else’s perspective was. How’s that for some 3D matrix illusionary bullshit? It was scandalously freeing.

I set unrelenting boundaries with everyone in my life, not excluding my own children. 2018 became the year people not having my best interests at heart faded away.

I had no tolerance for anything not benefiting me in a loving way. People did not like it. It came down to live with it and respect me, or don’t. If you need the door, I’ll hold it open for you.

When I adopted a victimless reality, things really began shifting in a dramatically positive way. My life in 2019 is becoming a life I create. A life I was completely in the driver’s seat. Here I found inner peace.

The anxiety and fear of the future were illusionary and falling away. The people I now come in contact with are warm, friendly, and helpful. I no longer walk around defensively, something I grew up with as if the world is out to attack viciously. I’ve made peace with my inner child.

I’ve welcomed my demons, hugged them, thanked them, and released them.

My eyes are open like never before. I see beauty everywhere in everything. Life is brighter and more vibrant. The people in my life are here because they honor and celebrate me.

My family is growing and they are not blood, they are soul brothers and sisters.

My health is best it has ever been.

I’m writing every day.

A dream come true.

Surprisingly enough, I did not have to fall in love with a man to achieve any of this. I only fell in love with me and the life that already existed.

I made a long list for 2019. It includes everything from completing my certifications in intimacy and sex coaching, sex expert and writer, learning the violin, learning sign language, getting a new tattoo, and doing a boudoir shoot for my 42nd birthday.

I won’t front, I hope to fall madly and passionately in love with the man of my dreams; and equal life partner. I hope my children love him, and he loves them just as much.

I hope to get engaged, live together, and have a beautiful commitment ceremony in the forest with a live band, great music, and all of us dancing our asses off.

Following that beauty, I hope to be whisked away on a honeymoon -something I never got the chance to have — spend weeks on a resort in the Maldives; swimming in turquoise water and eating all the mango I can stomach.

I say farewell to 2018.

It was difficult, quick and filled with constant heartache.

I’m leaving you behind along with my everyone in my past.

I feel an extraordinary and epic year ahead. I sense this is the year true love finds me. I sense this is the year I become a bestselling author, I sense this is the year, I meet my body goals. I sense this is the year I get my house.

2019 is the year luck is on my side. This is the year my dreams come true. This is my year to exhale.