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Archive for the ‘Second Chances’ Category

Into The Unknown

There are numerous women in my life that fill numerous roles and I’ve had a carefully crafted organization system in place for years that keeps each in their zone.

However……

They have started to move about the cabin freely without me turning off the seat belt sign, and to be completely honest, I’m not liking it.

I’m a big fan of clear cut lines and rules. This wasn’t always the case, but over the last decade or so it’s become helpful for dealing with my anxieties and insecurities. I like to know what to expect and from whom I can expect it.

In my attempt to “take control” of the direction my life is going in, I somehow overturned all the boxes, lost the labels, and shook up the etch a sketch road map.

I am excited about the future and the possibilities, but at the same time I’m feeling unmoored. My love life is completely up in the air. There is a big “we’ll see” over my relationship status. My “flirtationship” has been on the fritz like a wonky radio signal I lose just about the time I make out the lyrics of my favorite song. My female friends have morphed into my family, and the few I’m leaving behind in Ohio feel like an impending death in that family. Ohio is “only” 1000 miles from Oklahoma, but when you live on a strict budget that may as well be on the moon. My soon-to-be roommate has been my friend for almost 30 years and we couldn’t be more opposite on 99% of our opinions and I fear our new arrangement will cause issues there. (I’m mouthy and opinionated on a good day.) The women that have been friends I flirt with from a safe distance will no longer be at a distance and that worries me a lot because I’m all flirt and no intention with all of them so I have to pull on my big girl panties and draw some clearer lines there. I’m going to be moving closer to certain people I’ve been able to easily put in my rear-view mirror because of the distance. I want to keep them there, but I’m not terribly adept at being the asshole when I should be. For the first time in 11 years I’ll be able to rebuild a relationship with a young woman that, though born to another mother, was my daughter from the moment she took her first breath. After falling out with her biological mother she was kept from me as a child, but now as an adult I’m not sure where I fit into her life and that is an unpaved road that leaves me feeling like I need a GPS and a seeing eye dog.

It’s all so messy. It’s a lot of unknowns. It’s a lot of insecurities. It’s a lot of building, rebuilding, reevaluating, reconstructing, and self-reflection. I say I’m patient, but in truth I’m not when it comes to myself. I want all the answers and I want them now.

The thing they forget to mention to kids who are in a hurry to grow up is at no time in your adult life do you get the key to the library that holds the book that has all the answers. You don’t even get the cliff notes. Adulting is more like a self-guided study on theoretical physics just after having grasped 6th grade science and math.

Also; Packing sucks and if you can pay someone to do it for you I highly recommend it. Unfortunately I’m flying solo on that as well.

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#perspective, Acceptance, Adulting, Aging, Alone, Anxiety, Blogging, Blunt Talk, Boundaries, Change, Control, Controlled Chaos, Courage, Crazy, Daughter, Depression, Discovery, Disorginized, Distance, Family, Fear, Female Relationships, Flirt, Flirtationship, Follow, Friends, Future, GPS, Gratitude, Growth, Happiness, History, Holding Back, Hope, Lesbian, Library, Life, Living, Love, Moving, Oklahoma, Overwhelming, Packing, Parenting, Passion, People, Perspective, Possibilities, Reality, Relationship, Relationships, Roadmap, Romance, Rules, Second Chances, Self-acceptance, Self-aware, Self-realization, Sex, Sexuality, Single Life, Support, Taking Chances, Thankful, The Past, Uncategorized, Women, Worry

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Any Dream Will Do

As I type this post tears are streaming down my face so please bear with any typos you might find.

I just finished a new release by Debbie Macomber called Any Dream Will Do and for the first time in many months I’m moved to write and share with my readers a piece of myself.

I am a convicted felon.

This is not something I share with everyone usually, nor is it something I’m proud of, but it is a fact.

In 2007 I was charged with and convicted of embezzlement. As a result of this I lost many friends, most of my family, custody of my precious daughter, and all my hopes for my future. For ten years I’ve lived with the horrible choices I made and felt that each day was just the bridge to the next day since all my dreams of a future for myself, a career, and a family were forever lost. Most days I feel utterly and completely hopeless.

As a person who has battled depression and anxiety from a young age the added hopelessness occasionally pounds down around me like a blackness threatening to overtake me entirely. I try very hard everyday to remind myself I am exactly where I put myself and don’t wallow in the self-pity; some days I give in to it.

The hardest part of living with a felony is knowing who you can trust not to judge you for the mistakes you made. In my experience there aren’t very many people who fall into that category. I’ve been lucky to find a handful of new friends over the last decade that have embraced me and the history I bring with me with loving, non-judgemental arms. They have allowed me to show them who I am today without unpacking all the baggage I carry around. I’m also lucky to have just a couple of friends who have looked past my transgressions and have remained, unwaveringly, loyal and loving before, during, and following the worst years of my life. For all those people I am and forever will be eternally grateful.

However, there have been so many more, from lovers to friends, who have refused to see me as anything more than the mistakes I have made. The hardest of those who judge are definitely potential employers. As a convicted felon any job I am qualified for and more than capable of doing and succeeding at comes with a background check that I cannot pass. If you tell an employer up front that there’s a felony charge in your history you will never get a foot in the door. I’ve learned this repeatedly over the last decade. It doesn’t matter what your experience is, your level of intelligence, or your skill set. Employers are unforgiving of money based crimes and will not give you the opportunity to show your value as a potential team member. I wish this weren’t true, but I have yet to experience anything else.

In Any Dream Will Do, Shay Benson finds a program that not only teaches her to stop being so angry about her past, but also teaches her to dream again for her future when, like myself, she feels her hopes and dreams are gone. She makes a series of connections that give her the opportunities to prove her worth both to them and to herself. She finds love and forgiveness in friends and a man she cares for. Drew Douglas shows her that she can trust her heart to someone who won’t always jump to the wrong conclusions about her because “once a thief…..”

I almost feel foolish in letting this book give me a renewed spark of hope, but it has. These types of programs don’t exist where I live, and I am not a religious person as Drew is, but somehow this story touched a piece of my heart that has been closed up for a long time; the part of my heart that holds my dreams.

I am not a young woman, nor am I in any of the same types of circumstances or community that Shay was in, but this book has reignited some hope. I can’t even begin to explain how that feels. For now it’s enough just to reconnect to that feeling.

Thank you, Debbie Macomber for writing Any Dream Will Do and for reminding me you have to dream something, anything, or it will never have the chance to come true.

Monique Pearson

 

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#Book, #ebook, #perspective, #Read, #reader, Amazon.com, Author, Crime, Debbie Macomber, Depression, Dream, ebook, ebooks, Embezzlement, Felon, Felony, Forgiveness, Gratitude, Hope, Hopes and Dreams, Judgement, Kindle, Life, Living, Love, Mistakes, Monique Pearson, Never Give Up, New Release, Perspective, Read, Reading, Romance, Second Chances, Support, Survive, The Past, Uncategorized

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