reneediesattheend

[reneediesattheend]

A God Idealized

For the first time in my life I truly believe God can forgive me. I've done awful things and regretted them deeply. But now I am able to turn these things over to something more powerful than me.

They say we are all children of God. So why shouldn't God, like a real parent, be able to forgive us for making mistakes. Or laugh when we are behaving silly. Or pull us from the rapids when we are in danger. Why can't God give us patience and strength, or guide us when we can't see the way.

They can, and I believe it.

[reneediesattheend]

I was tired today. I've been tired a lot recently. I'm getting tired of being tired. I wish I jumped out of bed. I wish I had a spring in my step. I wish I tackled the day like a football player.

Instead, I roll out of bed, I drag my feet, and I meander into the day. It's exhausting and I feel like it'll never end. I'm hoping I'll figure it out soon.

[reneediesattheend]

Briefest Note

Currently in the middle of figuring out two things.

1. Manufacturing Joy, deciding to be happy, and BLANK

2. Noise keeps me from staying in the present, so how do I tune out noise?

[reneediesattheend]

Even Briefer Note

I'm so thankful to be living in the queerest place in the whole US. A vibrant community of people who I feel incredibly safe around. I love being a femme and knowing I have nothing to fear in this new home of mine.

[reneediesattheend]

Brief Note

I'm realizing that I have been relying quite a lot on my daily reprieve from my drinking to keep me steady. I want to further my program by focusing more on the steps and getting to the 9th step promises so I can feel some relief from my past mistakes and future worries and live more in the now.

From this point on I am focusing solely on the steps till I complete them.

[reneediesattheend]

Meditation - To Contemplate or Not To Contemplate

For the longest time I was convinced that mediation meant buckling down and quieting your mind till it was silent and then just existing there. However, there is such a thing called Contemplative Meditation. An old sponsor of mine mentioned at one of our meetings that the meditation they are talking about in the Big Book is not the kind of meditation fostered in through the East, but instead is an old western practice of turning an idea over and over in one's mind to see if they can hear some knowledge from their higher power.

I've done this in the past without knowing that this was what it was. I simply did it as an exercise to see what it would be like to focus on one thought and see what I could garner. Coming back to it a few years down the road, I want to incorporate it in my daily practice.

So from this point on, I am going to spend a little time each morning asking for knowledge of God's will through a practice of contemplative meditation on an issue related to my day.

[reneediesattheend]

A Little Check In

I'm currently working on getting my morning and night routines in everyday so that I can have solid days every day. It's coming along pretty well so far. I've fallen asleep a few times before doing my nighttime routine, but I've been kind to myself and given myself a break for bing tired.

Slowly, I am adding in habits that will make sense if I want to go into fashion. At the moment, I'm looking for BDR roles in tech as a means of boosting my income and giving me more time to focus on learning fashion. I think if I had a better paying job and could quit my 2nd part-time job, I'd be able to fit more of what I really care about into my day.

--

I feel a lot of shame in being dyslexic, I realize that many things that the average person can do, I can not. Even reading aloud a small email is incredibly difficult, and I feel saddened when I struggle to sound out even the simplest of sentences. It makes me feel really dumb not being able to do that.

--

My back is finally healing and getting better for good. I got a cortisone shot for it, and it's been helping tremendously. I'm going to start working out at some point to help strengthen my core, so I can keep my back from getting injured again. I need to fix my job situation first before I do that, though, that way I have the time to devote to it. Either that or I'll think of a way to squeeze it in.

[reneediesattheend]

Notes From Work

I'm missing the way my brain used to be able to write. It used to just pour out easy. I never had to think about what I wanted to say. I always wanted to say something, anything, all the things constantly and forever.

I'm trying to find the right balance of breath work and quiet patience to have when doing meditation. I noticed I focus a lot on my breath, and it takes me out of it a little bit. I struggle to just sit there and notice. I'm going to try not focusing on breathing a certain way and more on just noticing my breath and what it is doing.

I realized that when I take responsibility for my wrongs and promptly admit them, I face far few consequences. I owned up to missing several weeks of Endear emails and immediately offered an amends of finding time to focus on them asap. I was not even reprimanded, just told to work on it soon.

I would love to find more time to do the things I love like sewing, music, and writing. I know right now I just have to stay focused on being content with what I have. Focusing on getting a better paying job so that I can be less stressed about money. Focusing on finding time to exercise my back, so I don't miss any more work. And focusing on building my new daily habits. I want to rework how I approach my days. To change that mindset of mine from fixed to growth. I know that the only real way to do that is to take action, and not just do the motion of reading books on the subject. I should be reading in preparation of doing the action. Not in place of the action itself.

Finding a better paying job is definitely critical to taking the stress off of my life. I know that if I could seriously start paying down my debt and I would be able to start saving for bigger things and upgrading my life a little bit for me and my partner. I'm gonna do my best to tackle this challenge as my next big move. Mindset matters, so I have to have the right way of thinking about this next step if I want to pull it off.

Bringing God into more of my life is another step I want to take. I want to make sure that I hold space for God at all times. My first reaction when something difficult comes up too should be to pray on it. Pray for guidance, support, and the knowledge of God's will for me at all time.

Taking time to recognize that making mistakes is part of being human and part of growing has been a difficult change in my life as of recently. I'm still terrified of failing and beat myself up tremendously for not being perfect at all times. It's gonna take some time, but I think that it'll slowly become second nature to be okay with failing and knowing that learning from failure is where success comes from.

I want to find time to work on a new writing venture. I really want to write a fantasy novel of some kind. Something big and dramatic with lots of characters and plot lines and stories. I kept saying I would start slowly on it, but I haven't been spending the time on it. Need to make it a part of my day if I can. Find a time and a place for it.

I think I want to get into sales. At least for now. I feel like it could be good for me, and it would be motivating to work on commission. I'd have a concrete reason to try harder and do more. I'm hoping I hear back from the places I applied to. I just think that more money would make me feel less stressed out and be in a better mindset to tackle other things.

[reneediesattheend]

Keeping It Brief

Some days, you fall asleep before you've done everything you've wanted to do today. This is not failure, your body is letting you know it needs rest. Take comfort in the fact that tomorrow you can pursue those goals with even more energy. If you miss a day, get right back on it. Never let one day turn into two.

[reneediesattheend]

I Give Up

A thing normally said in shame, is today said with relief. I wonder how many times giving up in the past was actually the best choice I could have made.

I made a hard decision today, a decision about my transition that will most definitely have an impact on my future. It was not lightly that I made this choice. I knew that it would limit my options and change what I thought the future would be. I now have to envision something different for myself. There are so many options I have yet to explore because my dedication these last couple of weeks focused on a specific future I had thought I might have.

Things change, my future, much like the moon, is mutable. It is inconceivable because of all the variables I have yet to see. And I am content with not knowing right now. God will show me the way forward.

--

Habits That Stick

There is an image in my head of who I would like to be. To get there, I have to change who I am now to match the kind of person that could achieve what I want to achieve. There is a need to build, from the ground up, the kinds of behaviors that make up someone who has true grit. To make myself disciplined, I must choose the hard choice every day, whether I like it or not.

I have to be comfortable with discomfort. The only way to change is to do things I have not done before. I can never become who I wish to be without first learning how to be that person. Making mistakes is the name of the game. I can only grow in the direction of where I point my light, and I cannot grow in darkness. I must make the light of my life come from the place I wish to be in the future.

I know things will be hard until they aren't, and I am okay with that.

[reneediesattheend]

Who I Want To Be

I have three great passions in my life; writing, music, and fashion. All of these things take time, energy, and resources. I have to put in the practice of doing them every day for years if I want to be successful with them. But if I am being honest, my life right now only has room for one of them, not all three simultaneously. Maybe one day when I am doing one for a job, I could fit the others as hobbies. But to transform one from a hobby to a career, I have to be disciplined and focus all my attention on just one.

So, how to choose. What does the plan look like for all three?

Writing: For this to work, I could see myself slowly building up a portfolio of written work for both fiction and for copywriting with friends who own businesses. I could use the portfolio to land a steady copywriting job, then write fiction in the background. Slowly building up to publishing short stories on Amazon and gaining followers till I can take a novel to a big time publisher.

Music: This is the hardest one. I would need to get good at the guitar again and spend a lot of time writing music till I had a set. Then I would need to start posting music on Spotify and TikTok. Eventually, finding venues to perform my music at. For that to work, I'd need to learn to use all my different equipment, which would take up a lot of time as well. Long term I'd need to build up an audience and continue honing skills and making songs.

Fashion: This is the one that I have the least knowledge of in terms of actual skill. For this I would have to learn to sew, make alterations, create patterns, and learn to drape. After I have developed the base skills, I could start with alterations for friends and slowly build up to maybe starting a shop on Etsy for custom clothes. Then, once I've built the capital, launching a website with my designs all made in clothing shops to produce at a large level.

So who should I go with-

The writer? The musician? The fashionista?

I think deep down in my heart the choice is clear. I've tried writing in the past and it does come from me naturally, I always had to be high or intoxicated to write. I love music but I don't know if I have the capacity to peform for a living and I think long term I would be dissatisfied with always need to create "content" to stay relevant outside my music. Fashion is something I know well, that I love doing all the time, it is a part of my everyday, and when I get my hands on a sewing project I fall right into a flow with it and work till the project is done.

So there, it's settled, I am a fashionista.

[reneediesattheend]

For Want Of Discipline

I'm revisiting some old books I read a few years ago. Trying to approach them once again with a new perspective. I'm more motivated than I've ever been to be a different kind of person than who I used to be. I feel like this time I can really utilize the skills in these texts that I was unable to harness last time.

When I last tried to "get my shit together," I was in a deep hole that I dug myself into with my drug use. Getting sober has given me a new-found strength and drive. It's been over a year that I've been sober and so much has changed. I have been gifted with all kinds of new ability.

I can now hold down not just a job but a full time job and have been doing so for longer than any other job I've ever had. I am in my first functional relationship. I now maintain healthy friendships. I am working my way out of debt and have been financing my life with no help from my parents. All in all, things are really on the mend.

I'm currently in a rough patch at the moment. I recenlty suffered a pretty bad injury to my lower back and had to take a lot of time off work. I also quit nicotine, came down with covid, and I'm off my hormones for a brief period. Things are really difficult. But I'm keeping my head above water. I'm able to juggle all the different parts of my life now.

But that's the funny part. I say that I'm able to juggle these different parts, but it's not really me. It's my belief in something greater than myself. A force of some kind that is keeping me put together. I pray, I meditate, and I take inventory all in the name of a higher power. I was never one for God, but for the first time ever I can see the power that lies in faith in something outside the limitations of our physical world. I can see how God works as a solution.

--

I'm looking to change my habits. I want to develop a better mindset, and attitude about things. I want to become the kind of person that I used to think was beyond my abilities. I want to be disciplined and strong. I want fortitude and dedication. I want grit and mastery. I want to work deeply and focus on the essential. I want to find flow, and keep things effortless.

I don't know what that person is right now, but I know that if I set my sails right, I can get there. I just have to figure out where I'm going first.

--

Who do I want to be?

I am really not sure, all I know is that I don't want what I am now to be what I am forever.

[reneediesattheend]

For the first time in a long time, I enjoyed a challenge. I sewed and had a troublesome time with the machine and the hem I made. And all I could think about was the activity.

No thoughts of worry, no anxiety, no fear, my intrusive thoughts quieted and I flowed. It was amazing.

When I finished, it wasn't perfect, but I didn't care. I did something with my own two hands, and it was beautiful to me.

[reneediesattheend]

A pain in my back

It aches for sure

A reminder of

My humanity

A ticking clock

For my body's

Service to me

One day to end

[reneediesattheend]

I am ash

Soft, gray, and gritty

I grin as Father paints my forehead

We are nothing more than palms

Warm on the sand, beneath

The feet of Him

[reneediesattheend]

Trying something new.

---

I'm trying to journal every night before bed.

Why?

I want to get back into the habit of writing, in whatever form it takes. I haven't been a consistent writer in years. Even when I was trying to go to grad school I wasn't writing consistently. It was effort and difficult. It was a pain to get anything written.

Back when I was in undergrad I wrote everyday. Whether it was a poem, scene, or journal entry, I was writing. I miss those days. Writing was such a joy. I want to find that again.

[reneediesattheend]

I'm Writing This Because Someone Told Me To

I tried this silly app that Kaiser gets me for free. I met with a "coach" and we talked a little bit about my anxiety. It was short, only 30 minutes, so we didn't get to the big picture of my anxiety, but we did cover one topic that is always on the forefront of my mind.

Money.

--

This is probably going to be the wildest thing I've said in a while, so let's see how it goes.

I am not bad with money. For the first time in my life, I am actually managing a real budget. I put away enough for rent, food, and bills. I am actively paying down my debts, albeit slowly, but definitely paying them down. And on top of that, I am purchasing things for pure enjoyment with an allowance I give myself for things I really don't need. I bought a silly little trans lanyard. I definitely didn't need it. My old lanyard was doing the job, but I decided that I deserve to wear a little pride every day.

This is the first time in my whole life that I am totally financially independent of my parents. Sure, I have ten thousand dollars of debt from all the stuff I purchased while trying to stay afloat before getting a full-time job, but here I am, not missing a single payment. And it's more than that. I am making slow but sure progress on paying my debt down. Past me would have never been able to do this without my parents helping in some way.

--

So there, I wrote about the progress I've made. It really is different than how it used to be. I am different than how I used to be. I am better at this whole life thing in general. Part of that is getting sober, part of that is being kicked out of my parent's place, and part of that is finally coming of age in some weird California Dreamin' type way. Cheers to progress, not perfection.