"I started my fashion blog with what I have," she said, " I couldn't invest in new outfits so I combined the old in exciting new ways. I had everything I needed."
Sitting outside on a little wall by the trashcans as AT&T doesn't deliver proper phone connection in my house, I felt enlightened.
My smile tickled all my cells; that's what women friends for, our soul sisters, our tribes; when we resonate we inspire each other to greatness. We meet in high flying utopias and deep, deep depths and super cool practical ideas.
"You are a transformation queen," my inner rebel reminded me, "you can do this."
I had a huge bag of clothes sitting in my grunge space behind a big curtain, the veil covering my leftovers, the clutter of my life. I dug in. What did I feel like to day? I had just responded to a post from a creative milliner friend and my mind came up with pictures of hats. I started with a black men's hat. My dog looked slightly confused when I disappeared in my pile of pants and tops, dresses and blouses, belts and bags. I chose a poke dot dress from Michael Kors, hippie pants from The Fave and black velvet booties. I felt like a cowgirl on her way to dinner in LA...
I had everything I needed.
Pause.
A big Oprah-ish truth just became personal, real to me. When knowledge doesn't just sit in our heads as an intellectual agreement but comes from our bellies, from our own experience, it becomes real.
I have everything I need and not just in my wardrobe.
I remembered my kid pouring his trick or treat treasures onto his batman rug, sorting them out into categories, candies, gums, chocolates, cookies until the bag of diverse offerings became structured; a beautiful clear image that made sense. A sweet art object.
That's how this works.
Our lives are treasure chests packed with experiences, success and failures, passions and panic attacks, skills and schemes. We often keep them locked up, somewhere in a dark corner behind a big veil. When I discovered my essence, my inner rebel who had loved and guided me but tricked and crushed me when I didn't listen, I found the key key to my past. I thanked my rebel that she got me to where I am today. I looked into my mirror, saw her in my eyes and for the first time in 60 years I said: "I love you" and really meant it.
Adding the magic of self love to my life rearranged all the puzzle pieces to a picture. My life, all crossroads decisions, my crashes and wins, the winks and hints and messages from friend and foe, made sense.
My story was written by somebody who followed the number one rule of pristine scripts: You have to kill your darlings. Which means to give them what they need, to hammer and slash them to get to their goal. A perfect example actually is a new show on Netflix, Ozark, just when you think they've found their way, bam, another challenge thunders in.
When i saw the perfect structure of my imperfect life I knew I had finally found my voice. My screen writing teacher who disliked everything I wrote, told me with every grumpy glance, "You are not good enough." Looking at my life, tough teacher, I was good enough all along. I just had to wake up to it.
We have everything we need. Even the code to decipher our truth.
