Part 1: Things Fall Apart
Here I sit, surrounded once again by plants and dogs, looking out from my home office patio over the San Gabriel Mountains. It has been seven years since I left my marriage and lost my daughters, six years since I launched the first iteration of this blog, then called Single and Hungry AF; four and a half years since settling the divorce and buying myself a brand new house in the Los Angeles hills, which started leaking and rusting the week I moved in and now appears to be slowly falling down; three and a half years since crossing the high Red Desert in a record breaking blizzard with Wyoming’s #1 Falconer-FuckBoy, spending Christmas 2019 in a Salt Lake City Best Western, and getting pointlessly mind-fucked by Utah’s infamous FuckBoy, Sleepy Nic; three and ¼ years since quarantining alone for six months in my falling-down-house; two and ¾ years since my three week solo adventure into the blazing woods of California in a falling-apart-van I dubbed Sleepy Nic because, like its namesake, it was absolutely adorable and not to be trusted, then returning on my 50th birthday to discover the attorney on my falling-down-house law suit was grossly incompetent and I would have to begin anew; two and ½ years since inviting an atheistic Aspie horror fiction writer to be my quarantine buddy; nine months since the ol’ MS went sufficiently into remission to make a two month cross country trek in the Chakra Shack to see his family’s Tennessee Farm; seven months since we returned home, my service dog Ginger died in our arms, and I relapsed; five months since I was diagnosed with MS-induced Scoliosis and began a full time rehabilitation program developed through Present Moment Movement and Eating, with the assistance of Dr. Zimmerman, chiropractor to the Women’s Olympic Soccer Team and a true artist at his craft; seven weeks since I had the second round of X-rays that showed me it’s working; and five weeks since finally rejoining hearts with my youngest, now 21 year old daughter, who is everything I ever hoped she would be, a young woman I am privileged, grateful, and honored to call my friend.
You know how you keep thinking you’ve had the toughest year of your life, and then along comes another record breaking challenge that has you leveling up beyond your wildest dreams, and you kinda wish you’d had a heads up, but, on the other hand, you’re pretty sure if you’d seen what was coming you would’ve opted out, so now you’re glad you didn’t see it coming, cuz, yeah, that was wayyyyyy hard; but it was definitely interesting, and if you’d been writing a movie you for sure would’ve written it that way, and then you remember you did write it that way because you know we each write our own story, and then you decide maybe you shouldn’t be so hard on yourself next time it doesn’t look like things aren’t going your way?
Yeah, it’s been like that for me too.
Part 2: Thirty Days of Molly
There is a wave of global consciousness dawning as science and spirituality converge to help our ego-minds comprehend the truth of who and what we are. This communal awakening is literally written in the stars of which we are dust, and while I have long been a curious skeptic of astrology as a science, when I began noticing my moods and energy syncing with lunar cycles, I got less skeptical and more curiouser.
My mother being one of those hippy-naturalists who knows just enough to be dangerously stupid, I determined to approach Astrology with a pseudo-scientific experiment of my own design. It began with a follow of intuitive Astrologist Molly McCord, to whom my Guides send me from time to time for uplifting affirmations.
I find Molly’s voice both energizing and soothing and her predictions are always on point, so I chose Molly’s podcast as my resource for this experiment and dubbed it Thirty Days of Molly. I journaled, in greater than usual detail, my daily events, activities, health, moods and energy fluctuations. I then listened to Molly retrospectively and compared what had happened, as recorded in my PMJournal, to what Molly said would happen.
Long story short, It blew my mind. Awareness of current planetary energies in general and Molly’s podcast in particular have since become a cornerstone of my personal Present Moment Living & Planning (PML&P). It’s like having a rough road map to the days, months and years ahead. It doesn’t have all the side streets, but it gives you the major highways and rest stops, which imbue the journey with some small measure of predictability and facilitates a degree of Present Moment Planning (PMP).
Part 3: Phoenix Rising
The process of learning to vibrate in tune with the frequency of our Highest Selves involves multiple rebirths, and by extension multiple deaths. Some of my own deaths have been celebrated with relief: the death of the fawning doormat; the lonely, under-appreciated and overworked Wife-Mother who was not permitted to set boundaries in her own home; the people-pleasing FuckBoy addict capable of falling in love only with covertly narcissistic liars and cheats.
Releasing other past versions of my Self was an exercise in sorrow which has been literally spine crushing (see Xray): the happy WifeMom whose greatest joy and sole purpose in life was actively loving her family and manifesting their dreams; the grief ridden mother who lost the hearts and minds of her daughters to the divorce (a heart break I wouldn’t wish on my worst enemy; loss of one’s children is the most painful way to die by far); the badass divorcee who had the courage to leave the security of a lonely marriage to an emotionally unavailable narcissist, found the money her husband was “parking” in private accounts, and laughingly set out to invent herself anew – only to discover she has had MS for twenty years and he has no intention of honoring the settlement in full – a loophole was left open, which he is now actively exercising to his advantage.
Looking back over the thousands of journal entries I have made these past 6 years it strikes me that the insights I had in 2018 are, for the most part, the same ones I have been downloading on repeat ever since. My understandings of what happened in my marriage, who I am, what I want in a relationship and where my work lies have not changed. My diligence in holding myself accountable has not flagged. My ritualistic use of a daily planner/journal continues to be one of the cornerstones which supports my goals of Present Moment Living (PML).
This very morning I was moved to pull out my Present Moment Journals (PMJ) from the past several years:
Friday April 9 2021 (PMJournal entries are edited for clarity and context.)
“The concept of The Dark Night of the Soul has appeared to me several times over the past week. Having now read Eckhart Tolle’s definition, I realize this describes my experience March 2020, when I tried to end my experience in this body. I had lost faith in my own faith, in the spiritual truths by which I had lived my life. I see now that losing faith was a necessary part of my growth. I had to understand how it feels to be without faith, to feel mistaken in or abandoned by God/Source/HighestSelf. This is the most profound of deaths, the final death after which one finally and fully comprehends that death is nothing more or less than a door through which one walks to be reborn somewhere or someone else.
After all I have survived, I know enough to take stock before surrendering to familial vulnerability as I settle in with my new family in our cozy treetop nest. Many times have I been duped into casting off my fireproof armor, only to find I had once again been building not a cozy nest, but my own funeral pyre. Transformation by fire is all well and good, but I’m pretty fucking crispy by now and ready to get on with my Hero’s Journey.
So how to know for sure if it’s safe to take off that armor? Here again I turn to my PMP&J for answers.
Question 1: What are his actions telling you about who he is?
April 9 2021: “Sherlock (my nickname for Jared) has insinuated himself firmly into my home and my life. When he says “it just feels right,” he trusts that feeling. He has invested in decor, unpacked his greatest treasures (his books, of course) onto two enormous shelves in our home, hung art on the walls, pulled up weeds in the garden, officially taken over trash duty… The actionable steps I was waiting for are happening. I am beginning to believe I can eventually count on him to take the reigns when I can’t, and what a relief it is! I’ve been solo engineer for seven years and every person I’ve invited on board has tried to push me off and run me over. For a long stretch I seemed to be hurtling blindly through space, trusting on faith alone that I was not plunging to my death. That long stretch of darkness turned out to be a tunnel connecting my old life to this new one. And the light at the end was Sherlock.”
Question 2: Is there tangible growth?
That PMJ entry was over two years ago. Since then Sherlock has made further steps in initiative, socialization, spiritual awakening and conscious energy management. My boundaries and non-negotiables are increasingly respected and honored without argument or attitude, which has allowed me to grow out from under the shade of my ex husband’s passive aggression into the blossoming rose I came here to be.
Question 3: Is there equal commitment to the partnership?
There is a long list of evidentiary proof that we are equally committed to the healthy growth of this peaceful soul partnership, not least of which is the fact that we recently rescued a bonded pair of poodles from South Korea. It would kill them both to be separated from one another or either of us and he is the primary feeder and poop scooper. As far as I’m concerned that’s better than putting a ring on it.
Question 4: Can you be fully authentic in the relationship?
I came across a line in my PMJ that is either a quote from or response to an essay I was reading on Psych.com: “Authenticity can be described as a commitment to being true to yourself, and ordering your soul and living your life so as to give faithful expression to individuality, cherished projects and deepest convictions.”
Authenticity is at the heart of our relationship. If someone doesn’t like and respect you for you, if they overtly or covertly wish you were different than you are, there is no room for authenticity. This has become another cornerstone of my inner cathedral. Sherlock and I have lived together 24/7 since February 2021. He humbly recognizes and appreciates my broader life and relationship experience. I gratefully recognize and appreciate that Aspergers comes with benefits which can make up for its challenges. We like, love and trust one another because of, not in spite of, our mutual inability to be anything other than authentic.
Check, check, check and check. My PMP&J is a mirror which reflects truth back to me, helping me answer my own questions about my own choices. It is empowerment. And I feel safely empowered to leave my armor at the door. I have found home.
Part 4: Daily Offerings to My Future Self
As I look back on my growth these past seven years I find myself falling in love with the girl, the woman, the soul who wrote those words. I want to know her better. I want her as my mentor.
Where there are blank pages or long gaps between entries, I wish she had at least written “Present Moment Productivity” Or “#MSing #JKM” or “Having too much fun to write” or “Beautiful sunset.” So now I do. And as the years go by and I look back upon my musings, rants, and downloads, I am organically motivated to write more. If Present Moment Me doesn’t feel like writing, I ask her to do it as a gift to her future self. Isn’t it all for her anyway?
My PMP&J are a tangible account of my journey in this time-space continuum as I learn to follow the guidance of my invisible soul and move ever closer to discovering the mystery of my own personal intention at the outset of this journey. It is where I come to be given the words I need to hear. It is the evidence I place before the ego-mind that when we let go and do only that which is placed before us, everything the Universe has been gathering to fulfill our wildest dreams will present itself at precisely the right moment. It is my proof to myself that Do More Nothing works.
Present Moment Planning &Journalling, in conjunction with Present Moment Movement, Meditation and Eating, brings me into complex harmony with Source. It is the anchor and the ballast that maintains my equilibrium as I spin ever faster towards the apex of my Vortex, where there is no sorrow, no scarcity, no pain, no illness, no death, no disease, and best of all, no fuckboys.