I’m going to need to settle down so I can stop making categories for these random thoughts. I’m back in a city and back in the ‘hood’ there are not diners close and for the moment I don’t have a vehicle so there are no Diner Ruminations.

It’s been 2 weeks and I’m about 90% settled. I still need 2 more items for the room, and a me touch here and there but I have a new routine down and its working.

I’ve done good. No seriously. When the writing was on the proverbial wall I made a plan and stuck to it and the result is despite not having a ton of disposable income for a couple weeks, the rent is paid, I’m sleeping on a bed and the bills are all current. This lets me budget and plan better after these few days of austerity. I hustled and got it done. That was one of my fears…after. Losing Manheim St fucked with my psyche and had me thinking that this was not possible. Life says it is.

Moving to Pottstown was in part because I knew I wasn’t stable enough emotionally to be alone after Manheim St, but it was also allowing myself to think this was not something that I could do. I has a string of L’s that allowed me to convince myself that I was not capable of this. I am though.

I’d forgotten what it was before Clyde. I did it. I made some ill decisions then but I still did it. The power was always on, the fridge always had food and the cat had his own room lol.

Knowing that which I do now, I would have gone smaller, banked some more, accepted more ‘gifts’, but the point was I did it. I am doing it again. This time, with some older age and lessons learned I can do it differently. Better? In some ways, but differently.

I got this.

The universe got me.

This is not the part of the program where I’m the SO of the cornerback and putting on my athlete wife persona, this is the program where its just me. With all my lessons, all my power, all my history at my disposal to build the future I stopped dreaming about because I never thought it was something that I deserved.

There’s no shame in having to start over. I mean I don’t recommend it, if you can avoid it please do. The idea of beginning to live at almost 50 can be sobering if you let it. But there is no shame in this moment. There is growth, there is progress, there is dare I say a measure of pride. I’ve been knocked down, and threw myself down 9 times, and this is #10. I’m upright.

Speaking of upright, the new barber offered to be my Baltimore tour guide. The kid who won’t look me in the eye offered me a movie and a massage. While both offers were declined, the point behind it is not lost on me. The shift is apparent. I’m back to being attractive. I don’t mean the weight I lost, and that really is a thing, I mean that my spirit is shifted that pulls people to me again. That is a good thing. No eye contact is adorable. He has absolutely no game but he’s cute none the less. The barber is a no. I’m going to need all of these haircuts and I shall not fuck that up by fucking the barber. Hey, like I said I’ve learned some lessons.

This neighborhood is interesting. It’s definitely the hood, and its shades of the Wire, but its also being gentrified. I don’t know if Baltimore is where the universe plans for me to settle, but I’m looking at the neighborhood on my walks and seeing the pattern.

I don’t know if real estate is what I am going to do, but I can see the potential. I can see why people do it, and do it in places like this. I listened to the daily vents and learned a thing or two. I’m not an expert, but I can certainly see the possibility of that – real estate – being a thing down the road. This location in 10 years is going to be a cash cow. I still struggle with the idea of ‘wealth’ the pursuit of it, accumulating it, but that is something I am working on. One of my affirmations deals with that. Money isn’t evil, and it doesn’t have to turn me into anything other than what I am now. It will mean though that I can stop saying let’s wait for payday. There’s a concept hunh? I’m willing to try that on for a bit and see what I look like wearing it. I’ve worn this outfit and it doesn’t precisely fit the me of this moment. I am a girl after all I like shopping, so I may as well get started.

Aphrodite Brown