I went shopping. Well online shopping, one of the drawbacks of living in the hood is the lack of shopping options.

Everything is sitting in the art until next weekend but it felt good to shop. It is the last 2 things I ‘need’ for the house, some things I need for daily living like soap.

I’m able to shop though and that is a luxury that I have not always had. I’ve invested in my future and it feels odd. I’m in a spot where now I have to start to implement the plan and its scary. Due to the choices I’ve made being here means that I only have the option of moving towards this future or collapsing. Collapsing is not an option. The only option is forward.

Doesn’t make me less afraid, what it means though I that I act in the face of that fear.

I have dates on the calendar. Dates to do things, see people, engage, be. I’ve resisted the calendar because of how it used to be. I tried to explain it but I stopped short of all of the details. It sounds crazy when I talk about it, and I don’t want to sound crazy. The calendar used to be a crutch. It was one of my OCD managers and how I got through times when I didn’t think I could do anything else. I put everything on the calendar, even the brushing of my teeth. It was obsessive and compulsive. It was sit down with a therapist type behavior but it was the only way I could exist for a period of time. It’s how I know I am good at coordinating and organizing, because I organized my life to the point that using the toilet to pee was on the calendar.

As I healed some, as I moved on more, as I forced myself to accept the changes in my life I did not want but were present anyhow that calendar was life saving. It worked. It wasn’t healthy but it did what needed to be done to get to this point.

Giving myself permission to return to the calendar is a big deal. I was asked why I wasn’t using it, the calendar, to accomplish some things that could have made things better, and I never found the voice to say, the me who used that calendar is not the person I want to be. It was a coping mechanisms for a trauma and I don’t want to live with that trauma any longer. I didn’t say going back to that calendar in my head makes me think I am reverting back to that way of ‘living’ and that wasn’t me living, that was me figuring out a way to not die.

I can point to so many things I’ve done over the years, especially recent years to not die. Very few things to live. On a morning like this when memories are vivid it feels like a simple thing to fall back into those old habits. I trust that I will not though. I am going to trust in the work I am doing and that on the other side is what I have asked the Universe to deliver. I am preparing myself that it may not look like what I’ve asked for, I’m still not a master of this yet.

I started looking for jobs here though. I’m thinking that under different circumstances I perhaps may not have chosen Baltimore. This though, is where I am, its were I shall be born so to speak and it is where I am. Where I will be tomorrow is not known, and not promised. Where I used to be cannot be undone. In this moment though I am moving towards life here.

A friend wants to sit and talk about the future. They want to be a part of my rebuild so to speak. I don’t know what that looks like but I am wiling to have the conversation. I don’t have to say yes, but not listening is the opposite of my current purpose.

One of the lessons of the summer house is that I have to be aligned with the vizion of my assistance. Compatible if you will. I don’t yet know if we are, but I will never know if I don’t have the conversation, so the conversation will be had.

I’m gonna hop in the shower and take my afternoon with the calendar and a couple other things I’ve rejected and am now giving myself permission to see.do.use. I’m scared, but I’m gonna do it anyway.

Aphrodite Brown