Who am I?

So...here I am again....this time not quite sure where this blog will take me but eager to get this out.

After something that I consider to be wonderful happened in my life last Monday, I received a message from someone that, once I read it, made me feel as if I was about to face another loss. I can't explain the details; but it felt as if my heart was being broken again.

So I'm sitting and trying to see the 'light' in all that surrounds me and who I am and the question enters my mind of who I really am....when I try to define who I think I am, every description is about what I DO rather than who I am. The reality hits me that I have NO IDEA who I REALLY am. I am the first mom looking for her son. I am the Life Coach that helps people change their lives. I am the mother of 2 amazing daughters. I am the wife of a sometimes troubled man. I am the friend of anyone that considers me to be so. I am an advocate of animals, a lover of Mother Earth, a believer that God is an amazing form of true and complete love...and the list goes on. But who AM I? Really?

I am the girl that has no recollection of what my body looked like before it became distorted by a teen-aged pregnancy and spent the majority of her life feeling ashamed of her body because of the damage done by deciding to give birth to a child that I knew would never know me as his mom or know the sacrifices I had made so that he could live. I am the girl that has very few memories of anyone actually acting loving towards me in the family I grew up in. I am the girl whose father would tell her each and every morning just how ugly he thought she was. I am the girl that worries about what's best for others and pushes my own needs aside.

Is THAT who I am? How DO we define ourselves? I know that I have a huge heart that's been broken more times than I care to count; even by some that had no idea that they could even do so. I know that I am smart and strong and capable of ANYTHING that I put my mind to. I know that I am a survivor in that I've survived not only a very un-loving childhood but the loss of my son, whom I loved dearly even though we had not even met yet. I know that I am fiercely protective of anyone that I love because I never felt protected growing up and will never allow anyone or anything that I love EVER feel alone.

Who am I?

I am the mom that loves to laugh with her children because it feels so good to know that I have them to laugh with. I am the person next to you at the red light that's listening to her music very loudly and singing along with it even louder. I am the stranger that will come up to you and tell you how much I love your hair, your clothes, your shoes or your bag and watch your face light up at such a random act of kindness from a complete stranger. I am *still* the comedian that will make you laugh until your cheeks hurt, only now it's genuine and not being done to hide pain. I am the woman in search of her son that was taken away by people that looked me in the eye and told me that I should have never been born.

Who am I?

Do you all ever ponder that question? If so, how do YOU answer yourself? And please know that I am very proud of who I am today; all of those things that I described herein have molded me into the person I am today. A person whom, after many, many decades of self-loathing, love wholly and completely....exactly the way that I am. You see, THAT is my greatest accomplishment in this lifetime thus far. I never, ever dreamed that I would ever be able to look into a mirror without hearing all of those hateful things that 'they' all said about me, of which I was one. So, perhaps I don't know who I really 'am' right now, in this very moment; however, what I DO know is who I am NOT and that's that hateful, sorrow filled, negative, angry little girl. That is accomplishment enough for me.

A new beginning and proof that 'it' really does work!

So, here I sit, on a Tuesday morning, after a surprisingly wonderful nights' sleep amazed that all that 'work' that I've been doing actually worked! We're told that anger, hate, bitterness and all of those nasty, negative feelings can actually eat away at us and cause dis-eases like cancer and that we should work on letting go and forgiveness, right? Well, I'm here to tell you that they're SOOOOO right!

I had an (over) hour-long conversation with my son's bio-father last night; after about 25 minutes of texting back-and-forth first. Let me go backwards here for a second; for those of you whom do not know our 'story'; we are the parents of a son who was lost to adoption almost 29 years ago. His name is Mike, and we had only seen/spoken to one another twice in the last 29 years.

On Monday morning, I turned on my BB and saw a Facebook friend request from him and nearly fell over. My eldest daughter felt that she had to remind me to stay focused on my driving while driving the girls to school; she said that I looked pale. I think I was in shock. I wasn't sure what to expect and wasn't really sure how I felt about it. After all the years that had passed and all of the anger that i had felt towards him.....and then my intuition kicked in and I realized that, with everything else behind us and all of the forgiveness work I had done, we both had one thing still in common; our son.

So, he sent me a FB message asking if our child had ever contacted me......it took me 14 hours to answer him; again, what did he want? Was he angry? Would he heed the warnings not to jump to any conclusions and hamper any chance that we may have of, one day, meeting our son? Once I replied to him, the communication began and I felt so relieved that I felt absolutely no anger, bitterness or fear...only love and compassion. How strange, huh? *in a delightfully pleasant way* My heart breaks for him after he told me that he'd had no other children; he hadn't been blessed like I have been. He even apologized for all that had been done back then. I was not only moved but also happy to know that I'm no longer in this "alone." Now, that's not to say that the Search Angels in my life haven't been wonderfully compassionate and supportive because they have, especially one in-particular *she knows who she is*..but this is different. I, suddenly, don't feel as if my feelings for my son are something I have to keep quiet about until it's 'appropriate'...he feels my pain and loss, just like most of the Angels do...but this is 'our' pain; he knows how I feel.

It's so freeing to know that all of that work that I have done over the last 10 years has actually paid off. I forgive him - I really do. I just hope he can forgive me. I know now that I did everything that I possibly could have to try and keep our son; I was 16 years old and there were a lot of 'them' and only one 'me'....I hope one day we can meet this amazing young man and that he'll be able to forgive both of us.

Thanks for letting me share. Love and light to all of you! <3

Shifting Gears

Hi everyone! It's been a while since I posted and I apologize for that. Health problems and life, itself, seemed to have gotten in my way...temporarily.

I hope you all had a phenomenal holiday season and a positive and loving start to the new year!!!

This post is different; a rant, if you will. I have some amazing 'gently used' Shabby Chic style furnishings that I've been trying to sell for months now a fabulous Robin Bruce slipcovered loveseat, 3 shabby bar stools, beaded light bulb covers and the dining chair covers. The problem seems to be a lack of exposure in the proper venues. So I have these things posted on Craigslist and also on ebay, as well as in the newspaper but have yet to have any success in selling them. One of the 'things' that I'm trying to sell is a set of four custom-made Rachel Ashwell slipcovers that are for dining chairs; something that I thought would sell quickly. Nope. So I'm trying to find out how to get more exposure and I google "Rachel Ashwell dining slip cover"...which SHOULD bring up my ebay auction, at the very least...but NOPE...nothing. Hmmmmmm. What to do, what to do.



Now I can google many variations and click the 'images' button and *poof* plenty of OTHER images come up, but not mine...even though all of those words appear in both the body and the title of my sales/auctions. So then I google "Robin Bruce Loveseat slipcovered" *because I have one for sale, too, lol* and NOTHING.

Can anyone tell me what I'm doing wrong??? Is the Universe trying to tell me something??? Ugh. I've gotta sell this stuff so that I can make some Russian Folk beds for my girls. How do the other people DO it?? Etsy, ebay....ugh.

Thanks for listening. LOL. Feel free to post any *legitimate* suggestions! Love and light to all of you! <3