I want to be able to form and keep friendships I was able to form over the years with friends I have at NAMI Mercer NJ who also struggle with their difficult mental illness. I have been working since January 2016. I am back to work this September 2019. I will be working this semester. I also plan to retest for the Praxis Core Reading test next January 2020. Early in January I plan to retest and take the core reading test for the second time. I may try a third time to see if I pass. I may be able to pass this second time. I’m studying the Barron’s Praxis Core Exams and I will be studying it for the rest of this year. Early January 2020 is retest.
I discovered Alicia Keys in a music therapy group when I was at St. Francis Medical Center on the Psychiatric unit in Trenton, New Jersey back in the 2000s.
I really like Alicia Keys. I am around her age. I’m 38. I love singer/songwriters. I feel like they are cool for singing and especially if they are like Alicia and have fifteen Grammy awards and write their own songs. I like her music. I love how she plays the piano. She is so cool and she seems to be down to earth. I like how in one of her music videos she has on a nice outfit playing the piano. She has a Yamaha piano too. To be a pianist is something very cool and to write your own songs. I just like and admire Alicia Keys so much.
I had a health scare.
I was hospitalized for blood clots in my lungs and I was having anxiety too. I have been up since 7 am. I am going to be working on my writing. I am taking a course with The Institute of Children’s Literature. I am half way through my course. I need to work on my assignments and make them better. I will be in the library from 10 am to noon. Then I’m just going to chill until 12:30 pm a friend is picking me up and we’re going bowling and getting pizza.
I am so happy I am working at my alma mater as a Mentor.
I am happy to be able to help my Mentees. Some of them are African American and I work at Mercer. I try to be helpful to all of my Mentees. Some of them are Caucasian and others are Hispanic. They are all very nice and I have been able to connect with almost all of them. Sometimes when I meet a new Mentee at the beginning of the semester I introduce myself to them to familiarize myself with their names as well.
One day this happened a few years ago on a day that I felt like giving up I had a supernatural peace wash over me.
I would describe this experience as a pivotal moment in my life. I knew the peace of God surpassed my understanding. God was saying to me at that moment “here I am you are not alone daughter”. I discovered I wasn’t alone. I felt alone. I felt really sad. I felt like I was becoming aware for the first time that beyond a shadow of a doubt that God loved and cared about me. I believe in God. I know he cares enough about me as his child. I’m 39 now. Back in my early 30s I had this divine encounter with a loving accepting God that forgave me and was there for me on a rough day. I sleep better also since I had the experience. Most nights I sleep well. I am less afraid or anxious about the future. The get better sleep at night since my early 30s the God encounter I had caused me to sleep better. I also lost over 45 pounds on my own. I try to sleep at night by 10 pm or so. I had insomnia a lot in my teenage years and in my 20s too. Now in my 30s from the year 2012 to now this has been my best decade for getting sleep and enough rest at night.
Me, myself, and I is all I got in the end.
I know it took being alone with myself for me to get more comfortable as I am and being able to say I really like myself. I was bullied a lot a child. I don’t wish to get revenge with my bullies and naysayers or the people that never cared for me. It’s their loss. At almost forty years of age I don’t seek revenge. The more compliments I go the more people wished me well the more I thought wow this is a good outcome. I don’t want to bring up the past. I am here now and I am so grateful to my supporters. I love being a writer too. I will be spending my time finishing up my ICL course. I want to revise a few assignments and finish strong giving myself more time with my last three assignments. I was given a generous extension too until next January 2021. I will actually be turning forty too next January 2021.
In my early 30s when I had my first successes with getting my poems published in the newsletter I felt happier.
My role as a writer is my favorite role. I enjoyed mentoring at my alma mater Mercer CCC. Money isn’t everything. You need money to live but it’s not as important as friends and family to your happiness. I know my mom has supported me a lot. My grandmother is important to me also. People often fail to realize that you don’t have to be the most beautiful or attractive person to choose yourself and learn to accept yourself more and be more comfortable with yourself the way you are. All it takes is confidence and being honest with yourself. I had gotten teased about my color a lot as a kid. That was really something that was hard for me but after I turned thirty my self image and my life got better. I still have my good days and my bad days but I feel really good about myself as a person. It is different for each person but I was usually the last girl picked and I had self image issues as a little girl. I remember my grandmother and my great aunt saying she loved my eyes and that I was her great niece. I appreciate my life now. I don’t try to change how other people think of me. All the matters to me at the end of a day is that I really like myself and I’ve grown more comfortable with myself now that I’m older. I’m 39.
I believe in God and I feel more interconnected with others.
God is the person I turn to. I have my supporters but they are fewer than I may like. I have been starting to pray and say prayers to God that come from a sincere heart. I know if I pray and get quiet from any distractions for at least an hour each day it will help me. The Lord says vengeance is mine. I do not seek revenge from anyone. I know this experience of being nominated for four blogger awards with a bunch of other bloggers here on WordPress has to be one of the coolest experiences I have had. I am finishing reading Disney’s A Wrinkle in Time.
At this point in my life where I am feeling better about myself, I choose to seek God and return to spirituality.
I am done playing the blame game with my parents. I am an adult. I’m going to be forty years old next January 2021. The decisions I make are my own to make. I don’t try to be a certain way for someone else to love me or treat me better. I realize now that because I’m older I can be good to myself on purpose but I want to think of my mom, my step father and my grandparents. I have three half sisters on my biological father’s side. My biological father died when I was like 2 years old. I remember a lot of things that happened in my early childhood like my father dying. I pray for world peace and an end to chaos and racism in the world. This world will change with more people who care that will change the world.
I am honest about my experiences and it helps me to be honest with my readers about my experiences.
Early on I had been bullied badly in school by other kids who didn’t like me. I started to feel better about myself after I turned thirty. My 30s have been the happiest period in my life so far. I’m looking forward to my 40th birthday early next year. I’m a January winter baby too. I was born in the heart of winter but I realize now that I’m older that I can celebrate my successes in my 30s and thank God for where I am. The more I think about the more difficult times in my life like my childhood and my adolescent years I know it feels good to reassess my progress, how far I’ve come and to try to forgive others and leave the past in the past. Now is all I have. The spiritual awakening I had let me know that God is here with me. I say my prayers in the morning when I wake up. I shut down my laptop at 10pm. I take my medication at 8pm at night. I know if I am going to live a long life I have to do certain things to get healthier. That is why I eat mostly fish and vegetables and fruits. I limit what I eat to fish and occasionally I treat myself to some fried chicken too. I took certain foods out of my diet completely. I also do cooking as a hobby and a way to contribute to the household I live in. I am going to be doing some cooking for my mom, my grandma, my step father and myself. I cook breakfast for us all on weekends too.
I appreciate my life. I am thankful for divine intervention.
I had most of my successes in my 30s. It gave me a chance to enjoy my successes because they happened shortly after I started to like myself again in my early 30s. I knew something had shifted for me when friends complimented me on my clothes or poems I wrote. I am happy to have the opportunity to publish my poetry in the newsletter at NAMI called the Messenger. I always see the glass as half full. I think of struggles I had as a child being bullied a lot. I think of the successes I have had with my blog and I’m filled with gratitude toward the people who nominated me and said my blog was great. When I think of all the things my mental illness stole from me I remember God causing a supernatural peace to wash over me letting me know I am never alone. My life’s trajectory gave me a chance to just enjoy my successes as a writer. I am also finishing up my course with The Institute of Children’s Literature.
