I’m not entirely certain, but I believe there may be quite a few new eyes reading my blog posts due to the events of the past few days. Therefore, I feel the need to reintroduce myself and what this site is about. My name is Tammi and I started this blog as a means of taking those inclined on a journey with me. A journey into the next phase of my life and beyond. But really the next phase is here and now. A little less than a year ago, after much stress, unhappiness and a long season of Divine Dissatisfaction with my work and my life, I decided I needed to leave my job of eight years and an industry I’d worked in since 1998. It was a freeing and empowering decision for me, but I had no clue what else I wanted to do. Then came another revelation. My children were all grown, the two oldest, my sons had been out of the house for years and only my 19-year-old daughter remained. I could figure out what I really want to be when I grow up and go for it!

My therapist recommended a book called ‘The Path’ Creating Your Mission Statement For Work and For Life by Laurie Beth Jones. It is a fantastic book which defines clearly what a mission statement is, the elements that make up a mission statement and even discusses false assumptions about them. It has a series of exercises and tasks designed to help you know yourself, uncover your passion and design a vision statement. I discovered my element is water. I discovered that I want to communicate, facilitate and inspire healthy meaningful connections through spirituality, or maybe through interior design or possibly with women’s issues. I haven’t finalized the focus of my mission statement yet. This process of discovery took place late last year and into early 2015. It was a great beginning and really helped me face going into work every day. I still had no clue HOW I was supposed to go about doing those things. Eventually, I started to grow fearful and discouraged about leaving my job and starting a new phase in my life. It would require an effort, a presence of heart, mind and spirituality that I didn’t think I could live up to. So I shut down and went into a deep isolative depression for quite some time. Time spent zoning out on the couch in front of the television with a lot of emotional eating. Eventually, I crawled out of that mental and spiritual darkness enough to reach out to a particular friend. We met for lunch and as I talked about my fears and doubts about my ability to navigate the next steps in my life, she suggested I start a blog about how I deal with my fears as I change my life. I told her I’d think about it, I even had a domain name in mind, but we tabled the discussion. But the idea stayed with me. It germinated, marinated, then resonated until weeks later, on my own I checked to see if the domain name I wanted for my blog was available. It wasn’t.

In the meantime, I was doing all kinds of things to show up for my life mentally, emotionally and spiritually. I was being of service to my community. I was following a lot more spiritually uplifting pages and personalities on Facebook. I accepted a social media challenge from a local plus-sized boutique to post selfies for 20 days straight with #LoveYourSelfie2015 and #HowBigIsYourBrave to all social media. I received a TON of positive feedback with that challenge! I started writing a little about my experience in my selfie postings. I also copy and paste many quotes to my own personal facebook page. Once my original idea for my blog domain was taken, I came up with BuildYourOwnBrave (BYOB). It was available and I paid for it! You see, I’m also a recovering alcoholic and drug addict. Clean and sober for 18 years, so I really liked the BYOB. And of course, build your own brave speaks to me about walking through my fears.

A dear friend came back into my life at a time when I needed someone with computer skills to help me set up the site. His name is Paulie and he was an angel. In fact, since I’d crawled out of that depression and made a conscious intention to show up, be present and move forward with my life, things have been HAPPENING! Real shit like I decided to move from the large 90 unit gated apartment complex I’d live in for 14 years into a 5 unit street level place that I just love, love, love. My blog site was launched a little less than six weeks ago and has been well received. I started taking yoga classes on another great recommendation from my kickass therapist. It seems my fear of living up to the effort and presence of heart/mind/spirit were unfounded. The clarity and presence that I have in my life now is fueled and driven by the Divine. It’s always been Divinely guided whether I acknowledge it or not. So far it’s shown me humility and grace beyond measure. It is calling me to be more loving, more giving, more open, more authentic, more of service because God and Life are sending those to me in equal measure. I promise to keep answering His Call in whatever form it takes. 

My blog posts this week will be short and sweet. I’m feeling drained from the emotional rollercoaster of writing my first essay for scholarship submission and having it rejected. Well, not rejected, but I didn’t win the scholarship. I found out by reading the Facebook post of the woman who offered the scholarship. I guess they don’t notify us via email as the essay instructions were vague on exactly when the winner would be announced or how they’d be notified. She did post that she was blown away by the number of submissions (50) and the quality of the writing. Then in the comments, one of her followers thanked the woman and two other organizations. Before then, the donors of the scholarship were anonymous. The instructions stated the anonymous donors would only be shared with the winner. So that was a huge disappointment and let down. On top of the indescribable bedlam that is my job due to cramming 5 days of work into a 4 day work week (after the Labor Day holiday),  it was just too much for me today. It was just one of them days… Drink or Bundt cake? Alcohol or sugar? Sorry, if I’m bursting anyone’s bubble about me but when I’m down and stressed out like today, my coping skills get basic! Of course with 18 years in recovery, what did you think I’d choose?

The lemon bundlet did its job and isn’t nearly as destructive as a drink would have been. I drove home and stopped off at the store for items needed to make a dip for a friend’s birthday potluck at work Friday. I got home, put away the groceries and did the dishes. I picked up Baby Bub from work at 8 and came home to tackle the FIVE (5!!!) boxes of Pampered Chef products that had to be sorted for delivery at work tomorrow… In other words, business as usual. Life goes on. Plus it was a lot of fun sorting through orders and most importantly, putting mine aside. I earned quite the haul  and couldn’t resist setting up my new bamboo sink caddy since the coveting of it started me on that particular journey.

I also ended up having a funny, meaningful interaction with a Facebook friend and her friend, who is a pretty high-brow movie reviewer. In fact, he might do it professionally, they’re that well written. I wrote a review about the television series “The West Wing” because they were posting about wanting to check it out based on a video from a scene of Martin Sheen as President Bartlett putting a verbal smackdown on a right-wing talk show host. I have the series on DVD and was an avid watcher and fan back in the day. My review was well received and I think it tipped the scales because they both said they are definitely going to watch it now.

Lastly, I found something really cool and uplifting on my newsfeed this afternoon from the page of You Are Not Stuck by Becky Vollmer. This put my disappointment into perspective and made me feel instantly better about myself because today I am the reaching, the growing, the stretching, the striving. Even if I don’t get to my destination, I am the journey.

This past weekend was kind of heavy for me. I’d set some goals for the long weekend that centered on two pieces of personal writing. Writing even more personal than what I blog about here. As mentioned in my prior posts, I have a tendency to get fearful, then isolate. Well, this weekend was no exception. I still made it out for my meetings, but I kept to myself mostly with little to no socializing before or afterward. I did a lot of sleeping and emotional eating, something I hadn’t done in a while. I took Friday off from work because I just couldn’t go in there another day and a three day weekend was not enough time away from that place. But by Sunday afternoon I hadn’t written a word. I beat myself up for being me, the baby stepper with the tendency to Cha-Cha slide.

Eventually, I got honest with a few of my close friends that asked me how I was doing. I wrote something just to get started and took a little time to go walking Sunday evening before stopping off at another meeting. When I got home I did some more writing and the essay I’d been avoiding started to emerge and take shape. I finally finished it about 30 minutes ago and read it to my dear friend and sounding board. I broke down while I was reading it to her. It was that personal and gut level. I have no idea if it will “wow” the editors that I am submitting it to, because that was one of their criteria. But it was honest, from my heart, gut-wrenching, and brave. So that hit the other criteria for submission.

I didn’t get the second piece of writing done, but that’s ok. I’m not ready for that one yet, but I will be soon. The truth of the matter is that while things didn’t go according to how my head thought they should, it got done. The writing that needed to get done is finished and will be submitted in a timely manner. And while I experienced some fear this weekend, I rolled with it. I lived through it and came out the other side of it a lot sooner than I used to. And while I beat myself up, I’m not emotionally or spiritually black and blue over it. The emotional eating was not completely out of hand and I managed to hike and do some walking this weekend to get me moving.

In the 12 step rooms, we strive for progress, not perfection. Looking back on this extra long weekend, I am pleased with my progress. My baby steps are surer and my Cha-Cha slide didn’t take me as far backward. I’m very pleased with my progress.

Eight years ago I quit my job without having another one to go to. I cashed in my 401k at the time and lived off of it for five months. I did it because the job was an extremely high pressure, production oriented call center that really didn’t care about it’s employees. I was a number that generated subpar metrics according to their goals and criteria. They paid extremely well and had a phenomenal profit-sharing bonus every year. That was one of the reasons I lasted six years there. But I was miserable, I hated Mondays and I hated myself because I couldn’t measure up to their standards. I quit because I was burned out and I had enough in my 401k to take some time off to myself. I know that was not an optimal course of action, I know that.

Trust me when I tell you I learned my lesson from that. I spent way too much time home alone with myself and ended up miserable, not to mention I burned through $30,000.00 of potential future retirement income. Although still making choices that weren’t well thought out or healthy, thank God I was in recovery. I had 9 years clean and sober when I went to my home group meeting in the park one Sunday morning in October of 2006 and confessed just how emotionally, mentally and spiritually fucked up I was. Well, my sponsor at the time was at the meeting and she told me since I had the time on my hands that I needed to do thirty meetings in thirty days. See this is why we have sponsors, mentors and guides. Because we can’t figure this shit out on our own. It was a brilliant idea and I followed her direction. It jump started my rise from the abyss and my job search. At the end of thirty days, I was interviewing for jobs and my recovery was going strong. I landed with a really good company, making decent money where I was valued as an employee.

Fast forward eight and half years, I’m still with that company. I’ve grown so much as an employee in my marketable skill set! I promoted into another department 3 years ago and I really loved it. Except our company has been going through a transition and change in corporate culture over the last two years. They’ve shown very clearly that their priorities are now production goals and metrics. The workload has increased by 20% yet the quality of work product is no longer valued as much as closing numbers, response times and upgrading to compete with other companies. Valuing employees hasn’t just fallen to the wayside, it has been chucked unceremoniously. I find myself  feeling stressed out and inadequate of late. I know I am a smart, capable, worthy employee. My company used to feel that way about me too. I have copies of all my prior annual reviews to prove it! But the shift in evaluating annual reviews now says I am sorely lacking. I have friends in many different departments that feel the same way and have voiced the same issues. It has been a growing disbelief, discomfort and dissatisfaction that can no longer be denied or ignored. I could give specific instances that demonstrate clearly just how unappreciated we are now, but this is about my response to the situation.

I have grown and progressed by leaps and bounds in the last eight and a half years. Much of it is due to my 12 step program, but paradoxically, much of it is due to my current employer. My 12 step program, spiritual kin, and sponsors have shown me how to love, appreciate and value myself. My employer taught me how to interpret, evaluate, audit and assemble information to negotiate the resolution of claims. Think about that. My employer taught me critical thinking and interpretation in order to stand firm in resolving issues. So imagine the irony that I have now used those skills and abilities to analyze my current work situation. Guess what? It’s no longer acceptable to stay where I am not valued and appreciated.  In fact, it’s become intolerable and it’s time to move on. This saddens me because I believed I would be retiring from this company. However, it’s clear that I would not last another 17 years according to their evaluation. 

So after this long weekend, I begin searching for a suitable work environment or career course for this next phase of my life. I search with a clarity of purpose this time around, not leaping without consideration of consequences. I have such a clear idea of who I am and what I can offer this time around. I know I want to work somewhere where my contribution is valued and appreciated, a place where employees like where they work. God has been invited into this particular process long ago so all I need to do is the footwork and trust in whatever the results may be.

These were my standards of bravery, strength, beauty and brains growing up. They were and still are formidable queen mothers, only now they’re also queen grandmothers and great-grandmothers as well. They are my dad’s mother, Nana, sitting front and center in pink rocking the fur, to her left my dad’s oldest sister Aunt Marie in the deeper blue, standing behind her is Aunt Marva in pink, my mother is in light blue next to her, then my Aunt Patty in black and white and Aunt Virginia in red. There were uncles and my father around, of course, but it was the women who were front and center in my mind and my memories.

My Nana was one of my first babysitters. She cooked pancakes with corn in them and served them with thick Karo syrup. She had fish fries on Friday nights during Lent. She used to smack my hand with a white marbled brush if I was foolish enough to reach up to interfere when she was doing my hair. It felt like she was pulling my brains out through the roots of my hair because I was tender-headed as a child. She’d send me into the backyard to choose the switch she would use for my whooping when I misbehaved too! Yep, I had one of those childhoods and she was one of those Nanas. I also remembered how she used to hum church songs, sometimes singing out loud. To this day, “This Little Light Of Mine” makes me think of her. She lived with her oldest daughter, Aunt Marie and I remember thinking how lucky my cousins Leslie and Linda were to have her around all the time.

Aunt Marie is a fiercely intelligent, outspoken, humorous, beautiful queen. Straight forward and eagle-eyed, she misses nothing! She was always so well put together with lovely hair, make-up, and smart clothing style. As a teenager, I lived with my Great Uncle James for a time. She was the aunt that would come pick me up every other Saturday to take me to the beauty shop with her so we could get our hair done. She was somewhat intimidating to me as a child, but I was always certain of her love. As an adult when I went back East for my maternal grandmother, Mimi’s funeral, it was Aunt Marie that noticed I needed to ask my son Lyndon to open a water bottle for me because I didn’t have the strength in my wrists to do it myself. She interrupted the conversation in progress in Aunt Virginia’s kitchen to ask me why he had to open the water for me. I was still in the midst of my testing and had not yet discovered my Lupus diagnosis, so I had to tell my female relatives the symptoms I’d been having up until then. Nope, nothing got by her.

In order of descending age, Aunt Virginia was the next oldest. She has another nickname that we call her in the family, but she doesn’t care for people outside of it to know it, so we’ll go with the other nickname- “The Colonel”. This was due to her formidable organizational skills and the fact that she would coordinate most of the annual summer trips to Caledonia park for our family and The Reeves side of her husband’s family. She was short in height but never in stature. She married an ex-military drill sergeant, Uncle Tom, but was never intimidated by his loud, gruff manner. When the family was at Aunt Virginia’s house, the kids would play in their remodeled basement while the adults were upstairs playing cards, watching a game or just hanging out. She was the aunt that insisted I come back for my dad’s funeral when he passed. I didn’t have the money so she bought the ticket. It seems she was unable to attend her own father’s funeral because Uncle Tom was stationed in Germany at the time. She didn’t want me to have any regrets as she did for not being able to make it back for my dad’s service. She’s also the consummate hostess and cook like Nana. If you tell her you’ve been craving or thinking about some food or dish, she will make it or make sure it’s in the house.

Aunt Marva is the quiet, gentle one of the group. A velvet lady with the strength of steel. She had the most children (5) and was the only aunt to have boys. She had three of them so I can understand the steel strength. She is sweet, understanding and very loving. She is the daughter who looked the most like Nana. As an adult, when I talked to her about Baby Bub as she was going through a serious she-devil teenage phase then, Aunt Marva was always soothing and reassuring to me.

Patty is the baby of the aunts and the one I spent the most time with because she and my mom were thick as thieves after my mom left daddy. Her daughter, my cousin Sonya, was close to my age so we also spent a lot of time together. Patty was beautiful, outgoing, with long flowing hair that was always on point. Seriously, she could have been a model if she wasn’t so short. She had a mouth and a temper on her too. You didn’t want to cross Patty, no sirree. She was also the only aunt I was allowed to call by her first name. She was simply Patty, not Aunt Patty. Sonya and I got into all kinds of shenanigans because my mom and Patty were usually off doing their own thing. Patty’s home always looked lovely because she loved going to flea markets and decorating her home.

That brings us to my mother, Alverta. I’m not sure I can even do her justice. She was a single mother who worked her ass off to make sure we lived in decent places and went to decent public schools. She is beautiful, stylish, sharp-witted, opinionated, and generous with her time to those in need. She is a woman of enduring strength, courage, and humor. She cooked for us, kissed us good night, hid eggs around the house at Easter, took us out to The Pancake house for my birthday every year, and too many hundreds of other memories to write.  I just remember thinking and I still think so to this day, that my mom just always kept moving forward, no matter what. No matter what. I still haven’t been able to do that.

These women grew up in a different era and thrived for their daughters and sons. These women showed us what it took to raise daughters and sons of worth because they didn’t know any other way or they wouldn’t accept any other way. Thank you.