Little Gold Star

Today I got my 14th star tattoo.

14 stars.

14 years of being sober.

I decided I need to give myself a gold star.

It’s been that kind of year.

When I reflected on all the things that I went through and all the places I’ve been, I think that I definitely earned it.

This past year I traveled to DC, New York, Paris, and Marseilles.

I graduated with a Master’s degree in Psychology.

I went through a buy out and moved.

That was some serious stress let me tell you.

I also started a private practice therapy business.

And.

A PhD program.

I also got my grades back from said program.

All “A”s.

ALL.

I was a little surprised to tell you the truth, I had an issue with a final paper I turned in for one of my classes and I didn’t think it was going to fly, the paper, that is–I digressed from the specific instructions the professor gave and did rather what I wanted to do.  It was the only paper for the class, although there were so many discussion posts that I feel like I actually wrote seven papers for the class, and I ran a huge risk doing it.

The risk paid off.

So, yeah, a gold star felt really appropriate.

Yes.

It did hurt.

And it felt really right and I was, obviously, very happy with it.

Not only was I pleased with it, but it filled out the space perfect.  I am very satisfied with the way all my tattoos look and really have little desire to put anything else in that area.

Not sure where I’ll put the 15th, but let’s just let me focus on the 14th star.

It really was quite a year.

I walked through some really challenging things and came out the other side.

I reflected on a lot of that today as I went about my day.

I saw clients at my office, did lots of writing, read for one of my upcoming classes for this next semester (school starts next Thursday!), went to Let it Bleed on Polk Street, got an iced coffee for a treat, walked around the Tenderloin and took graffiti photographs, caught up with my friend DannyBoy at the shop, took myself out to lunch in Hayes Valley, had a coffee with a friend in the Mission at Maxfield’s House of Caffeine, went to Divisadero and got my nails done, and then hit my Saturday night commitment and did the deal.

It was a day.

I’m really happy with my life right now.

Oh, sure, romantically it’s strange, but you know, that will work itself out.

Or not.

I have ceased (fighting anyone or anything) trying to figure it out.

I’m just showing up every day and taking care of myself and I feel really good about what I did today for myself and my own care.

I also thought a lot about what I want to bring forward for this next year.

Get through the next semester of classes, add clients into my private practice, travel.

I also want to get through the Below Market Housing Homeowners workshop.

I really am going to go after buying a house in San Francisco.

My friend whom I met for coffee happens to be a realtor and we spent an hour going over what I need to do to get myself in line to actually do that.

She gave me a good idea of how much money I will need to have saved up, which will take some time (or not, who knows, money may fall out of the sky) to save, but I can do it.

Plus that I should get a credit card.

Which I’m not super stoked on the idea.

I had one that I’d gotten last year and then never used as it made me uncomfortable.

But.

My friend insisted I was really going to need a credit history that showed me paying off a card.

She said get one, pay it off every month and always pay more than the minimum payment.

If I do get another card, and that’s an if, I will definitely not let a balance roll over.

I just do not like the idea of having any credit card debt.

I do, however, like the idea of having a good credit score and something that shows I am a good risk for a home loan.

I shall take it under advisement.

I actually tried to re-open the credit card I had closed but I could not figure out how to do it and just sort of set it aside tonight when I got home.

I feel like I did a lot today just by sitting down and talking about it.

I will manifest a house in San Francisco.

See if I don’t.

In the mean time there is plenty of other things for me to do.

I do want to keep a soft focus on it though, always have it in my mind and see where I can expand my awareness of abundance.

I am continuing to practice that opening up to the universe, to the flow, to God, to abundance, I have continued to give away a little more than I typically do.

More tip in the tip jar, more money in the basket, continuing to pay my bills within 24 hours of getting them.

And!

Oh my gosh, this is definitely part of the gold star, I got approved to become an employee at my internship.

Which means that I will start bringing in more money.

I am so psyched about that.

I’m excited for this year.

I feel like all sorts of incredible things are going to happen.

I really do.

Faith.

I like that.

Faith, abundance, joy, honesty, integrity, serenity.

Words to live by.

Principles to underpin my gold star.

And!

Love.

Let me not forget that one.

Never forget that.

Seriously.

 

You Get A Gold Star

Well.

It’s actually iridescent blue, but you know, the idea is the same.

I got my Fiat Lux on tonight after I got out of work on my way to my Thursday night commitment.

I have been eyeballing a necklace there for over a year.

And a ring.

But one thing at a time.

Especially as they are just a little pricey for me.

Not ridiculously so.

And I like that I am supporting a local artist.

Hart Variations

I didn’t actually get the necklace that I had been eyeballing, which was a piece of a monarch wing under glass.

Instead the artist had a new piece in the store, a five point star, I saw it and disregarded the higher price tag.

I needed the star.

It was my validation.

I am my validation.

I validate myself.

And it sure is pretty.

Star

It also goes quite well with the ten other stars scattered over my neck for my sobriety anniversary.

Got to love that.

A girl likes her tattoo’s to match her jewelry.

This girl anyway.

As I said, it was more expensive, but oh, so lovely.

And I didn’t go over my spending plan for clothes for the month, $200 is budgeted and the necklace came to $160.

Officially making it the most expensive piece of jewelry I have ever bought for myself.

It felt good.

It’s nice to be nice to myself.

I deserve pretty things.

I work hard and there’s something right and good about acknowledging this milestone for me.

I’m not buying anything else, I got my “gold” star and I pinned my acceptance letter to the fridge, I feel like I have allowed a little celebratory commemoration to happen for me.

Life in general feels like a celebration of recent.

Even when I have a headache and I am eagerly awaiting the clock hand to sweep to time to go at work, I am grateful for all that I have and appreciate all that I have been given.

It’s been quite a journey getting here and it’s really only just begun.

There is so much more to come.

And tomorrow is Friday.

Yay.

I will work my full day and treat myself to a mani/pedi before hitting my Friday night gig at Our Lady of Safeway and then homeward bound into the weekend.

My schedule has been changing a little in regards to the recent weekends and I find myself to being directed toward doing the deal earlier in the day and having my Saturday nights free.

I have been writing about it a while in my morning pages and talked it over today with my person and he really felt it was a good idea for me and expressed that he too had thought that might be good for me to do.

I will be keeping things a little closer to home on my weekends instead of dragging my butt up and over the hills to Noe Valley, I’ll just be heading into the Inner Sunset instead.

I spend so much time commuting on my bike that I need an easier weekend schedule, and also, as it was pointed out to me, I do enough, I really do, for my recovery.

I don’t have to martyr myself to a spot and a space in a room in a basement all my recovery, I can explore other options.

Besides I’ve been doing the deal there for ten years.

It won’t hurt me to find another spot to get accustomed to.

And I am looking forward to having my Saturday nights free.

Who knows.

I might even go on some dates.

I’m not actively looking, although the interchange with the Frenchman has progressed to the exchanging of phone numbers.

We shall see if anything else comes of it.

I am looking forward to the weekend too because it will be sunny and warm and I will be traveling over to the East Bay, North Berkeley, for a friends baby shower Saturday during the day.

I am wearing some sandals.

I may break out a sundress too.

Sunshine always does me such good.

I may even go hang out on the beach this Saturday, catch the sunset, or maybe even do a bonfire.

I haven’t done a bonfire on the beach in a while.

I don’t know.

It’s nice to think that I am making space for the good things in life, that I don’t have to always push myself so hard to the next goal, the goal really is to be present and love every moment as it arrives.

It doesn’t hurt to be decked out in stars when this happens.

Even though it took me a moment to have the feelings and allow myself to process the magnitude of what is happening.

My life is really going to change when I go to school.

First, it’s been twelve years since I have been a student.

Second, and this is a big second, I have not been sober for my studies.

I just realized that those two statements were not exactly 100% correct.

I did take a memoir writing class with Alan Kaufmann when I had gotten a year sober and two other subsequent classes with the group of writers, but it wasn’t school in the sense of working toward a specific degree goal.

Kaufmann did heavily suggest graduate school for me though, he thought I would make a great creative writing teacher and in fact, had me run a lecture for the class one week.

Which was exhilarating and frightening all at the same time.

I didn’t know how much I knew until I was teaching the class and then it just kept rolling out of me.

I did a lecture on Nabokov and butterfly imagery in his works.

Funny how I got a necklace made out of butterfly wings today.

I have butterfly tattoos as well.

The necklace fits in with it all.

I am a butterfly.

It may be a cliché.

But I don’t care.

They all mean something to me, again and again and again, I am a human being who has meaning.

I have a purpose.

I have a point.

I get to be of service.

I am a star.