So, everything is coming together and I am finally coming up for air throughout this transition in our new life… I am enjoying our new house and life with all the home depot trips and the carrying of potting soil and bark dust over and over again… Kathy and I have been through a lot over the years and now it feels as though everything is coming together.
When we think positive even when things can seem pretty negative, and they do because I go through times of talking myself off the ledge and turning my mindset around… But, we have to stay positive because what is suppose to happen will happen and if you think positive about any situation then more so than not you will receive the positive outcome of this situation.
I think loving who you are in this world helps with our mindset. Get up and look in the mirror at the beautiful, sexy self you are… Keep reminding yourself that you are one of a kind and you are the key to your own life… Once you realize how wonderful you are then the world will beg for you… We all know that the more we are wanted we thrive and we become bigger than life…
So, I challenge all of you to share your amazing self with everyone and watch the way the world will open up for you…
Hugs and love to all…
Breaking old habits
It seems as though when a person starts a new job, or moves to a new area the need for being accepted comes out really strong. I am writing this because over the last few weeks I have been throwing around those feelings. So, this leads to some bad thinking at times… In saying this, I am finding myself breaking old habits yet again in my life…
I know my worth, as you who are reading know your worth… There is no need to go (to that childlike thinking) back and let someone else decide our worth for us… We know what we have to offer the world… I personally know that I carry around a lot of this greatness I call myself… It does not come in this little petite package, it does not look like what others look like… I am Deb, I feel I am made for greatness… If we all could tell ourselves this daily it could change the way the world sees the package we come in…
I see beauty in everyone I come in contact with, whatever you are fighting against Stop!! Embrace that shit and own it, it is yours, love it…. People will love it also, once you love it… I have always stated that once you bring to light your imperfections and love them, no one can take that away from you in fact they will have no other choice except to love it with you…
Remember you are beautiful and you have something unique and beautiful to offer this universe… Don’t hide this with shame and uncertainty… Be the leader of the parade of life in your honor… You are perfect just the way you are!!!
Love and hugs to all
Deb
Self-Hatred that I carried that created my self –acceptance…
Self-Hatred that I carried that created my self –acceptance…
This would be part two but it seems that maybe I should not have labeled the first one as this may continue to be an ongoing story in which I am grateful for anyone who shows interest in the story of my life.
Here I am in my early 20’s maybe 20 or 21, and I am deciding to jump on a plane to meet a woman that I have never met… Yep, sounds like me so here I go… I will never forget that my sister Melody drove me to the airport that day and it must have been over 100 (including the humidity and all) and I know she wished so much that I could be happy just like she was in a small town and just live my life quietly… I don’t know if people have met me but I am anything but quite and I wanted and strived for love deeply…
So, I am getting off this plane in Portland, Oregon and I have never in my life seen so many different people, and all I could think of is I will blend in real good here… So, now I am sitting in the waiting area of this airport waiting for this woman I have never met and now it seems her plane is running late…
I saw her and the first thing I could think of was her picture was not correct, I mean it was her but her 10 years and 200 pounds eariler. But, I was there and I was not going back, so I was thinking I can do this… Or at least fake until I can make it… I was only with her for a few months and really she was nice but I met someone else, and this was very common of me jumping from this one to that. I think I did this because I really did not think I was worth that love story I wanted so much…
I remember the first time I walked down hawthrone street in Portland, Oregon. I just watched the different people for hours and yes there was lesbians just like me out and open happy as hell… I remember having a feeling that came over me of being at home…
I knew at this point in my life, I would be better off here in Portland than ever back in Tennessee… The relationship I was in now was going okay, but like I always do, I found something different and although we had a good time together we had a better friendship than anything else and once we both realize this we both were better off.
During all this time between getting to Oregon and these relationship, I found myself becoming a very proud individual and I was starting at this point in my life to let go of self- hatred and the shame that I carried around daily. Once you let go of such a heavy load, you are free to be your true self. I truly was very excited to meet my true self.
Today is a new day…
I have been known to dwell on mistakes I have made mostly the mistakes I have made that have effect the kids and Kathy… Sometimes this will consume me for hours and even days, until I can shake it off… Every experience we have been through in our life gave us an emotion that follows it and is triggered when we think about the experience… I have spent a while making amends for my terrible mistakes and they were all forgiven, but I was the one person who could not let go on the pain… One day I woke up and decided I was done carrying this guilt around… Once I did this, I was able to be more open and loving to myself… We need that person who loves us without limits… How amazing if you have a loving wife as I do who does this, and kids who love like this, but now I love me like this… We can not change yesterday, we can not have a redo in life… Those terrible choices and decision created the person we are today and that is pretty cool if you look at it like that… I also feel that once you ask forgiveness from the person you hurt and regardless of their acceptance or not you have to let it go… We all deserve to forgive our self… Remember once you let go of all the guilt and anger, you will feel like a weight is lifted off of you… Today is your new day…
Hugs and Love,
Deb
Love yourself…
Lots of people get caught up in what they look like, or how they are perceived by their peers… But, do people ever stop to think how they are perceived by themselves… If we would take a few moments daily and raise ourselves up and tell ourselves that we are the shit, and no one could ever replace what we bring to this world… I think if we did we would have a lot less suicide and just plain shit that happens in the world…
I grew up wanting to be something different that I was… A better haircut, a better smile, and yes a different size and most the time a different sex… One day I woke up and looked in the mirror and said this is me “good, or bad” this is what I have to work with and I am going to love it and appreciate all of me… This was easier said than done… It took a lot of work standing in front on that mirror praising this body I was taught to hate because it was not perfect… This change was very slow but it was at least moving forward…
What I had the hardest time understanding was that, people were attracted to a confident person… If you carried confidence then you were unstoppable and everyone wanted to be around you regardless of what size you may be… So, I worked on my wit, confidence and yes don’t forget my self-love… I began spreading that love I wanting so bad for myself onto others who struggled like I did… This was easy, to walk by someone and tell them they look nice today… Anyone could do this, what this did was change me slowly into someone who loved people for themselves and not the vessel they were in… Because of this I began to adore myself, and today I am so proud of the person in all areas I am today…
I am not saying that life does not bring me down and that certain people cannot try to take me to that child in me who wants so very much to be loved by people who do not even know what love is, because this does happen… What I do differently than I did before is that I am aware of my feelings and I reassure myself that I am perfect just the way I am…
This is what I urge anyone who is struggling with self-love or struggling with wanting something from someone that they may never get… Love yourself, let that need to please everyone go away… You are loved, you are someone special just the way you are to someone even if you cannot see them or feel them right now…Most of all you are the best actor or actress in the biggest movie in your life… Praise yourself, look in that mirror and tell yourself that you are perfect just the way you are and spread that love to anyone and everyone… You will begin to understand what it feels like to love yourself…
Love you all,
Deb
Woke up feeling good…
After a lot of recent changes in my life, even though they were all positive they still come with a bit of stress and uncertainty… In saying this, I feel really good this morning and wanted to share this with anyone who had five minutes to read this blog… I am a my creative voice and my own hero… I think we all need to step back and look at how far we have come in our life and let go of whatever we wished we could have changed… Today is a new day and it is a fresh start to whatever you want to do… Go do it… Make memories and share that love… Love you all,
Deb
Part 1… The self-hatred I carried. That created my self-acceptance…
Growing up in the south you can either conform to what everyone else wants you to be or you can stand out and develop thick skin… At a very early age, I knew I was different and I knew I liked girls. Girls were my happiness and my sadness. It was “at this point in my life” the forbidden… So what do we do with forbidden things? We seek them out… When I was 17 I met the woman who would change my life and my life. I now began a secretly lesbian relationship with a woman that was 30 when I was 17… I was terrified that people would find out, so I told everyone we were friends, In fact, my mom and dad helped me move into the share room of “this said friend’s house” I think I would have put two and two together, but then again I do not live in a make believe world.
I thought I was doing good, managing my secret and this relationship and working at the local burger shop. It was going to well, then like everything someone told me I had to tell my parents and come out or they would tell them and force me out… Either way, they were forcing me out before I was ready… So, I wrote this heart felt letter to my mother and explained to her this is not new, I am the same person she loved and adored yesterday, the only difference is that I am letting go of a big secret that has ruled my life for years…
So, I left the note there on the table at our house on Briar hollow and went to work… Well it was a Wednesday and Mom and Becky were going to church… I think my dad may have been out on the road and usually that were he was most of the time… During this time it was better because when he came home we all feared what would set him off… I am sure that letter I just left on the table would have done that… So, my mom took it to church and Becky my loving and supportive sister read it out loud to everyone… Needless to say, Love was the last thing I felt after coming out… It went into trying to pray the gay out of me to trying to have me committed to a psych unit because obviously I was mentally ill… I lost my job at that local burger joint and honestly I wanted to sit in a room with four walls and die…
Months went by and I was a nervous wreck the person I was with was broken herself and I needed wisdom… I developed an anxiety disorder that haunts me still to this day… At this point in my life I was pretty sure I was becoming extremely crazy if I wasn’t already… I knew no history of the gay culture, I knew nothing of stonewall and all the struggles others went through before me… All I could think of “how can I do this every day?” Having people look at me differently and make those terrible comments… Somehow I did do it and that was the beginning of how I would start the change of self-acceptance in my life… “Even though I had no idea of it”.
I was feeling pretty terrible about me and I started working in a nursing home and this was a job that taught me about hard work… I met one of my favorite people of my life in this job, Nikki Perry… Haven’t talk to her in years but I carry her with me… I lost many jobs because the person I was with was sick a lot and I was expected to drop everything and be by her side… I was always behind, never could catch up… At this point I had no self- esteem so I would have done anything that anyone told me… I then started working for a sheltered work shop for handicapped adults… I absolutely loved this job… I mean all of these amazing individuals loved me for me from the beginning and had a sense of self-acceptance that I could never even dream about… They were my heroes…
I started realizing because of them that I deserve better in life and I deserve to be an equal part of a relationship… I did not say that I one time I did not adore the woman that changed my life but by this time I was done and was only staying because “where was I going to go”? My family disowned me, I really had no friends, and her family dictated everything about my life to the point of what cigarettes I was supposed to smoke… I hated that feeling of not being able to make a decision for myself… I began to hate all of them… It was easy to hate people because I carried so much with me daily…
I finally left her with just the clothes on my back… Then I started traveling here for love and there for sex… It seems that were I was living I could not find anyone like me… I meet some lovers that at the time I thought were great, now looking back I should have ran away because believe it or not I was picking a more femme type of female because I was becoming more butch and some of the females I was meeting had anger issues and I was again in a crazy relationship…
One day I got a computer and all the world came to me in I went to this website called gay.com… I loved this, all lesbians at your fingertips and they were attracted to the one who could come up with the coolest lines… Yep, I was that one… Here again in my life I was traveling except this time I was traveling for the way someone made me feel and not what they looked like… I went to Arkansas a few times and Michigan only once but ended up staying there for about three months… I ended back on a greyhound bus with my heart on my sleeve and wondering why I was rejected…
This rejection just created a need to belong more and I dove deeper into gay.com… Where I meet two individuals one on which was living in Portland, Oregon…
Do you know what you are worth?
I never knew my worth or what that even meant until a few years back… Now I know and it is bigger than the worse thing you have ever done… Remember that you are love and you are a light to someone… I believe in spreading that love around to everyone… Love is free and endless, so spread that around like crazy… Have a beautiful day…
Deb
Phyllis and Zoe
zoe-and-phyllis1.jpg
Introduction!
Hello everyone,
My name is Deb. I am a 38 year old dyke… I love that word, to me it fills me with power and history. I grew up in Hohenwald, TN but moved to Portland, Oregon in my early 20’s and have been here mostly ever since. I met the love of my life at age 23 almost 24. Her name is Kathy and she is “to me” the unconditional love that everyone deserves in life.
We met and there was an instant attraction. Well, this attraction came with three children one of which slowly developed a mental illness in which has been lifelong. I feel in love with those kids, this was important because they were going to have to like me in order for me to get anywhere with Kathy. I had never raised kids, or really spent too much time hanging out with little ones, although I adored children and still do to this day.
I won those three beautiful children over and then we started our life. I was stubborn, selfish and really short tempered at this time in my life and by the way, I disliked most men and carried a grudge around with me everywhere, doesn’t this sound attractive?? Not really!! But Kathy, held on for what reason I had no idea at this point in my life.
Months turn into years, and I made every bad choice in this relationship a person could make in a relationship. Lying, cheating, been grouchy with the kids and just pulling away from this beautiful family that adored me. The problem was I did not adore myself and truly most the time I did not even like myself. This is the key to most problems in life, if you do not love yourself you cannot give love to anything or anyone…
It ended with Kathy and I and I started drinking heavily, and really not caring much about my life or anyone else’s life for that matter. I was not a nice person. Then I moved to Tennessee and developed a relationship with my father that was never there and I started changing and realizing I need to give more love out to the world because I need a change… I know this may sound cheesy but I put the work into all my relationships and mainly into myself and left Tennessee in a hurry and Kathy and I got back together. Ever since then, I promise to spread that love and that is what I have done since then.
If you want more love and kindness in your life you have to put it out in the universe and you will get more love and kindness than you can handle… I am looking forward to spreading my thoughts on self-acceptance and growing with each of you…
Hugs and Love,
Deb
Voice of Self Acceptance 