August 2007- While down-trodden about love in Florida, after feeling a strong connection with someone that I ended up having a one-night stand with & then getting blown off for further night stands…. I was mad at myself for being stupid & realizing I needed to get it together, & that I didn’t want to play around anymore. I said & felt with my determination that I am ready to meet ‘the one’, the person I could spend my life with. I know the night that I put it out there, & I felt so strongly that I was ready for a good man. At the time, I didn’t know about the wonderful things that the Universe can provide when you believe. Two weeks later, I was in California & I met Kristen’s (college friend I was staying with for 2 weeks while looking for work) friend Josh. At first meeting he was just a really nice guy & one I befriended on Myspace after the fact. I had already decided I was moving to CA at the time. He was apparently smitten with me, but I was only looking to make friends. There is a lot I could say here about Josh & how we came to be, but the short of it is that he did become my boyfriend & he is a wonderful man, whom for the longest time I thought I would marry. I even thought I would marry Josh the very day we started dating & my first day having moved to CA, September 19th, 2007. I believe he had everything that I asked for when I told the Universe I was ready, only a few weeks prior. Josh is kind, thoughtful, considerate… he is extremely good to me, loves me, & has never faltered from wanting to marry & start a family with me. Currently I am in a different place & am not sure if I want those things anymore. I also am a person of being “realistic” about my situation, & I say that if we aren’t ready to get married tomorrow, then I say we aren’t ready & it’s not something I can think about right now. I say this because of some hard truths in our relationship, that shall currently be private because our relationship is current. I used to want the whole thing, marriage & a family… not that those desires are completely gone, I am just otherwise focused. My idea for the past few years has also been that I wanted a prosperous career, I wanted to travel, get married maybe late 20s/early 30s, & have babies mid 30s. So I technically do still have time for that dream, as I am only 26.
But the true point of all of this is, I felt deeply that I was ready for a strong connection with the person I could marry, & the Universe must have agreed & allowed Josh & I to meet. What seems astounding is this happened, I believe in less than 2 weeks! It’s a typical thought that our wishes don’t come true right away & I had resolved myself with the lyric in a country song: “Some of God’s greatest gifts, are unanswered prayers”. I didn’t think Josh was the one right away, not until I started getting to know him… & I think it is good that the answer wasn’t so obvious because I think that can often times cripple people from behaving ‘normally’ & make things awkward & perhaps ruin the opportunity. But I have thanked the Universe for my gift in Josh; he is precious & a wonderful soul who has brought a perhaps, indescribable world of good to my life. Thank you Josh =)
There have been times in my life of feeling certain & knowing absolutely of a particular step I wished to take. Of course with all feelings of being ready for one particular direction there will always be places of doubt, wondering if you are making the right choice, the knowledge & sadness that you are leaving certain things & people behind, etc. But internally I have felt strongly about certain directions in my life, I will describe a few of the big ones.
I attended Community College for a year as a personal choice, with the intention that I would then apply for one particular University for my remaining 3 years of college. I felt at home on the campus of Philadelphia University & applied to only this school. It isn’t that I knew for sure that I would get in, this was just the place that I really wanted to go & if I did not get in I actually did not have a back-up plan (which is quite unlike me now, at least the person I’ve become that past 8 years). Luckily with my tunnel vision, & perhaps the determination & hope that I put out into the Universe, I did get accepted & enjoyed a great 3 ½ years of college there.
Another big occurrence I became set on, was my move to Southern California. I bought my very first car myself (previous vehicles my Dad paid for, yes lucky me & Thanks Dad!) at the end of 2006 (& it’s always good to purchase a car at the end of the year!). I bought a Honda Element because I had pretty much figured that I would be moving across the country. Haha. When I think back on things I’ve done I realize I am such a funny girl. I quit my job in July of 2007… I went on my family’s vacation to Ocean City Maryland, I then went to Florida to compete (to hopefully get an agent) at AMTC (Actors, Models, Talent Competition (at the time, the title has now been changed to incorporate Christianity). I did acting competitions, I danced with a partner, I strutted down the runway in an outfit I made (I’m 5’2”, so, it was about the outfit) & made a lot of great friends along the way (though I actually only keep in touch with one). I didn’t get an agent or notoriety out of it, but it was a great experience. I then vacationed in FL for a week, since my Dad has a home there in Apollo Beach. Afterward I flew back to Maryland to then fly to Los Angeles for 2 weeks to visit my friend from college, look for a job, & see if I liked it enough to move there. My eggs were completely in this basket, I hadn’t been working for a month, & I had no back-up plan if I didn’t end up liking California. Once I got there I drove everywhere, dropping off my resume & trying to find work. It wasn’t working out but I did find out about a big career fair at the end of September, so a week into my visit I decided that I would fly home & then drive back, with my car packed, in time for the career fair & hope for the best! So long story short, I had no job secured but I went home, packed everything in two weeks, & drove across the country for the career fair. I just felt it was the right step for me. I was 24 & I didn’t see my life & career progressing in Maryland, I wanted warm weather & the opportunity to utilize my Bachelors Degree in Fashion Design.
When my Mother married my wonderful Step Father I was 4 years old. Thom brought Catholicism into our lives. (Side Note- To marry into a Catholic Church and having been married, you must annul your previous marriage. My Mom did so and later once I realized this I was curious, am I a bastard? Haha) I believe I was Baptized at age 6, when my sister was born and we were Baptized together. I remember that for my First Communion I had to first confess my sins to a priest. I was about 7 or 8 years old and I was very frightened by this task. I went through all of the years of Sunday School and church every Sunday. I imagine at the time it provided me with a lot of answers but also a lot of questions. My teenage years bringing angst and issues also brought church defiance. It became a fight every Sunday to get me to go. I found the religion to be guilt ridden, hypocritical, and not right for me.
When the movie The Craft came out in 1996 I was 13. This movie opened my eyes to Wiccan, a natural religion with magic- what person wouldn’t be intrigued! Especially a teenager; with childhood wonder dying out but not gone, hormones flaring & moving us in all directions, and a growing consciousness to make our own life decisions. (Side Note- I tried the binding spell that was used in The Craft on a nasty girl in middle school. –The binding spell is where you have a picture of the person & wrap their picture in ribbon, I believe, and repeatedly say, “I bind you (name of person) from doing harm; harm against other people and harm against yourself” …it didn’t work, she was still horrible to me.) I wasn’t able to commit myself to the religion of Wiccan, and decided that committing to a religion was too much work, and so I gave up. (Another Side Note- The Craft did teach me a principal which I held true and feared- that whatever you send out, you get back to you threefold. I didn’t want to fuck around with it and I also didn’t want to do something like make someone love me, if it wasn’t them loving me on their own accord.) Of course I also tried the Wuji Board and ‘Light as a feather, stiff as a board’. Neither worked. It’s always someone moving the Wuji guider & thinking it’s funny.
Somewhere around the age of 13 or earlier, I also learned of trances. I don’t remember who taught me, but I do remember many a sleepover where I would be conducting the trances. To put someone in a trance, you sit Indian style and lay a pillow in your lap which the trancee lays their head on. You rub their temples and have the person count backwards from 100. Once they get to 0, or even before they get to 0 if they start to really lose track of the numbers you ask them to stop and then ask if they see anything. Once they see something, it becomes a guidance of asking them what they would like to do, encouraging them to move forward, and keeping them safe from danger. More times than not the person was truly in a trance, sometimes not remembering anything that happened. I had been taught that the people you meet in a trance were good or possibly evil, based on their eye color. People with blue or green eyes were safe, brown eyes you had to be very cautious and keep away from, and of course red eyed people were severely scary and evil and you had to run from them if you saw one. One time I had someone deeply in a trance & something frightened her & she was not responding to me at first when I told her to wake up. Finally, she did wake up, & after that experience I believe I may have stopped doing trances since I realized that I am not qualified to do these things.
A lot seemed to happen at my age of 13, though I don’t think I realized it at the time. I had my palm read by a skin doctor for a school project. My step-dad knew I had interests in other things that were considered ‘different’. He is a photographer for the local news station & was doing a story on skin & got to chatting with a skin doctor. Somehow in their conversation she told him that she could read palms, that it was a natural ability that was in her family. When my step-dad told me about this, I got very excited & wanted to get my palm read & learn about it, for an upcoming school presentation where we could teach the class anything we wanted. Thom contacted Dr. Robyn Gershon & we went to her house one night where she taught me about the lines & read my palm. It was extremely interesting & I have carried a small portion of the knowledge with me to this day.
I believe I discovered that I had a pleasurable spot by accident around the age of 8 or 9. Masturbation started sometime in middle school. I don’t believe it was too much longer before the guilt started as well. Perhaps it was my catholic upbringing & perhaps it was also that I felt people were watching me. You are taught that God is watching you, that Angels are watching you… I felt the guilt from them (or actually what I have been told about them), but then I also thought that my dead relatives were watching me. I don’t know if this idea was instilled by religion, or someone else, or just my own idea. I would dance in front of my mirror & do other crazy things, in thinking I had an audience of people that had passed. I was quite entertaining. Haha. But maybe I was somewhat enlightened at the time…since now I have been told that our past relatives really are with us.
I was never Confirmed. At the end of our religion classes & before we are confirmed, we all sat down with our Youth Group Leader where he would ask us questions, one being, if we want to be confirmed. I told him that I did not & that my parents were making me do it. So, he told me & my parents that if I did not want to that I should take some time & come back when it is my choice. Needless to say my parents were very upset! From their point of view they had tried to instill something good in my life & I turned it away. They accused me numerous times in my life & asked if I worshipped the devil?, what’s wrong with me?, why do I dress the way I do?, etc. Some days I wore every color, the other days I wore all black, & they thought I was extremely strange for it. I also listened to Marilyn Manson which they thought was horrible, devil music. My mom even stole my CD from me & told me she threw it away (Funny enough she never did, & over 10 years later she found it in one of her drawers & my sister gave it back to me a few years back). I was a creative kid discovering my outlets, depressed & uneasy with my body adjusting & being picked on by a mean group of girls. My time in Middle School was one of the worst times in my life. …Sorry I dress weird. Ha. Angst!
Sometime around 16 they finally stopped trying to force me to go to church, but boy did I still get the guilt! My father (“real” dad) would always say he was Methodist. The only time he probably went to a Methodist Church in his adult years was when he took me once to expose me to ‘his (non- practicing) religion’, since I was amerced in Catholicism in my youth. I think that was the one & only time he went following.
After my Dad & Stepmother split when I was 13/14 (& boy the way that went down was the last straw that led me to therapy) I saw her again after many months or even a year passed. I never liked my Stepmother. They married when I was 7 & not long after she turned into the wicked stepmother. The only contention I recall is that I was a very picky eater & she made things that I didn’t always like. If I refused to eat something she made she would make me sit at the dinner table all night, for hours. My Dad allowed this to go on (otherwise my Father was always in charge, but he liked the instilling of discipline & was also of the mind-set of breaking kids in to adulthood). Many nights I faked headaches & laid on the couch without eating dinner or having to deal with her bullshit. But my point- she wanted to see me after they split & even though I couldn’t stand her as my step-mother, I felt bad for her (the way the divorce went down, from the perspective that I saw). She is Native American & she told me in this later conversation, that she thought I was an Old-Soul. This was interesting & new information to me… to be discovered later I think.
At some point in my youth I bought a set of starter Tarot cards. The cards have all the meanings written, on the top & in the reverse so that you don’t need a corresponding book. I liked things easy. I gave myself & some of my friend’s readings at the time. I still have the deck & it’s the only set of spiritual cards I have yet to buy for myself.
In later High School my friend Jeff took me & my other close girlfriends down into the city (Baltimore) where we attended a Reiki class. It was a class for people learning how to practice Reiki & we were their people to practice on. This was really interesting & of course all new to me. I don’t remember if I felt anything or not, but I think the person felt where I had had some pains.
After High School my two friends lived together in a tent outside of the home/classroom of a couple who practiced & taught Tantra, Belly Dancing, & other spiritual type classes. It was interesting to hear of their Tantric experiences, I still have never tried it to this day. I did take a Belly Dancing class there where I learned that we all should love our bodies & we are all Goddesses. At this age of 18 I wasn’t yet comfortable in my own skin & did feel a bit silly & self-conscious.
Eventually when all the Catholic Priest molesting accusations were abounding in the media, my Mom, disgusted, stopped going to Church. My brother & sister didn’t have to go anymore either, & only my Step-Dad continues to go on occasion. He was brought up in the Church his whole life & his parents both worked in the church. I do believe they are twice a year holiday goer’s now- Christmas & Easter… the people they used to get annoyed with that crowded the churches on holidays. …At some point, I think we all hypocrite most of what we say.
