“We already know everything. We have only to remember”. — Anonymous

Hi.  This is my first entry, my first public writing, my first “hello out there, I’m here”.  Who am I?  Outwardly, a lot of things.  I’m a successful professional, a mad networker, a best girlfriend to many, an imperfect sister and daughter, a fitness guru and a “maintained” (read: forced) size 0, a struggling vegetarian and humanitarian who works too much and frets too much and is a perfectionist to the core.  Still outwardly but more subterranean, I’m  a recovering alcoholic, a soon-to-be-recovering nicotine, caffeine, and marijuana addict, a bulimic and chronic overeater, and a shopaholic who is in severe debt.  I say subterranean because there are some who know…mainly my doctors, coaches, therapists, spiritual teachers, and some family and friends.  Inwardly, I’m a broken human being who now talks to God and my Inner Guide and my Spirit Guides and my Spirit Animal (it’s an Eagle), who has accepted she is a broken human being who cannot do it alone, who knew that her life was not working, and who finally surrendered.  I was Little Miss “I Can Handle It”, Little Miss “I Am Fine”, Little Miss “If Everyone Else Was Just Like Me [Then]”, Little Miss “I Will Never Be Okay”, and mostly, Little Miss “I Am So Broken, I Cannot Even Imagine A Future Anymore”.  Mostly though, I was Little Miss “I Am Smarter Than The Universe”, and so for my entire life I resisted and refused to surrender.  I was not THEM, I was not WEAK, I was not going to give it up to God because I was not THERE nor did I need to be!  I would figure it out myself.  And then one day, I woke up.  I woke up to a few empty pints of whiskey on the floor.  I woke up to a burning throat, a pounding head, a bathroom and kitchen full of bulimia, and a 10am meeting to lead.  And I Woke Up.  I literally pawed my filthy self from my bed onto my floor, sat among the food trash and cigarette butts, and screamed to my cat, to my weakness, to my hate and my anger, to my neighbors and to God.  I screamed for God to help me.  I screamed for Him to take this away.  I screamed I would do anything if He would just make me good.  I screamed just to scream and I screamed to God because I had no one left to ask for help.  I surrendered.  Little Miss “I Got This” became Little Miss Surrendered.  The biggest surprise was not in fact that I felt weak by admitting that I was weak.  I surprisingly felt strong by this admission.  But still deeply troubled.  As I am today.  I’m not in any perfect form, I’m not even able to sort through some relationship problems that should be so simple to manage if I only applied what I’ve learned.  But I’m learning.  I’m growing.  I’m managing.  And blessed be, I stopped drinking.  This Thursday is my 30 day mark.  Just because I told God I had a problem doesn’t mean I fixed that problem right away.  I still had to tumble into the valley a little more before I realized I had woken up, before I realized that God was answering the call for help, before I realized that love had been there the entire time but my mind was too loud for my soul to step in.  I’m getting ahead of myself though…

Anyway, I’m writing because I need to write.  I’m writing because I want to remember what I did to get here today, and remember what I did from today forward to keep going.  Specifically, my intention to write is to shine a light on the truth of what it means to be a professional woman in her 30s in a big city in today’s world, to shine a light on how dark that place can be or become, and to offer my own escape route as a map of sorts to my sisters out there who find themselves in similar situations.  The good news is, there was and is still so much wrong with me, that I can most likely associate with many of you.  Career, food, family, gay/lesbian (my parent), drugs. alcohol, sex, money, self image, anxiety, depression, panic attacks, relationships…I’ve either died a small death or waged small wars for all of these things.  And who are you?  Maybe just me reading my own thoughts as a journal.  Or maybe you’re someone who finds some bit of spark in identifying with what it means to have an outward life and a subterranean one.

When I read this quote this past weekend, I was in a tattoo shop with a best friend and I was looking at a painting in that shop.  It was captivating, and beautiful, of a woman who was rooted into the earth through her feet (though they were more stumps with wild vines near the earth), and in her hands she held people, cities, as her arm span seemed to encircle the world – the ugly and the beautiful.  It captivated me, because it’s how I feel – interconnected, knowing, like I have a secret to share but I can’t exactly do that because no one will believe me.  I read the caption under the photo and it said “we already know everything, we have only to remember”.  Right now, what is happening in my life, on my path, is that I’m waking up, I’m remembering.  One surrender at a time.