Mid Life Awakening or Crisis? Reframing our outlook.

Who would have guessed that around 40-42 and I don't know what to do with my life? Midlife crisis? Maybe its the average age that someone realizes what matters in the long term. Time and how we squander, cherish, and maybe even savor every single moment of every day. You may realize that you have worked more than played and it has not gotten you ahead. And others of us have been in helping profession that becomes burnt out or just walked the path as far as necessary and jumps onto another new path that you never saw running up beside the old path. New flowers, plants, and trees to see along the way and the sympathy of the insects are in tune with your heart song.

Is that a midlife crisis or is it a true awakening? Some would say "Woke" and it is a clarity of wants, needs, and desires of the brain and heart. It's hearing each note as the song in a whole is just as memorable. Stopping to feel the light breeze causing you to close your eyes long enough to inhale the wind into your body.

So yeah, I am having a mid-life

crisis, which also lines up with about the age I thought I would die, about 86. That was the number I have visualized since I was a small child.

We see our grandparents aging, a sad group who has already lost a parent or a child, we know that every day is not guaranteed. This moment is all I have right now. I am joyous to spend this moment now, writing this blog. I love creating things from words. I truly love the research and thought processes that go into creating a new villain or plotting on a new book. And I have been blessed with the frame of mind to be able to write and read since decreasing epilepsy meds almost a year ago.

But the real question is where do I go from here? A master's degree? Technology classes? I have taken assessments and career quizzes and they all say I am a thinker or thinking type. I love to learn, I love to discover but how to progress from here? I am continuing to pursue my path, trying to enjoy the journey.

Do people want to be happy?

I have witnessed numerous people in the past week that actually made the statement, paraphrasing of course, that they like the misery in their lives alluding that to be happy would be boring. And this really has made me evaluate what we value in life has created these paradigms in our brains, souls and very beings that we would ever equate unhappiness with a state of being that would be preferable to happiness.


One area I see this on a regular basis in children and even adults who choose negative attention and feedback rather than positive. But who gets the most attention in a classroom? The best student or the child acting out? What makes the top of the news feed the charitable monk or the rambling idiot on twitter? The adage bad attention or PR is better than no attention never made sense to my brain, who is rather introverted in most ways and that may why I suck at publicising my books. And I only write a blog because I don't believe people read it except my Aunt Gini (still loving the duster!).

I digress...

So do people want to be happy?

I heard a bartender talk about being with someone who clearly made her unhappy in a million ways but the way her eyes lit up when she talked about him. It didn't take a psychologist to tell ya she will be back with that dude at least twice in the biblical sense and once more in the let's try to see if we can really make a go of this. Neither will end smoothly.

So what motivates us if not happiness? I believe that depends on what you value. I value my children's' future happiness (believe me they would agree that I don't care about their current happiness as I give them chores daily) and my own happiness. I cannot help anyone one if I am not first happy.

Happiness comes from self-happiness.

That was the a-ha for so many of us and for others they never understand and can read my words and say that I am just spewing hippie bullshit. Truly happy people are complete all on their own. Then when they meet people, friends, lovers, children, they can be wholly there for. I think where many people fail in any relationships (not just romantic) is without analyzing what it was in past interchanges that I can grow from, change, keep, toss and then glow.

A therapist told a man who had been divorced five times that the common thread in all his divorces was him. Not the women, him. That's hard to hear. We don't ever want to think maybe there is something we need to evaluate about ourselves. But that is where we become free.

We are not to replay the past over and over like its entertainment to be watched. Learn from it and let it go.


I want my happiness to be that glow that others see and feel without me having to say, I AM HAPPY. We all know truly happy people. And as I have said in this blog all along. My goal is hippie happiness. A happiness that radiates my soul without me saying a word.

The Humbling Nature of Failure...aka Growth

I have been a perfectionist, a pleaser since I can remember the happy feeling of making myself or someone else happy. That joy in your soul from happiness. From getting something right, completing a task, surprising someone with a balloon on their birthday, A's on a report card, being teacher's pet, a science report on solar panels-- it didn't matter. I wanted to make _____{fill in the Blank} happy.

I am not perfect by any means, I am overweight, I am a horrible housekeeper. The secret is I can shut off the perfectionism. But not completely, which is where the inner anxiety comes in. Thoughts or feeling come in my head caused by my failures or even sometimes things I have said or done when  I think I  did not live up to my expectation of what they should have been and this scene will loop until I can calm myself or meditate it away. This is my perfection, This is my anxiety. So I can clean to perfection and make my mind at ease or I can half-ass it and leave my mind to possible be exposed to the dreaded pressuring anxiety to be better.

There are larger scale things that we are expected to succeed in buying houses, marriage, career, having kids, etc. And what if you find yourself failing in one of these categories? How do you rebound? How do you stop and find the growth and feeling like for eighteen years you knew how to own a house or have a career but then poof? Failure. Or actual it's just perceived failure because all fails are actually a place to stop. Literally and take a breath and contemplate, Where am I ? Where Was I? Where do I want to be? How Can I get There? Because with the big stuff we rarely stop and reflect on our progress enough, do we?

But to know you failed, you the person who usually gets things right. The one people go to for answers about that thing. The person who at one time may have even criticized others who were in the position she now finds herself. It is humbling but it's the gift of growth. I am rarely wrong this big. To be wrong on a scale this big means for me to reevaluated on a scale of a real FBI investigation like Nixon years.  

Yet, I cannot ponder yesterday more than a moment in need for knowledge to mold decisions before reminding myself. That I have today. Tomorrow is not guaranteed.  I am happy today. My Failure has brought me back to me and I am happy. Now on to a new volume in Dany's life.

Resurrection of the Soul

RESURRECTION:
the revitalization or revival of something: Oxford Dictionary

Revival--restoration to life, consciousness, vigor, strength, etc.

For the last eleven years, I have celebrated Easter Sunday with the Catholic church. This year I celebrate the resurrection of my own soul. You do not realize you have buried yourself in another. I have seen others do it over the years whether it be their job, kids, or spouse. I did not think I had done that. I thought I know who I am. I am me. Then slowly I wasn't. I was in the same room at work and at home. I had boxed in literally everywhere I went.

It started with headaches in January that led into February migraines. Then I had the a-ha moment that I needed to start looking for a new job. The pain in my mind eased up once I admitted my work was a stressor. My soul felt better. I started watching the want ads and looking into the job market and assessing how I and my skills set could fit into the every changing market that I have been out of for so long. It could be a full-time job to find a job.

Once I started on that path, then the soul needed to go deeper down to what brings me joy. What hobbies, skills, things do I love in life that I can translate into a new path to make money for my family but also bring a new level to my soul. I want to come home fulfilled and not come home drained with nothing to give my family. I need to be able to get off work, and go do and be with my kids. I have missed too much. I am looking through life with a new lens. A new focus. I am not afraid.

So today is my revival, My resurrection. My life is back, More vigor, more strength through yoga, more consciousness through meditation, more vigor through the joy and mindfulness I find in all aspects of my day from start to finish. I was blind and now I can see. I was dead and now I am alive.

What a novel idea... synchronicity part 2

One of my novels has the word Haven in the title. Part of the reason I didn't self-publish it when I "finished" it was because a TV series came out around the same time and I was kinda pissed. Sounds dumb but when you really are hit with words and titles for things when you are writing you think in your self-righteous brain that everything you come up with is brilliance. And I didn't want to change my idea or title. So I stuck this novel in a zip drive and started writing blogs.

My husband and I talked about ways that I could deal with this and then the next day I picked a random movie on Hulu and as the credits rolled the production company was called Haven. (The movie sucked but had a good thought, taking the impossible and saying instead I'm possible)

Now am I looking for that word subconsciously? For sure. These "meaningful coincidences" in life and social media this week are a jump start to my muse and big boot to the writers block that once stood in my way, so who gives a hoot if these are manifestions of my brain or signs from the universe to get back in the game. Here's a meme (remember when you did not even know what a meme was? I digress)

That represents this same thought. I am seeing the opportunities because I want to succeed. Lastly, I went into my job and someone was talking about a human with this same name, Haven. Synchronicity? You bet because I believe in my Haven.

What do we want in life?

Warning-- adult language-- mom's mouth will slip past appropriate.

We tell our kids the letter A on a papers, will lead to a treasure map of colleges and eager to offer pretty colors to study at their square buildings for four to twelve years, all the while praying they figure out what they really want-- to work, achieve and choose their future and not let the future choose them. History has shown that not all successful people got great grades in school and some do not even graduate. And I am not even touching the issue of what a college education cost a student nowadays. Am I advocating for dropping out? No. Not in the least. But instead thinking about how we decide what is best for us in our lives and how we figure out those things.

I am figuring out how my happiness is internal, some external but not material.

We have all know sublimely happy people. They radiate sunshine out every orifice even when they have the flu. I love these people and have always wanted to add an ounce of this sublime happy to the cocktail that is Dany. But instead of seeking this liquor I have actively for over two years been trying to pick their brains to find out what it is that keeps them looking for the pot of gold and not seeing the muddy poop slosh their standing in.

Happy people don't make excuses.

Happy People are looking forward to everything because if you are always looking back you will probably be smacked in the face with a beam. (Where did that stage come from? Dang Easter Bunny.)

Copyright--VIEWASKEW; kEVINSMITH, mallrats


I want a clean house when I come home.
I want time to write and or create something every day.
I want to meditate.
I want to see or be part of the joy in my families lives.

My mind instantly went to a list of things I want to remove from my life. But to write them keeps them solid in reality and I would rather not give them any more life than the habits they are already in my psyche. '

I am thankful for if even one of you read my ramblings. They are helping me. And I don't just do them for my own selfish reasons. I think if I am thinking this way maybe one other person may also be like. Fuck this is hard.

Don't read this-- I'm on Steroids--- Dany in Wonderland

When you have been sick for more than a day or two it messes with your mind more than you realize. Days and nights mean nothing. The numbers on the calendar only mean something if Facebook reminds you it is that assigned astrological day or shows you events from your past of this day 365 days ago. But then if you seek treatment for your fevers and barrage of systems then you are now inducing chemicals into the equations. Since my local witch doctor was closed and not an Ayurveda practitioner who takes Anthem within a 100-mile radius and I had to settle on western medicine to cure my ails they undecidedly called flu with a chance of bronchitis. So an antibiotic, a steroid, and an inhaler walk into my mouth and three blogs, one completed job, two half jobs and a lot of unfolded laundry later I am exhausted. I would love to have the thoughts flowing that this steroid inhaler combination is giving me. Not saying you are reading the next Joy of Sex Manual. But when you take enough Epilepsy meds to sedate a small family a crisp mind wanting to write, create and keep going is the closest to joy I have had since Florida. And it's like stepping through the mirror and back into Wonderland. And I am so afraid it will stop when the meds are done.



My positive Dany says no. This is my new path and through meditation and perseverance, this is the new way. Day two with meditation. No more waiting for the right meds or the right situation or the kids to be older. Today is my day to find my hippie happy every day, my joy.

Part of my joy today was seeing my offspring dance. She competes, which I hate but I love to see her art in form. Her face on the stage but even better her face off stage as she has accomplished her goal her art in whole. I have to block out the fake reality of the stages, trophies, makeup, fake hair and glitter. I just wanna see my baby spin and twirl like a two-year-old joyfully in the rain. To do that I had to leave the house and purse filled with meds nauseated by the phlegm filled gut, but I did and I was never happier that I forced myself into Wonderland for my daughter. I was blessed doubly by lil sister being my White Rabbit for the day.

Little Steps towards big goals... Legion and Meditation

The past week has been sickness, sleep and way too much Netflix, Hulu, Youtube and Amazon Prime Video. I was being to miss being productive but a few great seeds were planted in the myriad of technicolor wonderland flashing before my eyes. First Legion is the greatest new mind F#ck of a show on all of the airwaves, cable waves, the internet, paid or free. I love not knowing one second to the next what is coming, maybe it has been the flu but the ride is so much fun. A great diversion from the reality of reality. Thank you for whoever is making that amazing show. Bravo to all of you. Seriously. When you go home at night, give yourself a little pat on the back and I hope you are having as much fun making it as I am experiencing-- it is bringing me joy. I digress. But related-- to the mind.

The other seeds-- cleaning the mind. The show Legion has a lot to do with the mind and the manipulation of it. The other shows I found myself watching were documentaries and YouTubers on zen mediations and other forms of mediations.

For years, I strove to figure out the picture perfect method of meditating. I tried relaxing every body part but I always ended up asleep. Not a very good method of true meditation but it did help with my insomnia and also helped with the racing thoughts at night.

My next go about was Holy Hour of Adoration as a Catholic for about a year. I loved this quiet hour with the Jesus but I was fidgety and found myself pacing around the church as long as no one else was there. I figured as long as I was silent with Jesus He wouldn't care if I was walking around the Church. I loved the silence, though. This was the greatest lesson of this was we were not to be bringing things to God in this time but just being with him. In Silence, we learn much.



In a multiple part series on meditation I watched, one of the first things they discussed was making a designated space for meditation. Nothing fancy. We will start with items to have in the area. I am not an expert and cannot comment on the medical side of what is best for you. I found multiple pillows that will fit the areas around my bottom and back until I am used to the seated position. Better.

So I was totally hippie happy, lit my incense and got about seven minutes of meditation in. But that is 7 minutes more that yesterday. But I got my meditation revelation of the day. Meditation is not about learning anything. It isn't about any religion. Prophet. The reason they try to teach you to empty your mind is because we all work so hard and carry so much past present and future in our brains, that if you can give your brain 7 minutes of silence. Rest. That is when we really supercharge our brains. in the silence. is the answer we seek.


whatever makes you happy. whatever you want---radiohead

Teenagers, Skyrim, and decorating for Christmas (Or why I have not written for NaNoWriMo)

I had full intentions to write for NaNoWriMo but here we are a week into it and guess what my word count is--- zero. But I have really been adulting it up everywhere else in my life and really that is more important at this place in my life. In Ohio, we have has an amazing Fall. The temperatures have allowed us to not really turn on our heaters/furnace until this past week and really it just kicks on at night to keep the chill away. This Fall has continuously put off me switching out the winter and summer clothes which for my easily distracted ass can take a whole weekend to do it right. So this activity yelled at me not to write.

Then I had a teenager (and a preteen with his first girlfriend, teehee) that both wanted to redo their bedrooms; which coincided with the pull out all of the summer clothes and donations so it sounded like a win-win situation. This took more days than I care to mention but as of Sunday night it was complete and they both were happy. But mostly mom and dad were the happiest.

So far two distractions. Isn't that always a writer's worst problem we look for things to keep us from the keyboard? Then just last week, one of my all time fave video games was re-released Skyrim. It is my favorite stress reliever. And I have needed it. I am a social worker by trade and work has been more. That is all I can say about that. It is MORE. More cases, more intense, more hours, more appointments. Just more. And there is still only one of me. So I drive home, clear my thoughts on the day's work and I do my chores, and I use my bow and arrow in Skyrim to kill skeletons and skeevers. Ahh, my happy place.

My other HAPPINESS is decorating for Christmas. I do not care that it was the day after Halloween. The glow from the lights on the tree, the nostalgia from seeing ornaments from each of the past Christmases, seeing what I bought on sale for mere pennies last year that will be added to our home, and the first time each family member walks in the house and takes in all in and smiles or oohs and ahhs. This is my mom moment. Christmas is my big hoo-RAH! I love receiving Christmas decoration, new or old. And the time it takes to decorate is why I start after Halloween. I want to enjoy every possible day I can with my Winter wonderland of my house.

So I may not write a book this month. But I am momming and adulting right now. I don't need an annual write a book month to write. I need to just stop making excuses and do it.