A Year I will Never Forget

2015 was quite a year! I will share with you a few highlights, in no particular order. It goes something like this…

I completed 5 grueling months of chemotherapy and at the end my hair, eyebrows and eyelashes grew back in. I could go out in the world freely without fear of getting every cold and bug floating around. Cautiously but optimistically, I was told that I was cancer free.

I dove back into my Life Coaching training program through CTI, and spent long weekends having my heart and mind blown open by this transformative work. I made some wonderful friends who felt like long lost family and fell in love with NYC again in the process.

I read my writing out loud in two StorySlam events, one to over 300 people. I wore these stupid heels that I forgot didn’t fit quite right, and had to jam gaffers tape in there last minute so the shoes would stick to my pantyhose and keep me from breaking my neck as I took the stage.

I took writing workshops with Martha Frankel and got some great feedback from my classmates. It was so helpful to have that Thursday deadline burning a fire under my ass!

I helped build a new garden with 6 glorious raised beds, hauling dirt and cinching fence and planting seeds. The muscles of my chest wall were severed and rearranged from surgery the previous summer, but I was determined to get my body working for me again like I needed it to. Fake it till you make it!

My boy started Kindergarten. A few weeks later, we found out we had to move. The very next day my husband wound up in the hospital with insanely high blood pressure. We were in a bad place for a minute. The silver lining is that Joey got ahead of a life threatening situation. Also, we needed help and our community rallied around us, helping to raise the nut we needed to move.  It was a tremendous outpouring of love. Our long and stressful search for a new home took us out of district, but the timing was nothing short of divine. Just as we were entering a new school district, a spot opened up at the best school for children with Autism. We couldn’t dream of a better fit, and it wouldn’t have happened if we weren’t forced to move out of our old town.

I started to put it out there that I was accepting clients, and to my surprise, the clients started coming. In just a few short weeks of completing my coaching program, I found myself doing this work that I know I was born to do. There is no better feeling than that! I have been a witness to some amazing transformation, and each of the people that I have worked with have inspired me in their own ways.

I squeezed in three visits to the ocean this year. Once, with my husband and son on a trip to Florida in March, while the rest of NY was suffering the blows of a most brutal winter, then again with some of my best girlfriends for a weekend on the Jersey Shore. It was on this trip that I got carried away pretending I was a mermaid with my friend Christy’s 6 year old niece. A wave took me, ass over teakettle, and I shredded away scar tissue from my armpits that had limited my movement, keeping my wings clipped and my posture slightly hunched. Now I could open my arms wide to the sky and soar again! The final dip in the ocean was at my family’s historic stomping grounds in Old Orchard Beach, Maine. It was a long awaited family reunion with my sisters and cousins, some who I had never met. It was so healing to be with my tribe again.

Here we are at the end of 2015. I have a DBA, business cards, I’m even TWEETING! You never know folks! I booked two events where I will be leading coaching demos to groups of people in the coming year. I’m thrilled for the opportunity to share this work in new arenas and reach more people who are aching for more fulfillment, seeking connection and purpose, better health and relationships, who are waking up and feeling the possibility of each day anew. I am happy to be here in service and grateful for all who have cheered me on along the way.

Deepest Gratitude and Blessings Abound to All! (Blessings do come in ugly wrapping sometimes.)

Happy 2016!

Bring it on!