Between the Tall Trees

Do you remember that scene from the movie, "Forrest Gump," when young Jenny says this prayer, "God, please make me a bird so I can fly far far far away from here"? Gosh, that has been me for most of my life. I remember these large trees right in front of my grandparents' house on the farm and how I used to be mesmorized by their size but also the amount of birds who called those trees home. They would swirl around, singing nonstop, and I just often imagined myself as one of them, having these wings and flying here, there and everywhere. I've always had a thing with nature. When I was a kid, the farm and surroundings were truly my playground. I used to run through the cornfields and see how lost I could get myself in them, I used to walk alongside the rugged country road pretending that I was like William Shatner and hosting the latest edition of "Unsolved Mysteries." Gosh, I really used to freak myself out sometimes with some of the wild and crazy

Welp, this is it. I am officially 41 years old today. I woke up early this morning, took a nice shower, got myself ready and made my way downstairs to the dining room of the hotel I am currently staying at here in Spain for a few days. After breakfast, I came back up to my room, chatted with my kids, and I just sat. I am still sitting. Pondering, Reflecting. Purging. Contemplating. Emotional. Looking back, looking forward, and trying to stay in the now moment. 40 was quite messy actually. I encountered many truths, and lots of them were painful ones. I started off 40 in probably one of the deepest pits that I had ever found myself in and yet did an emaculate job at hiding it all from the rest of the world. Masks and facades worked great...so I thought. Until I decided that enough was enough and ripped them off one by one by one. And here we are now, a year later... I am not sure what I expected this day to be. I wasn't sure how I might feel when I woke up this morning. Should I be

  Sometimes, when I wake up in the morning, I learn to delight in the day. Sometimes, I meditate. Other times, I take random selfies that I would like to tell you are shameless. They're not. Okay, maybe a little. Purity culture is a bitch. People are bitches. My ego is the biggest bitch. I don't even know. I have been struggling a lot lately with shame. I would also like to think that, through the struggles, I am also healing a bit in this area of my life. I guess time will tell with all of this inner work that I have been doing and continue to keep myself busy with. See the septum piercing? I got that a week and a half ago just because I wanted to. I jokingly told the guy who did the piercing that it's probably some midlife crisis bullshit as I am closely approaching my 41st birthday, but yeah. I had been thinking about it for a while, and, against all odds, I decided to bite the bullet. I consider it a birthday gift from my kids. Haha. It's been quite interesting with

 It's late at night here in the Netherlands, and this is honestly a prime time for me to write. This is a special time where I am actually able to gather my thoughts and clearly set them out before you all in blog fashion and form. The irony is that not one of my Ritalin pills is active in my system anymore from the day, and yet it just works. So here I am. It's also the night before the Full Moon in Aquarius, which is the last super full moon of this year. I am feeling pretty good actually, all kinds of zen 'n shit after having just had a wonderful time of meditation and journaling. I really do feel good and peaceful. It's a nice change from recent weeks, and I am grateful for how much I am healing, growing, breaking through my own barriers and continuing along this journey of discovering the real me. It's pretty amazing, and I am in awe of all of my findings, especially the ones that scare me.  If you know me, you know that you don't often find me exposing my

Let me just begin by saying how beautifully overwhelmed I was and still am by all of the love and support I have received from you in regards to my previous blog post. That post was probably one of the greatest risks I have taken in my life. And that may sound a bit dramatic, but I sincerely mean it. After having been in some sort of "imposter syndrome-ish" mode for so many years, I really felt that this was a necessary step for me to be honest with myself and with all of you. I don't ever want to encourage someone else to be their true, authentic self when I know deep down I am not doing the same (or wasn't, at least). I have kept myself hidden for a period of several months purposely in order to heal and to focus on people and things that have and continue to take precedence in my life aka my children, my study, and my career. I do not regret having had those months away from everyone and everything because I needed them, but what did start becoming a problem was wh

So I just got back today from a trip to London with my oldest son in order to celebrate his transition from primary school to high school. The trip was great, and we made some beautiful memories. We even had a great conversation on the train ride home with this really nice Dutch family. Then reality hit. Oh yeah, I am returning back to this . I spent the better half of the evening balling my eyes out and actually wailing from the pain that's in my heart. This pain has unfortunately built a home there for many years now, as you will see below. This is me. This is the Jess who has been attempting to save face and be the savior for everyone else all of this time while losing herself to the point of breaking and never really felt safe or comfortable talking about it because she has always been afraid that she is either too much or not enough, and she really maybe just shouldn't exist or whatever....I know this is a majorly big no-no grammatically incorrect run-on sentence, and I di