Ship’s Wheel and 4/20

I’m a sucker for the marking of dates and anniversaries…some happier and more joyous than others.
Case in point, today it’s three years to the day that I found out my ex-husband was cheating on me.
I remember, because it’s April 20th…which is 4/20…the day everyone celebrates smoking pot…which is kinda a nice pivot for my future branding of this day.
Also, I remember because, for what I can only imagine was some weird hunting and gathering reason, he roasted a chicken for me that day…and I gagged every time I smelled chicken for three solid months after.
Also, I remember because how the fuck does one ever start the business of forgetting a date like this one?
Answer is:
I don’t know if you do.
I really don’t.
I hope I do, though.
I really do.
Some of you out there will say that you first have to stop acknowledging it…but, I like to use days like this as a barometer…as a day to count my wins…and bury the losses in the cold ground.
How can you know where you are going, if you don’t look at where you traveled from?
Every year, for the last three years, I have taken MORE than a moment, and measured my…progress?…no, that’s the wrong word…my continued success at learning to live my life for me?…no, not quite right either…my base line happiness….yes, that’s it.
On this strange, wonderful day, I look at and celebrate my base line happiness.
How can I say wonderful you ask?
Well, if I am really looking at this day, past all of the upheaval and pain it caused, you can clock the fact that it was the start location of my freedom.
It was an icky, terrible, shit, angry, empty, full, start place for freedom…but, as Brene Brown might say (yes, I read her…she is awesome…I hated self-help books but this woman is fucking fierce), on this day, three years ago, I was laying down in the arena, bloodied…and the sun came out on my wounded carcass…and I was too fucked to feel the warmth…but it was there all the same.
On year one, my baseline happiness was tenuous…I was experiencing any and all joy with an eye over my shoulder, waiting for the other shoe to drop.
I was in a thing at the time…I’m not sure what else to call it, because it wasn’t a relationship…and on this day the man in question called me to tell me the THING wasn’t working out…and I laughed.
It was a laugh with BARELY any joy…but I laughed all the same.
It just seemed…so perfect.
I laughed so hard, that he asked me if I was okay.
Yes. Yes, I’m okay. This is…well, THIS is nothing compared to…well, I’m okay. It’s just…you know what? You don’t really need to hear the rest of the sentence I was going to share with you, because we’re done.
And that, as they say, was that.
BUT if I were to compare my baseline happiness to the year before, I would say it was at least 80% higher.
Yes. 80%.
Because after that phone call from the non-relationship guy, I was so content to be on my own and happy/relieved that I WASN’T in the shit show of the year before, I smiled.
I fucking smiled. Which made me laugh…with JOY.
On year two, I was sitting alone in my apartment, on Day 38 of a lockdown during a pandemic.
And I was mad.
I was mad that I’d not gotten out of my marriage years earlier, so that I maybe would have NOT been alone in my apartment on Day 38 of lockdown, during a global pandemic.
MAD that I WAS alone in my apartment.
Basically, I was mad.
BUT baseline happiness wise, 90%? Yes, a cool 90%…because underneath all that anger, I had the newly honed capacity and clarity to deal with it…and move forward…and let it the fuck go.
That was then, this is now, Sharron.
BE happy you aren’t locked in an apartment with someone that you weren’t meant for.
Sharron, you have the good luck of being alone, on Day 38…and doing WHATEVER THE FUCK YOU WANT.
Did I smile that day? Probably at some point.
And here we are, year three.
It’s still a fucking pandemic…but I just had the year of my life.
Not something that anyone wants to trumpet during a time like this…but I will say it this one time, during my yearly checkin, so I hope you will forgive my braggery…but I really did.
Highs and lows.
Alone but thriving…no longer just surviving.
Indeed, I survived WELL (surviving is kind of my super power, a fact that sometimes I’m not totally jazzed about), but I was just surviving in so many ways…work and life…and I’m finally not afraid to say THAT out loud, because it’s my story.
Yes, it is.
Sometimes it’s lonely, that’s just a fact.
But most times I am VERY content.
As many of you know, It’s not easy to HAVE to be alone for over a year, but I’m self caring the FUCK out of myself.
I’ve set and am setting boundaries, continually discovering bravery, trying TOTALLY new things, following the path of my heart and mind, walking over many rocks and tree roots, and turning my face up to the sun whenever I remember to…which is often.
And in work, concrete life and creation? I completed my fourth and final season on a job that I loved beyond all measure, I wrote three scripts that will see the light of day (one that already has), started two other writing projects, finished another, sold my house, bought my own place, cleared out a HUGE storage unit, and crafted myself a nest that brings a smile of joy to my face everyday when I wake up in it.
Baseline Happiness…yes…I will say it. 100%.
NOT everyday…but WAY more than ever, in my life…and I now know that I have to power to make it so…I am NOT just a cork bouncing in the sea.
I am a fucking ship. I can steer.
I write this for me…but also for people like my soul sister who knows why I am writing this (cryptic…but no one wants to out someone’s else’s journey)…and for anyone out there who has had to discover that they had a ship’s wheel in front of them the whole time.
Hands on two and ten, people.
Let’s do this.
Namaste, Bunnies and Kitties.

POST SCRIPT: Thank you to all the women who have written me today on DM, to tell me your stories and experiences. As my sister says, it’s a club that no one wants to be a member of BUT the people in it are fierce…and loyal.
You made a celebratory day, during a solo event, like a global pandemic, feel a little more full. ♥️

Now let’s go out (in a mask or two when allowed), love our lives, do things that scare us and fuck shit up, right?

POST SCRIPT SCRIPT: Here is a picture of the chicken. Yes, I took a picture of it, because I could not believe it.

*If you wanna subscribe to my BLOG…fuck, I hate that word…just scroll down and SUBSCRIBE…yes, down there on the lower right hand side. I put these essays up…and then promo them the next day…so you will see them first, if that appeals to you. Also, if you are digging what you read? Please pass it on! I mean…why not? It’s FREE!!

: )