“Today you are you! That is truer than true! There is no one alive who is you-er than you!” Dr. Seuss

Every year around my birthday I take a personal look at my life.  An introspective glance into my past year, my future. What do I want to accomplish, what do I want to pass on, what is bringing me greater healing and personal truth?

On the other hand, I obsess over things less profound. How much older do I look, there’s a struggle. How am I fitting into my clothes? Do I still rock that bikini from years ago? Can my body do the things it used to? Those are my moments of truth. Mirrors be damned. Am I trading wrinkles for a life well spent? That being said part of me fights it by taking advantage of modern advances that provide a more youthful look. I am from Orange County, so duh.

I further investigate my last years’ time spent. How is book two coming? Am I helping others with the wisdom I’ve gained with time? For years I have been seeking insight into dating, relationships, parenthood, marriage. Foremost with self, the buck stops there. No one can wriggle away from self.

Through the course of time I have blundered, failed, attempted businesses with no success, I have written children’s books that are not published. On the road to trying to become better, my history obviously records some awful along the way.

I have had some frightfully questionable choices in love. I clung onto roles that never served me. Those roles were mostly to fit into the life of a man I saw a future with, gag. Leaving myself behind to become a shadow version of Mrs. Now Guy. Who was I then? Lost enough to lose myself, my dreams. No one should give up themselves to fit into a role of another human. Find you in you.

Learning about myself through the years comes with brilliant contentment. Happiness and sadness are feelings on the spectrum. To know contentment is the Queen of all truths. It is being accepted by self and choices around oneself.

Do I still push forward? Hell yes, most days. Do I still slide backward, some days as well? Hell, and again yes. My birthday revelation reveals nothing really overwhelming. Maybe small insights that can make a difference. Reflection is just simply a reminder to go forward in some ways towards my now goals.

I have always seen beauty in aging. I have friends of all ages. I can celebrate every day the age I am in the skin I have. If you can be silly with yourself and view yourself in the most humbling vulnerable way and still be ok, that is inspired.

Stand your solid ground refuse to be anyone but you. If you can look at your life now, your choices now, and feel good about them you are doing something right.

My Mantra: “I am grateful to share through blogging, Big Hug, Happy Fall”

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Katie L Lindley

Although I would like to say I am organized, focused and cookie-cutter, that simply would not be me. I am no different than any other woman in the world. I love to love, love hard, and, in the end, have learned to love myself above all else. So here I am, writing about the many men and the multiple purposes they have served in my life. Realizing that not one man on my roster had fulfilled every single one of my needs. Perhaps one man is not supposed to? I have compiled snippets of the men that have entered my world. In the end, they have shoved me towards my bathroom mirror, forcing me to take a better look at myself. Reflection is brilliant and the strongest guidepost into ourselves.

Working on the next book in the series “A House for Every Purpose, My Journey From Pillow to Pillow” revels a woman abandoning her home in search or her identity beyond men, motherhood, author.

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