"It's Time for a Renaissance"

Finding the strength to write again after the last couple months has a been a great challenge, probably one of the greatest of my life. Which, as you get to know me, dear reader, you may find has not been an easy one.

But who has an easy path in this life, really? I can sit here and make excuses about it, after all, I have some pretty good ones; at the beginning of the year I lost two people who were very close to me,  shortly after that I was diagnosed with Fibromyalgia (a bittersweet experience..."Hey, I'm not crazy! See, I really am sick, in your face haters! Oh shit, I have Fibro, fuck what now??"), and I relocated a couple thousand miles from the thriving industry of Boulder County, Colorado to a quiet, small town (technically a "village") in Southwest Vermont - which required the sale of my dearly beloved AW11 ('87 MR2).

"And so she walked out of our lives, forever..."

The move was madness, as all such moves are, but was exasperated by our extremely tight budget and emotionally tense situation. We didn't move for happy reasons. We both love Colorado very much and left behind a budding career, fabulous social circle, and "The Green Rush". We left because my health could never improve in a place that gets over 300 days of sunshine a year, with some of the highest UV indexes in the country, and the stress building in our household was becoming too much to bear. My awesome Man was fried from holding down so much responsibility at work and home. He couldn't handle being Mr. Manager over 40 hours a week on top of household responsibilities and my ever worsening health.

Who could? The emotional baggage that comes with managing a debilitating chronic illness is too much to bear alone, which is something we will be discussing at length on this blog. We needed the support of loved ones, and a less sunny place to live. My family is scattered all over the country, and bless 'em, can barely take care of themselves. Luckily, my man's family is much healthier than mine, and are all in one spot here in The Green Mountains (which gets less sun annually than Portland....ah, heaven to my light sensitive eyes and skin!).

So, we sold and gave away pretty much everything we owned, used the now closed Fundraiser money to buy a badly needed truck (Thank you SO much to all who contributed, we wouldn't have been able to get out of Colorado without your generous help!!!), loaded up what few personal belongings we had left, and drove out here. We had no prospects, no promises of anything other than a place to stay, and knew we would dearly miss the Colorado cannabis scene (that has turned out to be an understatement!)....but we felt we had no choice. We had to get off that mile-high, sun baked pile of rocks, and fast. I couldn't spend another summer up there, stuck inside our small apartment, watching other beautiful girls walking to and from the pool and hearing all my friends talking about what shows they'd be going to next. I needed a change. And boy, did we get what we asked for! Talk about culture shock...

Water & Trees! Missed these out on the Front Range

Change. Wasn't that something the whole nation was chanting, almost like some religious mantra, when Obama got elected? How is it we got away from that? I didn't vote for him myself, because I feel the Right and Left are both the same (Ron Paul!!!)...but this isn't about politics. Not this post anyway, or at least not directly. We should still be screaming for change. The way we handle health, wellness, illness, and consciousness in this country is fucking madness and in dire need of an overhaul. Literally madness; "doing the same thing over and over again and expecting a different result."
There's so many pieces to the puzzle, and I have been (almost obsessively) working on putting the big picture together, so that I can get a better idea of what's going on, so I may help myself to get better. Maybe in the process I can help someone else, too.

So this is for You. This is for the Lonely, the Broken, the Weak, the Tired, the Angry, the Bitter, the Resentful, the Depressed, the Overwhelmed, the Homebound, the Disabled, the Fed-Up, the Disillusioned.

Know that you are not alone, you are never alone, you are not fighting alone, and you are stronger and more beautiful than you could ever know. The Powers That Be, The System, The Establishment...none of the institutions in place are going to do it for us. We haven't seen a medical break-thru in immune mediated diseases in over 50 years, and the average time it takes to get diagnosed is 7 - 10 years! Obviously, there's still much to learn about the human body and how it works, and the medical industry is severely out of touch with some (more like most) of its patients. We must change the status quo ourselves, from the ground up. And this can only happen if we speak up, make ourselves heard, "come out of the closet".

I have been scared to stand out, to be heard above the crowd. No, terrified is a better word. Of what? I guess what we all fear; offending someone (like family or loved ones), potential consequences from said Powers That Be for saying they are wrong and need to change, discussing subjects that are taboo or flat out illegal, or for being criticized due to my lack of a college education. I've been studying, and plan to openly discuss, some pretty heavy/technical topics and potentially controversial self-experiments, and will be putting myself out there by opening them up. Topics related to drugs, plant medicines and herbs, politics, PTSD, shamanism, psychoneuroimmunology, Big Food/Pharma, and whatever else I find to be interesting and pertinent.

I also fear criticism of my writing style itself, as it has changed dramatically with the onset of my Fibromyalgia. I am not the same person or writer I was just a couple years ago. My brain fog has totally compromised my ability to hold a conversation or write coherently. My widespread physical pain and chronic fatigue make sitting at the pc and typing a mighty feat of strength that requires many sleeping/stretching/cannabis breaks. I've tried that talk-to-text software, but its just not the same. A different part of the brain is engaged when we are speaking versus writing. Maybe in time I will learn to like it. But for now I continue to be stubborn and type when I can, even though what used to flow like a river now has to be forced out and edited heavily before anyone else sees it. And even then, there will be little mistakes and forgotten words.

Yep, can totally relate to this!!! (Obviously, not my photo)

Please be patient, dear reader. It drives me bonkers and I've had to work really, really hard on being okay with it and moving on. Writing this today and posting it is a big step towards loving myself and my writing, no matter what.

In the end, really, I shouldn't care if someone is critical or gets offended. This is MY unique experience, my life, my illness ("There are many like it, but this one is mine"). No one can take that from me, can discount that.

And my experience is showing that it's time for a change.

No, better yet, to quote Aubrey Marcus's most recent plant medicine experience:
"It's Time for a Renaissance."

And I plan to be a a part of it. Won't you join us???

It feels so good to be back! 
*Love & Light*

Please, if you find any value from this blog, please consider making a donation to the PayPal link at the top right of the page. I don't create these posts expecting anything but to help/entertain others, but I am a disabled mechanic/artist who is not currently receiving SSI/SSDI and when I'm flared up it's hard if not impossible for me to get my hustle on. I'm also working on adding Bitcoin here! :)