Sunday morning. Currently having a coffee and watching a feature on Al Jazeera English about the surrogacy market in the Phillippeans. It’s pretty dark stuff, but, in this day and age, it’s more important than ever to be aware of women’s struggles around the world. Welcome to the future. It’s always been this way.

I haven’t written anything in awhile. I don’t know if that’s a good thing or not. I definitely don’t miss the nonstop negative attention from the local yokels, not that that ever really went away. They are the same as they have always been. It is me who has changed since I went to India. I just don’t care about this place or these people in the same way I did before. They’re Assholes. The End. Time to move on and get over it.

What I’ve realized is… nothing I do will ever be enough. They will never accept me here, nor do I want to be accepted here. As far as I’m concerned, I’ve got 6 months left on my prison sentence, and then I’m free. Free as a bird. Free to go where I please, do what I please, and live my life as I please. No more bars, no more toxic jerks, no more gossip or endless well of negativity. I will build a new future for myself on my own.

I’ve spent a lot of time since returning from India working through my emotional shit. I made leaps and bounds of progress on my dissociation issue. I feel like I am currently existing in my body as comfortably as I can. I do not feel the need to disconnect or fly away. Sometimes it still happens, but I’ve learned how to call my spirit back in those moments.

My biggest progress was with my anger issues. I’ve felt the anger dissipating more and more since my return. Cutting my family out of the picture was definitely the best choice I made for moving forward on that issue. Not having my mother in my life is truly the healthiest choice I’ve ever made for myself. She is not there to drag me down with her insanity, so I am able to progress. It feels good.

I’ve also mostly stopped interacting with the local yokels. Wow, let me tell you, not being around the downtownies has been LIBERATING! Those people are so negative. It’s like… they’re just mean for no reason and I’m over it. I don’t want to get sucked into that world anymore. It’s a dead end.

I’ve realized that the only reason I even wrote that stupid book about Bloody Mary’s in the first place is because I was under mean or league pressure from my dad to write SOMETHING, ANYTHING, and I chose a popular topic in my town. I did not anticipate the negative backlash, or the nastiness, or the petty bullshit that would come along with it. I walked in completely blind. My dad essentially promised me that if I wrote this book, it would be my ticket out of this craphole and into the big leagues. Instead, writing this book was one of the most difficult, disillusioning, ANGERING experiences I have encountered in my life. I truly had no idea adult human beings could be so shitty. I was wrong. If I could go back and do it all over again, I never would have even gotten involved in the first place. It wasn’t worth it.

All I can say at this point is that I’m grateful that these people showed me who they are. I believe them. Now I see they were right. It’s not a good subject for a book because these characters all suck. There’s nothing interesting or compelling about them. There’s no plot because these people aren’t going anywhere. It’s just trash. It’s a trash book about a trash subject full of trash characters. I’m over it. I’m done. I don’t care anymore. It is LIBERATING AF!

In the end, we all won. I got to write a bunch of books, work through my issues, go to the Paris Writing Workshop, go to India, travel to all these other amazing places, take more classes, and start becoming the kind of person I’ve always wanted to be. And they won because I stopped going to the bars and deleted my blog and now they get to hang out at the bar and be mean and talk shit about everyone without interference? Good for them? LOL, sure, Jan, I guess if that’s what “winning” looks like to you. Hahaha. It’s so funny to me that I was ever angry about this stuff. Clearly I just got sucked into the bullshit. Well, now I’ve learned my lesson and it’s not going to happen to me again. And they all lived happily ever after. The End.

So if I’m not writing, what am I doing? Lots of yoga and dance. Oh, how I love to dance. I feel so free when I dance. I remember when I was in the Paris Writing Workshop, and I had this moment of full clarity that I wanted to learn how to dance. Since then, I’ve taken Ballet, Jazz, Theatre Choreo, Hip Hop, Latin Dance, African Dance, and now I’m learning Bollywood Dance! I am LIVING for it!I

love to dance on my balcony. I love to go down into my parking lot and dance across empty lot. I love to dance down Main Street late at night when there are no more cars around. I’m even starting to get more comfortable making little videos in my studio. I love to dance! I LOVE TO DANCE! Am I the best at it? No! But guess what? I don’t have to be. It’s for me to feel free in my body and help me work out all the trauma stored up inside. It’s something I do just for me. I don’t have to be on stage or get a part in the show or stand on line for the cattle auction known as an audition. It’s something I do just for me.

I had to laugh because someone saw me out dancing the other night and was heckling me by calling me, “Crazy.” LOL, wow, it’s amazing how much that word has lost its meaning in my life. Like, no, actually, I’m not crazy. I love to dance and I’m not afraid to do it in public for no reason. Why are you getting so mad, bro? Why are you so insecure that you feel the need to shout at a random person and insult them for no reason? Why are you harassing someone who is clearly just out having fun? That sounds more like “crazy” behavior to me. Maybe you’re the one who should get some therapy…

That incident aside, yeah, the word “Crazy” means nothing in a world where Dump is president again. I didn’t vote for him. I didn’t join the cult. I’m not posting crazy conspiracy theories online or telling people not to get vaccinated. I’m not saying the Earth is a flat plane ruled over by alien lizard people. I’m not advocating for rapists, puppy killers, human traffickers, and various other types of generic, everyday white collar criminals to run the government. But yeah, I guess if that’s the kind of person you are, than anything or anyone who is reasonably closer to reality will seem “crazy.”

Like, literally, what is actually “crazy” about me at this point? Oh, I’m “crazy” because I took a lifetime of trauma and turned it into five books, did a couple of dance routines in the street, and went all the way to India to learn how to be a yoga teacher? Right. Yeah. Sounds ToTaLlY cRaZy, you guys. Sounds like you’re still living in the past. I don’t have to listen. I don’t have to care. I don’t have to respect you. Your opinion is so irrelevant that it’s not even funny anymore. I will not be judged by anyone. It’s liberating AF!

What else have I been doing to work through my pile of trauma? Oh, that’s right, achieving things. I finally signed up for the Teaching English as a Foreign Language course. I did it in 4 weeks online and got the certificate. It felt AWESOME! Now I can get a job anywhere in the world! Good for me! I’m can’t wait to get as far away from South Dakota as possible and never come back!

The course was also great for me because I got more teaching practice and was able to build up my confidence in a safe space. I was also studying with a specific yoga teacher at my home studio who was also helping me build up my confidence to teach. After I finished the TEFL course, I did the Red Cross First Aid/CPR/AED certification, which built up my confidence even more. I was able to go back to management and ask for a second chance at teaching yoga. I explained that I had an anxiety meltdown unrelated to anyone/anything at the gym, that I had taken time to work through the issue, and that I was sorry for my lack of straightforward communication. I was also able to show my TEFL and Red Cross certs as proof I was serious about teaching and had taken time to get more practice. They gave me a second audition, it went well, and last week I taught my first ever real class! It was awesome! I was nervous, but now that I’ve overcome the various barriers that were aggravating my anxiety, I feel like I can do it.

Accumulating achievements is an awesome source of therapy for me. I’ve never really been the type who was overly competitive or strived to be the best of the best. I was never the type to steamroll someone else to get ahead. I actually hate people like that. I’ve been mowed down by them before on their road to achievement and I’m not impressed with their behavior 99% of the time. My older sister, AKA the biggest bully I ever had, was just like that. She hurt so many people and left behind a massacre in her wake. And for what? After she went through all of that just to get ahead, she’s not even happy or fulfilled. So, naturally, given that this was my main role model for how to “achieve” things, I shied away from the world of competitive academics and athletics and retreated into my room to write on blog. I just didn’t want to spend any more time around that oppressive, nothing-is-ever-good-enough, “100% perfection or nothing” energy.

Now, I’m sitting here writing on my blog 25 years later, and I’ve realized achievement can be found in other ways. I can learn things for myself without competing for top grades. I can dance without competing in a national competition. I can sing while I try a new recipe that isn’t going to win me Best Secret Celebrity Chef on the Food Network. I can pursue things because they make me feel good inside. That’s the real achievement. It’s not about beating out everyone else to rise to the top. It’s about how satisfied I feel in my soul.

That being said, I’m working on racking up my achievements. So far, I’ve gotten some good ones.

-I’ve travelled solo to multiple countries, including India and Qatar

-I went to the Paris Writing Workshop

-I went to India for a 200hr Yoga Teacher Training Course,

-I became a Duolingo World Champion through daily dedicated practice to studying French, Spanish and Portuguese

-I went to the AWP conference twice

-I was a fellow for the Desert Nights, Rising Stars Writing Conference

-I became TEFL-certified

-I learned how to dance, sing, and cook

-I pursued independant study of marketing, business, and technology

-Currently, I’m working my way through a full university-level course load on the History of India. I’m not getting graded or credit or anything. I’m just watching hundreds of hours of history lectures online just because I can! I want to learn about the world. I want to know things. I am a seeker of knowledge. I am empowered.

For the first time in my life, I feel good about myself and the person I am choosing to become. I am racking up my achievements for the sake of filling myself up with joy. I’m focused on my intellectual growth and development. I’m feeling comfortable in my body. I’m not constantly feeling weighed down by anger and depression. I’m not surrounding myself with negative jerks anymore. I just want to be happy with me.

Let the lesson here be: the world is a fucked up place. It always has been and it always will be. The best we can do is to find joy and satisfaction with the time we are given. That’s what I’ll be focusing on as it all falls apart around me. What else can we do?

If anyone needs me, I’ll be meditating in the Shala. Good night, and good luck.