“Embrace The Journey” is a phrase that I use quite often, so much so that it has become part of my identity. I posted on social a little while back outlining what I quickly realized were crossroads in my life and realized I needed to take a deeper dive. So here is the original post, followed by the deep dive.
A bit about me…
Wrote when I was younger.
Didn’t pursue it…
Started my first business in silk florals.
Busted my fanny…
My second business: owned a flower shop.
Busted my fanny…
The recession closed my doors in 2009.
Then breast Cancer – you guessed it…
Busted my fanny.
Spent creativity coins at the paycheck job…
until I found myself again.
Now I design with words.
I write about flower shops and kick-ass women.
Still busting my fanny…
but now on my terms.
To be continued…
#EmbracetheJourney
A bit about me…
was a post I came up with out of the blue on a Sunday afternoon. I decided when I put it on social that there was a few things that required a bit of context and that the time had finally come for that. I tend to be evasive and cryptic, a self-preservation mechanism I learned at an early age, most likely at the same time I learned that if you embarrass yourself first, others won’t be able to gut you as deeply when they do it. Here’s another, hard work, loyalty, and discipline will be rewarded. Okay Sally. Oh, and here’s one I like, if you make yourself small, you won’t get hurt. Been doing a lot of soul-searching on that one, which was not only recently debunked but also gloriously burned on the bridge I just stepped from… but that is another post. And yes, I’m okay. It’s called clarity.
Wrote when I was younger.
I was in my head a lot when I was younger. I am the oldest of 4, only girl, first grandchild, and am a product of immigration if you boil it down. US dad meets mom overseas, they come to the US and get married, and she becomes a citizen a few years after my birth. I was a navy brat and was raised in HI until we moved back to MI and settled in a suburb of Detroit.
For the most part I was quiet and shy and, because I was the only girl, had my own room where I spent a lot of time. I found my Mom’s Doubleday book club books at way too young of an age and read incessantly. Especially during the summer my Dad forgot he grounded me and then was irritated I was home so much. Yes he asked me why, and yes I had to remind him. He ungrounded me the same day. Anyway it was through her Doubleday, and then through my own registration, that I was introduced to: Stephen King, Kathleen E. Woodiwiss, Suzanne Collins, and Danielle Steel. I mean, those were the days! 6 hardcovers for .99? Yes please!
Didn’t pursue it…
I wrote a lot of angsty poetry, as well as poems I gave as gifts for special occasions like birthdays, weddings, or even as my friends were having kids. I submitted to get “published” and paid for what I know now was a vanity book filled with poems from other writers who wanted to see their names in print. The 1988 American Anthology of Midwestern Poetry is still on my shelf, and the poem I put in there will be staying there. On some slim chance that you have a copy of this particular book edited by Chuck Kramer, and printed by Great Lakes Poetry Press, you will find me on page 341.
One of the “gifts” I wrote was for my brother who was in the military and who would be overseas during the holidays. It was published by the Detroit Free Press, and I seem to recall sending it to Mitch Albom, however I don’t see his name linked to the archive so that could just be wishful thinking on my part. I love his books! It was in the paper 2 days before Christmas that year.
I enrolled and was accepted into Eastern Michigan University, took exactly one class, English Comp, and we were asked to pick one character out of King Author’s legends. I wrote about Merlin the entire semester and one of the shorts, Merlin’s Side, was recently published years later in a Literary Journal here. After that first class I decided I wouldn’t be able to afford it, so stopped going. Looking back, it was my Dad telling me he couldn’t afford to send me and I was on my own, as well as my inability to ask for any help that held me back. My guess is mostly that, if I’m being honest. I continued to write sporadically, but life got in the way since… a girl’s gotta eat. Eventually, a girl and a guy had to eat.
It took me until my 40 year reunion, and a chat with a classmate, to realize that others had always seen me as a writer, even when I didn’t. I was shocked, delighted, and then a lightbulb went off. That was a recent turning point for me just as a side note.
Started my first business in silk florals.
During my Insurance paycheck job, I started a side hustle making custom designs for individuals and businesses using silk and dried florals. I had consultations, designed on site, and had no idea what I was really doing. I also made custom first communion and bridal veils, which floors me as I look back on it since I can’t sew. I mean I can, but not well. This was where I learned how to take someone else’s idea and make something tangible with it… something that served me in the future quite well.
My first business was called “Match Made In Heaven” and I did the craft show circuits with a beautiful display that looked like you were walking into a shop, but man was it heavy! Plywood shelves, wooden panels, and a mirror to try on the veils. It was exhausting and while I did do weddings, it wasn’t easy to find clients.
Busted my fanny…
I worked full-time, made floral designs and veils part-time, and somewhere along the way managed to become a mom for the first time. I eventually hooked up with a Wedding Chapel which allowed for me to display my products and meet potential clients, and when she approached me about purchasing the business I considered it for a moment, but then found out I was pregnant… again. It was too much change, too fast, so I decided to pass on the opportunity. As we all know, when one door closes…
My second business: owned a flower shop.
This happened after the birth of my second child. I’ve joked before that the decision to buy the shop was largely post-partum hitting my system, but sadly, it isn’t a joke… that was definitely what was going on. Not only had I switched my job to working nights so I could work around school schedules (and because the drive was too far from our home) but I was also struggling with what I would do when I had another baby since I couldn’t afford daycare (which my salary always paid for). The baby came… and while I was being driven around to do errands a few weeks after I had her, I spied the sign in the window at a local flower shop and made the inquiry. I remember my Mom being with me and supporting the idea. I remember the idea lighting me up inside.
3 months later, we were the proud new owners of Carousel Floral and Gifts.
It was a lot of work, and a lot of late nights, but also have some great memories of a lot of firsts. Had never been the Grand Marshall of an inaugural St. Patrick’s Day Parade before, and I remember the woman who believed in it so strongly that she talked us all into believing her vision. I was skeptical that anyone would show up on a cold day in March, but remember when we came up the street and I saw the crowds, I started to cry. It was as if the entire town showed up to celebrate spring and I will never forget the feeling. It was a dream brought to life and we all felt it. She has since passed, but I think of her every St. Patrick’s Day, partially because she was 100% Irish, but mostly because she made me believe in magic and the power of faith in yourself.
Busted my fanny…
I closed on the sale the week of Thanksgiving 1999, and in early December we were undergoing an inspection by FTD to see if we could retain our license. Thankfully, my Mom and I had worked 12-16 hour days since closing to clean, sort inventory, and lay hands on what we truly bought. Even more thankfully, the staff stayed on, many of whom remained with me until the bittersweet end. One of my designers even made it into my first book, in a quote about quilting specifically inspired by her. The eulogy I wrote and delivered at her funeral long after the store closed was one of the hardest I’ve delivered to date.
My decade there saw me doing a remodel during which I ended up with 14 stitches due to a midair catch of a wayward vase, obtaining my Michigan Certified Florist status and Volunteer Master Gardener Certificate, assisting in obtaining a streetscape grant for the village and meeting Gov. Granholm, and being part of countless weddings and funerals by working into the wee hours of the night in a building that had seen a quiet rotation of businesses over the decades. Was it haunted? I think so. Have I written about it? Yup… coming soon.
I worked late nights, weekends, and every single holiday there was, including school events such as Prom and Homecoming. I missed countless functions, and my kids were raised in a flower shop. It was exhausting work, but I threw myself into it, believing that I had found something I could grow into a lasting legacy. Something that would allow for me to get paid for my creativity and build a decent retirement along the way. Boy was I silly.
The recession closed my doors in 2009.
The writing was on the wall by early 2009, and by late summer I knew what I needed to do. I made my announcement in November, and by the end of December had sold off as much as I could to clear the store. I was devastated, embarrassed, and unable to see my way through for the first time in my life. My staff were let go or went on unemployment and I started shopping at a new grocery store for fear of running into my customers. My creative purpose was gone. I had no idea what I would do next, felt I was basically unemployable after working for myself for so long, but ended up being offered a temporary position which I took until I could get my bearings. It wasn’t long until I was offered full-time, and I’ve been there since.
(By the way, the customers have found me there over the years and ask me all the time if I miss it. I do, but not in the way they think. Besides, I have found a way to include flowers into my writing so have found the best of both worlds.)
Then breast Cancer
It had been 2 years since my last Mam… had been too busy to go with my own business. I was called mid-December of 2010 within a day of the initial test, and after a follow-up and a hug from the nurse (who didn’t come out and say what it was, but she didn’t need to), it was a day later we were scheduling surgery and assigning me an oncologist.
There were other stressors at the time, a failed business and finances being the main one, with a side of uncertainty on how it would impact my family and how I would continue to work.
I went into survival mode. It was at this time my girlfriend who had undergone a double-mastectomy gave me a bracelet. The inscription – “Embrace The Journey.” I will add that out of my 5 woman bridal party, 3 of us had breast cancer, and 2 out of the 3 had chemo. I will also add that mine was caught early… check your ladies, Ladies!
– you guessed it… Busted my fanny.
Surgery was during a hospital remodel. Ultrasound was in one building with the surgical center in another. They installed a wire into the tumor in ultrasound, then wrapped blankets around me and wheeled me on a gurney with a wire sticking out of my boob, across the parking lot into the building next door where surgery was. Did I mention it was February? Did I mention that that when she showed me the tumor it looked like my flower shop logo? Yeah… thinking of it all now is insane.
After the surgery my tumor went to California. I remember being mad because at that point I hadn’t been and I felt as if the least they could do was send me with it. Maybe it was the drugs… all I know is that was when I starting thinking about a bucket list and what I might regret at the end. That was when the first of my 3 focus goals was born… #1. Travel More.
The results from the biopsy had already determined that I would only need 6 weeks of radiation and no chemo, so I scheduled that to start in April and finished it in late May. The schedule was such that I couldn’t go after hours, so scheduled it on my lunch hour and drove there M-F to spend my lunch getting zapped for 6 or so minutes. I worked every day of my radiation until that last week. I was exhausted, and the burns were intense. For some reason I didn’t think to ask about Short Term disability, nor was it offered. I felt obligated to be there for some reason, perhaps didn’t have enough “vacation time” which is what I was using for the appointments. I was led to believe that my presence at work was crucial, or so it seems. After the treatments, I was told that I had “graduated” and it was then that the second focus goal was formed. I had only ever been to one college class and had always wanted to go. #2. Earn a Degree.
I was sent on my way without fanfare, no ringing a bell, no celebration. Just me with my “purpose” gone once again feeling a bit like a row boat at sea. There was an instance not long after where I was looking for a more comfortable bra at Victoria’s Secret, and the clerk insisted that she measure me. I started to cry after saying no at least twice, and believe I may have walked out on her, to her relief. I may or may not have muttered something about having had breast cancer. I didn’t buy a bra there, and frankly, haven’t since.
I also remember going to either breakfast or lunch with my family in a local diner and being overwhelmed by the people and noise coming to me at that time. We had been seated and were waiting for our waitress when I looked at my husband and said “I need to go,” and before he knew it I was out of the restaurant and halfway to the car bawling my eyes out. I think we were there to celebrate me getting through radiation, but I was still processing the PTSD it caused at the time. If I’m completely honest, I still have it. It rears its ugly head every year when I get my Mammogram.
Years later I had a conversation with my kids and realized I had never explained what I was going through at the time. Thinking that I didn’t want them to worry about something they were too young to deal with, I suppose. I wish I had been given more tools and resources at the time to help with those hard conversations, because when you are the one that keeps the train on the tracks and you are trying your best to keep it there, everything else slips away from you. I would add that the people around you who are the passengers on said train, aren’t sure how to drive it either, so they support where they can but don’t know all you do. So they may be doing the conductor job, or perhaps shoveling coal into the fire, but they aren’t you, and stuff slips by the wayside. It’s only years after your crisis when you realize the impact ends up miles ahead of where you were at the time.
It’s been 16 years and I’m still dealing with the aftermath of the train coming off the tracks, 20 if you count when things started to go south in my business. The entire experience is pretty much a blur now, but each of those instances are memorable and still make me cry.
Spent creativity coins at the paycheck job…
There are a fair amount of doctor visits that first year, and after 5 years they taper off even more. It was anti-climatic when I stopped seeing my surgeon, and then my oncologist, but my creativity was being put to the test at work. I was working on grants, technical writing projects, building projects, and other things that were time consuming but also distracting. Work served a purpose for me, but I know now I gave too much of myself, as I tend to do.
They were happy to take advantage of it.
until I found myself again.
Shortly after radiation, I had signed up for college, and by that winter I was in classes. The degree was Business Management with a Sales & Marketing emphasis. During my second semester I took a Creative Writing class for an English credit, and the support and love I got there for my writing had me pulling out some chapters I had worked on during my Carousel days. In 2016, I graduated with honors, and self-published, Sea of Dreams.
Now I design with words.
I’ve been writing ever since. The single book I thought I needed to get out of my system ended up becoming a 4 book series with a prequel and short, along with 5 novelettes I wrote about Greek Goddesses getting much deserved HEAs, and 2 novelettes about werewolf brothers finding their fated mates in New York city.
These stories all have pieces of me reflected in the characters, and the progress in my writing is something I’m proud of. Are they perfect? Of course not, but whose work is? I would say that perfection is in the eye of the beholder, and that some people’s trash is another’s treasure. Besides, I write for myself to work out what I think about the world, and if it entertains someone along the way… that makes me happy. If they pay for it to help support my efforts, even better.
Time to Embrace the Journey!
I write about flower shops and kick-ass women.
In between, I have written about a flower-shop owner who solves mysteries which I’m in the process of querying, and persecuted witches who have come back ready for revenge. These stories stem from my curiosity, as well as current events, and take a while to write. What I realize now, after writing Web Of Lies, is that because I put so much of myself into the stories, they take a lot out of me. A lot of life was happening at the time, as well as death, and I had a lot of questions about things that I worked out on the page.
I’ve written a few posts about the burnout, and won’t go into details here, but I know exactly what got me there and have promised myself not to return to the pit of despair any time soon. I’ve done a fair amount of healing since I climbed out of the oubliette. Music tends to help.
Still busting my fanny…
Am I still a work-o-holic? Of course I am, but I came to the realization a few years back that my paycheck job is just that. Then recently, the last chance was given and La Derrière was shown. Now all the fanny busting is for me. They get my focused attention in the hours I’m there, and when I clock out, I am unavailable until my next shift, both mentally and physically. I’ve given myself permission not to worry about what is on my desk and the fact that it might not get done “in time.”
At the end of the day, we are not sparkly unicorns and someone else will one day be hired (I would add pretty quickly) to get all the unfinished stuff done, only to toss the stuff you anguished over in the shredder and do their own thing. I’ve seen it happen time and again through the revolving door of people I’ve worked with over 45 years. I’ve been provided the gift of clarity and I can see my path clearly for the first time in over a decade. Time to give them what they are paying for, no more, no less.
but now on my terms.
I’m working for myself first, and them second. Nuf said.
To be continued…
So where does this leave me? Still working for “the man” to fund my passion, still following my dream of being a full-time writer, still realistic to know that if that doesn’t happen I’ve still achieved my initial goals of: traveling more, earning a degree, and publishing a book. This all stemmed from the thought that if I died tomorrow, what would the top 3 things I would regret most be?
Now you know why I often sign my books “Embrace the Journey” or use that as a hashtag. It is a reminder to me that I’m still here and that I’ve accomplished what I set out to do. Once again I find myself at a crossroad, this time it is the year of the fire horse and astrology is telling the fire signs that it is time to let the past go in order to welcome the future you have been working for. I call it leveling up, I can’t help it I’m a gamer, and I feel like I just defeated the mid-game boss. I’m so ready to see what this next half of the game brings me, and know that this time… it’s going to be epic.
So my new top goals since I’ve accomplished the others? 1. Continue to travel the world and experience nature, 2. Create a body of work I can be proud of, 3. Spend quality time with the people I love, 4. Be Happy, Healthy, and double down on being Human.
I’m leaning into my passion, following my Muse, and trusting myself. I will no longer allow fear to guide my path, it has no value here. And it took this post for me to see that every time I hit a crossroad and I trusted myself, it all worked out in the end. Every road has lead me right to where I needed to be, I understand that now. Where it takes me has yet to be seen, and as I’m a discovery writer, I will be surprised right along with you when I get there.
I’m ready for the next adventure… how about you?
Embrace The Journey! XO
Now it’s your turn! What would your top 3 be? What have you done lately to take a step toward that goal? What is stopping you? How would you Embrace The Journey?
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