Another new find (for me) is a guy that is just as cool as Linkin Park (without Chester)…that guy is Bassnectar. 

This guy is INCREDIBLE! 

Just check out the track “UGLY”

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wOfEtjBjhdc]

You can find tour dates and plenty of free music on his site BASSNECTAR.NET.

He’ll be in NYC on November 17 & 18 at Terminal 5.  November 17 is already SOLD OUT.  Better get your tix for November 18 before they sell out.

If you’ve been downloading the latest free tracks from Google Play, you may have come across Yuna’s “Live Your Life” from the Lollapalooza free downloads.  If you haven’t experienced it, this is my favorite new artist find.  Enjoy!

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9RSXJUG8Sa0]

Since I announced yesterday that I’m preparing to buy a new house, that means changing the way I do a lot of things, as well as taking advantage of what’s out there.  So today’s Friday Loves all deal with how to live life without spending money on the stuff you can get for free.

1.  Free Music.  For those with an Android phone and Google Play account, take advantage of downloading the free tunes available every week.  They make it very easy to find.  Free tunes are listed on the first page of the Music page.  You can download oldies but goodies, indie music and even brand new music to promote a new album (like this week’s new Motley Crue album). 

I download whatever free tune is listed.  It helps me to explore new music and to re-visit the old stuff.  It’s one of those, “Hey, I didn’t know Steve Miller Band was the original guy to record “Fly Like An Eagle.””  (Made popular by Seal.) 

When I worked in music, I had free music at my disposal all of the time.  My car (aka my office) was where I listened to every CD ever given to me by anyone that offered it to me as I drove from one place to the next to meet with band after band.  These days, a lot of indie artists are behind in getting their music onto Android phones.  But Android phones…they’re not behind in getting you free music. 

Another good place to pick up free music is your local library.  They have plenty of music available to checkout.  From records to CDs…they’ll have them.  One of the best collections of music I’ve found are in both the Bloomington Libraries in Indiana (home of Indiana University) and the local library in downtown Indianapolis.

Summer is also a great time to get out and experience free music in your hometowns.  From music festivals to outdoor campgrounds to your local parks, you’ll find music cropping up all over America FOR FREE as part of many summer activities going on in your hometowns. 

In New York City, symphony orchestras play in Central Park (as well as other parts of the NYC area).  Free music concerts are put on by TV shows (like Today Show, etc.).  Take advantage of these summer concerts.  Who knows, you might catch some of the biggest names in the industry…if you’re willing to wake up at dawn to get in line (in NYC). 

For everyone else, check your local newspapers (especially the free papers) for events in your area or your nearest metropolitan area.  Many free papers will list free events on their websites.  For major metro areas across the world, check your local Time Out (especially online).  They’re a great source to find things to do in your city.

Want to know my trick to getting in to see bands play at clubs?  Become good friends with the band.  They’ll put you on their VIP list every single time you go to see them play.

2.  Free Books.  You don’t always have to have a Kindle or Nook to partake in Free Book Fridays.  Remember the library?  Pay them a visit. 

I’ve been trying to not press ADD TO CART on the latest Carlos Ruiz Zafon novel or on the latest installment in the Discovery of Witches chronicles.  So I went online to my local library’s interlibrary loan system and ordered both books.  The library will email me when they come in.  Cost to me = NOTHING. 

Yes, when all else fails in the Nook department, I still get the book at the library to avoid paying for the book (unless I’m traveling and need books to read).

For the tech elite snobs…I’m sure you are aware of the whole free Fridays at Barnes & Noble.  It should have been the first thing you learned about when you got your Nook. 

You can get plenty of free books on either devices.  At Amazon, just search for “Free Kindle Books.”  A huge list comes up.

Don’t worry if you don’t have a Kindle device, but have an android device.  Guess what?  You can download free Kindle books onto your android by downloading the Kindle app (free) onto your android.  So now you don’t have to feel like you’re shut out from the Kindle world just because you decided to go Nook or iPad.  Even if you don’t have a tablet but have an android phone, you can still get free books on your phone.  You can download the free Kindle application directly from Google Play.

Or if you don’t have the technology…just keep going to the library.

Believe it or not, the library also allows you to download books to your computer and transfer the book to your android device.  Keep in mind though that just like libraries…there is a loaning period for digital books.

Also, for those who want to start a new way of trading books for free, my office always shares books they’ve read by dropping them off in a central location (like the pantry area).  People take whatever they want, bring in whatever they don’t want. 

You can also start this tradition with your friends…start a book swap. This works for the physical books, as well as the ones on devices.  It’s easy to swap and share books with each other.

3. Free Movies.  I usually go to the movies for free.  I don’t normally pay unless it’s at my local theater across the street from me ($5 first showing) and I’m just paying for the air conditioning for a few hours during the summer months. 

Being in New York, I tend to get invitations to movie premieres rather frequently, especially at the start of summer when the biggest blockbusters are due out. 

Other times, I use a site called CINEMIT.  It’s free to join Cinemit.  I’ve seen several different movies thanks to their contests.  They’re not just based in New York City.  You’ll find their listings (even though there are fewer listings outside of major metro areas) in cities all over the US. 

Another great place to check is gofobo.com.  Registering for the site is free.  They’ll show you when new movies hit your area that are up for a free pre-screening.  Sometimes they’ll even email you a special code to use for films that hit your area. 

Sometimes doing a little research online you’ll find movie clubs that offer pre-screenings in your neck of the woods.  It also helps if you live close to a city.  When I was in DC, I joined a film club.  Granted, it cost money to do so.  These days, you don’t have to pay to join movie clubs to go to pre-screenings.

As for DVDs…check your local library.  I find it funny that the library usually gets new releases before Netflix does.  I’m not sure why I spend $16.99 a month to use the Netflix service to borrow 1 DVD at a time, stream and use up data on my plan to watch a movie when I can just get the DVD for free at the library.

Oh, and might I add that it’s summer.  All throughout your local cities you’ll find free outdoor movies.  Bring a blanket and a picnic, because your local parks and recreation have a movie night for you.  I remember watching Cat on a Hot Tin Roof on one of these movie nights as well as A Streetcar Named Desire.  Those are two movies I will never forget.  Why?  Because I saw them outside under the stars.  All it takes is a little research on your local parks and recreation websites. 

For those in NYC, you can even watch free movies at Sony Wonder Technology Lab every Saturday (by reservation only).  I will warn you that the senior citizens know about free Saturday movie screenings.  They are hard of hearing and always ask for the sound to be turned up.  It was so loud, I had to put earphones in to block out most of the sound.

4.  FREE STUFF.  For those looking for just about anything and everything under the moon…checking local advertisements (especially online) as well as Craiglist could net you some free stuff.  From firewood to free furniture, you’ll be amazed at what you can find.  I personally like the curb alerts where people post up something they just put out onto the curb…or they spotted on the curb.  Helps if you have a vehicle to pick this stuff up.

For those looking at local ads, it usually helps to know what day a local free paper posts their classifieds online.  Check their ads on that date.  That means you’ll be able to get to the freebie before it hits their papers.

Another great site to find free stuff in your area is The Freecycle Network.  You can join a network of people in your local community that’s giving away stuff.  You usually just have to pick it up (or send someone to pick it up for you…aka movers).  It’s also a great way for you to post up stuff that you want to get rid of…or if you’re looking for something, you can post that up as well.  It’s a great way to recycle STUFF with your local community.

For those who live near universities, when students move out at the end of the spring semester, that’s a great time to take a look around the college rental neighborhoods.  You’ll find everything under the moon left out on the curb…from TVs to furniture to computers…you name it.  If a college student uses it, you’ll find it on the curb. 

5.  Free Things To Do.  There’s always plenty of things to do for free no matter where you live.  When I first moved to NYC, I felt like I was spending way too much money to do stuff.  It took some time and research to discover that there are ways to enjoy this city for free.  It was finding out how to do things for free that helped me map out how I could travel on the cheap. 

For those wanting to visit museums, museums across America are free on certain days (even all over the world, you’ll find designated days when museums are free).  Thanks to Target, they have sponsored free days at the museums, zoos, etc.  Check your local venue to find out what days are free and go.  This works best for families too.  Go when it’s free.

You can find free theatrical productions, usually from a local community group, during the summers.  Churches also host free theatrical productions.  All it takes is a little research and word of mouth.  I’ve seen plenty of Shakespeare and Sophocles thanks to free theatre productions in parks all over NYC.

If you take a look at your local parks and recreations websites, you’ll find a score of things to do for free.  From classes, to cheap gym memberships, to free events, etc.  They are a wealth of information and are available to you thanks to your taxpayer dollars.  Why not use what you paid for already?

There’s so much you can do for free that will help you feel not only more cultured…but happier.  Get outdoors.  Take a walk.  Go fishing (note, you may have to pay for an inexpensive fishing license).  Hang out with the kids in a local park.  Play some ball with friends and family.  Go hiking on one of the thousands of paths throughout America.  Head to the beach.  Volunteer in your community.  Join a book club.  Lay out in your backyard and gaze at the stars (not everyone in the world gets the luxury of seeing stars at night thanks to light pollution).

Just get out and enjoy LIFE.  You don’t have to pay to smell the flowers.   You just have to remember to stop and smell the flowers.  Take advantage of all of the free things in life.   

I haven’t been updating this site with the new entries from Italy as often as I’d like to considering there are 14 entries and photos to match.  My excuse is that I’m a little shaken up by the course of events over these past few weeks.  It’s that instinctual feeling that you know something very bad is about to happen that it shakes your internal instincts to the core.  You don’t know where it’s coming from or when it will end…all I know is that my instincts still say that whatever is going on is not finished yet.

As you can see from the Day One entry, Death was fucking with me before I started my trek across Italy.  Now, I see why.  It is so hard to see how America is being hit after the massacre in Aurora, Colorado last week. 

After being prodded by my co-workers to buy an antenna for my TV (so I don’t have to get cable to watch regular TV because all I really want to watch is just a few of the regular FREE channels), I finally broke down and got one on Thursday night.  In a way, I wish I hadn’t.

Sitting down to have breakfast watching the “Today Show” for the first time in almost a decade, I watched the news unfold as they reported the massacre in Aurora, Colorado, the worst mass shooting in the history of America.  One of those victims was one of the hockey community’s own, Jessica Redfield.

With 12 confirmed deaths ranging from a 6 year old girl (whose mother is in critical condition and has no idea that her daughter is dead) to a 51 year old father, who was at the show with his two teenage daughters (both made it out unharmed)…we are left with a huge sadness and emptiness in our hearts because of this lunatic.  He didn’t just do this to Aurora, Colorado…he did this to humanity.

As I walked through Target on Saturday with one Batman title after another sitting on the DVD shelves, I just felt a stab of pain each time I saw the DVDs.  This isn’t fair to Batman…but it just brings back horrible feelings on what has happened to us all. 

Evil has touched humanity in the fiercest way possible.  His act was an act of terrorism in itself…it invoked terror and fear into the hearts of many…and claimed the lives of 12 people, wounding over 50+ others.  People died shielding their loved ones from this lunatic.  One man, Alex Sullivan, was there to celebrate his birthday, saying it would be the best one ever…only to die less than an hour later…making it his final birthday celebration.  He also never made it to his one year wedding anniversary that was supposed to take place on Sunday.

This all brings to head the realization of the seconds we have in life and how everything can change in the blink of an eye. 

Even before my trip to Italy, I felt Death following me around.  He finally stopped pushing me off of trains and making random objects fall on me (from out of nowhere) trying to break my bones just to get my attention.  He’s never been this violent with me before when he was trying to warn me of things to come.  All he kept telling me during this trip until now was…make amends.  You don’t want to carry any of this anger with you into the next lifetime.  Make amends NOW.

An old gypsy woman gave me charms in Sorrento, Italy because she said Death was following me (like I didn’t know that already).  She kept praying and telling Saint Peter to watch over me. 

Lately, I’ve been becoming so absent-minded that I’ve lost my phone, paid for something and just completely left the store without it (on more than one occasion).  I’ve been so rattled over these last few weeks leading up to the Aurora, Colorado shootings that I couldn’t tell you which way was left and which way was right.  This is what happens every single time Death is about to do something BIG.

I’ve been watching the signs every which way I turn and I can’t help but think that I’m not out of the clear with Death yet.  It was as if he was saying that Aurora was the first of things to come. 

I’ve seen photos of the big storm that hit NYC last week and couldn’t help but notice the concentration right in Midtown.  When I first saw the lightning outside of the office, I purposely moved away from all metal objects.  My boss thought it was strange, but I just had this look on my face like Death was coming.

If Death’s coming for me…I have no idea.  If he’s doing this because I’m about to witness something horrific…I also have no idea.  It all works the same.  I just saw it as a sign.  Something Wicked This Way Comes.

In a way, I wish I had never gone to Vatican City while I was in Italy. 

I was following a priest inside of St. Peter’s, I wanted to see how far I could go into the depths of Vatican City before being caught when the Door of Death stopped me in my tracks.  Considering what had happened prior to reaching the Vatican (being hit by a train and a random object falling on my hand), I was so freaked out.  I had no idea this door was there.  I had no idea that I had entered into Death’s realm.  I turned and walked straight for the doorway out of St. Peter’s, completely freaked out.  Don’t think I didn’t hear Death whispering to me all the way to the front door. 

He was trying to teach me a lesson about life.  When I got to the front doors, he did something to me that changed the course of events. 

I literally saw a vision of the man I’ve been so mad at over the last eight years.  The man saw me from the outside gates of St. Peter’s.  It was like he couldn’t believe his eyes.  He knew me.  We looked at each other like how in the hell does this happen?  We haven’t seen each other in eight years and we run into each other in Vatican City?  A whole world away from Indiana!

This was the same man that broke my heart so badly that I moved to New York City in order to heal. 

I stood at the doorway to St. Peter’s realizing that something strange was going on.  Why weren’t any tourists going out of these doors?  I looked to my left and saw that tourists were only going in and out of one set of doors.  Here I was on the other side looking out the door at this man, and then realizing something was amiss.

I was so scared to go out that door and face the man that I’ve been mad at for over eight years because he broke my heart.  I could either snub him and pretend I never saw him in Vatican City or I could suck it up and face my fears. 

So I walked out that door.  The sunlight bathed my face.  The man looked at me, but then was called away by another woman.  He turned and I realized it wasn’t him at all. 

I stood in front of the door thinking…what the hell was that?  I could have sworn that was the Rockstar.  I looked back at the doorway and saw Death standing there.  He said, “Now you understand.” 

This is one of those lessons that exists on several levels.  There’s the whole facing my own fear…aka my anger.  There’s the ‘fate’ card.  There’s the ‘forgiveness’ card and there’s the whole ‘saving my own soul’ card.  In other words, Death was telling me to forgive that guy who broke my heart before it’s too late.

Forgiveness means telling him the truth about why I left.  He doesn’t know why I left.  I put up that wall and he could never see in.  Five years after I left he asked for that wall to be brought down in his first single off of his first album since I had left.   

I tried to talk to him after I heard the song, but I just got so frustrated with him that I said, “Forget it!”  He can believe whatever the hell he wants to believe and just left it at that.

In Italy, I realized how much I missed him. 

As I rode by Mount Vesuvius on the train, I started to realize the world I had created without him might have been a mistake.

The choices we make out of anger may seem like the right choice at the time, but it may not be the correct choice after all.  I chose to live in New York, become a hockey writer, get a job paying an exorbitant amount of money to give me a comfortable life…sure I was happy…but I was also empty.

I remember about 5 years ago, I was sitting at this bar with my friends when a guy came over with his friends to talk to us.  As I was chatting with this guy, he looked at me funny and out of the blue says, “You’ve already met him.”

“Excuse me?” I responded.

“You’ve already met the one and for some strange reason things didn’t work out between you two.”  He went on to tell me that no matter how hard we tried to date and be with other people, it would never work out.  We had to work things out with each other because we belonged together.

I hadn’t thought of that conversation in five years.  But as I stood on that train watching these teenage boys playing soccer (who were also trying to see if I would play along with them), I kept thinking about the life I let pass me by.  I thought of that interview he did on television a couple of years after I left.  They asked him why he had never married or had kids.  I watched him get choked up, trying to hold back the tears responding, “Life happened.”

I remember him telling one of our mutual friends that he wanted to have a baby…”If it meant she would stay.”

I thought about those things as the train carried me to Sorrento.  I watched families board the train and leave the train. 

I sat at the Trevi Fountain for an hour and a half a couple of days before looking up at Poseidon staring back at me as I made my wish.  I made that wish for a whole hour and a half on my birthday.    I was making a wish for something I’ve always wanted, but never had. 

The reason why I wished for an hour and a half…it was because I was afraid to make that wish.  Just like the next day, I was afraid to step forward and change my life by forgiving the guy that had broken my heart…but I did it. 

Why?  Because I felt like that 15 year old girl standing up on the high dive trying to get her lifeguard license and thinking…just get it over with and do it. 

I don’t know how I dove off that high dive again and again and again.  My chest hurt like a son of a bitch each time, but I did it just to get it over with…no matter how many times I stood at the edge, scared out of my mind.  I didn’t become a lifeguard, because I wasn’t a strong enough swimmer.  But at least I tried and failed instead of always wondering if I could be a lifeguard.  It was only after I failed that I learned that I didn’t want to waste my summers lifeguarding after all when I could be out spending the summers with my friends having fun.

After feeling my skin start to crisp in the sun in front of Poseidon, I decided to quit being an idiot and just get up and throw the penny in over my shoulder.  I watched countless tourists doing it.  Why couldn’t I do such a simple act like throw a penny into the fountain? 

I don’t think I was scared to throw the penny in…I was afraid of the wish and it coming true.  By throwing the penny in, I was changing my universe to put myself in line with that wish. 

With all new beginnings there is a death of one life and the beginning of another.  With each new beginning there is always that fear of change and changing everything you have grown so accustomed to.  While it can be exciting, it can also be devastating…because you are letting go of something you once loved.

As I traveled around Sorrento and the Amalfi Coast, I really started to miss my best friend that I left so many years ago.  I realized Death was following me and was putting these thoughts into my mind.  I realized that I walked away from marriage and a family with someone I knew I was going to love for the rest of my life because he broke my heart.  He didn’t leave me.  He was following me to Los Angeles because that’s where I was going to be and that’s where he wanted to start that life with me.

I walked away from it all because of the lie and the hidden truths.  As much as I braced myself for what was to come, nothing could have ever prepared me for how destroyed I was inside that night he told me he chose to love someone else.

I left because I was broken.  There was nothing he could have said or done to change that.  I had to piece myself back together again.

It’s taken eight years in a city I’ve grown very comfortable with for me to realize that I wanted that life with him more than anything.  Because I was so angry and pissed off at him…I walked away from the one wish I wanted more than anything…to marry the person I love and to have a family with him. 

It was in Italy that I learned that life isn’t meant to go on journey after journey alone.  It was meant to be shared with someone.  As I sat in Positano, I kept thinking about how much he’d love this place.  I sat on the great big porch next to the beach, eating my spaghetti with meatballs thinking of how I could never be one of those people out on the beach again.  I could picture him running around on the beach, enjoying the sun and the surf, while I had to remain confined to the shade, out of the sun.  I felt like the sick child watching all of the kids having fun outside while I was stuck inside and would never be able to join them.

You start to realize your own mortality at this point.  You see that world you should have had with someone as it passes you by as you sit ‘solo’ in a restaurant in Italy while everyone else around you is with someone…and you’re the only person sitting there alone.

You watch the people around you on the boat…and realize you are the only person alone.

You hand your passport to the guy at US Customs and he looks at the line behind you and asks you why you didn’t go to Italy with your girlfriends.  Why did you go by yourself on vacation?  He’s not asking from the Homeland Security point of view.  He’s asking with sadness in his heart.  Why are you alone? 

It just hits that nail a little harder into your own coffin in life.  This is the world you created.  Somehow, it doesn’t feel as great as it did before…being alone.

You don’t see your adventures in life as being free and independent anymore.  You start to see your life as a half empty page…it’s missing something.  It’s missing the real story on why you were put here on earth.

It’s amazing what life you create out of anger.  Instead of pursuing a life with someone, I chose to be alone.  I chose career and money, because he told me he chose to love someone else.  He meant he wanted both worlds.  He wanted his cake and eat it too.  That wasn’t the world I envisioned for myself.  In the end, he lost us both.

I never would have seen this trip to Italy as being the revelation of my heart and my soul.  Each trip I’ve taken these past few years have all helped me heal in some way.  I am always open to possibilities, but this trip to Italy was a swift kick in the leg (thank you, Death, for using a train to kick me in the leg as you pushed me off the train) because it forced me to look in a place inside myself I did not wish to look.  It made me look at the man I loved and forgive him.

It’s prodded me to write a 12 page letter telling him why I left and be 100% truthful about it.  It’s not meant for us to get back together, it’s meant to push me towards making amends. 

Italy was Death’s way of saying how important fate is in all of this.  Fate and Death are intertwined.  You can’t go throughout your life with anger in your heart, because life can change in a brief second.

Just reading Jessica Redfield’s near death experience at the Toronto Mall and then a month and a half later, she dies in another shooting incident in a totally different country…it shows just how Fate and Death are one and the same.  They are intertwined.  That’s why they called them the Three Sisters of Fate.  The Fates can cut the golden thread of your life and it will be over in an instant.

Imagine if you never lived the life you were supposed to live.  You created a new world because you were dead set on it being better than the last one that nearly destroyed you.  Imagine making all of that happen and realizing that you made it all come true…you were happy…but you also realized that you were empty at journey’s end.  You start to think of the reason why and then Death shows you what your life could have been if you had never left the one you loved.

YOU made a mistake.  This is Death’s way of saying, “You can fix it while there’s still time.” 

Oh yes, time…Death and Time are also linked to each other.  You can see it at Death’s Door in Vatican City.  He holds the sands of time in his hand.  It’s a symbolism of how life is all but sands in an hour glass.  At any moment it could run out.  What if it ran out before you did the only thing that could save your soul? 

If Aurora has taught us anything, we see Death and Time interwoven together.  One minute we could be absolutely happy and content, then the next moment it could be stripped from us forever.  This is the rough awakening.  When that moment arrives, what is the first thing you wish you could have done differently?  What is the one thing that scares you to death that you wish you should have done when you meet Death at his doorstep?

That was answered for me in Italy.

Don’t waste life doing all of the wrong things…do the one thing that means everything.

1. Midnight in Paris.

Now, here’s a movie I’m absolutely in love with.  I saw it for the first time this week and I had to laugh because this guy sounds just like me!  I think it’s because he’s a writer, that’s why!

He heads to Paris for the first time and just falls in love with the city.  He talks about the days of Ernest Hemingway, F. Scott Fitzgerald and his wife, Zelda.  He talks about Gertrude Stein, the muses of Picasso and the eccentricity of Salvador Dali.  This movie was like my fantasy vacation in Paris last October.

The irony of it all…I was actually in all of those places in the movie…at least the 21st century version of the old haunts of Hemingway and his peers.  That was actually what my trip was about in Paris in October…going to all of the old haunts of Hemingway.  My guide was the book “The Paris Wife.”  I had just finished reading the book before I left for Paris and I was mesmerized by everything Ernest Hemingway.  

He was eccentric, too.  But he was also insanely genius and had a way with words that made you think…WOW…this man is an absolute genius that really makes you think!

The weirdest part of the movie was when the lead character (played by Owen Wilson) exits out of the 20s and reappears in the 21st century…he’s standing right outside of a laundromat.  He does a double take.  SO DID I!

I walked past that laundromat several times on the way to my hotel wondering why tourists kept looking in there and then looking at their guidebook like, “Something’s not right.”  Ends up, that spot was an old haunt of the greats of the 20s long before it was turned into a laundromat.

The whole premise of the movie is about wanting to be somewhere else, whether it be a new city or a new time, because you feel like your life would be better if you were somewhere else. 

At first, I was a little upset at how Woody Allen was shooting down that feeling.  But then at the end, he proved that the feeling that you belong somewhere else…it’s because of some greater reason…like FATE.  In other words, you have that feeling because you were meant to be there all along.

It made me think about how I ended up in New York City.  In 2000, during the days of Sex and the City in my 20s…my roommate and I used to dream about moving to New York and living the glamourous life of Carrie, Miranda, Samantha and Charlotte.  We wanted to be them.  I always wanted to be Charlotte…but I ended up being Carrie.

I still laugh about how I became a writer.  The only reason I went to NYC, it was because that was where life led me.  It was the only city in the world that was opening its doors up to me.  I kept looking at Los Angeles and this guy that was planning his life with me and all I could think about was how he had shattered me. 

He told me he chose to love someone else, yet he was following me to Los Angeles, because that’s where I was going to be.  I kept thinking…”Am I your best friend or someone you can’t live without?  Am I THE ONE?”  We had gone through a serious roller coaster ride those months leading up to moving. 

The first blow was me finding out about her…then listening to him tell me he chose to love her and I had to accept that.  He told me that if I was THE ONE, I had to prove it to him.  Funny, because I never said anything about anyone being THE ONE.  He knew I was.

I was on the brink of insanity because of all of the tugging, pulling and pushing of emotions.  Then he called me up at my office one day and said, “Why do you pretend like there’s not more there when there really is?”  I changed the subject and tried to get him to talk about something else. 

You see, that was six months after I found out about her.  I then put my plan into motion to leave.  I started sending applications to London, San Francisco, Los Angeles, New York and Paris.  The only city that bit and bit hard was New York.

I got a job offer. I gave two weeks notice from my job.  I packed everything up and moved to New York…while everyone (but my family) thought I was moving to LA.  I was supposed to go ahead of schedule…find a place, etc.  I made them all think that’s what I was doing. 

I ended up moving to NYC.  I waited two weeks after settling in.  I sent out a mass email (included him on it), and then said, “Oops, I didn’t move to LA, I moved to NYC instead.”

Yes, everyone was shocked because they knew exactly why I did it.  I did it because I was hurt.  I wanted a better life…a life without him.  I couldn’t keep it going in LA.  He would have followed me there and still made me feel worthless, because he would have still had that other girl around.  I would have never felt good enough to be loved by him.

The funny thing is, despite all of his friends telling him to go after me, he never did.  I know why he never did.  He believes that when I’m done being mad at him, I’ll come back.  I hate that.  I also hate that he’s right.  Why?  Because he knows I’m THE ONE.  And for some insane reason…this is f*cking true:

So I know what it’s like to move somewhere…change your entire life, because you would be happier somewhere else.  I don’t regret moving to New York.  I found myself.  I found who I am.  I found a career that I love and enjoy.  I learned that I don’t like being the center of attention, I like being behind the scenes…being behind the cameras and recording what I see, feel and hear. 

I also learned how to forgive him while I was in New York. 

2. One Day.  There just might be a recurring theme this week (thank you, universe). 

While I have the book and I’ve been reading it, the movie hit the spot exactly.  You think it didn’t remind me of the story of me and that guy? 

This movie takes a glimpse into the life of Emma and Dexter every year since the moment they met on July 15th beginning in 1988 and going until 2011.  Every July 15th, it shows what their lives are like that day with and without each other.  It shows the struggles in careers, relationships, and even in friendships.  It shows the downsides of humanity, booze, drugs and losing a parent to cancer.  It shows what it’s like to be with someone you don’t even love, just because you don’t want to be alone.

It even shows the years that they were apart.  She couldn’t bear to be around him because of his substance abuse and who he had become.  She was tired of him, so she spent years away from him.

It even shows a girl moving away to Paris and comes into her own as a writer (sound familiar anyone?).  She starts to fall in love with a jazz musician in Paris when Dexter, newly divorced, comes looking for Emma and asks her to give them a chance.

She thinks he’s nuts…but she also knows he’s THE ONE.  So she takes a chance. 

We then see the Emma and Dexter years with them together.  It was meant to be between those two.  They were best friends, now married. 

But then you realize the significance of July 15th…and all of those wasted years when they were not together.  It really sits home with you that all of those years were wasted.  Those were the years they weren’t with the person they were meant to be with, because by the time they were together, it was only for just a short moment.  You can’t get back all of those years that you should have been together. 

When I was first diagnosed with cancer, I didn’t tell him.  I waited five years before I told him.  That was after that song he released and everything.  He was more upset with me that I didn’t tell him before.  It was something he would have wanted to know…even if I chose to be away.  He had seen me a few months after the three tumors were removed…and I didn’t say anything then. 

It was hard enough dealing with the other ‘life factors’ that were involved in that moment.  Throw cancer into the mix and then you pretend like the other open wound doesn’t exist.

His thing was…I had cancer before I left for New York…and I never told him.  I almost died.  The doctor said if they didn’t operate right then and there, I would die in two weeks.  That was four months after leaving. 

Broken heart…throw cancer on top of it…and you can say that was a very difficult period in my life.  I kept thinking…why would he waste his life not being with me when he’ll live with regret if he ended up losing me forever?

Even through the roughest patches, I found solace in something else.  In a strange way…hockey helped me to heal.

As this career winds down and I’m seeing the final days of this amazing ride, this movie “One Day” reminds me of my own Dexter…my best friend that broke my heart.  Emma reminds me a lot of myself…and how I felt through all of these years…including that pain of loving someone and not liking them at that point because they are so f*cked up. 

At one point someone said in the movie that Emma made Dexter decent, and in return, he made her happy.  When I heard that, I actually cried.  Em and Dex…that’s me & the rockstar.  There was a time that he quit smoking, drinking and doing drugs just because I existed.  I never told him to do it, he just did it because I didn’t do those things. 

He put me up on a pedestal and changed his entire life because I existed.  He thought of retiring from music and I gave him the encouragement to just go after the dream.  What did I want from him?  Happiness…and a life shared together.

When I stopped being happy, I stopped wanting to share our life together.

During my recovery, I always thought about how short life is.  I would get so mad at him, because I was doing this without him…if only he would have just chased me down and asked me to change my mind, I would have dropped it all.  The moments together can be the best moments of your life when you are with your best friend…and hell when you are apart.

If anything was going to push me to finally forgive him…”One Day” was the movie.  And since everything works in threes with us…I had a dream earlier in the week about him…then my brother calls me and tells me, “I think it’s time you two got back together.”  Then I see this movie…and it was US.  You think the universe is telling me to go back? 

Maybe I’ll just move to Paris instead.

3.  The New York Times.  I don’t think I’ve ever felt compelled to subscribe to the NYT until I read two amazing articles this week from their writers.

The first story was on Derek Boogaard (part two) by John Branch.  Back in December, he wrote about the former New York Ranger and his concussions that led to his addictions…and later his death.

This new tale is about Boogey’s descent into his addiction with painkillers.  This article is journalism at its best.

The second story was called “Prep School Predators.”  It’s quite amazing how times have changed in identifying pedophiles, especially the ones that are teachers.  But then again…seeing that there’s a 35% spike in reports of sexual contact between school administration and students in NYC alone at the start of 2012, it makes you think that either there are more predators, or that students are telling rather than hiding it like they did back in the 70s/80s/90s.

The stories that came out of Horace Mann are horrible tales.  Even though they took place in the 70s and on up to the early 90s, it doesn’t  stop the fact that these horrific acts that happened to these kids ended up damaging them for the rest of their lives.  One kid tried to commit suicide twice.  He succeeded on his second try.

The tales of Horace Mann are a reminder on why it is important to be diligent about reporting abuse and teaching kids what sexual abuse is.  The stories are just heartbreaking and scary.  No child should ever go through what these kids went through.

The New York Times have done an excellent job reporting these stories.  They are incredible and well written.  These are the stories that are changing the world today.  John Branch alone, has been changing the way the NHL has been doing things.  How?  Just by delivering the news to the world that THIS is happening…and it can be prevented…it could save someone else’s life.

That’s the same lesson being echoed in “Prep School Predators.” 

NYT is once again at the top of the news makers in the world.  Excellent work!

4. Porn Star TATAS.  This has got to be the most hilarious story to come out of the post-season: Taylor Stevens, porn star, distracting Peter DeBoer.  See, I don’t know what’s funnier…DeBoer making Yahoo! headlines (he was #2) because of a porn star or the “no-look pass” video. 

Equally amusing…YES!

5.  Apologies. I hate dreaming about apologies.  It means that you are too tired to fight anymore.  That you’re done being mad and that it doesn’t matter who was right and who was wrong, it just means saying “Let’s move on from this.” 

I am not the type of person that forgives easily.  Just ask my Mom.  She’ll tell you not to piss me off unless you want a lifetime ban.  Then my brother will tell you…”Pray she doesn’t hate you because if she does, God may off you, just like that.  Heart attack?  Loved one hurt?  Oh, it will all happen, because God always sides with her when she’s been hurt.”  

In a way, I think those kinds of stories (while all true) prevents a person from learning how to forgive or to just be brave enough to say, “I’m sorry.”

I dreamed last night about saying “I’m sorry” to THE ONE…because I left.  I realized that just like in the story of Dexter and Emma, you can miss out on the most troubling things in life when best friends are apart and not talking to each other.  

There’s that pain in the whole, “Where were you when I was going through this?”  There’s that pain that you weren’t able to share some of the hardships in life with someone…or at least that one person that would know how you felt and could connect with that pain, share it with you and know where to go from there.  

There’s that sorrow of needing someone to be by your side through the worst of it, and the pain that goes into knowing that you weren’t by their side when they went through that pain.  You weren’t there when they needed you the most.  They weren’t there when you needed them the most.

Saying, “I’m sorry,” is that true final stage that says that you are done with being mad.  You want to let bygones be bygones.  It’s not about who was right or who was wrong…because whatever you were fighting about…you’re willing to let go of it all…the hostilities, the pain you felt…you learn to forgive them for hurting you.  All you want is to return to the way things were when everything was good and happy.  

With that, you take with you the things that you’ve learned along the way that helped you to grow into a greater human being. Learning how to forgive the one that hurt you worse than any other human being has ever hurt you…takes courage, faith, and the belief that no matter what happens, there’s something greater in all of this…you’re taking a chance.

Carrie Underwood once sang, “Sometimes that mountain you’ve been climbing is just a grain of sand. What you’ve been out there searching for forever is in your hands.  And when you figure out love is all that matters in the end, it sure makes everything else seem so small.”

This is my quote of the day.  Of course, I was thinking about my Yves Saint Laurent bag when I saw that, but then I started to really think about it and thought…you know…that has been my secret to success all along.

I was thinking about my hockey writing career and how I was able to cover the hardest team in the entire league to be credentialed into.  Just because you work for the local newspaper, it doesn’t guarantee you entrance into the Devils’ domain.  You would have better chances covering any of the other 29 teams in the league before the Devils would let you in.

When I first started off as a hockey writer, my dream was to cover the New York Rangers.  Even with my breakout article, an exclusive controversial interview with former New York Ranger Darius Kasparaitis, I wasn’t allowed to cover the Rangers.  Instead, my editor gave me the New Jersey Devils. 

I took the column, knowing very little about the team.  But I had to prove my worth to be allowed into the Devils’ domain. So I wrote abot the Devils.  I learned every single thing that I could about them.  I watched the games on television, wrote down the post-game quotes, and offered my analysis. 

I did this with little to no hope of ever getting into the press box.  I just did my job, pressed on, and came out with my column. 

A few months later, my editor told me to call him.  What I wasn’t expecting to hear from him was that the unbelievable had happened…I was credentialed into the New Jersey Devils.  I was told that I had proven myself worthy and the Devils were letting me in.

This also marked one of the first times that the Devils admitted a web-based media person into their press box.  Before this, the NHL only allowed print/TV media into the press.  Web-based media was not allowed.  They weren’t considered reliable news.  My admittance into the press box…it meant all eyes were on me to see what I would do.

Trust me, I was scared to death!  At the end of the game, they announced locker room availability.  I just sat there trembling in my seat saying, “I’m supposed to go into the locker room?  Are you sure?” 

I pulled myself together and walked into the locker room. 

The first time I was in the Rangers locker room, there was a bit of a commotion from the Rangers’ players, because they all knew who I was thanks to Mr. Kasparaitis.  A few of the younger guys saw me and were giggling like school boys, standing in the hallway, watching me with the rest of the scrum…just to see what would happen. 

I was standing near the doorway, when one player stumbled into two of the players standing near the doorway.  I remembered hearing a veteran walk over and ask, “What’s going on?” 

It wasn’t my imagination…they were watching me.  I heard a player quickly respond to the vet, “Michelle Kenneth is in there.” 

I turned and looked at them when they said my name and then they stood there like three deer caught in headlights.  Yeah…I heard.

That was my first locker room experience…three young New York Rangers falling all over themselves because they saw me in the locker room for the first time. 

I didn’t let that weird moment do anything to me.  I went back to my column and wrote what I needed to write. 

When I covered the Rangers in Prague that fall, I was told that my first moment in the Devils’ press box was actually the most talked about moment in the NHL that day behind the scenes.  They called me “Jersey Girl” because my first and second games were the most watched moments.  Everyone wanted to know how in the world I got into that press box.  I must have known somebody or Lou Lamoriello personally in order to get in. 

I responded that I didn’t know anyone. 

That’s when they sat back and said, “Wow.  You got in on your own merit.  You must be one hell of a writer.”

It was while I was in Prague that I discovered that I had created history by being the first web-based media person allowed into the press box.  The NHL and teams throughout the league followed suit with other web-based media after the Devils let me in. 

After all, in Prague…only four of us from North America made it out to the New York Rangers vs. Tampa Bay Lightning games.  One of those people just so happened to be the only female (which to the European media was just so shocking…they thought the NHL was innovative, because women did not cover sports in Europe), and the only US web-based media person there. 

This all happened in the first year of my career.  I released my exclusive with Kasparaitis on October 1, 2007.  I started writing about the Devils in December.  By April 2008, I was sitting in the Devils’ press box. 

I have not met another person in all of these years that have a similar history as I do with the NHL.  The really odd part of this whole thing…when I tell hockey players that I only got into hockey in 2005, they think I’m joking.  I respond…”No, I’m serious.” 

That’s when they look at the chain of events and think…that is insane.  How does someone get into hockey in 2005, absorb it in less than a month, have a hockey column within the next 2 years, and then not even 6 months later is sitting in the press box and interviewing players in the locker room? 

All I can point to is that this adventure may have a little something to do with my grandfather and his last wish for me.  Two weeks after he died, I was contacted by a news website based in Vancouver asking if I would be interested in my own sports column.  I said, “Make it hockey, and you have me.”  They agreed and the adventure began.

I didn’t even apply for the job…they found me thanks to a recommendation by…wait for it…Britney Spears. 

She helped me get my first writing gig, all because she knew I loved to write, loved hockey, and because she knew I had lost my grandfather just two weeks before. Since then…everything has been a bit charmed on this adventure. 

Getting back to that quote…my dream was to cover the New York Rangers.  Instead, I covered the New Jersey Devils.  This year, I had plenty of opportunities to switch over to the Rangers, but I decided to stick with the Devils this season and do a few games for the Rangers.  I don’t regret that decision at all. 

The weird part was at the beginning of my career, I said that I would retire when the Devils won the Cup while I covered them.  Now, we begin the Stanley Cup Finals and the Devils are still in it.  I announced back in July that this would be my final season covering hockey so I can focus on other dreams.  My intuition told me that this was the final season…I don’t know if it was also predicting the outcome of the New Jersey Devils this year.  If so, the biggest lesson I have learned this season…TRUST YOUR INSTINCTS!  IT IS ALWAYS RIGHT!

John Giannone had mentioned to me last week that I had to be the master of predicting hockey outcomes…all the way down to the score and who would win the game that day.  It’s all intuition, and learning to tap into that well to see what will happen.

The weird thing about all of this…I keep asking myself…what are you going to do now to fill up all of your extra time?  Sure, I will have travel and hockey clubs overseas, but what do I want to really do?

Over the season, Prudential Center has been showing “Frozen Planet” up on the jumbotron in between periods.  Each time it came up on the screen, I literally stopped whatever I was doing to just sit in awe at the beauty of the advertisement. 

Luckily, last night, I saw that the library had the BBC version of the show (not narrated by Alec Baldwin).  I picked it up and started watching it last night…just in complete awe at these guys that do the video footage.  I mean…watching a wooly caterpillar over how many years before they turn into a moth?  Or staying in -35 degree temperatures in Antarctica just to videotape penguins and the continent!  Who does that? 

Well, these guys did it…they even went swimming under the ice to get video footage.

I learned so much in just the first episode.  I saw things that I had never seen before…things that I never knew existed…and I saw just how amazingly beautiful the world is, untouched by man.  I saw the many shades of blue inside glaciers, and the magnificent blues surrounding them. 

The weird part of it all…the one thing that I learned was that the animal species are a lot like the human species, even in their own societies.  They can be cruel to others outside of their community…and disgusting.  The elephant seal…as ugly as it is…one male that’s the king of the beach has a harem of 50 females.  Any other male that wants a female…well, they have to fight the king for it.  Polar bear males have to fight off would be suitors to his female.  White wolves have a male and female to take care of their cubs…i.e. they have a family unit.  And albatross love only one other for the rest of their lives (and they live for over 50 years).

It’s just so strange that animals have very similar societal and relationship qualities as can be seen all over the world in the human race.  They really are not all that different from us.

While I sat there in complete awe of the show, I realized what my next dream has been all along…I’ve been wanting to write/photograph for the National Geographic since I was a kid, sitting in my great-grandmother’s living room going through one magazine to the next, just in awe of the world out there. 

I’ve actually been thinking about this all year long.  I started reading their website and how the photographers document their journeys.  It’s good to know that out of 500 photos, they’re lucky if one photo captured the moment they were looking for.  It’s just a reminder that even though we see something so perfect and amazing in magazines, it takes a lot of shots just to get it right once.

I wish that the photos I put up on here from my camera looked the way online as it does in the print version.  What I post up doesn’t always reflect the photo accurately due to computer settings.  But the product that’s printed, it actually makes you stop and think, “Wow, that is one great photo!”  Even crazier when I say to myself, “Hey, I took that!” 

Sometimes doing something like writing a hockey column for 5 years leads to other adventures.  I think all I ever wanted through all of this career was one thing…RESPECT.  Respect that a woman could know hockey and not be treated as a woman that was looking for her hockey player husband. 

I think the way that I saw hockey was very different.  But it’s also been a learning experience in understanding that, and discovering who I am in relation to that.  Some fans expect me to write like the other guys.  No.  I wouldn’t bend.  In everything I do in life, I don’t follow the crowd.  I will purposely move in another direction just to show my own individuality.

I always told the writers I mentored, if everyone is writing the same story, what makes you think someone will read your work if it reads just like everybody else?  You have to have your own nitch that will bring people back to you again and again.  Be the different voice.

I also know that I don’t cater to what fans want.  I don’t care if people like me or not.  They either do or they don’t.  It comes with the territory.  I don’t let others define who I am or what I will write.  I pick the story and tell it.  In a way, I want people to see hockey through my eyes…and a lot of times, it embraces the things that I hold true…and sometimes, you’ll find a life lesson in there.

Why?  Because hockey has always been a learning experience to me.  Every day I walk out of the locker room, I either learn something new, or laugh at others that just don’t get it. 

It’s not just the veterans that are older than me that I learn from…even the guys 10 years younger than me have taught me something…not just about hockey, but about life. 

For me, when I started this adventure…I was looking for myself and my path in life.  My grandfather’s last wish for me was to get on my path in life and to stay on it.  I wanted the dream…it was something I had never had.  Hell, I didn’t even know what it was.  It was only doing something that I had never done before (become a hockey writer) that I found that dream…and who I am.

A few years ago, I was reading “The Answer” by John Assaraf and Murray Smith.  It was a fresh look at how to incorporate “The Secret” by Rhonda Byrne into real-life business techniques. 

I didn’t get too far into the book, but there was one part that I’ll never forget.  Assaraf wrote about his own Motivation/Dream/Inspiration/Goal Board.  In it, he put a picture of a house that he liked, just because he wanted to own a house just like it one day.  Years later, the board got packed away.  He didn’t even think about the board again.

Ends up a decade or so later, he moved into a new home.  As he was unpacking his boxes, he came across his old Dream Board.  He then took a look at the house that was on his board and was shocked to discover that it was the exact same house he had just bought. 

When he put the picture of the house up on the board, he didn’t know where it was located.  He just liked the way it looked.  Never did he imagine that he would one day end up owning the exact same house in that picture.

He called into his universe exactly what he dreamed of having.

Inspired by his board, I decided to do a “Book of Dreams” quite similar to the one that Queen Latifah kept in the movie “Last Holiday.” 

Everything that I ever dreamed of wanting in life that I couldn’t even tell my best girlfriend…I put in that book.  It was a book I put together where I could be 100% honest with myself about what I wanted in life.  Sure, I want a house in Ireland overlooking the sea…and another one in Cote d’Azure, France. 

Sure, I want to have a major yogalicious body when I turn 40 years old. 

I want to cook and cook and cook up new recipes, because apparently I’m a pretty damn good cook and I love doing it.

When it came to what I was looking for in a man…I put down all of the qualities I was looking for in a guy, along with the type of relationship I would want to have with that person.  All of the qualities reminded me of one person…someone I knew already.  So I put a picture of that guy in my dream book and wrote “A guy just like HIM!”  I made sure the ARROW pointed right to that guy. 

He embodied all of the qualities I was looking for in a guy.  Little did I know that I wasn’t calling a guy into my universe just LIKE him…I was calling that exact same person in the picture into my universe. 

When I realized what I had done, I went home, tore up the part in my Book of Dreams about the kind of guy I was looking for and threw it in the trash.  I was horrified that I had called that exact person into my universe like that…and he was married! 

So now I live by the mantra…”Be careful what you wish for, because you just might get exactly what you asked for.” 

Really…I should have known better, but at the time, I was just discovering the secrets of the universe around us.  I had no idea just how powerful it was.

These days though…I actually ponder what happened in that instance.  Why had I called that exact person from the picture into my universe? 

Perhaps the reason why I called that person into my universe was really because he was exactly what I was looking for…and there’s no one else just like him.  There’s no carbon copy of the soul, it’s just him.

To this day, I have dreams that are so vivid and clear, like he’s really there.  Even in meditations, he’s in those meditations and I always ask why in the world God would show me some married guy.  It just seemed wrong.

It took a lot of meditation and a lot of questions before I could sort through what was going on.  It took some deciphering but then I realized that God was showing me my past lives in my meditations and dreams.  That’s why that soul is so relevant in this lifetime…he was in all of my past lifetimes.  We follow each other from one lifetime to the next.  The way God has described it to me in my meditations is that he is the first love and the last love in what is called the “infinity” love story.  We find each other in every lifetime.  We are drawn to each other no matter where the other one is…we are pulled to each other over time and space.

Last night, I actually dreamed that I had fallen asleep curled up in his arms on the couch.  I woke up, feeling him watching me sleep…and could hear him thinking, “Could this love be that real?  Could she really love me that deeply?” 

I think that’s what we’re all looking for is to love and be loved that deeply and truly.  That’s what the infinity love story has been about each lifetime.

When you feel that pull between two strangers, what does it mean?  When you feel something magical in the air…what is really happening?  Why is it happening?

I’ve been asking those questions for the last six years.

I’ve had people intervene that knew his side of the story and told me to stay away from him.  They told me everything he had said and how he had poured his heart out about how he felt about me.  They told me, “Stay away, because he’ll only end up hurting you.  You don’t deserve to be hurt like that.”

Others told me, “Stop encouraging him.” 

So I took their advice.  Now, when I see him, I pretend he doesn’t exist…like he’s not even in the same room as me.  It’s what rockstars in my past have called, “Turning the love off.”

It’s what I call…making the decision to move on in life.

Many of my friends have asked me if I was sure about leaving hockey writing.  I always reply that I’m very sure.  I want to focus on having a family, so I need to not work as much.  I’m 36 years old.  I have to make an effort to move my life in that direction.

I was reading this article by Polly Campbell called “Detoxify Your Thoughts.”  In her column, she talks about how we sabotage our goals and dreams.

 Perhaps you think you’re ready for a loving relationship, yet you work so much that you leave no time to date. Your current circumstance is a physical representation of the beliefs you hold. If you aren’t moving toward what you want, chances are an unconscious belief is catching you up. Often, Hendricks says, we don’t recognize our core beliefs until they create some negative results. Look closely at the results you’re getting — if they aren’t what you want go deeper and explore the beliefs behind them.

One of my co-workers recently made the decision to leave our office because of this reason.  She thought she worked too much and that was the reason why she could never keep a good relationship.  She made the decision to go someplace where she didn’t have to work weekends or the holidays…but she could enjoy life again, even if it meant taking a drastic paycut.

Living life meant more than working through life and never enjoying it.  So she made the change to make her dreams come true.

When I was in Europe and Africa this past September/October, I started to notice something strange going on in the universe around me.  Men were flocking up to me, asking me if I was married, doing these kind, gentlemanly things…things I would want out of a mate…I had to ask…why?  What’s going on?  Why is this happening now?

Am I calling this into my universe?

Next thing you know, I’m surrounded by wedding shops in Paris for an entire mile as I headed to the Sacre Coeur.  Trust me, it was the weirdest thing in the world!

Then the most unusual thing happened while I was in the Sahara Desert…I actually fell in love!  It was the oddest thing ever.  There is something magical about the Sahara.  You could be standing there one minute before God and all his wonders and then feel your heart and soul completely heal from that asshole that broke your heart…then you turn to your right and fall in love with the guy sitting right next to you! 

Like I said, it was the oddest thing ever because HE was a desert nomad.

Over these months, I really had to think about what I wanted as I embarked on my new adventure.  Did I ever want to get married?  Do I still want to have children? 

The Sahara taught me this…what was broken inside was now healed.  I have the capability of loving again and being loved.  That is what the future holds for me.

Now when I think back to that Book of Dreams…maybe I want those secret dreams to come true now.  Maybe the time has come to believe in LOVE.

It’s time for the real dream.

I had this dream about a house a few years back.  It was so real to me in the dream.  It was so vivid and clear.  I knew every detail of it all the way down to the kitchen and the way the backyard was laid out.  I couldn’t stop thinking about that house the next day, so I went online to look for it.

I went with my intuition…and I found it.  It was actually the first listing I saw, eighth house down on the list.  Cost of the house: $13,000,000.  Location: Alpine, New Jersey.

When I looked at the pictures, all I kept thinking was, “This is MY house!”  It was real.  It existed.  It was just like in my dream.

Why would God give you a dream that felt so real (and then you discover that the place actually existed) if it wasn’t meant to be yours?

That house has been in my Book of Dreams ever since I found it.

What finding that house meant to me…those vivid dreams that feel so real…there is a reality behind it…a truth.  IT EXISTS.  Even love between two people that is so vivid and clear…IT EXISTS.  It really is there. 

I read in a book once…can’t remember where…but the writer said that dreams are just a glimpse into another dimension of our soul.  We exist in separate dimensions and when we dream, we can see our soul in those other dimensions.  Maybe on this plane, we’re not together, but on other planes, we are.  Maybe on this plane, we’re not rockstars or famous actors.  On another plane, we are.

And when we dream…we get to see those lives that got to live their dreams.  It’s almost like in this scenario, it didn’t work, but in this other scenario, it did.  Then you wonder…was that really a past life, or just another life that succeeded in some other choose your own adventure book?

I realize after all of these years since I became a hockey writer that the whole point of my hockey adventure was to prove that dreams can come true in the most magical ways that you could ever imagine. 

It makes cracking open that Book of Dreams once again and making them come true more possible than ever.  It makes me realize that if I’m going to be 100% honest with myself, those are the dreams that mean everything to me and I have to give 100% of myself to making them come true…even without the pages I tore out of it.

I’m about to make my most outrageous dreams come true.  Why?  Because those dreams are the dreams that are at the core of my being and they deserve to come true more than any other dream.

And how do I plan on making these dreams happen?  Just read Polly Campbell’s article…they are the most important steps in making dreams come true. 

“Don’t cry because it’s over. Smile because it happened.” – Dr. Seuss

Saturday was the last regular season game of my NHL hockey writing career.  As I announced it on Twitter, I probably didn’t start to get all choked up until someone from the NHL Alumni tweeted how sad they were to hear that it was my last game.  It meant a lot to get that kind of tweet.

I realized, as I was looking at Marty Brodeur in goal at the other end of the ice, that this could be his last regular season game as well…only time will tell if that is what he decides.  Maybe he’ll come back another year…

This isn’t the time for me to be sad about leaving…it’s a time for me to smile at what I have accomplished.  When I look back at all of the opportunities that have been afforded to me in the past few years by the NHL, the New York Rangers, the New Jersey Devils, and numerous hockey players across the league, I actually can’t believe that those things even happened.  It seems like it was all a dream.

I never realized how much I was able to do and accomplish until a reporter over at the Rangers told me this season that I had done something in a short matter of time that he couldn’t even do in 20 years of his career…and that was be granted permission to cover the New Jersey Devils…from the Devils.  He said I was one hell of a writer…and that was why they let me in.  It’s not so often you hear that kind of compliment from another member of the media.

I’ve heard infamous stories about my career.  I’ve heard that no one can touch me because I’m protected by the NHL.  I’ve heard that I had an affair with some hockey player that followed me from team to team just to be close to me (for the record, it’s not true…but I know who spread it and I also know who started it…it’s what happens when people assume things).

Those are the crazy stories you hear along this journey.  Most times, they’re not true…just rumors. 

In my last international tour of duty with the NHL, I was asked to cover the Rangers across Europe.  You say Praha, and I’m there.  The NHL said Praha…and I was there.  I didn’t cover just the NHL on this tour of duty…I ended up covering both teams and that included Sparta and Zug during the Rangers pre-season exhibition. 

Something happened that I didn’t expect to happen while I was diving in and learning about each club.  I found out later what happened after I published my work (and I haven’t even published the story about my findings on Kladno yet).  Hockey players playing abroad got wind of these articles and started sending me messages asking when I was going to cover their teams in Europe and Russia.  It’s not so often a writer receives requests like that, but I’ve seen it happen in the NHL too where players have requested that I write something about their team or a player there. 

I had to think about these messages through most of this season and I realized…I don’t have to stop writing about hockey…I’m just choosing to move on to a different territory.

Over these past few years, one of the most unique experiences afforded to me by the NHL was their assistance in helping me to live my dream…to travel the world writing about the people I meet and telling their stories.  At the time, it was the stories that belonged to hockey teams and hockey players.  They opened that door for me to live that dream.

I probably didn’t start to realize I was living that dream until I was on a plane to Prague, Czech Republic thinking…”What in the hell am I doing?”  I was on a plane going to a foreign country that I’ve never been to before.  I hadn’t researched the country…I don’t even know how to even speak the language.  Worst yet, I still (to this day) don’t even know how to say the word COFFEE in Czech (on my to do list before I retire). 

I literally thought I was insane for hopping on a plane, going to a foreign country all by myself when I didn’t even speak the language or know where I was going.  I thought I was literally going to have a panic attack when I headed to the customs agent with my passport.

But just as I arrived at the customs gate, there was a big sign of this smiling Czech I had been watching for the last 2 years.  It was Jaromir Jagr.  It was then that I knew that everything was going to be okay.

The people there were so nice.  I was fortunate to find several people that spoke English and helped me get to my hotel safely.  When I went to order food, despite the language barrier, it all worked out somehow.  The Czechs were so kind in helping me learn how to say those words that were 15 letters long (I mean really…I just give up on the 9th letter…why do the words have to be so long).

Everything about me changed in that first trip for the NHL…and it happened in my rookie year.

Keep in mind that I had done more in my rookie year than seasoned reporters have done in their 20 years of writing a sports column.  I went to Prague, the Winter Classic in Chicago, NHL All-Stars in Montreal, NHL Awards in Las Vegas, spent 8 hours with the Stanley Cup, learned all about poker as it relates to hockey from various NHL Alumni greats, and a whole lot more.

Most reporters just go about their job, hanging out with their computer until it’s time to write their story.  For me…I’m sure people from the NHL offices can tell you how they would stand there and watch me walking around looking at everything…I’m talking about EVERY SINGLE THING that went into making this game a reality.  I’d stand around watching them create the ice, put up the netting, prepare for the big games.  I’d watch the players practicing, photographing everyone…so I could become a better photographer.  I would talk to the camera guys, asking how this and that worked.

I absorbed everything the NHL could throw at me…why?  Because to me, this was so AMAZING.

It’s because of all of those years just going about my business, walking right in to the most obscure things…and just standing there like a fly on the wall…that people start to notice you. 

After my first year, it was expected that I would switch over to go work for the NHL offices or a team.  I kept thinking…can the NHL (or teams) afford me, yet?  The answer was always a NO.  I make more money elsewhere…and I like my designer wardrobe.  I’m not ready to give up that lifestyle yet. 😉

Rick Peckham (Tampa Bay Lightning’s play-by-play announcer) said to me on my first trip to Prague during my rookie year what was being said about me behind the scenes.  He said that I was the person that would change the face of the NHL.  Those are big words and big expectations for anyone to see that in me right from the start…and he was just reiterating what he had heard about me.

Over the years, I wondered how I could do those things.  All throughout my life I had heard that no matter what things I set my mind to, I could achieve amazing things.  It’s followed me from the music biz to my philanthropy work to even my work today.

Yet, over the years I’ve watched how things have changed in the NHL based on pieces I’ve written.  I’ve seen the changes and I’ve watched the NHL evolve.

There are even stories I’ve written over these years that helped change people’s mindsets about the players they criticized and spoke ill of.  For the longest time, fans complained of how getting to know the New Jersey Devils was non-existent.  They wanted to know about their favorite players…what they’re like…what kind of food they eat…what their favorite book or movie is…they wanted to know about these guys, and that door always seemed to be closed to them.

That has changed slowly over the years.  I can tell you the exact moment it changed for the better…Martin Brodeur broke that barrier when he named David Clarkson the worst dressed…just because he knew it would piss him off because he said that about him.  All of a sudden fans everywhere started to think…hey, that Brodeur isn’t a jerk…he’s actually kind of cool.  They were able to see him in a new light…that he was actually a fun guy, playing the biggest joke of all time on his teammate.

There are the stories I’ll never print, and then there are the stories I printed just to change people’s minds about a player…like David Clarkson’s “Goon With a Big Heart.”  After that article, I never heard another Rangers fan say a bad word about him.  Actually, a lot of them became fans of his.  Why?  Because of that part where he pulled his car over to the side of the road and cried after he learned that one of his kids from “Clarky’s Kids” was going to die in a couple of weeks. 

They even stopped calling him a goon after that. 

Clarky is also the only hockey player that almost made me cry in that locker room.  We were both fighting back tears when he talked about that kid.  I knew that if I broke down and cried, he would have cried too. 

There was also a time that Georges Laraque refused to be interviewed by the media.  I took a chance and asked the Montreal Canadiens if I could interview him, they went back and got Georges…and he did my second “Goon With a Big Heart” story.  Imagine my surprise when a famous lead guitarist told my editor how much he loved that piece.  It showed a different side of Georges that most people didn’t know about (or made fun of over the years).

There were other stories over the years that landed on the front page of Fox Sports like Marty Brodeur telling me honestly whether he would retire or not and Jacques Lemaire’s real retirement (the second time around). 

There were also times where I asked a player a few times if he was certain he wanted me to print the comments he was making…knowing that it could mean he may not be asked back to the Club.  I printed it and watched a few days later how the team reacted to what he told me to print.  And yes, he was punished for it.

It’s not the first time that happened, but Sheldon Souray was probably the last time I would allow it to happen.  How odd to find out a year later that Sheldon was buddies with one of my friends from back in the day…one I used to party with back during the rockstar days.  Lesson learned…the world is much smaller than I think it is. 

There was also this one moment in the New Jersey Devils locker room that I went up to this Russian after the rest of the press had walked away.  He was getting ready to be interviewed by a Russian reporter when he saw me standing there, waiting to speak to him.  He told the reporter to wait and turned to me.  I then asked him, “Are you going to re-sign here next year?” 

He answered the question…along with all of the details on how he was going to do it.  The thing is…he remembered he told me.  I didn’t print it and he noticed that I hadn’t.

A few weeks before July 1, it was reiterated to me once again that what Ilya Kovalchuk told me that day was exactly what would happen.  Promises were made that Ilya did not (and would not) lie to me…if he said that was what was going to happen, then that was what was going to happen…and all of the assurances I could possibly need to print that Ilya would re-sign with the Devils were given to me…so I printed it.

{Fans have questioned why I would wait to release information like this, especially since I was given the most coveted information in the entire NHL.  1) I didn’t know Ilya well enough at the time to believe that he would not lie to me and humiliate me in the press.  This was my reputation on the line and I wasn’t about to print anything that I couldn’t get a 100% guarantee on. 2) I like to wait until the right time to release information.  I would rather be 100% correct, then to have fans accuse me of not knowing what I was talking about.  In other words, I don’t want to lie to my readers and I will not have any player make me into a liar based on the information he gave to me. 3) I also don’t like to print rumors.  I’d rather be 100% correct than to guess and say it’s fact.}

Players from the Devils weren’t sure who Ilya was talking to…but I had laid down clues that he had spoken to me.  Actually, I planted one directly to Martin Brodeur.  I gave him some info about Kovy that only the two of them would know about…only way I knew that happened (considering I wasn’t there when it happened, only those two)…would be if I found out from Kovalchuk’s camp directly.

I thought it was funny when one Devils player had his website guy ask me if Kovy was really talking to me and that he really was signing with the Devils.  It made me laugh because the players were just as anxious as the fans were to know if it was true!

It was always a question during the Summer of Kovalchuk who was really talking to the Kovalchuk camp.  The ones they were talking to, we knew who the others were…and they were very selective with who they spoke with and released information through. 

The WOW factor in my career has always been that moment in the locker room when Ilya Kovalchuk told me exactly what he was going to do in free agency.  It was the most coveted information in the entire NHL…and he gave that story to me first.

When Mats Sundin decided he was going to retire and play professional poker…he released that information through Inside Hockey…because they remembered there was this reporter there that would understand the significance in this decision and write the story the way they needed it to be released.

I almost had a career covering poker and hockey after that release…if I hadn’t gone to Greece instead. 😉

So now, as I look back and smile at all of the things I’ve accomplished in this short time being an NHL hockey writer, it’s surprising to me that most people won’t even be able to accomplish  in their entire career what I’ve done since 2007.  

The reason why I did anything and everything that I could in the NHL…it was because I didn’t know how much time I would have left in this world.  I was busy making dreams come true in the most amazing way because my health has been faced with so much crap these past few years.  Being told the cancer had returned was enough to scare the bejesus out of me. 

This will be my last time covering the NHL playoffs.  My time this season has been devied up between the Devils and the Rangers.  Last year, I started off my hockey season with the Boston Bruins…and they won the Stanley Cup. 

While I could say I started my season with the New York Rangers in Europe…I’m going to have to say instead that you’ll have to toss a coin with this one…I also started my season with the New Jersey Devils at the exact same time.  They’re both in the playoffs…one of them is bound to make it.  But which?

That’s how I’m hoping this season will end…in June.  I always said that I’ll retire from writing about NHL hockey when the Devils win the Cup and I get to cover it through to the end…maybe this is the year…considering I announced in July this was my final season.

As for the future, I think you can tell which direction I’m going.  More lifestyle stuff.  More travel.  More hockey abroad.  After all, I may have designed this path to cover hockey overseas because of this little thing called a lockout…maybe I’ll be covering the Devils and Rangers in EUROPE…but without the logo on the front of their jersey.

I have also been getting questions this season about why I haven’t covered hockey as much as I used to.  Well, I was in Europe/Africa at the start.  I was sick when I got back. 

Then in January, I got hit really hard and then had to go 80% liquids for months.  This season I’ve had to really rest a lot.  Work has been escalating at the office, and since they pay the bills, they get my time.  This season may have been the worst healthwise than any other season.  {And I had surgery during my rookie year!  I’d take that pain post-op over the pain I’ve felt this year…any day.}

Throughout this season I’ve had to ask myself if I was making the right decision.  I had to ask all the way down to that last game on Saturday…and I knew I had to start the process of saying goodbye.  There are things that have happened since my July announcement that have reminded me all throughout this season why it was the correct decision. 

I’m not leaving hockey…I’ll be sitting downstairs next season watching the Devils and the Rangers…being a fan again.  I’ll be running around the world, watching and learning about hockey from other parts of the world.  Who knows, I may come back talking about how we can evolve this game of hockey…how we can expand…and help it to survive as we deal with the economic issues that faces not just America, but the world.  You have to think above and beyond just that fan atmosphere…you have to always think about how we can make this game better.

I always pictured myself as moving into working in hockey permanently when I hit 40.  That’s in less than 5 years.  During those 5 years, I have other dreams I want to make come true before I dedicate myself fully to making that decision.

I believe it was Glen Sather that said to someone that in order for you to take the job as GM, you have to work the trenches…that includes scouting players.  You never know, the NHL teams may take my new stories from overseas and use them as part of their scouting reports…and that’s probably what these players overseas are hoping for…that I’ll somehow take notice of them and next thing they know…they’ll be playing in the NHL.

But until I hit 40, there are other dreams I’ve got to make come true.  There are seeds I need to sow in foreign countries, new homes to be built, new stories to collect, new worlds to photograph, and new people to meet.  I’m setting off to change the world around me…that is the dream…and that’s bigger than this hockey dream that came true.

One thing I’ve learned from this hockey adventure is that dreams come true in the most amazing ways when you are on your path in life.  I can recognize when a path is coming to an end and it’s time to start a new one.  That’s what this whole season has been about…the path coming to an end and a new one forming before me. 

This adventure has been amazing…BUT I have other dreams that need to come true…that’s why I’m saying goodbye.  I won’t cry, but I’ll smile at all that I’ve accomplished in these past few years.

If you’re a hockey person, you’ve probably heard or have been following the Newark Mayor Cory Booker vs. the New Jersey Devils drama that’s been going on in the press since the Arbitrators dished out their ruling on Tuesday.

I’ve been following this mess for a few years now.  I’ve even talked about it here on this site.  What I saw come out of the ruling was an answer to all of the questions that were lingering between Newark and the Devils arena.  It was a solution.

There were no winners/losers…unless you go to the press and start acting like a sore loser…which was exactly what Booker did.  As I read through his timeline, I noticed before the arbitration ruling, his Twitter account was very inspirational…and then he started to vent about the Devils’ owner.  He went so low as to call the owner names.

After I read what he said, I couldn’t help but think…WOW.  That was dumb.  Don’t run for mayor again…you would just be embarrassing yourself.  Let me explain why.

When I was 16 years old, I went to meet my first congressman.  I sat in the town hall meeting with about 50 other people from my hometown.  There was one constituent that didn’t like that this congressman voted for a bill that was good for gay rights (this was the early 90s).  The guy started calling the congressman a fag, homosexual, gay…blah blah blah… He did it for nearly half an hour. 

At one point the congressman looked right at me, the youngest person in the room, and you could tell that he thought it was wrong that someone took in to no consideration that there was a kid in the room.  This guy had to be censored.  He tried to not let his anger get the better of him…and then he couldn’t keep it under control anymore.  He turned towards the jerk and the worst obscenities I’ve ever heard come out of a congressman’s mouth came barreling out. 

My eyes widened…he had just cost himself the next election. 

That congressman later apologized to me for what happened after the meeting.  He said he shouldn’t have let that man get to him like that.  He was nice enough to offer me a summer internship at his offices in Washington if I was going to be in DC before college began, just to help me get into politics from the get-go. 

But even I knew…he had cost himself the next election because of his outburst. 

Back then, that congressman had every right to tell that guy to shut the f*ck up.  Today, Mayor Booker has no right to call names.  Why?  Well, if you’ve been following this case between Newark and the Devils, you’ll know that the Devils were not willing to pay rent for so long as a) the building construction issues were not fixed and b) the parking situation was not resolved.

They had a fair argument.  The Housing Authority didn’t like their response, so they took them to Court.  The Court then referred them to seek arbitration.  What the arbitrators came back with was exactly what needed to happen in order for the Devils to pay rent…the parking situation was resolved. 

But after all was said and done, the City of Newark ended up owing the Devils money…and that’s where the tirade comes barreling in from Mayor Booker.  He says they will fight it.

In all honesty, it would be cheaper to just fork over the money than to keep this in litigation.  For so long as it remains in litigation, no rent has to be paid, because it’s still in Court.  That, my dear voters, would make it CORY BOOKER’S FAULT for failing to collect rent now that the issues have been resolved.  Instead, he’d rather cost the city more money by keeping it in litigation, not to mention that they still won’t be able to collect the rent in the meantime.

Also, of note, you need to know that there are two sides of this story.  Booker’s failure to present all of the facts to the citizens of Newark should make you all mad.  Why?  Because he’s telling half truths…which turn into lies. 

The media has been presenting this story with the facts and evidence which all seem to support the Devils, and then Booker twists the truth (i.e. he ends up telling a lie). 

For instance, the Devils were able to finally laugh at Booker this week when an email surfaced in the press that the Mayor was looking for tickets to the Springsteen concert at Prudential Center.  After all that’s happened this week, the Devils arena denied his request. 

The email states that the tickets were for his family…he would pay for the tickets to the sold-out event.

Here’s the text from NJ.com:

In the e-mail, a staffer for the mayor’s “Booker Team” wrote that Booker “would like to attend the Bruce Springsteen concert with a group of his family. I completely understand this is on high demand and probably sold out. Do you know if there is at least 4 tickets? Originally he asked for 10, if they are available which I doubt it, please let me know if you can get us those tickets for him. I will get his credit card as soon as you let me know how many are available.”

The article goes on to get Booker’s response:

Booker also noted that despite putting up the bulk of the money to build the arena, the city has no seats for big events.

“Usually when the government bodies put in a large amount of money, the officials have some tickets for community use,” Booker said, adding that the tickets were not for his family. “This is something that Jeff never allowed for.”

I hope the Mayor knows what a KICKBACK is.  Kickbacks are illegal and have warranted criminal investigations by State Attorney General offices…which means that politician would never see another election or public office ever again.

If Vanderbeek said NO to these kickbacks…seems like he’s a little more ethical than a mayor who thinks that it’s due to them because the city put up funding to help build the arena.  Any politician that thinks that is CORRUPT.

When I interned with the Metropolitan Police Department in Washington, DC, one of my captains ended up teaching one of my classes at my university.  The one thing he drilled into my head, because he knew I worked with his officers on the street…you cannot take kickbacks.  Even if someone offers you a free meal just because you are a public/government official, you cannot take the free meal.  You have to pay for it.  It is unethical to take that free meal because you are a public/government official.  It’s considered a bribe…punishable by the internal affairs department.  It could cost you your job.

If there was anything I learned in his class…that was the most important item of all.  Why?  Because that meant that whatever cop I was riding around town with in his sector…he knew that I would re-emphasize this point to every single officer under his command.

With Mayor Booker’s philosophy on what is owed to the City of Newark as far as ‘tickets’ go…and how he thinks it’s perfectly normal…I now question what other kickbacks he’s taking.  In other words, this is worthy of an investigation by the Attorney General’s office.

Funny thing…when you spew all these lies, anger and hate into the universe…it’s bound to come right back at you…especially if the universe thinks you’re wrong.  I think the mayor is wrong in what he’s doing.  To me, the arbitrators provided the right solution for all parties.  It’s not a matter of winning or losing…it’s about resolution.  The arbitrators resolved the conflict so that payments between the two parties could begin. 

Since this is Friday and I like to talk about spirituality, this is where I’m going with all of this…

As voters we need to look at this in a certain way.  Look at our country and what is happening.  We need ethical leaders that are smart enough to know what we need to do in order for this country to steer clear of the greatest depression the world has ever seen.  We need sound leaders that don’t back budgets where they split spending in half and then send 95% of that spending to military and social security while the rest of America has to fend for the 5% (like schools, prisons, police, USDA, EPA, etc.).  We’re not in a world war.  There is no reason why the military and social security should outweigh the needs of America now.  Actually, our military leaders have offered plenty of examples of how we can cut the military budget since we are no longer at war.  In the past, each time we’ve pulled out of war, the military budget has received a 20%+ cut…not increased spending. 

If a politician wants to come up with or back crackpot legislation to dish out to us until 2050 that supports this kind of mandate…they should not be re-elected.  Education for our children will always weigh more than our military.  The needs of America will far outweigh our military…we are not at war with any country.  There is no need to waste 95% of our tax dollars on the military.

America would not be able to survive 38 years of this.  We need smarter politicians that can start the change we need to see in this world.  I’m talking about POSITIVE change…not the change that will starve us until 2050.  I’m talking about a positive change that will do good in America.

Politicians that have proven in their 2-6 years of tenure that they cannot get the job done…give someone else the chance to move their cities, states and country in the right direction and will produce positive change for the people they represent.

In the Indiana State Senate, they taught me that it isn’t about politics at the end of the day.  It’s about the people you represent.  It’s good to have different parties representing different groups in politics.  When it’s time to come to the table and create laws and change for the people…it’s not about the lobbyists…it’s about the people they are representing. It’s about taking into account everyone’s concerns about any given subject and working together to come up with a resolution that will benefit all parties.  You have to give a little in order to gain a lot.

We can fight the corruption by saying no to it right from the start.  You can’t vote someone in that has proven that they are corrupt or tell lies.  You have to vote for the guy that will do change the way it needs to be done.  We need people that are good of heart and soul and will do the right thing.  Just because someone spouts inspirational stuff on Twitter all of the time, it doesn’t mean they embrace those ideologies. 

You can tell if they are or not by the way they act.  If they are not the change within, they are not the change their constituents seek. 

I know that the Mayor follows me on Twitter.  I’ve never followed him because some people can see into the core of others and see the truth that lies behind the shell.  I always thought he was full of crap.  This week, he’s proven my intuitive judgment correct about him.  He’s more sinner than he is saint.  His actions this week have proven that to everyone.  Just look at all of the lies and half truths he’s told.  Look at how he thinks it’s okay to take kickbacks because it comes along with the territory. 

We don’t need an America like this anymore.  We need one that has become more evolved.  If we wallow in this crap that goes along with politics…our country will fail.  We will see the greatest depression this world has ever seen. 

We need innovative thinkers, not politicians.  We need people with good hearts and good missions in mind.  We need negotiators that listen to all sides and come up with the best solution for all.  We need financial wizards that are brave enough to say…NO, you can’t spend our money on this crap anymore.  We need people that will change America and put us in line for a better tomorrow.

We also need stricter enforcement against politicians that lie and take kickbacks.  In other words, you do it once…you’re gone. 

Sound like a fantasy world to challenge our country to create a change that is better for all of us?

Tell that to Martin Luther King, Jr.  He had a dream once…a dream that came true.  Even in times when that dream seemed like nothing but a dream…45 years later, America elected their first black president.   

But there is something that I must say to my people, who stand on the warm threshold which leads into the palace of justice: In the process of gaining our rightful place, we must not be guilty of wrongful deeds. Let us not seek to satisfy our thirst for freedom by drinking from the cup of bitterness and hatred. We must forever conduct our struggle on the high plane of dignity and discipline. We must not allow our creative protest to degenerate into physical violence. Again and again, we must rise to the majestic heights of meeting physical force with soul force.

The marvelous new militancy which has engulfed the Negro community must not lead us to a distrust of all white people, for many of our white brothers, as evidenced by their presence here today, have come to realize that their destiny is tied up with our destiny. And they have come to realize that their freedom is inextricably bound to our freedom.

We cannot walk alone.

And as we walk, we must make the pledge that we shall always march ahead.

We cannot turn back.

***

Let us not wallow in the valley of despair, I say to you today, my friends.

And so even though we face the difficulties of today and tomorrow, I still have a dream. It is a dream deeply rooted in the American dream.

I have a dream that one day this nation will rise up and live out the true meaning of its creed: “We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal.”

I have a dream that one day on the red hills of Georgia, the sons of former slaves and the sons of former slave owners will be able to sit down together at the table of brotherhood.

I have a dream that one day even the state of Mississippi, a state sweltering with the heat of injustice, sweltering with the heat of oppression, will be transformed into an oasis of freedom and justice.

I have a dream that my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin but by the content of their character.

I have a dream today!

I have a dream that one day, down in Alabama, with its vicious racists, with its governor having his lips dripping with the words of “interposition” and “nullification” — one day right there in Alabama little black boys and black girls will be able to join hands with little white boys and white girls as sisters and brothers.

I have a dream today!

I have a dream that one day every valley shall be exalted, and every hill and mountain shall be made low, the rough places will be made plain, and the crooked places will be made straight; “and the glory of the Lord shall be revealed and all flesh shall see it together.”

This is our hope, and this is the faith that I go back to the South with.

With this faith, we will be able to hew out of the mountain of despair a stone of hope. With this faith, we will be able to transform the jangling discords of our nation into a beautiful symphony of brotherhood. With this faith, we will be able to work together, to pray together, to struggle together, to go to jail together, to stand up for freedom together, knowing that we will be free one day.

And this will be the day — this will be the day when all of God’s children will be able to sing with new meaning:

My country ’tis of thee, sweet land of liberty, of thee I sing.

Land where my fathers died, land of the Pilgrim’s pride,

From every mountainside, let freedom ring!

And if America is to be a great nation, this must become true.

And so let freedom ring from the prodigious hilltops of New Hampshire.

Let freedom ring from the mighty mountains of New York.

Let freedom ring from the heightening Alleghenies of Pennsylvania.

Let freedom ring from the snow-capped Rockies of Colorado.

Let freedom ring from the curvaceous slopes of California.

But not only that:

Let freedom ring from Stone Mountain of Georgia.

Let freedom ring from Lookout Mountain of Tennessee.

Let freedom ring from every hill and molehill of Mississippi.

From every mountainside, let freedom ring.

And when this happens, when we allow freedom ring, when we let it ring from every village and every hamlet, from every state and every city, we will be able to speed up that day when all of God’s children, black men and white men, Jews and Gentiles, Protestants and Catholics, will be able to join hands and sing in the words of the old Negro spiritual:

                Free at last! Free at last!

                Thank God Almighty, we are free at last!

King presented that speech back on August 28, 1963. 

It is one of the most important speeches in our great American history.  Even to this day, when you think of the state America is in as we try to conquer the issues presented to us today, that speech still rings true…even in the Booker vs Devils fight.  King’s words of wisdom…they’re not just words for a dream…they are words for practice.  We must practice what he preached to us that day.

With the state of of our economy…all any of us really wants to say is “Free at last! Free at last! Thank God Almighty, we are free at last!”

Do the right thing.  We can change the world.

If you’re in NYC, you’ll find a lot of free things happening around the City.  Luckily, not everything is limited to just NYC today.

1.  FREE CONE DAY!  It’s FREE CONE DAY at Ben & Jerry’s all across the US today.  Stop into your local ice cream shop between 12PM and 8PM today to get your free ice cream cone.  Mmmmm.

2.  BBC America Is Giving Away FREE LUNCHES.  From 12PM-2PM in Times Square and Madison Square Park, BBC America is giving away free lunches in celebration of the launch of their new show: No Kitchen Required.  You can find the details on how to get a food ticket HERE.

3.  FREE GUGGENHEIM.  Every Saturday from 5:45PM-7:45PM it’s a pay what you can afford admission at the Guggenheim.  Give a dollar or two…doesn’t matter.  It’s just give what you can donate. 

4.  FREE MOMA.  Every Friday from 4PM-8PM it’s free admission at the MOMA.  Talk about saving $20 and getting a little bit of culture.

5. See a FREE movie.  In NYC, every Saturday you can head to the Sony Wonder Labs to see a free movie.  Mind you, the senior citizens go and they like the volume turned up during the movie.  You’ll have to reserve a spot HERE.  Also, for the readers all across America, you can also score free screening passes at Cinemit.com and Gofobo.com.  I’ve been able to score a lot of free movie passes from both.  Gofobo has been sending me a lot of passes as of late, so it’s best to sign up for both sites (FREE).  Also, if you do get a screening pass…show up 45 minutes to an hour before the film to make sure you get in. 

6. Find out from Time Out.  Every city has their own Time Out magazine.  In Time Out, you’ll find a very, very, very long list of free things to do in the city.  I used Time Out London as a go to guide on what to do for free the last time I was in London. 

In NYC, especially in the summer months, I read the Free Things to Do Today to find out where I can eat for less than a dollar (or FREE), then I’ll bring the dinner to a free outdoor performance of a play, musical, concert or movie.  You get a lot of culture that way and you’re able to explore the city and go to places you’ve never been to before. 

7.  Disney Movie Rewards.  For parents and Disney fans alike…join the Disney Movie Rewards Club and earn points towards travel, Disney items, movies, etc.  It’s FREE to sign-up.  You can collect points each month through emailed newsletters, Twitter, Facebook…or just by buying Disney movies or going to Disney movies.  I’ve donated a lot of gifts to kids through their charity program.  I’ve also received a lot of CDs and free Snapfish photos.  Right now, I’m just saving points for the kids come Christmastime to make sure I can donate plenty of gifts to the Toys for Tots program…and maybe even score a free DVD here and there for myself.

And every now and again…Disney likes to give out free movie premiere tickets.  When Sorceror’s Apprentice came out…they had a big party…and I got invited.  Not so often you get the luxury of sitting backstage to watch a concert, see the stars of the movie, and get to see the movie.  Disney takes care of their fans.

8. Target FREE.  Target has done something wonderful for the community…everywhere across America, you’ll find Target Free days at museums, zoos and performance venues.  Check your local venues to see when Target Free days are.  For instance, Target Free Thursdays take place at the Lincoln Center.  Target Free Saturdays take place on the First Saturday of the month at the Brooklyn Museum.  It’s a great way to do some family activities for FREE.

****

So who says we should spend money when we don’t have to?  It’s more fun when it’s free.  Trust me…I do this free stuff all of the time.

After reading this wisdom from Mother Teresa, it reminded me that usually, a person would have this kind of wisdom when they are old.  With age comes wisdom.

The irony is…sometimes I feel like an 80 year old woman with the way my body is breaking down and half the stuff I write about and tell people all of the time.  If anyone could sum it all up…these 9 little pieces of wisdom would define life entirely. 

I want to focus on that last piece.  “In the final analysis, it is between you and God: It Was Never Between You And Them Anyway.”  This is something I have been saying again and again on this site.  Life isn’t about everyone else in the end.  Life is about your soul.  YOU have to answer to it. 

I always like to point out things to people.  For instance, when I see people practicing racial discrimination, I want to say they are actually the ones practicing hate.  I see it a lot, but mainly from a black person.  I hear them talking about how they were discriminated against by a white person.  I usually stand there thinking, “No, you were not discriminated against.  The thought never even passed that person’s mind.”

I hear them go on and on about how they were racially discriminated against…I mean…I follow those people around after the fact just to listen to them going off about white people.  And then I’ll do something in their haste…I’ll perform an act of kindness in order to get them to stop.

Whether it’s opening the door for them, or making a whole bunch of people stop so I can help an elderly lady in their group, or picking something up that they dropped, or just kindly smiling to them…I do something to change their way of thinking.  Because truthfully, it wasn’t the black person that was discriminated against…it was the white person.

Sometimes you have to show kindness…and really go out of your way to do it…just to prove a point without saying it.  I stuck around one group of ladies, repeating one act of kindness after another as they went down the street going off about how they were discriminated against. 

After some time, the mood changed when the women realized that they were acting inappropriately.  After all, this white woman kept doing all of these kind things for them while they went off about ‘white’ people. 

I stuck around them doing these things so that they would change their minds about white people.  You see, hate is taught.  Love is also taught.  If you want the hate to stop, you have to practice LOVE.

I also like to point out to people at times…if God was walking on earth…what would happen if the one time he encountered you on this planet, this is how you acted?  He saw you preaching hate.  He heard you talk about racial discrimination like you were the victim, when he watched YOU victimize someone else saying that was what they were doing to you.  It was a lie.  God saw it.  He saw YOU performing Hate.  He saw YOU telling Lies. 

That is what God saw. 

You know how first impressions will always define you?  What if God based his judgment on you based on that one moment he witnessed?  What if in that one moment, he was following you around to try and change the way you thought about what just happened?  What if he tried to push love your way and do kind things to make you think differently?  What if he spent those moments trying to change you into a better person?  Would you accept it or brush it off like it was an insignificant moment/an insignificant person…when it was really designed to teach you a bigger lesson about life? 

God has his messengers on this earth.  They are his eyes and ears all across humanity.  Those messengers let God shine through them.  They act according to how God wants them to act in that very moment.

There are times that people recognize God working in mysterious ways.  Other times, people just brush them to the side as if they were nobody…no one of importance.  They take for granted God’s gifts being offered to them to change the way they live.

In the end…it wasn’t about what everyone else did to you.  It’s about what you did.  You answer for everything that you did. 

If God saw you practicing hate, when he is love…how do you answer for this sin?

If God saw you telling lies, when he is the truth…how do you answer for this sin?

If God sees you breaking his commandments, when he put them into place for a reason…how do you answer for these sins?

You can’t escape from any act you put forth into this world.  You answer to it in this realm, and also in judgment.  You should always be mindful of every single thing that you do, because you will always have to answer to it.

So instead of doing bad, do good.  It’s easier to answer to all of the good you did than it is to answer to all of the bad that you did. 

Here’s another food for thought…when you do good, you remain happy.  When you do bad, you not only hurt others, you hurt yourself.  Why would you want to hurt anyone?  Make effort to do good at all times.  You’ll find that the rewards of goodness are much better than being rewarded with bad things. 

Some people call it karma.  Others…the law of the universe.  Do good at all times…you’ll be rewarded deeply with good things.  Do bad at all times…you’ll be rewarded deeply with bad things.

After all, you have to keep in mind…God wants only good people in heaven.  Funny thing about that…even the Holy Bible talks about how little that number is on who’s getting into heaven.  It’s like buying a Mega Millions lottery ticket.  Your chances of getting one of those spots…1 in (how many billions of people)???

Luckily, he speaks of a new heaven on earth.  Unfortunately, lots of people get tossed into the pit {Read your Revelations!}.  So…keep in mind that if you want a spot, religion doesn’t get you there…it’s your soul.  Keep your soul filled with good and all of the attributes of God’s gifts he’s given to all of us, and cleanse it of ever doing bad…and you may just find the golden ticket.

Ok…before I copy and paste this email I got on my private email address…keep in mind this was sent to ME…a woman.  This is probably the funniest email I have ever read in my life. 

Enjoy! [In the pink are my comments]

Private Email Message

BABE… i guess your not getting any of my email huh? ive been
tryign to email u so many times but this dam laptop is such a piece of
garbage and keeps freezing.. anyways how u been?

In case u dont know who this is its ME Capri.. we used to chat a bit on facebook and then
I think u deleted me 🙁 haha.. anyways guess what… I got 2 things to
tell u.. both good news.. 1) im single now.. yup me and my bf broke up
about 3 months ago… and 2) guess where im moving? RIGHT EFFING NEAR
U.. lol… ur actually the only person im gonna know there.. well 3
cousins too but i cant chill with them lol..

I remember when we chatted u told me u thought i was cute and u wanted to chill so now we finally
can HAHA! im kinda scared to move.. im hoping this email addy is still
the one you use and u can chat with me ebfore i get there.. maybe even
help me move my shit in…are u still on facebook? i cudnt find ui was
soo confused…anyways im gonna need someone to show me the town and
take me out so u better be around bebe…

we only chatted a couple times but i remember thinking to myself i wanted to get ot know u
better when i was single..a nd i thoguth u were cute too but cudnt
tell u cause i wasnt single lol…ok so more info about me.. well im
23.. virgo.. love the outdoors and love to socialize, go out for
drinks, restaurants, movies etc.. travel.. i have a lil kitty named
BOO and i luv her to death… uhhh oh im a super horny gurl too but
every gurl is they just wont admit it. so ilove watching p0rn and all
that.. love sex etc blah blah blah…who doesnt..

I really hope we get a chance to chat for a bit either online or on the fone before i get
there enxt week.. i hope u remmeber me and still wanna chill and arent
married yet lol.. OH YA also.. i need to find a job when i get there..

do u have any hookups or know anybody hiring? id LOVE to work in a bar
or osmehting like that…really anythgin cause my current job is fun
and all.. and technically i CUD keep doign it but i want a change.. i
currently work from home and well thats cool but i need ot be out
meeting people.. oh wait. i dont think i ever actually told u what i
did? hmm shud i……???? ok WELLLL… and dont get all weirded out
on me.. i work on a webcam chat community site and i get paid to chat
with people and get naked HHAHA… BOMB right :)? I KNOW.. like i
figure iim horny anyways why not get paid to chat with people and play
with myself heheh…anyways i hope u dont look down on that and NO
THATS NOT WHY IM CONTACTING U RELAX URSELF lol… i actually need help
once i move and i remembered u live there so im reaching out….like i
said before this computer is a complete piece of CRAP and freezes NON
STOP.. ive tried ot send this email to u maybe 3 times already and im
hopign this time i can hit SEND before i run into trouble lol..

ANYWAYS.. heres the deal….every month natalie (my boss) gives each
of us 3 VIP codes to give out to whoever we want.. so with this code u
can lgoin to watch me at work for free and dont have to pay like
everyone else… the only way i can give u one of the codes (so we can
chat) is if you absolutey DO NOT give it out to anyone else and u ONLY
USE IT FOR URSELF… i only get 3 a month and she gets pissed if more
than 3 people use them so DONT SHARE IT MISTER… i figured u cud
always email me back instead but my email account doesnt even let me
login half the time.. so the bets palce ot chat me is my chat room…

if theres anyone else logged in when u sign in ill boot them out.. but
remember DONT SHARE THIS PASSWORD PLEASE BABE IM BEGGING U.. I TRUST
U… im online most of the day now to try and save money for my move..
also since im in such a huge debt already form my student loan 🙁 I
really thingk we need to chat before i get there and make sure u evern
remember me hahha.. anyways ive rambled on and on now and ur probably
soooo annnoyed with me so ill stop now.. im gonna go start work.. i
really hope u come chat me. it wud make my day and releive a lot of my
stress about the move… REALLY i mean that….anyways once i see u in
insdie ill shoot u myc ell number and u can gimme yours.. if u dont

wanna come chat i understand but its really the only palce to find me
now days.. if u email me abck ill probably get it once i get there
after my internet is setup so about 2-3 weeks fomr now.. but im hopign
to see u in my chat room.. rmemeber its 100% free with this code im
gonna give u.. just DONT GIVE IT OUT OR ILL KICK U IN THE BALLS
INSTEAD OF LICK U IN THE BALLS WHEN IS EE U hahahahha…k babe im out
for now… chat ya soon.. kisses xoxo Capri

[Student loans, eh?  What in the hell was s/he taught in college?  Apparently it wasn’t how to spell.  That was also the longest ass SPAM email I have ever read in my life.]

While this sounds a little dullsville…it’s actually not.  I actually forced myself to NOT spend money today.  Here are some things I did that actually just goes right along with my lifestyle.

1.  Brought My Meals To Work.  On Sunday, I decided to cook…and I cooked up a lot of meals.  I roasted a ham I picked up from Target on Saturday, and made my favorite vegetarian tortilla soup.  Mashed potatoes?  Why, yes, I did.  Green split pea soup?  Why not.  I decided to just make all of my meals, including prepping all of my smoothies to take to the office.  This is a savings between $5-$15 per day.

The last time I got a ham, I didn’t know how I would get through all of it.  Lesson learned…FREEZE the ham.  That means I don’t have to have ham in every single meal for the next month!  Freezing it means I can have ham for the next 3 months. 

I threw in ham into my pasta salad for work today, threw all the fatty, juicy bits into the split pea soup.  I put the vegetarian tortilla soup, as well as the leftover gravy and fruit used to sweeten the ham, into canning jars.  The gravy came in handy for the mashed potatoes!  It will also come in handy for other recipes I create this week. 

Sometimes I forget just how much I enjoy cooking and creating recipes (or even stirring up one from the 1950s like the country baked ham recipe I did over the weekend).  I get lazy and just order out all of the time.  Now, I’m just trying to make sure I don’t do that as much anymore.

[BONUS: Happiness factor in doing something I enjoy doing.]

2. Earned Miles.  Nope, you don’t always have to board a plane to earn miles.  Just by spending 5 minutes a week taking little surveys, I earn 5 miles per survey at www.e-miles.com.  Today, I deposited 500 miles into my United Airlines frequent flyer account.  Trust me, the miles add up rather quickly.  I am usually able to take a free flight once a year with all of the miles I build up.  Cost to me…just 5 minutes of my time to earn FREE miles.  You can sign-up for FREE at e-miles to start earning miles.  Each survey earns you 5 miles.  

Sometimes, I’ll up the miles by donating to a charity they list.  It’ll boost my miles by 250-1000 miles.  It’s cheaper than flying to get those miles.   

[BONUS: Get to spend fraction of my time to earn miles towards free travel.]

3. Got 2 magazine subscriptions.  I got two free 1-year magazine subscriptions today for Martha Stewart Living and her clean living magazine called WHOLE LIVING.  How did I do it?  I cashed in some rewards points from RecycleBank. 

Like e-miles, you can earn reward points for learning how you can become more eco-friendly.  It takes maybe 5-15 minutes of your time a week to take a few surveys.  You can earn reward points to use towards coupons or even magazine subscriptions. 

[BONUS: Get free stuff I like for a few minutes of my time a week.]

3.  Opened Up A Money Market Account.  This is something I should have done a long time ago…open up a money market account. 

After filing my taxes last week, I have been trying to figure out how to use the refund wisely.  I was starting to get nervous as I looked at my bills, the cost for plane tickets to Venice, Italy, and the cost of my trip to Morocco.  It’s enough to make me faint!  And then I just opened up a money market account and all of the stress went away. 

I’m dumping the majority of the refund (minus a few bills and plane tix) into the account and then I’m just going to start investing the money.  Sure, this may be high risk for some, but not if you invest the way that I do.  I’ve had a lot of good luck investing over the years.  If a guy on Wall Street laughs at my stock decision…I know to invest, because then my portfolio comes out at 300%+ in returns.  It happens every single time. 

[BONUS: Ease of money worries, because I’m making more money off of my money.]

4.  Did My Research.  Before I even opened up my money market account, I was reading Zero Passive Income.  I always find his blog to be very inspiring.  He thinks like a go-getter who is working on his wealth…and you know what?  He’s just an average guy just like you and me.  He’s found ways to build his wealth.

Things don’t happen overnight when it comes to making your millions.  It’s a slow and steady climb…and he shows us how he’s doing it.  There are setbacks and bad investments…then there are the investments that earn nothing at first, but then slowly begins to build. 

You start to learn about residual income and how you can make a little extra money each month through things like AdSense. 

Just recently, he’s explained how a couple of internet sites allow you to loan money to people all over the world for only $25.  These loans allow needy business owners to help build their businesses.  [See Kiva.org]  This not-for-profit is working towards eradicating poverty all over the world by helping people with small business loans funded by people like you and me.

What is it that Russell Simmons says all of the time?  Help others grow their wealth, and your wealth will also grow.

One of my favorite things about his site?  The spiritual lessons he shares…those are great lessons to live by.  One of his most recent lessons was about giving…and being grateful that you actually have something to give and share with the world (and not think how giving will cost you).

[BONUS: Knowledge is power.  Learn something new every day about the things that are important to you…and always read at least 1 or 2 things that will empower your soul.  Knowledge is PRICELESS.] 

5.  Read a book.  Oh, this one is probably the most important one.  My friend and I have a little bit of an addiction to young adult books.  If we actually bought every single book we read…we’d be out by about $500-$1000.  That’s how much we read all of these different book series.  

Thank goodness for interlibrary loan!  If my library doesn’t have the next FableHaven, then another library in the county will have it.  All I have to do is order it online with my library card.  My library emails me when it arrives and I have a free book to read.  

My library also serves as my DVD rental place too.  I can get the latest DVD (barring no one has it checked out) for free.  Gone are the days of Netflix, Blockbuster and every other DVD rental place that charges you money to borrow their DVDs.  

[BONUS: Why pay for something I can get for free elsewhere?]

6. Still Did Not Join a Gym.  🙂 Ok…really, I have a legitimate doctor’s excuse that I’m not allowed to join a gym.  But just because I have an excuse, doesn’t mean that I listen to the doctors all of the time…I just take it easy.

Thanks to one of my bosses who is friends with Rodney Yee (owner of Gaiam), Rodney gave me a free copy of my favorite Yoga Abs video (it was renamed when they put it on DVD and I didn’t know which one it was.  Rodney knew so he dug through and found it for me and gave it to me as a gift).  That DVD is a godsend!  I use it in the morning and it alleviates all of the pain in my back (plus, it makes my abs hurt like a sonofabitch for the next three days). 

I found that my library also has a lot of workout videos that I can checkout…BUT the best way to get out of ever joining a gym?  Running.  It’s free.  You just need a good pair of running shoes which you will have to buy a new pair after every 500 miles (or 6 months). 

Weights?  Do situps and push-ups. 

You get the basics in yoga, pilates and tai chi down…you can do them at home for free for flexibility and core training.  You don’t always need a machine to workout. 

[BONUS: Working out for free equals a healthier life and no extra bill to pay…more money to use elsewhere.]

7. I Cleaned Out My Closet.  You won’t even be able to believe how much space I’ve got in my closet now!  I did the first run through last night and this morning.  It’s now divided up into two groups…stuff to be resold and the stuff going to charity.

It’s actually nice to declutter my closet and get all of those super heavy sweaters out of there.  I was running out of room!  It was actually a great way to reassess the person I want to be going into the spring/summer months and the stuff I’m ready to let go of. 

This is where the spiritual lesson of the day comes in…my meditation mantras right now are: To Heal and To Change.  Those are the two mantras I keep repeating to myself.  The discussion at the time was at a much higher level on what they both meant…but at a more physical level, it means a lot.  They are the building blocks to approaching all walks of life.

From broken hearts to trying to understand why things are the way that they are in every spectrum…as long as I focus on healing what is wrong…the next step is to change myself for the better…to learn from each and every thing that I feel is hurting me. 

That’s the point of this whole post…not spending money.  Each aspect focuses on things about me that I needed to heal and to change.  In the first item, it was about not being lazy and focusing on doing something I know I love doing…cooking.  How soon I can forget that I can make the most amazing meals that is good for my body (and I know what’s going into it).  Healing my body means making the extra effort to take care of myself…and save money by not spending close to $1000 a month in dining out, but by curbing my spending and doing something I love even more…nurturing me by doing something I love to do.  It’s food for the soul.

In the second item, I love to travel.  I have a lot of trips coming up and hate spending money on plane tickets to places I’d rather not go.  Building up miles actually helps relieve that stress involved with booking airline tickets to a place I have to go to (and can’t stand)…just by building up miles to pay for the damn thing.  The point is…it’s less stress on my psyche.

The third item was doing something smart with my finances.  I’ve put off doing this simple little task for years.  I finally made myself do something good for my finances.  It heals an aspect that I always disliked about how I managed my account.  This created change in my financial house of cards.

In the fourth item, I got inspiration that what I was doing in the third item was the wise step.  It gave me good tidbits for the soul when it comes to money…and that’s something I was sorely lacking.  It healed that aspect of conflict in my soul when it came to money…and it will help lead the way in my next venture with money.  It’s a lesson to be learned when I keep hearing in my head that I need to give 40% of my earnings back to the world.  That is real sacrifice…but I should be thankful that I have something like that to give to the world…it’s not a sacrifice, it’s a gift.

In the fifth item, it is a constant reminder that I do have flaws in my life…entertainment being one of them (I am an American, after all).  I have to keep reminding myself that I don’t have to pay to be entertained.  I can just pick up a book and read.  I have a massive library at home that is starting to rival my own public library.  If I want something new…I can get it for free.  If I didn’t monitor spending in this category, I would end up spending a good $500 every month on entertainment (DVDs, books, going out, etc.).  I can get this stuff for free!  To heal this flaw is to change the mindset to think constantly…never pay for something that you can get for free.

In the sixth item, it’s a reminder that I have all of the tools to workout…so I should.  I know my limitations.  Practice makes perfect…and healing the body takes time.  It’s a slow and steady practice that will one day heal the soul.  It takes change within the mind to make a consistent effort to workout…even when the doctor is saying…”No, not this month…we’ll try again next month.”  Sometimes it just takes one slow step into change in order to finally get back on track.

In the last item…it’s all about changing the way I live.  Emptying out the closets is actually the first step in my remodel.  It’s about decluttering my life.  It all starts with what’s around you and getting rid of it.  You don’t need it.  You don’t need to hold onto it, because it’s not making you any happier. 

I have a lot of new home decorating things coming in…but it’s to change the way things look around me…to give it a fresher and crisper look…but if I see clutter or too much stuff…I am starting to think…it’s just too much.  That’s why I’m not spending money.  I’m focusing on what I’d rather be spending my money on…like a fabulous trip to Italy and Morocco for my birthday.

I’d rather spend more money on the experience than shopping.  I requested that little to no shopping take place in Morocco.  I’m just happy having my camera with me.  Those are my souveniers when I travel. 

Sometimes you just have to keep going and going and going until your gut splits before you’ll stop.  That’s what’s happened to me and shopping.  I don’t want to spend anymore money on things I don’t need (or that horrible moment when you pull something out of your closet and realized you didn’t know you owned it). 

This is how I’m healing…and then I’m changing.  The first step is always looking to see what needs to be healed.  After you heal, that is when you change. 

Changing the world and healing it…it all begins with yourself. 

Today’s post is an inspirational one.

I was wondering when my magical karmic ride would start to fall.  Sometimes when things seem too good to be true, you’re always waiting for that fall.  I’ve been waiting for four years for that fall…and it finally came.

I keep thinking about how I used up all of that good karma I had banked up and wasted it on something I regret having wasted it on.  In a way, it’s like a reflection of my life and how I bank up so many things and then waste it on something I don’t even need or want…or means nothing in the end.

I keep thinking about how I have to rebuild that good karmic balance again and never stop at banking up all of those good deeds.  In other words, I don’t ever plan on spending what I banked up ever again.  Why?  Because I’ve learned that when you save up for a dream your entire life, sometimes when that dream arrives…it’s not what you wanted after all.  You realize that the dream never changed…you have changed. 

Coming down from my four year high on the universe, I got served with papers saying that I’m now the Republican Party’s material witness for something that took place 8-10 years ago…and the trial starts right around the time of my vacation.  I started having dreams about the people I’ve left behind…the people you just want to shake and say, “You are so stupid when it comes to love!”  I started getting wedding invitations from friends I left behind.  I became confronted with my past…a world I never wanted to see again, let alone make it part of my present.

As I look across the ocean from the East Coast to the world that lies beyond, I realize that I can’t keep running from my past.  I have to face it head on.  While I could tell the Republican Party to f*ck off…I decided that I would help them with their litigation.  Why?  Because of what the case is really about.  After all, the Republican Party was so kind to me for years…even though they knew I was not a Republican.  I only wish the Democratic Party had been as kind to me as the Republicans were.  How could I smack them in their face when they had never done anything wrong to me but only shown me kindness?  I’ll have to become their material witness and see my name splattered across newspapers all across America. 

Sometimes, even though you are in conflict with doing something you do not want to do, you still have to choose to do the right action.  That is for the benefit of everyone.  You have to sacrifice yourself for the betterment of society.  You have to take your self out of what you want in order to help the multitudes.

You have to learn how to create the world you want to see around you. 

Since I decided to forego love, romance and marriage, that means that I am ready to completely take on a new role in life.  I had to keep revisiting the past, thinking it over and what had happened…what kept happening…I had to see my life from outside of the box to realize…everything is always the same.  It never changes.  Tragedy always creates the best love stories.  Ironically, tragedy is the story in all of my love stories.  Thank God I’m a writer, right? 

I had to see my world from the outside.  While I wanted to give blessings to the world of joy, happiness, peace and love, God asked me how I could give those blessings to others when I didn’t have it within myself.  What I thought was joy, happiness, peace and love…just is not so.  I don’t have any of those things anymore.

I had to ask when was the last time I did anything good for someone that wasn’t me.  I actually couldn’t even come up with one example.

The things that once brought me joy, happiness, peace and love…they don’t anymore. 

I had to ask myself a lot of questions, including that whole “Are you depressed?”  “Are you stressed about something?”  “What are you doing wrong in your life?”

About a decade ago, I discovered that when I shop to no end…until it actually hurts me…that means that I’m depressed.  These days, it means that I’m really upset about something. 

I stop eating.  I start stressing.  I can’t sleep at night and end up watching cartoons for most of the night.  I slowly start to see everything spin out of control…because I’m hitting rock bottom.

It’s that fall that MUST happen before you can change your entire world and trade it in for something greater than you could ever imagine.  People that aspire to greatness MUST fall in order to change the world.  Paulo Coelho said that a person must fall 7 times in order to reach that greatness…with each fall, comes greater things…and they’re even better than the last.

So the next great climb for me…it’s what I call the New Heaven.  I knew that while I was in Morocco, experiencing something very spiritual and very magical, that the end of my old life (as a hockey writer) would come to an end and a new life would emerge.

I saw the great things that would happen, but I also envisioned a New Heaven…a new Garden of Eden.  I could see how amazing this place could become.  Why?  Because I could feel God everywhere.  It was as if I was walking inside God’s heaven on earth.  It’s talked about at the end of Revelations…the time when God will create a new heaven on a new earth.  It talks of how this new place would appear where the sea had dried up.  Morocco is the sea that dried up. 

The people there talk about how one day water will flow through the desert again.  They all speak about it as if it is a prophecy from God that they all know will one day come true.  They have faith that it will come true.  That is the destiny/fate of Morocco. 

I felt like I had finally come home when I was in Morocco.  I could feel God everywhere.  I could see God in the people there.  I could feel him in the wind and in every grain of sand.  God was in Morocco.  The telltale sign that he was truly there…it happened in Marrakech. 

While I could relay to you what happened, you would think it couldn’t happen.  All I can say is that the men in Morocco…the way they describe me to each other, they say “She’s special.”  They mean this in the God sense, not in a man/woman sense.  When I started speaking and understanding Arabic…quoting items from out of their Holy Book that I had never read before so that they could understand how they could best respond to a situation…they knew that I was different.

While they tried to suggest becoming Muslim, I actually had to look at them and say…”I will read your great book.  I will learn from it.  But you have to understand that I have evolved beyond this.”

I know Chrisitans mock Muslims in their faith.  I don’t know why.  Muslims are better Christians.  They are stricter in their faith with God than Christians.  There are still items that are left in the stone age, but over time, they will evolve.  Sometimes it takes a miracle and someone so different to help a person understand God in ways they never imagined they could. 

Morocco was a learning experience.  It was like receiving my orders on where I was heading next…and what I would be committing myself to doing next.  My job now is to create a new heaven on earth and that all starts by creating that new heaven within me.

You cannot bring forth happiness, joy, peace and love into the world when you do not have it within you.  If you want the world to be filled with those things, you have to first be filled with those things…and then share it with the world. 

How do you find those qualities?  Through a lot of meditation, doing great service to God (aka performing good karmic actions), and doing things that can shape the world in those good karmic actions.  You have to be in practice all of the time.  Good thoughts. Good actions.  Good karma.

You have to think beyond just the initial act.  You have to think of how your one action can shape the world.  When you give, make sure you give to the world in a way that will continue the good blessings into the world.  It’s like the pay it forward concept…you do one good deed, make sure that good deed will inspire others to do good with that deed, and inspire others to do more good deeds and so on.  That is the power of good karma…that also means that you have to discern which karmic action will have the biggest kick into the world.

If you want to live in heaven right now, you have to start NOW, and you start by looking within.  What always determines your way into heaven are the actions you commit in this lifetime.  If you hurt someone or do something bad, you will have to answer to everything.  You will have to do so in life, as well as at the end. 

Just imagine if you spent this life focused only on doing good and sharing that good with everyone around you…it is simpler to answer to the good that you did in life rather than the bad.  Be mindful of your actions, your words, and your thoughts.  Changing the world begins with how you think, how you react, and what you ultimately end up doing.

As my first task in how things change, I have to look within.  I have to work on bringing myself back into that world of joy, happiness, peace and love.  I have to think about doing that for myself first, so that I can actualy share those blessings with the world.  As Christians say, “Let them see God shining through you.”

A Christian once asked me if I was Christian because every time she looked at me, she said that she could see God shining right through me…and all she wanted was to get to that place…where God is.  She asked me how it was possible.  I told her, “Stop being a Christian.” 

Of course, she did not like what I had to say after that.  Moral of the story is that you should never ask questions if you are not prepared for the answers. 

People have this fear of being wrong about what they believe in.  They choose blind faith rather than search for the answers.  When Christians and Muslims alike talk to me about God, they usually are taken aback because I won’t say where I learned what I know.  They simply either say they don’t understand…and then come back to me later to tell me that now they understand what I was saying.  One friend told me that I was on a much higher plane than he was…he was just trying to get to that point and understand God the way that I do.

Muslims have said the same to me.  The way I tell them to approach a situation is not only in agreement with their holy book, but it is also at a much higher plane than Islam.  But they will tell you as simply as the Christians do…this is God’s way of handling things.  It is the evolved way of thinking.

That is what we should all aim to be…evolved in God’s eyes.  Religion does not work.  People need it for whatever reasons…but there are some of us that look at people and say…I don’t understand the conflict.  Why are you conflicted between doing right and wrong?  If you know it is wrong, and against God’s will, why would you do it?  You only do right.

Sure, mistakes can be made.  But to make a conscious decision to hurt others or do wrong…just because you want to have fun…for some people there is no logic behind it.  All we see is how much pain you not only inflicted upon yourself but onto others as well.  That was your choice that you will spend eternity answering to that decision.

In my meditation last night, I was standing in a hallway speaking to God.  Other angels were around us trying to talk to me about the things happening around me.  I looked to the angel coming by on the right side of God and our eyes met.  He was with others and was talking to them.  He acknowledged me, and I looked away. 

God felt the tension building, so he took me away from that scene and pulled me into a secret garden.  He decided to talk to me first before allowing me to speak to that angel. 

I know who that angel was.  The last time he appeared in a meditation, he was angry with me.  He yelled at me and asked me why I was not done with “them” yet.  Why hadn’t I come home yet?  Why did I love humanity so much?  Why did I willingly choose humanity over heaven?  It made no sense to him. 

I could only respond, “My job is not done yet.” 

This is something that has been said in many dreams and many meditations all throughout my life.  I’ve had to answer to these questions in many dreams.  My answer is always the same.  My job is not done yet.

Even when I was shown why I was even in this lifetime to begin with, I remember walking with all of the souls that were heading towards the gates.  An angel saw me walking with the masses and called for me to come over, saying that he had been looking for me. 

I recognized him as a good friend.  Someone I had known for a long time.  He told me to get on the boat.  He said that God wanted me to take the long way back up to make sure that I was truly done with humanity.  He said that God wanted me to make sure that I was completely done. 

He then said, “He’s waiting for you up there.  Whatever you do, don’t get off the boat.”

I swore to him I would not get off the boat, because I knew he was talking about that angel.

The boat passed by man fighting man…killing each other for some dumb reason or another.  I did not get off the boat.

I saw a child crying, dying of hunger.  There are nations that have plenty, but they will not give to those who have nothing.  If man does not care, why should I?  I did not get off the boat.

Next, I saw a group of men on the shores.  I called to the one…one I have known for many lifetimes.  I yelled to him, “What are you doing?”  I scooted over in my seat and patted it.  I told him he should not be there.  He should be with me, on our way to heaven.  He had to get onto the boat.

He shook his head, no.

I asked him why.

He responded, “Don’t you understand?  My work here is not done, yet.”

He reached out his hand to me…and I took his hand and got off the boat.  You could hear a scream, “NO!” from the heavens above…and I was reborn.

That is why that angel has been so mad.  Even my brother has seen him in his own dreams fussing over why I chose to remain here.  Why was I not done with humanity yet?  Oddly enough, when my brother told me of the dream he said, “I didn’t understand why you came back.  Why would you choose earth over heaven?  Better yet, why would you choose hell over heaven?”

I responded to him, “Simple.  My job is not done.”

It was seeing that angel again in my meditation that I realized that the reason why so many things are the way that they are in this lifetime…he has played his hand in it.  I have to take into account why he is doing those things in order to understand what I have to do next.

I have to make things right so that I will not get off that boat again.  I will not feel compelled to save humanity from itself, because they would have the tools to save themselves.

It starts within each one of us.  We have to learn to change ourselves before we can change the world.  The kind of world I seek is that new heaven I keep seeing each time I think of the new journey I am about to embark upon.  I have to look at the world as if I am creating heaven the way I see it, feel it, experience it and live it.  I have to bring what I see into this world so that we can strive to bring heaven here. 

So if I end up telling you soon that I’m going to plant my garden of Eden…you’ll understand…I have my reasons for doing so.  That is how it all begins.  This is the new journey I’m embarking upon…changing everything in this world, because I know I’m running out of time.

 

 

I think today’s post is really for a friend.  We were talking today about taking chances in life.  We’re both alike…afraid to get stuck in a cage (aka a relationship). 

I have really been thinking about my biggest regret over this last week.  Twelve years ago, when I was around my friend’s age, I was working for one of the top law firms in the country.  It was so famous that when I told my grandfather where I worked, he exclaimed that he knew exactly who I was working for.  He was so proud that I got such a big start so quickly, right out of school, in one of the top firms in the country.  After all, this was the firm that breeded top notch political talent from Prime Ministers to White House staff appointments. 

One day back in 2000, I had just stepped onto an elevator when this guy comes running up and jumps on right as the doors were about to close.  It was just me and him in the elevator. 

I kept looking at him, thinking that this guy was the hottest guy I had ever seen in my life.  I didn’t know who he was or anything.  I just thought he was gorgeous. 

A month later, I discovered what his name was, what he did, better yet…that he was actually on the same floor as me. But at the time, I didn’t think he would ever be interested in me.  I didn’t think I was good enough for a guy like that.

He probably had some hot model girlfriend or something.  He would never be into me.

As the months went by, we’d run into each other randomly on the elevator or near the elevator banks.  I never thought I would have a chance with a guy as gorgeous as that.  Then I started to notice something…he had noticed me, as well.  He remarked one day that he loved my blue dress.  He was so nervous…he actually stuttered. 

When I went home and told my brother about it, he laughed hysterically, because I was wearing a muumuu dress.  I had to laugh too, because why would a guy LOVE that dress? 

Later, he ended up finding out where I worked on his floor and decided to start doing some work with my boss, just so he could start coming by my desk more.  He ended up having to work with me, because he was requesting projects with my boss all of the time. 

One of the other attorneys remarked to me one day that he had taken the metro with my crush and they had started talking about me.  Ends up the crush was mutual (and don’t think that attorney didn’t tell him…”You know she feels the same way.”)

All of this love in the air…and then we moved offices.  I went with my boss to build up the new office, while my crush stayed in the main office.

He would arrange meetings with clients in our Northern Virginia office, just so he could see me {my boss caught on from the start that was what was going on}.  He’d sign up for all of the events that he knew I was hosting. 

One day, at one of the events, we both stuck around for the after party.  I usually headed home before the party, but everyone told me to stick around that night. 

While we were on opposite sides of the room, with a party going on in between us, I looked over at him while he was talking to a new client.  He looked up at me at the same time and said to the client, “Hold on a minute.  I have to do something.  I’ll be right back.” 

He walked across the room, came right up to me and whispered in my ear, “Never in my life have I seen someone look at me the way you just looked at me.”  Then he kissed me.  In front of all of our clients and our office…he kissed me.

That was a move that ended up being talked about for some time, because he was then told that what he did wasn’t wise.  He got into so much trouble for it.  We were at a standstill.  The issue was that we both worked for the same company.  This was frowned upon.  No matter how many people knew that we were in love with each other…this office romance wasn’t kosher to them.

It got to be too much, that I decided this relationship was just too difficult.  I gave up.  I not only left the company, I left Washington, DC altogether. 

He came to the office on my last day there…actually, he spent the entire week there, because I was leaving.  He let me know that if I were to leave, it would mean that I would be leaving him, too.  He had thrown that card on the table…the “Don’t I Mean Something to You?”

At that time in my life, I didn’t know who I was or what I wanted to be.  I just knew I didn’t want to stay in Washington anymore.  I needed to find myself and what I wanted to do in my life.  It was just the wrong time for me.  I needed to find me.  I wasn’t ready for marriage, even though he was (he was 11 years older than me).

I spent three years in Indiana before heading off to New York City. I ended up in NYC, because that’s where the universe ultimately pushed me.  I had shown up in NYC with a broken heart, thanks to the rockstar. 

It wasn’t too long after I arrived that I thought about my old crush.  I was surprised to get a letter not too long after that from one of my old bosses in Washington.  She sent me a card with a note saying, “I thought you might want to know where he is.”  In the note, she included my old crush’s business card. 

He had left the firm right after I did.  The reason?  Just in case I changed my mind, he had developed a way out.  He left the firm so that if I did come back, we wouldn’t be haunted by our old employer.  We would be able to actually make this work.

Thinking that it was a sign from the universe, I sent him a card to let him know that I was in New York.  A few weeks later he sent a letter back to me.  He told me how shocked he was to hear from me.  He was happy to get the letter, but was sad to report that he had waited 6 months for me to come back.  I never came back.  He thought that I was never going to come back, so he married someone else and their first child was on the way.

I was gone 3 years…so I guess I should have expected something like that, right?  He was ready to get married at the time.  I just wasn’t. 

I haven’t thought much about him since that letter, but last week, while I was writing and working through the book, I had this dream about my old crush.  I kept thinking…wow…was that ever a regret.  He was the first love that I ever ran away from.

My curiousity got the better of me, so I decided to look him up (maybe he was divorced or something and we could try again).  Imagine my surprise that this Harvard graduate who graduated with the highest honors was now working for one of the top banks in the world (in a very high position), was teaching at an Ivy League school, and was still jetsetting all over the world.

His kids?  Oh, he had two…and shocker…the kids are named after the Kennedys. 

He’s still friggin perfect today as he was back then.  In a sense, he’s still everything I turned out to be 12 years later.

So if I was going to be a bird trapped in a cage…this is the guy I would have loved to have been trapped in a cage with for the rest of my life.  Why?  Because he doesn’t like being trapped either.  He likes flapping his wings and soaring around the world.  He has recent pictures from his travels to South America, China, and Europe. 

He’s still baking and cooking up a storm (a man that bakes cupcakes…you meet one…don’t ever let him go, ladies).  He’s still climbing mountains and taking photos from the top of the summit.  He’s still biking around DC…and he still makes my heart flutter like he did the first time he jumped onto the same elevator as me all those years ago.

He’s that person you regret never marrying.  You regret it for the rest of your life, because you were too stupid to know that he was what you were looking for…and what you will always be looking for.  You just didn’t know you were looking for him until it’s way too late.

He’s the reason why I decided I wasn’t getting married to the nomad. 

The deciding factor all had to do with those pictures I saw of my old crush from all over the world.  How could I marry someone that I would have a hard time taking out of the friggin desert?  How could I marry someone who didn’t want to travel all over the world, like I did?  How could I marry someone that wasn’t more like myself and wanted to name their kids after the Kennedys?

His family is never in those photos taken from all over the world.  All of the pictures say that they were at home.  It makes me think…if I had chosen him, I would be standing next to him in those photos, and not at home with the kids in Washington.  Why?  Because, like him, I would always want to see the world.

That’s the kind of man that makes you stand still.  You realize that if you’re going to run, he’ll run beside you.  If you have to figure yourself out, he’ll wait (even if it is just 6 months).  If you’re going to be stuck in a cage, you want to be stuck in that cage with him.  And if someone’s going to bake, make sure he makes a damn good cupcake…and will go into the Hello Kitty store and tell you all about the stuff he almost bought for you.

That’s the man you marry, because if you run from him…you’ll regret it for the rest of your life, because he’ll only wait for so long.

So guess who got a chapter in the book?  Apparently, he did.  When he reads it…I really wonder what will happen then.  This law professor and top bank official with a passion for running and jetsetting around the world is going to do what?  Probably nothing. 

You just keep your fingers crossed that if this guy was meant to be, maybe your paths will cross once again and it will be the right time, because you’ll know…don’t run.  Just don’t run.  You’ve learned your lesson.  He’s the one you take a chance with.

OR

You’ll meet someone exactly like him that sends you postcards from all over the world when he’s away for a year.  Question is…are you still so stupid that you don’t notice it’s what you’ve been looking for all over again?  Do you feel de ja vu?  Because apparently in NYC…I may have just described someone here that’s just like my old crush in every single way.

Have you ever seen Crazy, Stupid, Love?  I didn’t really know what the movie was about when I sat down to watch it over the weekend.  There were so many story lines that all ended up converging at the end to talk about one central story…the one true love…and whether it existed.

Sometimes you discover that love at a young age.  Sometimes you meet them in high school.  Sometimes you’re just going through life, thinking love was all a joke…and then it happens to you.  You meet that one true love.

The way Steve Carell described it at the end, actually had me in tears.  Sometimes you’ll find that one true love, marry them, have a family with them…and then you end up breaking up.  But if that’s your soulmate…you fight for them, because you’ve loved them every single day of your life since you found them.

I wanted to throw my pillow at the TV screen and ask, “Well, what happens when the soulmate commits suicide when you’re still just teenagers?  What do you do after that?” 

Yep, I was upset about that.  I mean…I was really upset.  I was huffing and puffing and cursing under my breath for the next couple of hours.  Then I saw my horoscope show up in my inbox a few hours later and it said not to take any relationship advice that day, because whoever was giving it to me that day was not right.  {Just love how that horoscope is always so dead on.}

It wasn’t until 24 hours later that I started to think about that 13 year old that was in love with his 17 year old babysitter.  He was convinced that she was his one true love…no matter how many times she resisted him because she was in love with someone else (she had a huge crush on his dad).

The youth thing really came into play on why she was not interested in this 13 year old boy.

I don’t know why I thought of that story the next day, but it reminded me of something I saw last week. 

I was standing in a room with a bunch of other people, when this guy (that I’ve had some problems with) walked into the next room.  He paused at the doorway to look at me through the mirror reflecting back into the room.  I looked up and saw him looking at me…and then I saw how I had shattered him.  I had really shattered his heart. 

I looked away, because I still feel like he had no right to feel that ‘in love’ with me to begin with.  Then again, I had to question what it is that makes people feel that strongly about someone else, especially when the other person just doesn’t feel the same way. 

What can easily be pushed aside as just a crush…to that person, it’s more than that…especially when they’re not getting over it.

Is it like that 13 year old boy that was convinced that one day that girl was going to love him?  Or is it like me (in present day) who looks at a similar situation I am in and sees that it has become dangerous? He’s crossed the line into a territory where the law could come down on him if he didn’t stop.

Part of me wants to believe that there’s only one true love in this lifetime.  The other part of me says it’s not true, because I’ve loved more than one person in this lifetime and I’ve connected with more than just one person in this lifetime.

Sure, I miss my soulmate like crazy, each and every single day.  I love him today like I loved him then…but there’s a finality in the moment.  He is not here to have or to hold.  Till death did we part. 

Kevin is actually the reason why I never married and never had children.  No one was ever good enough.  If I came close to that life, I backed away…NO…let me rephrase that…I RAN LIKE A BAT OUT OF HELL. 

If a guy looked at me like he knew I was the one…he got shutdown left and right.  Why?  He wasn’t Kevin. 

There’s probably some psychological mumbo jumbo in there somewhere where I run because I have a fear of falling in love and losing someone in the most horrific way (aka suicide) and then I’m left all alone again.  So I’d rather choose to be alone than to deal with someone forcing the universe’s hand and making me live my life out alone anyway.  With this option, I have control over the situation, unlike before. 

See…I can psychoanalyze this.  In truth, I have been psychoanalyzing my life in love since I started writing about Morocco and how I normally would rather choose to be alone than to be in love. 

When you’ve spent half of your life in love with someone you can’t hold or touch, especially when this person was your soulmate, you can’t bring yourself to love or fall in love with someone who isn’t that soulmate. 

I’ve spent most of this lifetime post-Kevin searching for that same connection I had with him.  I met people that I knew from past lifetimes…they had already married someone else and had a family.  There were others that you love…but it never works out no matter how many lifetimes you try this over and over again.  Then you meet someone new and you feel that same connection you once felt, and maybe it’s a little stronger…but then you feel that urge to run again…to be alone.

As the days start to get closer and closer to my departure date, I’m thinking about running again.  This guy would have to chase me down in order to stop me, instead of letting the universe do its will.  I’ve been strongly considering other territories like Prague or France…or maybe even the northernmost tip of Morocco where it’s only a 20 minute boat ride to Spain.

Part of  me wants to be in New York, the other part…far, far away.  So I resolved to finish the book, publish it, and then see where life floated me after that. 

I keep thinking about the true lesson I learned while in Morocco.  I dont’ think it was the fact that I fell for some random guy…I think it was that I had the capability of loving again.  What had been shattered inside had now been made whole.  If that means I’m getting married…well, I may change my mind come July, but part of me says that I’m okay with not ever getting married. 

Something inside me has changed over these past few months.  Driss had this feeling when we spoke about Hamid that I would end up changing my mind about marriage.  He told me that it was up to me to decide if I would marry the nomad or not.  If I chose not to get married, there were alternatives for me in his country…but to make my life easier, he suggested marriage to a Moroccan man would make my stay easier…especially if I decided to adopt.

There are so many choices being laid out before me, but I feel like I don’t want to be confined to just one home or one country.  Maybe I want to keep a home in NY and another in Morocco and another in France, Prague and Italy.  Maybe I want to cover international hockey for a little while.  Maybe I want to live in Paris for a few months or a few years.  Maybe I want to keep a place in NY for when I miss seeing the Devils or the Rangers play.  And maybe I want to keep a place in Prague, because I love the damn place and the people there. 

Maybe I feel confined in New York City right now and don’t want to feel this way anymore. 

And then out of all of this soul searching and questioning what in the hell I want to do in this next adventure…something inside of me remembers an old flame from 12 years ago.  I actually went and did something I never do…I Facebook stalked him today.  I was curious to know what happened to him. 

When I first moved to NYC, I sent him a card to let him know I was in NYC…just in case he wanted to start things up again.  He wrote me back and told me that he had decided that he couldn’t wait for me anymore (he thought I was never coming back) so he got married.  At the time, he was expecting his first child.  He now has two…a boy and a girl.

I looked through his photos…they’re from all over the world.  From South America to the Great Wall of China…he was still traveling all over the world, and keeping down the fort with a family back in Washington, DC.  I swear he’s still as perfect today as he was back then.  Why did I never marry this guy? 

He’s the first guy I ran away from.  He’s also my biggest regret, because he is actually the one I let get away.  After his letter to me telling me that he had married, I thought that maybe I had learned a lesson in all of this…don’t run again…not when it’s love…not when he’s absolutely perfect in every single way.  I mean…looking at his picture now, with his gray hair and all…he still makes my heart flutter like he did the first time he jumped onto the same elevator as me.

He wasn’t a soulmate…no, that was Kevin.  This guy was just Mr. Perfect for me.  What’s after that?  Mr. Right?  The ONE?  At this point, I don’t care.  I think I’ve made my decision…I’m not getting married.

I guess in July if anything were to change my mind, it’s like I said, he would have to chase me down and stop me from running…then he’ll understand the term…”Running to Stand Still.”

As I’ve been preparing for my trip back to Morocco, I have been wondering what I should bring back with me after I meet with business owners all across the country to bring a little bit of Morocco back to the US for all of you. 

Sure, there’s the argan oil, the rose factories, the textiles businesses, the pottery factories…what should I introduce to all of you?

Well, West Elm has started to bring back Marrakech to their shoppers.

When I got the catalog last week, I was so happy to see that West Elm had brought Morocco to its customers.  As I read through the new collection, I was disappointed.  Why?  They brought back Marrakech…and I don’t like Marrakech. 

I don’t like it at all.  I made sure to tell my tour company to make sure there is absolutely NO STOP in Marrakech.  That’s how much I don’t like it.

There are certain items that West Elm has made available that I plan on buying from them instead of lugging it back from Morocco…like their metal trays.  I love these large metal trays.  They’re elaborate and beautiful…and one of the things I loved about the breakfast and dinner service that I received there.

As for the rugs…they are all very beautiful.  BUT…if they had gone to Fes, they would have gotten a more interesting story behind certain Berber rugs.  I am partial to the Berber rugs because Berber women are the ones who make the rugs.  When they are sold, the sale of the rugs goes directly to the women who made them.  Most of these women live in a commune.  They are either widowers, divorcees, or victims of domestic abuse.  The sale of the rugs go to help these women. 

If the Marrakech Berber rugs help these same types of women…I’m all for it, but the patterns and style of rug…I’m not so sure.  Mine were designed by a different tribe.

The Berber rug I purchased was a small 2×3 rug, but it’s one of my most prized purchases from Fes, Morocco.  It’s so prized…my cat won’t leave it alone.  She has claimed it as hers.  She loves that rug so much and has since I unfolded it and put it on the floor.  The other rugs I’ve purchased from the States…oh, she doesn’t even bother with them.  The Berber rug…let’s just say she’s sold on moving to Morocco.

If the women benefit from the sale of these rugs…they really should advertise that, instead of the artisans thing.  I’m all for supporting the artisans, but there’s also another story involving women that live in communes.

As for the poufs…I like that they chose the fabric design of the poufs.  BUT…a visit to the tanneries in Fes would have netted them the more popular poufs that everyone wants these days and are lamenting that they have to pay an arm and a leg for it.  Another difference here is that their poufs come pre-stuffed.  I don’t recommend this at all for people investing in poufs.  Why?  Because, you should be able to use your poufs as extra storage…and that’s what they should be sold as…a form of extra storage.

I stuffed my seasonal wardrobe into the 2 poufs I bought.  It’s a great way to store clothes, blankets, etc. AND have extra seating to boot. 

It would actually save West Elm in shipping charges AND stuffing charges if they sold the outer part of the pouf only.

Part of me likes the new Moroccan look from West Elm, and the other part of me kind of makes me feel like the Moroccan men feel when Lonely Planet comes through to do their reviews.  The writers don’t take the time to really get to know their culture…to ask the right questions.  They walk up, write it up as if they were there, instead of diving into what the locals know in order to generate a true story of that place or region.  Then, when the Moroccan men read what Lonely Planet had to write about them…it’s this little one or two line thing that is so ‘on the surface’ of what the experience really was all about.  It’s like the person didn’t even care to show Morocco in the real light.

That’s kind of how I feel about West Elm’s collection.  They only curated items from Marrakech. 

If they had made it up to Fes, they would have found all new wonders that put Marrakech to shame.  If they had made it out to the Sahara Desert towns, they would have found fossilized furniture, trinkets for the home and more…all from the days when the Sahara Desert was part of the ocean.  These fossils are so amazing…mined from the earth with sea creatures bigger than any you have ever seen in your life…and they turn these fossils into household goods.

If they had visited the textile businesses, they could have watched them make silk blankets, curtains, and much more…all by hand.  We’re talking top notch and incredible beauty…at an amazing price in all of the colors of the rainbow (my blue silk blanket is so beautiful…it even has purple velvet sewn in).

If they had visited the potters…they could have found a whole world of pottery and tiles in an array of colors all made by hand…that would truly be the spirit of bringing back that part of Morocco that gives the beauty within their architecture so much notoriety.

There are even the wood carvers that create elaborate jewelry boxes.  There are the other metalsmiths that have silver teapots and Moroccan glasses for the mint tea that Arab countries are so famous for.  And what about the Moroccan lamps?  How does one forget to bring those back to America? 

If West Elm wants to go with me on my next trip in July, I’ll show them the Morocco that should be brought back to their customers.  Or…maybe I’ll just start my own store.

If you’re not a member of Birchbox, you really should become a member.  For $10 a month, they’ll send you a surprise package filled with deluxe samples of new items that you can try out.  If you like what they’ve sent, you can purchase the items online.

I have very sensitive skin.  As my friends say, my skin is more sensitive than most normal people with sensitive skin.  So I’m always a bit cautious trying anything on my face that isn’t for sensitive skin.  Luckily, Birchbox gives you the option of ordering boxes that are for people with extremely sensitive skin.  That means that what they send to you…it’s okay to use.

With all of the samples I’ve received from Birchbox and Influenster, it’s taken me a few months to really try out their products, because I’ve been so busy traveling and haven’t had a ME day in a while.  Luckily, I found some time over the last few weeks and here are the products that are on my…WOW! list.  As in…this was the stuff that I plan on making a part of my regular beauty regimine.

1.  FIX Malibu Immaculate Complexion Smoothing Serum. 

“This clever serum is on our skincare honor roll.  Antioxidant-rich vitamins A, C, and E brighten skin tone and soften wrinkles.  Full-size $125.” —Birchbox

Good luck finding a bottle.  I went online and couldn’t find one for sale.  Why?  Because they’re sold out EVERYWHERE!  Even FIX Malibu’s website is sold out of this product.

Let me tell you why this product is #1 on my list…my face is so smooth right now, it feels like cashmere.  That’s what this stuff will do for your face.  Results are INSTANT. 

Buying a bottle may be expensive, but I assure you…it is worth every single penny.  I just pray that by the time I get through my entire sample, I’ll be able to snag a bottle to get me through the rest of the year.  If not, this will become like my addiction to Dior’s L’Or de Vie.  They literally had to pull it from my hands and tell me that I wasn’t allowed to buy it in the department store!  (Good thing, because that was a $350 a month addiction.)

This product, on the other hand, has done something to my complexion that I never thought possible…it really does liven up your skin to where it feels smooth, minimizes pores, and makes your complexion feel and look like that of an 8 year old child.  Like I said, results are instant.  I’m on day three of this product and it really is turning back the clocks of time.

2.  Orofluido Beauty Elixir.

“This hair treatment taps into a trio of nourishing essential oils (argan, linseed, cyperus) to keep hair smooth and sleek.  Full-size, $29.99.” — Birchbox

All I can say is this baby WORKS!  My hair is super long, but because of health issues, growing older, not being able to get all of my nutrients, my hair has started to become brittle, grays have started to pop up, and at times…become so frizzy and unmanageable that I just give up completely.

I gave this product a shot, because I’ve tried so many in the past and nothing really works except Fekkai (and that’s $25 per bottle).  I applied the oil from the roots to the ends, brushed my hair, ran out the door and realized that the product was working instantly.

Flyaways were under control.  I could literally feel the oil restoring the lustre and shine to my poor hair that I’d given up on.  I kept going to the bathroom throughout the day just to look at my hair.  It was perfect…and I didn’t have to pay $300 to get Japanese straightening to fix it.

I tried the Phyto brand that Sephora gave to me over the weekend (four different treatments)…and that product doesn’t cut it.  Orofluido did.  This hair product is worth the investment.

3.  Algenist Firming & Lifting Cream.

“Turn back the clock with this sophisticated moisturizer, which uses a unique microalgae compound to boost skin’s elasticity. Full-size, $94.” — Birchbox.

After exfoliating with my Clarisonic Skincare system, I’ve been applying the Algenist Firming & Lifting Cream (I had to finally admit my age to myself and that it was time to start using anti-aging creams).  On top of Algenist, I’ve been putting on the FIX Malibu Immaculate Complexion Smoothing Serum. 

At first, I wasn’t sure if it was Algenist or FIX Malibu that was doing the trick…but then I realized that each one is working its own magic.  Together, they’ve started to improve my skin.  Those fine lines are starting to disappear…including the ones around my neck.  After a few days, I’ve noticed that the skin is starting to change…for the better.

For people that have very sensitive skin…this is the first anti-aging cream that doesn’t make me break out into a rash.  This one is actually doing the work without the harsh chemicals in it.

4.  WEI Chinese Rose Foaming Cleanser.

“This satiny cream purifies pores and releases pent-up toxins – you’ll be fresh-faced in no time. Full-size, $32.”  — Birchbox

I can’t even begin to describe how much I love this cleanser.  It really does make your skin feel like satin after using it…almost makes you feel like a china doll after using it. 

After I tried this product, I started reading up on rose water.  There are a lot of women (especially Asian women) that swear that rose water has been their trick to looking young well into their 60s and 70s.  So nice of my mother to not share this vital information with me! 

Along with this product, I do recommend using rose water…but I’ll save you a few pennies by directing you to a recipe that teaches you how to make rose water…a very simple DIY:  How To Make Your Own Rose Water.

OR if you don’t like the DIY variety, I’d like to recommend Moroccan Rose Water. I’ve visited these towns that make Moroccan Rose products.  These products are actually manufactured by women who are divorced, victims of domestic violence or widows.  They go to these co-ops to live, work and co-habitate with women like themselves.  It’s a very beautiful and peaceful place.
Also, a lot of the products I brought back from these co-ops…my friends have sworn by them.

That’s it for this month’s beauty recommendations.  I highly recommend becoming a Birchbox member so that you can get your own deluxe samples to try out for $10 a month.  A lot of the stuff I’ve received has been absolutely FABULOUS!  I’ve been very impressed with everything I’ve tried so far from them…and this is from someone who doesn’t do Sephora or beauty departments very well.  I end up lost or trying out stuff like DIOR…and then realizing it is too harsh for my skin. 

Birchbox takes the store out of the picture and delivers qualitative products to my door each month…and gives me new things to discover that I will absolutely love and incorporate into my skincare regimine.  After all, it really takes the research out of finding the right product for you.  They just deliver it to you.  All you have to do is try it for yourself.  If you love it…then you know what to buy and where to buy it.

I really should not be left to my thoughts…or Orlando Bloom on a day off.  Or maybe I should, because it produced a productive 16 pages in 3 hours for the book I’ve been working on since I got back from Morocco.

I had been a little perplexed over the last few months trying to decide how to start the story…to understand what the premise was really all about…as in…why in the hell I went to Morocco to begin with.

I could go on and on about how God told me to go there and whatever answer I was looking for I would find there.  But then that would mean that I was already on a quest.  I was already on a journey searching for the end of this story.  The question really was…what story was this that I was writing?  What was truly the beginning of this tale that led me to Morocco?  What was I searching for? 

Insert the movie “Elizabethtown” starring Orlando Bloom.  Sure, I’ve seen Bloom in plenty of films before. But there was something about this movie that made me sit up and see him differently.  It was like he was helping me to remember something I had chosen to forget, because the memories (no matter how good) caused a lot of pain.

I started to remember the smell of the caramel apples, popcorn and cotton candy in the air as the ferris wheel turned.  I remembered the sounds of the festival all around me.  I remembered him. 

I remembered falling in love with a carnival in tow.  I remembered talking for hours upon hours on the phone.  I remembered what it felt like to fall in love for the first time.  I remembered the innocence, the smell of his skin, the softness in each touch.  I remembered how his heart beat under the palm of my hand.

That was a time when I could literally say that his heart beat in the palm of my hand.  This was our fairy tale moment, a time when everything was perfect.  It was a time where you could bottle up that moment and put it in a snowglobe, going back to revisit that memory and how beautiful it all was, over and over again.  It was the fervor of first love.

If we knew what lie ahead…I would have stayed in that moment forever.  After all, what was about to happen would push me into a realm that sometimes bordered on insanity and losing it all. [Trust me, there’s a book I started on this exact topic.]

In 1994, that memory of that boy was abruptly hidden away.  He had put a bullet into that heart that I once felt beating in the palm of my hand.  With that, he didn’t just take his life, but he also took part of my soul with him.

I don’t think I’ll ever be able to describe that pain of feeling a part of your soul rip from inside you.  It was the most excrutiating pain I have ever felt, even if it lasted only a second.

I didn’t just lose him that night…I lost a part of myself.

That’s what the journey has been about all of these years…putting myself back together again.  And yes, it took almost 15 years before he restored what he had taken from me.  But even after feeling your soul at 100%, you are still left to heal and to learn to love again.

Watching Orlando in his role in Elizabethtown had me doing double takes all throughout the film.  It was like I was seeing Kevin again and remembering the way we were.  I was remembering why he was so special to me…he was my first soulmate.

Our souls spent those first years intertwining with each other.  Imagine how great that loss was to me.  I didn’t just lose Kevin, he had stolen a part of me when he left.  I spent years feeling half empty.  It took me seven years before I could ask why he killed himself.  Still, to this day, I wish I hadn’t known that his decision was partly based on my decision to leave for Washington, DC to start my life without him.  Then again, I wish he had told me that my decision…compounded with what he was left to face…would ultimately result in losing him forever.

I would have stayed in Indiana and deferred a year to Washington, just to wait for him so we could do this together.  BUT as fate designed it, I would never be afforded that opportunity.  Instead, I would walk this earth for the rest of my life without him.

Dreams changed after his death.  Plans changed.  Life, for me, completely changed.  I had to put myself back together again and it took a very long time for that to happen.

After I finished watching “Elizabethtown,” I was filled with fresh memories of the way things used to be.  It finally gave me incentive to write the beginning of the story the way it was supposed to be written.  We’re starting from the very beginning.

My friend called me while I was warming up my coffee, getting ready to write the beginning of this story.  I had this feeling that she sensed something was stirring within me when I looked down at my phone to see that she was calling.  I didn’t tell her what was running through my mind.  I just told her that I was getting ready to sit down and write.

I went into my office and cleared off my desk.  I thought…I need that card from his funeral…the one with his name on it…talking about purgatory.  Two seconds later, I found it in a huge stack of papers.  I knew this was right…this was how the story had to start.  The universe was saying…this is where you start.

And then I found this quote written down on a sheet of paper:

“If you bring forth what is within you, what you bring forth will save you. If you do not bring forth what is within you, what you do not bring forth will destroy you.”– Jesus, from the Gnostic Book of Thomas

I thought long and hard about that quote.  This was my time to save myself.  I had to talk about Kevin.

I had only started to talk about Kevin right before I left for Morocco.  For the first time since his death, my brother and I sat down to talk about Kevin back in September. 

We talked about the demise of what happened in the family, especially where I was concerned.  He talked about how sick he was of hearing the family speak so ill about me, and it was obvious that they had never spoken to me about the things they claimed they were experts on.

They criticized me for not showing up at my grandfather’s 90th birthday party, not knowing that I spent his birthday talking to him on the phone for hours.  It was his wish that I not come to this party, because it was THEIR party, not his party.  He didn’t want me to know or to hear what they had to say about me.  He had been sitting at enough dinners to know that they spoke so ill about me, he didn’t want me to be hurt.

He asked me to come home when it meant something.  He told me then that he was going to die in three weeks.  He wanted me home then, not before for THEIR party.  I was honoring his wishes.  I just didn’t know what was going on until I arrived and was subsequently told that I was kicked out of the family as my grandfather lay dying in a hospital bed. 

My grandfather knew this was going to happen.  That’s why he structured his Will the way that he did.  He disowned them all…except for me and my brother.  It was his way of letting me and my brother know that we were not alone.  We belonged to him, just as much as we belonged to each other.

My brother didn’t understand what was happening to me over these years.  My grandfather picked up that something in me had changed…and it was because of that boy that died.  He knew it was.

When he tried to get me to talk about it…to say that it was because of Kevin, I couldn’t talk about it.  I couldn’t tell him why I decided to not puruse a career in acting or singing…why I’m not super famous like he knew I would be.  I couldn’t tell him because I couldn’t even admit it to myself.  I wasn’t ready to talk about Kevin.

I spoke to my brother about all of this…and then he said to me that thinking back on everything that had happened over the last 17 years…Kevin explained everything.  He said that he had been watching me his entire life and couldn’t understand why so much of this stuff was happening…why I never married or had children…why I didn’t date…why I just wasn’t interested…  But to talk about Kevin and how I’ve been in love with someone that I can’t even see, touch, talk to, or try to make things work?  It explained everything to him.

It was talking about Kevin right before I headed to Morocco that opened a new doorway to healing.  He was that skeleton in my closet that I kept locked up and guarded.  He was what I hid behind that castle wall I had built up and fortified where no one could enter.

He was the person I couldn’t let go of.

Through meditation, I was able to talk to Kevin one last time.  It was a moment that I will not forget, because he handed back to me what he had stolen from me.  He gave me back that part of my soul that had ripped from me that same moment his heart stopped beating.  When he handed it back to me, he said, “Learn to love again.” 

Easier said than done, right?

Since then, I’ve come to realize that we were letting each other go in that meditation.  Since that moment, I haven’t felt his presence around me.  I don’t feel him anymore, even when I miss him.  He’s not around anymore.  I feel like he was either reborn or found the doorway out of purgatory and into heaven…I don’t know.  I just know he’s not here anymore. 

My soul became whole again…100%, but it still needed to be healed.  There’s a lot of him still left in that other half that was restored.  It took the sand dunes of the Sahara Desert to heal what had been broken inside of me.

That’s what the journey to Morocco has been about…learning to love again.

I’m reminded of the famous bestseller, “Eat, Pray, Love.”  It’s a story of a woman’s journey in Italy, India and Bali…trying to put together what was missing in her life.  She was trying to find herself.

This journey I’ve been on has spanned 20 years of my lifetime.  It all centers around one central character.  His name is Kevin. 

This tale I’m writing will immortalize him.  It’s the least I can do for someone who has been my heart, soul and universe for almost my entire life.  It’s a tale of how when you lose everything, even a part of your soul, you can become whole again.  You can find the way back to yourself again.

Morocco really was the end to that story.  Now, I just have to finish writing it. 

The funny thing about this ending…as I look around my new office, one that I’ve spent all of these months redecorating since I returned from Morocco, I can’t help but feel like I am a little flower just shooting up from the cracks of the pavement, preparing to bloom for the first time this season. 

I feel the dawn of a new age in my life beginning…and it makes me smile that good things are awaiting me on this new adventure.  This is the part of the adventure where my grandfather’s dream for me starts to come true…it all begins by letting go.

[Photo above is a still from the movie “Elizabethtown.”  It reminded me of how Kevin and I shared the world like this together.]