#Reverb/10 Fri. 12/10/10 - - Wisdom

---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: Michelle Medina <michellem86@gmail.com>
Date: Wed, 15 Dec 2010 16:29:25 -0500
Subject: #Reverb/10 Fri. 12/10/10 - - Wisdom
To: michellem86 <michellem86@gmail.com>

December 10th - Wisdom.
What was the wisest decision you made this year, and how
did it play out?_

Hmmm. . . Shall we go for the big or the small? Well, the small that
was actually big! Lol. Ok, we'll go with both!
The first wise decision I made was to come home from the louisiana
training center for the blind at the end of March. I went in on
January 19th. The very shortest version of this story is that it
absolutely didn't fit me. I decided to go because I thought it would
be helpful to me. I genuinely decided to take a chance & hoped for the
best. The best however, was turning around, getting on the plane &
heading home over Easter break never to return! While I was there,
things got so bad I almost killed myself. The utter loneliness &
devistation I felt while there were just bearly rivalled by how I felt
right after my parents marriage collapsed around me. It got to the
point that I was taking Vicodin everyday until I ran out of it not for
pain *which it started out as because of my ankle *we did alot of
walking, ALOT!*, but because I just couldn't stand being over 3,000
miles away from my family*. Vicodin was legal for pain & nobody ever
new I had it, it wasn't like I bragged about it, so I'd take 1, 2,
maybe 3 a day just to feel moderately okay with my situation. Writing
that now I'm not sure how I didn't become addicted. Guess I'll never
know.
However, the decision itself comes down to the fact that a fundraiser
was held for me to get the money to go down there. Needless to say,
the people who held the fundraiser felt like I'd betrayed them. So I
did something I rarely would have done up until that point, when it
involved other people. I decided to do what I had to do for me, their
feelings be damned. If they thought their money was more important
then my life that was up to them, but I was still going to do what was
best for me. I came home & everything was 'the same', but the next
decision I would make would change my life forever.
In May, aprox. a month after coming home, I was visiting ivillage.com.
Their a health & wellness website with all kinds of message boards &
the like. I read some health article, don't even know what it was, &
because I was listening to my speech synthesized program & lying on my
bed, I had to get up to hit the control key to stop it from chattering
on. Literally, in the split second it took me to get from my bed to
the computer, it mentioned a woman by the name of Doctor Lissa Rankin
& a link to a post she wrote for her site OwningPink.com. For whatever
reason, I decided to check it out. Now, I usually just closed out of
whatever story I was reading & carried on with my day, not even
bothering to look at the links below the stories, let alone click on
them! For me, this is epic, simply because I wouldn't have done it 99%
of the time. This was no coincidence, but rather, a completely charted
move that I didn't even know about. I clicked on the link & read her
post, a post about Vaginas' nonetheless!!! Lol. Then I saw the link to
the Pink Posse. A community of women that when I joined had aprox. 550
members. Since then we've grown to over 1,000!! Anyway, finding Lissa
was the best thing in the world that could have happened to me! As I
wrote in my Reverb10 note on Community, we can discuss anything at the
Pink Posse. Vibrators, sex & orgasms to creativity & poetry & family
drama to kids & animals & friends! Nothing is taboo, nothing off
limits, nothing out of bounds! The whole goal of OP & it's related
community is to allow you to be yourself, all the time, 24/7! It's
about being all you all the time! You don't have to check your baggage
at the door or ignore your feelings! Through the Pink Posse I met Amy
my Life Coach & Kimberly my Body Image Coach. I've met Cat & Kat &
Sheena & Shari & Sandra & Debbie & Tracy & Leah & all these other
amazing women who are doing the work to become themselves! To tell &
show the world who they are, to take life by the Ovaries & run with
it!! To be. . . All themselves, all the time!
So the wisdom I've gleaned most this year is about change! Mental
change mostly, but I believe my physical changes are coming down the
pike in 2011! I feel like 2011 will be 'MY YEAR' along with tons of
other women, simply because we're congregating on OP/PP & FB & doing
what we love, inspiring each other! Holding space for each & everyone
of us to be authentic & our true selves! & that extends to communities
on FB like the Awesome Women's Hub!
To the year of Girl Empowerment! & yes, Girl Power! To the year of
empowerment for not just girls & women but men & boys as well! To a
new year of EMPOWERMENT for us all!

--
"Something in the way. . .
Hmmm. . .
Something in the way. . .
Hmmmm. . ."
--Kurt Cobain "Something In The Way"
"Pain? You don't know what pain is!!"--Author Unknown