And yet...

And yet...

I come back.

Eventually.

The writing desire is always there.

And over the past few years, it has been a relentless drive that I have been silently wrestling with inside.

The pressure to 'post' or "show up" online for business purposes and relationship building has constantly wiped out any energy to write.

I only want to write for me.

If it's healing for someone else, that is a bonus.

I don't want to write only to serve and help others.

That can absolutely be a byproduct of my expressions, but it cannot be the main intention.

The pressure to have my words perform, 

The pressure to monetize my authenticity,
kills my creativity,

dampens my flow.

I like taking a peak at my earlier posts here, and seeing that younger Traci was, even back then, trying to write only for her, and no one else.

Right now, 

THAT

is my only way forward.

It has to be for me.

And I know that when it is, 

because it is my truth, and my real, lived, direct experience,

it will naturally be healing for others, validating, inspiring, truth revealing, or insightful.

That's the nature of our own Truth.

 Wow.

Incredible.

It's still here.

It's now 2022.

I'm a completely different person.

Tomorrow is 8/8 Lion's Gate and I am going through a HUGE life transformation that is exciting!

I will ponder what to do with this....

Send up prayers for me that we are approved for our new apartment tomorrow!

Oh, and I chose to KEEP my luxurious spa/massage appointment tomorrow.

It was a gift to myself for launching my recent program, and even though I have a lot of money going out right now, I choose to continue living in trust, in flow, in abundance, and taking care of my body and giving it the rest and pampering it needs. Especially since my moon flow is coming soon.

Blessings to everyone 🙏

Some Thoughts, an Update, and a Little Creativity

Well here I am again. I know, I know. I fail at keeping up with my blog. I won't give any excuses either, because I could go on and on if I really wanted to. Even though I have not kept up with this blog, I actually find it fascinating to see what I wrote from last year up until now. I have changed as a person so greatly in that amount of time, so I get to see who I was at that moment in my life. That's pretty much the reason I have always tried to keep a journal. I rarely go back to read what I wrote, but when I do I get hit with thoughts of wow, is that really what I was thinking? I am so glad I am not that person anymore! Or, damn I'm good! Having a glimpse of who I was, when I was trying to be honest with myself allows me to actually be able to track my self development in a way that is meaningful and profound to me.

This year, I have had to keep a journal for various classes, and one of them I felt was a great outlet. I was actually writing to fill up the pages to get credit for my work, but what I did write was exactly what I felt - all my thoughts, hurt, anger, happiness, and love. By writing them all down, though my hand often cramped up, I actually felt like I was able to empty my brain of all of its contents. However, they were not lost anywhere or forgotten or repressed. They were there in my journal, so it was okay. I found that journaling makes me feel lighter in my head. And when there isn't a whirlpool of thoughts and feelings swimming around in my head, I feel more present in the moment, and less stressed.

I think that part of the reason keeping up with this blog is hard for me, is because I feel exposed in a way. Do I really want all my thoughts and feelings out there in the interweb? It's so funny because I enjoy other blogs that get into the nitty gritty of life, talking about everything under the sun, including a blog I loved by a sex worker, until she stopped writing it. Well, I am trying to love myself, not criticize myself. Most of us have a harsh inner critic don't we? I recently posted my face on a website I frequent, which was a big step. People go around posting themselves with no qualms about it, why am I always so afraid? I've realized that I don't have to aim for not caring about what other people think about me. I only care what the important people in my life think about me to a degree. Ultimately what matters is what I think about myself. I do think, that in order to fully love others you have to love yourself. And I read a tweet today that perfectly fit with that: "If your compassion does not include yourself, it is incomplete."--Jack Kornfield. Everybody out there, take a moment, and be kind to yourself.

I still have a long way to go, lots of work to be done. Just yesterday, I found myself immersed and fascinated with something, and I want to learn that something. I even found places in my area where I could go and learn that something, at some places the first few weeks are even free. I feel driven to learn it, but then my thinking goes awry and I doubt myself. I think, I can't really do it, I'm so shy, I feel embarassed wanting to do this, I won't fit in there...etc etc. See that harsh inner critic? I know, that yes, I can do it if I really want to, but my feelings of inadequacy take over. I will just have to keep working on myself. That thing won't disappear in the mean time. Someday I will have the courage to do it.

Also yesterday, I took a walk with my dog and stopped towards the end to enjoy the moment for a bit. The sun was going down, and I ended up writing a poem there on my phone, so I wouldn't forget it (like I have before when I told myself I would remember it!). So, here it is, I don't care if you like it or not. And yes I'm nervous about posting it on the interweb, but it's a small step I can take.

Every Day

Every Day
the beauty of the sun's golden rays
glistening through the dead grass strewn upon the ground
moves me, in a specific way
This moment, is constricted by time
And yet, is timeless.
How many before me
have gazed upon this sight
Watched as the sun slowly
diminishes behind the horizon
till the golden brilliance is no more?
Wait until tomorrow, or the next day, or the next.
It will come back, as it has done for centuries.
You may see negativity in the years to come,
But nothing worse than what has come before in this world.
Greet each day, as if you have tomorrow
so that you will not cling to the impermanence of today.

I have heard that you should live today, as if there were no tomorrow. But for me, if I lived that way I would get sad and cling to every moment, trying to make every feeling last. This would lead to more clinging and sadness when the feelings would inevitably disappear. I would be swept up in grasping for moments that had gone by, and not living in the present. When I live as if there is always tomorrow, I feel happier, and much more positive. I can fully appreciate whatever arises because I have the time to marinate in it. I don't feel like I am running out of time - it's my optimistic outlook.

Ending on a positive note, just before I got back to my house from the walk, a group of kids were playing in front of their house. I could hear them saying Look a husky! Nice doggy! That's a snow dog. Hi doggy! I smiled at them and asked if they wanted to pet her. One of the older girls took interest and said yeah! I walked across to them, there were like....6 or 7 of them! All between the ages of about 3 to maybe 10. And they all looked related, some of them with thick glasses. They all were so nice, but scared of my dog, who was much bigger than most of them. They were nervous to stick out their hands to pet her, only a couple were brave enough to touch her. She shook (in that way that we all know doggies do) and it scared them lol. They kept asking Does she bite? And I kept reassuring them that no she doesn't bite. They would stick out their hands and when she would move her face towards them to either smell or lick them, they got scared. It was pretty damn cute. When I started to leave, they all were saying Bye doggie! That's a nice doggie! Come back again! That was probably one of the nicest groups of young children I have met. I am just going to say, that a couple weeks ago on a walk with my dog, some kids that I am labeling "ghetto" (you can stuff it in your ass if you have a problem with that) said That's a big ass dog! He had to have been around 6 years old. Point of this story? None really, just recounting my experience of actually meeting a horde of really nice and seemingly smart kids, which was refreshing.

I promised an update did I? Well let's keep it short. I have finished 3 glorious quarters at my new school, needless to say I am in love with it, which is a good thing. I am holding onto a 4.0 GPA...can I get a WOOHOO!? Moving you ask? Uhmm...let's not talk about that, but dammit it better be within a month!

New School, New Me...New house coming soon

Yeah yeah I know what you're thinking. Where they hell have I been? Well to my defense one of my hard drives kicked the bucket and so I was on my laptop for a long while.....and since I don't have a bookmark for my blog...I uhh..forgot that I had one.....

Let's not dwell on this now! I'll be back very soon with a new post!

As the school year wraps up

Well, I have made it through another semester. And it's officially my last one at CSUS. It's weird that I did really well this semester - given my circumstances. I hope to see A's & B's. All I have to do now is go to two days of classes, study my ass off, take four finals, and I'm finished there forever. Then I will start a new chapter in life - in a new city, and a new school.

I feel bad that I blog about school, but it's what takes up a good majority of my time. You may remember me ranting about not having enough time to do all the things that I want to. Well school is almost out for winter break, so I'll have a little less than a month off before starting again. However there's Christmas and New Years and v0id's birthday. Oh did I mention packing and moving? Yeah...time off isn't really time off if you ask me. There's always something I have to do. There's few moments where I feel I can relax and enjoy the time passing. Those moments are when I'm not alone, I'm with v0id.

A good friend of mine didn't quite understand this. He feels that's it is so easy for him to make time for people, but nobody ever makes time for him. He said that I'm going to marry v0id and spend the rest of my life with him, so what's a few hours? I tried to explain that spending time together is all v0id and I ever want to do. Where ever we are, whatever we're doing, all we want to do is be with each other as much as possible since we enjoy each other's company. I do understand that friends don't want their friends to fall off the face of the earth because their boyfriend/girlfriend/husband/wife is hogging them all to themselves. I guess people have to find a balance, but what am I to do? I guess all I can do is try my best. It may not be good enough for some people, but it's all I can do. As long as I am happy with myself, that's all that matters. (It's funny because those are the words that this friend told me. Huh.)

On another note, v0id and I discovered one of the best teas ever. It's a mixture of White Ayurvedic Chai and Samurai Chai Mate from Teavana. It tastes like a cinnamon stick had an orgasm in your mouth and its juices that it busted all over is liquid heaven. Hahaha I crack myself up. v0id says it's his #1 favorite tea. It's on my top list most definitely, but I do love freshly roasted genmaicha from the Nishiki market in Kyoto, Japan. I would say those are my top 2 favorites. If you have a Teavana near you or don't mind ordering from them online, and like cinnamon, you HAVE to try out this combination.

Games I've been playing lately: Bubble Bobble Plus - Expert Levels.
Games I REALLY WANT to play: New Super Mario Brothers Wii, Animal Crossing City Folk, and still my Myst games.
Games I'd like to play: Finish up my Legend of Zelda Phantom Hourglass, Wii Fit Plus

There are probably others but I can't think of any right now. I've had a long work day and got clocked in the face. With a hard roll of stickers. Stupid fucking coworker.

Stupid People

This maybe wrong of me to say, but I dislike it when you're sitting in class on the day a paper is due, and the person next to you asks how long yours is. Seriously why does it matter how many pages mine is? Yours is already done, mine is already done, what are you going to do about it?? There's criteria anyway on how long it should be, so why do you feel the need to know how long my paper is? My conclusion is that people want to makes themselves feel better about their paper if theirs is longer than yours.
This combined with the fact that this dude is already annoying in the first place just irritates me.

He tries to talk to me all the time and asks me questions.
"Do you understand what the teacher's talking about?"
I shake my head no, when really I understand completely and I just don't want to point out the fact that you're an idiot.

"How'd you do on the test? I got a D."
Well I got an A, but I really don't want to tell you what I got. However I have to tell you since I can't go around saying that it's classified information.

"Oh you got a new laptop. How is it? Where did you get it? Here? At the school? No? How long have you had it? I'm going to look closer at it to see what it has even though I have no idea what I'm looking at."

Yeah. Shit like that.
Only 3 glorious days of class left, an assload of assignments to complete, and some major studying for finals, and I'm fucking out of there. Do you hear me ***state?!! FUCKING OUT OF THERE!!!
WOOHOOOOOO!!!!!!!
/rant.

I think I may have lost my mind. (oh and just so you know, I'm procrastinating right now by blogging and not writing my paper) Ha.

Reflections on Growing Up

Well my last post was about the first day of school, and now I'm a little over a third of the way through this semester. I'm doing well in my classes, but I gotta keep it up and that's hard when you work a lot. I give major kudos to people who work more than one job and go to school full time. It's not easy, you basically have to cut off spending time with your family and friends to study. That's the toughest part for me, I would say.
I can go to class and show up for work, but studying takes effort and time, which I don't have a lot of. I've made a little change when school started - I am actively trying to get more sleep since I don't get enough usually. I should be sleeping right now in fact, but hey I've been doing a lot better in getting in my shut eye. I know a lot of people agree with me that there should be more hours in a day, especially when your body needs to sleep for at least 8-10 hours of it.

This is how it looks (ideally) from my perspective: 24 hours to get:
10 hours sleep
1.5 hours to get ready
.5 hours transportation time
8.5 hours at work, which leaves
3.5 hours to eat, spend time with v0id, study, catch up on email, blogs, forums, take care of dogs, sometimes cook, take care of household stuff, go grocery/necessity shopping, etc.

Even if I only got 8 hours of sleep, 5 hours isn't enough to do all of those things. I don't have time for life! I have to use up my main time to sleep, work, & go to school. Gah! I can't even have a hobby like painting/drawing, learning to play the piano, sewing so that I can make my own costumes, learning photography, or learning more about computers & photoshop, play my video games, the list could go on and on about things I want to do.

There's a new hire at my work, and I found out he's 17! Man I feel so old. I never thought I would see the day when I'm 23, and let me tell you I never pictured myself living this way at 23. I'm supposed to still be in the prime of my life, and what I find is that I'm tired. I constantly wish for more time to do the things I want to do. I told that 17 year old that growing up is overrated. It can be fun, but responsibilities are only easy when you have the means to fulfill them.

That reminds me of a guy who posted on reddit who felt like he worked his ass off for 30+ years and never got anywhere. Responses were all over the place of course, but I can't help but feel sorry for the guy. He's got a life where he gets by, but works and works and feels that it's all for nothing. How do we find that life for ourselves? Where we can be happy with what we do for a living, and content with the life we have built for ourselves?

I consider myself a lucky person with the hand that Life dealt me. Sometimes I feel guilty for complaining at all because there's millions of people around the world that have so much less than me and go hungry, etc etc etc. But it's not my fault that I'm here and they're there. As long as I'm not a stupid greedy stuck up bitch who thinks that they deserve everything, then I think I'm ok. I would like to help out in some way, but I just don't think I'm meant for that, who knows.

Well I've made it through another day, and that's all I seem to do. Take life day by day, because in reality there's nothing more I can do.

On a less melancholy note - hooray the rain is coming! Fall is my favorite season and I'm so happy it's here.

First Day of School

Well it's that time of year again, yes it's back to school.
I cracked open my textbook not too long ago, hoping to get a head start on the knowledge that needs to penetrate my brain - and yet here I am. Already procrastinating. On the FIRST day of school.

I blame it on the fact that I hate this school. About 3-4 months ago I was walking off campus to my car, and it happened to be the last day of class. I had taken my last final and everything was done and as I was walking underneath the beautiful giant trees that paint the campus in green and yellow (depending on time of year) I remember smiling because I was thinking that I never had to go back to that school ever again. Ever.

Damn was I wrong. I guess it was just my time in life where I was due for some shit to come my way since I've been having such an easy life lately. Couldn't be happier really.

Back to the procrastinating bit. If you look at it a different way, I actually AM ahead of the game, however. I bet you there is an extremely minute number of people who actually opened their textbook today and read a bit of it (even if it was just a paragraph). It's the first day for crying out loud. Nobody opens their books till about a couple days before the exam and then cries and then regains composure and tries to cram in as much as they can before eventually saying fuck it if I don't know it now, I won't know it by the time for the exam (think I've done this a few times?).

Well at least I got the classes that I need. That's all that matters at this point, well and of course passing them but that's nothing to fret about. So there you have it.

Some highlights of my day:
- My geography teacher is a funny guy. While talking about vegetation he said veggies instead. Also while calling roll he said Tiffany as if he were saying Tiff Annie. The best part was he really didn't do it on purpose Ha!
- He also asked if there were any good first person shooters for facebook
- That same classroom smelled like sweaty socks that had been rolled up into a fat man's ball sack for a week.
- Hooray for the school raising our tuition, giving the teachers pay cuts, and making them take furlough days so we have less days of classes. (Paying more money for less knowledge...not to mention too many students and too little classes)
- There were more but it's been a long day and my brain is already purging what happened

On to more procrastinating!

P.S. Those are pictures of my school

So uhh....feeling lonely?

Yes I know I know, I haven't updated. I'm a terrible person what can I say. Life can be hectic ya know? Good, but hectic. Oh, and stressful too! Damn.

Sometimes (most of the time) I wish I was a kid again so I wouldn't have a schedule and responsibilities and all this adult crap. But I happen to be one of the lucky ones though, I have a loving person to help me get through it all. Which, brings me to another topic. One of the kindest people on earth, who happens to be my very good friend, had a tragic life event - her fiance died. I don't even have the words to say what I feel about that. I just want to say that my heart goes out to her, and I hope she pulls through this. Can you imagine? I sure can't.

It's funny that in one of my classes we actually practiced being empathetic; but I learned a long time ago to always try to put yourself in some one else's shoes to see things from their point of view. Now I never said I do this all the time or that I'm good at it, I'm just saying I know it's very important to not go through life thinking the world revolves around you, and that your actions and words don't affect others.

I like to think that is one thing every person has in common - we all want to feel connected to others in some way, so we try to feel what they feel. And in doing so, we give ourselves a sense of being "normal." Of course this doesn't apply to say...hermits for example.

I'm so ready for this vacation. I read an article last week about how countries differ in the amount of vacation they take. Americans are some of the most overworked people out there. You should check this out for a quick look:http://www.gaebler.com/Productivity-and-Vacation-Comparisons-by-Country.htm

well I had a lot more stuff to write about, but I'm tired, and it's late...or early if you want to look at it another way. At least I'm excited about getting a hair cut tomorrow.
Don't you love my train of thought?

Missing Tiesto...

GRRRRRRRRRRRRR!!! I am seriously distraught and angry that I missed Tiesto tonight. I can't believe I let this slip through my fingers! He was here in my city and I didn't get to see him!! I'm shocking myself that I'm so upset over it.

I looked at the rest of his tour destinations and they are all non-U.S. places. He was down the frickin street from me! You know what, he still is down the street from me this very moment because it's 1:34am and his show was supposed to end at 1am.

Damn it.

The next time he's in my area I'm cancelling everything to go see him. Someone try and stop me! :::evil laugh::

Graduation

Well I finally did it. I definitely didn't think that my college experience would be anything like it was....but not in the good way that you are probably thinking. I found college 10% interesting 90% crap. Seriously most of it was just a reiteration of a lot of the things that I learned in high school. I think I'm lucky to have learned so much in high school, versus somebody who learned nothing, and then got to college and found they weren't prepared for it.

So after many years of wading through mucky crap that is a college you don't enjoy going to, I'm finally done. Thank you Jeesuuss I don't ever have to go back there ever again!! I'm honestly excited to go my grad school, it's where I want to go. I hope I find happiness in school, because I generally have a happy life and school was one area that I was not content.

I have high hopes for the future and even though I'm shit scared of it, I know everything's gonna be all right.

Oh Noes!

Ahh I'm slipping already! There I was, posting away thinking I was doing great. Then bam! 6 days later is finally a new post!
Well at least I have an excuse. I've got some stomach bug that I've had for 4 days now and I won't even being to tell you how much it royally sucks ass.

So uhh yeah. Last week of classes. Assignments due, final exams to take next week, work all day tomorrow, fighting off teh sickn3ss, not to mention all the other things that I have to do in daily life and that makes one tired me.

So goodnight. It's gonna be 1am before I get to bed, and I gotta wake up at 7:30. yay me.

Yoga Class

Alright, so this is going to be a little disturbing, so if you're easily grossed out, you should skip this post.

So I went to a yoga class at my gym today, and I've only been to an actual class a few times in my life. I've done yoga at home, but not regularly. I really liked the yoga class and every time I go I wonder why I don't go all the time, or at least more often. Then I remember oh yeah...I'm lazy. This really needs to stop.

So here comes the kinda gross part. The class is pretty packed and we're in close proximity to each other and we go into the pose where you are on your back, knees bent and spread open (like a chick waitin for a guy to put it in). And that's when I smelled it. No really. Some chick had to have been on her rag and it was nasty funky!!! Ewww I was so grossed out. Come on people, I'm a girl too. I have enough common sense to not go out to a yoga class spreading my legs while I'm on my period so people can smell my junk. Seriously I think she didn't use tampons cause that's how bad it smelled.

Hah I love this blog. I can say whatever I want to say and not talk my husband's ear off! Hooray.

Neglected

No I'm not the neglected one here, but my video games are! I love gaming. But you wouldn't have a clue would you? I haven't even touched my Animal Crossing City Folk for...who knows how many months now. When I got it I couldn't put it down. It's not that my love for the game fades or anything, I love it just as much as the day I popped that thing in my Wii's slot. Oh my bad, that was some sexual innuendo there.

What was I saying again? Oh yeah, I don't really know how the dynamics of it all works. I just stop playing one day and I don't pick it up again. I just forget that it's there. I don't even think about it, or realize that I've stopped playing. Very very weird if you ask me.

Oh and Animal Crossing isn't the only game I've neglected. Oh nooo. I've not touched my multitude of Myst games that I just HAD to have, Super Mario Galaxy (which I'm not quite sure we'll ever finish), Elebits, Rayman Raving Rabbids, Legend of Zelda Minish Cap and Phantom hourglass, and not to mention my Wii fit that gets angry at me every time I play because I go weeks or months inbetween playing it. It doesn't like that very much.

Song stuck in my head for 2 days

The sad part of it all is you don't even get to hear to the entire song. It's the equivalent of listening to a preview of a song on repeat in your brain.

Times like these make me wish I had some incite as to why our brains need to have a few clips of a track running over and over and over again. So I turned to google and here's a little bit of what I found:

"Research shows that people most frequently plagued by this phenomenon are those with slightly neurotic tendencies." Honestly, tell me something I don't know about myself. Apparently there's also a thing called "stupid lyrics syndrome" where combining a tune and lyrics ups the chance of song snippets staying with the listener for hours.

They also said, "Women were more likely than men to report feeling annoyed, frustrated, or irritated about having songs stuck in their heads," which in my case, is not true. If a song is stuck in my head I am unable to keep it to myself; I have to sing it out loud over and over again, making my husband equally irritated, if not more.

I also found some more interesting stuff...and to my amazement I actually know what the hell they're talking about because of something I learned in college. Wow.
"Earworm is a term for a portion of a song or other musical material that repeats compulsively within one's mind. There have been claims that earworms may be songs or tunes that become stuck in the phonological loop, the part of the brain that rehearses verbal information in Baddeley's Model of Working Memory."

Who knew I could make a post about such a topic eh?

Got SARS?

Huh, I find it hilarious that I had a list of things just the other night that I could write about, and now that I'm here... I got nothin.
This should be fun.

First Post

First off, I have a lot to say and I rarely get the chance to unload my thoughts. Mostly because of personal reasons, but I find most of the time that nobody really cares what I'm talking about. Many people (not all) get so wrapped up in themselves that they don't genuinely hear what their friends are telling them. This is probably why people love to spill their guts to me, but that's a whole nother story.

So after years of telling myself that I would never have a blog - because frankly who the hell would read it anyway - here is the birth of my blog.

Heh, we'll see how long I can actually keep this up. If it's one thing I hate about blog writers, it's not updating!

Oh and just so you, yes you, whoever might be reading this, know, this blog is for me. Not you. If you don't like it, click that red x in the upper corner of your screen.