Roller Skates

I was about twelves years old and shopping with my mom at my local K-mart when I learned the most valuable lesson she may have ever instilled in me.

For months prior to this day, I was becoming obsessed with rollerskating. Spending every Friday evening at the local rink wishing the boy I was crushed on would ask me to slow skate with him was normal. Eating lemon heads with my girlfriends and basically feeling what freedom away from your parents. I watched as some of the other girls started to show up with fancy white leather roller-skates with pink wheels. I noticed that some girls even got snazzy shoe-laces to make their cool skates look even cooler. These girls were no longer renting the smelling unisex brown and red skates that usually had a sticky wheel or some other defect. Instead they looked like movies stars skirting around the rink. In my mind I was also convinced that they got asked to skate the slow skates with cute boys because of the skates.

Shopping Day

The late afternoon day at K-mart I was eyeing the same white leather with pink stopper skates that all the popular girls where bringing to the skating rink in a cool bag. I had been wearing old metal skates around my neighborhood that you just wore with your sneakers. Lame. I wanted to glide around my neighborhood and carry them into the rink on Friday like the popular girls.

These roller skates were something I wanted so bad.

My mom found me in the aisle. I begged her with all my begging ability to buy the skates for me. They were priced at $12.97 and they had my sized fit perfectly. I was about as excited as a girl could have been.

Nope.

Her response to me asking was, “Save up your money and when you have enough, I will bring you back”.

She was not going to buy me roller-skates when I had “perfectly good ones at home that fit just fine“. She did not want to hear that other girls had them because that was the last thing she cared about (another amazing lesson). My mom was the type of mom that you did not ask twice if the answer the first time wasn’t what you wanted. You just learned to accept the answer no matter how crushed you might have been.

I was crushed.

I remember fighting back the tears and feeling so frustrated that she would not buy them for me. I was mad and jealous all at the same time. Why did I have to be the stupid paper girl tossing newspapers onto people’s porches, smelling like ink and being laughed at? Why couldn’t I just be the pretty girl that had fancy new skates with sparkly shoelaces and whatever else fad that came along?

Because my mom was teaching me the value of earning what you think you need. She was teaching me the value of waiting until you can get it yourself. She was teaching me the reward of working hard and saving up for something.

Mom was teaching me that I can provide for myself.

What a gift that was and one that has served me so well. In fact I would rather work hard, save up for something and know that I earned it, than be given something. It feels richer knowing that I made choices to get something I wanted and I certainly learned to take really good care of what I worked myself to get.

The lesson that day is one of what people call a defining moment.

I will say that walking into the skating rink the next Friday night felt pretty amazing. The skates glided and I felt so good. I would love to say the boy asked me to skate, but he didn’t. It was okay because I gained so much self-value that I didn’t need a silly boy to hold my hand to the slow songs of Lionel Richie.

From that day forward, I polished my skates off after each use and prayed that my feet didn’t grow too fast. Oh, and my mom did end up buying me the sparkly laces and even made me a pom-pom to go on top.

Lucky?

Over the last few weeks, more and more people have mentioned to me that they think  I am lucky.  People have said thing like I am lucky because I have an amazing house, lucky I have my own studio, lucky I can still make a living during the COVID outbreak, lucky I have amazing sons, and lucky I am active, thin and healthy.

Lucky? How about instead I made choices.  I made really important, life-changing, courageous choices. These choices were made with the Divine guidance of Spirit consistently nudging me along. There were many times that I was not able to see the clear path, but somewhere deep inside of me, I had faith, even when I did not know it existed. When I chose to commit to becoming the best version of myself and to be of service to my family and the world, the things that might appear to others as luck, became my well-deserved life that continues to be in alignment with Spirit.

First of all, I never got a penny of alimony following my divorce and I received child support for about a year. The inheritance I got when my father died was simply $100. I paid the full listing price for the house I bought from my mom.  Nothing was handed to me. I have earned every single amazing lucky thing that I have. I chose to create this lucky life.

Here is how:

My first major choice came when I was facing a divorce with three young children, one of whom is disabled.  I chose to commit to being the best mom (and dad) I could be.  I chose to keep the stability of my home for my kids at the cost of eating way too much french toast and hamburger helper sans hamburger.  I chose to stand my ground when it came to raising them with integrity and values. No matter how strapped we were for food, I can see now that something much greater than me was operating and we were always provided for and somehow, we made it. My grown men are amazing people and luck has nothing to do with it.

The second major choice came on an early spring day.  I woke up one day knowing that I was tired of being heavy.  I was done with eating unconsciously and I was done self-loathing my size 16 body. So, I chose to get a weightloss book and take action.  I stopped the habits of mindless snacking and afternoons lazily laying on the sofa.  I even gave up ice cream and wine!  I chose to create new habits; daily walks twice a day, preparing healthy snacks, using smaller plates, putting the kid’s snacks in a high cabinet that required serious thought to scramble with a chair for a goldfish cracker, I taught them to wash their own dishes so that I no longer cleaned their plate while I loaded the dishwasher, I chewed gum while I cooked so I would not be tempted to taste-test each step.  I chose health.  I chose to love myself enough to stop unhealthy habits and instead make new habits.

The third major choice I made was on another spring day when someone recommended that I read the book Anatomy of the Spirit by Caroline Myss.  I remembered the day I was listening to her audio version while I was out for a second walk, and the moment I felt as if God was speaking directly to me, I got it.  I chose to wake up.  I chose to live in alignment with who I wanted to be.  I chose to live with the right thought, right actions, and right words. I chose to feel the indwelling Spirit as me become, and radiate, the Light I had always been, rather than hide behind the chronic complaining and blaming.  I chose to let go of anger and disappointment and welcome in forgiveness.  I chose love.

The fourth major choice I made was investing myself into radical personal development books and courses.  I immersed myself in therapy.  I gave myself the gift of learning boundaries and self-love practices.  I began taking yoga classes.  I got back on a bicycle.  I surrounded myself with people who uplifted me. I said yes to joy. I committed to a rigorous financial plan that set me on course to someday own a home, be financially self-sufficient and stable, and save each and every month. I chose to take ownership of my life.

The fifth major choice I made was to listen to the longing in my soul and share yoga and the process of waking up with anyone willing to say yes.  And, this included my heart and passion of reaching those with disabilities or other barriers to a traditional practice.  I said yes to my purpose.  I said yes to the gift Spirit chose for me to share. I chose to listen and take action.  I left a j.o.b. and I ended a relationship that gave me financially security, but left me empty and alone. I chose to be free.

You see none of what I have is luck.  None of what I have was given to me by another human.  Nobody saved me and nobody did this for me.  I did it.

I co-created through Divine Love the life I wanted and then with an open heart, I said yes!

That is a choice, not one bit of luck.

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